The Complete Poems of Sappho

by Willis Barnstone

  95 Papyri Berlin 9722 fol. 2; Berliner Klassikertexte 5.2, p. 14s.

  Sappho is probably responding to Gongyla, whose name appears as the only word in line 1 of the extant papyrus. It is uncertain whom (or what) the sign may refer to in line 2 of the translation. The remaining lines of the fragment hang together. Letters are missing from his name, but Hermis is probably invoked here. His name appears in full in fragment 141. Hermis guides the dead to the underworld.

  96 (lines 1–20) Papyri Berlin 9722 fol. 5; Berliner Klassikertexte 5.2, p. 15ss + Lobel, p. 80.

  It is presumed that this poem is addressed to Atthis. It has the outstanding qualities of fragment 94. It is not known who the “us” and “you” and “she” are. One can speculate that the “you” is Atthis, and that the “she” is Anaktoria, because Anaktoria was away in Sardis. Yet the names may be reversed or none names may be her intention, which can only be known if more of the text is discovered. In this mingling of Sappho and her friends, Sappho is the one who craves one who is far and one who is shining, and there is an impossible triangle of love, typically Sapphic.

  A fascinating analysis of fragment 96 appears in Denys Page’s Sappho and Alcaeus, in which the ungenerous master Greek scholar attacks Sappho’s word and person. Page’s introductory study of “the contents and character of Sappho’s poetry” is a modern if not wholly felicitous milestone after centuries of awesome praise and foolish tactics for disguising the poet’s overt love for other women. With flowing élan, authority, and cynicism he examines twelve poems. Page essentially rejects all earlier attempts to find important symbolic meaning in the poet’s words. He contends that it is a “straightforward, simple poem without profundity or memorable language” (Page, p. 95). Fragment 96 has fared better with later commentators, who see passionate and luminously subtle lines in one of our major surviving ancient lyrics.

  96 (lines 21–37 in Campbell 96).

  See previous note on 96 for source. This fragment may be a separate poem or a later part of 96. It is placed here as a companion poem to others on Sappho’s gods and goddesses. While the fragment does not continue the great sweep of the love triangle in 96, it is a powerful statement on its own, bringing in Adonis and Afroditi in words made evocatively mysterious by the chance remnants of a mutilated papyrus. Though very fragmentary, it is too beautiful to be discarded as another unintelligible cache of Sappho’s words.

  98a Papyri Haun. 301.

  In this intimate domestic poem addressed to her daughter, Kleis, Sappho contrasts an artificial adornment with the natural, inexpensive ornament of a wreath of fresh flowers, which is more appropriate for one with light hair. It was necessary for a respectable woman to wear some kind of headgear.

  98b Papyri Mediol. ed. Vogliano, Philol. 93 (1939) 277ss.

  Another reference to Kleis’s blond hair here in fragment 98b, a poem of exile, when an elaborate headband was probably more than Sappho could afford. Sappho and her family were apparently in exile around 600 B.C.E. The poem recalls the days when the Mytilinian ruler Myrsilos (who probably caused the exile of Sappho’s family) may have been the tyrant of Lesbos. Headbands seem to be reminders of an island past not available because of banishment. The Kleanaktidai were of a family of rulers of Mytilini during Sappho’s lifetime.

  100 Pollux Vocabulary 7.73 (2.73 Bethe).

  “In Book 5 of Sappho’s lyric poem we find [line follows], which means that the material was of close-woven linen.”

  101 Athinaios Scholars at Dinner 9.410e (2.395 Kaibel).

  “When Sappho in Book 5 of her Lyric poems says to Afroditi, [poem follows], she means the handkerchief as an adornment for the head, as indicated also by Hekataios, or some other writer, in the book entitled Guide to Asia where he writes: ‘Women wear handkerchiefs on their heads.’”

  The reading is difficult. J. M. Edmonds gratuitously inserts Timas as the giftgiver mentioned in the third line. Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff and Diehl find Mnasis in the poem. Page finds no specific friend mentioned at all. More recently, David A. Campbell also finds Mnasis in the jumble of letters that comprise the first word of line three. Though using “she” for the unknown friend would be safer, with uncertainty I follow in favor of Mnasis. One intertextual reason, perhaps a folly, on the side of Mnasis is that fragment 82a brings in Mnasidika, who may be the same Mnasis sending gifts in 101.

  101a Voigt (Sappho) or 347a, line 3, and 347b LP (Alkaios) Dimitrios On Style 142 (p. 33 Radermacher).

  “There are many examples of literary grace. Such grace may be due to the choice of words or metaphor, as in the lines about the cicada.”

  Lobel and Page assign the poem to Alkaios, while Voigt, in her reliable, recent edition of Sappho, assigns the fragment to Sappho. Older scholars attributed the fragment to Sappho, including the very early Heinrich Ludolf Ahrens and U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, but as Denys Page points out in Sappho and Alcaeus (p. 303), these lines also appear in a longer, more resolved poem by Alkaios, which is itself an imitation of a passage in Hesiod’s Works and Days. Page reasons that it is too much to suppose that both poets imitated Hesiod. Yet how do we know what these friends did? While the first two lines seem like typical Alkaian drinking songs, the next three are deeply Sapphic. And so, again, whoever is right about attribution, one camp or another, I think these haunting lines deserve their place among the fragments. Here is the longer poem 347a by Alkaios:

  Summer Star

  Wash your gullet with wine for the dogstar returns

  with the heat of summer searing a thirsting earth.

  The cicadas cry softly under high leaves, and pour down

  shrill song incessantly from under their wings

  the artichoke is in flower. Women are poisonous, men

  feeble, since the dogstar parches their heads and knees . . . 2

  102 Hefaistion Handbook of Meters 10.5.

  “The antispastic tetrameter catalectic is also common, in which only the second unit is antispastic, a meter in which Sappho wrote her songs at the end of Book 7: [verse follows].”

  The speaker in the poem seems to be stricken by desire for a young man. Afroditi, who caused the desire, is also brought in for her slender beauty.

  103 Papyri Oxyrhynchus 2294.

  This fragment consists of a list of first lines of poems by Sappho. In the Greek, therefore, they do not constitute one continuous poem.

  103b Papyri Oxyrhynchus 2308 Voigt; incert. 26 LP.

  103C a, b Voigt (lines 2, 4, 5, 7, 10, 12) with 214 Campbell (frag. 4, line 3). Papyri Oxyrhynchus 2357.

  104a Dimitrios On Style 141 (p. 33 Radermacher).

  “Sappho also creates charm from the use of anaphora, as in this on the Evening Star: [her lines follow]. Here the charm lies in the repetition of the word ‘bring.’”

  The Evening Star, son of Astraios or Kephalos or Atlas and Eos (Dawn), and father of the Hesperides.

  Many poets have imitated this fragment, from Catullus’s poem 62 (lines 20–37) to Byron in Don Juan, canto 3, stanza 107:

  O Hesperus, thou bringest all good things—

  Home to the weary, to the hungry cheer,

  To the young bird the parent’s brooding wings,

  The welcome stall to the o’erlaboured steer;

  Whate’er of peace about our hearthstone clings,

  Whate’er our household gods protect of dear,

  Are gathered round us by thy look of rest;

  Thou bring’st the child too to its mother’s breast.

  104b Himerios Declamations 46.8 (p. 188 Colonna).

  “This song to Hesperos is by Sappho.”

  105a, c Syrianos on Hermogenis’ On Kinds of Style 1.1 (Rabe).

  “Some kinds of style have to do with one kind of thought only. . . . Others . . . express things pleasing to the senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch, such as Sappho’s [verse follows].”

  Himerios Declamations 9–16.

  “Sappho compared a virgin girl to an apple, not allowing those who
would pluck it before its time even to touch it with their fingertips, but he who would pick it in the right season might watch its beauty grow; she compared the bridegroom to Achilles and his deeds to the hero’s.”

  Dimitrios On Style 106 (p. 26 Radermacher).

  “The epiphonema, as it is called, may be considered as a phrase that adds adornment, and elevates style. . . . For example, the sense is intensified by such a phrase as “like a hyacinth” . . . , while it is adorned by the succeeding words “and on the earth the purple flower.’ ”

  Sappho’s words are echoed in Catullus 11.21–24, and Virgil Aeneid 9.435.

  106 Dimitrios On Style 146.

  “Of this outstanding man Sappho says: [verse follows].”

  108 Himerios Orations 9.19 (p. 84 Colonna). Voigt.

  Himerios the rhetorician writes, “Then come and we will lead him into the bedroom and urge him to gaze on the beauty of the virgin bride. [Verse follows.] The praises of the Lesbian woman befit you.”

  110 Hefaistion Handbook of Meters 7.6. (p. 23 Consbruch).

  “The Aiolic dactylic tetrameter catalectic: [verse follows].”

  Synesios Letters 3.158d.

  “The man who is wronged is Harmonios, the father of the head doorkeeper, who, as Sappho would say (though in other respects he lived soberly and honestly), claimed to be better born than Kekrops himself.”

  Dimitrios On Style 167 (p. 37 Radermacher).

  “In a different way Sappho ridicules the rustic groom and the doorkeeper at the wedding, using prosaic rather than poetic language.”

  Elsewhere the second-century scholar Pollux says that the doorkeeper kept the bride’s friends from rescuing her.

  111 Hefaistion On Poems 7.1 (p. 70 Consbruch); Dimitrios On Style 148 (p. 34 Radermacher). Voigt.

  “When the refrain occurs not after a stanza but after a line and is followed by another line, it is called a ‘mesymnion,’ a ‘central refrain,’ as for example in Sappho: [verse follows].”

  There is a charm peculiarly Sapphic in its way when having said something, she changes her mind, as if interrupting herself because she has resorted to an impossible hyperbole, for no one really is as tall as Aris. Some scholars and translators add a last line, which repeats the refrain “Hymenaios!.” J. D. Salinger’s brief novel, Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction, took its title from the first line of Sappho’s lyric poem 111.

  112 Hefaistion Handbook of Meters 15.26 (p. 55s Consbruch).

  “The same poet uses the 3 1/2-foot choriambic with an iambic close: [verse follows].”

  113 Dionysios of Halikarnassos On Literary Composition 25 (6.127s Usener-Radermacher).

  “A Sapphic wedding song.”

  114 Dimitrios On Style 140 (p. 33 Radermacher).

  “The graces that arise from the use of figures of speech are many and clear in Sappho as for example, when a bride addresses virginity and, using the same figure, her virginity replies. [Verse follows.]”

  115 Hefaistion Handbook of Meters 7.6. (p. 23 Consbruch).

  “And the Aiolic dactylic pentameters, catalectic with a disyllabic ending.”

  118 Hermogenis On Kinds of Oratory; 2.4 (p. 334 Rabe).

  “The assignment of something deliberately chosen with respect to things that do not have the power of deliberate choice produces a sweet effect . . . as when Sappho questions her lyre and the lyre answers her: [verse follows].”

  120 Etymologicum Magnum 2.43.

  “Bάζω, ‘I say,’ . . . from it comes ᾀβακής, ‘unspeaking,’ ‘quiet,’ ‘gentle,’ which Sappho uses in [verse follows].”

  Catullus has phrases reminiscent of these lines: mellitos oculos (48.1) and Pulcher es, neque to Venus neglegit (61.194).

  121 Stobaios Anthology 4.22.112 (6.543 Wachsmuth-Hense).

  “In marriage it is best that the ages of the partners should be considered. Sappho [verse follows].”

  122 Athinaios Scholars at Dinner 12.554b (3.223 Kaibel).

  “It is natural that those who see beauty and ripeness in themselves should gather flowers. That is why Persefoni and her companions are described as gathering flowers. Sappho says she saw: [verse follows].”

  125 Scholiast on Aristophanes’ Thesmoforiazusai 401 (p. 267 Dübner).

  “The young and people in love wove garlands. Here is a reference to the custom of those women who in old days wore garlands. As in Sappho: [verse follows].”

  126 Etymologicum Gen. (papyri Calame) = Etymologicum Magnum 250.10s.

  “daúo tò koimômai, ‘sleep,’ in Sappho.”

  Herodian says that this word [for sleep] occurs only once in Sappho.

  127 Hefaistion Handbook of Meters 15.25 (p. 55 Consbruch).

  “Sappho composed the line containing two ithyphallics: [verse follows].”

  The “gold house” may be the house of Zeus.

  128 Hefaistion Handbook of Meters 9.2. (p. 30 Consbruch).

  “The choriambic tetrameter, found in longer sequences, as in Sappho’s lines that begin: [verse follows].”

  129a, b Apollonios Dyskolos Pronouns 66.3 (1.66 Schneider).

  “έμεθεν [“of me”] is often used by the Aiolic poets: [verse follows].”

  130 Hefaistion Handbook of Meters 7.7 (p. 23 Consbruch).

  “The Aiolic dactylic tetrameter acatalectic is as follows: [verse follows].”

  Maximus of Tyre, Orations, 18.9 (p. 232 Hobein).

  “Diotima says [in Plato’s Symposium] that Eros flowers in prosperity and dies in want. Sappho put these together and called him ‘sweetbitter.’”

  These two lines may be followed by fragment 131.

  131 Hefaistion Handbook of Meters 7.7 (see ad frag. 130); Plutarch, Dialogue on Love, 751d.

  132 Hefaistion Handbook of Meters 1.5.18 (p. 53s Consbruch).

  The fragment is preceded and followed by prosodic matters, especially concerning meter (four kinds of trochaic dimeters) and the use of caesura.

  It cannot be known what noun should follow “lovely,” but Campbell and others have guessed “Lesbos.”

  133a, b Hefaistion Handbook of Meters 14.7 (p. 46 Consbruch).

  “When the ionic is anaclastic [meaning it has its syllables inverted], it is preceded by an iambic of six or seven short units, giving us: [two lines follow].”

  Lines a and b are probably from the same poem, and line a may have been the first line of that poem. It is not known what verb connected the questioning “why” and Afroditi. Others have guessed “condemn” or “honor” or “neglect” or “summon,” but we have no reasonable basis for this conjecture other than that a word is missing, indicating an intended relationship between Sappho and Afroditi.

  134 Hefaistion Handbook of Meters 12.4 (p. 39 Consbruch).

  “Among ionic a minore acatalectic trimeters is the acatlectic in Sappho’s: [verse follows].”

  The one “born in Kypros” is Afroditi.

  135 Hefaistion Handbook of Meters 12.2 (p. 37s Consbruch).

  “Whole songs are written in ionics, as for example those by Alkman and Sappho: [line follows].”

  Irana (in English, Irene), as well as being a personal name, means “peace.”

  136 Scholiast on Sophocles El. 149 (p. 110 Papageorg).

  “The phrase ‘messenger’ or ‘herald of Zeus’ is used because the nightingale signals the coming of spring. Sappho writes: [line follows].”

  Ben Jonson took from this fragment his line in The Sad Shepherd, act 2: “The dear good angel of the Spring, the Nightingale.” He gave Sappho’s word angelos, herald, or messenger, its later biblical meaning of “angel.”

  137 Aristotle Rhetoric 1367e (p. 47s Römer).

  “We are ashamed of what is shameful, whether it is said, done or intended; compare Sappho’s answer when Alkaios said: ‘I want to speak to you but shame disarms me.’”

  The poem is addressed to the fellow Lesbian poet Alkaios (Alcaeus in Latin), to whom is attributed the line: “Violet-haired, holy, honeysmiling Sapp
ho.” Sappho’s lines are said to be her response. All this is uncertain, though there is little doubt that the rebuke of the poet is indeed by Sappho.

  138 Athinaios Scholars at Dinner 13.56d (3.244 Kaibel).

  “And Sappho also says to the man who is excessively admired for his beauty: [verse follows].”

  139 Philo Papyri Oxyrhynchus 1356 fol. 4a 14ss + Lobel, p. 55.

  “Yielding to the good counsel of the woman poet Sappho concerning the gods.”

  140 Hefaistion Handbook of Meters 10.4 (p. 33 Consbruch).

  “Among antispastic tetrameters the following is the pure form of catalectic line.”

  Kythereia is Afroditi. The verses are probably a dialogue between Afroditi and her worshipers. The lines addressed to Afroditi are probably by worshipers of an Adonis cult. See 168.

  141a, b Athinaios Scholars at Dinner 10.425d (3.425 Kaibel).

  “According to some versions, the wine-bearer of the gods was Harmonia. Alkaios makes Hermis also the wine-bearer, as does Sappho, who says: [verse follows].”

  142 Athinaios Scholars at Dinner 13.571d (3.259s Kaibel).

  “Free women and young girls even today call their intimate and loving friends ἑταίας (hetaira or hetaera, meaning “companions”) as Sappho does: [verse follows].”

  In later Greek, hetaira meant an educated “courtesan” or “mistress.”

  143 Athinaios Scholars at Dinner 2.54f (1.127s Kaibel).

  144 Herodianos On the Declension of Nouns (ap. Aldi Thes. Cornucopia 268; see Choerob. 2.65 43s Hilgard) = cod. Voss. g. 20 (Reitzenstein Gesch. E. 367).

  Gorgo is a rival of Sappho’s.

  146 Tryfon Figures of Speech 25 (Rhet. Gr. 8.760 Walz), Diogenianos Proverbs 6.58 (1.279 Leutsch-schneidewin).

  “[Sappho] said of those who are unwilling to take the bitter with the sweet.”

  The fragment is normally said to reflect the proverb of Diogenianos concerning those not willing to accept the bad with the good, but here she seems to say she chooses neither honey nor the bee.

  147 Dio Chrysoston Discourses 37.47 (2.29 Arnim).