lushyouth's review against another edition
3.0
Beautiful. I'm only giving it 3 stars because I'm not a poetry person and couldn't fully absorbed these poems because of that fact but the words were beautiful and in the future if I improve on my poetry comprehension I will return back to Sappho's poetry
ellen's review against another edition
5.0
i love sappho
im so sad that more of her work didn't survive
im so sad that more of her work didn't survive
fourspec's review against another edition
5.0
It's gay poetry bro. Gay ancient poetry. How could you not like??
spacestationtrustfund's review against another edition
1.0
This review is of the translation by Jim Powell.
Not only is this not a very good translation, it's just not very good poetry. The surviving approx. 200 fragments of Sappho's poetry are tantalising glimpses into her life, but Jim Powell's translation turns these fragments into generic poetry. Powell's translation was published in 2007, five years after Dr. Anne Carson's translation, and I can't help but wonder if the format he elected to use was inspired by her book. Powell uses the Lobel-Page numbering (which is preferable anyway, in my opinion), and employs deliberate gaps in the text fragments too broken to reconstruct coherent sentences, as well brackets to indicate places where the citation breaks off or the papyrus is torn. The format is fine, but the translation is... well, questionable at best.
But don't take it from me; here's an example (fr.49 Lobel-Page, fr.49 Voigt, fr.40 Diehl, fr.33-34 Bergk):
This is the original Greek of fr.102 L-P:
I could continue giving examples, but those really are enough.
//
1 ἐφαίνεο is the imperfect second-person singular of φαίνομαι.
2 κἄχαρις is the elided form of καὶ ἄχαρις.
3 ἴστος is also written ῐ̔στός.
4 from δαμάζω.
5 βραδίναν is the Aeolic of ῥαδινός.
6 δι' is the apocopic of διά.
Not only is this not a very good translation, it's just not very good poetry. The surviving approx. 200 fragments of Sappho's poetry are tantalising glimpses into her life, but Jim Powell's translation turns these fragments into generic poetry. Powell's translation was published in 2007, five years after Dr. Anne Carson's translation, and I can't help but wonder if the format he elected to use was inspired by her book. Powell uses the Lobel-Page numbering (which is preferable anyway, in my opinion), and employs deliberate gaps in the text fragments too broken to reconstruct coherent sentences, as well brackets to indicate places where the citation breaks off or the papyrus is torn. The format is fine, but the translation is... well, questionable at best.
But don't take it from me; here's an example (fr.49 Lobel-Page, fr.49 Voigt, fr.40 Diehl, fr.33-34 Bergk):
I was in love with you, Attis, once, long ago.Compare against the original Greek:
To me you seemed a little girl, and not too graceful.
ἠράμαν μὲν ἔγω σέθεν, Ἄτθι, πάλαι ποτάFirst of all, the name Ἀτθίς is Atthis, not Attis; this is an important distinction, seeing as Attis was the male consort of Kybele (Κυβέλη), and Atthis was... not. Sappho uses the word πάις (youth) to refer to Atthis; the word could be either masculine or feminine, depending on context, so you can either have Attis + youth or Atthis + girl, but not both. A word-for-word translation would be more like this:
σμίκρα μοι πάις ἔμμεν’ ἐφαίνεο 1 κἄχαρις. 2
be-in-love-with / but / I / (to)-you, / Atthis, / long-ago / at-some-time, everLater, in fr.102 (Lobel-Page), Powell translates πάις as "boy":
small / (to)-me / youth / be / appear / graceless
Sweet mother, I can’t weave my webThis is certainly an interpretation. Besides the flip-flopping on the gender of πάις, Powell also completely misinterprets κρέκην τὸν ἴστον ("to work the loom") as meaning "to weave one's web"; κρέκην ("to weave") is a distinctly Aeolic present infinitive (Attic and Ionic infinitives end in -ειν) and ἴστον (also ἱστός in Attic and Ionic) is related to the verb ἵστημι ("to prop [sth.] up, stand [sth.] up"), and does not have rough breathing, unlike Ionic and Attic. He gets right the personal agency conveyed in the preposition δι’ (apocopic of διά); when taken with the accusative, it could mean "through" or among" (of a place; poetic), "during" (time), "thanks to," "because of," "by aid of," or "for the sake of" (causality). The word "overcome" is a relatively mild translation of δάμεισα (from δαμεῖσα), the aorist passive participle of δαμάζω ("to tame," "subdue," "conquer," "overcome," "rape," "kill," "give in marriage"); the Proto-Indo-European root refers to building or domesticating.
overcome with longing for a boy
because of slender Aphrodite.
This is the original Greek of fr.102 L-P:
γλύκηα μᾶτερ, οὔτοι δύναμαι κρέκην τὸν ἴστονA word-for-word translation:
πόθῳ δάμεισα παῖδος βραδίναν δι' Ἀφροδίταν
sweet / mother, / indeed not / be able / to weave / the / loom 3Note also that the word γλύκηα (f. voc. sing. of γλυκύς, "sweet") is the Aeolic of γλυκεῖα (Attic, Ionic); μᾶτερ (voc. sing. of μήτηρ, "mother") in Aeolic preserved a PIE structure which changed to adopt the letter η in Ionic or Attic; τοι (2nd person sing. pron. σύ, "you") is the ethical dative of the second-person singular pronoun.
longing, yearning / tame, conquer 4 / youth / slender 5 / because of 6 / Aphrodite
I could continue giving examples, but those really are enough.
//
1 ἐφαίνεο is the imperfect second-person singular of φαίνομαι.
2 κἄχαρις is the elided form of καὶ ἄχαρις.
3 ἴστος is also written ῐ̔στός.
4 from δαμάζω.
5 βραδίναν is the Aeolic of ῥαδινός.
6 δι' is the apocopic of διά.
leolikesbooks's review against another edition
I mean, the poetry sounds pretty, but I don’t understand it.
natlren's review
informative
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
3.5
I think Sappho’s poetry is beautiful and it breaks my heart that so much of it was lost and fragmented. I just didn’t personally enjoy this translation of it, which is honestly disappointing.