 |
| Martin Brandenburg Forest Promenade 1917 pastel on paper Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin |
 |
| Anonymous German Printmaker Pandora of the 18th Century ca. 1795 etching Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel |
 |
| Melchior Lorck Basilisk 1548 engraving Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna |
-Universit%C3%A4tsbibliothek-Heidelberg.jpg) |
| Antonio Scarpa Dissection of the Shoulder Area 1804 engraving (book illustration) Universitätsbibliothek, Heidelberg |
 |
| Antoine-Jean Gros Hercules battling Diomedes 1835 oil on canvas Musée des Augustins de Toulouse |
 |
| Eugen Hummel A Bride against her Will ca. 1835 oil on canvas Belvedere Museum, Vienna |
-and-Jan-Wildens-(landscape)-Sacrifice-of-Abraham-c1631-35-oil-on-canvas-St%C3%A4del-Museum-Frankfurt.png) |
| Cornelis de Vos (figures) and Jan Wildens (landscape) Sacrifice of Abraham ca. 1631-35 oil on canvas Städel Museum, Frankfurt |
 |
| Gaudenzio Ferrari Beheading of a Saint ca. 1540 oil on panel Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht |
-1821-oil-on-canvas-Mus%C3%A9e-des-Beaux-Arts-de-Chartres.jpg) |
| Léon Cogniet Metabus fleeing with his daughter Camilla (scene from the Aeneid) 1821 oil on canvas Musée des Beaux-Arts de Chartres |
 |
| Jan van Troyen after Giulio Romano Pluto in his Chariot ca. 1650-60 etching Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel |
 |
| Jakob Matthias Schmutzer Académie ca. 1762-66 drawing Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna |
 |
| Jeremias Falck after Caravaggio Fabrication of the Armour of Achilles ca. 1665 engraving Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig |
 |
| Cherubino Alberti after Polidoro da Caravaggio Pluto abducting Proserpine ca. 1590 engraving Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich |
 |
| Egon Schiele Self Portrait 1911 gouache on paper Leopold Museum, Vienna |
 |
| Grant Wood Sultry Night 1937 lithograph Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas |
 |
| Olle Bauman Hand and Figure III 1967 drawing Moderna Museet, Stockholm |
The tomb on the Thracian skirts of Olympus holds Orpheus, son of the Muse Calliope; whom the trees disobeyed not and and the lifeless rocks followed, and the herds of the forest beasts; who discovered the mystic rites of Bacchus, and first linked verse in heroic feet; who charmed with his lyre, even the heavy sense of the implacable Lord of Hell, and his unyielding wrath.
The fair-haired daughters of Bistonia shed a thousand tears for Orpheus dead, the son of Calliope and Oeagrus; they stained their tattooed arms with blood, and dyed their Thracian locks with black ashes. The very Muses of Pieria, with Apollo, the master of the lute, burst into tears mourning for the singer, and the rocks moaned, and the trees, that erst he charmed with his lovely lyre.
* * *
O Aeolian land, thou coverest Sappho, who with the immortal Muses is celebrated as the mortal Muse; whom Cypris and Eros together reared, with whom Peitho wove the undying wreath of song, a joy to Hellas and a glory to thee. O ye Fates, twirling the triple thread on the spindle, why spun ye not an everlasting life for the singer who devised the deathless gifts of the Muses of Helicon?
When thou passest, O stranger, by the Aeolian tomb, say not that I, the Lesbian poetess, am dead. This tomb was built by the hands of men, and such works of mortals are lost in swift oblivion. But if thou enquirest about me for the sake of the Muses, from each of whom I took a flower to lay beside my nine flowers of song,* thou shalt find that I escaped the darkness of death, and that no sun shall dawn and set without memory of lyric Sappho.
– from Book VI (Sepulchral Epigrams) of the Greek Anthology, translated and edited by W.R. Paton (1917)
*i.e. nine books of verse