Sappho: A New Translation of the Complete Works by Sappho

Author:Sappho
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2014-05-31T04:30:00+00:00

Fragment 20

This fragment describes a great storm. Perhaps the song contained a prayer for a safe sea voyage (cf. frs. 5 and 17).

Fragment 21

This song, together with the next fragment and fragment 96, provides evidence that women other than Sappho performed songs. Did they sing their own compositions or those of Sappho? Sappho is not necessarily the speaker in these songs, who may be another soloist or a chorus urging the women to sing.

5. Skin, but now old age: The same words are found in fragment 58.3.

7. Flies off chasing: The subject may be Eros.

12. Violet-robed: Elsewhere in Sappho “violet-robed” is used for a bride (fr. 30.5), the Muses (fr. 58.1), or, possibly, Aphrodite (fr. 103.3).

Fragment 22

This song speaks of homoerotic desire. The speaker (Sappho?) calls another woman (Abanthis?) “the beautiful one” and urges her to sing of her longing for a third woman, named Gongyla. Gongyla is referred to in the Suda as one of Sappho’s pupils (see the introduction). She is also mentioned in fragment 95.

8. I urge you [to sing] of Gongyla: Possibly with this line a new song begins and the preceding lines belong to another song.

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