|
|
In gold sandals
Dawn that very
moment awoke me
Translated from the Greek by Mary Barnard.
From "Sappho - A New Translation" published by
University of California Press.
Copyright 1958 by The Regents of the University of California
Sappho
She was born around 615 B.C. on the isle of Lesbos, Greece. In her day,
poetry was usually accompanied by music and dance. Sappho is also a
great Greek lyrist, and her poetry style was sensual and melodic. She
wrote poetry in the personal view point of the individual, not from the
point of view of gods and muses. Therefore she was the one of a new wave
of Greek poets and lyrists. The name of Sappho is also famous as the source of lesbian and sapphic (love). She wrote many of poems of love and adoration to females, and they went to her for education in the arts. Although the target of her affections was female, she married a prosperous merchant and had a daughter.
|
|