ABSTRACT
In spite of de Vries and Luñák and other defenders, the authenticity of this " Epistle " remains doubtful. It is certainly in Ovid's style, but scarcely a favourable specimen of it, and reads perhaps more like a clever imitation. We know from an allusion elsewhere in Ovid,1
that he did write an Epistle of Sappho to Phaon, and that Sabinus, a friend of his, wrote a supposed answer from Phaon. But both external and internal evidences are very strong against this Epistle that we have being the one which Ovid wrote. It does not appear in the best and earliest MSS. of Ovid, or in Planudes' translation. When found, it is generally separate from other Oyidian writings, and never placed with the Heroides, the latter perhaps naturally, as Sappho is not a legendary heroine. One MS. says that it was translated from the Greek, a statement evidently based on line 5.2 If there is any truth in the idea, the Greek source would be Callimachus in his Aína, to which Birt traces the Naiad, the leap from the rock, and the lyre dedicated to Apollo. The form Anactorie betrays a poetical source.
