Sappho

I love Sappho, the first time I read her, I fell in love. Her work is simplistic beuaty. So I thought I would start a thread in honor of her to share her works.

Without Warning

Without warning
as a whirlwind
swoops on an oak
Love shakes my heart

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dark Muse

I love Sappho, the first time I read her, I fill in love. Her work is simplistic beuaty. So I thought I would start a thread in honor of her to share her works.

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Sappho of Lesbos? Yes, I have a book about her somewhere. A very intesting person. :thumbs_up

/Claes

Hehe yes, that would be the one. She is my muse.

To Atthis

Though in Sardis now,
she thinks of us constantly

and of the life we shared.
She saw you as a goddess
and above all your dancing gave her deep joy.

Now she shines among Lydian women like
the rose-fingered moon
rising after sundown, erasing all

stars around her, and pouring light equally
across the salt sea
and over densely flowered fields

lucent under dew. Her light spreads
on roses and tender thyme
and the blooming honey-lotus.

Often while she wanders she remem-
bers you, gentle Atthis,
and desire eats away at her heart

for us to come.

--Translated by Willis Barnstone

I have not read that one before. Though I have a book of her work, I haven't read the whole thing yet. That is beautiful.

Translation is important when reading Sappho, as her works were highly closed form (she invented the Sapphic Ode, of course) and highly lyrical, though fragmentary. She really only has 100 works surviving, most fragments of 1 or two lines, and like 1 or two full poems. Still, a very great, and influential poet, whose work seems to be echoed by poets like the American Imagist H.D.

She... and a few other Greek poets are also the closest thing to the poetry one finds in Japan... until the Imagists and later. Her fragmentary works also remind me of the fragments of Holderlin and Mallarme's Tomb for Anatole... his book of poetic fragments responding to the death of his young son... not to forget the later poems of Paul Celan. It is intriguing to notice that what was a tragic loss... the fragmentation of her poems... would later become appreciated in an era that finds almost more meaning in the fragment than in the whole. Surely this is not unlike our appreciation of fragmentary sculpture that would have been seen as an anathema to the original Greek artists.

]
] you will remember
] for we in our youth
did these things

yes many and beautiful things
]
]

]

tr. Anne Carson

]frequently
]for those
I treat well are the ones who most of all
]harm me

]crazy
]
]
]
]you, I want
]to suffer
]in myself I am
aware of this
]
]
]

tr. Anne Carson

Hmm I do not know if it just these particuarly poems, or the translator, but this one just did not seem to have the same flow as the ones I have read in my own book. I like the translations I have better.

All the Sappho poems I have are translated by Mary Barnard

Tell everyone

Now, today I shall
sing beautifully for
my friends' pleasure

I have Barnard's translation as well... which I very much enjoyed. Hers are written in clear, unornamented English... but include a good deal of reconstruction in some cases... providing what is missing from the actual fragmentary texts. Anne Carson... poet and classical scholar... is far more Post-Modern. Her translations revel a great deal in the fragments... and these fragments can often seem quite suggestive. Of course the reality is that while Carson does not include what is not there in Sappho's texts, the resulting fragments put her words into a context that may be just as invented as Barnard's attempts at completion.

That makes sense, I had thought I dected a Post-Modern feeling in the poem you just posted which does not generally please me. Barnard to me just captures the essence and beauty more.

We shall enjoy it

As for him who finds
fault, may silliness
and sorrow take him!

And I said

I shall burn
the fat thigh-bones of
a white she-goat
at her altar

I confess

I love that
which caresses
me. I believe

Love has his
share in the
Sun's brilliance
and virtue

It's too bad that so little of Sappho's work has survived.

Here's another one I like (often cataloged as fragment 16):


Some folks say a squadron of horsemen -- others,
Th'infantry -- still others, a fleet of warships --
Is the greatest beauty in all the Earth; I
say, it's your true love.

Altogether easy it is to make this
Clear to all, for she who in beauty others
Far surpassed -- of Helen I speak -- her husband,
perfectly noble,

Left behind and went under sail to Troy, and
Neither gave her child nor her own dear parents
Any thought at all; but away she led her
...

...
...
... reminds me now of Anactoria,
she who is absent.

I would rather look on her ravishing stride
And the shining radiance of her face than
Chariots of Lydian make and marching
foot soldiers full-armed.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JBI

Translation is important when reading Sappho, as her works were highly closed form (she invented the Sapphic Ode, of course) and highly lyrical, though fragmentary.

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I do have a nit to pick with JBI's claim that Sappho invented the Sapphic Ode -- it's unlikely that Sappho herself actually invented the form, though she often used it.

At noontime

When the earth is
bright with flamming
heat falling straight down

the cricket sets
up a high-pitched
sniging in his wings

Quote:

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I do have a nit to pick with JBI's claim that Sappho invented the Sapphic Ode -- it's unlikely that Sappho herself actually invented the form, though she often used it.

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yes perhaps you are right, though as far as history is concerned, she might as well have, as Nothing beside remains, as they say. Well, perhaps Alcaeus, but yes, true point, a mistake on my part.

I took my lyre and said:

Come now, my heavenly
tortoise shell: become
a speaking instrument

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dark Muse

I love Sappho, the first time I read her, I fell in love. Her work is simplistic beuaty. So I thought I would start a thread in honor of her to share her works.

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By the way, I forgot to thank you for starting this thread!

I was wondering, though, what it is about Sappho's poems that people here find appealing? I find it interesting that most of the poems posted in this thread have been the shortest, most incomplete fragments, and I'm curious why these clumps of words were chosen over the more substantial fragments?

For me, the poems I am posting are really just in order of how they appear within my book of her works. But there is something beautiful in some of the simplicity of these short works I think. For me, there is something very spiritual in her works that speaks to me on a deep level, in these fragements I think she does paint wonderful little pictures, and creates strong emotions.

Although they are

Only breath, words
which I command
are immortal

That afternoon

Girls ripe to marry
wover the flower-
heads into necklaces

We heard them chanting:

First voice:

Young Adonis is
dyng! O Cytherea
What shall we do now?

Second Voice

Batter your breasts
with your fists, girls--
tatter your dresses!

Code:

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Its no use

Mother dear, I
can't finnish my
weaving
      You may
blame Aphrodite

soft as she is

she has almost
killed me with
love for that boy

---

People do gossip

And they say about
Leda, that she

once found an egg
hidden under

wild hyacinths

Here is another one of Sappho's major poems (usually cataloged as fragment 1):

Aphrodite, richly enthroned immortal
Child of Zeus and weaver of wiles, I beg you --
Overwhelm me not in my heart with grief and
trouble, my mistress;

Rather come to me, if there ever was a
Time when, having heard from afar my cries, you
Heeded them, and leaving your father's golden
chambers you came here,

Having yoked your chariot; beautiful swift
Sparrows led you over the lower black Earth
Flapping close-packed wings through the middle ether
down out of heaven

And arrived with speed. And then you, o goddess,
With a smile to grace your immortal visage
Asked me what this time have I suffered, why this
time do I summon,

What do I most madly desire to happen
In my heart -- "Whom this time should I persuade to
Bring you back again into friendship? Who's mis-
treating you, Sappho?

Ev'n if now she flees, she will soon pursue you;
If she now spurns gifts, she will later give them;
If she now loves not, she will love you soon, un-
willing if need be."

Please come even now, and release me from my
Difficult cares; all I desire accomplished
In my heart accomplish, and be yourself my
ally in battle.



Unfortunately, it looks like there's not too much interest in Sappho here at LitNet.

One theme that often appears in Sappho's poems is that of longing. It occurs in all of the longer poems posted so far in this thread -- fragment 96 (the poem that quasimodo1 posted), fragment 16 (the poem I posted earlier), and fragment 1 (above). In each of these poems, Sappho uses a different context to build up this theme. In fragment 96, she uses a locus amoenus, in fragment 16, she uses traditional martial sentiments, and in fragment 1 she uses a hymn. I think in all three of these poems Sappho's treatment of yearning is very effective. Anyways, just a few thoughts to see if any interest can be stirred up here for Sappho. :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dark Muse

For me, the poems I am posting are really just in order of how they appear within my book of her works. But there is something beautiful in some of the simplicity of these short works I think. For me, there is something very spiritual in her works that speaks to me on a deep level, in these fragements I think she does paint wonderful little pictures, and creates strong emotions.

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I agree that the fragments and snippets are sometimes very evocative. It really is too bad that so much has been lost.

Yes I agree the idea of longing does appear quite often within her work. One of the other things which I do find very interesting about her work, and which I enjoy, is the way she so often evokes the gods, she seems to have a close personal relationship to them, and some of her poems are like little conversations to them.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dark Muse

One of the other things which I do find very interesting about her work, and which I enjoy, is the way she so often evokes the gods, she seems to have a close personal relationship to them, and some of her poems are like little conversations to them.

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Yes, especially Aphrodite, and fragment 1 is a great example.

Peace reigned in heaven

Ambrosia stood
already mixed
in the wine bowl

It was Hermes
who took up the
wine jug and poured
wine for the gods

When I saw Eros

On his way down
from heaven, he

wore a soldier's
cloak dyed purple

You are the herdsman of evening

Hesperus, you herd
homeward whatever
Dawn's light dispersed

You heard sheep--herd
goats--herd children
home to thier mothers

Code:

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Sleep, darling

I have a small
daughter called
Cleis, who is

like a golden
flower
        I wouldn't
take all Croesus'
kingdom with love
thrown in, for her.

---

Althought clumsy

Mnasidicia has a more
shapely figure than
our gentle Gyrino

Tomorrow you had better

Use your soft hands,
Dica, to tear off
dill shoots, to cap
you lovely curls

She who wears flowers
attracts happy
Graces: they turn
back from bare head

Code:

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We put the urn aboard ship
with this inscription

This is the dust of little
Timas who unmarried
      led
into Persephone's dark
      bedroom

And she being far from
      home, girls
her age took new-edged
      blades

to cut, in mourning for her,
these curls of thier soft hair

---

Cyprian, in my dream

The folds of a purple
kercheif shadowed
your cheeks--the one

Timas one time sent,
a timid gift, all
the way from Phocaea

In the spring twilight

The full moon shining:
Girls take thier places
as through around an altar

And their feet move

Rhythmically, as tender
feet of Creten girls
danced once around an

altar of love, crushing
a circle of soft
smooth flowering grass