It is hardly possible to realise and judge of Sappho without realising her environment. The picture must have its background, and the background is Lesbos about the year 600 B.C. One may well regret never to have seen the island now called Mytilini, but known in ancient times as Lesbos. There are, however, descriptions not a few, and with these we must perforce be satisfied. On the map it lies there in the Ægean Sea, a sort of triangle with rounded edges, pierced deeply on the south by two deep lochs or fiords, while toward each of its three angles it rises into mountains of from two to three thousand feet in height. One way it stretches some thirty-five miles, the other some twenty-five. I…
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