Stung with Love: Poems and Fragments
Sappho, Aaron Poochigian (Translator)
Sappho (630-570 BC) was one of the most admired of classical Greek poets, so much so that Plato is said to have called her the tenth Muse. She was from the Greek Isle of Lesbos, and it is from her poetry about women loving women that the letter "L" in the abbreviation LGBTQIA+ is derived -- Lesbianism is called that because of Sappho. She lived a long life for her time -- 60 years, as you see from the dates, and she was prolific. However, almost nothing survives of her poetry except fragments quoted by later poets and and a few bits revealed by archeology.
This books collects all we have of Sappho's poetry, and it is VERY, VERY FRUSTRATING, just these little scraps of poetry, barely enough to leave you wanting more. The English translations by Aaron Poochigian are, to the extent that I can judge, quite good, and one occasionally catches a flash of Sappho's brilliance. The book begins with an excellent compilation of scholarship on Sappho's life, the sources for which are also patchy. Then comes the poetry. Typically Poochigian gives us around a dozen lines of fragmentary translated poetry, preceded by a facing page containing several paragraphs of explanation what the poems might mean, and how they were used. For instance, much of Sappho's poetry was meant to be sung at weddings, and that sort of thing would be explained.
It is really no ones fault that so little of Sappho survives, and Poochigian deserves credit for doing the best he could with the meager materials he had to work with. But there is no denying how intensely frustrating the result is.
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