At this time, Sappho was still beautiful. Bilitis knew her and speaks of her under the name of Psappha which she bore at Lesbos. Without doubt she was the admirable woman who taught the little Pamphilian the art of singing in rhythmic phrases, whereby she preserved to posterity the remembrance of her loves. Unfortunately, Bilitis has given us few details of this woman, today so little known, and this is to be regretted, since the least word is precious which touches that great Inspiration. Instead, she has left us thirty elegiacs, the history of her love for a young girl of her own age whom she calls Mnasidika, and who lived with her. Already we knew the name of this young girl from a verse of Sappho in which her beauty is exalted; but the name even is doubtful, and Bergk almost thinks that she was called simply Mnais. The songs we will read soon, prove that this hypothesis may be abandoned. Mnasidika seems to have been a little girl, very sweet and very innocent, one of those charming persons whose mission is simply to permit themselves to be adored, so cherished that they make little effort to merit that which is given them. Loves without motives last the longest: this one endured for ten years. One knows how it was broken through the fault of Bilitis whose excessive jealousy admitted no eclecticism. When she felt that nothing held her longer to Mytilene, except unhappy memories, Bilitis made a second voyage; she went to Cypros, an island Greek and Phœnician like Pamphylia itself, which must have recalled to her the aspect of her native country. It was there that Bilitis began her life for the third time and in a manner my readers will understand with difficulty unless they recall the point to which love was considered holy among the people of antiquity. The courtesans of Amathus were not, like ours, lost creatures, exiled from all worldly society; they were girls from the best families of the city. Aphrodite had given them beauty and they thanked the goddess and consecreated to the service of her worship the beauty they had received. All the cities, like those of Cypros, that possessed a temple rich in courtesans, regarded these women with careful respect.