This apparently nearly complete poem is preserved by Longinus, writing about A.D. 250. He calls it “not one passion, but a congress of passions.” It was also mentioned by Plutarch about A.D. 60, who referred to it as “mixed with fire”—a remarkably felicitous phrase.
The ode written by Catullus in imitation and called “Ad Lesbiam” is as follows:
Ille mi par esse deo videtur,
Ille, si fas est, superare divos,
Qui sedens adversus identidem te
Spectat et audit
Dulce ridentem misero quod omnis
Eripit sensus mihi; nam simul te,
Lesbia aspexi, nihil est super mi
* * * *
Lingua sed torpet, tenuis sub artus
Flamma demanat, sonitu suopte
Tintinant aures, gemina teguntur
Lumina nocte.
This was actually the first of any of Sappho’s poems to be translated into English. John Hall of Durham in 1652, in his translation of Longinus, gives his version which has already been quoted in the description of the book in Chapter I.
