What do you think?
Rate this book
416 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 551
someone will remember us
i say
even in another time
(137) I want to say something but shame
prevents me
yet if you had a desire for good or beautiful things
and your tongue were not concocting some evil to say
shame would not hold down your eyes
but rather you would speak about what is just
for when I look at you, even a moment, no speaking.
is left in me
no: tongue breaks and thin
fire is racing under skin
and in eyes no sight and drumming
fills ears
]noble
]taking
]sing to us
the one with violets in her lap
]mostly
]goes astray
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.
For her dress when you saw it
Stirred you. And I rejoice.
In fact she herself once blamed me
Kryptageneia
because I prayed
this word:
I want
Their heart grew cold
they let their wings down
Ερος δαὖτέ μ' ὀ λυσιμέλης δόνει,This is the famous ‘sweetbitter’ fragment. Dr. Carson renders the fragment thusly:
γλυκύπικρον ἀμάχανον ὄρπετον
Eros the melter of limbs (now again) stirs meThe literal translation would be something like:
Sweetbitter unmanageable creature who steals in
Eros | this, again | me | limb-relaxing¹ | shakes, | bittersweet | inexorable² | serpent³This is entirely a stylistic preference, but I don’t care for how Dr. Carson phrases this fragment, or really most of them; I appreciate that Dr. Carson includes the original Greek alongside her translations, and doubly that she includes the line breaks and gaps in the fragments. Unfortunately the primary audience for her translation—teenagers on social media who think The Song of Achilles is the pinnacle of historical fiction—does not read Ancient Greek. (My own translation would be, roughly: “Eros, limb-loosening, shakes me again, / that bittersweet indomitable creature.”)
may you sleep on the breast of your delicate friendThe original:
δαύοις⁴ ἀπάλας ἐτάρας ἐν στήθεσινWord-for-word translation:
(you) sleep | soft | companion | in, on | breastI actually really like this translation, with one minor disagreement: ‘friend’ is, in my opinion, too vague a translation of ἑταῖρος; it more commonly referred to a companion, comrade, or fellow soldier or worker.⁵ (Compare Jim Powell’s translation: “May you sleep upon your gentle companion’s breast.”)
“Sappho was also a poet. There is a fifth century hydria in the National Museum of Athens that depicts Sappho, identified by name, reading from a papyrus. This is an ideal image; whether or not she herself was literate is unknown. But it seems likely that the words to her songs were written down during or soon after her lifetime and existed on papyrus rolls by the end of the fifth century B.C. On a papyrus roll the text is written in columns, without word division, punctuation or lineation. To read such a text is hard even when it comes to us in its entirety and most papyri don’t. Of the nine books of lyrics that Sappho is said to have composed, one poem has survived complete. All the rest are fragments.”
Eros shook myand
mind like a mountain wind falling on oak trees
you burn me
for as long as you wantor
] ] ]Does your mind race? And this
]goatherd ]longing ]sweat
] ] ]
]roses ]
]
]
]and
]
]
]
robe
and
colored with saffron
purple robe
cloaks
crowns
beautiful
]
purple
rugs
]
]
]Dawn with gold sandals
someone will remember usSappho was a “honeyvoiced…mythweaver,”
I say
even in another time
]nectar poured from
gold
]with hands Persuasion
for it is not right in a house of the Muses
that there be a lament
this would not become us
for when I look at you, even a moment, no speaking is left in me
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