Read "Historia Amoris" by Edgar Saltus online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
"Eros is son of earth and heaven, but persuasion is Aphrodite's daughter. " So Sappho sang. The note, new and true as well, became, as fresh truth ever does become, revolutionary. Athens heard it. Even Sparta listened. Corinth and Miletus repeated it in clinging keys.
With the new truth came a new era. Through meditations patient and prolonged Calypso had succeeded in adding coquetry to love. With a distich Sappho emancipated it. To the despotism that insisted she suggested the duty of asking; to the submission that had obeyed she indicated the grace that grants; yet, posing as barrier between each, the right and liberty of choice, which already Rhodopis had exacted.