Posted on 06/25/2005 6:38:31 PM PDT by blam
After 2,600 years, the world gains a fourth poem by Sappho
John Ezard
Friday June 24, 2005
The Guardian (UK)
Plato believed Sappho should be honoured not merely as a poet but as a Muse. Photo: Getty
A newly found poem by Sappho, acknowledged as one of the greatest poets of Greek classical antiquity and seen by some as the finest of any era, is published for the first time today. Written more than 2,600 years ago, the 101 words of verse deal with a theme timeless in both art and soap operas; the stirrings of an ageing body towards the nimbleness, youth and love it once knew.
The poem is the rarest of discoveries. Sappho's pre-eminent reputation as an artist of lyricism and love is based on only three complete poems, 63 complete single lines and up to 264 fragments.
These are all that have survived of the writings of a woman who the Greek philosopher Plato said should be honoured not merely as a great lyric poet but as one of the Muses, the goddesses who inspire all art. On hearing one of Sappho's poems sung, the sixth century BC Greek ruler Solon, a contemporary of hers, asked for someone to teach him the song "because I want to learn it and die".
The poem which is now her fourth to survive had a tortuous and not unromantic discovery. It was found in the cartonnage of an Egyptian mummy, the flexible layer of fibre or papyrus which was moulded while wet into a plaster-like surface around the irregular parts of a mummified wrapped body, so that motifs could be painted on.
Last year two scholars, Michael Gronewald and Robert Daniel, announced that a recovered papyrus in the archives of Cologne University had been identified as part of a roll containing poems by Sappho.
Researchers realised that parts of one poem corresponded with fragments found in 1922 in one of the great treasure troves of modern classical scholarship - the ancient rubbish tips of the Egyptian town of Oxyrhynchus.
The completed jigsaw is today published in an 1,500- word article with commentary and translation in the Times Literary Supplement by Martin West, emeritus fellow of All Souls, Oxford, a renowned translator of Greek lyric poetry, described by the British Academy as "on any reckoning the most brilliant and productive Greek scholar of his generation".
Sappho - writing on the isle of Lesbos, apparently for a court of younger women - is treated as the patron saint of love between women. She has become "a litterateurs' Lorelei, a feminist icon, a scholars' maypole", writes Dr West.
Ostensibly at least, the craving in the final image of the new poem is for love from young men - with a cautionary note. Tithonus was a youth so beautiful that the dawn-goddess took him as husband. At her request Zeus granted him immortality. But she forgot to ask for eternal youth.
So Tithonus grew old and feeble, having eventually to be shut in his room "where he chatters away endlessly but barely has the strength to move", Dr West says.
They did! The Library of Alexandria had her full collection of works, but the Library was destroyed-first in a fire set during (if a remember right) Octavius' campaign to become emperor of Rome. The rest was destroyed when Rome fell, and Egypt was taken over by early Christians, and then by Muslims, neither of whom really cared about preserving pagan works of antiquity.
Her fame is based on the fact that ancient Greek and Roman writers, who did have access to her work, thought she was one of the greatest poets in history.
And finally, to address this nonsense about Sappho creating "lesbianism" and whatnot, it's based on the fact that she was the teacher or mistress of a group of young women, in much the same way as Socrates was the teacher and master of a group of young men. This does not necessarily mean she engaged in sexual relationships with women (and in fact she was married). Nonetheless, this idea has been propigated for several centuries now-hence the origin of the word "lesbian".
Bravo, bravo!!
And so the bitter lesson about the need for offsite backups was learned early on.
Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on, off, or alter the "Gods, Graves, Glyphs"I will ping the GGG list until July 2, 2005, during SunkenCiv's temporary absence from the board.
If you see articles appropriate for the GGG ping list, please ping me.
[CHORUS:]
My loneliness is killing me
I must confess, I still believe
When I'm not with you I lose my mind
Give me a sign
Hit me baby one more time
Oh baby, baby
The reason I breathe is you
Boy you got me blinded
Oh baby, baby
There's nothing that I wouldn't do
That's not the way I planned it
Show me, how you want it to be
Tell me baby
'Cause I need to know now what we've got
[Repeat CHORUS]
Oh baby, baby
Oh baby, baby
Ah, yeah, yeah
Oh baby, baby
How was I supposed to know
Oh pretty baby
I shouldn't have let you go
I must confess, that my loneliness
Is killing me now
Don't you know I still believe
That you will be here
And give me a sign
Hit me baby one more time
[Repeat CHORUS]
I must confess that my loneliness
Is killing me now
Don't you know I still believe
That you will be here
And give me a sign
Hit me baby one more time
Probably sounds better in the original Portugese.
This is, after all, a big deal. Like finding a new sonnet of Shakespeare's.
There are no surviving poems of Plato reputed to be as great or greater poet as philosopher. Poetry was to be sung in public in Lesbos' day. Writing was not yet as significant as later. It is only by good luck that we have most of Aristotle.
Who knows what was lost in the Great Library of Alexandria.
Of course it was where the term Lesbian came from. She ran a school for young girls training them to be good wives and mothers. While there is no doubt she may have loved her charges the evidence of sexual deviancy is quite slim given the volume of evidence upon which it is based.
"Didn't Sappho create lesbianism?"
No, that was Satan.
Are you sure about that? Kozachka says the Philistines burned the library at Alexandria.
It has been blamed on phillistines, romans, muslims, and a pyromaniac librarian from Thebes that couldn't stomach competition..
There are also rumours that the Alexandrian Library's festival of jugglers with flaming torches may have caused a few conflagurations as well..
My best guess is the Alexandrian practice of tying oily rags to a cat's tail and setting them on fire during the full moon was the actual culprit...
Yeah, well, Sappho is why they call them Lesbians.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
Do you read ancient Greek?
I guess you'd have to be there. I'll wait in the car.
She was one of the most revered poets of the Classical world. Her poems, like all of the famous poems of the period, were read and usually memorized by the educated Greeks and Romans. However, after the Empire became Christian, the monks who copied texts decided that hers were too immoral and they destroyed basically all of them. That's why, if we can find her works, we find them reused in another function or in garbage heaps in Egypt.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.