SAPHHO

the poet in the isle of lesbos

I have not had one word from her

Frankly I wish I were dead
When she left, she wept

a great deal; she said to me, "This parting must be
endured, Sappho. I go unwillingly."

I said, "Go, and be happy
but remember (you know
well) whom you leave shackled by love

"If you forget me, think
of our gifts to Aphrodite
and all the loveliness that we shared

"all the violet tiaras,
braided rosebuds, dill and
crocus twined around your young neck

"myrrh poured on your head
and on soft mats girls with
all that they most wished for beside them

"while no voices chanted
choruses without ours,
no woodlot bloomed in spring without song..."

Translated by Mary Barnard

Please

Come back to me, Gongyla, here tonight,
You, my rose, with your Lydian lyre.
There hovers forever around you delight:
A beauty desired.

Even your garment plunders my eyes.
I am enchanted: I who once
Complained to the Cyprus-born goddess,
Whom I now beseech

Never to let this lose me grace
But rather bring you back to me:
Amongst all mortal women the one
I most wish to see.

Translated by Paul Roche

Untitled

On the throne of many hues, Immortal Aphrodite,
child of Zeus, weaving wiles--I beg you
not to subdue my spirit, Queen,
with pain or sorrow

but come--if ever before

having heard my voice from far away
you listened, and leaving your father's
golden home you came

in your chariot yoked with swift, lovely
sparrows bringing you over the dark earth
thick-feathered wings swirling down
from the sky through mid-air

arriving quickly--you, Blessed One,
with a smile on your unaging face
asking again what have I suffered
and why am I calling again

and in my wild heart what did I most wish
to happen to me: "Again whom must I persuade
back into the harness of your love?
Sappho, who wrongs you?

For if she flees, soon she'll pursue,
she doesn't accept gifts, but she'll give,
if not now loving, soon she'll love
even against her will."

Come to me now again, release me from
this pain, everything my spirit longs
to have fulfilled, fulfill, and you
be my ally

Translated by Diane Rayor

To Andromeda

That country girl has witched your wishes,

all dressed up in her country clothes
and she hasn't got the sense

to hitch her rags above her ankles.

Translated by Jim Powell

Untitled

Some an army of horsemen, some an army on foot
and some say a fleet of ships is the loveliest sight
on this dark earth; but I say it is what-
ever you desire:

and it it possible to make this perfectly clear
to all; for the woman who far surpassed all others

in her beauty, Helen, left her husband --
the best of all men --

behind and sailed far away to Troy; she did not spare
a single thought for her child nor for her dear parents
but [the goddess of love] led her astray
[to desire...]

[...which]
reminds me now of Anactoria
although far away,

Translated by Josephine Balmer

To Atthis

Though in Sardis now,
she things of us constantly

and of the life we shared.
She saw you as a goddess
and above all your dancing gave her deep joy.

Now she shines among Lydian women like
the rose-fingered moon
rising after sundown, erasing all

stars around her, and pouring light equally
across the salt sea
and over densely flowered fields

lucent under dew. Her light spreads
on roses and tender thyme
and the blooming honey-lotus.

Often while she wanders she remem-
bers you, gentle Atthis,
and desire eats away at her heart

for us to come.

Translated by Willis Barnstone

Sappho
circa 630 B.C.

Things you need to know (the technical stuff):

• born some time between 630 and 612 BC
• an aristocrat (rich!!!)
• had a daughter named Cleis
• dwelled in Lesbos, thus the word lesbian
• made the Sapphic meter (thus the name)
• one of the few who started using the first person point of view in making poetry
• innovated lyric poetry, in style and meter
• only one of her poems exists as a whole, most are just in parts

·

izumi shikibu

www.kunisada.de/.../ka4852m.jpg

this is the only woman i love that makes me bleed through her words

• Even if i saw you only once, I will long for you through worlds world.

• They say the dead return tonight, but you are not here. Is my dwelling truly a house without spirit?

• Trampling the dry grass the wild boar makes his bed, and sleeps. I would not sleep so soundly even were I without these feelings.

• Will i alone be left to tell the story of our past - destined to be numbered with old tales of painful loves?

• In this world love has no color -- but how deeply my body is stained by yours.

• When I think of you, fireflies in the marsh rise like the soul's jewels, lost to eternal longing, abandoning my body.

• Come quickly - as soon as these flowers open, they fall - this world exists as a sheen of dew on flowers

• This heart is not a summer field and yet - how dense love's foliage has grown.

Who is Izumi Shikibu?
http://home.infionline.net/~ddisse/izumi.html

The daughter of a Japanese provincial governor, Izumi Shikibu began service at court in her early teens. In 995 she was married to the governor of Izumi, and in 997 she had a daughter, Ko-shikibu. Izumi had been known as a poet before her marriage; she had already written one of her most popular poems, "I go out of the darkness."

Around the year 1000, she began an affair with Prince Tametaka (977-1002), the son of the Emperor by a junior consort. The affair was apparently not conducted discreetly, for it became the subject of gossip; Izumi's husband divorced her, and when Tametaka died, his death was rumored to be due to his visiting Izumi during a plague season.

A year after Tametaka's death, his brother, Prince Atsumichi (981-1007), began to visit Izumi. It is the first year of this affair that the Izumi Shikibu nikki describes, from the early summer of 1003 to the spring of 1004, when Atsumichi's wife left his house in anger. Although called a nikki (memoir) Izumi's book reads much like fiction: the story is told in the third person; the thoughts of various characters are given; and the two major characters' names are never given: they are simply "the lady" and "the Prince."

The affair continued until Atsumichi's death in 1007. In the next year Izumi went to court to be an attendant to Michinaga's daughter, Empress Shoshi /Akiko (joining Murasaki Shikibu, who had been there for a year or so). If Izumi Shikibu nikki was written during this period, one of its purposes may have been to explain her indiscretion to her fellow courtiers. Certainly many of Izumi's poems (Izumi Shikibu shu) not included in her Nikki appear to come from this period; a good portion of these are poems mourning Atsumichi, while other reflect life at court.

Around 1010, Izumi remarried and went to the provinces, apparently never to return to court, although she continued to write poetry; 240 of her poems were included in later imperial anthologies. We don't know how long she lived; the last official reference to her was in 1033.