Sappho Complete Works – World’s Best Collection E-Book

Sappho

• Herausgeber: Imagination Books
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Seitenzahl: 119

Beschreibung

Sappho Complete Works World's Best Collection

This is the world’s best Sappho collection, including the most complete set of Sappho’s works available plus many free bonus materials.

Sappho

Sappho was a Greek lyric poet, born on the island of Lesbos. The Alexandrians included her in the list of nine lyric poets. Little is known for certain about her life and although the bulk of her poetry, well-known and greatly admired through much of antiquity, has been lost, her immense reputation has endured through surviving fragments.

Sappho’s poetry centers on passion and love of both sexes, as well as lesbianism. The word lesbian is derived from the island of her birth, Lesbos, and her name is the origin of the word sapphic.

The ‘Must-Have’ Complete Collection

In this irresistible collection you get:

Life Of Sappho - Written specially for this collection.

Original Poetical Works And Fragments Of Sappho - Sappho’s poems in their original rendering.

Sappho: One Hundred Lyrics - Poetical Reworkings Of Sappho’s works into a modern poetry form, retaining all their original beauty.

The Poems of Sappho - An Interpretive Rendition in to English - A second set of Sappho's poems interpreted and written for today's contemporary language, further expanding their meaning and power.

Poems inside include, among others:

Awed by her splendor

Hymn To Aphrodite

Delusion: dead, I won’t be forgotten

Like the gods..

Song of The Rose

Sounds of grief

The Muses

With his venom

You may forget but..

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Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Title Page

LIFE OF SAPPHO

ORIGINAL POETICAL WORKS AND FRAGMENTS OF SAPPHO

Although they are

Anactoria

And their feet move

Awed by her splendor

Before they were mothers

Blame Aphrodite

Mother dear, I can't finish my

Cleis

Cyprian, in my dream

Drapple-thorned Aphrodite,

He is more than a hero

Hymn To Aphrodite

I have no complaint

delusion: dead, I won't be forgotten

I took my lyre

I took my lyre and said

In the spring twilight

It is the Muses

It was you, Atthis, who said

It's no use

Mother dear, I can't finish my

Leto and Niobe

Like the gods. . .

Must I remind you, Cleis,

Must I remind you, Clesis,

No Word

Ode to a Loved One

Of course I love you

Prayer to Our Lady of Paphos

Sleep, darling

Song of The Rose

Sounds of grief

Standing by my bed

Tell everyone

The Anactoria Poem

The Moon

The Muses

To any army wife

To any army wife, in Sardis:

To Aphrodite

To Evening

To One who Loved not Poetry

Tonight I've watched

We know this much

We put the urn abord ship

We shall enjoy it

With his venom

Without warning

Words

Yes, Atthis, you may be sure

You know the place: then

You may forget but

SAPPHO: ONE HUNDRED LYRICS – POETICAL REWORKINGS OF SAPPHO

THE POEMS OF SAPPHO: AN INTERPRETATIVE RENDITION INTO ENGLISH

SAPPHO COMPLETE WORKS WORLD’S BEST COLLECTION

Edited By Darryl Marks

SAPPHO COMPLETE WORKS WORLD’S BEST COLLECTION - Original Publication Dates Poems, and works of Sappho – Sappho - circa 620 BC Sappho: One Hundred Lyrics – Bliss Carman – 1907 The Poems Of Sappho: An Interpretative Rendition Into English - John Myers O'Hara – 1910 First Imagination Books edition published 2018 Copyright © 2018 by Darryl Marks and Infinite Eternity Entertainment LLC All Rights Reserved."LIFE OF SAPPHO " Copyright © 2018 by Darryl Marks and Infinite Eternity Entertainment LLC All Rights Reserved.

LIFE OF SAPPHO

By Darryl Marks

SAPPHO, ‘THE POETESS’

Sappho was a female ancient Greek poet. She was known in ancient times as ‘the Poetess’, and venerated in much the same way as Homer, who was known as ‘the Poet’. She is famous for writing lyrical poetry, focusing on the intense passion and description of love. In fact, Plato called her ‘the Tenth Muse’. She was even honored on coins used as legal tender.

BIRTH

Sappho was born on the Isle of Lesbos, circa 620BC, born to an aristocratic family. She lived to the approximate age of 50.

Little is known of her actual life. We know her birthplace was either Eressos or Mytilene, the main city on the Isle of Lesbos.

According to the Suda, she had three brothers: Larches, Charaxos and Eurygios; and was married to a wealthy man called Cercylas, who worked out of Andros. She had a daughter with Cercylas, named Cleis. Sources suggest she named Cleis after her own mother.

There is evidence to suggest that at some point, Sappho was exiled to Sicily because of political troubles on the Isle of Lesbos, and because of her specific political leanings.

Sappho wrote nine books of lyric poems, as well as epigrams, and other poetical writings. Her work was extremely well known in the ancient world, but now very little now survives, possibly the result of censorship during the Christian era.

Unfortunately, much of her poetry has been lost, although some poems have been painstakingly pieced together through surviving fragments.

The only complete poem of Sappho’s we have ‘A Prayer to Aphrodite’, preserved by the literary critic and historian Dionysius of Halicarnassos. All other partial verses were recovered from papyri used as wrapping paper that was discovered in Egypt in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

According to a papyrus of around 200 AD, Sappho was short and dark, and not attractive.

SAPPHO’S CIRCLE OF FRIENDS

A philosopher, Maximus of Tyre, wrote that the friendships of Sappho were similar to the friendships of Socrates. This indicates Sappho had a circle of close, like-minded friends brought together by a love of art, poetry and culture.

Some sources have suggested Sappho may have been the head of some formal school or Academy for girls, receiving students from aristocratic families, and training them in the arts. Many of her verses are addressed to these students.

Sappho seems also to have exchanged verses with the poet Alcaeus.

SAPPHO’S SEXUALITY

Sappho is often referred to as a lesbian. In fact, known as the first lesbian poet, both the words ‘Lesbian’ and ‘Sapphic’ are derived from her life. The word lesbian is actually derived from her place of birth – the ‘Isle of Lesbos’ and the word ‘Sapphic’ from her own name.

Although there is no hard evidence about her sexuality, and despite the fact that her poems express great passion for a variety of people - both men and women – the chances are high that she was a lesbian.

In fact, ancient tradition has often attacked and ridiculed her for her sexual preferences: an Anacreontic fragment that was written in the generation after Sappho sneers at Lesbians; Sappho was lampooned by the writers of New Comedy; Ovid related the story of Phaon, who, according to some traditions, rejected Sappho's love and caused her to leap from a rock to her death; and Apuleius wrote that the beauty of her language made amends for the lascivious and inappropriate content of her poetry.

Christian moralists have always pronounced anathemas upon her.

Later Christian censors, in various ages in Alexandria, Rome, and Constantinople condemned her in words such as those of Tatian, who said she was "a whore who sang about her own licentiousness."

Saint Gregory of Nazianzus and Pope Gregory VII ordered her works burned.

Even some recent modern editors have exercised their own discretion by changing words or lines in her poems that they believed would be misunderstood or offensive to readers. This history is itself part of Sappho's significance.

As for her sexuality, Sappho is said to have had three female companions, Atthis, Telesippa and Megara, with whom she is supposed to have had lesbian friendships.

SAPPHO’S POETRY

The poetry of Sappho often revolves around themes of love and passion, and has a simplicity of language; yet a great vivid, visceral directness. Her style gives an impression of immediacy. Her poems were lyrical in nature, meaning they were sung to music.

Sappho’s prowess as a poet came from her unique view of love, passion and the erotic. In her poetry, traditional formulas were eschewed and instead the natural expression of love and emotion were emphasized. Love, though apotheosized, is neither censored nor simplified. In other poems Sappho is yet more acerbic, approaching the level of a curse on rivals or those who reject her.

More often, the emphasis is on Sappho’s own suffering, caused by "bittersweet" love, as well as lovesickness -- uncertainty, sleeplessness, bondage, slavery. In fact, one small fragment, says simply "you burn me."

Her attitudes toward love attracted a great deal of attention, both positive and negative. It is this role as icon of Love and the erotic that Sappho is been best known.

Apart from her fascination with the theme of love, Sappho contributed to the lyric genre, with her emphasis on emotion, on subjective experience, and on the individual. This was in contrast to the epic, liturgical, or dramatic poetry of the period.

Earlier poetry had been liturgical, ceremonial, or courtly, yet Sappho's is intimate. Unlike earlier singers, who spoke of the values and ideology of a whole group while remaining anonymous, Sappho found the truest and most significant material in individual experience.

Today, Sappho reminds readers of poetry's roots in magic and religion while still showing her skill as a Greek metrical inventor and an expert practitioner of her art. Widely recognized as one of the great poets of world literature, she is a poet worthy of the epithet that Strabo wrote about her…He said she could only be called "a marvel."

ORIGINAL POETICAL WORKS AND FRAGMENTS OF SAPPHO

Although they are

Although they are

only breath, words

which I command

are immortal

Sappho

Anactoria

Yes, Atthis, you may be sure

Even in Sardis

Anactoria will think often of us

of the life we shared here, when you seemed

the Goddess incarnate

to her and your singing pleased her best

Now among Lydian women she in her

turn stands first as the redfingered

moon rising at sunset takes

precedence over stars around her;

her light spreads equally

on the salt sea and fields thick with bloom

Delicious dew pours down to freshen

roses, delicate thyme

and blossoming sweet clover; she wanders

aimlessly, thinking of gentle

Atthis, her heart hanging

heavy with longing in her little breast

She shouts aloud, Come! we know it;

thousand-eared night repeats that cry

across the sea shining between us

Sappho

tr. Barnard

Sappho

And their feet move

And their feet move

rhythmically, as tender

feet of Cretan girls

danced once around an

altar of love, crushing

a circle in the soft

smooth flowering grass

Sappho

Awed by her splendor

Awed by her splendor

stars near the lovely

moon cover their own

bright faces

when she

is roundest and lights

earth with her silver

Sappho

Before they were mothers

Before they were mothers

Leto and Niobe

had been the most

devoted of friends

Sappho

Blame Aphrodite

It's no use

Mother dear, I can't finish my

weaving

You may

blame Aphrodite

soft as she is

she has almost

killed me with

love for that boy

Sappho

tr. Barnard

Sappho

Cleis

Sleep, darling

I have a small

daughter called

Cleis, who is

like a golden

flower

I wouldn't

take all Croesus'

kingdom with love

thrown in, for her

---

Don't ask me what to wear

I have no embroidered

headband from Sardis to

give you, Cleis, such as

I wore

and my mother

always said that in her

day a purple ribbon

looped in the hair was thought

to be high style indeed

but we were dark:

a girl

whose hair is yellower than

torchlight should wear no

headdress but fresh flowers

Sappho

tr. Barnard

Sappho

Cyprian, in my dream

Cyprian, in my dream

the folds of a purple

kerchief shadowed

your cheeks --- the one

Timas one time sent,

a timid gift, all

the way from Phocaea

Sappho

tr. Barnard

Sappho

Drapple-thorned Aphrodite,

Dapple-throned Aphrodite,

eternal daughterf God,

snare-knitter! Don't, I beg you,

cow my heart with grief! Come,

as once when you heard my faroff

cry and, listening, stepped

from your father's house to your

gold car, to yoke the pair whose

beautiful thick-feathered wings

oaring down mid-air from heaven

carried you to light swiftly

on dark earth; then, blissful one,

smiling your immortal smile

you asked, What ailed me now that

me me call you again? What

was it that my distracted

heart most wanted? "Whom has

Persuasion to bring round now

"to your love? Who, Sappho, is

unfair to you? For, let her

run, she will soon run after;

"if she won't accept gifts, she

will one day give them; and if

she won't love you -- she soon will

"love, although unwillingly..."

If ever -- come now! Relieve

this intolerable pain!

What my heart most hopes will

happen, make happen; you yourself

join forces on my side!

Sappho

He is more than a hero

He is more than a hero

he is a god in my eyes--

the man who is allowed

to sit beside you -- he

who listens intimately

to the sweet murmur of

your voice, the enticing

laughter that makes my own

heart beat fast. If I meet

you suddenly, I can'

speak -- my tongue is broken;

a thin flame runs under

my skin; seeing nothing,

hearing only my own ears

drumming, I drip with sweat;

trembling shakes my body

and I turn paler than

dry grass. At such times

death isn't far from me

Sappho

Hymn To Aphrodite

Throned in splendor, immortal Aphrodite!

Child of Zeus, Enchantress, I implore thee

Slay me not in this distress and anguish,

Lady of beauty.

Hither come as once before thou camest,

When from afar thou heard'st my voice lamenting,

Heard'st and camest, leaving thy glorious father's Palace golden,

Yoking thy chariot. Fair the doves that bore thee;

Swift to the darksome earth their course directing,

Waving their thick wings from the highest heaven

Down through the ether.

Quickly they came. Then thou, O blessed goddess,

All in smiling wreathed thy face immortal,

Bade me tell thee the cause of all my suffering,

Why now I called thee;

What for my maddened heart I most was longing.

"Whom," thou criest, "dost wish that sweet Persuasion

Now win over and lead to thy love, my Sappho?

Who is it wrongs thee?

"For, though now he flies, he soon shall follow,

Soon shall be giving gifts who now rejects them.

Even though now he love not, soon shall he love thee

Even though thou wouldst not."

Come then now, dear goddess, and release me

From my anguish. All my heart's desiring

Grant thou now. Now too again as aforetime,

Be thou my ally.

Sappho

I have no complaint

I have no complaint

prosperity that

the golden Muses

gave me was no

delusion: dead, I won't be forgotten

Sappho

I took my lyre

I took my lyre and said:

Come now, my heavenly

tortoise shell: become

a speaking instrument

Sappho

tr. Barnard

Sappho

I took my lyre and said

I took my lyre and said:

Come now, my heavenly

tortoise shell: become

a speaking instrument

Sappho

In the spring twilight

In the spring twilight

the full moon is shining:

Girls take their places

as though around an altar

Sappho

It is the Muses

It is the Muses

who have caused me

to be honred: they

taught me their craft

Sappho

It was you, Atthis, who said

It was you, Atthis, who said

"Sappho, if you will not get

up and let us look at you

I shall never love you again!

"Get up, unleash your suppleness,