[The Spartans married for love, but the Athenians were accustomed to
     negotiate their marriages with the parents of the bride alone.]

Eros mocks all human efforts to resist or confine him; warm AEolian blood runs in thy veins and demands love; the passionate heart of thy Lesbian forefathers beats in thy breast.

     [Charaxus, the grandfather of our heroine, and brother of the
     poetess Sappho, was, as a Lesbian, an AEolian Greek.]

What has happened cannot now be undone.  Treasure these happy hours of a first, pure love; hold them fast in the chambers of memory, for to every human being there must come, sooner or later, a present so sad and desolate, that the beautiful past is all he has to live upon.  Remember this handsome prince in silence, bid him farewell when he departs to his native country, but beware of hoping to see him again.  The Persians are fickle and inconstant, lovers of everything new and foreign.  The prince has been fascinated by thy sweetness and grace.  He loves thee ardently now, but remember, he is young and handsome, courted by every one, and a Persian.  Give him up that he may not abandon thee!”

“But how can I, grandmother?  I have sworn to be faithful to him for ever.”

“Oh, children!  Ye play with eternity as if it were but a passing moment!  I could blame thee for thus plighting thy troth, but I rejoice that thou regardest the oath as binding.  I detest the blasphemous proverb:  ’Zeus pays no heed to lovers’ oaths.’  Why should an oath touching the best and holiest feelings of humanity be regarded by the Deity, as inferior in importance to asseverations respecting the trifling questions of mine and thine?  Keep thy promise then,—­hold fast thy love, but prepare to renounce thy lover.”

“Never, grandmother! could I ever have loved Bartja, if I had not trusted him?  Just because he is a Persian and holds truth to be the highest virtue, I may venture to hope that he will remember his oath, and, notwithstanding those evil customs of the Asiatics, will take and keep me as his only wife.”

“But if he should forget, thy youth will be passed in mourning, and with an embittered heart . . .”

“O, dear kind grandmother, pray do not speak of such dreadful things.  If you knew him as well as I do, you would rejoice with me, and would tell me I was right to believe that the Nile may dry up and the Pyramids crumble into ruins, before my Bartja can ever deceive me!”

The girl spoke these words with such a joyful, perfect confidence, and her eyes, though filled with tears, were so brilliant with happiness and warmth of feeling, that Rhodopis’ face grew cheerful too.

Sappho threw her arms again round her grandmother, told her every word that Bartja had said to her, and ended the long account by exclaiming:  “Oh, grandmother, I am so happy, so very happy, and if you will come with us to Persia, I shall have nothing more to wish from the Immortals.”