ence. "Love once again looking
upon me from his cloud-black brows, with languishing glances drives me
by enchantments of all kinds to the endless nets of Cypris. Verily, I
tremble at his onset as a chariot horse, which hath won prizes, in old
age goes grudgingly to try his speed in the swift race of cars."

Anacreon, to English readers the best known of the erotic poets of
Greece, had as his mistress the golden-haired Eurypyle. He was very
susceptible to the influence of love, and, owing to the grace and
sweetness and ease of expression in his verses, has won an enduring
fame. Many of his verses and numerous imitations of his poems are
extant, and in these love is the constant theme.

Stesichorus was the composer of love poems with a plot, which were
highly popular among the ladies of ancient days. As forerunners of the
Greek Romance they possess unique literary importance, and as love
stories of an early day they throw much light on the status and ideals
of woman. Aristoxenus had preserved an outline of the plot of the
_Calyce:_ "The maiden Calyce having fallen madly in love with a youth,
prays to Apollo that she may become his lawful wife; and when he
continues to be indifferent to her, she commits suicide." Ancient
critics favorably comment on the purity and modesty of the maiden, and
the story indicates that marriages were not always a matter of
arrangement, that love at times determined one's choice, and that to the
ancient highborn maiden death was preferable to dishonor. Another of
these romantic poems, called _Rhadina_, tells also a tale of unhappy
love, how a Samian brother and sister were put to death by a cruel
tyrant because the sister resisted his advances.

Yet we cannot hold that woman had in this period universally assumed a
lower status than that accorded her in the Homeric poems. Among Ionian
peoples, this was doubtless true; but among AEolians and Dorians, woman
had not only attained a greater degree of freedom than was permitted her
in the Heroic Age, but had also shown herself the equal of man in
literary and aesthetic pursuits. In this transition age, the name of one
woman--Sappho--presents itself as the bright morning star in the history
of cultured womanhood.

VI

SAPPHO

Toward the close of the seventh century before Christ, a singular
phenomenon presented itself in the history of Greek womanhood.
Heretofore Greek women have been beautiful; they have been fascinating;
they have e