On a Stela in the Leyden Museum I have discovered that a certain Psamtik, a member of the fallen dynasty, lived till the 17th year of Amasis’ reign, and died at the age of seventy-five.

Lastly let me be permitted to say a word or two in reference to Rhodopis.  That she must have been a remarkable woman is evident from the passage in Herodotus quoted in Notes 10, and 14, Vol.  I., and from the accounts given by many other writers.  Her name, “the rosy-cheeked one,” tells us that she was beautiful, and her amiability and charm of manner are expressly praised by Herodotus.  How richly she was endowed with gifts and graces may be gathered too from the manner in which tradition and fairy lore have endeavored to render her name immortal.  By many she is said to have built the most beautiful of the Pyramids, the Pyramid of Mycerinus or Menkera.  One tale related of her and reported by Strabo and AElian probably gave rise to our oldest and most beautiful fairy tale, Cinderella; another is near akin to the Loreley legend.  An eagle, according to AElian—­the wind, in Strabo’s tale,—­bore away Rhodopis’ slippers while she was bathing in the Nile, and laid them at the feet of the king, when seated on his throne of justice in the open market.  The little slippers so enchanted him that he did not rest until he had discovered their owner and made her his queen.

The second legend tells us how a wonderfully beautiful naked woman could be seen sitting on the summit of one of the pyramids (ut in una ex pyramidibus); and how she drove the wanderers in the desert mad through her exceeding loveliness.

Moore borrowed this legend and introduces it in the following verse: 

              “Fair Rhodope, as story tells—­
               The bright unearthly nymph, who dwells
               ’Mid sunless gold and jewels hid,
               The lady of the Pyramid.”

Fabulous as these stories sound, they still prove that Rhodopis must have been no ordinary woman.  Some scholars would place her on a level with the beautiful and heroic Queen Nitokris, spoken of by Julius Africanus, Eusebius and others, and whose name, (signifying the victorious Neith) has been found on the monuments, applied to a queen of the sixth dynasty.  This is a bold conjecture; it adds however to the importance of our heroine; and without doubt many traditions referring to the one have been transferred to the other, and vice versa.  Herodotus lived so short a time after Rhodopis, and tells so many exact particulars of her private life that it is impossible she should have been a mere creation of fiction.  The letter of Darius, given at the end of Vol.  II., is intended to identify the Greek Rhodopis with the mythical builder of the Pyramid.  I would also mention here that she is called Doricha by Sappho.  This may have been her name before she received the title of the “rosy-cheeked one.”

I must apologize for the torrent of verse that appears in the love-scenes between Sappho and Bartja; it is also incumbent upon me to say a few words about the love-scenes themselves, which I have altered very slightly in the new edition, though they have been more severely criticised than any other portion of the work.