Sappho - Come Close

Born c. 630 BCE , Mytilene, Lesbos Died c. 570 BCE , Mytilene, Lesbos Taken from Aaron Poochigians translation of Stung with Love: Poems and Fragments, first published in 2009. SAPPHO IN PENGUIN CLASSICS Stung with Love: Poems and Fragments Let the conversation begin... Follow the Penguin Twitter.com@penguinukbooks Keep up-to-date with all our stories YouTube.com/penguinbooks Pin Penguin Books to your Pinterest Like Penguin Books on Facebook.com/penguinbooks Listen to Penguin at SoundCloud.com/penguin-books Find out more about the author and
discover more stories like this at Penguin.co.uk Leave Crete and sweep to this blest temple Where apple-orchards elegance Is yours, and smouldering altars, ample Frankincense. Here under boughs a bracing spring Percolates, roses without number Umber the earth and, rustling, The leaves drip slumber.

Here budding flowers possess a sunny Pasture where steeds could graze their fill, And the breeze feels as gentle as honey Kypris, here in the present blend Your nectar with pure festal glee. Fill gilded bowls and pass them round Lavishly. Sweet mother, I cant take shuttle in hand. There is a boy, and lust Has crushed my spirit just As gentle Aphrodite planned. Since I have cast my lot, please, golden-crowned Aphrodite, let me win this round! Subtly bedizened Aphrodite, Deathless daughter of Zeus, Wile-weaver, I beg you, Empress, do not smite me With anguish and fever But come as often, on request, (Hearing me, heeding from afar,) You left your fathers gleaming feast, Yoked team to car, And came. Fair sparrows in compact Flurries of winged rapidity Cleft sky and over a gloomy tract Brought you to me And there they were, and you, sublime And smiling with immortal mirth, Asked what was wrong? why I, this time, Called you to earth? What was my mad heart dreaming of? Who, Sappho, at a word, must grow Again receptive to your love? Who wronged you so? She who shuns love soon will pursue it, She who scorns gifts will send them still: That girl will learn love, though she do it Against her will.

Come to me now. Drive off this brutal Distress. Accomplish what my pride Demands. Come, please, and in this battle Stand at my side. Kytherea, precious Adonis is nearly dead. How should we proceed? Come, girls, beat your fists Down upon your breasts And shred your dresses.

A full moon shone, And around the shrine Stood devotees Poised and in place. Untainted Graces With wrists like roses, Please come close, You daughters of Zeus. Now, Dika, weave the aniseed together, flower and stem, With your soft hands, crown yourself with a lovely diadem Because the blessd Graces grant gifts to the garlanded And snub the worshipper with no flowers on her head. Come close, you precious Graces and Muses With beautiful tresses. Here is the reason: it is wrong To play a funeral song In the Musicians House It simply would not be decorous. God-crafted product of the tortoise shell, Come to me; Lyre, be voluble.

He is unrivalled, like a Lesbian Musician matched with other men. But when you lie dead No one will notice later or feel sad Because you gathered no sprays from the roses Of the Pierian Muses. Once lost in Hades hall You will be homeless and invisible Another shadow flittering back and forth With shadows of no worth.

That impossible predator, Eros the Limb-Loosener, Bitter-sweetly and afresh Savages my flesh. Like a gale smiting an oak On mountainous terrain, Eros, with a stroke, Shattered my brain. But a strange longing to pass on Seizes me, and I need to see Lotuses on the dewy banks of Acheron.

That fellow strikes me as gods double, Couched with you face to face, delighting In your warm manner, your amiable Talk and inviting Laughter the revelation flutters My ventricles, my sternum and stomach. The least glimpse, and my lost voice stutters, Refuses to come back Because my tongue is shattered. Gauzy Flame runs radiating under My skin; all that I see is hazy, My ears all thunder. Sweat comes quickly, and a shiver Vibrates my frame. I am more sallow Than grass and suffer such a fever As death should follow. But I must suffer further, worthless As I am In all honesty, I want to die.

Leaving for good after a good long cry, She said: We both have suffered terribly, But, Sappho, it is hard to say goodbye. I said: Go with my blessing if you go Always remembering what we did. To me You have meant everything, as you well know. Yet, lest it slip your mind, I shall review Everything we have shared the good times, too: You culled violets and roses, bloom and stem, Often in spring and I looked on as you Wove a bouquet into a diadem. Time and again we plucked lush flowers, wed Spray after spray in strands and fastened them Around your soft neck; you perfumed your head Of glossy curls with myrrh lavish infusions In queenly quantities then on a bed Prepared with fleecy sheets and yielding cushions, Sated your craving May gales and anguish sweep elsewhere The killer of my character. But I am hardly some backbiter bent On vengeance; no, my heart is lenient.

You were at hand, And I broke down raving My craving a fire That singed my mind, A brand you quenched. Cold grew The spirits of the ladies; They drew Their wings close to their bodies. Moon and the Pleiades go down. Midnight and tryst pass by. I, though, lie Alone. Peace, you never seemed so tedious As now no, never quite like this.

Over eyelids dark night fell Invisible.

But I love extravagance, And wanting it has handed down The glitter and glamour of the sun As my inheritance. I truly do believe no maiden that will live To look upon the brilliance of the sun Ever will be contemplative Like this one. Stand and face me, dear; release That fineness in your irises. May you bed down, Head to breast, upon The flesh Of a plush Companion. As for you girls, the gorgeous ones, There will be no change in my plans.