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Sappho (Poem Date C. 600 B.c.)
SOURCE: Sappho. "Hymn to Aphrodite." In The Sappho Companion, edited by Margaret Reynolds, p. 29. London: Chatto and Windus, 2000.
In the following poem, one of her best known and most complete, Sappho displays her characteristic yearning. The translation is by John Addington Symonds (1883).
Star-throned incorruptible Aphrodite,
Child of Zeus, wile-weaving, I supplicate thee,
Tame not me with pangs of the heart, dread mistress,
Nay, nor with anguish.
Child of Zeus, wile-weaving, I supplicate thee,
Tame not me with pangs of the heart, dread mistress,
Nay, nor with anguish.
But come thou, if erst in the days departed
Thou didst lend thine ear to my lamentation,
And from far, the house of thy sire deserting,
Camest with golden
Thou didst lend thine ear to my lamentation,
And from far, the house of thy sire deserting,
Camest with golden
Car yoked: thee thy beautiful sparrows hurried
Swift with multitudinous pinions fluttering
Round black earth, adown from the height of heaven
Through middle ether:
Swift with multitudinous pinions fluttering
Round black earth, adown from the height of heaven
Through middle ether:
Quickly journeyed they; and, O thou, blest Lady,
Smiling with those brows of undying lustre,
Asked me what new grief at...
Smiling with those brows of undying lustre,
Asked me what new grief at...
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This section contains 628 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) |
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