The Poems of Sappho: An Interpretative Rendition into English

The Poems of Sappho

An Interpretative Rendition into English

BY

JOHN MYERS O'HARA

PORTLAND: MDCCCCX

Who shall strike the wax of mystery from those priceless amphoræ, and give to the unsophisticated nostrils of the average reader the ravishing bouquet of wine pressed in a garden in Mitylene, twenty-five centuries ago?--MAURICE THOMPSON.

Then to me so lying awake a vision Came without sleep over the seas and touched me, Softly touched mine eyelids and lips; and I, too, Full of the vision,

Saw the white implacable Aphrodite, Saw the hair unbound and the feet unsandalled Shine as fire of sunset on western waters; Saw the reluctant

Feet, the straining plumes of the doves that drew her, Looking always, looking with necks reverted Back to Lesbos, back to the hills whereunder Shone Mitylene.

--SWINBURNE.

Ω θεόί, πίς ἆρα Κύπρις, ἢ τίς μερος τοῡδε ξνυήψατο

--SOPHOCLES.

SAPPHICS

THE MUSES

Hither now, O Muses, leaving the golden House of God unseen in the azure spaces, Come and breathe on bosom and brow and kindle Song like the sunglow;

Come and lift my shaken soul to the sacred Shadow cast by Helicon's rustling forests; Sweep on wings of flame from the middle ether, Seize and uplift me;

Thrill my heart that throbs with unwonted fervor, Chasten mouth and throat with immortal kisses, Till I yield on maddening heights the very Breath of my body.

MUSAGETES

Come with Musagetes, ye Hours and Graces, Dance around the team of swans that attend him Up Parnassian heights, to his holy temple High on the hill-top;

Come, ye Muses, too, from the shades of Pindus, Let your songs, that echo on winds of rapture, Wake the lyre he tunes to the sweet inspiring Sound of your voices.

LOVE'S BANQUET

If Panormus, Cyprus or Paphos hold thee, Either home of Gods or the island temple, Hark again and come at my invocation, Goddess benefic;

Come thou, foam-born Kypris, and pour in dainty Cups of amber gold thy delicate nectar, Subtly mixed with fire that will swiftly kindle Love in our bosoms;

Thus the bowl ambrosial was stirred in Paphos For the feast, and taking the burnished ladle, Hermes poured the wine for the Gods who lifted Reverent beakers;

High they held their goblets and made libation, Spilling wine as pledge to the Fates and Hades Quaffing deep and binding their hearts to Eros, Lauding thy servant.

So to me and my Lesbians round me gathered, Each made mine, an amphor of love long tasted, Bid us drink, who sigh for thy thrill ecstatic, Passion's full goblet;

Grant me this, O Kypris, and on thy altar Dawn will see a goat of the breed of Naxos, Snowy doves from Cos and the drip of rarest Lesbian vintage;

For a regal taste is mine and the glowing Zenith-lure and beauty of suns must brighten Love for me, that ever upon perfection Trembles elusive.

MOON AND STARS

When the moon at full on the sill of heaven Lights her beacon, flooding the earth with silver, All the shining stars that about her cluster Hide their fair faces;

So when Anactoria's beauty dazzles Sight of mine, grown dim with the joy it gives me, Gorgo, Atthis, Gyrinno, all the others Fade from my vision.

ODE TO ANACTORIA

Peer of Gods to me is the man thy presence Crowns with joy; who hears, as he sits beside thee, Accents sweet of thy lips the silence breaking, With lovely laughter;

Tones that make the heart in my bosom flutter, For if I, the space of a moment even, Near to thee come, any word I would utter Instantly fails me;

Vain my stricken tongue would a whisper fashion, Subtly under my skin runs fire ecstatic; Straightway mists surge dim to my eyes and leave them Reft of their vision;

Echoes ring in my ears; a trembling seizes All my body bathed in soft perspiration; Pale as grass I grow in my passion's madness, Like one insensate;

But must I dare all, since to me unworthy, Bliss thy beauty brings that a God might envy; Never yet was fervid woman a fairer Image of Kypris.

Ah! undying Daughter of God, befriend me! Calm my blood that thrills with impending transport; Feed my lips the murmur of words to stir her Bosom to pity;

Overcome with kisses her faintest protest, Melt her mood to mine with amorous touches, Till her low assent and her sigh's abandon Lure me to rapture.

THE ROSE

If it pleased the whim of Zeus in an idle Hour to choose a king for the flowers, he surely Would have crowned the rose for its regal beauty, Deeming it peerless;

By its grace is valley and hill embellished, Earth is made a shrine for the lover's ardor; Dear it is to flowers as the charm of lovely Eyes are to mortals;

Joy and pride of plants, and the garden's glory, Beauty's blush it brings to the cheek of meadows; Draining fire and dew from the dawn for rarest Color and odor;

Softly breathed, its scent is a plea for passion, When it blooms to welcome the kiss of Kypris; Sheathed in fragrant leaves its tremulous petals Laugh in the zephyr.

ODE TO APHRODITE

Aphrodite, subtle of soul and deathless, Daughter of God, weaver of wiles, I pray thee Neither with care, dread Mistress, nor with anguish, Slay thou my spirit!

But in pity hasten, come now if ever From afar of old when my voice implored thee, Thou hast deigned to listen, leaving the golden House of thy father

With thy chariot yoked; and with doves that drew thee, Fair and fleet around the dark earth from heaven, Dipping vibrant wings down the azure distance, Through the mid-ether;

Very swift they came; and thou, gracious Vision, Leaned with face that smiled in immortal beauty, Leaned to me and asked, "What misfortune threatened? Why I had called thee?"

"What my frenzied heart craved in utter yearning, Whom its wild desire would persuade to passion? What disdainful charms, madly worshipped, slight thee? Who wrongs thee, Sappho?"

"She that fain would fly, she shall quickly follow, She that now rejects, yet with gifts shall woo thee, She that heeds thee not, soon shall love to madness, Love thee, the loth one!"

Come to me now thus, Goddess, and release me From distress and pain; and all my distracted Heart would seek, do thou, once again fulfilling, Still be my ally!

SUMMER

Slumber streams from quivering leaves that listless Bask in heat and stillness of Lesbian summer; Breathless swoons the air with the apple-blossoms' Delicate odor;

From the shade of branches that droop and cover Shallow trenches winding about the orchard, Restful comes, and cool to the sense, the flowing Murmur of water.

THE GARDEN OF THE NYMPHS

All around through the apple boughs in blossom Murmur cool the breezes of early summer, And from leaves that quiver above me gently Slumber is shaken;

Glades of poppies swoon in the drowsy languor, Dreaming roses bend, and the oleanders Bask and nod to drone of bees in the silent Fervor of noontide;

Myrtle coverts hedging the open vista, Dear to nightly frolic of Nymph and Satyr, Yield a mossy bed for the brown and weary Limbs of the shepherd.

Echo ever wafts through the drooping frondage, Ceaseless silver murmur of water falling In the grotto cool of the Nymphs, the sacred Haunt of Immortals;

Down the sides of rocks that are gray and lichened Trickle tiny rills, whose expectant tinkle Drips with gurgle hushed in the clear glimmering Depths of the basin.

Fair on royal couches of leaves recumbent, Interspersed with languor of waxen lilies, Lotus flowers empurple the pool whose edge is Cushioned with mosses;

Here recline the Nymphs at the hour of twilight, Back in shadows dim of the cave, their golden Sea-green eyes half lidded, up to their supple Waists in the water.

Sheltered once by ferns I espied them binding Tresses long, the tint of lilac and orange; Just beyond the shimmer of light their bodies Roseate glistened;

Deftly, then, they girdled their loins with garlands, Linked with leaves luxuriant limb and shoulder; On their breasts they bruised the red blood of roses Fresh from the garden.

She of orange hair was the Nymph Euxanthis, And the lilac-tressed were Iphis and Io; How they laughed, relating at length their ease in Evading the Satyr.

APHRODITE'S DOVES

When the drifting gray of the vesper shadow Dimmed their upward path through the midmost azure, And the length of night overtook them distant Far from Olympus;

Far away from splendor and joy of Paphos, From the voice and smile of their peerless Mistress, Back to whom their truant wings were in rapture Speeding belated;

Chilled at heart and grieving they drooped their pinions, Circled slowly, dipping in flight toward Lesbos, Down through dusk that darkened on Mitylene's Columns of marble;

Down through glory wan of the fading sunset, Veering ever toward the abode of Sappho, Toward my home, the fane of the glad devoted Slave of the Goddess;

Soon they gained the tile of my roof and rested, Slipped their heads beneath their wings while I watched them Sink to sleep and dreams, in the warm and drowsy Night of midsummer.

ANACREON'S SONG

Golden-throned Muse, sing the song that in olden Days was sung of love and delight in Teos, In the goodly land of the lovely women: Strains that in other

Years the hoary bard with the youthful fancy Set to mirthful stir of flutes, when the dancing Nymphs that poured the wine for the poet's banquet Mixed it with kisses;