they have been to the scholar—for whose scandalized eyes this version is, I need scarcely say, not intended. The reference-numbers are to the fragments as they are given in Wharton's second edition, a work to which I gratefully own my obligations in the preparation of this book. They are prefixed to each ode in the order in which they are used. No attempt has been made to gather into sequences those few fragments in which the thought is complete in itself, and which may, therefore, have been substantive short poems.
I have appended to this little series of translations a version (made from the text adopted by Dr. Mackail in the Loeb Classical Library) of the Pervigilium Veneris, an epithalamium (it may be) composed by an unknown poet who lived (according to one conjecture) in the reign of Hadrian, the Emperor who revived with great magnificence the worship of Venus. I have been led to do so because, of all the remains of antiquity, it seems to breathe most of the spirit of Sappho, and its composer may well have been inspired by a perusal of her poems.
