The Complete Poems of Sappho

by Willis Barnstone

  “‘Someone, I tell you, will remember us,’ as Sappho has beautifully said. . . . The lines in brackets derive from Dio Chrysostom’s summary of Sappho’s words. Up to now forgetfulness has tripped and cheated others, but good judgment has not cheated anyone of worth.”

  148 Scholiast on Pindar’s Olympian Odes 2.96f (1.85s Drachmann).

  “The meaning: Wealth when not by itself but embellished by virtue, opportunely enjoys its own benefits and that of virtue [arete], and has a wise concern for the pursuit of the good. Neither of these on its own is welcome.”

  The text is uncertain, and the second line might not be Sappho’s.

  149 Apollonios Dyskolos Pronouns 126b (1.99 Schneider); 151: Etymologicum Genuinum (p. 19 Calame) = Etymologicum Magnum 117.14ss.

  “And σфι [‘to them’] is used in Aiolic with an initial ἄ: [line follows].”

  150 Maximus of Tyre Orations 24.18.9 (p. 232 Hobein).

  “Socrates blazed up in anger with Xanthippe for lamenting when he was near death as Sappho did with her daughter: [poem follows].”

  151 See 149.

  “ἄωος is a lengthened form of ᾦος, which has the same meaning, ‘sleep.’ See Kallimahos (fr. 177.28 Pf.) and Sappho.” See fragment 149.

  152 Scholiast on Apollonios of Rhodes 1.727 (p. 61 Wendel).

  “ἐευθήσσα, ‘red,’ is used instead of πυσσα, ‘flame-colored,’ or ὑπέυθσος, ‘ruddy.’ This is contradictory to Sappho’s description: [verse follows].”

  153 Atilius Fortunatianus. Ars 28 (vi 301 Keil) (de metris Horatii).

  In his comment on a poem by Horace, “Ode 1.8,” beginning Lydia dic per omnes, Atilius Fortunatianus cites this phrase by Sappho.

  154 Hefaistion Handbook of Meters 11.3 (p. 35 Consbruch) (on the ionic a major).

  “And there are brachycatalectic trimeters that are called praxilleans. They have an ionic in the first meter and a trochaic in the second. Compare this example from Sappho: [verse follows].”

  155 Maximus of Tyre Orations 18.9d (p. 231 Hobein).

  “Sometimes she censures them (Gorgo and Andromeda), sometimes she questions them, and just like Socrates she uses irony. Socrates says, [in the opening line of Plato’s Ion,] “Good day to you, Ion,” and Sappho says: [verse follows].”

  156 Dimitrios On Style 161s (p. 37 Radermacher).

  “The charm of comedy lies especially in hyperbole, and each hyperbole is an impossibility . . . such as Sappho’s [verse follows].”

  Dimitrios On Style 127 (p. 30 Radermacher).

  “Sappho’s praise as in ‘More gold than gold’ is certainly a hyperbole and contains an impossibility, but is not without elegance. Moreover, it derives its charm from the impossible. Indeed, the wondrous in holy Sappho is that she uses a device that is hazardous and difficult.”

  Grigorios of Korinthos on Hermogenis Meth. (Rhet. Gr. 7.1236 Walz).

  “The ear is lowly flattered by phrases such as those by Anakreon and Sappho, as in ‘whiter than milk,’ ‘gentler than water,’ ‘more melodious than lyres,’ ‘prouder than a mare,’ ‘more delicate than roses,’ ‘more precious than gold.’”

  Unfortunately, we do not know which of these comparisons are by Anakreon and which by Sappho, yet the statement here in Grigorios is somehow valuable as a lost glint of possibility.

  158 Plutarch On Restraining Anger 7.456e (3.167 Pohlenz-Sieveking).

  “A man who is silent over his wine is boring and vulgar, and in anger there is nothing more dignified than tranquility, as Sappho advises.”

  158 Diehl Greek Anthology 7.489.

  Diehl includes three poems from the Hellenistic period, clearly in imitation of Sappho, though the prosody is of the epigrammatic style of the Greek Anthology, also called the Palantine Anthology. The first of the poems from the Greek Anthology, beginning “Children, I am voiceless,” is not remotely Sappho’s in style and offers nothing about Sappho. Its only connections are the false ascription to Sappho and the mention of Aithopia, who is Artemis in a Lesbian cult.

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

  “Diotima [in Plato’s Symposium] tells Socrates that Eros is not the son but the attendant and servant of Afroditi, and in a poem Afroditi sings to Sappho.”

  159 Diehl Greek Anthology 7.505.

  160 Athinaios Scholars at Dinner 13.571d (see frag. 142).

  See comments on hetaira in note 142.

  161 Papyri Bouriant 8.91ss (column 62ss).

  166 Athinaios Scholars at Dinner 2.57 (1.134 Kaibel).

  “Sappho makes ωόν, ‘egg,’ trisyllabic [ωόιν]: [verse follows].”

  167 Athinaios Scholars at Dinner 2.57d.

  See note on fragment 166.

  168 Marius Plotius Sacerdos Art of Grammar 3.3 (see vi 516 Keil).

  “Sappho invented the adonius or catalectic dimeter, so it is also known as Sapphic. It is monoschematic, since it is always composed of a dactyl and a spondee.” See 140.

  168b Campbell (frag. adesp. 976 P.M.G.); Hefaistion Handbook of Meters 11.5 (on ionic tetrameters acatalectic) (p. 37 Consbruch).

  Although this is one of the two or three best-known poems attributed to Sappho, there is a lot of fuss about whether it is by Sappho, by Alkaios, or by neither, and most recent editors deny her authorship, though it is included in most Greek editions under the epithet of “incert.” Apart from authorship, the poem is a simple yet impeccable example of images of loneliness.

  Earlier scholars, including Arsenius around 1500, said yes, this is Sappho, and then later ones, from Wilamowitz to Lobel and Page, said no. My own thought is that it is quintessential Sappho, whatever the uncertainty of scholarship. I remember a fuming, hilarious letter to me from the formidable pioneer translator of Greek poetry and drama, Dudley Fitts, who was having a fit over this essential poem. So feelings arise.

  I preferred in the translation to follow the Greek word order, placing the Pleiades in the second line, leaving it ambiguous, meaning it may signify that the moon and Pleiades have set, or more likely that the moon has set and suddenly also the Pleiades.

  168c (frag. adesp. 964 P.M.G.); Dimitrios On Style (p. 37 Radermacher).

  “Grace is produced in keeping with ornamentation and by using beautiful words that contribute to it as in [lines follow].”

  The scholar Ulrich von Wilamowitz and Lobel and Page attribute the lines to Sappho. Other modern scholars dissent, but whether Sappho or not, these exquisite lines fit the Sapphic fragments.

  178 Zenobios Proverbs 3.3 (1.58 Leutsch-Schneidewin).

  Zenobios cites the poem and then says:

  “This is a saying used about those who died prematurely, or of those who like children but ruin them by how they bring them up. Gello was a girl. She died prematurely, and Lesbians say that her ghost haunts little children, and they blame premature deaths on her. Sappho mentions her.”

  201 Aristotle Rhetoric 1398b.

  The words are Aristotle’s restatement, how close we cannot know, of Sappho’s words. Aristotle’s words are not originally lineated as two verses in the Greek, but are done so here to match the English.

  204 Scholiast on Pindar, Pythian Odes 4.410c (2.153 Drachmann).

  “Gold is indestructible, Sappho says . . . and Pindar says that gold is the child of Zeus.”

  The second-century geographer and traveler also notes, in Description of Greece 8.18 (2 301 Spiro), “That gold is not corrupted by the rust is confirmed by the Lesbian poet [Sappho] and also proved by the metal itself.”

  1. Willis Barnstone, trans., Sappho and the Greek Lyric Poets (New York: Schocken Books, 1987, p. 33).

  2. Willis Barnstone, trans., Sappho and the Greek Lyric Poets (New York: Schocken Books, 1987, p. 56). The dogstar is not the morning star but the dogstar Syrius that brings the heat and madness of the dog days.

  GLOSSARY

  When numbers appear at the end of an entry, they indicate poems in which the glossary term appears.

  ABANTHIS. Nothing is kn
own of Abanthis. 22.

  ADONIS. A handsome young god of vegetation and fertility. Because of his beauty, both Afroditi and Persefoni (Persephone) coveted young Adonis as a lover. He was identified with the seeding and harvesting of crops and was worshiped especially by women. When Adonis was killed by the tusks of a wild boar, Afroditi and Persefoni each wanted him as her lover. Zeus intervened and assigned him to spend half the year with Afroditi aboveground in the summer months and the other half with Persefoni down in Hades. Other versions give Adonis four months with each of the courting women and four months alone or with his choice companion. Adonis’s death and resurrection were celebrated in festivals in Greece as a symbol of the yearly cycle of vegetation. Some say that the boar that killed Adonis was sent by his lover, the chaste Artemis, or by her lover, Aris, who was jealous of Adonis’s beauty. Each drop of Adonis’s blood turned into a blood red flower, the anemone.

  Adonis as a lord of fertility goes back to Mesopotamian roots, including his worship among the Phrygians as Attis and among the Babylonians as Tammuz. The word adonis means “lord,” a Semitic word found in Aramaic and Hebrew that has entered many Indo-European languages. In the Hebrew Bible adonai means “my lord” and is, along with Yahweh (the tetragrammaton YHWH) and Ha Shem (the name), a name for nameless God. In Spanish, don, from adonis, is a male honorific title, as in Don Quijote, and donaña is a feminine title, as in Doña Perfecta. In Italian, adonis has given us the honorifics donna and donatello (little lord). 140, 168.

  AFRODITI (Aphrodite; Afrodita in Sappho’s Aiolic speech). A goddess of love, beauty, sea, flowers, and fertility. In Homer, Afroditi is the daughter of Zeus and Dioni. She was born in the sea foam (afros) off the shore of Paphos in Kypros (Cyprus), but that froth consisted of blood and semen dropped into the sea after Kronos castrated Ouranos (Uranus), god of the sky. To keep her in check, Zeus compelled the goddess of desire to marry the ugly Hefaistos (Hephestus), the god of fire and the forge, who is Vulcan in Roman mythology. Afroditi was bored with the metalworker. When Hefaistos found her and Aris in a lovers’ embrace, he locked them in an iron net. But from her union with Aris she bore Harmona and, in some versions, also Anteros and Eros. By Hermis she bore Hermafroditos, and by Dionysos she was the mother of phallic Priapos. The Romans inherited a deific past when Zeus caused her to fall in love with the shepherd Anchises, whose offspring was Aeneas, the later Roman hero. Her star affair was with the beautiful youth Adonis, whom Persefoni also desired. Zeus arranged for the jealous goddesses to share Adonis, giving six (or four) months’ possession to each.

  Afroditi had an important cult at Kythereia on Kriti (see poems 2, 86, and 140). She was often accompanied by her son Eros, also a god of love and desire. As a symbol of passion and romantic love, she is a particular ally to Sappho and is mentioned by Sappho in the existing fragments more often than any other deity or person. The complete poem attributed to Sappho (fragment 1) is addressed to Afroditi. Sappho calls her variously Kypris (Cypris), Kyprian (Cyprian), Kypros-born (Cyprus-born), the Pafian (Paphian) of Pafos (Paphos), and Kythereia.

  Earlier, in Mesopotamia, she was Astarte and Ishtar, while in Rome she was Venus. 1; 2; 33; 44; 65; 73a; 87e, f; 95; 96; 101; 102; 112; 133a, b; 159; 168.

  AHERON (Acheron). The river of death running through Hades. It began in Thesprotia, Epeiros, and disappeared underground in places where it was supposed to lead to Hades. Aheron is frequently a synonym of Hades. 95.

  ALKAIOS (Alcaeus). Born about 620 B.C.E. in Mytilini (Lesbos), the poet was a contemporary and possible friend or lover of Sappho’s. He wrote, in the Aiolic (Lesbian) dialect, lyric poems that deal with politics, love, drinking, the sea. The ship-of-state poem, made famous by Horace, is earliest found in the poems of Alkaios. The best-known modern version is Walt Whitman’s “Oh Captain, My Captain,” whose origin goes directly back to Lesbian Alkaios. Alkaios was of an aristocratic family in Lesbos, and when the enemy Pittakos became the tyrant (ruler), Alkaios and his family went into exile. 137.

  ANAKTORIA. One of Sappho’s friends. One theory is that she left Sappho in order to marry and follow her husband to Sardis, where he was probably a soldier. 16.

  ANDROMACHE (Andromáhi). Her name is composed of andros, meaning “man,” and máhi, meaning “battle” or “war.” She was the wife of Hektor, the Trojan hero, who was killed by Achilles. Later the princess widow married Hektor’s brother Helenos, and they ruled jointly in Epeiros (Epirus), present-day northwestern Greece and Albania. Homer is evenhanded in treating Achaians and Trojans, portraying Andromache as a noble figure. Sappho celebrates her, and she is the tragic heroine of plays by Euripides and Racine. 44.

  ANDROMEDA. A rival of Sappho’s; perhaps a poet. 68a; 131; 133a, b.

  APOLLO. Apollo the sun god and his twin sister Artemis the moon god were born in Delos, the children of Zeus and Lito (Leto). He was a god of prophecy, music, medicine, archery. He was also the ideal of young, manly beauty, and connected with philosophy and all the arts. For mystery religions and gnosticism, he was Phoebus, the god of light.

  Apollo’s failed in his attempt to seduce Dafni (Daphne), known as Laura to the Romans. dafni turned herself into a laurel tree (dafni, in Greek) rather than yield to him. He ran off like a lowly hound, as Ovid writes, but fooled himself into believing himself victorious by seizing leaves of the laurel tree and crowning himself with them as a sign of his conquest: hence, the Olympic laurel leaves today signify victory.

  There were many shrines to worship the sun god, the major oracular and athletic one being at Delfi, where the Pythian Games were held in his honor every four years. Apollo is above all identified with perfection, beauty, and art. In this he was the leader of the Muses, directing their choir. His attributes included the lyre (cithara) and plectrum, as well as swans, wolves, dolphins, and bows and arrows. The “far-shooting archer” was one of his titles. He was also a god of prophecy and medicine. In literature his golden-mean qualities are often contrasted to those of his brother Dionysos. In The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche contrasts Dionysian madness and inspiration to Apollonian measure, harmony, and reason.

  Sappho’s poem on the wedding of Andromache and Hektor ends with a thrilling paean, which is a hymn sung to Apollo. Among Apollo’s many epithets were Phoebus and Paean. Sappho called him Paon, the Aiolic form of Paean (Paian). 44.

  ARIS (Ares). Aris, the fierce Olympian war god, was the son of Zeus and Hera, though in one legend he and his twin sister, Eris, were born when Hera touched a flower. He fought gods and mortals. When Poseidon’s son violated Aris’ daughter, Aris killed him. For his crime he was brought to trial and acquitted before a tribunal of twelve Olympians on a hill in Athens, later named for him, the Areiópagos (from Areios págos, the hill of Aris). The station of tribunals and juries was so strong in ancient Greece that even gods were brought before litigious prosecutors. Many later figures bear the name Areopagite, including Dionysios the Areopagite, whom Paul (Shaul) in Acts 17:34 converted on this hill named for the war god.

  In the Iliad, Aris was fighting on the Trojan side. When Hera spotted him, she persuaded Zeus to have him wounded with a spear, after which he retreated to Mount Olympos. The worship of Aris as a god of war was not significant in Greece, but in Rome, as mighty Mars, the cult of the god of power and empire was widespread. 111.

  ARTEMIS. Twin sister of Apollo, the virgin moon goddess of forest and hunt, of healing and childbirth. Artemis’s own birth is a foremost legend. When Hera discovered that her consort Zeus had made Lito (Leto) pregnant, she forbade Lito to bear her children (who would be Artemis and Apollo) on the mainland. The islands were also fearful of accepting the tainted Lito, but the floating island of Delos, treasure-house of Athens, agreed to receive her. Then Zeus secured the island to the sea bottom with four great pillars or, in another version, by means of alabaster chains. The islands floating around Delos, the Cyclades, were called white swans. They were held up by floating turtles. As Artemis’s island, Delos was a holy island, on which no one could be b
orn or die.

  When the hunter Aktaion (Actaeon) discovered Artemis naked and saw her ravishing beauty, she turned him into a wild stag, which his own hounds tore apart and ate. As for the story of the virgin goddess’s love affair with Aris, it is suspect. There were other men whom she was involved with, particularly Orion and Adonis, each of whom met his doom. Artemis’s attribute beasts were the bear and the goat. Her central concern was virginity and the nymphs whom she trained to follow her, yet her representation in sculpture was often intensely sexual. The famous extant temple in Efesos contains a uniquely striking marble sculpture, whose torso is covered by erotic bumps that have been seen as large female nipples or bull testicles.

  Artemis was also associated with the moon goddess Selini (Selene), who in later legend largely replaced her. In Rome Artemis was worshiped as Diana. 44a.

  ATREIDAI (Atreidae). The Atreidai, usually referring to Agamemnon and Menelaos (Menelaus), are the descendants of Atreus. 27 incert.

  ATREUS. Atreus was a king of Mykinai and father of Agamemnon and Menelaos. When his brother Thyestis tricked him into losing his throne, which he could only regain by reversing the track of the sun, he sought the aid of Zeus. Zeus made the sun move backward, and Atreus regained his throne. See also Atreidai.

  ATTHIS. One of Sappho’s friends, treated with deep affection in many poems. Like Anaktoria (q.v.), she leaves Sappho. 49, 96, 131.

  DIKA. Probably short for Mnasidika (q.v.), one of Sappho’s friends. 81.

  DIONYSOS (Dionysius). Also called Bakhos (Bacchus, by the Romans), and Zagreus, the god of Orphism. A god of vegetation, wine, and spiritual ecstasy, he was worshiped with orgiastic rites and often represents the counterpart of Apollonian moderation. Dionysos was also a civilizing figure, a lawgiver, peacemaker, and protector of the theater and the other arts. But his lasting fame was as god of divine imagination and of wild and frenzied creativity.

  In the Olympian tradition, Dionysos was the son of Zeus and Persefoni. He was also said to be the child of Zeus and Semili (Semele). The strange tale of his birth inspired mystery religions centering on this Orphic figure, as well as later plays, operas, and paintings. Zeus impregnated Semili, a mortal. Jealous Hera was furious when she discovered from Semili her affair with Zeus. Hera caused Semili’s death, but Zeus rescued the fetal Dionysos by sewing him into his thigh, and a few months later, Dionysos was born.