I beheld in sleep the light that is In her high place in Paphos, heard the kiss Of body and soul that mix with eager tears And laughter stinging through the eyes and ears; Saw Love, as burning flame from crown to feet, Imperishable upon her storied seat; Clear eyelids lifted toward the north and south, A mind of many colors and a mouth Of many tunes and kisses; and she bowed With all her subtle face laughing aloud, Bowed down upon me saying, "Who doth the wrong, Sappho?" But thou--thy body is the song, Thy mouth the music; thou art more than I, Though my voice die not till the whole world die, Though men that hear it madden; though love weep, Though nature change, though shame be charmed to sleep. Ah, wilt thou slay me lest I kiss thee dead? Yet the queen laughed and from her sweet heart said: "Even he that flees shall follow for thy sake, And he shall give thee gifts that would not take, Shall kiss that would not kiss thee" (Yea, kiss me) "When thou wouldst not"--When I would not kiss thee! If Phaon heard he did not heed. He took ship and sailed away, to Sicily it is said, where, it is also said, Sappho followed, desisting only when he flung at her some gibe about Anactoria and Atthis. In a letter which Ovid pretended she then addressed to him, she referred to the gibe, but whether by way of denial or admission, is now, owing to different readings of the text, uncertain. In some copies she said, quas (the Lesbian girls) _non_ sine crimine (reproach) amavi. In others, quas _hic_ (in Lesbos) sine crimine amavi. Disregarding the fact that the letter itself is imaginary, the second reading is to be preferred, not because it is true, but precisely because it is not. Sappho, though a woman, was a poet. Several of her verses contain allusions to attributes poetically praised by poets who never possessed them, and Ovid who had not written a treatise on the Art of Love for the purpose of displaying his ignorance, was too adroit to let his imaginary Sappho admit what the real Sappho would have denied.[11] Meanwhile Phaon refused to return. At Lesbos there was a white rock that stretched out to the sea. On it was a temple to Apollo. A fall from the rock was, at the time, locally regarded as a cure for love. Arthemesia, queen of Caria, whom another Phaon had rebuffed and who, to teach him better manners, put his eyes out, threw herself from it. Sappho did also. It cured her of the malady, of all others as well. Such is the story, such, rather, is its outline, one interesting from the fact that it constitutes the initial love-tragedy of the Occident, as, also, because of a climax befitting the singer of the bitterness of things too sweet. V THE AGE OF ASPASIA