Beauty. (<hi rend="i">A Combination from Sappho.</hi>) One Girl Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1 1869
aaa iambic hexameter fragment The meter is basically iambic, with anapaestic variations; in fact, an Alexandrine. It is an effort to represent Sappho's quantitative hexameters in English accentual verse.
<author/> <city/> <publisher/> <date/> <pages/> </bibl> <note/> </citnliterary> <citntranslationoriginal> <bibl> <title> <hi rend="i">A History of the Literature of Ancient Greece</hi> by Karl Otfried Müller, continued by John William Donaldson (London, 1858), I. 237-238. Donaldson states in his “Translator's Preface” that the first twenty-two chapters of the work were translated by Sir George Cornewall Lewis, the remainder by himself. Lewis's translation is therefore the immediate source of DGR's text. <artist/> <location/> <bibl> <title/> <author/> <city/> <publisher/> <date/> <pages/> </bibl> <note/> </citnpictorial> <citnmythic> <name/> <culture/> <bibl> <title/> <author/> <city/> <publisher/> <date/> <pages/> </bibl> <note/> </citnmythic> <citnhistorical> <event/> <place/> <date/> <bibl> <title/> <author/> <city/> <publisher/> <date/> <pages/> </bibl> <note/> </citnhistorical> <citnautobiographical> <name/> <place/> <date/> <bibl> <title/> <author/> <city/> <publisher/> <date/> <pages/> </bibl> <note/> </citnautobiographical> <citnscenic> <place/> <date/> <bibl> <title/> <author/> <city/> <publisher/> <date/> <pages/> </bibl> <note/> </citnscenic> </listcitn> </source> <commentaries> <head>Commentary</head> <section type="intro"> <head>Introduction</head> <p>DGR closes the first section of his 1870 <title level="doc"> <xref doc="a.1-1870.1stedn.rad" workcode="42-1869" from="186"> <hi rend="i">Poems</hi> </xref> with this poem, a work that hardly calls attention to itself. The title of the translation in the 1870 volume was “One Girl”, not “Beauty” (the latter was the title DGR gave it when he reprinted the work in his 1881 volume <xref doc="a.1-1881.1stedn.rad" workcode="42-1869" from="288"> <hi rend="i">Poems. A New Edition</hi> </xref> ).

But the diminuendo of this little work is a subtle obliquity on DGR's part. D. M. R. Bentley's identification of the source of the poem, in the volumes that both completed and translated Karl Otfried Müller's <xref doc="a.mueller001.rad" link="dead" workcode="42-1869"> <hi rend="i">History of the Literature of Ancient Greece</hi> </xref> (1858), I. 237 , suggests that weighty themes are being lightly carried in DGR's translation—themes that pervade the whole of the 1870 volume and that figure prominently in <xref doc="a.44-1869.raw"> <hi rend="i">The House of Life</hi> </xref> , the section of the volume that follows immediately upon this fragment.

Briefly, Bentley shows that the two Sapphic fragments translated by DGR were implicitly given a mythic significance in Müller's volumes. The fragments deliver a cryptic message out of the Eleusinian and Orphic mysteries, a message Nietzsche would make famous in his exposition of the myth of the Eternal Return. In terms of the Sappho fragments translated by DGR, the theme is located in hymeneal hymns that celebrate, in the language of flowers, the mystic or mythic marriage that founds the whole myth of the Eternal Return.

This modest translational work therefore clarifies the place DGR has made for the set of translations with which he concludes the first section of his book. All focus on love and death, and they intimate the universality of the subject in poetic discourse as well as the transhistorical (i.e., mythic) character of the subject. Ultimately DGR has aligned his work with the myth of Orpheus and his Chthonian counterpart Dionysius. The “One Girl” is Persephone/Euridice, although in DGR's book she has as well many other particular names.

Textual History: Composition

WMR (1911) dates the translation 1869, but without any corroborating data. The (1858) source of the text, however, might argue an earlier date of composition. The character of the printer's copy manuscript gives no clue as to date of composition, but there is another fair copy manuscript, in the library of J. Paul Getty, that seems earlier. There is also a draft text of the poem in Notebook I in the Duke University Library that suggests it was composed sometime between 1863-1868.

Textual History: Revision

Production History

Reception

Iconographic

Printing History

It is first printed in the Penkill Proofs, the first of the prepublication texts DGR prepared for the eventual publication of his 1870 <xref doc="a.1-1870.raw"> <hi rend="i">Poems</hi> </xref> . When it was reprinted in the Tauchnitz edition (1874) DGR changed the title from “One Girl” to “Beauty”, and he kept the latter in his 1881 <xref doc="a.1-1881.1stedn.rad" workcode="42-1869"> <hi rend="i">Poems. A New Edition</hi> </xref> .

Pictorial

Historical

Literary

Translation

The Sappho fragments are nos. 93 and 94 in Bergk's editions; he was the first to attribute the fragments to Sappho (see Theodor Bergk, <xref doc="a.bergk001.rad" link="dead"> <hi rend="i">Poetae Lyricae Graecae</hi> </xref> [Leipzig, 1843]). The text that directed DGR's translation was the following passage from the English translation of Karl Otfried Müller's <xref doc="a.mueller001.rad" link="dead"> <hi rend="i">History of the Literature of Ancient Greece</hi> </xref> : “In a fragment lately discovered, which bears a strong impression of the simple language of Sappho, she compares the freshness of youth and the unsullied beauty of a maiden's face to an apple of some peculiar kind, which, when all the rest of the fruit is gathered from the tree, remains alone at an unattainable height, and drinks in the whole vigour of vegetation; or rather (to give the simple words of the poetess in which the thought is placed before us and gradually heightened with great beauty and nature) ‘like the sweet apple which ripens at the top of the bough, on the topmost point of the bough, forgotten by the gatherers—no, not quite forgotten, but beyond their reach.’ A fragment written in a similar tone, speaks of a hyacinth, which growing among the mountains is trodden underfoot by the shepherds and its purple flower is pressed to the ground; thus obviously comparing the maiden who has no husband to protect her, with the flower which grows in the field, as contrasted with that which blooms in the shelter of a garden.” ( I. 237-8 ).

Autobiographical

At the autobiographical level of the text the “One Girl” is both his dead wife Elizabeth and his living beloved Jane Morris.

Bibliographic

Gregory, “Life and Works of DGR” vol. 2, 125. Bentley, <xref doc="a.ag305.n7.rad" link="dead" workcode="42-1869" from="181" to="182">“The Source of D. G. Rossetti's <title level="wrk">‘Combination from Sappho’” .

1881 Poems First Edition text The title “One Girl” in 1870 underscores two important themes in the volume: first, the figure of the divine woman (in myth she is Persephone), announced in the opening poem <xref doc="a.1-1847.s244.raw">“The Blessed Damozel”</xref> and encountered throughout in various transformations; second, the ideal of the One, or mystic unity, which is also represented in multiple forms. When DGR changed the title to “Beauty” in 1874 he somewhat obscured the earlier emphasis on particularities, but he emphasized the mythic issues at stake. The line carries a subtle echo of the previous poem in the 1870 <xref doc="a.1-1870.raw"> <hi rend="i">Poems</hi> </xref> volume, <xref doc="a.40-1869.raw">“John of Tours”</xref> (line 3, “Sweet apple-blossom”). 1881 Poems First Edition text Poems (1870): Proofs for first edition, British Library copy, (Ashley 1405) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1870 March 1-7 0 Poems (1870): Proofs for first edition, Fitzwilliam Museum (Copy 1) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1870 March 1 (and 22 March for additional material) 0 Poems (1870): Proofs for first edition, Princeton/Troxell Copy Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1870 March 1-7 0 Poems (1870): Mixed Proofs 1869-1870, Fitzwilliam Museum Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1869 October - 1970 March 0 Poems (1870): First Edition Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1870 April 26 0 Poems (1870): Second Edition (DGR's corrected copy) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1870 May 0 Poems (1870): Second Edition Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1870 May 0 Poems (1870): Third Edition (copy 1) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1870 June 0 Poems (1870): Third Edition (copy 2) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1870 June 0 Poems (1870): Fourth Edition Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1870 July (or early August) 0 Poems (1870): Fifth Edition Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1871 0 Poems (1870): Sixth Edition Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1872 0 Poems. (Privately Printed.): A Proof, Lasner Copy Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1869 September 13 0 Poems. (Privately Printed).: the A2 Proofs, Fitzwilliam Museum Copy Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1869 September 20 0 Poems. (Privately Printed.): the A2 Proofs (partial), Princeton/Troxell (Copy 1) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1869 September 20 0 Poems. (Privately Printed.): A Proof (partial), Princeton/Troxell (copy 1) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1869 September 13 0 Poems. (Privately Printed).: Penkill Proofs, Princeton/Troxell (copy 1) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1869 August 18 0 Poems. (Privately Printed.): Penkill Proofs, Princeton/Troxell (copy 2) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1869 August 18 0 Poems by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1873): the Tauchnitz Edition 1873 November 15 (late November or early December) 0 Poems by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1873): the Tauchnitz Edition, with author's corrections (Yale copy) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1873 November 15 (late November or early December) 0 Poems by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1873): the Tauchnitz Edition, page proofs with author's corrections Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1873 November (early November) 0 Poems. (Privately Printed).: First Trial Book, British Library copy (Ashley 1393) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1869 October 3 0 Poems. (Privately Printed).: First Trial Book (Fitzwilliam Museum copy) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1869 October 3 0 Poems. (Privately Printed.), First Trial Book (Huntington Library copy DGR 1869 October 3 0 Poems. (Privately Printed).: First Trial Book, Princeton/Troxell (Losh copy) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1869 October 3 0 Poems. (Privately Printed.): Second Trial Book, British Library, (Ashley 1400) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1869 November 30 (25 November - 6 December) 0 Poems. (Privately Printed).: Second Trial Book (Fitzwilliam Museum copy) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1869 November 25 0 Poems, Privately Printed: Second Trial Book, Alice Boyd/Lasner copy. Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1869 November 25 0 Poems. (Privately Printed.): Proofs for the Second Trial Book (partial), Princeton/Troxell. Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1869 November 25-26 0 Poems. (Privately Printed.): Second Trial Book, Princeton/Troxell. Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1869 November 25 0 Poems. A New Edition. (1881) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 0 Poems. A New Edition (1881), proof Signature T (Delaware Museum, first proof (author's copy)) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 May 16 (circa) 0 Poems. A New Edition (1881), proof Signature T (Delaware Museum, first proof (copy 2)) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 May 16 (circa) 0 Poems. A New Edition (1881), proof Signature T (Delaware Museum, final proof) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 May 20 (circa) 0 Poems. A New Edition (1881), proof Signature U (Delaware Museum, first proof (author's copy)) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 May 16 (circa) 0 Poems. A New Edition (1881), proof Signature U (Delaware Museum, first proof (author's copy 2)) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 May 16 (circa) 0 Poems. A New Edition (1881), proof Signature U (Delaware Museum, first revise (copy 1)) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 May 18 (circa) 0 Poems. A New Edition (1881), proof Signature U (Delaware Museum, first revise (copy 2)) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 May 18 (circa) 0 The Collected Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, vol. 2 (1886) Dante Gabriel Rossetti William Michael Rossetti 1886 0 Rossetti Album (miscellaneous collection, Getty/Wormsley Library) DGR and others 1835-1933 0 Notebook Pages (Notebook I, Duke Library) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1863-1869 0 Notebook Pages (Notebook I, Duke Library) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1863-1869 0 Poems and Sonnets (Fitzwilliam Museum bound volume of miscellaneous poems) DGR 1848-1881 0 The Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1911) Dante Gabriel Rossetti William Michael Rossetti 1911 0