Addison’s translation of this is comparatively successful, but he requires five lines to convey his meaning. A rendering more nearly literal would be the following:
The silver moon has left the sky,
The Pleiades also have gone;
Midnight comes—and goes. The hours fly
But solitary still I lie.
This John Addison published an edition in English of Petronius in 1736.
“The Works of Anacreon, Sappho, Bion, Moschus and Musaeus. Translated into English by a Gentleman of Cambridge,” is the title of the small octavo published in 1760, and containing versions of the Sapphic fragments so far as they were then known. The author was Francis Fawkes, and he precedes his translations with a few biographical and critical notes. The translations themselves do not differ materially, in general from those which had preceded them. In his introduction Fawkes traverses Addison’s favourable criticisms of Ambrose Philips, and calls certain of his lines “amazingly rough and awkward.” He thinks that Addison’s friendship for Philips may have influenced his judgement, and this is probably true. The next edition of the poetess was that in which the introductory poem entitled: “The Classic, a Poem,” is signed E. B. G., initials which belong to E. Burnaby Greene. The book is called “The Works of Anacreon and Sappho, with Pieces from Ancient Authors and Occasional Essays,” etc. The imprint is “London, Printed for J. Ridley in St. James’ Street, 1768.” It is a-small octavo. The two chief portions of Sappho’s works occupy pages 139 to 146 inclusive, and the so-called fragments, pages 165 to 169. The Hymn to Aphrodite occupies forty-two lines, and the translation is very free and decidedly mediocre. As was usual with his predecessors, this translator also ignores the Sapphic metre. The biographical remarks in this edition are stereotyped and uninteresting, and their
