and there unhappily the record deserts us.” These lovely lines are about as well known as anything of Sappho’s, owing to Rossetti’s adaptation in his _One Girl_, a title altered in 1881 to _Beauty_, which the reader can find in Wharton. In modern times, Maurice Thompson, Gamaliel Bradford, and others have been influenced by them, though often an un-Sapphic touch not in Sappho’s verses is given, as in Bradford’s _Topmost Bough_: Don’t you love me now, After I have set you On love’s topmost bough; God, then I’ll forget you. The bridegroom now bears off the bride while the chorus of youths praise the bride and the chorus of maidens the bridegroom: What may I best compare, Dear groom, with thee? A slender sapling, ere It is a tree. (EDMONDS) But as to-day the bridegroom disappears in the society column of the newspaper behind the splendor of the elaborate description of the bride’s gown, so in Sappho the praise of the bride is far sweeter than that of the bridegroom. Recall the lines of Rossetti and these verses in the metre of one of Catullus’ _epithalamia_: Bride, thy shape is all delight And thine eyes shine soft and bright, O’er thy fair cheek desire is shed And honor showered on thy head From the Lady of Love in heaven. (EDMONDS) Congratulations were offered also to the bridegroom: No other maiden lives to-day, Bridegroom, such as thine. (EDMONDS) Himerius seems to be quoting such a song of greeting to bride and bridegroom: “Bride that teemest with rosy desires, bride the fairest ornament of the Queen of Paphos, hie thee to bed, hie thee to the couch whereon thou must sweetly sport in gentle wise with thy bridegroom. And may the Star of Eve lead thee full willingly to the place where thou shalt marvel at the silver-thronèd Lady of Wedlock” (Edmonds). Himerius also tells us that Sappho “brings Aphrodite in her Grace-drawn car with a bevy of Loves” to the wedding. And the joy of the earthly festival is repeated far up among the clouds of Olympus where the celestial feast is described (E. 146) in verses the lilt of which Professor Gildersleeve has thus reproduced in his unpublished version: The mixing howl yonder Was filled with ambrosia, And Hermes ’gan ladle The drink to the gods all; The gods all uplifted Their beakers and pour’d out Libations and utter’d Fair wishes for bridegroom, [For fair bride fair wishes.] Stebbing in his _Friends of Man_ has the Gods descend to the modest hall wherein the marriage feast is spread. All the High Gods from Olympus, to bless the Two, descend. ... By an ample bowl Hermes, deftest of cupbearers, stands, Crowning the Gods’ goblets from the full flagon in his hands.