Beauteous as any Deity
That rules the skie.
How did his pleasing glances dart
Sweet languors to my ravish’d heart
At the first sight though so prevailed
That my voyce fail’d.
I’me speechless, feavrish, fires assail
My fainting flesh, my sight doth fail
Whilst to my restless mind my ears
Still hum new fears.
Cold sweats and tremblings so invade
That like a wither’d flower I fade
So that my life being almost lost,
I seem a Ghost.
Yet since I’me wretched must I dare.
The translator then goes on: “Thus did Sappho single out all those accidents that are either inherent or consequential to love and melancholy,” etc. Hall’s rendering of the text of Longinus is acceptable, but his translation of the Sapphic fragment is stiff and without distinction. His attempt to reproduce the metre of the original, with four syllables instead of five in the last line of each stanza is a failure. This volume contains a long dedication to “My Lord Commissioner Whitelock,” and a short address “To the Reader.” The dedication is signed “J. Hall.” He was also the author of a volume of poems in 1646, and of several other translations, some of which were unpublished at the time of his death at the early age of thirty-one.
When Edward Phillips in 1675 compiled his collection of biographical notes which he called “Theatrum Poetarum,” he thought it desirable to add a chapter on ancient poetesses, and among these is Sappho of whom he gives a short notice occupying about one page of his duodecimo volume. She is described as “not inferior in fame to the best lyric poets,” but no quotations are
