Sappho
Sappho, 620 BCE - 550 BCE
Only a handful of details are known about the life of Sappho. She was born around 615 B.C. to an aristocratic family on the Greek island of Lesbos. Evidence suggests that she had several brothers, married a wealthy man named Cercylas, and had a daughter named Cleis. She spent most of her adult life in the city of Mytilene on Lesbos where she ran an academy for unmarried young women. Sappho's school devoted itself to the cult of Aphrodite and Eros, and Sappho earned great prominence as a dedicated teacher and poet. A legend from Ovid suggests that she threw herself from a cliff when her heart was broken by Phaon, a young sailor, and died at an early age. Other historians posit that she died of old age around 550 B.C.
The history of her poems is as speculative as that of her biography. She was known in antiquity as a great poet: Plato called her "the tenth Muse" and her likeness appeared on coins. It is unclear whether she invented or simply refined the meter of her day, but today it is known as "Sapphic" meter. Her poems were first collected into nine volumes around the third century B.C., but her work was lost almost entirely for many years. Merely one twenty-eight-line poem of hers has survived intact, and she was known principally through quotations found in the works of other authors until the nineteenth century. In 1898 scholars unearthed papyri that contained fragments of her poems. In 1914 in Egypt, archeologists discovered papier-mâché coffins made from scraps of paper that contained more verse fragments attributed to Sappho.
Three centuries after her death the writers of the New Comedy parodied Sappho as both overly promiscuous and lesbian. This characterization held fast, so much so that the very term "lesbian" is derived from the name of her home island. Her reputation for licentiousness would cause Pope Gregory to burn her work in 1073. Because social norms in ancient Greece differed from those of today and because so little is actually known of her life, it is difficult to unequivocally answer such claims. Her poems about Eros, however, speak with equal force to men as well as to women.
Sappho is not only one of the few women poets we know of from antiquity, but also is one of the greatest lyric poets from any age. Most of her poems were meant to be sung by one person to the accompaniment of the lyre (hence the name, "lyric" poetry). Rather than addressing the gods or recounting epic narratives such as those of Homer, Sappho's verses speak from one individual to another. They speak simply and directly to the "bittersweet" difficulties of love. Many critics and readers alike have responded to the personal tone and urgency of her verses, and an abundance of translations of her fragments are available today.
Selected Poems by SAPPHO - noting these are mostly FRAGMENTS of her poems as the full poems were LOST
Lilies
by SAPPHO
(For those with a broken heart, a journey in five parts)
I.
O lover, with your skin so white
The purest alabaster
Delicate as the whitest lily that
Only opens its petals at nightII.
Come to me, my love
Across fields full of lilies at night
The stars shining overhead
Are witnesses to our love
As bright as the sky.III.
O, the heart wants what it wants,
Imagining its perfect mate.
Alas, it cannot be so
Yesterday's heart has lost its mate.So imagine the new one
With the trepidation that replaces the longing for what was
With what is.
The lonely crying—
the mourning doves never sounded so sad!IV.
But know that the heart wants to love
And a new love will blossom
Filling that void with its rapturous beauty.V.
Come to me, my love
Across fields full of lilies
And all looks new tonight.When Love Seems Lost To The Ethers
by SAPPHO
Does love cross that invisible barrier
When a loved one dies?
Passes, rather.Yes! It is the soul that carries the love
Not the body.
And the love that we feel for another
is eternal.When I was on Earth,
and I lost my love Atthis,
I wondered whether I would ever re-claim her,
bask in her special love once again.Then I passed.
And I learned that what I hoped for became real.
That love flies with you as your soul departs your body
In its winged flight to Paradise
And there wait your loves.by SAPPHO
Glitter-throned, undying Aphrodite,
Wile-weaving daughter of high Zeus, I pray thee,
Tame not my soul with heavy woe, dread mistress,
Nay, nor with anguish !
But hither come, if ever erst of old time
Thou didst incline, and listenedst to my crying,
And from thy father's palace down descending,
Camest with golden Chariot yoked: thee fair swift-flying sparrows
Over dark earth with multitudinous fluttering,
Pinion on pinion, through middle ether
Down from heaven hurried.
Quickly they came like light, and thou, blest lady,
Smiling with clear undying eyes didst ask me
What was the woe that troubled me, and wherefore
I had cried to thee:
What thing I longed for to appease my frantic
Soul: and Whom now must I persuade, thou askedst,
Whom must entangle to thy love, and who now,
Sappho, hath wronged thee?
Yea, for if now he shun, he soon shall chase thee;
Yea, if he take not gifts, he soon shall give them;
Yea, if he love not, soon shall he begin to
Love thee, unwilling.
Come to me now too, and from tyrannous sorrow
Free me, and all things that my soul desires to
Have done, do for me, queen, and let thyself too
Be my great ally!
(Translated by J. Addington Symonds, 1893)
by SAPPHO
Leave Kriti and come here to this holy temple with your graceful grove of apple trees and altars smoking with frankincense. Icy water babbles through apple branches and roses leave shadow on the ground and bright shaking leaves pour down profound sleep. Here is a meadow where horses graze amid wild blossoms of the spring and soft winds blow aroma of honey. Afroditi, take the nectar and delicately pour it into gold wine cups and mingle joy with our celebration.
by SAPPHO
. . . Therefore not only dost thou hover about the notable rather than the good and noble, and biddest thy friends go about their business, but dost grieve me by saying in thy swelling pride that I am become a reproach to thee. Go to, glut thy heart with this thy insolence; for, as for me, my mind is not so softly disposed towards the anger of a child. Go thy way, nor . . .
(Translated by J. M. Edmonds, 1909)
by SAPPHO
Kyprian and Nereids, I beg you to bring my brother home safely, and let him accomplish whatever is in his heart. Let him amend his former errors and be a joy to his friends but a terror to enemies- though never again to us. Let him do honor to his sister, and be free of the black torment which in other days of sorrow ravaged his soul.
(Translated by Willis Barnstone)
by SAPPHO
A troop of horse, the serried ranks of marchers, A noble fleet, some think these of all on earth Most beautiful. For me naught else regarding Is my beloved. To understand this is for all most simple, For thus gazing much on mortal perfectino And knowing already what life could give her, Him chose fair Helen, Him the betrayer of Ilium's honour. The recked she not of adored child or parent, But yielded to love, and forced by her passion, Dared Fate in exile. Thus quickly is bent the will of that woman To whom things near and dear seem to be nothing. So mightest thou fail, My Anactoria, If she were with you. She whose gentle footfall and radiant face Hold the power to charm more than a vision Of chariots and the mail-clad battalions Of Lydia's army. So must we learn in world made as this one Man can never attain his greatest desire, [But must pray for what good fortune Fate holdeth, Never unmindful.] (Translated by Cox)
by SAPPHO
Peer of the gods, the happiest man I seem Sitting before thee, rapt at thy sight, hearing Thy soft laughter and they voice most gentle, Speaking so sweetly. Then in my bosom my heart wildly flutters, And, when on thee I gaze never so little, Bereft am I of all power of utterance, My tongue is useless. There rushes at once through my flesh tingling fire, My eyes are deprived of all power of vision, My ears hear nothing by sounds of winds roaring, And all is blackness. Down courses in streams the sweat of emotion, A dread trembling o'erwhelms me, paler than I Than dried grass in autumn, and in my madness Dead I seem almost. (Translated by Cox)
by SAPPHO
...Cyprus... ...The herald Idaios came...a swift messenger ...and the rest of Asia...unwilting glory (kleos aphthiton). Hektor and his companions led the dark-eyed luxuriant Andromache from holy Thebes and...Plakia in ships upon the salty sea. Many golden bracelets and purple garments..., ornaments with many different patterns, countless silver cups and ivory. Thus he spoke. And his dear father quickly leapt up. And the story went to his friends through the broad city. Straightaway the Trojans joined mules to smooth-running carriages, And the whole band of women and...maidens got on. Separately, the daughters of Priam... And the unmarried men led horses beneath the chariots and greatly...charioteers... [ [ [ ...like the gods ...holy set forth into Troy... And the sweet song of the flute mixed... And the sound of the castanets, and then the maidens sang a sacred song and a wondrous echo reached the heavens... And everywhere through the streets... Mixing bowls and cups... And myrrh and cassia and frankincense were mingled. And the older women wailed aloud. And all the men gave forth a high-pitched song, calling upon Paon [Apollo] the far-darter who is skilled in the lyre, to sing of Hektor and Andromache, like to the gods [theoeikelois].
by SAPPHO
It is you who must pursue the violet-scented Muse with her gifts of beauty, my young students, as well as continue to play a clear and melodious lyre. I was lithesome once, but time and age have taken my body in their grasp, and from glossy blackness my hair has been turned by them to brittle white. Heavy my heart has become; my knees no longer can carry me; nor do I dance as I did, in my once upon a time, as quick and supple as a fawn. These things I bewail with every groaning breath, but what is there to do? Agelessness is not a fate that comes to humans. Even, they say, the rosy arms of goddess Dawn stretched to embrace handsome Tithonus. Madly in love, she carried the virile young man all the way back to her home at the edge of the world. Yet old age managed to get hold of him even there; zealous, hoary-bearded Time finds even the bed partners of the immortals. (Translated by Mary Maxwell)
by SAPPHO
‘. . . Sappho, I swear, if thou come not forth I will love thee no more. O rise and shine upon us, and from thy bed set free thy beloved strength, and then with water by the bank, like the lily that dwells in the marsh, hold aloof thy Chian robe and wash thee. And Cleïs for thy adorning shall cast down from thy press saffron smock and purple robe. . . .’ (Translated by Edmonds, 1909)
by SAPPHO
So my Atthis is not come back, and in sooth I would I were dead. And yet she wept full sore to leave me behind, and said, 'Alas! how sad our lot, Sappho; I swear 'tis all against my will I leave thee.' To her I answered, 'Go thy way rejoicing and remember me; for thou knowest how I doted upon thee. And if thou rememberest not, O then I am fain to remind thee of what thou forgettest, how dear and beautiful was the life we led together. For with many a garland of violets and sweet roses mingled thou hast decked thy flowing locks by my side, and with many a woven necklet made of a hundred blossoms thy dainty throat; and with many a jar of myrrh both of the precious and the royal hast thou anointed thy fair young skin before me, and lying upon the couch hast taken thy fill of dainty meats and of sweet drinks. . . .' (Translated by Edmonds, 1909)
by SAPPHO
. . . And Gongyla [asked me '.....] or what sign wilt thou show thy children?' 'Yea, I will tell you,' I answered; 'Hermes came in unto me, and looking upon him I said "O master, I am altogether undone. For by the holy mistress I swear to thee, I care nothing any more that I am exalted unto prosperity, but a desire hath taken me to die. I would fain have thee set me in the dewy meadow wither aforetime thou leddest Atreus' son Agamemnon. ..."' (Translated by Edmonds, 1909)
by SAPPHO
Atthis, our loved Mnasidica dweels at far- off Sardis, but she often sends her thoughts hither, thinking how once we used to love in the days when she thought thee like a glorious goddess, and loved thy song the best. And now she shines among the dames of Lydia as after sunset the rosy-fingered moon beside the stars that are about her, when she spreads her light o'er briny sea and eke o'er flowery field, while the good dew lies on the ground and the roses revive and the dainty anthrysc and the honey-lotus with all its blooms. And oftentime when our beloved, wandering abroad, calls to mind her gentle Atthis, the heart devours her tender breast with the pain of longing; and she cries aloud to us to come thither; and what she says we know full well, thou and I, for Night, the many-eared, calls it to us across the dividing sea. (Translated by J. M. Edmonds)