The Works of William Mason :: :: University of Virginia Library

The Works of William Mason

... In Four Volumes

Mason, William (1725-1797)

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SCENE I.

II.

III.

IV.

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VII.

III.

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SCENE I.

A gloomy valley with caves and trees on one side; a fountain issuing from a rock and forming a stream on the other: the sea seen at the termination of the vale, and the moon setting in the horizon. Sappho in her female habit comes out of one of the caves unattended.
SAPPHO.
The radiant Queen of night retires,
And quits her silver car;
The Pleiads veil their lambent fires,
And ev'ry glittering star,
That flam'd on midnight's sable brow,
Have ceas'd to tremble, and to glow;
While, lost to Phaon, love, and joy,
I heave the solitary sigh:
Still pants my wakeful heart, still weeps my wearied eye. [She reclines on a bank.

Ah! come ye balmy powers of sleep,
Nor from my arms, like Phaon, rove.
O! bid my eyes forget to weep!
Bid my fond heart forget to love.

This accompanied Recitative and Air is a kind of paraphrase of a little fragment of Sappho's, apud Hephestionem:

Δεδυκε μεν α σελανα,
Και Πλειαδες, μεσαι δε
Νυκτες, παρα δ' ερχεθ' ωρα:
Εγω δε μονα καθευδω.

See the Edition of Pindar and other Lyric Poems by H. Stephens.