The Greek poet Sappho (circa 630 to 570 BC) was celebrated both during her life and after. As is well known, all but one of her poems come to us in fragmented bits and pieces. Anne Carson, a modern classical scholar and a poet herself, offers her translations in her book If Not, Winter, 2002. Guy Davenport, another scholar and writer, gives us his in his book 7 Greeks, 1976. These pictures come from both sources.
Carson and Davenport number their fragments differently. Hers are more generally accepted. I have used them here to identify the images, but there is something to be gained from reading both translators, and they are quoted interchangeably. Both seem to me to humanize the ancient poet. We could all be Sappho.
] . . . here to me from Krete to this holy temple / where is your graceful grove / of apple trees and altars smoking / with frankincense. And in it cold water makes a clear sound through / apple branches and with roses the whole place / is shadowed and down from raidiant-shaking leaves / sleep comes dropping. And in it a horse meadow has come into bloom / with spring flowers and breezes / like honey are blowing. . . [ . . . ]
In this place you Kypris taking up / in gold cups delicately / nectar mingled with festivities:
pour.
Anne Carson
[ ] and I go [ ] and surely you failed / harmony / the dance
Guy Davenport (fr # 192)
When fury rages in the breast, watch that reiterating tongue.
Guy Davenport (fr. # 95)
she summons her son
Anne Carson
someone will remember us / I say / even in another time
Anne Carson
messenger of spring / nightingale with a voice of longing
Anne Carson
Kypros herald came Idaos swift messenger [ ] and the rest of Asia imperishable fame. Hektor and his men are bringing a glancing girl from holy Thebe and from onflowing Plakia—delicate Andromache on ships over the salt sea. And many gold bracelets and purple perfumed clothes, painted toys, and silver cups innumerable and ivory. So he spoke. And at once the dear father rose up. And news went through the wide town to friends.
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Then the sons of Ilos led mules beneath fine-running carts and up climbed a whole crowd of women and maidens with tapering ankles, but separately the daughters of Priam [ And the young men led horses under chariots [ ] in great style ] charioteers ] like to gods ] holy all together set out for Ilios / and sweetflowing flute and kithara were mingled with the clip of castanets and piercingly then the maidens sang a holy song and straight up the air went amazing sound [ and everywhere in the roads was [ bowls and cups [ myrrh and cassia and frankincense were mingled.
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And all the elderly women shouted aloud and all the men cried out a lovely song calling on Paon farshooting god of the lyre, and they were singing a hymn for Hektor and Andromache / like to gods.
Anne Carson
delicate Adonis is dying / Kythereia / what shall we do?
strike yourselves / maidens / and tear your garments
Anne Carson
as long as you want
Anne Carson
These pictures, and others, made between 2006 and 2010, constitute a belated response to the AIDS crisis, which for me began around 1982. It was a terrible event to have been caught up in. It took years for me to learn to live with it. I don’t know why I survived it. It changed me completely and haunts me still.
I’ve always had plant material nearby, and it has usually been willing subject matter.
Sappho’s world contains a huge cast of characters—to name a few: goddesses, gods, demis, courtesans, their patrons, one of whom is Sappho’s brother, kings, queens, Helen of Troy even, brides, grooms, craftspeople, sailors, singers, beautiful young men and women—and coarse ones, too. Sappho is married and has a daughter. Clothes are important to her. She is a wedding singer. She is not without her neuroses. Aphrodite is a frequent partner in crime.
The words below each fragment, if not the exact line placement, are from Anne Carson’s translation.
Sardis / often turning her thoughts here ] you like a goddess / and in your song most of all she rejoiced.
But now she is conspicuous among Lydian women / as sometimes at sunset / the roseyfingered moon
surpasses all the stars. And her light / stretches over salt sea / equally and flower deep fields.
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And the beautiful dew is poured out / and roses bloom and frail / chervil and flowering sweetclover. But she goes back and forth remembering / gentle Atthis and in longing / she bites her tender mind But to go there . . . ] much / talks [ . . .
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Not easy for us / to equal goddesses in lovely form . . . ] . . . ] . . . ] desire / and [ ] Aphrodite . . . ] nectar poured from / gold . . . ] with hands Persuasion ] ] ] ]
(continued below)
] into the Geraistion . . . ] beloveds . . . ] of none ] into desire I shall come
Having lived most of my adult life on the American east coast and briefly in its southwest, in 2001 I moved back to Kentucky, ironically down the same road from where I had lived as a child into my twenties. I hadn’t taken pictures for some time, and decided if I were to start again, I would try not to take any that I had already taken in the past—but of course in such a place, the past was not far away.
As they go through their slow stages, plants—their flowers, fruits, and seeds—bring to mind the fragility of our own moments in the passage of time.
