Come Close

  Sappho

  * * *

  COME CLOSE

  Translated by Aaron Poochigian

  Contents

  Goddesses

  Desire and Death-Longing

  Her Girls and Family

  Troy

  Maidens and Marriages

  The Wisdom of Sappho

  Follow Penguin

  SAPPHO

  Born c. 630 BCE, Mytilene, Lesbos

  Died c. 570 BCE, Mytilene, Lesbos

  Taken from Aaron Poochigian’s translation of Stung with Love: Poems and Fragments, first published in 2009.

  SAPPHO IN PENGUIN CLASSICS

  Stung with Love: Poems and Fragments

  GODDESSES

  Leave Crete and sweep to this blest temple

  Where apple-orchard’s elegance

  Is yours, and smouldering altars, ample

  Frankincense.

  Here under boughs a bracing spring

  Percolates, roses without number

  Umber the earth and, rustling,

  The leaves drip slumber.

  Here budding flowers possess a sunny

  Pasture where steeds could graze their fill,

  And the breeze feels as gentle as honey …

  Kypris, here in the present blend

  Your nectar with pure festal glee.

  Fill gilded bowls and pass them round

  Lavishly.

  Sweet mother, I can’t take shuttle in hand.

  There is a boy, and lust

  Has crushed my spirit – just

  As gentle Aphrodite planned.

  Since I have cast my lot, please, golden-crowned

  Aphrodite, let me win this round!

  Subtly bedizened Aphrodite,

  Deathless daughter of Zeus, Wile-weaver,

  I beg you, Empress, do not smite me

  With anguish and fever

  But come as often, on request,

  (Hearing me, heeding from afar,)

  You left your father’s gleaming feast,

  Yoked team to car,

  And came. Fair sparrows in compact

  Flurries of winged rapidity

  Cleft sky and over a gloomy tract

  Brought you to me –

  And there they were, and you, sublime

  And smiling with immortal mirth,

  Asked what was wrong? why I, this time,

  Called you to earth?

  What was my mad heart dreaming of? –

  ‘Who, Sappho, at a word, must grow

  Again receptive to your love?

  Who wronged you so?

  ‘She who shuns love soon will pursue it,

  She who scorns gifts will send them still:

  That girl will learn love, though she do it

  Against her will.’

  Come to me now. Drive off this brutal

  Distress. Accomplish what my pride

  Demands. Come, please, and in this battle

  Stand at my side.

  ‘Kytherea, precious

  Adonis is nearly dead.

  How should we proceed?’

  ‘Come, girls, beat your fists

  Down upon your breasts

  And shred your dresses.’

  A full moon shone,

  And around the shrine

  Stood devotees

  Poised and in place.

  Untainted Graces

  With wrists like roses,

  Please come close,

  You daughters of Zeus.

  Now, Dika, weave the aniseed together, flower and stem,

  With your soft hands, crown yourself with a lovely diadem

  Because the blessèd Graces grant gifts to the garlanded

  And snub the worshipper with no flowers on her head.

  Come close, you precious

  Graces and Muses

  With beautiful tresses.

  Here is the reason: it is wrong

  To play a funeral song

  In the Musicians’ House –

  It simply would not be decorous.

  God-crafted product of the tortoise shell,

  Come to me; Lyre, be voluble.

  He is unrivalled, like a Lesbian

  Musician matched with other men.

  But when you lie dead

  No one will notice later or feel sad

  Because you gathered no sprays from the roses

  Of the Pierian Muses.

  Once lost in Hades’ hall

  You will be homeless and invisible –

  Another shadow flittering back and forth

  With shadows of no worth.

  DESIRE AND DEATH-LONGING

  That impossible predator,

  Eros the Limb-Loosener,

  Bitter-sweetly and afresh

  Savages my flesh.

  Like a gale smiting an oak

  On mountainous terrain,

  Eros, with a stroke,

  Shattered my brain.

  But a strange longing to pass on

  Seizes me, and I need to see

  Lotuses on the dewy banks of Acheron.

  That fellow strikes me as god’s double,

  Couched with you face to face, delighting

  In your warm manner, your amiable

  Talk and inviting

  Laughter – the revelation flutters

  My ventricles, my sternum and stomach.

  The least glimpse, and my lost voice stutters,

  Refuses to come back

  Because my tongue is shattered. Gauzy

  Flame runs radiating under

  My skin; all that I see is hazy,

  My ears all thunder.

  Sweat comes quickly, and a shiver

  Vibrates my frame. I am more sallow

  Than grass and suffer such a fever

  As death should follow.

  But I must suffer further, worthless

  As I am …

  ‘In all honesty, I want to die.’

  Leaving for good after a good long cry,

  She said: ‘We both have suffered terribly,

  But, Sappho, it is hard to say goodbye.’

  I said: ‘Go with my blessing if you go

  Always remembering what we did. To me

  You have meant everything, as you well know.

  ‘Yet, lest it slip your mind, I shall review

  Everything we have shared – the good times, too:

  ‘You culled violets and roses, bloom and stem,

  Often in spring and I looked on as you

  Wove a bouquet into a diadem.

  ‘Time and again we plucked lush flowers, wed

  Spray after spray in strands and fastened them

  Around your soft neck; you perfumed your head

  ‘Of glossy curls with myrrh – lavish infusions

  In queenly quantities – then on a bed

  Prepared with fleecy sheets and yielding cushions,

  ‘Sated your craving …’

  May gales and anguish sweep elsewhere

  The killer of my character.

  But I am hardly some backbiter bent

  On vengeance; no, my heart is lenient.

  You were at hand,

  And I broke down raving –

  My craving a fire

  That singed my mind,

  A brand you quenched.

  Cold grew

  The spirits of the ladies;

  They drew

  Their wings close to their bodies.

  Moon and the Pleiades go down.

  Midnight and tryst pass by.

  I, though, lie

  Alone.

  Peace, you never seemed so tedious

  As now – no, never quite like this.

  Over eyelids dark night fell

  Invisible.

  HER GIRLS A
ND FAMILY

  But I love extravagance,

  And wanting it has handed down

  The glitter and glamour of the sun

  As my inheritance.

  I truly do believe no maiden that will live

  To look upon the brilliance of the sun

  Ever will be contemplative

  Like this one.

  Stand and face me, dear; release

  That fineness in your irises.

  May you bed down,

  Head to breast, upon

  The flesh

  Of a plush

  Companion.

  As for you girls, the gorgeous ones,

  There will be no change in my plans.

  What farm girl, garbed in fashions from the farm

  And witless of the way

  A hiked hem would display

  Her ankles, captivates you with her charm?

  … off in Sardis

  And often turns her thoughts back to our shores.

  The girl adored you more than anything,

  As if you were a goddess –

  But most of all she loved to hear you sing.

  Now she outshines those dames with Lydian faces

  Just as, when the sun

  Has set, the rosy-fingered Moon surpasses

  The stars surrounding her. With equal grace

  She casts her lustre on

  The flower-rich fallows and the sterile seas.

  Dew is poured out in handsome fashion; lissome

  Chervil unfurls; Rose

  And Sweet Clover with heady flowers blossom.

  Often on long walks she commemorates

  How tender Atthis was.

  Her fortune eats at her inconstant thoughts …

  You will have memories

  Because of what we did back then

  When we were new at this,

  Yes, we did many things, then – all

  Beautiful …

  I loved you once, years ago, Atthis,

  When your flower was in place.

  You seemed a gawky girl then, artless,

  Without grace.

  Atthis, you looked at what I was

  And hated what you saw

  And now, all in a flutter, chase

  After Andromeda.

  … because

  The people I most strive to please

  Do me the worst injuries …

  By giving me creations of their own

  My girls have handed me renown.

  And this next charming ditty I –

  In honour of my girls –

  Shall sing out prettily.

  Abanthis, please pick up your lyre,

  Praise Gongyla. Your need to sing

  Flutters about you in the air –

  You gorgeous thing.

  Her garment (when you stole a glance)

  Roused you, and I’m in ecstasy.

  Likewise, the goddess Kypris once

  Disciplined me

  Blaming the way I prayed …

  As you are dear to me, go claim a younger

  Bed as your due.

  I can’t stand being the old one any longer,

  Living with you.

  Girls, chase the violet-bosomed Muses’ bright

  Gifts and the plangent lyre, lover of hymns:

  Stiffness has seized on these once supple limbs,

  And black braids with the passing years turned white.

  Age weighs heavily on me, and the knees

  Buckle that long ago, like fawns, pranced nimbly.

  I groan much but to what end? Humans simply

  Cannot be ageless like divinities.

  They say that rosy-forearmed Dawn, when stung

  With love, swept a sweet youth to the earth’s rim –

  Tithonous. Even there age withered him,

  Bound still to a wife forever young.

  Kypris, may Doricha discover

  You are the bitterest thing of all

  And not keep boasting that a lover

  Twice came to call.

  Nereids, Kypris, please restore

  My brother to this port, unkilled.

  May all his heart most wishes for

  Now be fulfilled.

  Excuse the misdeeds in his past,

  Make him his friends’ boon and foes’ bane,

  And may we never find the least

  Cause to complain.

  May he choose to give his sister

  Her share of honour but my gloomy

  Misgivings …

  I have a daughter who reminds me of

  A marigold in bloom.

  Kleïs is her name,

  And I adore her.

  I would refuse all Lydia’s glitter for her

  And all other love.

  I do not have an

  Ornately woven

  Bandeau to hand you,

  Kleïs. From

  Where would it come?

  … You see, my mother,

  Back when she was young,

  Thought it was fancy for a girl to wear

  A purple fillet, a headband –

  Yes, this was quite the thing.

  Now, though, we have seen a girl with hair

  More orange than a firebrand

  Sport all the flowers of spring

  Woven together, garlands upon garlands –

  And only lately, fresh from Sardis,

  A spangled headband …

  Mnasis sent you from Phocaia

  Purple kerchiefs you can tie

  Around your brow to serve

  As headscarves, too –

  Rich gifts which you,

  With your fine cheeks, deserve.

  A handkerchief

  Dripping with …

  TROY

  Idaos, then, the panting emissary,

  Reported:

  ‘Out of Asia deathless glory:

  From holy Thebe and the stream-fed port

  Of Plakia, Hector and his men escort

  The bright-eyed, delicate Andromache

  On shipboard over the infertile sea –

  With sweet red garments, bracelets made of gold,

  Beautiful baubles, ivory and untold

  Chalices chased in silver.’ So he spoke.

  Dear Priam rose at once, and the news broke,

  Spreading to friends throughout the city’s wide

  Expanse. And soon the sons of Ilos tied

  Pack mules to smooth-wheeled carts, and whole parades

  Clambered aboard the transports – wives and maids

  With slim-tapering ankles. Some way off,

  The daughters of King Priam stood aloof,

  And youthful stewards harnessed teams of horses

  To chariots …

  … And sweetly then the double-oboe’s cadence

  Mingled with rhythmic rattles as the maidens

  Sang sacred songs. A fine sound strode the air.

  Cups on the roadside, vessels everywhere,

  Cassia and frankincense were mixed with myrrh.

  Old women (venerable as they were)

  Warbled and trilled. The men all in a choir

  Summoned first that lover of the lyre,

  The long-range archer, Paeon, then extolled

  Andromache and Hector, godlike to behold.

  Some call ships, infantry or horsemen

  The greatest beauty earth can offer;

  I say it is whatever a person

  Most lusts after.

  Showing you all will be no trouble:

  Helen surpassed all humankind

  In looks but left the world’s most noble

  Husband behind,

  Coasting off to Troy where she

  Thought nothing of her loving parents

  And only child but, led astray …

  … and I think of Anaktoria

  Far away, …

  And I would rather watch her body

  Sway, her glistening face flash dalliance

  Than Lydian w
ar cars at the ready

  And armed battalions.

  Yes, you have all heard

  That Leda, long ago, one day

  Noticed an egg, hyacinth-coloured,

  Hidden away.

  Reveal your graceful figure here,

  Close to me, Hera. I make entreaty

  Just as the kings once made their prayer,

  The famous Atreidai –

  Winning victories by the score

  At Troy first, then at sea, they sailed

  The channel to this very shore,

  Tried leaving but failed

  Until they prayed to you, the Saviour

  Zeus and Thyone’s charming son.

  Like long ago, then, grant this favour,

  As you have done …

  MAIDENS AND MARRIAGES

  Once as a too, too lissome

  Maiden was plucking a blossom …

  Artemis made the pledge no god can break:

  ‘Upon my head and all that I hold dear,

  I shall remain a maid, a mountaineer

  Hunting on summits – grant this for my sake.’

  The Father of the Blessèd gave the nod – yes;

  And all the gods pronounced her Frontier Goddess

  And Slayer of Stags, and Eros never crosses

  Her path …

  (I)

  A ripe red apple grows, the highest of them all,

  Over the treetop, way up on a tapering spray,

  But apple-gatherers never see it – no,

  Rather, they do see it is far away,

  Beyond their reach, impossible.

  This matter stands just so.

  (II)

  A hillside hyacinth shepherds treaded flat,

  A red bloom in the dust – it is like that.

  ‘Maidenhead, maidenhead, where have you gone?’