NOTEWORTHY WOMEN IN WORLD LITERATURE.
Reviewing the countless contributions women have made to literature is a task that can be mastered only by devoting to this subject several ponderous volumes. Whether such an attempt has even been made we are unable to say. But the theme is so attractive that I hope that some competent woman author may be inspired to undertake this task. What more beautiful mission could she have than to study and analyze all the scattered evidences of brilliant intellect, rich in imagination, deep emotion, power of expression, soaring enthusiasm, scintillating wit, and profound sorrow, to be found in many of the books written by women since the days of Sappho and Erinna.
Only fragments remain of the beautiful odes, hymns and love-songs produced by the poetesses of the classic past. But that they inspired all Hellas and Rome we know from the testimony of the foremost authors and critics of their time. When Meleager of Gadara, the famous sophist and poet, selected the choicest poems of his predecessors and wove them into that delicious "Garland," to be hung outside the gate of the Gardens of the Hesperides, he did not forget Sappho, because "though her flowers were few, they were all roses." And a critic, writing five hundred years after Erinna's death, speaks of still hearing her swan-note clear above the jangling chatter of the jays, and of still thinking those three hundred hexameter verses sung by this girl of nineteen in "The Distaff" as lovely as the loveliest of Homer. There is also a report, that Corinna, a native of Tanagra, in Bœotia, won five times in poetical contests the prize in competition with Pindar, the greatest lyric poet of Greece.
With greater kindness fate treated the works of Alphaizuli, a Moorish poetess, who lived in Seville during the 8th Century A. D. Of her, who was called "the Arabian Sappho," two volumes of excellent verses are preserved in the library of the Escurial. Likewise Labana and Leela, two Moorish poetesses, were famous throughout beautiful Andalusia during the 10th and the 13th Century. Of Valada, the daughter of the Moorish King Almostakeph, of Corduba, her contemporaries report that she several times contended with scholars noted for their eloquence and knowledge, and quite often bore away the palm.
That such contests were held in great favor by learned ladies, appears from the institution of those famous poetical festivals known as "Jeux Floraux" or Floral Games. They are said to have been established in the 11th or the 12th
207
