Lilith
06-27-2005, 12:06 PM
(submitted by gekkogecko)
By Tim Castle
LONDON (Reuters) - A love poem written 2,600 years ago
by Sappho, the greatest female poet of ancient Greece,
was published Friday for the first time since it was
rediscovered last year.
Sappho's verses expressing love for her female
companions on the Greek island of Lesbos have either
shocked or delighted generations of readers ever since
they were first composed.
Her works once filled nine volumes and the ancients
called her the "tenth muse," but little has survived
to modern times.
The 12-line poem, only the fourth to have been
recovered, was found on papyrus wrapped around an
Egyptian mummy. It was published with an English
translation in the Times Literary Supplement.
"She obviously had emotional relationships with women
of her circle, quite possibly sexual," the poem's
translator, Oxford University academic Martin West,
told Reuters.
"They seem to have had some sort of society in which
they could be in each other's company quite a lot,
rather cut off from men," he said. "But the were
clearly able to have plenty of fun."
The poem was rediscovered last year after researchers
at Germany's Cologne University identified a papyrus
once wrapped round a mummy as part of a 3rd century BC
roll containing poems by Sappho.
They noticed that some of the verse fragments on the
crumbling Cologne material matched parts of lines
already identified as Sappho's on a papyrus discovered
in 1922.
By combining the two they were able to reconstruct the
original, adding likely missing words in the gaps that
remained.
In the newly published verses, originally sung to
music, Sappho laments the passing of time as she
compares the youthful bodies of dancing girls to her
own weak knees and white hair.
The first four lines of the translated verses read:
"You for the fragrant-bosomed Muses' lovely gifts,
Be zealous, girls, and the clear melodious lyre:
But my once tender body old age now
Has seized; my hair's turned white instead of dark."
By Tim Castle
LONDON (Reuters) - A love poem written 2,600 years ago
by Sappho, the greatest female poet of ancient Greece,
was published Friday for the first time since it was
rediscovered last year.
Sappho's verses expressing love for her female
companions on the Greek island of Lesbos have either
shocked or delighted generations of readers ever since
they were first composed.
Her works once filled nine volumes and the ancients
called her the "tenth muse," but little has survived
to modern times.
The 12-line poem, only the fourth to have been
recovered, was found on papyrus wrapped around an
Egyptian mummy. It was published with an English
translation in the Times Literary Supplement.
"She obviously had emotional relationships with women
of her circle, quite possibly sexual," the poem's
translator, Oxford University academic Martin West,
told Reuters.
"They seem to have had some sort of society in which
they could be in each other's company quite a lot,
rather cut off from men," he said. "But the were
clearly able to have plenty of fun."
The poem was rediscovered last year after researchers
at Germany's Cologne University identified a papyrus
once wrapped round a mummy as part of a 3rd century BC
roll containing poems by Sappho.
They noticed that some of the verse fragments on the
crumbling Cologne material matched parts of lines
already identified as Sappho's on a papyrus discovered
in 1922.
By combining the two they were able to reconstruct the
original, adding likely missing words in the gaps that
remained.
In the newly published verses, originally sung to
music, Sappho laments the passing of time as she
compares the youthful bodies of dancing girls to her
own weak knees and white hair.
The first four lines of the translated verses read:
"You for the fragrant-bosomed Muses' lovely gifts,
Be zealous, girls, and the clear melodious lyre:
But my once tender body old age now
Has seized; my hair's turned white instead of dark."