Equal to the Gods
by Sapphotranslated by Ad Blankestijn
He seems equal to the gods, that man,
who sits across from you,
sits and listens close
to your voice’s sweetness,
your enticing laughter.
O it stirs the heart in my breast,
when I see you even briefly.
I can no longer say a single thing,
but my tongue is frozen in silence,
a delicate flame runs beneath my skin,
with my eyes I see nothing,
my ears make a drumming noise,
a cold sweat covers me,
trembling seizes my body.
I turn greener than grass.
and feel at the point of death.
φάινεταί μοι κῆνος ἴσος θέοισιν
ἔμμεν ὤνερ, ὄττις ἐναντίος τοι
ἰσδάνει καὶ πλάσιον ἆδυ φωνεί-
σας ὐπακούει
καὶ γελαίσας ἰμερόεν τό μ᾽ ἦ μάν
καρδίαν ἐν στήθεσιν ἐπτόησεν·
ὠς γὰρ εἰσίδω βροχέως σε, φώνας
οὐδὲν ἔτ᾽ ἴκει·
ἀλλὰ κάμ μὲν γλῶσσα ἔαγε, λέπτον
δ᾽ αὔτικα χρῷ πῦρ ὐπαδεδρόμηκεν,
ὀππάτεσσι δ᾽ οὐδὲν ὄρημ᾽,ἐπιρρόμ-
βεισι δ᾽ ἄκουαι.
καδ δέ μ᾽ ἴδρως κακχέεται, τρόμος δὲ
παῖσαν ἄγρει, χλωροτέρα δὲ ποίας
ἔμμι, τεθνάκην δ᾽ ὀλίγω ᾽πιδεύης
φαίνομαι...
[Sappho, side A of an Attic red-figure kalathos, ca. 470 BC. From Akragas, Sicily. Staatliche Antikensammlungen]
Except for one or two poems, the oeuvre of the archaic Greek poet Sappho (c. 630 – c. 570 BCE) has only come down to us in snippets and fragments. The same can be said about information on her life. There are no contemporary sources and the main source
for her biography is the tenth-century Byzantine encyclopedia Suda,
about fifteen hundred years after Sappho. But we know that she came from Mytilini, the
capital of the island of Lesbos, and her family was part of the local
aristocracy.
Apparently Sappho was the leader of a literary
circle. The poems she wrote of friendship and love for other women have earned her a reputation for adhering to women's love, hence the word
"lesbian" (literally "originating from the island of Lesbos").
The first poem quoted above serves as a good example. Sappho evokes the
sensations she experiences as a result of being seated opposite a
beautiful woman, with whom she is infatuated. The man in the poem is "equal to the gods" because he
can be in the presence of the woman and
remain unaffected. Sappho, in contrast, is a physical, mental and
emotional wreck. Sappho here has given great expression to feelings of
being in love. This poem inspired various poets who came after her, such
as Catullus.
[Sappho, by Charles Mengin (1853–1933)]
Sappho's poetry has mainly come to us in fragments. One famous fragment is the
"Midnight poem."
The moon and the Pleiades have set -
it is midnight
and the time is passing,
but I sleep alone.
The
poem describes the speaker – a woman, as the adjective in the final line
is feminine – lying alone at night. Perhaps the speaker is waiting for
her lover; it could however also be a generalized complaint of
loneliness.
Even this short and simple poem ascribed to Sappho has influenced many later poets, from
Catullus to Tennyson, Housman and Ezra Pound.
Sappho was regarded as the female counterpart of Homer by the ancient
Greeks - and as in the case of that older poet, we should in fact admit
that we know almost nothing about her life.
First poem my own translation, with some borrowing of felicitous phrases from other translations. Second poem cited from Midnight Poem at Wikipedia.
Translations of poems by Sappho:
Poems of Sappho translated by Julia Dubnoff
Sappho, selected Poems and Fragments by A.S. Kline
A Fragment of Sappho at Wikisource
Photos: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons