gh place in Paphos, heard the kiss
Of body and soul that mix with eager tears
And laughter stinging through the eyes and ears;
Saw Love, as burning flame from crown to feet,
Imperishable upon her storied seat;
Clear eyelids lifted toward the north and south,
A mind of many colors and a mouth
Of many tunes and kisses; and she bowed
With all her subtle face laughing aloud,
Bowed down upon me saying, "Who doth the wrong,
Sappho?" But thou--thy body is the song,
Thy mouth the music; thou art more than I,
Though my voice die not till the whole world die,
Though men that hear it madden; though love weep,
Though nature change, though shame be charmed to sleep.
Ah, wilt thou slay me lest I kiss thee dead?
Yet the queen laughed and from her sweet heart said:
"Even he that flees shall follow for thy sake,
And he shall give thee gifts that would not take,
Shall kiss that would not kiss thee" (Yea, kiss me)
"When thou wouldst not"--When I would not kiss thee!

If Phaon heard he did not heed. He took ship and sailed away, to Sicily it
is said, where, it is also said, Sappho followed, desisting only when he
flung at her some gibe about Anactoria and Atthis. In a letter which Ovid
pretended she then addressed to him, she referred to the gibe, but whether
by way of denial or admission, is now, owing to different readings of the
text, uncertain. In some copies she said, quas (the Lesbian girls) _non_
sine crimine (reproach) amavi. In others, quas _hic_ (in Lesbos) sine
crimine amavi. Disregarding the fact that the letter itself is imaginary,
the second reading is to be preferred, not because it is true, but
precisely because it is not. Sappho, though a woman, was a poet. Several
of her verses contain allusions to attributes poetically praised by poets
who never possessed them, and Ovid who had not written a treatise on the
Art of Love for the purpose of displaying his ignorance, was too adroit to
let his imaginary Sappho admit what the real Sappho would have denied.[11]

Meanwhile Phaon refused to return. At Lesbos there was a white rock that
stretched out to the sea. On it was a temple to Apollo. A fall from the
rock was, at the time, locally regarded as a cure for love. Arthemesia,
queen of Caria, whom another Phaon had rebuffed and who, to teach him
better manners, put his eyes out, threw herself from it. Sappho did also.
It cured