[149, 151]
In a Dream
In a dream I talked with you born in Kypros
[134]
Dream
O dream on black wings
you stray here when sleep
sweet god, I am in agony
to split all its power
for I expect not to share.
Nothing of the blessed gods
I would rather not be like this
with trinkets
but may
I have them all
[63]
Innocence
I am not of a wounding spirit
rather I have a gentle heart
[120]
Clear Voiced
I will go
hear
harmony
dance choir
clear voiced
to all
[70 (lines 3, 7, 9–11, 13)]
Dew
Afroditi
soft-worded desires
hurl
holding
a seat
flourishing
lovely
dew
[73a]
Face
Now in my
heart I
see clearly
a beautiful
face
shining back on me,
stained
with love
[4]
AGE AND LIGHT
Old Man
Rich
like listening to
an old man
[85]
Gods
Among gods
right off
the one
who sheds
no tears
[139]
Angry with Her Daughter When She Psapfo Was Dying
It is not right in a house serving the Muses
to have mourning. For us it is unbecoming.
[150]
Old Age
In pity
and
trembling
old age now
covers my flesh.
Yet there is chasing and floating
after a young woman.
Pick up your lyre
and sing to us
of one with violets
on her robe, especially
wandering
[21]
No Oblivion
Someone, I tell you, in another time,
will remember us.
[147]
To Hermis Who Guides the Dead
Gongyla
surely a sign
especially for children
who came here
I said, O master by the blessed
Afroditi I swear I take no pleasure
in being on the earth
but a longing seizes me to die
and see the dewy
lotus banks of the Aheron
[95]
To a Woman of No Education
When you lie dead no one will remember
or long for you later. You do not share the roses
of Pieria. Unseen here and in the house of Hades,
flown away, you will flitter among dim corpses.
[55]
Menelaos
He lies received in the black earth,
a son of Atreus,
released now from his agony.
[27 INCERT. (1)]
Wish
Both distress and good health
My children, let me fly back
youth.
[18b, c INCERT.]
Age and the Bed
Really, if you are my friend,
choose a younger bed
I can’t bear to live with you
when I am the older
[121]
Afroditi to Psapfo
Andromeda
forgot
but Psapfo
I loved you
In Kypros I am queen
for you a power
as sun blazes
glory everywhere;
even by the Aheron I am with you
[65]
Growing Old
(Translated by Willis Barnstone and William McCulloh.)
Those lovely gifts of the fragrant-breasted Muses,
girls, seek them eagerly in thrilling song of the lyre.
Old age has grasped my earlier delicate skin
and my black hair has become white,
my spirit turned heavy, my knees no longer
carry me nimble for dancing like a fawn.
About these things I groan. What can I do?
For a human not to grow old is impossible.
They say Dawn, dazzled by love, took Tithonos
in her rose arms to the utter end of the earth.
Once beautiful and young, time seized him
into gray old age, husband of a deathless wife.
[58b]
Desire and Sun
Yet I love refinement and Eros has got me
brightness and the beauty of the sun.
[58c (lines 25–26)]
INDIRECT POEMS
Death Is Evil
Death is evil. So the gods decided.
Otherwise they would die.
ARISTOTLE, RHETORIC 1398B
[201]
Gold
Gold is indestructible.
SCHOLIAST ON PINDAR’S
PYTHIAN ODES 4.410c
(II.153 DRACHMANN)
[204]
ELEGIAC POEMS FROM THE Greek Anthology WRONGLY ATTRIBUTED TO SAPPHO
On Pelagon
Pelagon the fisherman. His father Meniskos left here
his basket and oar, relics of a wretched life.
[159 DIEHL]
On Timas
Here is the dust of Timas who unmarried
was led into Persefoni’s dark bedroom,
and when she died her girlfriends took sharp
iron knives and cut off their soft hair.
[158 DIEHL]
TESTIMONIA AND ENCOMIA
TESTIMONIA, FROM THE plural of the Latin testimonium, refers to the extant biographical, critical, and literary references to Sappho in Greek and Latin antiquity. Except for the famous line to Sappho by her contemporary Lesbian poet Alkaios, “O violet-haired, holy, honeysmiling Sappho,” the earliest testimonia date from no earlier than a century after Sappho’s death.
Biographical Information and Information Said to Be in Sappho’s Poems
Sappho was born on Lesbos and lived in the city of Mytilini. Her father was Skamandros, or according to some, Skamandronymos. She had three brothers, Eurygios, Larihos, and Haraxos, the oldest, who sailed to Egypt and became the lover of Doriha, on whom he spent much money. Since Larihos was the youngest, Sappho loved him most. She had a daughter named Kleis who was named after Sappho’s mother. She was accused by some writers of being irregular in her way of life and a woman-lover. In appearance she seems to have been contemptible and ugly. [Socrates called her “the beautiful Sappho.”] She had a dark complexion and was very short. The same is true of . . . [Alkaios?], who was smallish. . . . She used the Aiolic dialect . . . wrote nine books of lyric poetry and one of elegiac forms.
Papyri Oxyrhynchus 1800 frag. 1
Sappho was the daughter of Simon or Euminos or Ierigyios or Ekrytos or Simos or Kamon or Etarhos or Skamandronymos. Her mother was Kleis. A Lesbian from Eressos and a lyric poet, she lived in the forty-second Olympiad [612–608 B.C.E.], when Alkaios, Stisihoros and Pittakos were also alive. She had three brothers, Larihos, Haraxos, and Eurygios. She married Kerkylas, a very rich man from Andros, and had a daughter by him named Kleis. She had three companions and friends, Atthis, Telesippa, and Megara, and she was slandered for having a shameful friendship with them. Her students were Anagora of Militos, Gongyla of Kolofon, and Euneika of Salamis. She wrote nine books of lyric poetry and invented the plectrum (pick) for playing the lyre. She also wrote epigrams, elegaics, iambic poems, and monodies.
The Suda Lexicon 107a (4.3
22S ADLER)
The poet Sappho, daughter of Skamandronymos. Even Plato, son of Ariston, calls her wise and skillful. I understand that there was also another Sappho of Lesbos who was a courtesan, not a poet.
Ailios Aristides Historical Miscellanies 12.19 (P. 135 DILTS)
The beautiful Sappho. Socrates liked to call her this because of the beauty of her song, although she was small and dark.
Maximus of Tyre, Orations 24(18)7
Physically, Sappho was very ugly, small and dark, and one can only describe her as a nightingale with deformed wings enfolding a tiny body.
Scholiast on Lucian’s Portraits 18
From the time Sappho sailed from Mytilini to Sicily when she was exiled in the years . . . [605/4–591—perhaps for the second time]. This was when Kritias was the archon at Athens and during the rule of the Gamori [landowners] at Syracuse [598 B.C.E.].
Parian Marble Chronicle EP. 36 (P. 12 JACOBY)
Sappho was a Lesbian from Mytilini and a lyre player. She threw herself down from the Leukadian Cliff out of love for Phaon of Mytilini. Some say that she composed poetry.
The Suda Lexicon 107 (iv 322 Adler)
You are a Phaon both in beauty and deeds. This proverb is used for those who are handsome and proud. They say that Sappho, among many others, was in love with Phaon, but she was not the poet Sappho but another Lesbian, who, having failed in winning his love, leaped from the Leukadian Cliff.
The Suda Lexicon: Phaon
Phaon, a ferryman who made his living sailing back and forth between Lesbos and the mainland, one day took Venus, in the guise of an old woman, over for nothing. She gave him an alabaster box of unguents, which he used daily to make women fall in love with him. Among them was one who in her frustration was said to have jumped from Mount Leukates, and from this story came the present custom of hiring people once a year to jump into the sea from that place.
Servius on Virgil’s Aeneid 10.452
The island of Leukas has the temple of Apollo Leukates and a ledge for a leap from which one can cure love. Menandros says,
Sappho was the first to leap from the prominent rock
in her madly amorous pursuit of the proud Phaon.
But now by my vow, I shall praise your sacred
precinct on the Leukadian Cliff, O Lord Apollo.
Although Menandros assigns Sappho priority in jumping, the more skilled authorities say it was Kephalos who was in love with Pterelas, son of Deioneus. It was an annual custom of the Leukadians to throw some guilty person from the cliff during the sacrifice to Apollo in order to avert evil; they tied all kinds of birds and winged creatures to him so that they might brake his fall by their fluttering, and a large crowd waited for him underneath in small boats to save him, if possible, in that area outside the sacred precinct.
Strabon Geography 10.2.9 (2.348 KRAMER)
It is said that this pyramid was built by her lovers as a tomb for a prostitute who is called Doriha by the lyric poet Sappho. She became the mistress of Sappho’s brother Haraxos when he visited Naukratis with a cargo of Lesbian wine; others call her Rodopis.
Strabon Geography 17.1.33 (3.379 KRAMER)
Rodopis was brought to Egypt by Xanthous the Samian to ply her trade, and Haraxos of Mytilini, son of Skamandronymos and brother of the poet Sappho, paid a large sum to redeem her from slavery. It seems that Naukratis must be a good place for beautiful prostitutes, for not only did Rodopis live there and become so famous that every Greek was familiar with her name. . . . When Haraxos returned to Mytilini after setting Rodopis free, he was ridiculed by Sappho in one of her poems.
Herodotos Histories 2.135
What else could one call the Lesbian’s love but that which Socrates practiced. Both seem to me to have practiced love in their own way, she of women, he of men, and both said that they could fall in love many times and all beautiful people attracted them. What Alkibiadis, Harmides, and Phaidros were to him, Gyrinna, Atthis, and Anaktoria were to her; and what his rival philosophers Prodikos, Gorgias, Thrasymahos, and Protagoras were to Socrates, so Gorgo and Andromeda were to Sappho, who sometimes rebuked them, at others refuted them and spoke ironically to them just as Socrates did to his rivals. [See Sources 155.]
Maximus of Tyre Orations 24.18.9 (p. 230s HOBEIN)
The grammarian Didymus wrote four thousand books. I would pity anyone who simply had to read so many supremely empty works. Among his books he inquires about the birthplace of Homer, the real mother of Aeneas, whether Anakreon was more of a lecher than a drunkard, whether Sappho was a prostitute, and other things which you ought to forget if you knew them. And then people complain that life is short.
Seneca Letters to Lucilius EP. 88
Sappho sang many contradictory things about Eros.
Pausanias Description of Greece 9.27.3
Menaichmos of Sikyon in his Treatise on Artists declares that Sappho was the first to use the pectis [a kind of lyre], which he says is the same as the magadis [an instrument with twenty strings].
Athinaios Scholars at Dinner 14.635B (3.401 KAIBEL)
[She was called] “manly Sappho,” either because she was famous as a poet, an art in which men are known, or else because she has been defamed for being of that tribe [of homosexuals].
Porphyrio, in Horace’s Epistles 1.19.28 (P. 362 HOLDER)
Encomia and Other Comments
The sweet glory of the Lesbians.
Lucian Loves 30
A contemporary of Pittakos and Alkaios was Sappho—a marvel. In all the centuries since history began, I know of no woman who in any true sense can be said to rival her as a poet.
Strabon Geography 13.2.3 (3.65s KRAMER)
One evening, while drinking wine, the nephew of Solon the Athenian sang one of Sappho’s songs, and Solon liked it so much that he ordered the boy to teach it to him. When one of the company asked why he was learning it, he answered, “I want to learn it and die.”
Stobaios Anthology 3.29.58 (3.638S. WACHSMUTH-HENSE)
Everybody honors the wise. The Parians honored Archilochos despite his slanderous tongue, the Chians honored Homer though he was not a Chian, and the Mytilinians honored Sappho although she was a woman.
Aristotle Rhetoric 1398B
“Don’t you see,” he said, “what charm the songs of Sappho have to hold the listeners spellbound?”
Plutarch Pythian Oracles 6
It is fitting to mention Sappho along with the Muses. The Romans speak of how Kakos, son of Hefaistos, let fire and flames flow out of his mouth. And Sappho’s words are truly mixed with fire, and through her songs she brings out her heart’s warmth, and according to Philoxenos heals the pain of love with the sweet-voiced Muses.
Plutarch Dialogue in Love 18
The Mytilinians engraved Sappho on their coins.
Pollux Vocabulary 9.84
Literary Criticism
The polished and florid composition has the following characteristics. . . . It would be pertinent for me to enumerate the people who excelled in it. Among the epic poets Hesiod seems to me to have best worked out this style; and among the lyrical poets, Sappho, and with her, Anakreon and Simonides; among the tragic poets, only Euripides; among the historians, no one, to be exact, but Ephoros and Theopompos somewhat more than the others; among the orators, Isokratis. I shall now give examples of this style, selecting Sappho among the poets and Isokratis among the orators. I begin with the lyric poet: [There follows the complete poem “Prayer to Afroditi.”] The euphony and charm of this passage lie in the cohesion and smoothness of the connecting phrases. For the words are juxtaposed and interwoven according to the natural affinities and unions of the letters.
Dionysios of Halikarnassos On Literary Composition 23
For example, Sappho takes the emotions appropriate to the passion of love from true life. And she shows her virtue when she takes the best and most excellent events and expertly selects and combines them. [There follows the poem “Seizure.”] Is it not wonderful how simultaneously she
summons the soul, body, hearing, tongue, sight, flesh, all as separate things distinct from herself, and by contrary elements, she both freezes and burns, is mad and sane; she is afraid or she is nearly dead; thus not only one passion is evident but a whole assembly of emotions; for all of these things happen to lovers, and her taking the best of the emotions, as I said, and joining them together, produces the excellence of this passage.
Longinos On the Sublime 10
Hymns of invocation are like most of the hymns of Sappho [such as “Prayer to Afroditi,” 1], Anakreon, or other poets, and contain invocations of many deities . . . The poetic hymns of invocation are long. They can summon the gods from many places, as we find in Sappho and Alkman: The poets summon Artemis from many mountains, many cities, and from rivers too, and Afroditi from Kypros (Cyprus), Knidos, Syria, and many other places. And they can also describe the places themselves: in the instance of rivers, the water and the banks, the near meadows and dances performed by the rivers, and so on. Similarly, if they call them from their temples, they must be long hymns of invocation.
Menandros On Oratorical Apology
(9.132, 135S. WALZ; 3.333, 334S. SPENGEL)
If we compare Sappho’s poems with Anakreon’s or the Sibyl’s oracles with the prophet Bakis, then it is clear that the art of poetry or of prophecy is not one art practiced by men and another art when practiced by women. It is the same. Can anyone protest this conclusion?
Plutarch Virtues of Women 243 (2.226 NACHSTÄDT)
The rites of Afroditi were left [by other poets] alone to the Lesbian Sappho for singing to the lyre and composing the epithalamium. After contests among the suitors, she enters the bridal room, weaves the bower, makes the bridal bed, gathers the virgins into the bridal chamber, and brings Afroditi in her chariot drawn by Graces and a band of Eroses to join in the fun. She braids Afroditi’s hair with hyacinth, and except for the locks parted at the forehead, she leaves the rest free to float and ripple in the breezes. Then she adorns the wings and the curls of the Eroses with gold, and urges them on before the chariot, waving their torches in the air.
The Complete Poems of Sappho Page 7