Page:The Poems of Sappho (1924).djvu/86

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THE POEMS OF SAPPHO

But here there is just a suggestion of effort which is absent from the work of Sappho.

This beautiful fragment is quoted by Hermogenes about A.D. 170. Demetrius, about A.D. 150, says that it is part of Sappho’s description of the garden of the nymphs.


6

Ἔλθε, Κύπρι,
χρυσίαισιν ἐν κυλίκεσσιν ἄβραις
συμμεμιγμένον θαλίαισι νέκταρ
οἰνοχόεισα.


Come, goddess of Cyprus, and in golden cups serve near delicately mixed with delights.


Come hither foam-born Cyprian goddess, come,
And in golden goblets pour richest nectar
All mixed in most ethereal perfecton,
Thus to delight us.


Quoted by Athenaeus, who wrote in the first half of the third century A.D. The fragment is apparently part of an invocation to Aphrodite.