阅读萨福 Sappho在诗海的作品!!! | |||
萨福萨福是古希腊的著名诗人，也是世界古代为数极少的几位女诗人之一。她于公元前６３０年至６１２年出生于一个贵族家庭。丰盛的财富使她能自由地决定自己的生活方式，而她选择了在当时的文化中心勒斯博（Lesbos）岛上专攻艺术。
人物特点
Sappho是西方文学史上开天辟地的女诗人，生活在公元前六世纪的希腊。萨福是当时诗坛的大牛，连柏拉图老头子都夸她作起诗来简直就是缪斯附体。不过萨福侍奉的女神不是缪斯，而是爱神阿佛洛蒂特，这就注定了她的风格：优雅精致、性感香艳。
萨祖喜欢在诗里自爆隐私，所以在她的残篇里（据说“萨福宝典”有整整十卷，可惜经历后世男权社会漫长的文字狱，只剩下一两首完整的，其余都是断章，可这都能轻松搞定武林霸主地位），我们明确看到她对其它女子心旌摇荡神魂颠倒，她们相爱时的欲仙欲死琴瑟和谐。
比较逗的是，萨福诗里面的女子名字众多，据说这些都是她在lesbos岛上创立的女子学院里的学生。看来dean Sappho很花心，经常性的引诱女弟子。
当然萨祖也也有失手的时候，她留下来最完整的一首诗就是向爱神吟唱的祈祷词，通篇是爱神和她的问答，萨祖说，爱神你来做的同谋，帮我搞定那女孩吧！爱神说，你又来麻烦我，这回又是哪个倒霉的女生？热望中不乏自嘲的幽默。
萨福往往给自己的诗歌谱上曲调，供人吟咏弹唱。在技巧上，她创立了“萨福体”，改革了当时诗歌创作的韵律;在内容上，她与其他诗人一起，把咏唱的对象由神转向人，用第一人称抒发个人的哀乐，领当时文学创作风气之先。千百年来，萨福被人们视为描写女性爱情的圣人、“女性主义者的偶像”、“化身为文学家的罗蕾莱”(罗蕾莱是德国民间文学中传说的女妖)。 当时很多希腊女子慕名来到蕾斯波斯岛，拜在其门下学习诗艺。当时蕾斯波斯岛上的货币，都以萨福头像为图案。
从19世纪末开始，萨福成为了女同性恋的代名词，“Lesbian”(意为女同性恋者)与形容词“Sapphic”（女子同性爱的）等，均源于萨福。由此，萨福也被近现代女性主义者和女同性恋者奉为鼻祖。
生平
萨福出生于贵族世家。无忧无虑的孩提时代是在莱斯沃斯岛上度过的。莱斯沃斯公元前7世纪曾是一个文化中心，该岛现名米蒂利尼。无忧无虑的孩提时代是在莱斯沃斯岛上度过的。她在富庶的莱斯沃斯岛上享受自由、闲暇和宁静的时光，过着精致奢华的生活。但青年时期因卷入了一起推翻执政王事件而被放逐到意大利北部的西西里岛。
在忧郁、流亡的生涯中，她嫁给了一位富有的名叫瑟塞勒斯的富商西西里男子，育有一女，名叫克雷斯。不久，她丈夫去世，留下大笔财产。她在西西里岛上过着平静优渥的生活。这时，她开始创作诗歌，诗篇从西西里岛传出使她名声远播。等她回到莱斯沃斯岛已是一位无可匹敌的诗人了。那时她约为二十多岁，风华正茂。在莱斯沃斯岛上她创办女子学校，教授诗歌、音乐、仪态，甚至美容和服饰。许多人慕名而来，贵族把自己的女儿送往该校。她喜欢这些年轻美丽的女孩，不仅教授她们诗歌与音乐，闲暇之余热情教授她们恋爱艺术。心中的诗情在朝夕相处中转化为深深的爱恋，使她与女弟子们在那片芬芳之地上绽放出艳丽的同性之爱的花朵。从而使萨福的名字成为现代女同性之爱的象征。现代英语Lesbian（女同性恋）一词就是来源于Lesbos（莱斯沃斯岛）。她的许多诗篇都是对女弟子学成离别或嫁为人妇时表达相思之情的赠诗。
诗人曾造访意大利锡拉库扎市时，该市曾树起一座雕像以示敬意。诗人还因担任一所希腊女子精修学校的校长而闻名遐迩。诗人诗作的对象很可能就是诗人的弟子。萨福是一位创造出了自己特有诗体的抒情诗人，这种诗体被称作“萨福体”。
作品
有关诗人诗歌的史料同诗人的传记一样扑朔迷离。人们只知道她是上古时代的一位伟大的诗人：古希腊人十分称赞她，说男诗人有荷马，女诗人有萨福，柏拉图曾誉之为“第十位缪斯”。她的诗对古罗马抒情诗人卡图卢斯、贺拉斯的创作产生过不小影响，后来在欧洲一直受到推崇。诗人的肖像曾上过硬币。诗人的诗作大约于公元前3世纪首次辑成9卷行，但流传至今的极少，仅有一首28行的诗作保存完好，到19世纪为止，人们主要是通过其他作者的引用得以了解诗人的。1898年学者们出土了一批含有诗人诗作残片的纸草。现代的各种版本中，诗人诗作的残片累计已达264片，但仅有63块残片包含完整的诗行，只有21块含有完整的诗节，而迄今能让我们作为文学作品来欣赏的近乎完整的诗作仅有4首。第4首是2004年新发现的，这首12行的诗作是在一具埃及木乃伊上面的纸草上发现的。该诗连同牛津大学学者马丁·韦斯特的英文译文发表在2005年6月第3周出版的《泰晤士报文学增刊》上。
萨福被冠以“抒情诗人”之名，是因为在那个时代，诗歌是由七弦琴伴唱的。萨福在技术和体裁上改进了抒情诗，成就了希腊抒情诗的转向：从以诸神和缪斯的名义写诗转向以个人的声音吟唱。她是第一人描述个人的爱情和失恋的诗人。
萨福留有诗歌九卷之多，但目前仅存一首完整的诗章，其余均为残篇断简。从公元前三世纪起，萨福的名字就开始出现在诗歌、戏剧和各种著述中，她逐渐被神化或丑化，按时代的需求——或被喻为第十位缪斯；或被描绘为皮肤黝黑、长相丑陋的女人。中世纪时，因她诗篇歌咏同性之爱而被教会视为异端，将她的诗歌全部焚毁。若不是在十九世纪末一位埃及农民在尼罗河水域偶然发现纸莎草本上记载萨福的诗歌，被淹没的诗歌会更多。但萨福的传奇始终流传着，尤其是在各代诗人们心中成为一座灯塔。
萨福的诗温婉典雅，真情率性，大多以人的爱和欲望为主题——不同于她以前的诗歌是以神作为歌吟的对象——诗中充满了爱的劝喻、爱中的甜美与痛苦或两者相互交织的情愫，以及弥漫着怜悯和嫉妒的悲鸣之声。读她的诗歌，犹如冒险去远航。
萨福的诗艺很高，在目前仅存的诗篇中已经能够看出她娴熟运用暗喻（不像荷马时代多用明喻）这种现代诗歌的技巧，使诗歌形象和内在涵义更为丰富和饱满，如她描写鸽子：“它们的心渐渐冷却/任双翅垂落下来”，意象优美而凄婉，镶嵌着她难以述说的某种落寞情怀；又如上述引文中的“战车和骁骑”，除了具体所指外还暗喻着男人。 此外，有时她的诗歌又像浪漫主义时期的抒情诗，将大自然的风物山川用来象征自己微妙心绪。
萨福的诗体是独创的。西方诗歌史上把这种诗体称之为“萨福体”。它们是独唱形式的——荷马时代和古希腊悲剧中有许多是歌队的集体合唱——诗体短小，以抒情和倾述内心情怀为主，音节更为单纯、明澈。在“萨福体”的格律中，每一节分为四行，每一行中长短音节在相对固定中略有变化，前三行有点像荷马时代的六韵步诗体，第四行则音节简短，显得干脆明快。相传，与萨福同时代的雅典统治者梭伦也是一位诗人，当他偶然听到萨福的诗篇时说“如果我学会了她的音律，可以死而无憾了”。
萨福的诗体类似于中国古代的词，目的在于供人弹琴咏唱，但她往往自己谱曲。萨福不仅在技巧上创立了“萨福体”，改革了当时诗歌创作的韵律，而且与其他诗人一起，在风格上把咏唱的对象从神转移到人，并用第一人称来抒发个人的哀乐，在当时相当革新。
萨福的作品多为柔美婉约的渴求爱恋的情诗，并且常常为她的女弟子所作。当时很多年轻女子慕名来到勒斯博岛，拜学在她门下。萨福不仅教与她们艺术，而且写给她们表达强烈爱慕的情笺。当弟子学成离岛，嫁为人妇时，萨福还为她们赠写婚诗。古希腊盛行师生间的同性恋情，师者授业解惑，弟子以情相报，所以这些带有强烈同性恋情感的诗歌在当时不但没有遭禁，而且还广为传颂，甚至连Lesbos岛上用的货币都以萨福的头像为图案。在萨福由于家庭原因流亡于西西里岛时，那里的居民为她竖起了雕像以表爱戴。柏拉图称萨福为“第十谬斯”，视其地位与雅典众神相当。雅典统治者梭伦本人也是位出色的诗人，但有一回听到萨福的诗时，坚持要求学唱，并说: “只要我能学会这一首，那么死也无憾了。”
虽然萨福在当时久负盛名，据说共有九卷作品，但由于保藏不当和后来宗教压制的原因，毁损无数，流传至今的完整诗作只有一首，其它的只留下零碎的片段。十九世纪后期，人们在尼罗河谷发掘出早至公元前八世纪的手稿，其中有一些被证实为萨福的作品。后来人们又在埃及废墟的一些包裹木乃伊与棺材的纸草中发现了萨福的诗歌。
萨福诗歌的翻译难度很高。因为很多片段已遗失，所以翻译者需要根据上下文的意思和韵律用古希腊语先进行“补缺”。这种“补缺”不免带有揣测成份，在技巧与风格上可能会与原诗有所出入，而译者添加的表达也可能有别于萨福的原意。但是对于许多读者来说，如果没有这些努力，萨福的诗歌也许永远会被埋没。
影响
萨福往往给自己的诗歌谱上曲调，供人吟咏弹唱。在技巧上，她创立了“萨福体”，改革了当时诗歌创作的韵律；在内容上，她与其他诗人一起，把咏唱的对象由神转向人，用第一人称抒发个人的哀乐，领当时文学创作风气之先。千百年来，萨福被人们视为描写女性爱情的圣人、“女性主义者的偶像”“化身为文学家的罗蕾莱”(罗蕾莱是德国民间文学中传说的女妖)。马丁·威斯特称她是“学者绕不过去的坎”。
当时很多希腊女子慕名来到莱斯波斯岛，拜在其门下学习诗艺。萨福不仅教她们知识，还写了很多表达对她们强烈爱慕的诗作。在当时，古希腊盛行师生之间带着强烈精神交往的恋情，萨福的带着强烈同性恋情感的诗歌，广为传唱。当时莱斯波斯岛上的货币，都以萨福头像为图案。从19世纪末开始，萨福成为了女同性恋的代名词，“Lesbian”(意为女同性恋者)与形容词“Sapphic”等，均源于萨福。而由此，萨福也被近现代女性主义者和女同性恋者奉为鼻祖。
评价
关于萨福的逸闻趣事，版本层出不穷，大多是基于不大可靠的传闻。在埃里卡琼的《萨福的飞越》这本书里，琼将这个诡异的希腊女诗人拉进肥皂剧式的世俗生活中。萨福像斯嘉丽一样在男人中间周旋、调情，“似乎想要吞下整个世界”。行文中，琼激荡的语调如同萨福转世。在她笔下，萨福是一个无所畏惧、卓越不凡的女英雄。
在《如果不是冬天：萨福断章》里，安妮卡尔森以独特的翻译风格，描述了萨福在大到爱情、欲望、婚姻、驱逐，小到靠垫、蜜蜂、豆子，以及关于衰老、羞耻、时间等等人类方方面面的思考，用括号和空格来提醒读者纸草上原稿文字的残缺。
美女、诗人、男诗人的情人、第一个失恋投海自杀女诗人、女同性恋者、现代女权主义的先祖……在萨福这个名上，似乎可以加上任何一个在现代文学流行着的词汇。若是萨福本人，大概情愿用自己的诗形容自己吧：“周围的群星黯淡无光而她的光华，铺满了咸的海洋和开着繁花的田野”。
薄伽丘在《列女传》中哀叹道：“她在诗艺中得到的幸福，一如她在爱情中遭遇到的不幸：爱上一个青年男子，为了他的魅力，或者美貌，或者其他什么原因，屈服于难以忍受的折磨。他拒绝服从她的欲望，于是，悲伤的萨福写出哀悼的诗篇……我们是不是应该责备缪斯女神呢？当安菲翁弹唱诗歌的时候，她们肯为他移动奥吉及亚的石头，却不肯为萨福移动那位年轻男子的心。”
古罗马作家奥维德为萨福代拟了一封致法翁的二百二十多行的诗体哀歌长信，通过萨福之口，倾述了她内心的深情：“我爱过上百个人——作孽的爱——可是现在，/你这冤家，以前为众人所有的，现在属了你一人。/你就是美，你的年龄最适合风流享乐，/你的魅力是袭击我的伏兵。”
传说
萨福最终却还是为了一位英俊的青年男子殉情而死。他名为法翁（Phaon），是莱斯沃斯岛上一名船夫，常年在大海间飘荡，身背弓箭，长发飘逸，宛如《指环王》电影中的那位金发飘飘的神箭手，但他冷漠无情，视萨福疯狂的爱而不顾，致使萨福哀痛不已，坠崖沉海而去。时年她五十五岁。
The only contemporary source which refers to Sappho's life is her own body of poetry, and scholars are skeptical of biographical readings of it. Later biographical traditions, from which all more detailed accounts derive, have also been cast into doubt.
Chronology
Strabo says that Sappho was the contemporary of Alcaeus of Mytilene (born ca. 620 BC) and Pittacus (ca. 645 - 570) and according to Athenaeus she was the contemporary of Alyattes of Lydia (ca. 610 - 560). The Suda, a 10th century Byzantine encyclopædia, dates her to the 42nd Olympiad (612/608), meaning either that she was born then or that this was her floruit. The versions of Eusebius state that she was famous by the first or second year of the 45th or 46th Olympiad (between 600 and 594). Judging from the Parian Marble she was exiled from Lesbos to Sicily sometime between 604 and 594. If fragment 98 of her poetry is accepted as biographical evidence and as a reference to her daughter (see below) it may indicate that she had already had a daughter by the time she was exiled. If fragment 58 is accepted as autobiographical it indicates that she lived into old age. If her connection to Rhodopis (see below) is accepted as historical it indicates that she lived into the mid-6th century.
Family
An Oxyrhynchus papyrus from around 200 AD and the Suda agree that Sappho had a mother called Cleïs and a daughter by the same name. Two preserved fragments of Sappho's poetry refer to a Cleïs. In fragment 98, Sappho addresses Cleïs, saying that she has no way of obtaining a decorated headband for her. Fragment 132 reads in full: "I have a beautiful child [pais] who looks like golden flowers, my darling Cleis, from whom I would not (take) all Lydia or lovely..." These fragments have often been interpreted as referring to Sappho's daughter or as confirming that Sappho had a daughter with this name. But even if a biographic reading of the verses is accepted, this is not certain. Cleïs is referred to in fragment 132 with the Greek word pais, which can as easily indicate a slave or any young person as an offspring. It is possible that these verses or others like them were misunderstood by ancient writers, leading to the biographical tradition which has come down to us.
Fragment 102 has its speaker address a "sweet mother", sometimes taken as an indication that Sappho began to write poetry while her mother was still alive. The name of Sappho's father is widely given as Scamandronymus, he is not referred to in any of the surviving fragments. In his Heroides, Ovid has Sappho lament that, "Six birthdays of mine had passed when the bones of my parent, gathered from the pyre, drank before their time my tears." Ovid may have based this on a poem by Sappho no longer extant.
Sappho was reported to have three brothers; Erigyius (or Eurygius), Larichus and Charaxus. The Oxyrhynchus papyrus says that Charaxus was the eldest but that Sappho was more fond of the young Larichus. According to Athenaeus, Sappho often praised Larichus for pouring wine in the town hall of Mytilene, an office held by boys of the best families. This indication that Sappho was born into an aristocratic family is consistent with the sometimes rarefied environments which her verses record.
A story given by Herodotus and later by Strabo, Athenaeus, Ovid and the Suda, tells of a relation between Charaxus and the Egyptian courtesan Rhodopis. Herodotus, the oldest source of the story, reports that Charaxus ransomed Rhodopis for a large sum and that after he returned to Mitylene, Sappho scolded him in verse. Strabo, writing some 400 years later, adds that Charaxus was trading with Lesbian wine and that Sappho called Rhodopis Doricha. Athenaeus, another 200 years later, calls the courtesan Doricha and maintains that Herodotus had her confused with Rhodopis, another woman altogether. He also cites an epigram by Posidippus (3rd c. BC) which refers to Doricha and Sappho. Based on this story, scholars have speculated that references to a Doricha may have been found in Sappho's poems. None of the extant fragments have this name in full but fragments 7 and 15 are often restored to include it. Joel Lidov has criticized this restoration, arguing that the Doricha story is not helpful in restoring any fragment by Sappho and that its origins lie in the work of Cratinus or another of Herodotus' comic contemporaries.
The Suda is alone in claiming that Sappho was married to a "very wealthy man called Cercylas, who traded from Andros" and that he was Cleïs' father. This tradition may have been invented by the comic poets as a witticism, as the name of the purported husband means "prick from the Isle of Man."
Sappho and Alcaeus of Mytilene, by Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1881)
Exile
Sappho's lifetime was a time of political turbulence on Lesbos and saw the rise of Pittacus. According to the Parian Marble, Sappho was exiled to Sicily sometime between 604 and 594 and Cicero records that a statue of her stood in the town-hall of Syracuse. Unlike the works of her fellow poet, Alcaeus, Sappho's surviving poetry has very few allusions to political conditions. The principal exception is fragment 98 which mentions exile and indicates that Sappho was lacking some of her customary luxuries. Her political sympathies may have lain with the party of Alcaeus. Though there is no explicit record of this it is usually assumed that Sappho returned from exile at some point and that she spent most of her life in Lesbos.
Phaon legend
A tradition going back at least to Menander (fr. 258 K) suggested that Sappho killed herself by jumping off the Leucadian cliffs for love of Phaon, a ferryman. This is regarded as ahistorical by modern scholars, perhaps invented by the comic poets or originating from a misreading of a first-person reference in a non-biographical poem. The legend may have resulted in part from a desire to assert Sappho as heterosexual.
Sexuality and community
by Édouard-Henri AvrilSappho's poetry centers on passion and love for various personages and genders. The word "lesbian" derives from the name of the island of her birth, Lesbos; her name is also the origin of its less common synonym sapphic. The narrators of many of her poems speak of infatuations and love (sometimes requited, sometimes not) for various females, but descriptions of physical acts between women are few and subject to debate. Whether these poems are meant to be autobiographical is not known, although elements of other parts of Sappho's life do make appearances in her work, and it would be compatible with her style to have these intimate encounters expressed poetically, as well. Her homoerotica should be placed in the seventh century (BC) context. The poems of Alcaeus and later Pindar record similar romantic bonds between the members of a given circle.
Sappho's contemporary Alcaeus described her thus: "Violet-haired, pure, honey-smiling Sappho" (ἰόπλοκ᾽ ἄγνα μελλιχόμειδε Σάπφοι, fr. 384). The 3rd Century philosopher Maximus of Tyre wrote that Sappho was "small and dark" and that her relationships to her female friends were similar to those of Socrates:
What else was the love of the Lesbian woman except Socrates' art of love? For they seem to me to have practised love each in their own way, she that of women, he that of men. For they say that both loved many and were captivated by all things beautiful. What Alcibiades and Charmides and Phaedrus were to him, Gyrinna and Atthis and Anactoria were to the Lesbian.
During the Victorian era, it became the fashion to describe Sappho as the headmistress of a girls' finishing school. As Page DuBois (among many other experts) points out, this attempt at making Sappho understandable and palatable to the genteel classes of Great Britain was based more on conservative sensibilities than evidence. There are no references to teaching, students, academies, or tutors in any of Sappho's scant collection of surviving works. Burnett follows others, like C.M. Bowra, in suggesting that Sappho's circle was somewhat akin to the Spartan agelai or the religious sacred band, the thiasos, but Burnett nuances her argument by noting that Sappho's circle was distinct from these contemporary examples because "membership in the circle seems to have been voluntary, irregular and to some degree international." The notion that Sappho was in charge of some sort of academy persists nonetheless.
Works
Wikisource has original works written by or about:
Sappho
Meters and genres
Ancient sources state that Sappho produced nine volumes of poetry.
Please help improve this section by expanding it
with: discussion of the generic and metrical classifications of Sappho's works.
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The surviving poetry
The surviving proportion of the nine-volume corpus of poetry read in antiquity is small but still constitutes a poetic corpus of major importance. There is a single complete poem, Fragment 1, Hymn to Aphrodite. Other major fragments include two virtually-complete poems (16 and 31 in the standard numeration) and three shorter fragments, including one whose authorship is uncertain (168b).
Recent discoveries
Sappho's recently discovered poem on old age (lines 9-20). 3rd cent. B.C. papyrus, from an exhibit of the Altes MuseumThe most recent addition to the corpus is a virtually-complete poem on old age. The line-ends were first published in 1922 from an Oxyrhynchus papyrus, no. 1787 (fragment 1: see the third pair of images on this page), but little could be made of them, since the indications of poem-end (placed at the beginnings of the lines) were lost, and scholars could only guess where one poem ended and another began. Most of the rest of the poem has recently (2004) been published from a 3rd century BC papyrus in the Cologne University collection. The latest reconstruction, by M. L. West, appeared in the Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 151 (2005), 1-9, and in the Times Literary Supplement on 21 June 2005 (English translation and discussion). Another full literary translation is available. The Greek text has been reproduced with helpful notes for students of the language, together with other examples of Greek lyric poetry.
A major new literary discovery, the Milan Papyrus,[dead link] recovered from a dismantled mummy casing and published in 2001, has revealed the high esteem in which the poet Posidippus of Pella, an important composer of epigrams (3rd century BC), held Sappho's 'divine songs'. An English translation of the new epigrams, with notes, is available, as is the original Greek text.
Legacy
Loss and preservation of Sappho's works
Sappho, by Charles Mengin (1877) Manchester Art Gallery, UKAlthough Sappho's work endured well into Roman times, with changing interests, styles, and aesthetics her work was copied less and less, especially after the academies stopped requiring her study. Part of the reason for her disappearance from the standard canon was the predominance of Attic and Homeric Greek as the languages required to be studied. Sappho's Aeolic Greek dialect, a difficult one, and by Roman times, arcane and ancient as well, posed considerable obstacles to her continued popularity.
Once the major academies of the Byzantine Empire dropped her works from their standard curricula, very few copies of her works were made by scribes. Still, the greatest poets and thinkers of ancient Rome continued to emulate her or compare other writers to her, and it is through these comparisons and descriptions that we have received much of her extant poetry.
Modern legends, with origins that are difficult to trace, have made Sappho's literary legacy the victim of purposeful obliteration by scandalized church leaders, often by means of book-burning. There is no known historical evidence for these accounts. Indeed, Gregory of Nazianzus, who along with Pope Gregory VII features as the villain in many of these stories, was a reader and admirer of Sappho's poetry. For example, modern scholars have noted the echoes of Sappho fr. 2 in his poem On Human Nature, which copies from Sappho the quasi-sacred grove (alsos), the wind-shaken branches, and the striking word for "deep sleep" (kōma).
It appears likely that Sappho's poetry was largely lost through action of the same forces of cultural change that obliterated, without prejudice, the remains of all the canonical archaic Greek poets. Indeed, as one would expect from ancient critical estimations, which regard Sappho and Pindar as the greatest practitioners of monodic lyric and choral poetry (respectively), more of Sappho's work has survived through quotation than any of the others, with the exception of Pindar (whose works alone survive in a manuscript tradition).
Sources of the surviving fragments
Although the manuscript tradition broke off, some of Sappho's poetry has been discovered in Egyptian papyri fragments from an earlier period, such as those found in the ancient rubbish heaps of Oxyrhynchus, where a major find brought many new but tattered verses to light, providing a major new source. One substantial fragment is preserved on a potsherd. The rest of what we know of Sappho comes through citations in other ancient writers, often made to illustrate grammar, vocabulary, or meter.
Reputation in antiquity
In antiquity, Sappho was commonly regarded as the greatest, or one of the greatest, of lyric poets. An epigram in the Anthologia Palatina (9.506) ascribed to Plato states:
Some say the Muses are nine: how careless!
Look, there's Sappho too, from Lesbos, the tenth.
Claudius Aelianus wrote in Miscellany (Ποικίλη ἱστορία) that Plato called Sappho wise. A story is recounted in the Florilegium (3.29.58) of Stobaeus:
Solon of Athens heard his nephew sing a song of Sappho's over the wine and, since he liked the song so much, he asked the boy to teach it to him. When someone asked him why, he said, "So that I may learn it, then die."
A few centuries later, Horace wrote in his Odes that Sappho's lyrics are worthy of sacred admiration. One of Sappho's poems was famously translated by the 1st century BC Roman poet Catullus in his "Ille mi par esse deo videtur" (Catullus 51).
Modern translations
From the time of the European Renaissance, the interest in Sappho's writing has grown, seeing waves of fairly widespread popularity as new generations rediscover her work. Since few people are able to understand ancient languages, each age has translated Sappho in its own idiomatic way. Poetry, such as Sappho's, that relies on meter is difficult to reproduce in English which uses stress-based meters and rhyme compared to Ancient Greek's solely length-based meters. As a result, many early translators used rhyme and worked Sappho's ideas into English poetic forms.
In the 1960s, Mary Barnard reintroduced Sappho to the reading public with a new approach to translation that eschewed the use of rhyming stanzas or forms of poetry, such as the sonnet. Subsequent translators have tended to work in a similar manner, seeking to allow the essence of Sappho's spirit to be visible through the translated verses.
In 2002, classicist and poet Anne Carson produced If Not, Winter, an exhaustive translation of Sappho's fragments. Her line-by-line translations, complete with brackets where the ancient papyrus sources break off, are meant to capture both the original's lyricism and its present fragmentary nature.
References in modern literature
Lord Byron wrote the following lines about her in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Stanza XXXIX:
And onward viewed the mount, not yet forgot,
The lover's refuge and the Lesbian's grave.
Dark Sappho! could not verse immortal save
That breast imbued with such immortal fire?
Sappho was a key figure for the Victorian female poet, who took her as an inspirational figure as one of the first female poets. Poets as varied as Caroline Norton, Felicia Hemans and L.E.L all wrote variations on 'Sappho's song'
Charles Baudelaire writes about Sappho in Les Fleurs du mal.
Ezra Pound admired Sappho's work and wrote "'Ιμερρω" (Poetry, September 1916) to Atthis, the subject of many of Sappho's poems.
Lawrence Durrell wrote a play in verse titled Sappho, set in 7th Century BC Lesbos.
Algernon Swinburne wrote a poem concerning Sappho, Sapphics, and another, Anactoria, concerning her and her lover Anactoria, which makes Sappho into a rather hyperbolic sadomasochist. The Sapphic stanza is a poetic form occasionally imitated by modern writers, including Swinburne's Sapphics.
The Italian composer Giovanni Pacini (1796-1867) composed an opera entitled Saffo for the San Carlo Theatre in Naples. It premiered on 29 November 1840.
The French composer Charles Gounod's first opera entitled Sapho, was about the lyric poet.
Christina Stead wrote a short story about Sappho which is included in her book The Salzburg Tales.
Nancy Freedman wrote a novelisation of Sappho's life entitled Sappho: The Tenth Muse, incorporating surviving fragments of her poetry into the story.
The Polish poet Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska wrote the poems The Roses for Sappho.
Erica Jong wrote a novel about Sappho called Sappho's Leap.
Sappho figures heavily in the later books of William Carlos Williams' Paterson (poem).
Sappho is also a major character in the fictional book Art & Lies: A Piece for Three Voices and a Bawd by Jeanette Winterson.
Certain early twentieth century poets such as Renée Vivien, H.D., and Natalie Clifford Barney rejected the idea that Sappho killed herself because of Phaon. In Barney's Acts d'entr'actes, for example Sappho kills herself because of her love for a girl promised in marriage.
Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters, by J.D. Salinger, references Sappho in its title and within its text.
American composer Rodney Waschka II composed an opera about the poet entitled Sappho's Breath. It premiered in New York City on April 2, 2002 with soprano Beth Griffith as Sappho.
Notes
^ See, for example, J. Fairweather, "Fiction in the biographies of ancient writers," Ancient Society 5 (1974); Mary R. Lefkowitz, The lives of the Greek poets, Johns Hopkins UP, 1981.
^ Campbell, p. x. - xi.
^ Page, Sappho and Alcaeus, p. 224-5.
^ P. Oxy. 1800 fr. 1
^ (Campbell 1982)
^ See e.g. Gordon, pp. xii-xiii
^ Robinson, p. 15.
^ Herodotus and Claudius Aelianus have Scamandronymus. P. Oxy. 1800 fr. 1 has Scamander or Scamandronymus. The Suda offers a plethora of possibilities: Simon, Eumenus, Eerigyius, Ecrytus, Semus, Camon, Etarchus or Scamandronymus.
^ Campbell, p. 15.
^ (Campbell 1982, p. 3)
^ (Campbell 1982, p. xi & 189)
^ (Campbell 1982, p. 187)
^ (Campbell 1982, p. 15)
^ (Campbell 1982, p. 63 & 65)
^ Lidov, p. 203 and throughout.
^ (Campbell 1982, p. 5)
^ Holt Parker, "Sappho Schoolmistress" (orig. pub. Transactions of the American Philological Association 123 (1993), pp. 309-51.
^ Page, Sappho and Alcaeus, p. 225-6.
^ Lidov, p. 205-6.
^ For example, in Reading Sappho: Contemporary Approaches, ed. Ellen Greene, University of California Press, 1996: Mary Lefkowitz, "Critical Stereotypes and the Poetry of Sappho," pp. 28f. (the story of Sappho's death represents her as "deprived because of her hugliness of male attention...which she craves"); Judith Hallett, "Sappho and Her Social Context: Sense and Sensuality," pp. 126f., while sounding a note of caution about careless assumptions of Sappho's homosexuality, discusses the story of Sappho's sexual conversion and death in the context of "disbelief and disapproval" regarding accounts of her homosexuality, which such legends may aim to disprove; Eva Stehle, "Sappho's Gaze: Fantasies of a Goddess and Young Man," p. 195 n. 10, considers that "The story probably developed in fourth-century comedy."
^ Anne Pippin Burnett, Three Archaic Poets: Archilochus, Alcaeus, Sappho, Harvard UP, 1983.
^ Burnett, op. cit., p. 210
^ Hymn to Aphrodite, translation, and notes
^ Fragment 168b
^ Main fragments and translations
^ A New Poem by Sappho (from archive.org).
^ AOIDOI.org: Epic, Archaic and Classical Greek Poetry. Retrieved on October 30, 2005.
^ Partial image. Retrieved on October 30, 2005.
^ Translations and notes are available: Diotima. Retrieved on October 30, 2005.
^ The Greek text: Center for Hellenic Studies - Epigrams. Retrieved on October 30, 2005.
^ Quintino Cataudella, "Saffo fr. 5 (5) – 6 (5) Diehl," Atene e Roma ser. 3 vol. 8 (1940), pp. 199-201. Cf. Page, Sappho and Alcaeus, p. 37.
^ An example from book 2 of the collected edition: Virtual Exhibition. Retrieved on October 30, 2005.
^ Susan Gubar, "Sapphistries", Signs, Vol. 10. No. 1. (Autumn 1984) pp. 43-62.
^ http://www.newmusicon.org/v10n2/v102wilcox.html
References
Barnard, Mary (transl.), Sappho: A New Translation, University of California Press; Reissue edition (June 1986) ISBN 0-520-22312-8
Barnstone, Willis (transl.) Sappho and the Greek Lyric Poets, Schoken Books Inc., New York (paperback 1988) ISBN 0-8052-0831-3 (A collection of modern English translations suitable for a general audience, includes complete poems and fragments along with a brief history of each of the featured poets.)
Campbell, D. A. (ed.) (1982), Greek Lyric 1: Sappho and Alcaeus, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., ISBN 0-674-99157-5 (Contains complete Greek text and English translation, including references to Sappho by ancient authors. A good starting-point for serious students who are new to this poetry.)
Carman, Bliss, Sappho: 100 Lyrics, (1907). Public domain text available from Project Gutenberg
Carson, Anne (transl.), If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho, Knopf (2002) ISBN 0-375-41067-8; also Virago Press Ltd, UK, ISBN 1-84408-081-1 (A modern bilingual edition for general readers as well as students of ancient Greek languages; N.Y. Times review)
DuBois, Page, Sappho Is Burning, University of Chicago Press (1995) ISBN 0-226-16755-0
Lidov, Joel, "Sappho, Herodotus and the Hetaira", in Classical Philology, July 2002, pp. 203-237.
Lobel, E. and D. L. Page (eds.), Poetarum Lesbiorum fragmenta, Oxford, Clarendon Press, (1955).
Lombardo, Stanley (transl.) and Pamela Gordon (introd.), Sappho: Poems and Fragments, Hackett Publishing (2002) ISBN 0872205916
Page, D. L., Sappho and Alcaeus, Oxford, Clarendon Press, (1955).
Rayor, Diane (transl.), Sappho's Lyre: Archaic Lyric and Women Poets of Ancient Greece, University of California Press (1991) ISBN 0-520-07336-3 (cloth); ISBN 0-520-07336-3 (paper)
Williamson, Margaret, Sappho's Immortal Daughters, Harvard University Press (1995) ISBN 0-674-78912-1