type amongst the Sapphic fragments. It is quoted by Plutarch in his essay, “On Restraining Anger.”
26
Αἰ δ᾽ ᾐχες ἔσλων ἴμερον ἤ κάλων,
καὶ μή τι ϝείπεν γλῶσσ᾽ ἐκύκα κάκον,
αἴδως κέ σ᾽ οὐ κίχανεν ὄππατ᾽
ἄλλ᾽ ἔλεγες περὶ τῶ δικαίως.
Hadst thou wished for things good or noble and had not
thy tongue formed evil speech, shame would not have shown
from thine eyes, but thou hadst spoken frankly about it.
Aristotle (“Rhetoric,” i, 9), about 330 B.C., says “base things dishonour those who do or wish them, as Sappho showed when Alcaeus said:
ἰόπλοκ´ ἄγνα μελλιχόμειδε Σάπφοι
θέλω τι ϝείπεν ἄλλά με κωλύει αἴδως.
“ ‘Violet-weaving, chaste sweetly smiling Sappho, I would speak but bashfulness restrains me.’ ”
And she answered him in the words of the present fragment. Blass thinks that these two lines assigned to Alcaeus are also by Sappho, and about A.D. 1110 Anna Comnena certainly suggested the same authorship.
