I have not had one word from her
I have not had one word from her
Frankly I wish I were dead
When she left
she wept
a great deal; she said to me
This parting must be
endured, Sappho. I go unwillingly.
I said
Go, and be happy
but remember (you know
well) whom you leave shackled by love
If you forget me
think
of our gifts to Aphrodite
and all the loveliness that we shared
all the violet tiaras,
braided rosebuds, dill and
crocus twined around your young neck
myrrh poured on your head
and on soft mats girls with
all that they most wished for beside them
while no voices chanted
choruses without ours,
no woodlot bloomed in spring without song...
--Translated by Mary Barnard
Please
Come back to me
Gongyla
here tonight
You
my rose
with your Lydian lyre.
There hovers forever around you delight:
A beauty desired.
Even your garment plunders my eyes.
I am enchanted: I who once
Complained to the Cyprus-born goddess
Whom I now beseech
Never to let this lose me grace
But rather bring you back to me:
Amongst all mortal women the one
I most wish to see.
--Translated by Paul Roche
On the throne of many hues Immortal Aphrodite
On the throne of many hues
Immortal Aphrodite
child of Zeus
weaving wiles--I beg you
not to subdue my spirit
Queen
with pain or sorrow
but come--if ever before
having heard my voice from far away
you listened
and leaving your father's
golden home you came
in your chariot yoked with swift
lovely
sparrows bringing you over the dark earth
thick-feathered wings swirling down
from the sky through mid-air
arriving quickly--you
Blessed One
with a smile on your unaging face
asking again what have I suffered
and why am I calling again
and in my wild heart what did I most wish
to happen to me: "Again whom must I persuade
back into the harness of your love?
Sappho
who wrongs you?
For if she flees
soon she'll pursue
she doesn't accept gifts
but she'll give
if not now loving
soon she'll love
even against her will."
Come to me now again
release me from
this pain
everything my spirit longs
to have fulfilled
fulfill
and you
be my ally
--Translated by Diane Rayor
To Andromeda
That country girl has witched your wishes
all dressed up in her country clothes
and she hasn't got the sense
to hitch her rags above her ankles.
--Translated by Jim Powell
Some an army of horsemen some an army on foot
Some an army of horsemen
some an army on foot
and some say a fleet of ships is the loveliest sight
on this dark earth; but I say it is what-
ever you desire:
and it it possible to make this perfectly clear
to all; for the woman who far surpassed all others
in her beauty
Helen
left her husband --
the best of all men --
behind and sailed far away to Troy; she did not spare
a single thought for her child nor for her dear parents
but [the goddess of love] led her astray
[to desire...]
[...which]
reminds me now of Anactoria
although far away
--Translated by Josephine Balmer
To Atthis
Though in Sardis now
she things 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
Many
many scholars have studied the life and works of Sappho; this list presents only a sample of recent work.
Sappho
biography and translated fragments
Sappho
short biography and several fragments
Sappho
Sappho
translated by Mary Barnard (Berkeley: University of California Press
1958)
Sappho
The Love Songs of Sappho
translated by Paul Roche (New York: Penguin Books
1966
1991)
Eva Cantarella
Pandora's Daughters: The Role and Status of Women in Green and Roman Antiquity (Baltimore: John Hopkins
1987)
Judy Grahn
The Highest Apple: Sappho and the Lesbian Poetic Tradition (San Francisco: Spinsters
Ink
1985)
Edith Mora
excerpt from Sappho -- The Story of a Poet (Flammarion
1966)
Diane Rayor
Sappho's Lyre: Archaic Lyric and Women Poets of Ancient Greece
translated by Diane Rayor (Berkeley: University of California Press
1991)
Leah Rissman
Love as War: Homeric Allusion in the Poetry of Sappho (Konigstein: Verlag Anton Hain
1983)
David M. Robinson
Sappho and Her Influence (Boston: Marshall Jones
1924)
Jane McIntosh Snyder
The Woman and the Lyre: Women Writers in Classical Greece and Rome (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press
1989)