If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho

171

paingiver

164

she summons her son

μήτε μοι μέλι μήτε μέλισσα
(mēte moi meli mēte melissa)

]
here to me from Krete to this holy temple
where is your graceful grove
of apple trees and altars smoking
      with frankincense.

And it in cold water makes a clear sound through
apple branches and with roses the whole place
is shadowed and down from radiant-shaking leaves
      sleep comes dropping.

Leave Crete and sweep to this blest temple
Where apple-orchard's elegance
Is yours, and smouldering altars, ample
Frankincense.

Here under boughs a bracing spring
Percolates, roses without number
Umber the earth and, rustling,
The leaves drip slumber.

andneitherany[]norany
holyplacenor
wastherefromwhichwewereabsent

nogrove[]nodance
]nosound
[

someonewillrememberus
Isay
eveninanothertime

and neither any[   ]nor any
holy place nor
was there from which we were absent

no grove[     ]no dance
              ]no sound
              [

someone will remember us
                          I say
                          even in another time

98a.3 “ornament” or “good order” ( kosmos = English “cosmos”): a word that implies all sorts of order, from the arrangement of planets in the sky at night to the style with which an individual wears her hat. In the language of politics, kosmos means the constitution or good government of a city. In the language of cosmology, kosmos means the entire, perfect, ordered universe. According to one ancient

98a.3 “ornament” or “good order” ( kosmos = English “cosmos”): a word that implies all sorts of order, from the arrangement of planets in the sky at night to the style with which an individual wears her hat. In the language of politics, kosmos means the constitution or good government of a city. In the language of cosmology, kosmos means the entire, perfect, ordered universe. According to one ancient cosmology, cosmos was first assembled out of chaos, when Zeus threw a veil over the head of the goddess of the underworld, Chthonie, and married her. So Pherekydes tells us, and he goes on to describe the veil, on which were embroidered earth, ocean and the houses of ocean—that is to say, the contours of the civilized world. Once veiled by her bridegroom, the dark and formless chthonic goddess was transformed and renamed Ge, goddess of the visible world, decorous and productive wife of Zeus (Pherekydes frr. 50-4 Diels). Pherekydes and Sappho are both drawing upon a vestiary code that regulates female decency in the ancient world. The head is its focus. Headgear is crucial to female honor, an index of sexual purity and civilized status. No decent woman should be seen in public wihout her headdress; only prostitutes and maenads run about unveiled. When Sappho regrets she cannot cover her daughter's head properly she is recording a personal chaos that extends from the boundaries of the body to the edge of civility—the edge where it all leaks away. See also fr. 81b (above) where Sappho says the Graces despise a woman whose head is without a crown. We might note in passing that the most common Greek word for what veils a female head is kredemnon , whose symbolic force can be read from its threefold usage. Properly signifying a woman's “headbinder,” kredemnon is also used to mean “battlements of a city” and “stopper of a bottle.” It is plain what these three have in common. A corked bottle, a fortified city, a veiled woman are vessels sealed against dirt and loss. To put the lid on certifies purity.