Showing posts with label Sappho. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sappho. Show all posts
Monday
Papyri (2007)
The Villa of the Papyri
Sappho to Anaktoria
Recipe for Making a Dadaist Poem
Ode to Aphrodite
Life among the Surrealists
Atthis
Mnasidika
Fragments
Fragments (2)
To a girl who doesn’t care for poetry
Juicy Root
Virgin
Sappho’s Epithalamion
Sources
Saturday
Sappho's Epithalamion
You won’t find any brides
more beautiful than her
Sing Hymen, O Hymenaios
Higher than the roof-tree
Hymen
lift him, carpenters
O Hymenaios
The bridegroom comes in like Ares
taller than the tallest man
Your bride is happy
are you happy, too?
Love, what should I compare you to?
strong as a rose-stem
delicate as a flower
that’s how you look to me
Bridegroom, the day has come at last
when you can possess your bride
Her beauty’s not intimidating
her eyes sweeter than honey
Love quenches its thirst
at the sight of her face
Lady Aphrodite bows
low to honour you
Sing Hymen, O Hymenaios
Higher than the roof-tree
Hymen
lift him, carpenters
O Hymenaios
The sweetest songs are songs of joy
Wednesday
Ode to Aphrodite
for Bronwyn
In spite of having poignant
Delirium and high surroundings
Father your daughter flees
Heart bring them back quickly
I hear you / Your Zeus
Of offering agile
That you darken yourself
Anxiety of intrigues
That which loves you will arrive
Because wings must
I only accept that
For your not you / Who?
Run she called
Fortunate to to / so well
That accomplished the
Never heart moment
Obtain if sparrows
Accomplished earth fullstop
Immortal with bitternesses
Of gold sky
Don’t welcome in
Immortal listening
Twirling this between again
Reason hatching then
Suffered from it
From the ally leaving
Venerable and me
The ether-making anguish
Aphrodite
Face of handsome she
All Sappho desires
She precipitated
Goddess
Deliver me
Tuesday
Fragments (3)
Juicy Root
Like the sweet apple
ripening at the tip
of the topmost branch
the pickers left behind
because they couldn’t reach it
(however hard they tried)
When you walked in I bear-hugged you
having banked up the fires of love ...
Virgin
ignorant of harm
sweeter than music
brighter than money
whiter than milk
smoother than water
swifter than porsche
softer than rosebud
richer than gold card
keep away from trash
Saturday
Fragments (2)
This pretty baby is mine
she’s sweet as pollen
Mandy, I wouldn’t give her up
for anything … or anyone
– Mum, I can’t thread
the sewing machine today
I’m mad about
a boy ...
– Again?
Last night you slept on the breast
of a young friend …
We love to hear
the voices of birds
the day, they say
is freshening
Thursday
Fragments
I love magnificence. Love, to me,
is the finest thing under the sun
I suppose that’s why
I wasn’t given beauty
& why the friends I hang out for
backbite me in return
Dying is bad. The gods
would die like us
if it were fun
The Moon's set
ditto the Pleiades
it’s midnight
I’m alone
Monday
To a girl who doesn't care for poetry
One day they’ll lay you out & then
nothing of you will be left behind
because you don’t like listening to
sweet words in rhythm
you’ll flit
through the houses of dust forever
indistinct among the other shades
Sunday
Mnasidika
Atthis, dear to both of us
Mnasidika, has moved to Golden Bay
but her thoughts are here (she says)
like when we lived together
& she worshipped you from afar
or was that your guitar?
Now she outshines
those suntanned Nelson girls
like the Moon when darkness falls
folding her gentle light
over yellow fields of rape
eclipsing the starscape
wandering everywhere
the starved heart in her breast
grown skinny as her waist
while the night with its many ears
murmurs across the sea
dividing her love from me
something we know too well
Friday
Atthis
Atthis has gone for good this time
I’m sure
I want to die
She left me in floods of tears
sobbing
Sappho, I feel like such a bitch
but I’ve got to go
Go if you want to
I replied
but think of me
remember me
because you know
how much I’ve loved you
will always love you
the joys we’ve shared together
the flowers you brought me
wove round my neck
& in my hair
languid, perfumed
on the couch
when you took away my appetite
for food
Saturday
Sappho, Anacreon et Anacreontiques
This is the cover of a book I bought in the Hard-to-Find bookshop at Devonport on the 30th of July, 2006.
It was published by Editions Bernard Grasset (61, Rue des Saints-Peres, VIe arondissement, Paris), and printed in Abbeville-sur-Somme in January, 1932.
The French translation is by Mario Meunier, who had previously published versions of Sophocles (1907), Sappho (1911), Nonnos of Panopolis (1911), Euripides (1923), Plutarch (1924), Pythagoras (1925), Plato (1926-27), Aristophanes (1928), and Sallust (1928).
He himself says of this new edition of his translation of Sappho:
Most French translations of Sappho, Anacreon, and the Anacreontics are in verse. For myself, judging (with Madame Dacier) that "verse translations are very unfaithful" and that the sense itself matters more than the words with which one dresses the sense, I've tried to translate them into prose, without paraphrase and without obscuring the intimate rhythms of their lyrical exuberance too much [15].
Not knowing any Greek myself, this literal translation of Meunier's has been indispensable to me in trying to get closer to what Sappho and the other Greek poets were actually trying to say.
Tuesday
Sappho to Anaktoria
Some say the finest sight
on this black earth is men on horses
others foot-soldiersothers
fleets of ships
I say
it’s the one you love
How can I make that clear
to you?Helen
who’d watched so many hunks
march by
chose the one
who brought the topless towers down
gave up her children
her home
to follow him
A woman must bend to circumstances
focus on the present with a smile
Anaktoria
you hardly seem
although she’s sitting beside you
to notice her
whom I prefer
to Mayday parades of tanks
goose-stepping infantry
I know that in this life
we can never reach
the pinnacle of our desire
surely it’s better to cherish
what Fate has given us
than to neglect her?
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