The great lyric period of the seventh and sixth centuries belongs politically to an era of aristocracies and tyrannies. The aristocracies here were composed, not of farmers, as at Athens, nor of warrior-knights, as at Sparta, but of merchant princes who have always proved lavish patrons of a certain kind of art and literature. Most of the great poets seem to have been members of the aristocracy. Sappho is a remarkable figure in the history of literature, the only woman who has ever reached the front rank among poets. We have of her only a few score lines of broken fragments, only two poems that exceed ten lines, and not one of thirty. Yet even from these ruined remnants we can feel across the ages the vital throb of her passion, speaking in music of altogether unequalled beauty. It is impossible to describe the emotion which scholars and poets of all ages have felt when they first stumbled upon “Immortal Aphrodite of the starry throne, Daughter of God, weaver of guile, I beseech thee Neither to disgust nor to distress subdue, Lady, my heart....” Or the broken marriage chorus: MAIDENS “Like the sweet apple blushing on the topmost twig, Top of the topmost, which the gatherers forgot. Forgot? Nay, but they could not reach to it. YOUTHS “Like the hyacinth on the hills which the shepherd swains Tread underfoot, and down to the earth the bright flower....” But translation inevitably spoils the fragrance, as even Rossetti and Swinburne have found. It is of Sappho that Swinburne writes in her own metre: “Ah the singing, ah the delight, the passion! All the Loves wept, listening; sick with anguish Stood the crowned nine Muses about Apollo; Fear was upon them, While the tenth sang wonderful things they knew not. Ah the tenth, the Lesbian! the nine were silent, None endured the sound of her song for weeping; Laurel by laurel Faded all their crowns; but about her forehead, Round her woven tresses and ashen temples, White as dead snow, paler than grass in summer, Ravaged with kisses, Shone a light of fire as a crown for ever. Yea, almost the implacable Aphrodite Paused, and almost wept; such a song was that song....”