Breaking News: Two New Sappho Poems Discovered

[poetree_admin]

jjhunter

Via comm member ysabetwordsmith, a piece of breaking poetry news too exciting to wait for the usual Sunday Picnic thread: Scholars Discover New Poems from Ancient Greek Poetess Sappho (The Daily Beast)

A chance inquiry by an unidentified collector has led to a spectacular literary discovery: Parts of two previously unknown poems by Sappho, the great Greek poetess of the 7th Century B.C. One of the poems is remarkably well preserved and adds greatly to what is known about Sappho and her poetic technique.

Note that the linked online ahead-of-print paper publishing the poem-bearing papyrus in question provides the Aeolic text in full at the end, but no corresponding English translation.

(If ever there was a situation warranting 'I HAVE AN ANCIENT GREEK TRANSLATION EMERGENCY FOR YOU', this is it. I'm afraid it's all Greek to me.)

For more about the poet Sappho, see the posts for our previous community themed week Fragments of Sappho. Sometimes, just sometimes, we do get back a grace more of what we'd thought history ate forever.

ETA: partial translation by Tim Whitmarsh available via the Guardian.

Comments

[cirque]

This is pretty darn exciting!!

I'm doing a translation (how can I not, I need to know what it says!!), would you like me to post it here if I get it done in reasonable time?

[jjhunter]

Please do post 'em here in the comments!!!

and hang on to whatever processing you do to get to your translation; there may be opportunity here at POETREE soon if you'd be interested in sharing a writeup post about translating 'em.

[nightdog_barks]

It looks as though the Telegraph has a translation up, of the Brothers poem, translated by someone named Tom Payne.

Still, you keep on twittering that Charaxos

comes, his boat full. That kind of thing I reckon

Zeus and his fellow gods know; and you mustn’t

make the assumption;

rather, command me, let me be an envoy

praying intensely to the throne of Hera

who could lead him, he and his boat arriving

here, my Charaxos,

finding me safely; let us then divert all

other concerns on to the lesser spirits;

after all, after hurricanes the clear skies

rapidly follow;

and the ones whose fate the Olympian ruler

wants to transform from troubles into better –

they are much blessed, they go about rejoicing

in their good fortune.

As for me, if Larichos reaches manhood,

[if he could manage to be rich and leisured,]

he would give me, so heavy-hearted, such a

swift liberation.

[jjhunter]

oh!

(Thank you so, so much.)