THE GREATEST WOMAN POET

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 2181, 20 June 1914, Page 13

THE GREATEST WOMAN POET

SAPPHO & MISS SPINNEY. Recent writings published 'by Dr. Grenfell aud-Dr: Hunt (part ten of the "Oxyrhynchus Papyri") embody a miscellaneous assortment of fragments of Greek literature. In tho same volume, however, there are fifty-six fragments from tho writings of one who was given by the Greeks a place beside Homer in the world of poetry, and who has been hold as the greatest of women poets. • Speaking of these fragments of Sappho (and who can read her songs and not be carried away by their beauty and passion), a writer in the Sydney "Herald" sees in them the passion of the Oriental Song of Songs expressed .with the purity and fearlessness of tho Greek mind. They explain to us the reverence which Sappho has inspired in .all women poets, and especially in Mrs. Browning, the poet of 'our own time, whoso inspiration was most personal and least restrained by irrelevant ideas. The Greek had the inspiration which in the English woman was less constant, she had the passion and the sense _ of beauty which controlled its expression, and the emotion which, unconscious of any barriers, forced itself into utterance in • . . ''Her visible song, a marvel, Made of perfect sound and exceeding pas,sion, / Sweetly shapen, terrible, full of thunder, c Clothed with the" wind's wings." Still Moro to Find. We can imagine the exultation of the scholars who • after many researches came upon such a discovery as this. •These ■ few imperishable • fragments among'so many that had"lost all life must have been to them as a "bracelet of-bright hair about a bone" was to the poet Donne. They' carry their readers through the centuries "back to Lesbos, back to the hills whereundcr stone Mitylciic," with a renewed senso of the unity of mankind. In themselves they would provide a sufficient encouragement for further research in the hope that other fragments might bo preserved against the iniquity of oblivion. But, as if they were not enough of .themselves, at the end of these 56 lines there occurs tho tantalising subscription—The first book of the Lyrics of Sappho, 1332 lines. From henceforward scholars will go on searching "among tho same sands for other papyri with the arc)our of explorers in quest of a new Eldorado. Archcologists havo already justified themselves in the faco of Jowctt's description of their calling as a splendid open-air exercise in a warm climate. They have not only corrected the errors of. historians, and supplied them with new material, they have, added to the literature of tho world by recovering treasures that had been abandoned as lost irretrievably. What Dorothea Soinnoy Is Doing. In England in the last few years the public'have been enabled to see Greek plays enacted through the admirable, if uninspired, translations of Professor Murray. Before the publication of his versions, and the production of Rheinhardt._ Greek plays were seen only at the University, and by tho few who wore privileged to witness the performances at Bradficld, the only performances given under conditions as nearly approaching those of Athens as an English climate and English scenery, would permit. Fortunately for Sydney people, they have been enabled in the laal few weeks to hpar many of the masterpieces of Euripides, together with one play of Sophocles, declaimed by an ..r----tist admirably trained, an enthusiast for her" art, and endowed with real tragic power. Miss Spinney, by her perform ances. has opened a now province' of literature to many of hor hearer.-,. a province in which the first place lias been.held by the dignity of man. in which th<-v have seen strength prevailing over gri"f. and love m-erniT-cering fear; in which moil suffer the consequences of thei- cctions without complaint, because tlry are the servants rf destiny, and destiny is character. It is a' snfo conclusion the* the members of Miss.Sninuov's audiences wiM no longer think of these "hys as written in n 'le-d language. Tl">- .-'re emanations of the kiivo snivit which oppressed itself in Elizabethan Enpland, :"id which is again finding expression in England to-day. Men now look for their inspiration in the tondsce.nc them as well as in some one of the activities of the human mind. But the primal soiirc -1 of their inspiration is the same as is found in tho drama's of Kuripid"'. and in 'he fragments of S'\pnho. What, has boon lost irretrievably is (he setting nf these plays, th" graining marble, tho colossal magnitude of the Grecian theatre, tho pellucid aiv of Athens." mid the bh'n.sweep of the hills beyond the citv. Pint Greek literature is still the voice ef a neoplc speakinein the prime of such i life as, the world h?,r, never seen again. It exnresses the belief which sustained Western civilisation, the belief in man contending with destiny, and never hopelessly subdued.