"This poem ... incorporates 'Lesbos,''Andros,''Leucadia,' and 'Chios' ... It is not so much one poem as a collection ... mostly founded on the solitary fragments to be seen in a weird little volume ... bearing the title of 'Lyrici græci' ... published in Paris in 1825. The headings of some of the sections are free translations of the fragmentary remains of the lyrics of Sappho and Alcaeus, and have contributed more or less to the structure of a story, such as it is, and the unification of the series as an epical whole."--Introd., p. [v], xiv.