My Blood with gentle Horrors thrill'd;
My feeble Pulse forgot to play;
I fainted, sunk, and dy'd away.

Instead of giving any Character of this last Translation, I shall desire
my learned Reader to look into the Criticisms which _Longinus_ has made
upon the Original. By that means he will know to which of the
Translations he ought to give the Preference. I shall only add, that
this Translation is written in the very Spirit of _Sappho_, and as near
the _Greek_ as the Genius of our Language will possibly suffer.

_Longinus_ has observed, that this Description of Love in _Sappho_ is an
exact Copy of Nature, and that all the Circumstances which follow one
another in such an Hurry of Sentiments, notwithstanding they appear
repugnant to each other, are really such as happen in the Phrenzies of
Love.

I wonder, that not one of the Criticks or Editors, through whose Hands
this Ode has passed, has taken Occasion from it to mention a
Circumstance related by _Plutarch_. That Author in the famous Story of
_Antiochus_, who fell in Love with _Stratonice_, his Mother-in-law, and
(not daring to discover his Passion) pretended to be confined to his Bed
by Sickness, tells us, that _Erasistratus_, the Physician, found out the
Nature of his Distemper by those Symptoms of Love which he had learnt
from _Sappho's_ Writings. [4] _Stratonice_ was in the Room of the
Love-sick Prince, when these Symptoms discovered themselves to his
Physician; and it is probable, that they were not very different from
those which _Sappho_ here describes in a Lover sitting by his Mistress.
This Story of _Antiochus_ is so well known, that I need not add the
Sequel of it, which has no Relation to my present Subject.

C.

[Footnote 1: The Belvidere Torso.]

[Footnote 2: The other translation by Ambrose Philips. See note to No.
223.]

[Footnote 3: Wanting in copies then known, it is here supplied by
conjecture.]

[Footnote 4: In Plutarch's Life of Demetrius.

When others entered Antiochus was entirely unaffected. But when
Stratonice came in, as she often did, he shewed all the symptoms
described by Sappho, the faltering voice, the burning blush, the
languid eye, the sudden sweat, the tumultuous pulse; and at length,
the passion overcoming his spirits, a swoon and mortal paleness.]

* * * * *

No. 230. Friday, Nov. 23, 1711. Steele.

Homines