It Ain't Greek to Me (2024)

This page contains my modern English translations of ancient Greek poems and epigrams by Homer, Sappho of Lesbos, Aeschylus, Agathias, Anacreon, Antipater of Sidon, Callimachus, Diodorus of Sardis, Diotimus, Erinna, Erycius, Euphorion, Glaucus, Hesiod, Ibykos, Leonidas of Tarentum, Lucian, Plato, Seikilos of Euterpes, Simonides and Sophocles.

The best Greek poets could create heaven on earth. For example:

Euryalus, born of the blue-eyed Graces,
scion of the bright-tressed Seasons,
son of the Cyprian,
whom dew-lidded Persuasion birthed among rose-blossoms.
—Ibykos/Ibycus, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Yes, I know this is another long page, but if you haven’t read verses like the one above, you haven’t fully lived, and where else can you find such gems in such a convenient, free package? (Please do forgive my very gentle chiding, if you were thinking about clicking or tapping away!)

I will lead off with my favorite poem by each included poet, then will come back with more of their poems after the recap, otherwise Sappho would unfairly dominate this collection! How good was Sappho? Her peers called her the Tenth Muse and the other nine Muses were goddesses!

I will allow one of those peers to introduce her…

Mnemosyne was stunned into astonishment when she heard honey-tongued Sappho,
wondering how mortal men merited a tenth Muse.
—Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Okay, I lied. While I intend to give other great poets a fighting chance, I can’t limit Sappho to just one poem, so here are my five favorites…

Sappho, fragment 47
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Eros harrows my heart:
wild winds whipping desolate mountains,
uprooting oaks.

This is my favorite Sappho epigram. The metaphor of Eros (sexual desire) harrowing mountain slopes, leveling oaks and leaving them desolate, is really something―truly powerful and evocative.

Sappho, fragment 130
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Eros, the limb-shatterer,
rattles me,
an irresistible
constrictor.

Today, when we hear songwriters like Bob Dylan, Carole King, Paul Simon, Prince, Adele and Taylor Swift baring their souls to audiences, we are surely hearing echoes of the first great lyric poet, Sappho of Lesbos.

Sappho, fragment 22
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

That enticing girl's clinging dresses
leave me trembling, overcome by happiness,
as once, when I saw the Goddess in my prayers
eclipsing Cyprus.

Sappho, fragment 155

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

Was Sappho the first great Romantic poet, two millennia before Blake, Burns, Byron, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Shelley and Keats? Was she the first modern poet as well? Perhaps, because according to J. B. Hare, "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."

Sappho, fragment 156
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

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

HOMER

Passage home? Impossible! Surely you have something else in mind, Goddess, urging me to cross the ocean’s endless expanse in a raft. So vast, so full of danger! Hell, sometimes not even the sea-worthiest ships can prevail, aided as they are by Zeus’s mighty breath! I’ll never set foot on a raft, Goddess, until you swear by all that’s holy you’re not plotting some new intrigue! — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This is my favorite passage from Homer and it illustrates what a great storyteller he was. Three millennia later he remains the greatest storyteller of them all, in my mind, along with J. R. R. Tolkien and Mark Twain.

AESCHYLUS

Though they were steadfast among spears, dark Fate destroyed them
as they defended their native land, rich in sheep;
now Ossa’s dust seems all the more woeful, where they now sleep.
—Michael R. Burch, after Aeschylus

Aeschylus, graybeard, son of Euphorion,
died far away in wheat-bearing Gela;
still, the groves of Marathon may murmur of his valor
and the black-haired Mede, with his mournful clarion.
—Michael R. Burch, after Aeschylus (?)

Here he lies in state tonight: great is his Monument!
Yet Ares cares not, neither does War relent.
Michael R. Burch, after Anacreon

ANTIPATER OF SIDON

Here Saon,
son of Dicon,
now rests in holy sleep:
don’t say the good die young, friend,
lest gods and mortals weep.
—Michael R. Burch, after Callimachus

DIOTIMUS

Stripped of her stripling, if asked, she'd confess:
"I am now less than nothingness."
Michael R. Burch, after Diotimus

ERINNA

Erinna is widely regarded, at least by those who have read her, as second only to Sappho among the ancient Greek female poets.

Excerpts from “Distaff”
by Erinna
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

… the moon rising …
… leaves falling …
… waves lapping a windswept shore …

… and our childish games, Baucis, do you remember? ...

... Leaping from white horses,
running on reckless feet through the great courtyard.
“You’re it!’ I cried, ‘You’re the Tortoise now!”
But when your turn came to pursue your pursuers,
you darted beyond the courtyard,
dashed out deep into the waves,
splashing far beyond us …

… My poor Baucis, these tears I now weep are your warm memorial,
these traces of embers still smoldering in my heart
for our silly amusem*nts, now that you lie ash …

… Do you remember how, as girls,
we played at weddings with our dolls,
pretending to be brides in our innocent beds? ...

... How sometimes I was your mother,
allotting wool to the weaver-women,
calling for you to unreel the thread? ...

… Do you remember our terror of the monster Mormo
with her huge ears, her forever-flapping tongue,
her four slithering feet, her shape-shifting face? ...

... Until you mother called for us to help with the salted meat ...

... But when you mounted your husband’s bed,
dearest Baucis, you forgot your mothers’ warnings!
Aphrodite made your heart forgetful ...

... Desire becomes oblivion ...

... Now I lament your loss, my dearest friend.
I can’t bear to think of that dark crypt.
I can’t bring myself to leave the house.
I refuse to profane your corpse with my tearless eyes.
I refuse to cut my hair, but how can I mourn with my hair unbound?
I blush with shame at the thought of you! …

... But in this dark house, O my dearest Baucis,
My deep grief is ripping me apart.
Wretched Erinna! Only nineteen,
I moan like an ancient crone, eying this strange distaff ...

O Hymen! . . . O Hymenaeus! . . .
Alas, my poor Baucis!

ERYCIUS

Not Rocky Trachis,
nor the thirsty herbage of Dryophis,
nor this albescent stone
with its dark blue lettering shielding your white bones,
nor the wild Icarian sea dashing against the steep shingles
of Doliche and Dracanon,
nor the empty earth,
nor anything essential of me since birth,
nor anything now mingles
here with the perplexing absence of you,
with what death forces us to abandon . . .
—Michael R. Burch, after Euphorion

EURIPIDES

Love distills the eyes’ desires, love bewitches the heart with its grace.—Euripides, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Fresh tears are wasted on old griefs.—Euripides, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

HESIOD

Unfortunately there is “so much to read and so little time” and this is my only translation of Hesiod to date. I will hopefully not be so remiss in the future!

Ares
by Hesiod
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Ares, exceeding all men in manliness, bronze-harnessed charioter, golden-helmed gladiator, strong-armed spear-hurler, dauntless shield-bearer, courageous of heart, father of warlike Victory, able ally of Themis and Divine Law, dauntless defender of Olympus, savior of men’s cities, scourge of the rebellious, sceptered king of the righteous, whirling your fiery sphere among the planets in their sevenfold courses through heavens wherein your blazing steeds bear you above the third firmament; hear me, O mighty helper of men, gracious giver of unflagging youth! Beam down a kindly ray from above to brighten my life; give me the strength of Ares, that I may banish bitter cowardice from my heart and defeat my soul’s deceitful impulses; help me restrain those dark furies urging me to seek the paths of strident strife. But rather, O Blessed One, lend me your boldness to abide within the benevolent laws of peace, avoiding conflict, hatred and the destructive demons of death. Amen.

IBYKOS

Euryalus, born of the blue-eyed Graces,
scion of the bright-tressed Seasons,
son of the Cyprian,
whom dew-lidded Persuasion birthed among rose-blossoms.
—Ibykos/Ibycus, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Blame not the gale, nor the inhospitable sea-gulf, nor friends' tardiness,
Mariner! Just man's foolhardiness.
Michael R. Burch, after Leonidas of Tarentum

Stranger, flee!
But may Fortune grant you all the prosperity
she denied me.
—Michael R. Burch, after Leonidas of Tarentum

PINDAR

Athens, celestial city, crowned with violets, beloved of poets, bulwark of Greece!
—Pindar, fragment 64, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Fairest of all preludes is mine to incomparable Athens
as I lay the foundation of songs for the mighty race of Alcmaeonidae and their majestic steeds.
Among all the nations, which heroic house compares with glorious Hellas?
—Pindar, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

OTHER NOTABLE VOICES

Poor partridge, poor partridge, lately migrated from the rocks;
our cat bit off your unlucky head; my offended heart still balks!
I put you back together again and buried you, so unsightly!
May the dark earth cover you heavily: heavily, not lightly . . .
so she shan’t get at you again!
—Michael R. Burch, after Agathias

Wert thou, O Artemis,
overbusy with thy beast-slaying hounds
when the Beast embraced me?
—Michael R. Burch, after Diodorus of Sardis

I am thine, O master, loyal even in the grave:
just as you are now death’s slave.
—Michael R. Burch, after Dioscorides

They observed our fearful fetters,
marched to confront the surrounding darkness;
now we extol their excellence.
Bravely, they died for us.
—Michael R. Burch, after Mnasalcas

Tell Nicagoras that Strymonias
at the setting of the Kids
lost his.
—Michael R. Burch, after Nicaenetus

Be ashamed, O mountains and seas,
that these valorous men lack breath.
Assume, like pale chattels,
an ashen silence at death.
—Michael R. Burch, after Parmenio

We mourn Polyanthus, whose wife
placed him newly-wedded in an unmarked grave,
having received his luckless corpse
back from the green Aegean wave
that deposited his fleshless skeleton
gruesomely in the harbor of Torone.
—Michael R. Burch, after Phaedimus

I lie by stark Icarian rocks
and only speak when the sea talks.
Please tell my dear father I gave up the ghost
on the Aegean coast.
—Michael R. Burch, after Theatetus

Sail on, mariner, sail on,
for while we were perishing,
greater ships sailed on.
—Michael R. Burch, after Theodorides

Now his voice is prisoned in the silent pathways of the night:
his owner’s faithful Maltese . . .
but will he still bark again, on sight?
—Michael R. Burch, after Tymnes

Pity this boy who was beautiful, but died.
Pity his monument, overlooking this hillside.
Pity the world that bore him, then foolishly survived.
—Michael R. Burch, after an unknown Greek poet

Insatiable Death! I was only a child!
Why did you snatch me away, in my infancy,
from those destined to love me?
—Michael R. Burch, after an unknown Greek poet

A mother only as far as the birth pangs,
my life cut short at the height of life’s play:
only eighteen years old, so brief was my day.
—Michael R. Burch, after an unknown Greek poet

Having never earned a penny
nor seen a bridal gown address the floor,
still I lie here with the love of many,
to be the love of yet one more.
—Michael R. Burch, after an unknown Greek poet

Although I had to leave the sweet sun,
only nineteen—Diogenes, hail!—
beneath the earth, let’s have lots more fun:
till human desire seems weak and pale.
—Michael R. Burch, after an unknown Greek poet

The light of a single morning
exterminated the sacred offspring of Lysidice.
Nor do the angels sing.
Nor do we seek the gods’ advice.
This is the grave of Nicander’s lost children.
We weep at its bitter price.
—Michael R. Burch, after an unknown Greek poet

Pluto, delighting in tears,
why did you bring our son, Ariston,
to the laughterless abyss of death?
Why—why?—did the gods grant him breath,
if only for seven years?
—Michael R. Burch, after an unknown Greek poet

Heartlessly this grave
holds our nightingale speechless;
now she lies here like a stone,
who voice was so marvelous;
while sunlight illumining dust
proves the gods all reachless,
as our prayers prove them also
unhearing or beseechless.
—Michael R. Burch, after an unknown Greek poet

I, Homenea, the chattering bright sparrow,
lie here in the hollow of a great affliction,
leaving tears to Atimetus
and all scattered—that great affection.
—Michael R. Burch, after an unknown Greek poet

Antipater of Sidon, who died circa 110-100 BC, was one of the greatest Greek poets of antiquity. While we know precious little about his life, we do know that he was writing during the second half of the second century BC. Cicero mentioned him living in Rome at the time of Crassus and Catullus, and called him a brilliant epigrammatist, albeit one sometimes too fond of imitation. But if so, what imitations! Fortunately, around 67 of Antipater's poems were preserved in the Greek Anthology, according to the Gow-Page edition. But there seems to have been some confusion in the anthology between Antipater of Sidon and Antipater of Thessalonica, so that number involves some guesswork. The preserved poems include a good number of tributary epitaphs and praiseful evocations of art and literature. Antipater is most famously associated with the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, which he described in a poem written about 140 BC. But before Antipater praised the Seven Wonders, he praised the best of his peers, and I believe he should be remembered as the Poet of Praise for his tributes to Sappho, Homer, Anacreon, Erinna, Pindar, and other poets ...

Mnemosyne was stunned into astonishment when she heard honey-tongued Sappho,
wondering how mortal men merited a tenth Muse.
—Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

O Aeolian land, you lightly cover Sappho,
the mortal Muse who joined the Immortals,
whom Cypris and Eros fostered,
with whom Peitho wove undying wreaths,
who was the joy of Hellas and your glory.
O Fates who twine the spindle's triple thread,
why did you not spin undying life
for the singer whose deathless gifts
enchanted the Muses of Helicon?
—Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Here, O stranger, the sea-crashed earth covers Homer,
herald of heroes' valour,
spokesman of the Olympians,
second sun to the Greeks,
light of the immortal Muses,
the Voice that never fades.
—Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This herald of heroes,
this interpreter of the Immortals,
this second sun shedding light on the life of Greece,
Homer,
the delight of the Muses,
the ageless voice of the world,
lies dead, O stranger,
washed away with the sea-washed sand ...
—Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

As high as the trumpet's cry exceeds the thin flute's,
so high above all others your lyre rang;
so much the sweeter your honey than the waxen-celled swarm's.
O Pindar, with your tender lips witness how the horned god Pan
forgot his pastoral reeds when he sang your hymns.
—Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Here lies Pindar, the Pierian trumpet,
the heavy-smiting smith of well-stuck hymns.
Hearing his melodies, one might believe
the immortal Muses possessed bees
to produce heavenly harmonies in the bridal chamber of Cadmus.
—Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Harmonia, the goddess of Harmony, was the bride of Cadmus, so his bridal chamber would have been full of pleasant sounds.

Praise the well-wrought verses of tireless Antimachus,
a man worthy of the majesty of ancient demigods,
whose words were forged on the Muses' anvils.
If you are gifted with a keen ear,
if you aspire to weighty words,
if you would pursue a path less traveled,
if Homer holds the scepter of song,
and yet Zeus is greater than Poseidon,
even so Poseidon his inferior exceeds all other Immortals;
and even so the Colophonian bows before Homer,
but exceeds all other singers.
—Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I, the trumpet that once blew the bloody battle-notes
and the sweet truce-tunes, now hang here, Pherenicus,
your gift to Athena, quieted from my clamorous music.
—Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Behold Anacreon's tomb;
here the Teian swan sleeps with the unmitigated madness of his love for lads.
Still he sings songs of longing on the lyre of Bathyllus
and the albescent marble is perfumed with ivy.
Death has not quenched his desire
and the house of Acheron still burns with the fevers of Cypris.
—Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

May the four-clustered clover, Anacreon,
grow here by your grave,
ringed by the tender petals of the purple meadow-flowers,
and may fountains of white milk bubble up,
and the sweet-scented wine gush forth from the earth,
so that your ashes and bones may experience joy,
if indeed the dead know any delight.
—Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Stranger passing by the simple tomb of Anacreon,
if you found any profit in my books,
please pour drops of your libation on my ashes,
so that my bones, refreshed by wine, may rejoice
that I, who so delighted in the boisterous revels of Dionysus,
and who played such manic music, as wine-drinkers do,
even in death may not travel without Bacchus
in my sojourn to that land to which all men must come.
—Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Anacreon, glory of Ionia,
even in the land of the lost may you never be without your beloved revels,
or your well-loved lyre,
and may you still sing with glistening eyes,
shaking the braided flowers from your hair,
turning always towards Eurypyle, Megisteus, or the locks of Thracian Smerdies,
sipping sweet wine,
your robes drenched with the juices of grapes,
wringing intoxicating nectar from its folds ...
For all your life, old friend, was poured out as an offering to these three:
the Muses, Bacchus, and Love.
—Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Smerdies, also mentioned by the poet Simonides, was a Thracian boy loved by Anacreon. Simonides also mentioned Megisteus. Eurypyle was a girl also mentioned by the poet Dioscorides. So these seem to be names associated with Anacreon. The reference to "locks" apparently has to do with Smerdies having his hair cut by Anacreon's rival for his affections, in a jealous rage.

You sleep amid the dead, Anacreon,
your day-labor done,
your well-loved lyre's sweet tongue silenced
that once sang incessantly all night long.
And Smerdies also sleeps,
the spring-tide of your loves,
for whom, tuning and turning you lyre,
you made music like sweetest nectar.
For you were Love's bullseye,
the lover of lads,
and he had the bow and the subtle archer's craft
to never miss his target.
—Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Erinna's verses were few, nor were her songs overlong,
but her smallest works were inspired.
Therefore she cannot fail to be remembered
and is never lost beneath the shadowy wings of bleak night.
While we, the estranged, the innumerable throngs of tardy singers,
lie in pale corpse-heaps wasting into oblivion.
The moaned song of the lone swan outdoes the cawings of countless jackdaws
echoing far and wide through darkening clouds.
—Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Docile doves may coo for cowards,
but we delight in dauntless men.
—Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Who hung these glittering shields here,
these unstained spears and unruptured helmets,
dedicating to murderous Ares ornaments of no value?
Will no one cast these virginal weapons out of my armory?
Their proper place is in the peaceful halls of placid men,
not within the wild walls of Enyalius.
I delight in hacked heads and the blood of dying berserkers,
if, indeed, I am Ares the Destroyer.
—Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

May good Fortune, O stranger, keep you on course all your life before a fair breeze!
—Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Here by the threshing-room floor,
little ant, you relentless toiler,
I built you a mound of liquid-absorbing earth,
so that even in death you may partake of the droughts of Demeter,
as you lie in the grave my plough burrowed.
—Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This is your mother’s lament, Artemidorus,
weeping over your tomb,
bewailing your twelve brief years:
"All the fruit of my labor has gone up in smoke,
all your heartbroken father's endeavors are ash,
all your childish passion an extinguished flame.
For you have entered the land of the lost,
from which there is no return, never a home-coming.
You failed to reach your prime, my darling,
and now we have nothing but your headstone and dumb dust."
—Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Everywhere the sea is the sea, the dead are the dead.
What difference to me—where I rest my head?
The sea knows I’m buried.
—Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Everywhere the Sea is the Sea
by Antipater of Sidon
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Everywhere the Sea is the same;
why then do we idly blame
the Cyclades
or the harrowing waves of narrow Helle?

To protest is vain!

Justly, they have earned their fame.

Why then,
after I had escaped them,
did the harbor of Scarphe engulf me?

I advise whoever finds a fair passage home:
accept that the sea's way is its own.

Man is foam.

Aristagoras knows who's buried here.

The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World
by Antipater of Sidon
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I have set my eyes upon
the lofty walls of Babylon
with its elevated road for chariots

... and upon the statue of Zeus
by the Alpheus ...

... and upon the hanging gardens ...

... upon the Colossus of the Sun ...

... upon the massive edifices
of the towering pyramids ...

... even upon the vast tomb of Mausolus ...

but when I saw the mansion of Artemis
disappearing into the cirri,
those other marvels lost their brilliancy
and I said, "Setting aside Olympus,
the Sun never shone on anything so fabulous!"

Orpheus, mute your bewitching strains (I)
by Antipater of Sidon
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Orpheus, mute your bewitching strains;
Leave beasts to wander stony plains;
No longer sing fierce winds to sleep,
Nor seek to enchant the tumultuous deep;
For you are dead; each Muse, forlorn,
Strums anguished strings as your mother mourns.
Mind, mere mortals, mind—no use to moan,
When even a Goddess could not save her own!

Orpheus, mute your bewitching strains (II)
by Antipater of Sidon
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Orpheus, now you will never again enchant the charmed oaks,
never again mesmerize shepherdless herds of wild beasts,
never again lull the roaring winds,
never again tame the tumultuous hail
nor the sweeping snowstorms
nor the crashing sea,
for you have perished
and the daughters of Mnemosyne weep for you,
and your mother Calliope above all.
Why do mortals bewail their dead sons,
when not even the gods can protect their children from Hades?

The High Road to Death
by Antipater of Sidon
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Men skilled in the stars call me brief-lifed;
I am, but what do I care, O Seleucus?
All men descend to Hades
and if our demise comes quicker,
the sooner we shall we look on Minos.
Let us drink then, for surely wine is a steed for the high-road,
when pedestrians march sadly to Death.

Here Saon,
son of Dicon,
now rests in holy sleep:
don’t say the good die young, friend,
lest gods and mortals weep.
—Michael R. Burch, after CallimachusMy friend found me here,
a shipwrecked corpse on the beach.
He heaped these strange boulders above me.
Oh, how he would wail
that he “loved” me,
with many bright tears for his own calamitous life!
Now he sleeps with my wife
and flits like a gull in a gale
—beyond reach—
while my broken bones bleach.
—Michael R. Burch, after Callimachus

Once sweetest of the workfellows,
our shy teller of tall tales
—fleet Crethis!—who excelled
at every childhood game . . .
now you sleep among long shadows
where everyone’s the same . . .
—Michael R. Burch, after Callimachus

ERINNA, PART II

Erinna is generally considered to be second only to Sappho as an ancient Greek female poet. Little is known about her life; Erinna has been called a contemporary of Sappho and her most gifted student, but she may have lived up to a few hundred years later. This poem, about a portrait of a girl or young woman named Agatharkhis, has been called the earliest Greek ekphrastic epigram (an epigram describing a work of art).

This portrait is the work of sensitive, artistic hands.
See, noble Prometheus, you have human equals!
For if whoever painted this girl had only added a voice,
she would have been Agatharkhis entirely.
—Erinna, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Passing by, passing by my oft-bewailed pillar,
shudder, my new friend to hear my tragic story:
of how my pyre was lit by the same fiery torch
meant to lead the procession to my nuptials in glory!
O Hymenaeus, why did you did change
my bridal song to a dirge? Strange!
—Erinna, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You, my tall Columns, and you, my small Urn,
the receptacle of Hades’ tiny pittance of ash—
remember me to those who pass by
my grave, as they dash.
Tell them my story, as sad as it is:
that this grave sealed a young bride’s womb;
that my name was Baucis and Telos my land;
and that Erinna, my friend, etched this poem on my Tomb.
—Erinna, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Translator’s note: Baucis is also spelled Baukis. Erinna has been attributed to different locations, including Lesbos, Rhodes, Teos, Telos and Tenos. Telos seems the most likely because of her Dorian dialect. Erinna wrote in a mixture of Aeolic and Doric Greek. In 1928, Italian archaeologists excavating at Oxyrhynchus discovered a tattered piece of papyrus which contained 54 lines Erinna’s lost epic, the poem “Distaff.” This work, like the epigram above, was also about her friend Baucis.

On a Betrothed Girl
by Erinna
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I sing of Baucis the bride.
Observing her tear-stained crypt
say this to Death who dwells underground:
"Thou art envious, O Death!"

Her vivid monument tells passers-by
of the bitter misfortune of Baucis —
how her father-in-law burned the poor girl on a pyre
lit by bright torches meant to light her marriage train home.
While thou, O Hymenaeus, transformed her harmonious bridal song into a chorus of wailing dirges.

Hymen! O Hymenaeus!

EURIPIDES, PART II

One true friend is worth ten thousand kin.—Euripides, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Not to speak one’s mind is slavery.—Euripides, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I would rather die standing than kneel, a slave.—Euripides, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

It has been noted that certain events in The Bacchae seem to have been “borrowed” by authors of the New Testament, such as a god-man turning water into wine and Paul’s and Silas’s prison break after a miraculous earthquake. Furthermore, Paul being told not to “kick against the goads” seems to have been lifted directly from The Bacchae.

Excerpts from THE BACCHAE
by Euripides
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I am Dionysus, son of Zeus,
returned to Thebes, my birthland.
My mother, Cadmus’s daughter, Semele,
midwived by fire, delivered by the lightning’s bellowing thunder.
Here I take my stand, a pale god, incognito, come disguised as a man.
Here beside Dirce’s stream and the headwaters of Ismenus.
Here before her shrine I see my lightning-conceived mother's grave.
While amid the ruins of her shattered palace Zeus’s eternal flame still smolders,
lit long ago in undying witness of Hera's lethal fury against my mother.
But Cadmus, founder of Thebes, has earned my praise,
for he made this tomb a shrine, one sacred to my mother.
And was it not I who shaded her grave with these encircling vines’ greenery?
Far behind me now lie the golden-rivered lands of Lydia and Phrygia, where my journey began.
Overland I trekked, across the Persian steppes where the sun beats so fiercely down,
through fastness of Bactria and Media’s grim wastes.
At last to rich Arabia I came...

***

The labors of a god are hard—
hard, yes, and yet his service is sweet.
Sweet to serve, sweet to rejoice:
Bacchus! Evohi!

***

Thus his mother bore him once,
in lightning-struck, bitter labor,
consumed by flames flying forth from Zeus;
thus she died, untimely torn,
on her birth-bed, dead, enlightninged!
Yet of light her son was born!
Dionysus!

HOMER, PART II

Surrender to sleep at last! What an ordeal, keeping watch all night, wide awake. Soon you’ll succumb to sleep and escape all your troubles. Sleep. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Let’s hope the gods are willing. They rule the vaulting skies. They’re stronger than men to plan, execute and realize their ambitions. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Few sons surpass their fathers; most fall short, all too few overachieve. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Death is the Great Leveler, not even the immortal gods can defend the man they love most when the dread day dawns for him to take his place in the dust. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Any moment might be our last. Earth’s magnificence? Magnified because we’re doomed. You will never be lovelier than at this moment. We will never pass this way again. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Beauty! Ah, Terrible Beauty! A deathless Goddess, she startles our eyes! — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Many dread seas and many dark mountain ranges lie between us. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The lives of mortal men? Like the leaves’ generations. Now the old leaves fall, blown and scattered by the wind. Soon the living timber bursts forth green buds as spring returns. Even so with men: as one generation is born, another expires. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Since I’m attempting to temper my anger, it does not behoove me to rage unrelentingly on. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Overpowering memories subsided to grief. Priam wept freely for Hector, who had died crouching at Achilles’ feet, while Achilles wept himself, first for his father, then for Patroclus, as their mutual sobbing filled the house. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

“Genius is discovered in adversity, not prosperity.” — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Ruin, the eldest daughter of Zeus, blinds us all with her fatal madness. With those delicate feet of hers, never touching the earth, she glides over our heads, trapping us all. First she entangles you, then me, in her lethal net. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Death and Fate await us all. Soon comes a dawn or noon or sunset when someone takes my life in battle, with a well-flung spear or by whipping a deadly arrow from his bow. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Death is the Great Leveler, not even the immortal gods can defend the man they love most when the dread day dawns for him to take his place in the dust.—Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

IBYKOS, PART II

Ibykos is an ancient poet who deserves a larger audience today. Hopefully my translations will help in that regard.

Ancient heroes destroyed the glorious city of Priam, son of Dardanus,
setting off from Argos due to the devices of death-dealing Zeus,
enduring much-lamented strife over the striking beauty of auburn-haired Helen,
waging woeful war when ruin wracked longsuffering Pergamum
thanks to the machinations of the golden-haired Cyprian;
but it is not my intention to sing of Paris, deceiver of his host, nor of slim-ankled Cassandra,
nor of Priam’s other children,
nor of the unmentionable day of the downfall of high-towered Troy,
nor shall I recount the valor of heroes who hid in the hollow, many-bolted horse ...

PINDAR, PART II

Do not, O my soul, aspire to immortality, but exhaust life.
—Pindar, Pythian Ode III, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Toil and expense confront excellence in endeavors fraught with danger,
but those who succeed are considered wise by their companions.
—Pindar, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I rejoice at this accomplishment and yet I also grieve,
seeing how Envy slanders noble endeavors.
—Pindar, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Olympian Ode I
by Pindar
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Water is best of all,
and after that Gold flaming like a fire in the night with the luster of imperial wealth;
but if you are reluctant, O my soul, to sing of prizes in mere games ... please consider this:
for just as the brightest star can never outshine the sun no matter how often we scan the heavens by day,
even so we shall never find any games greater than our Olympics!

Therefore we raise our voices!

Hence come these glorious hymns!

Thus our minds bend to those skillful in song,
who celebrate Zeus, the son of Kronos,
as they come to the rich and happy hearth of Hieron ...

Hieron, who wields the scepter of justice in Sicily of the many flocks!

Hieron, who culls the choicest fruits of all sorts of excellence!

Hieron, whose halls flower with the splendid music he makes, as one sings blithely at a friend’s table!

Take down from its peg the Dorian lute!

Let the wise sing of the stallion Pherenikos, the steed who carried Hieron to glory,
who now at Pisa has turned out souls toward glad thoughts and rejoicing,
because by the banks of Alpheos he ran, giving his ungoaded body to the course,
and thus delivered victory to his master, the Syracusans' king, who delights in horses!

...

Now the majesty we remember today will be ever sovereign to men. All men.
My role is to crown Hieron with an equestrian strain in an elegant Aeolian mood,
and I am sure that no host among men — now, or ever —
shall I ever glorify in the sounding labyrinths of song
who is more learned in the learning of honor or with more might to achieve it!

A god has set a guard over your hopes, O Hieron, and regards them with peculiar care.
And if this god does not fail you, I shall again proclaim in song a greater glory yet,
and find the appropriate words when the time comes,
when to the bright-shining mountain of Kronos I return:
my Muse has yet to release her strongest-wingéd dart!

There are many kinds of greatness in men,
but the highest can only be achieved by kings.
Think not to look further into this,
but let it be your lot to walk loftily all your life,
and mine to be friend to the game-winners, winning honor for my art among Hellenes everywhere.

Wait for evening to appreciate the day's splendor.
—Sophocles, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Earlier, I argued that Sappho was the first modern poet. Was she the first feminist as well?

Sappho, fragment 159
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

May I lead?
Will you follow?
Foolish man!

Ears so hollow,
minds so shallow,
never can!

Sappho also wrote the first "make love, not war" poem a mere 2,500 years ahead of her time (see fragment 16 "Warriors on rearing chargers" in the “Longer Poems” section). I believe Sappho sounds surprisingly modern in fragment 156 about the dressing case, in fragment 36 about a woman basing her worth on a ring (immediately below), and many others. Better yet, Sappho never sounds dated, unless her translators turn her into a Victorian, which I have attempted not to do myself.

Ἄλλ᾽ ὄνμὴ μαγαλύννεο δακτυλίω πέρι.

Sappho, fragment 36 (Lobel-Page i.a. 5,2 / Diehl 45 / Cox 33 / Wharton 36)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Vain woman, foolish thing!
Do you base your worth on a ring?

The following poem strikes me as something a female poet might write today:

Sappho, fragment 137
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Gold does not rust,
yet my son becomes dust?

Unfortunately, the only completely intact poem left by Sappho is her "Ode to Aphrodite" or "Hymn to Aphrodite." That’s an interesting synchronicity because Sappho is best known as a love poet, Aphrodite was the ancient Greek goddess of love, and Sappho may have been a priestess dedicated to Aphrodite, although the latter is not certain. However, she did leave some clues in her poems, I believe…

Sappho, fragment 12
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I am an acolyte
of wile-weaving
Aphrodite.

If you prefer to read "Hymn to Aphrodite" first, you can do so by clicking this link: The Longer Poems of Sappho of Lesbos. If you prefer to keep reading, her more celebrated longer poems appear a bit later on this page.

In any case, Sappho is remembered today primarily for her epigrammatic "fragments" and the efforts of her many translators to restore them. In some cases a fragment consists of just a word or two, and the translator/interpreter must provide the rest ...

Sappho translations and tributes have been produced by a bevy of contemporary poets and such highly-regarded writers of the past as Anacreon, Antipater of Sidon, Apollonius, Catullus, Longinus, Menander, Plato, Ovid, Plutarch, Sophocles, Sir Philip Sidney, Ben Jonson, Ambrose Philips, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Charles Algernon Swinburne, Lord Alfred Tennyson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, A. E. Housman, Thomas Hardy, Walter Savage Landor, Thomas Moore, William Butler Yeats, T. S. Eliot, Robert Lowell, Sara Teasdale and William Carlos Williams.

Sappho may have described herself best, in her own words, as parthenon aduphonon, "the sweet-voiced girl." According to Plutarch, Sappho's art was like "sweet-voiced songs healing love." Today we speak of "sweet singers." Well, Sappho may have been the first, and she certainly remains one of the very best!

Sapphic inscription on a long-stemmed cup in an Athens museum

Mere air,
my words' fare,
but intoxicating to hear.
—loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The Sapphic epigram above reminds me of William Butler Yeats, the great Irish poet, who said of his poetry: "I made it out of a mouthful of air."

Sappho Biography: A Brief History of the First Major Lyric Poet

One of the best and most famous poets of antiquity was a woman, Sappho, who has been called the Tenth Muse, the Pride of Hellas, the Flower of the Graces and the Companion of Apollo (the god of Poetry). She was also called simply The Poetess, just as William Shakespeare is call The Bard (i.e., as if they have no competition).

Some thoughtlessly proclaim the Muses nine;
A tenth is Lesbian Sappho, maid divine.
—Plato, translated by Lord Neaves

Mnemosyne was stunned into astonishment when she heard honey-tongued Sappho,
wondering how mortal men merited a tenth Muse.
—Antipater of Sidon (circa 200 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When her ancient Greek peers nominated Sappho to be the Tenth Muse, they were apparently elevating her above all other poets up to their era. By Plato's time, the poets Sappho leapfrogged would have included Homer, Archilochus, Alcman, Alcaeus, Anacreon, Pindar, Simonides, Sophocles, Aesop, Euripides and Aristophanes. That's pretty heady company! But who was Sappho, and was she really that good?

My Religion
attributed to Sappho
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
My religion consists of your body's curves and crevasses.

2.
My religion became your body's curves and crevasses.

3.
I discovered my religion in your body's curves and crevasses.

4.
I sought the Goddess in your body's curves and crevasses.

Sappho was born around 630 B.C. on the island of Lesbos and lived there in the port city of Mytilene. It is believed that she came from a wealthy family and had three brothers, two of whom are named in her poems. It is also believed that she was married and had a daughter named Cleïs. Sappho was apparently exiled to Sicily around 600 B.C. and may have continued to live there until her death around 570 B.C. Not much else is known about her, other than what can be gleaned from her poems and from what other classical authors wrote about her. However, Sappho's poems are mostly fragments and much of what was written about her came long after her own day and may not be accurate. For instance, her father was given ten different names! We do know, however, that Sappho and her poetry were highly esteemed.

My personal theory is that Sappho was the headmistress at a finishing school for brides-to-be from wealthy, privileged families. Such a school would have taught prospective brides the arts of singing, dancing, weaving, composing songs, playing instruments, etc. These lines might have been written by a modern headmistress:

Sappho, fragment 24 (Voigt 24.2-4)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
Don't you remember, in days long gone,
how we did such things, being young?

2.
Don't you remember, in days bygone,
how we did such things, being young?

3.
Remember? In our youth
we too did such reckless things.

A finishing school would explain why Sappho complained about girls she loved leaving her to be married. I imagine the school also involved religious instruction, explaining poems where Sappho instructs younger women on matters of worship, such as being sure to wear garlands before approaching the goddesses. A finishing school would explain a number of things about Sappho’s poems. For instance, an older woman surrounded by girls in the flower of their youth and beauty would, of course, feel that she suffered in comparison. Everything seems to fit. Of course this doesn't mean I'm correct, but it does seem to make sense.

Surrounded by beautiful girls in the flower of their youth, Sappho was subject to pangs of lust:

Sappho, fragment 10
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I lust!
I crave!
f*ck me!

Sappho's specialty was lyric poetry, so-called because it was either recited or sung to the accompaniment of the lyre (a harp-like instrument).

Ἄγε δὴ χέλυ δῖά μοι φωνάεσσα γένοιο.

Sappho, fragment 118 (Voigt 118 / Cox 42 / Barnard 8)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Sing, my sacred tortoiseshell lyre;
come, let my words
accompany your voice.

Sappho, unnumbered fragment
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

What cannot be swept
aside
must be wept.

How esteemed was Sappho by the ancients? "She is a mortal marvel" wrote Antipater of Sidon, before proceeding to catalog the seven wonders of the world. Plato numbered her among the wise. Plutarch said that the grace of her poems acted on audiences like an enchantment, so that when he read her poems he set aside his drinking cup in shame. Strabo called her "something wonderful," saying he knew of "no woman who in any, even the least degree, could be compared to her for poetry." Solon so loved one of her songs that he remarked, "I just want to learn it and die." Sappho was so highly regarded that her face graced six different ancient coins. But perhaps the greatest testimony to her talent and enduring fame is the long line of poets who have paid homage to her over the centuries.

Ἠμιτύβιον σταλάσσον.

Sappho, unnumbered fragment
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

All mixed up, I drizzled.

Why do so few complete poems by such a great poet remain today? As J. B. 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."

Most of Sappho's poems have been lost, but some have endured through surviving fragments (a few were found wrapping Egyptian mummies!). Other poets have sought to "fill in the blanks" because of the 189 known fragments of her work, twenty contain just one readable word, thirteen have only two, and fifty-nine have ten or fewer. Because there is no single agreed-upon numbering system for Sappho's fragments, different poems below may be assigned the same number, if the translators used differentsystems of enumeration. When the original Greek appears, it appears above the corresponding translations.

Of the sad destruction of most of Sappho's work, John Addington Symonds wrote: "The world has suffered no greater literary loss than the loss of Sappho's poems. So perfect are the smallest fragments preserved that we muse in a sad rapture of astonishment to think what the complete poems must have been. Of all the poets of the world, of all the illustrious artists of all literatures, Sappho is the one whose every word has a peculiar and unmistakable perfume, a seal of absolute perfection and illimitable grace. In her art she was unerring."

Sappho was a musician, as her poems were either chanted or sung to the strummings of the lyre, a harp-like instrument. After all, that's where the term "lyric" originated ...

The fragment below seems to be one of the most popular with translators ...

Μὴ κίνη χέραδασ.

Sappho, fragment 108 (Lobel-Page 145 / 113D / Cox 108)

If you're squeamish, don't prod the beach rubble.―Mary Barnard
If you dont like trouble dont disturb sand.―Cid Corman
Don't stir the trash.―Guy Davenport
Let sleeping turds lie!―Michael R. Burch
Stir not the pebbles!―Andrew Alexandre Owie
do not move stones―Anne Carson

These are some of my favorite Sappho translations by other translators:

Love, from whom the sea is sweet,
from whom the sea is bitterer than death.
—Sara Teasdale, from Helen of Troy & Other Poems; “Sappho,” wr. c. 1928

I am weary of all your words and soft, strange ways.
— Charles Algernon Swinburne

ka;t e[mon ıtavlugmon

Sappho, fragment 58
by Mary Barnard

Pain penetrates
Me drop
by drop

Sappho, fragment 58 (Barnard 61)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Pain
drains
me
to
the
last
drop
.

This is an epigram I like that has been attributed to Sappho, although I have not been able to determine the fragment in question, nor the translator:

Spartan girls wear short skirts
and arebrazen.

It is because of the hom*oerotic nature of certain 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 are suggestive rather than graphically sexual. For instance:

... Τάδε νῦν ἐταίραισ ταῖσ ἔμαισι τέρπνα κάλωσ ἀείσω.

Sappho, fragment 160 (Lobel-Page 160 / Diehl 11 / Cox 11)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
I shall now sing skillfully
to please my companions.

2.
I shall sing these songs skillfully
to please my companions.

3.
Goddess,
let me sing skillfully
to please my companions.

I have an intuition that my third translation may be the closest to what Sappho intended, but it's just a hunch.

Γλύκεια μᾶτερ, οὔτοι δύναμαι κρέκην τὸν ἴστον,
πόθῳ δάμεισα παῖδος βραδίναν δι’ Ἀφρόδιταν

Sappho, fragment 102 (Lobel-Page 102 / Voigt 102 / Diehl 114 / Bergk 90 / Cox 87)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Mother, how can I weave,
so overwhelmed by love?

Κατθάνοισα δὲ κείσεαι πότα, κωὐ μναμοσύνα σέθεν
ἔσσετ᾽ οὔτε τότ᾽ οὔτ᾽ ύ᾽στερον. οὐ γὰρ πεδέχεισ βρόδοων
τῶν ἐκ Πιερίασ ἀλλ᾽ ἀφάνησ κἠν᾽ ᾽Αῖδα δόμοισ
φοιτάσεισ πεδ᾽ ἀμαύρων νέκυων ἐκπεποταμένα.

Sappho, fragment 55 (Lobel-Page 55 / Voigt 55 / Diehl 58 / Bergk 68 / Cox 65)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
Lady,
soon you'll lie dead, disregarded,
as your worm-eaten corpse like your corpus degrades;
for those who never gathered Pieria's roses
must mutely accept how their memory fades
as they flit among the obscure, uncelebrated
Hadean shades.

2.
Lady,
soon you'll lie dead, disregarded,
as your worm-eaten corpse like your verse degrades;
for those who never gathered Pierian roses
must mutely accept how their reputation fades
among the obscure, uncelebrated
Hadean shades.

3.
Lady,
soon you'll lie dead, disregarded;
then imagine how quickly your reputation fades ...
when you who never gathered the roses of Pieria
mutely assume your place
among the obscure, uncelebrated
Hadean shades.

Μνάσεσθαί τινά φαμι καὶ ὔστερον ἄμμεων

Sappho, fragment 29 (Lobel-Page 147 / Cox 30, Wharton 32)
by J. V. Cunningham

Someone, I insist, will remember us!

Sappho, fragment 29 (Lobel-Page 147 / Cox 30, Wharton 32)
by Edwin Marion Cox

I think men will remember us hereafter.

Sappho, fragment 147 (Lobel-Page 147 / Cox 30, Wharton 32)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Someone, somewhere
will remember us,
I swear!

Αστερεσ μέν ἀμφι κάλαν σελάνναν
ἆιψ ἀπυκρύπτοισι φάεννον εἶδοσ,
ὄπποτα πλήθοισα μάλιστα λάμπησ
ἀργυρια γᾶν.

Sappho, fragment 34 (Lobel-Page 34 / Voigt 34 / Diehl 4 (10?) / Bergk 3 / Cox 4)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
Awed by the Moon's splendor,
the stars covered their undistinguished faces.
Even so, we.

2a.
You are,
of all the unapproachable stars,
the fairest, the brightest.

2b.
You are,
of all the unapproachable stars,
by far
the fairest,
the brightest―
possessing the Moon's splendor.

"Quoted by Eustathius of Thessalonica in the twelfth century."―Edwin Marion Cox

Sappho, fragment 39
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We're merely mortal women,
it's true;
the Goddesses have no rivals
but You.

Sappho, fragment 5
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We're eclipsed here by your presence—
you outshine all the ladies of Lydia
as the bright-haloed moon outsplendors the stars.

I suspect the fragment above is about Anactoria aka Anaktoria, since Sappho associates Anactoria with Lydia in fragment 16.

Πσαύην δ᾽ οὐ δοκίμοιμ᾽ ὀράνω δύσι πάχεσιν.

Sappho, fragment 52 (Lobel-Page 52 / 47D / Cox 35)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
With my two small arms, how can I
hope to encircle the sky?

2.
With my two small arms, how can I
think to encircle the sky?

Quoted by Herodian, according to Edwin Marion Cox.

... Ὄττινασ γὰρ εὖ θέω κῆνοί με μάλιστα σίννονται

Sappho, fragment 12 (Cox 12)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
Those I most charm
do me the most harm.

2.
Those I charm the most
do me the most harm.

From the "Etymologicum Magnum," tenth century A.D.

Sappho, fragment 154 (Lobel-Page 154 / 88D / Cox 49)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
The moon rose and we women
thronged it like an altar.

2.
All night long
lithe maidens thronged
at the altar of Love.

3.
Maidens throng
at the altar of Love
all night long.

4.
The moon shone, full
as the virgins ringed Love's altar ...

Sappho, fragment 2 (Lobel-Page 2.1A)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Leaving your heavenly summit,
I submit
to the mountain,
then plummet.

Sappho associates her lovers with higher elevations: the moon, stars, mountain peaks.

Sappho, fragment 129 (Lobel-Page 129 / 146D, 18D / Cox 21-23)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You forget me
or you love another more!
It's over.

According to Edwin Marion Cox, Apollonius quoted Sappho to show certain Aeolic word forms.

Μήτ’ ἔμοι μέλι μήτε μέλισσα.

Sappho, fragment 146 (Lobel-Page 146 / 52D / Cox 107)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
No droning bee,
nor even the bearer of honey
for me!

2.
Neither the honey
nor the bee
for me!

"This is a proverb quoted by a number of late authors. It is an example of Sappho's successful use of alliteration."―Edwin Marion Cox

Sappho, fragment 130 (Barnard 47)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

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

Οὐκ οἶδ᾽ ὄττι θέω, δύο μοι τὰ νοήματα.

Sappho, fragment 51 (Lobel-Page 51 / 46D / Cox 34)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
I'm undecided.
My mind? Torn. Divided.

2.
Unsure as a babe new-born,
My mind is divided, torn.

3.
I don't know what to do:
My mind is divided, two.

"Quoted about 220 B.C. by Chrysippus, the Stoic philosopher."―Edwin Marion Cox

Δέδυκε μεν ἀ σελάννα
καὶ Πληΐαδεσ, μέσαι δὲ
νύκτεσ πάρα δ᾽ ἔρχετ᾽ ὤρα,
ἔγω δὲ μόνα κατεύδω.

Sappho, fragment 52 (Voigt 168B / Diehl 94 / Cox 48)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1a.
Midnight.
The hours drone on
as I moan here, alone.

1b.
Midnight.
The hours drone.
I moan,
alone.

2a.
The moon has long since set;
the Pleiades are gone;
now half the night is spent
yet here I lie—alone.

2b.
The moon has long since set;
the Pleiades are gone;
now half the night is spent
and yet
here I lie—alone.

"This singularly beautiful fragment is quoted by Hephaestion as an example of metre. With the 'Hymn to Aphrodite' it was the first portion of the Poems of Sappho to be printed in 1554.―Edwin Marion Cox

Χαίροισα ηύμφα, χαιρέτω δ᾽ ὀ γάμβροσ.

Sappho, fragment 100
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When the bride comes
let her train rejoice!

Οὐ γὰρ ἦν ἀτέρα παῖσ, ὦ γάμβρε, τοαύτα

Sappho, fragment 90 (Lobel-Page 113)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Bridegroom,
was there ever a maid
so like a lovely heirloom?

Sappho, fragment 133
loose translation/interpretation 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 19
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You anoint yourself
with the most exquisite perfume.

Sappho, fragment 120 (Lobel-Page 120 / 108D / Cox 69)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
I'm no resenter;
I have a childlike heart ...

2.
I'm not resentful;
I have the most childlike heart ...

Δαύοις ἀπάλας ἐτάρας
ἐν στήθεσιν …

Sappho, fragment 126 (Lobel-Page 126)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

May your head rest
on the breast
of the tenderest guest.

Sappho, fragment 100
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Bridegroom, rest
on the tender breast
of the girl you love best.

Ἦῤ ἔτι παρθενίασ επιβάλλομαι;

Sappho, fragment 107 (Lobel-Page 107 / 53D/ Cox 99)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
Is my real desire for maidenhood?

2.
Is there any synergy
in virginity?

Σὺ δὲ στεφάνοισ, α Δίκα περθέσαθ᾽ ἐράταισ φόβαισιν, ὄρπακασ ἀνήτοιο συν ῤραισ᾽ ἀπάλαισι χέψιν, ἐγάνθεσιν ἔκ γὰρ πέλεται καὶ χάριτοσ μακαιρᾶν μᾶλλον προτέρην, ἀστερφανώτοισι δ᾽ ἀπυστερέφονται.

Sappho, fragment 82 (Lobel-Page 82 / 80D / Cox 75)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Dica! Do not enter the presence of Goddesses ungarlanded!
First weave sprigs of dill with those delicate hands, if you desire their favor!

Ἕγω δὲ φίλημ᾽ ἀβροσύναν, καὶ μοι τὸ λάμπρον
ἔροσ ἀελίω καὶ τὸ κάλον λέλογχεν.

Sappho, fragment 76 (Lobel-Page 58.25-26 / Cox 76)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
I confess
that I love a gentle caress,
as I love the sun's ecstatic brilliance.

2.
I love the sensual
as I love the sun's ecstatic brilliance.

3.
I love the sensual
as I love the sun's celestial splendor.

4.
I cherish extravagance,
intoxicated by Love's celestial splendor.

From Athenaeus, according to Edwin Marion Cox.

Δεῦρο δηὖτε Μοῖσαι χρύσιον λίποισαι.

Sappho, fragment 81 (Lobel-Page 127)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Assemble now, Muses, leaving golden landscapes!

Στᾶθι κἄντα φίλοσ,....
καὶ τὰν ἔπ᾽ ὄσσοισ ἀμπέτασον χάριν.

Sappho, fragment 138 (Lobel-Page 138 / Cox 27 / Wharton 29)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
Darling, let me see your face;
unleash your eyes' grace.

2.
Turn to me, favor me
with your eyes' indulgence.

3.
Look me in the face,
smile,
reveal your eyes' grace ...

4.
Turn to me, favor me
with your eyes' acceptance.

5.
Darling, let me see your smiling face;
favor me again with your eyes' grace.

"Athenaeus says that Sappho addressed this poem, of which this is a fragment, to a man famous for his physical beauty. It has also been suggested that the lines may have been addressed to Sappho's brother. It need not, however, necessarily be assumed that any particular person is meant."―Edwin Marion Cox

Ὄπταις ἄμμε

Sappho, fragment 11 (Cox 109)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
You inflame me!

2.
You ignite and inflame me ...
You melt me.

LONGER POEMS

Unfortunately, the only completely intact poem left by Sappho is her "Ode to Aphrodite" or "Hymn to Aphrodite" (an interesting synchronicity since Sappho is best known as a love poet and Aphrodite was the ancient Greek goddess of love). However, "That man is peer of the gods" and the first poem below, variously titled “The Anactoria Poem,” “Helen’s Eidolon” and “Some People Say ...” are largely intact. Was Sappho the author of the world's first "make love, not war" poem?

"Some Say"
Sappho, fragment 16 (Lobel-Page 16 / Diehl 27a, 27b / Cox 3 / Voigt 16)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Warriors on rearing chargers,
columns of infantry,
fleets of warships:
some call these the dark earth's redeeming visions.
But I say—
the one I desire.

Nor am I unique
because she who so vastly surpassed all other mortals in beauty
—Helen—
seduced by Aphrodite, led astray by desire,
departed for distant Troy,
abandoned her celebrated husband,
deserted her parents and child!

Her story reminds me of Anactoria,
who has also departed,
and whose lively dancing and lovely face
I would rather see than all the horsem*n and war-chariots of the Lydians,
or their columns of infantry parading in flashing armor.

Sappho's longer poem below survives "only because the ancient critic Longinus quoted it as a supreme example of poetic intensity." In On the Sublime, an ancient work of literary criticism, Longinus spoke with admiration of Sappho's ability to communicate longing: "Are you not amazed at how she evokes soul, body, hearing, tongue, sight, skin, as though they were external and belonged to someone else? And how at one and the same moment she both freezes and burns, is irrational and sane, is terrified and nearly dead, so that we observe in her notasingle emotion but a whole concourse of emotions? Such things do, of course, commonly happen to people in love. Sappho’s supreme excellence lies in the skill with which she selects the most striking and vehement circ*mstances of the passions and forges them into a coherent whole." The poem has been translated—either in whole or in part—into Latin by Catullus, into French by Jean Racine and Pierre de Ronsard, and into English by a host of poets including John Addison, Mary Barnard, Willis Barnstone, Basil Bunting, Michael R. Burch, Lord Byron, Anne Carson, Guy Davenport, Jeffrey Duban, A. S. Kline, Richmond Lattimore, Robert Lowell, Ambrose Philips (perhaps the best of the lot), Jim Powell, Diane Rayor, Paul Roche, Sir Philip Sidney, Tobias Smollett, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Peter Whigham, William Carlos Williams and Louis & Celia Zukovsky.

Ode to Anactoria
Sappho, fragment 31 (Lobel-Page 31 / Voigt 31 / Diehl 2 / Bergk 2 / Cox 2)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

How can I compete with that damned man
who fancies himself one of the gods,
impressing you with his "eloquence" ...
when just the thought of basking in your radiant presence,
of hearing your lovely voice and lively laughter,
sets my heart hammering at my breast?

Hell, when I catch just a quick glimpse of you,
I'm left speechless, tongue-tied,
and immediately a blush like a delicate flame reddens my skin.

Then my vision dims with tears,
my ears ring,
I sweat profusely,
and every muscle twitches or trembles.

When the blood finally settles,
I'm paler and wetter than the limpest grass.

Then, in my exhausted madness,
I'm as dull as the dead.

And yet I must risk all, being bereft without you ...

Ode to Anactoria
Sappho, fragment 31 (Lobel-Page 31 / Voigt 31 / Diehl 2 / Bergk 2 / Cox 2)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

To me that boy seems
blessed by the gods
because he sits beside you,
basking in your brilliant presence.

My heart races at the sound of your voice!
Your laughter?—bright water, dislodging pebbles
in a chaotic vortex. I can't catch my breath!
My heart bucks in my ribs. I can't breathe. I can't speak.

My breasts glow with intense heat;
desire's blush-inducing fires redden my flesh.
My ears seem hollow; they ring emptily.
My tongue is broken and cleaves to its roof.

I sweat profusely. I shiver.
Suddenly, I grow pale
and feel only a second short of dying.
And yet I must endure, somehow,

despite my poverty.

Sappho, fragment 31 (Lobel-Page 31.7)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

... at the sight of you,
words fail me ...

Sappho, fragment 31 (Lobel-Page 31)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Your voice beguiles me.
Your laughter lifts my heart's wings.
If I listen to you, even for a moment, I am left stunned, speechless.

The following are Sappho's poems for Attis aka Atthis aka Athis ...

ἠράμαν μὲν ἔγω σέθεν, Ἄτθι, πάλαι ποτά .... σμίκρα μοι πάις ἔμμεν’ ἐφαίνεο κἄχαρις.

Sappho, fragment 49 (Lobel-Page 49 / Voigt 49 / Diehl 40-41 / Bergk 33-34)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
I loved you, Attis, long ago ...
even when you seemed a graceless child.

2.
I fell in love with you, Attis, long ago ...
You seemed immature to me then, and not all that graceful.

Source: Hephaestion, Plutarch and others.

Ἄτθι, σοὶ δ' ἔμεθεν μὲν ἀπήχθετο φροντίσδην, ἐπὶ δ' Ἀνδρομέδαν πότᾳ

Sappho, fragment 131 (Lobel-Page 131 / Diehl 137 / Voigt 130 / Bergk 41)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
You reject me, Attis,
as if you find me distasteful,
flitting off to Andromeda ...

2.
Attis, you forsake me
and flit off to Andromeda ...

Ode to Anactoria or Ode to Attis
Sappho, fragment 94 (Lobel-Page 94 / Voigt 94 / Diehl 96)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

So my Attis has not returned
and thus, let the truth be said,
I wish I were dead ...

"Honestly, I just want to die!"
Attis sighed,
shedding heartfelt tears,
inconsolably sad
when she
left me.

"How deeply we have loved,
we two,
Sappho!
Oh,
I really don't want to go!"

I answered her tenderly,
"Go as you must
and be happy,
trust-
ing your remembrance of me,
for you know how much
I loved you.

And if you begin to forget,
please try to recall
all
the heavenly emotions we felt
as with many wreathes of violets,
roses and crocuses
you sat beside me
adorning your delicate neck.

Once garlands had been fashioned of many woven flowers,
with much expensive myrrh
we anointed our bodies, like royalty
on soft couches,
then my tender caresses
fulfilled your desire ..."

Unfortunately, fragment 94 has several gaps and I have tried to imagine what Sappho might have been saying.

Sappho, fragment 96 (Lobel-Page 96.1-22 / Voigt 96 / Diehl 98)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
Our beloved Anactoria dwells in distant Sardis, but her thoughts often return to the life we shared together here, when she saw you as a goddess robed in splendor and loved to hear you singing her praises. Now she surpasses all Sardinian women, as, rising at sunset the rosy-fingered moon outshines the surrounding stars, illuminating salt seas and flowering meadows alike. Thus the dew sparkles, the rose revives, and the tender chervil and sweetclover blossom. Now oftentimes when our beloved wanders aimlessly, she is reminded of gentle Attis; then her heart assaults her tender breast with painful pangs and she cries aloud for us to console her. Truly, we understand the distress she feels, because Night, the many-eared, calls to us from across the dividing sea. But to go there is not easy, nor to rival a goddess in her loveliness.

2.
Our beloved Anactoria dwells in distant Sardis, but her thoughts often return here, to our island, to the life we shared together, and how we honored her like a goddess, and how she loved to hear us singing her praises. Now she surpasses all Sardinian women, as, rising at sunset the rosy-fingered moon outshines the surrounding stars, illuminating salt seas and meadows alike. Thus the dew sparkles, the rose revives, and the tender chervil and sweetclover blossom. Now oftentimes when our beloved goes wandering abroad, she is reminded of gentle Attis; then her heart assaults her tender breast with painful pangs and she cries aloud for us to console her. Truly, we understand all too well the distress she feels, because Night, the many-eared, calls to us from across the dividing sea. But to go there is not easy, nor to rival a goddess in her loveliness.

Sappho, fragment 98 (Lobel-Page 98 / Barnard 83)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
My mother said that in her youth
a purple ribbon looped through the hair
was considered an excellent adornment,
but we were dark
and for blondes with hair brighter than torches
it was better to braid in garlands of fresh flowers.

2.
My mother said that in her youth
to bind one's hair in back,
gathered together by a purple plaited circlet,
was considered an excellent adornment,
but for blondes with hair brighter than torches
it was better to braid in garlands of fresh flowers,
while more recently there have been headbands decorated in Sardis
and elaborately embroidered in other Ionian cities,
but for you, my dearest Cleis,
I have no intricate headband
and nowhere that I can obtain one!

ταὶς κάλαισιν ὔμμι νόημμα τὦμον οὐ διάμειπτον

Sappho, fragment 41 (Lobel-Page 41 / Wharton 14)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

For you, fair maidens, my mind does not equivocate.

Hymn to Aphrodite (Lobel-Page 1 / Cox 1)
by Sappho
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Immortal Aphrodite, throned in splendor!
Wile-weaving daughter of Zeus, enchantress and beguiler!
I implore you, dread mistress, discipline me no longer
with such vigor!

But come to me once again in kindness,
heeding my prayers, as you did so graciously before;
O, come Divine One, descend once more
from heaven's golden dominions!

Then, with your chariot yoked to love's
white consecrated doves,
their multitudinous pinions aflutter,
you came gliding from heaven's shining heights,
to this dark gutter.

Swiftly they came and vanished, leaving you,
O my Goddess, smiling, your face eternally beautiful,
asking me what unfathomable longing compelled me
to cry out.

Asking me what I sought in my bewildered desire.
Asking, "Who has harmed you, why are you so alarmed,
my poor Sappho? Whom should Persuasion
summon here?"

"Although today she flees love, soon she will pursue you;
spurning love's gifts, soon she shall give them;
tomorrow she will woo you,
however unwillingly!"

Come to me now, O most Holy Aphrodite!
Free me now from my heavy heartache and anguish!
Graciously grant me all I request!
Be once again my ally and protector!

"Hymn to Aphrodite" is the only poem by Sappho of Lesbos to survive in its entirety. The poem survived intact because it was quoted in full by Dionysus, a Roman orator, in his "On Literary Composition," published around 30 B.C. A number of Sappho's poems mention or are addressed to Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love. It is believed that Sappho may have belonged to a cult that worshiped Aphrodite with songs and poetry. If so, "Hymn to Aphrodite" may have been composed for performance within the cult. However, we have few verifiable details about the "real" Sappho, and much conjecture based on fragments of her poetry and what other people said about her, in many cases centuries after her death. We do know, however, that she was held in very high regard. For instance, when Sappho visited Syracuse the residents were so honored they erected a statue to commemorate the occasion! During Sappho's lifetime, coins of Lesbos were minted with her image. Furthermore, Sappho was called "the Tenth Muse" and the other nine were goddesses. Here is another translation of the same poem ...

Hymn to Aphrodite
by Sappho
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Rainbow-appareled, immortal-throned Aphrodite,
daughter of Zeus, wile-weaver, I beseech you: Hail!
Spare me your reproaches and chastisem*nts.
Do not punish, dire Lady, my penitent soul!

But come now, descend, favor me with your presence.
Please hear my voice now beseeching, however unclear or afar,
your own dear voice, which is Olympus’s essence —
golden, wherever you are ...

Begging you to harness your sun-chariot’s chargers —
those swift doves now winging you above the black earth,
till their white pinions whirring bring you down to me from heaven
through earth’s middle air ...

Suddenly they arrived, and you, O my Blessed One,
smiling with your immortal countenance,
asked what hurt me, and for what reason
I cried out ...

And what did I want to happen most
in my crazed heart? "Whom then shall Persuasion
bring to you, my dearest? Who,
Sappho, hurts you?”

“For if she flees, soon will she follow;
and if she does not accept gifts, soon she will give them;
and if she does not love, soon she will love
despite herself!"

Come to me now, relieve my harsh worries,
free me heart from its anguish,
and once again be
my battle-ally!

Sappho, fragment 2 (Lobel-Page 2 / Voigt 2 / Diehl 5-6 / Bergk 4-5)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Come, Cypris, from Crete
to meet me at this holy temple
where a lovely grove of apples awaits our presence
bowering altars
fuming with frankincense.

Here brisk waters babble beneath apple branches,
the grounds are shaded by rose thickets,
and through the flickering leaves
sleep's enchantments shimmer.

Here the horses will nibble flowers
as we gorge on apples
and the breezes blow
honey-sweet with nectar ...

Here, Cypris, we will gather up garlands,
pour the nectar gratefully into golden cups
and with gladness
commence our festivities.

The Brothers Poem
by Sappho
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

... but you’re always prattling about Kharaxos
returning with his ship's hold full. As for that,
Zeus and the gods alone know, so why indulge
idle fantasies?

Rather release me, since I am commending
numerous prayers to mighty Queen Hera,
asking that his undamaged ship safely returns
Kharaxos to us.

Then we will have serenity. As for
everything else, leave it to the gods
because calm seas often follow
sudden squalls

and those whose fortunes the gods transform
from unmitigated disaster into joy
have received a greater blessing
than prosperity.

Furthermore, if Larikhos raises his head
from this massive depression, we shall
see him become a man, lift ours and
stand together.

Sappho, fragment 58 (Lobel-Page 58 / Bergk 79?)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Virgins, be zealous for the violet-scented Muses' lovely gifts
and those of melodious lyre ...
but my once-supple skin sags now;
my arthritic bones creak;
my ravenblack hair's turned white;
my lighthearted heart's grown heavy;
my knees buckle;
my feet, once fleet as fawns, fail the dance.

I often bemoan my fate ... but what's the use?
Not to grow old is, of course, not an option.

I am reminded of Tithonus, adored by Dawn with her arms full of roses,
who, overwhelmed by love, carried him off beyond death's dark dominion.
Handsome for a day, but soon withered with age,
he became an object of pity to his ageless wife.

Sappho, fragment 104a (Lobel-Page 104a / Voigt 104a / Diehl 120 / Bergk 95)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Hesperus, herdsman most blessed!,
you herd homeward whatever dusk would divest:
herd sheep and goats back home to their rest,
herd children to snuggle at their mother's breast.

Here I do like the rhymes of “blessed” and “rest” and “mother’s breast.”

αμφὶ δ᾽ ὔδωρ
ψῖχρον ὤνεμοσ κελάδει δἰ ὔσδων
μαλίνων, αἰθυσσομένων δὲ φύλλων
κῶμα κατάρρει.

Sappho, fragment 105 (Lobel-Page 105a / Voigt 105a / Diehl 116 / Bergk 93)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
Like the quince-apple ripening on the highest bough,
which the harvesters missed, or forgot—somehow—
or perhaps just couldn't reach, until now.

Like a mountain hyacinth rarely found,
which shepherds' feet trampled into the ground,
leaving a purple stain on an unnoticed mound.

Mary Barnard interpreted this poem as being a lament for lost maidenhead.

2.
You're the sweetest apple reddening on the highest bough,
which the harvesters missed, or forgot—somehow—
or perhaps just couldn't reach, then or now.

3.
You're the sweetest apple reddening on the highest bough,
which the harvesters missed ... but, no, ...
they just couldn't reach that high.

"Quoted by the Scholiast on Hermogenes and elsewhere. The 'sweetapple' to which Sappho refers was probably the result of a a graft of apple on quince."―Edwin Marion Cox

Sappho, fragment 145
loose translation/interpretation 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, fragments 122 & 123 (Lobel-Page 156, Cox 115)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
Your voice—
a sweeter liar
than the lyre,
more dearly bought
and sold,
than gold.

2.
Your voice?—
far more melodious than the lyre,
more dearly bought and sold
than gold.

Ἀμφὶ δ᾽ ἄβροισ λασίοισ εὖ ϝε πύκασσεν

Sappho, fragment 100 (Lobel-Page 100 / Diehl 85 / Cox 86)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
She wrapped herself then in
most delicate linen.

2.
She wrapped herself in
her most delicate linen.

"Pollux says that the line refers to finely woven linen."―Edwin Marion Cox

Τίσ δ᾽ ἀγροιῶτίσ τοι θέλγει νόον,
οὐκ ἐπισταμένα τὰ βράκἐ ἔλκην
ἐπί τῶν σφύρων;

Sappho, fragment 57 (Lobel-Page 57 / 61D / Bergk 70 / Cox 67)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1a.
That country wench bewitches your heart?
Hell, her most beguiling art's
hiking her dress
to seduce you with her ankles' nakedness!

1b.
That country wench bewitches your heart?
Hell, her most beguiling art
is hiking her dress
to reveal her ankles' nakedness!

2.
That hayseed tart
bewitches your heart?
Hell, her most beguiling art's
hiking her dress
to seduce you with her ankles' nakedness!

"Athenaeus and others quote these lines."―Edwin Marion Cox

Sappho, fragment 54 (Lobel-Page 54 / 56D / Cox 61)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
Eros
descended from heaven
clad in his imperial purple mantle.

2.
Eros
descends from heaven
wearing his imperial purple mantle.

Mary Bernard has Eros wearing a "soldier's cloak dyed purple" but I think an imperial purple mantle is more how Sappho saw Eros, as ruling over her.

᾽Αλλ᾽ ἔων φίλοσ ἄμμιν [ἄλλο] λέχοσ ἄρνυσω νεώτερον οὐ γὰρ τλάσομ᾽ ἔγω ξυνοίκην νεῳ γ᾽ ἔσσα γεραιτερα.

Sappho, fragment 121 (Lobel-Page 121 / Cox 72)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
As a friend you're great,
but you need a younger bedmate.

2.
Although you're very dear to me
you need a much younger filly
because I'm far too old for you,
and this old mare's just not that damn silly.

From the anthology of Stobaeus, according to Edwin Marion Cox.

Sappho, after Anacreon
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Once again I dive into this fathomless ocean,
intoxicated by lust.

Did this epigram perhaps inspire the legend that Sappho leapt into the sea to her doom, over her despair for her love for the ferryman Phaon?

The Legend of Sappho and Phaon, after Menander
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Some say Sappho was an ardent maiden
goaded by wild emotion
to fling herself from the white-frothed rocks of Leukas
into this raging ocean
for love of Phaon ...

but others reject that premise
and say it was Aphrodite, for love of Adonis.

In Menander's play The Leukadia he refers to a legend that Sappho flung herself from the White Rock of Leukas in pursuit of Phaon. We owe the preservation of those verses to Strabo, who cited them. Phaon appears in works by Ovid, Lucian and Aelian. He is also mentioned by Plautus in Miles Gloriosus as being one of only two men in the whole world, who "ever had the luck to be so passionately loved by a woman." Alas, not so lucky for Sappho!

Οἴαν τὰν ὐάκινθον ἐν οὔρεσι ποίμενεσ ἄνδρεσ.
πόσσι καταστείβοισι, χαμαι δ᾽ ἐπιπορφύρει ἄνθοσ.

Sappho, fragment 105c (Lobel-Page 105c / Voigt 105b / Diehl 117 / Bergk 93)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Shepherds trample the larkspur
whose petals empurple the heath,
foreshadowing shepherds' grief.

"Quoted by Demetrius, who comments on the ornament and beauty of the lines. Bergk was the first to assign the lines to Sappho. The last three words contain a picture of a crushed flower decaying on the ground, which would perhaps be impossible to put in so few words in any language but Greek. The Greek word ὐάκινθοσ does not mean the flower which at the present day is called 'hyacinth.' The Greek name was applied to several flowers of which one was almost certainly the larkspur, and another, as noted elsewhere, the iris."―Edwin Marion Cox

Sappho, fragment 100
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The softest pallors grace
her lovely face.

Sappho, fragment 36 (Lobel-Page 36 / Cox 24-25)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
I yearn for―I burn for―the one I miss!

2.
While you learn,
I burn.

3.
While you discern your will,
I burn still.

According to Edwin Marion Cox, this fragment is from the Etymologicum Magnum.

Sappho, fragment 30 (Lobel-Page 30.2-9)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Maidens, keeping vigil all night long,
go make a lovely song,
someday, out of desires you abide
for the violet-petalled bride.

Or better yet―arise, regale!
Go entice the eligible bachelors
so that we shocked elders
can sleep less than love-plagued nightingales!

Sappho, fragment 122 (Lobel-Page 122)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

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

Sappho, fragment 201 (Lobel-Page 201)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
Death is evil;
so the Gods deem,
or they would die.

2.
Death is evil;
the Gods all agree;
for, had death been good,
the Gods would
be mortal, like me.

Sappho, fragment 43
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Come, dear ones,
let us cease our singing:
morning dawns.

... κατ᾽ ἔμον στάλαγμον, τὸν δ᾽ ἐπιπλάζοντεσ ἄμοι φέροιεν καὶ μελεδώναισ.

Sappho, fragment 14 (Lobel-Page 37 / Wharton 17 / Cox 17)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
Today
may
buffeting winds bear
all my distress and care
away.

2.
Today
may
buffeting winds bear
away
all my distress and care.

From theEtymologicum Magnum, to show that the Aeolians usedζin the place ofσσ.Ἄμοιis a guess of Bergk's forἄνεμοι, 'winds.'

Ἀρτίως μ’ ἀ χρυσοπέδιλλος Αὔως

Sappho, fragment 15 (Lobel-Page 123 / Wharton 18 / Cox 18)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Just now I was called,
enthralled,
by golden-sandalled
dawn...

Mary Barnard and I both took minor liberties with this poem. I believe the fragment reads "just now gold-sandaled Dawn" as in the Anne Carson translation. However, I don't think it’s much of a stretch to say Sappho was "enthralled" by the dawn, as she repeatedly expressed delight in and reverence for the sun, moon and stars.

"This is quoted by Ammonius of Alexandria about A.D. 400 to show Sappho's use of Ἀρτίωσ."―Edwin Marion Cox

Sappho, fragment 69
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Into the soft arms of the girl I once spurned,
I gladly returned.

Sappho, fragment 29
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Since my paps are dry and my barren womb rests,
let me praise lively girls with violet-scented breasts.

Sappho, fragment 1
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Beautiful swift sparrows
rising on whirring wings
flee the dark earth for the sun-bright air ...

Sappho, fragment 58 (Barnard 10)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
Girls ripening for marriage wove flowers into garlands.

2.
Girls of the ripening maidenhead wove garlands.

3.
Girls of the ripening maidenhead wore garlands.

This poem and others make me think Sappho may have run a sort of finishing school for prospective brides, where girls learned to weave, play musical instruments, sing, converse, etc.

Sappho, fragment 94 & 98
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Listen, my dear;
by the Goddess I swear
that I, too,
(like you)
had to renounce my false frigidity
and surrender my virginity.
My wedding night was not so bad;
you too have nothing to fear, so be glad!
(But then why do I sometimes still think with dread
of my lost maidenhead?)

Sappho, fragment 114 (Lobel-Page 114 / Barnard 36)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Maidenhead! Maidenhead!
So swiftly departed!
Why have you left me
forever brokenhearted?

Sappho, fragment 2
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch, after Tennyson

I sip the cup of costly death;
I lose my color, catch my breath
whenever I contemplate your presence,
or absence.

Sappho, fragment 32 (Lobel-Page 32 / Diehl 10 / Bergk 10)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

They have been very generous with me,
the violet-strewing Muses of Olympus;
thanks to their gifts
I have become famous.

Sappho, fragment 3
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Stars ringing the lovely moon
pale to insignificance
when she illuminates the earth
with her magnificence.

Sappho, fragment 49
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You have returned!
You did well to not depart
because I pined for you.
Now you have re-lit the torch
I bear for you in my heart,
this flare of Love.
I bless you and bless you and bless you
because we're no longer apart.

Sappho, fragment 52
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Yesterday,
you came to my house
to sing for me.

Today,
I come to you
to return the favor.

Talk to me. Do.
Sweet talk,
I love the flavor!

Please send away your maids
and let us share a private heaven-
haven.

Sappho, fragment 19 (Lobel-Page 94)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

There was no dance,
no sacred dalliance,
from which we were absent.

... Παντοδάπαισ μεμιγμένα χροίαισιν.

Sappho, fragment 152 (Lobel-Page 152 / 142D / Wharton 20 / Cox 20)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

... shot through
with innumerable hues ...

"Quoted by the Scholiast on Apollonius of Rhodes, i, 727. Sappho's reference may be to the rainbow."―Edwin Marion Cox

Ὤσ δὲ παῖσ πέδα μάτερα πεπτερύτωμαι.

Sappho, fragment 38 (Incertum 25, Cox 36)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I flutter
after you
like a chick after its mother ...

From the "Etymologicum Magnum" according to Edwin Marion Cox.

Κὰμ μέν τε τύλαν κασπολέω

Sappho, fragment 30 (Barnard 44)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Stay!
I will lay
out a cushion for you
with the plushest pillows ...

From Herodian, according to Edwin Marion Cox.

Ἕγω δ᾽ ἐπὶ μαλθάκαν τύλαν σπολέω μέλεα.

Sappho, fragment 46 (Lobel-Page 46 / Cox 46)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My body descends
and my comfort depends
on your welcoming cushions!

From Herodian, according to Edwin Marion Cox.

Sappho, fragment 132 (Lobel-Page 132, Barnard 17)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
I have a delightful daughter
fairer than the fairest flowers, Cleis,
whom I cherish more than all Lydia and lovely Lesbos.

2.
I have a lovely daughter
with a face like the fairest flowers,
my beloved Cleis …

It bears noting that Sappho mentions her daughter and brothers, but not her husband. We do not know if this means she was unmarried, because so many of her verses have been lost.

Sappho, fragment 140 (Lobel-Page 140, Barnard 11)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

He is dying, Cytherea, the delicate Adonis.
What shall we lovers do?
Rip off your clothes, bare your breasts and abuse them!

While some translators seem to imagine Sappho to have been "anti-male" in her poems, I don't see it myself. Now, when a man was a rival for someone Sappho had her eye on, she could express unhappiness! My impression is that Sappho was more attracted to women, but didn't dislike men in general.

Sappho, fragment 46 (Barnard 46)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You came and did well to come
because I desired you. You made
love blaze in my breast, thus I bless you ...
but not the endless hours when you're gone.

Sappho, fragment 22 (Barnard 93)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I bid you, Abanthis, take your lyre
and sing of Gongyla, while desire
surrounds you. Sing of the lovely one,
for her clinging white dress excited you
when you saw it. Meanwhile, I rejoice
although Aphrodite once chided me
for praying ... and yet I still pray to have you.

Sappho, fragment 153 (Lobel-Page 153)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

... a sweet-voiced maiden ...

Sappho, fragment 94 (Lobel-Page 94)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You anointed yourself
with the most exquisite perfume.

Sappho, fragment 42 (Lobel-Page 42, Wharton 16, Cox 16)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
As their hearts froze,
their feathers molted.

2.
As their hearts grew chill
their wings grew still.

In Pindar,Pyth.i. 10, the eagle of Zeus, delighted by music, drops his wings, and the Scholiast quotes this fragment to show that Sappho says the same of doves.

Sappho, fragment 134
loose translation/interpretation 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.

And now, in closing, here are poems dedicated by other poets to the Divine Sappho:

O ye who ever twine the three-fold thread,
Ye Fates, why number with the silent dead
That mighty songstress whose unrivalled powers
Weave for the Muse a crown of deathless flowers?
—Antipater of Sidon, translated by Francis Hodgson

Some thoughtlessly proclaim the Muses nine;
A tenth is Lesbian Sappho, maid divine.
—Plato, translated by Lord Neaves

Had Sappho's self not left her word thus long
For token,
The sea round Lesbos yet in waves of song
Had spoken.
—Charles Algernon Swinburne

Sappho's Rose
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The rose is—
the ornament of the earth,
the glory of nature,
the archetype of the flowers,
the blush of the meadows,
a lightning flash of beauty.

Sappho’s Lullaby
an original poem by Michael R. Burch

for Jeremy

Hushed yet melodic, the hills and the valleys
sleep unaware of the nightingale's call
as the dew-laden lilies lie
listening,
glistening . . .
this is their night, the first night of fall.

Son, tonight, a woman awaits you;
she is more vibrant, more lovely than spring.
She'll meet you in moonlight,
soft and warm,
all alone . . .
then you'll know why the nightingale sings.

Just yesterday the stars were afire;
then how desire flashed through my veins!
But now I am older;
night has come,
I’m alone . . .
for you I will sing as the nightingale sings.