The HyperTexts

Sappho Translations

compiled and edited by Michael R. Burch

One of the best and most famous lyric poets of antiquity (or of any era) was a woman, Sappho. She was born on the island of Lesbos, circa 620 BC. According to the Parian Marble, she was exiled to Sicily sometime between 604 and 594, while Cicero mentioned that a statue of her stood in the town hall of Syracuse, suggesting she was a poet of note in the ancient world. “She is a mortal marvel,” wrote Antipater of Sidon, before proceeding to catalog the Seven Wonders of the World. Sappho specialized in lyric poetry, which at that time was poetry either recited or sung to the accompaniment of the lyre (a harp-like instrument).

Sappho, fragment 118

Come, my sacred tortoiseshell lyre,
speak; let my music
give you voice.

As J. B. Hare, one of her translators, said, "Sappho the poet was an innovator. At the time poetry was principally used in ceremonial contexts, and to extoll the deeds of brave soldiers. Sappho had the audacity to use the first person in poetry and to discuss deep human emotions, particularly the erotic, in ways that had never been approached by anyone before her. As for the military angle, in one of the longer fragments (#3) she says: 'Some say that the fairest thing upon the dark earth is a host of horsemen, and some say a host of foot soldiers, and others again a fleet of ships, but for me it is my beloved.' In the ancient world she was considered to be on an equal footing with Homer, acclaimed as the 'tenth muse.'"

Sappho, fragment 42
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Eros shakes my soul:
a wind on desolate mountains
leveling oaks.

Today Sappho remains a timeless poet. For instance, the poem below could easily have been written by a modern woman or girl caught in an unflattering light:

Sappho, fragment 155
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

A short revealing frock?
It's just my luck
your lips were made to mock!

It is because of the homoerotic nature of some of Sappho's poems that "Lesbian" and "Sapphic" have their current sexual denotations and connotations. Many of her poems are about her female companions, but they are not explicitly sexual. For instance:

Sappho, fragment 3
by Julia Dubnoff

Now, I shall sing these songs
Beautifully
for my companions.

Like most great poets, Sappho had a good eye for detail and sharp, cutting sense of irony:

Sappho, fragment 156
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

She keeps her scents
in a dressing-case.
And her sense?
In some undiscoverable place.

Most of her poems have been lost, but some have endured through surviving fragments (a few of which were found wrapping Egyptian mummies!) Later poets have sought to "fill in the blanks," including myself. Of the189 known fragments of her work, twenty contain just one readable word, thirteen have only two, and fifty-nine have ten or fewer. And yet (as we will see below) poets like Catullus, Ben Jonson, T. S. Eliot, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Charles Algernon Swinburne, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Lowell, Lord Byron, Lord Tennyson, Walter Savage Landor, Sir Phillip Sidney, William Carlos Williams, Kenneth Rexroth, Anne Carson, H. T. Wharton, Frederick Tennyson, Julia Dubnoff, Mary Barnard, F. T. Palgrave and J. H. Merivale have either translated her work, or have written poems inspired by it.

Why do so few complete poems by such a great poet remain today? As Hare explains, "Sappho's books were burned by Christians in the year 380 A.D. at the instigation of Pope Gregory Nazianzen. Another book burning in the year 1073 A.D. by Pope Gregory VII may have wiped out any remaining trace of her works. It should be remembered that in antiquity books were copied by hand and comparatively rare. There may have only been a few copies of her complete works. The bonfires of the Church destroyed many things, but among the most tragic of their victims were the poems of Sappho."

Sappho, fragment 58
by Mary Barnard

Pain penetrates
Me drop
by drop

Sappho, fragments 21, 22 and 23
by H. T. Wharton

Me thou forgettest
or lovest another more than me.
Ye are nought to me.

Sappho, fragment 48
by Charles Algernon Swinburne

I am weary of all your words and soft, strange ways.

Sappho, fragment 39
by H. T. Wharton

I love delicacy, and for me Love has the sun's splendour and beauty.

Sappho, fragment 39
by H. T. Wharton

Spring's messenger, the sweet-voiced nightingale.

Sappho, fragment 39
by Ben Johnson, "The Sad Shepherd," Act II

The dear good angel of the spring,
The nightingale.

Sappho, fragment 39
by Charles Algernon Swinburne, "Songs of the Springtides"

The tawny sweetwinged thing
Whose cry was but of Spring.

Sappho, fragment 104
by T. S. Eliot

At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives
Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea,
The typist home at teatime, clears her breakfast, lights
Her stove, and lays out food in tins.

Sappho, fragment 90
by W. S. Landor, from Simonidea

Mother, I cannot mind my wheel;
My fingers ache, my lips are dry:
Oh, if you felt the pain I feel!
But oh, whoever felt as I?

Sappho, fragment 90
by Frederick Tennyson

Sweet mother, I can spin no more,
Nor ply the loom as heretofore,
For love of him.

Sappho, fragment 3
by Sir Phillip Sidney

My muse, what ails this ardour?
My eyes grow dim, my limbs shake,
My voice is hoarse, my throat scorched,
My tongue to its roof cleaves,
My fancy amazed, my thoughts dull’d,
My head doth ache, my life faints
My soul begins to take leave ...

Sappho, fragment 3
by William Carlos Williams

That man is peer of the gods, who
face to face sits listening
to your sweet speech and lovely
     laughter.

It is this that rouses a tumult
in my breast. At mere sight of you
my voice falters, my tongue
     is broken.

Straightway, a delicate fire runs in
my limbs; my eyes
are blinded and my ears
     thunder.

Sweat pours out: a trembling hunts
me down. I grow
paler than grass and lack little
     of dying.

Three Letters to Anaktoria
by Robert Lowell

I set that man above the gods and heroes —
all day, he sits before you face to face,
like a cardplayer. Your elbow brushes his elbow —
if you should speak, he hears.

The touched heart madly stirs,
your laughter is water hurrying over pebbles —
every gesture is a proclamation,
every sound is speech ...

Refining fire purifies my flesh!
I hear you: a hollowness in my ears
thunders and stuns me. I cannot speak.
I cannot see.

I shiver. A dead whiteness spreads over
my body, trickling pinpricks of sweat.
I am greener than the greenest green grass —
I die!

Sappho, fragment 95
by Lord Byron, "Don Juan"

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.

Sappho, fragments 54, 94 & 16
by F. T. Palgrave

Sappho loves flowers with a personal sympathy.
"Cretan girls," she says, "with their soft feet dancing
lay flat the tender bloom of the grass."
She feels for the hyacinth
"which shepherds on the mountain tread under foot,
and the purple flower is on the ground."
She pities the wood-doves
as their "life grows cold and their wings fall"
before the archer.

Sappho, fragment 146
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Song of the Rose

If Zeus chose us a king of the flowers in his mirth,
He would call to the Rose and would royally crown it,
For the Rose, ho, the Rose, is the grace of the earth,
Is the light of the plants that are growing upon it.

For the Rose, ho, the Rose, is the eye of the flowers,
Is the blush of the meadows that feel themselves fair—
Is the lightning of beauty that strikes through the bowers
On pale lovers who sit in the glow unaware.

Ho, the Rose breathes of love! Ho, the Rose lifts the cup
To the red lips of Cypris invoked for a guest!
Ho, the Rose, having curled its sweet leaves for the world,
Takes delight in the motion its petals keep up,
As they laugh to the wind as it laughs from the west!

Sappho, fragments 93 & 94
by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Beauty

I.

Like the sweet apple which reddens upon the topmost bough,
A-top on the topmost twig,—which the pluckers forgot, somehow,—
Forgot it not, nay, but got it not, for none could get it till now.

II.

Like the wild hyacinth flower which on the hills is found,
Which the passing feet of the shepherds for ever tear and wound,
Until the purple blossom is trodden into the ground.

Sappho, fragment 81
by J. H. Merivale

Wealth without virtue is a dangerous guest;
Who holds them mingled is supremely blest.

Sappho, fragment 52
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The moon has long since set;
the Pleiades are gone;
now half the night is spent
and yet I sleep alone.

Sappho, fragment 137
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Gold does not rust,
yet my son becomes dust?


Sappho, fragment 145
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Prometheus the Fire-Bearer
robbed the Gods of their power, and so
brought mankind and himself to woe ...
must you repeat his error?

Sappho, fragment 159
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

May I lead?
Will you follow?
Foolish man!
Ears so hollow,
minds so shallow,
never can!

Sappho, fragments 122 & 123
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Your voice—
a sweeter liar
than the lyre,
more dearly sold
and bought, than gold.

Sappho, fragment 42
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

She wrapped herself then in
most delicate linen.

Sappho, fragment 70
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

What country girl bewitches your heart
whose most beguiling art
is not hiking her dress
to reveal her entrancing nakedness?

Sappho, fragment 94
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Shepherds trample the hyacinth;
its petals darken the heath
foreshadowing shepherds' grief.

Sappho, fragment 100
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The softest pallors grace
her lovely face.

Sappho, fragment 113
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

No buzzing bee
but the bearer of honey
for me!

Sappho, fragment 121
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

A tender maiden plucking flowers
persuades the knave
to heroically brave
the world's untender hours.

Sappho, fragment 130
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

May the gods prolong the night
  —yes, let it last forever!—
as long as you sleep in my sight.

Sappho, fragment 133
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Of all the stars the fairest,
Hesperus,
Lead the maiden straight to the bridegroom's bed,
honoring Hera, the goddess of marriage.

Sappho, fragment 134
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Selene came to Endymion in the cave,
made love to him as he slept,
then crept away before the sun could prove
its light and warmth the more adept.

Sappho, fragment 68
loose translation by Michael R. Burch
 
Lady,
soon you'll lie dead, disregarded,
your name forgotten;
you who never gathered the roses of Pieria
must assume your place among the obscure,
uncelebrated shades.

Sappho, fragment 137
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Death is evil;
the Gods all agree;
for, had death been good,
the Gods would be mortal
like me.

The following are links to other translations by Michael R. Burch:

Wulf and Eadwacer
Sweet Rose of Virtue
How Long the Night
Caedmon's Hymn
The Wife's Lament
Deor's Lament
Lament for the Makaris
Ancient Greek Epigrams and Epitaphs
Basho
Oriental Masters/Haiku
Miklós Radnóti
Rainer Maria Rilke
Marina Tsvetaeva
Renée Vivien
Ono no Komachi
Allama Iqbal
Bertolt Brecht
Ber Horvitz
Paul Celan
Primo Levi
Tegner's Drapa
Saul Tchernichovsky

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