Sappho

I might note that even when posting an excerpt of a poem by Sappho (or anyone else) in translation one should give credit to the translator through a proper citation. I don't state this merely to be picky... but I would certainly like to know who the translator is in such an instance.

Sorry, I had mentioned this sometime earlier, but that was a few pages ago.

All my translations are Mary Barnard

Originally Posted by Dark Muse:

In the spring twilight

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

Wow, this is nice. If we rearrange it into this:

The full moon shining:
As through around an altar
Girls take their places

it becomes a haiku!!!

Originally Posted by JBI:

Full
Moon
Shining
Alter
Girls
Take
Places
Around

Now it's a mock 8 character poem.

Just shows you how you can reduce language yet still retain the comprehension. I think the poem is still readable, but you could play with it further:

Around Alter Girls Take their Places;
The full moon

or perhaps if I was creative, and not limited to the format on the forum (it is almost impossible to get indents in) I could have broken girls up into letters, and quite literally around the alter. I'll try anyway, just

Shining...Full...Moon
...............g
....i......Alter........s
..........r.......l


Or something like that. And now I know I have been reading too much.

Barnstone translates this as:

The moon appeared in her fullness
when women took their place around the altar

tr. Willis Barstone: Sweetbitter Love: Poems of Sappho

Anne Carson has it:

full appeared the moon
and when they around the altar took their places

tr. Anne Carson, If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho

not one girl, I think
........who looks on the light of the sun
..............will ever
..............have wisdom
..............like this

tr. Anne Carson: If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho

I actually quite like this version by Anne Carson. Her translations are less within the Western Romantic poetic tradition and come closer to capturing that something of a compression in Sappho that comes close to certain Chinese and Japanese lyric poems

Code:

---

It was you Atthis, who said

"Sappho, if you will not get
up and let us look at you
I shall never love you again!

 "Get up, unleash your
      suppleness,
    lift off your Chian
      nightdress
and, like lilly leaning into

"a spring, bathe in the
          water
Cleis is brigning your best
purple frock and the yellow

"tunic down from the clothes chest;
you will have a cloak thrown over
you and flowers crowning your
            hair........

"Praxinoa, my child, will you please
roast nuts for our breakfast? One
of the gods is being good to us:

"today we are going at last
into Mitylene, our favorite
city, with Sappho the lovliest

"of its women; she will walk
among us like a mother with
all her daughters around her

"when she comes home from
      exile......."

But you forget everything

---

Which translation are these beautiful exstracts from please?

The ones that I post are from Mary Barnard

Without warning

As a whirlwind
swoops on an oak
Love shakes my heart

I love Sappho! I could cry when I think of her lost work. I read that sometime in the late 1800's a series of excavations took place somewhere in Egypt and that they found a great deal of her work, in strips and pieces lining coffins and in carcasses of stuffed sacred animals. But I believe that even that was second-hand. No doubt the Christian religious zealots had a hand in eliminating her work. Wasn't a great deal of Botticelli's work also burned in some anti-pagan hysteria? Anyway, I love this poem about growing old -- translated by Paul Roche. Mostly though, I love the images her words conjure up in my mind. They are timeless and haunting.

No, children, do not delude me.
You mock the good gifts of the Muses
When you say: “Dear Sappho we’ll crown you,
Resonant player,
First on the clear sweet lyre . . . “
Do you not see how I alter:
My skin with it’s aging,
My black hair gone white,
My legs scarcely carrying
Me, who went dancing
More neatly than fawns once
(Neatest of creatures)?
No, no one can cure it; keep beauty from going,
And I cannot help it.
God himself cannot do what cannot be done.
So age follows after and catches
Everything living
Even rosy-armed Eos, the Dawn,
Who ushers in morning to the ends of the earth,
Could not save from the grasp of old age
Her lover immortal Tithonus.
And I too I know, must waste away.
Yet for me—listen well—
My delight is the exquisite.
Yes, for me,
Glitter and sunlight and love
Are one society.
So I shall not go creeping away
To die in the dark:
I shall go on living with you,
Love and loved.

I think I may have that one in my book, it looks familair, but I really enjoyed that translation of it. It is a lovely poem.

By the way really like your user name

Thank you! I like your name as well! A couple of summers ago I sat around the pool reading Sappho -- I wanted to read it in her environment -- hot and close to the water. I had to settle for my pool, since a Greek island was not an option! Anyway, I still have this link to a great deal of Sappho sites. There's information and even some readings. Some good, some terrible. Hopefully you'll find something of interest.
http://www.classicpersuasion.org/pw/...index.htm#gade

I am not sure where, but somewhere I just happend to see a little pocket sized book of a collection of her works, at first I had not really heard of it, but I have a general interest in poetry so I picked it up, and I just fell in love with her work. I will have to check out that link.

If you will come

I shall put out
new pillows for
you to rest on

Thank you, my dear

You came, and you did
well to come: I needed
you. You have made

love blave up in
my breast--bless you!
Bless you as often

as the hours have
been endless to me
while you were gone.

I was so happy

Believe me, I
prayed that that
night might be
doubled for us.