Day and Night: Conversations with Sapphic Desire

*Brief Preface to* Day and Night: Conversations with Sapphic Desire

This work is a collection and arrangement of translations of ancient Greek lyric poets, drawn heavily from Sappho but also including other canonical melic poets (Alcman, Anacreon, Simonides, and a few others), and one Roman poet, Catullus.

Sappho was a Greek poet from the island of Lesbos who lived from around 630 B.C. Her poems were initially composed to be performed to music. She is the most well-known and celebrated of the ancient lyric poets, both now and with her contemporaries. An epigram in the *Palatine Anthology* (9.506)*,* ascribed -

• probably erroneously -
• to Plato, sums up her reputation by calling her ―the tenth Muse.‖ A few of Sappho's most common themes are love and desire, death and aging, loss, relationships and community, poetry, and religious rites and invocations. Of the nine books of her poetry that scholars in Alexandria collected, we have merely scraps, fragments, quotations, and a stray poem or two. We might divide Sappho's extant work into several categories: the few poems that are nearly complete, or complete enough to get a sufficient sense of the original poem or some significant portion of it; complete stanzas, not enough to get a sense of the whole poem, but a stanza complete in itself, often quoted in an external ancient source; longer fragmentary pieces, often from preserved papyrus manuscripts; shorter fragments; a single line or word. The fragmentary nature of the remnants poses peculiar challenges and offers up peculiar joys to the translator.

The subtitle of the collection, *Conversations With Sapphic Desire*, speaks to the way in which the collection might be conceived as a series of calls and responses to the shape of desire in Sappho's poetry, and the way that Sapphic desire moves and echoes through a tradition. The inclusion of Catullus, although it violates the consistency of the choice to include mostly Greek poets, and is separated from them temporally by hundreds of years, is one example of the way that Sapphic desire remains a vibrant and evolving force in Roman poetry and beyond. Although the arrangement, at the present moment, is a first draft -

• provisional and rough -
• I conceive it as telling the narrative, not of a life, but of an affect, the movement of desire from its dawn to its extinction in death. This affective biography at the same time intersects with a number of lives, and the whole arrangement proceeds under the stellar sign of the progression from day to night, from the first poem, in which the sun rises, to the final section, which is plunged into darkness and death.

I have attempted to translate the poems in a flowing, idiomatic modern style, and my goal at every point has been to create translations that read as excellent poems in English. Walter Benjamin, in ―The Task of the Translator,‖ writes, ―the task of the translator consists in finding that intended effect upon the language into which he is translating which produces in it the echo of the original.‖ What kind of object of knowledge is an ―original‖? How do we have access to it if not via our subjective experience of reading, and to what degree is any translation bound to be as much a translation and reproduction of that subjective experience, rather than a translation of an objective ―original‖?

For Benjamin, the unessential, the poetic, and the non-communicative in a source-text are the primary objects of the ―good‖ translator. It seems to me that this poetic element is precisely the subjective, aesthetic element, to which one would have access, not through an objective standard of transparent communication or the transmission of information, but through his own subjective experience of reading. And yet this maximally subjective element---this element that is coterminous with the subjective, that is somehow peculiarly in excess of the communicable (the universal)---is precisely the universal element, the element in a poem that, for Benjamin,

persists beyond the disaster of translation, that passes through the desert of impossibility. So we've arrived at a strange impasse, wherein the absolutely particular and untranslatable is coterminous with the absolutely universal -- the untranslatable is the only element that will make it across the desert of translation.

If all translation is a betrayal, then it is my conviction that the most heinous betrayal is taking a poem that, in its source language, is excellent, and turning it into a poem that, in the target language, is stilted, mediocre, and unexceptional. It is in that spirit that I have given the best I have to offer in maintaining fidelity to the originals.

Day and Night 1

*Anacreontea 1*

"Anacreon in a Dream"

you noticed me

in a dream, old Teionian poet,

Anacreon:

in a dream rose up in front of me

to speak.

I ran to you

and threw my arms around you

with a kiss:

old graybeard, yes,

but lovely;

but eager to love,

and lovely.

your lips smelled like wine,

and Desire led you by the fingers

since you trembled with old age

and you took your garland down

to give me --

(the flowers, Anacreon,

theysmelled like you)

Idiot me, I lifted it

and set it on my brow,

and from then, even now,

I haven't held myself back

from desire.

Sappho 147

someone, someday

will remember us,

I know it...

Day and Night 2

I.

First Rays

Day and Night 3

*Corinna 691*

Dawn plunges up

from the ocean deep, drawing off a moon

holy brightness from the ash

grey sky.

Sea-sons, sons of deathless

Zeus, blossomdeep

in May.

In the seven-gated city,

the chorus of singers

cries holy

*Sappho 136*

bright-songed nightingale,

you prophesy

the Spring

*Sappho 73a*

word-sweet Aphrodite,

keeping the dew

Day and Night 4

*Sappho 54*

"Eros"

he comes from heaven

wrapped with the deep

purple mantle

*Alcman 3a*

from high Olympus, the Muses

call, from Olympus they fill

my body with longing: a new song,

come, a new song, come:

I want to hear the young girls

sing the hymn that breaks the sky,

I want to hear the song

that scatters dreams from my heavy

eyelids, and leads me, willing,

to the assembly:

I shake my head and the yellow

hair falls down

in waves

*Sappho 70*

Harmonia, I'm going to the joy

deep choir,

to hear the liquid

voices

Day and Night 5

*Sappho 6*

Come with me:

we'll be with golden

armed Dawn

*Sappho 43*

work disturbs the sleeping

mind -- but we have to hurry:

Dawn is coming

Day and Night 6

*Sappho 81*

But you, Dica, weave together anise

stems with your fingers

supple; bind

back your hair with garlands

sweet: the blessed

Charites turn to the one

wearing flowers;

hide their faces from

the uncrowned.

*Sappho 103*

holy Charites, holy Pierian

Muses: don't

be upset --

Sing the soft feet

of the bride; sing the violet-

breasted daughter of Zeus --

songs in my thoughts,

hearing a liquid-

sweet music, setting

the lyre in place:

radiant-sandalled

Dawn in my hair

Day and Night 7

*Sappho 53*

Come to me pure rose

wristed Charites,

Zeus-daughters

*Sappho 118*

Holy lyre come to me,

sing through me,

find your voice

Day and Night 8

*Sappho 2*

Here

to me

from Crete

to this holy temple, where the glad-

making grove of apple trees

waits, and the altars smoke

thick with frankincense

here the cold water chimes

through apple branches, and rose-

dappled shadows stretch, and sleep

drips down from bright-

shaking leaves

here the horse-pasturing

meadow bursts

with vernal blossoms,

and breezes whisper

sweetly.

Here, Cyprian:

into our golden

cups, pour nectar mixed

with joy.

Day and Night 9

*Sappho 108*

O beautiful, O grace-

touched girl

*Sappho 56*

I cannot imagine

another

girl with a gift

like yours

drinking in sun's

light ever

in time to come

*Simonides 567*

"Orpheus"

birds swarm

in the sky above his

naked song, and fish leap

up in a vertical

line

above

the water

to hear his lovely music

*Sappho 106*

...as much better

as the Lesbian poet

is better than

the other poets

Day and Night 10

*Sappho 38*

you make us burn

Day and Night 11

II\.

Bright Morning

Day and Night 12

*Alcman 3b*

Her sweetness isn't empty:

Astymeloisa is coy

and quiet. She lifts

the garland high

like a star that falls

from a burning sky,

like an incandescent

branch, or goose down

soft and fluttering:

her glance that melts

the limbs like desire,

her glance that dissolves

like sleep or death.

*Alcman 82a*

Mnasidica's body is

lovelier

than poor-sweet,

innocent Gyrrino

*Sappho 36*

and I want, I want, I desire...

Day and Night 13

*Catullus 2*

Sparrow, my girl's little pet:

if my desire

wants some plaything

she plays with you

in her lap;

she gives you a fingertip

and startles a painful

bite --

I think so that when the fire

dies, the sting of her sadness

will too.

I'd play with you

like she does

and soothe my aching mind.

Day and Night 14

*Sappho 48*

when I was mad for you,

you came.

you cooled my mind

that burned with desire.

*Sappho 62*

you cowered and

shook, like a laurel:

anything sweeter

than that.

to women a

wanderer, but I

scarcely heard

darling soul.

Now these thing

come gently, you

came first,

beautiful

and the clothing

Day and Night 15

*Sappho 23*

In your eyes when I

am close: desire and hope.

you are my yellow

haired Helen, or Hermione. I want you

to know you dissolve

all my knots.

The dew on the river

banks -- I will not

sleep

tonight.

*Sappho 130*

Eros sends a seizure

again -- he's melting my

body and tenderly stabbing

my skin

useless to fight you, sweet

creature desire

Day and Night 16

*Catullus 7*

Lesbia, do you want to know

how many kisses

would satisfy me

forever?

A kiss for each grain of Lybian

sand

strewn on the shores of silphium-

flowering Cyrene,

or between the oracle of desert

Jove

and the sacred tomb of ancient Battis.

Or, again, one for each

of the infinite stars at the dead

of night,

that gaze down on the stolen

kisses

of the world.

That many. To kiss you with

that many kisses

would satisfy and then some

your lovesick Catullus,

a number no accountant's eye

could tally, no

witch's tongue

could curse.

Day and Night 17

*Catullus 5*

We are alive and in love,

my Lesbia:

their senile whispers weigh as much

as the pennies that clink

in my pockets.

Suns will rise and set,

but when the tiny light

of our love sinks just once

we've an endless night to sleep.

Give me a million kisses, then a thousand;

another million, a second thousand,

always another million and a second thousand --

when we've added up a million millions

we'll scatter the sum to the winds

like sand

and no one will count

our numberless kisses

Day and Night 18

*Catullus 3*

Whoever's left with a heart

that feels,

weep aloud and gnash your teeth:

my girlfriend's sparrow,

no more.

Sparrow, my girlfriend's pet --

she loved you more than her own eyes

because you were sweet to her,

and clung to her like a little girl clings

to mother.

You never left her lap,

you hopped around from spot to spot

chirping for your mistress alone --

Now you hop down the darkest road

through pitchy black

from which no one has ever

come back.

I'll see you in hell, you ugly

emptiness, you dark mouth swollen

wet

with death --

you swallow down

all pretty sparrows.

O rotten day!

O miserable bird!

Because of you my girl's poor eyes

puff up,

and swell wet-pink with sobbing.

Day and Night 19

*Sappho 94*

"Really, I'd rather be dead."

She left me crying

and through many tears said,

"Oh,

Sappho, it's all turned out so badly

for us. I promise I don't

want to go."

I answered, saying, "Goodbye. Go.

But remember me. You know how I

have cherished you.

Remember all the beautiful

times

we shared:

Together, beside me,

you wove through your hair

many crowns of violets

and roses,

and put around your tender neck

many garlands woven

of blossoms,

and anointed your breasts

with perfume sweet

and flowery,

and on soft beds

gave way to delicate

longing.

There wasn't a single

shrine

we didn't visit,

not a grove,

a dance

a sound

Day and Night 20

*Sappho 16*

Some say the most beautiful sight

on the black earth's face

is a regiment of mounted troops,

or a phalanx of ships,

or a throng of infantry

in armor.

Not so.

I say it\'s whatever one wants.

This is easy to show:

Helen, a diamond

in the sweating rough of humanity,

left behind a successful husband,

went sailing off to Troy

without a backward glance for

friends, or parents, or family,

or child -

led astray.

(much like I remember now

my absent Anactoria;

I\'d rather see

the swing of her hips

and the pink glow burning

in those cheeks than all

the Lydian armada in its

splendor.)

Day and Night 21

*Sappho 105a*

Like the too-sweet apple over

red on the treetop, on the tip

of the topmost

branch, forgotten by

the pickers (or -- not forgotten, no --

too high)

*Sappho 52*

i will never

wrap

these two

arms

around

the sky.

Day and Night 22

III\.

Zenith

Day and Night 23

*Sappho 27*

"for mortals, there is one way..."

you were a young girl, once.

now we walk to the bitter

sweet wedding:

send off

the young women quickly;

sing out

this moment as song:

don't hold back the gifts

of the Muses, girls:

may the gods make a way, though narrow,

to Olympus' heights

for mortals.

Day and Night 24

*Sappho 30*

tonight, let the girls

sing all through the dark hour,

until the dawn hears the sweetnesses shared

by the groom, and the bride covered

purple with violets.

shake yourselves from sleep, dear girls;

call to the boys who are tender

like you are, and we won't sleep until the bright

toned dawn

bird cries.

Day and Night 25

*Sappho 44a*

Leto gave birth to Phoebus Apollo

when she lay with Zeus

whose name has power:

but Artemis swore a solemn

vow:

I want to stay a virgin

forever, hunting on the mountain

peaks -- for my sake nod

in assent.

So she spoke,

and the father of the blessed ones

nodded. So the gods have named her

Huntress, a name that has great

power:

Eros stays

far away.

Day and Night 26

*Anacreontea 2*

"Lucid Madness"

Give me Homer's lyre

without the bloody string.

Bring me cups filled with rules,

bring them with laws mixed in

so drunk I'll dance

with lucid madness;

singing to a lute

I'll shout out the wine-song.

Give me Homer's lyre

without the bloody string.

Day and Night 27

*Sappho 44*

"the wedding of Hector and Andromache"

A messenger comes, swift Idaeus

announcing --

...and the rest of Asia, undying

glory: from sacred Thebes and Placias

whose waters flow eternally, Hector and his men

bring radiant Andromache over the briny

deep in ships filled with bangles contrived

of pure gold, purple robes anointed

with fragrance, intricately crafted

adornments, numberless goblets silver

and ivory.

With this, Hector's dear father starts

to his feet. The news spreads through the wide

laned city; on the spot the Iliadai harness

beasts of burden to the smooth

running carriages and the gathered

crowd of women and tender

ankled adolescent girls jumps up, the daughters

of Priam separately. The unmarried

men harness horses to their chariots:

charioteers with power,

godlike, holy,

all together to Ilium:

the honey voices of the citharis and the double

flute blend with the shout of

castanets and the sweet clear voice

of the young girls' holy song that builds

in a breath-numbing echo rolling up

to heaven:

everywhere along the

streets, deep bowls and drinking cups

and the aroma of myrrh and cassia and

frankincense mingle, and the older women cry

out ecstatically and the men lift up a high-clear

strain of desire, calling on the archer god Paean

whose gift is the lyre:

a hymn

to godlike Hector and Andromache.

Day and Night 28

*Sappho 111*

Up high, hey, the ceiling:

Hymenaeus!

Raise the rafters

Make room, hey, the roof:

Hymen! Hymenaeus!

Carpenters lift up,

hey, the rafters:

Hymen! Hymenaeus!

The bridegroom is coming

tall as Ares,

taller than a tall man!

*Sappho 103b*

from the chamber: the bride with her tender

feet

Day and Night 29

IV\.

Fading Light

Day and Night 30

*Sappho 88*

There's little you could

wish for

sweeter:

Someone might say

you've forgotten, but I

will love

as long

as I

have breath.

I have been

a friend

to you.

sweet and

bitter, yes.

but know that I

will love you.

Day and Night 31

*Sappho 31*

That man seems blessed as any god to me —

whoever sits across from you and close,

drinking the sweetness of your voice,

your easy laugh.

This. This is what sets my heart to drum

against my ribs. I catch one glimpse of you

and suddenly my throat closes, my voice

gives out, gives up —

my tongue snaps clean in half, a subtle fire

goes racing just beneath my skin, my eyes

go dark, a roaring fills my ears and rings

and will not stop —

cold sweat breaks out across my body, trembling

takes me entire, I go gray as dry grass

gone to drought, and I seem to myself

not far from dead —

but all must be dared. Since you, Kypris,

save beggar and king alike,

and lift even the small city beyond ruin —

let this song survive in script.

Day and Night 32

*Sappho 47*

Eros destroys

the mind in me,

a wind, shattering the mountain

oaks

*Sappho 105b*

like the mountain hyacinth

trampled by shepherd men's

feet,

and on the ground

the purple flower

Day and Night 33

*Sappho 26*

the ones I love

always hurt me.

I want you

to feel

inside myself

I know it

*Sappho 67*

this corrosive

demon

didn't love

now because

and the cause is neither

nothing much

*Sappho*

your pain

etched face shines

back at me

Day and Night 34

*Sappho 44b*

The Muses' shining

gifts make the Charites

slender: don't forget the anger

that mortals share

Day and Night 35

*Sappho 7*

Doricha orders,

arrogance like a teenage

boy

*Sappho 15*

Cyprian,

don't let Doricha get stuck on herself,

saying she came -- not once --

but twice to the arms

of her aching desire.

Let her discover how bitter

barbed you are.

*Sappho 91*

I've never met such an awful

pest as you, Irana

Day and Night 36

*Sappho 71*

but how could I let you, Mica?

you wanted to make friends

with those Penthilus girls, and you really are

a bitch.

*our* honey song

singing soft-voiced:

everything,

a mist of dew...

Day and Night 37

*Sappho 3*

You give

gifts swollen

with hurtful words:

have your fill. I am not

so disposed, and I know

how wicked

the heart is.

*Corinna 690*

self-violence, a heart

demanding murder:

she hid it away; she gave

gifts that burned

with fire.

Day and Night 38

*Sappho 95*

i don't like it

up here above ground: i want

to feel death, i want

to see the dew

spotted banks, i want

to see the lotus

fringed banks of

Acheron

*Sappho 65*

to Sappho:

a queen in Cyprus

great,

on whomever blazing

radiant everywhere

glory --

and you in Acheron

Day and Night 39

Sappho 1, a new translation

I'm begging you, Aphrodite: Zeus-

born immortal of light-

dappled thrones: don't

abandon me---but come.

If ever you've heard

my cries and quit

your father's golden house

in sparrow-drawn chariots, bright

wings cutting above black

earth, a blur

of speed from the middle-

horizon: they came---

and you, goddess: depthless

eyes smiling, you asked

what's happened, this time, and why

do I call on you, this time? What

does my frenzied heart need

so badly? "What sweet girl

will crawl to your arms? Sappho,

love, who's hurt you? If the girl

strays, she'll soon

give chase; or spurns

your gifts, she'll give them.

Though she feels

no desire, she'll burn

for you soon."

So come to me. Drain

tension from my

troubled thoughts,

whatever my heart

wants---do it.

Once again be in battle beside me.

Day and Night 40

V.

Middle Night

Day and Night 41

*Sappho 98a*

When she was young,

my mother said,

the girls used to bind dark locks

with purple bands,

or weave fresh flowers

through braids of summer yellow,

and that was a simple ornament.

Now they wear gaudy things

bought from Sardis.

*Sappho 42*

when winter cold

sneaks over the heart, wing

beats slow,

then stillness

*Sappho 49*

long ago I loved you, Atthis,

when you were a tiny girl,

and you seemed so

small and

awkward.

Day and Night 42

*Sappho 96*

from Sardis,

she often turns her thoughts toward you,

like a goddess. she loved your song

like no other.

now she shines among Lydian women

like the rose-fingered moon in the night

outshines all other stars, its silver light

spreading over salt

heavy sea, and over the blossom

thick meadows.

the grass weeps lovely

dew and the roses open

wide, beside flowering

melilot and chervil.

how many times has she wandered

aimlessly, remembering

gentle Atthis? while longing gnaws

at her fragile heart?

(this mind sings

to go there)

it's not easy for us

to be like goddesses

in loveliness of form.

Aphrodite poured nectar

from her golden

hands:

persuasion

desire

I will come.

Day and Night 43

*Sappho 22*

the trial: a lovely face --

unpleasant, yes. but otherwise

winter.

Abanthis: while desire still flutters

around you, pick up your lyre

and sing the beauty

of Gongyla, and how the sight of her dress

made you quiver --

and I'll be happy.

One time the holy Cyprian

even blamed me

for praying these words:

I want

Day and Night 44

*Sappho 20*

the glimmer:

a chance to return

to the harbor's dusk -

black sand:

the sailors in the fierce wind

blasts, the sail and the shifting

cargo:

much work to dry land.

Day and Night 45

*Sappho 132*

My little girl's face,

like bright

yellow flowers: Cleis,

more precious to me

than all Lydia.

*Sappho 98b*

but Cleis I don't know

where to get the special

ribbons to hold

your hair back:

there's nowhere, Cleis.

just one more reminder that Myrsilus

has exiled us

from Mytilene.

*Sappho 102*

Mother I do

love you, but I really can't

work the loom --

Aphrodite is making me need that boy

*Sappho 24*

Remember:

we too did the same

in our youth.

we are many

and lovely in the city,

in the city's foundations we live

at a whisper

Day and Night 46

*Hipponax 32*

Dear Hermes, Cyllenian Hermes, son of Maia,

I'm praying to you

while my teeth are clattering

in my skull, and I'm shaking

like a seizure: give poor Hipponax

a sweater, and a nice coat to keep warm,

and nice warm shoes, and a pair of sandals,

and, while you're at it, a pile of

coins, to balance the books.

Thanks,

Hipponax

*Hipponax 34*

Dear Hermes,

You haven't given me

a nice warm coat yet

as a cure for the freezing

winter. You haven't covered my feet

with fur-lined shoes yet, so my chilblains don't

pop.

Thanks,

Your friend Hipponax

*Hipponax 39*

Dear Hermes,

Soon I'll give my tortured soul over

to hanging, if you don't hurry up and send

some barley, about a bushel,

so I can brew up a cure

for all my boundless suffering.

Thanks,

Sincerely,

Day and Night 47

Hipponax

*Anacreon 358*

Again Desire smacks me

with his purple ball,

and calls me out to play

with the girl in spangled

sandals:

But she's a city girl

from Lesbos. She laughs

behind her hand

because my hair is gray,

and instead makes eyes

at a girl!

*Sappho 85b*

just like an old man

Day and Night 48

*Sappho 168b*

The moon has set

and the Pleiades. It's middle

night, and the hour

slips past.

Alone in bed.

*Sappho 34*

The stars hide their shining

bodies

behind her,

when the lovely moon

overflows,

and her glow spreads over the earth

silvery

Day and Night 49

*Alcman 26*

No more, sweet girls, sweet holy-voiced girls,

will I dance: my knees just shake

underneath me. If only I

were a cerylus, who glides

with the teeming halcyons

over waves that blossom white

with spray:

strong ocean-purple bird,

strong bird,

your heart never shakes

underneath you.

Day and Night 50

*Sappho new fragment*

Burn for the beautiful unearned gifts

and the violet covered breasts of the Muses, girls;

long for the song-sweet liquid of the lyre.

As for me, it's too late: my skin (so supple once)

old age has changed.

The black has bled from my pale white braids.

There's a knot in the pit of my stomach, and the same knees

that once in the dance leapt light like gazelles

now shake underneath my weight.

Not a day goes by that I don't despair

for this state of affairs. But what can I do?

Every person alive must someday die.

(which reminds me of Tithonus: They say that once

upon a time the rose-fingered Dawn,

consumed with longing,

carried him off to the ends of the planet.

He was young and pretty and the time,

but old age eventually caught up with him,

holding on tight to his deathless lover.)

Day and Night 51

*Sappho 21*

Pity me, love: palsy and death

hang on my flesh, and Desire

flies off, chasing after younger girls.

Sing to me, love: pick up your lyre

and sing of a girl with violets

on her breasts, who wanders

somewhere far from here.

*Sappho 140*

She dies, Cytherea: gentle Adonis

is dying. What can we do?

Beat your breasts, dear girls;

tear you clothes and cry out.

*Sappho 150*

Cleis, it's a sin to weep

in the house of the Muses'

servant:

this is not our way

Day and Night 52

*Sappho 55*

When all your stirrings,

of blood and breath cease,

and you pass through the outermost silence,

where neither remembrance of you

nor the heat of desire can puncture

once

that final hanging veil,

then (since you take no communion

with roses

where Music was born

with the Muses)

you will dart,

invisible in the House of Hades,

to and fro above the bodies,

that melt like shadow beneath you.

Departed from us.

Day and Night 53

*Sappho 63*

Dream of black you come

whenever sleep comes sweet

god terrible, yes, but you

have power to keep away

pain: a little hope grips me

yet that I will not share

in nothing with the blessed -- I

do not

want to be

as I am:

let me have these trinkets

Day and Night 54

*Stesichorus 15*

Like a living thing silent

and thirsty, the arrow bites

sharp through skin and

bone, to lodge vibrating

in the middle brain,

where it buries itself

to the feathers.

Geryon's neck

slumps gently to one side

while the blood flows black

on gore-stained limbs

and breastplate:

a trickle of petals

at summer's end,

the poppy's tender

glory.

Day and Night 55

*Simonides VIII*

If righteousness

Is a holy death

Then Fortune has smiled on us

Above all others: we fought

To crown Greece with freedom,

And now we lie here,

Undying praise

Our possession.

*Simonides IX*

Around their country

These men set deathless

Glory, and around themselves

The dark cloud of death.

Though dead, they live.

Their courage gives them fame

Above, and calls them back

From the halls of Hades.

*Simonides XLVII*

Long ago the savage god Ares

Dipped his long-barbed arrows

In the breasts of those

Who lie here, and gorged them on

Bloody droplets.

This stone memorial, touched with

dust, stands in the place

Of the spear-struck dead,

Lifeless rock

In place of the living.

Day and Night 56

*Sappho 104a and b*

Hesperus, you carry home the dawn

scattered sheep, home the goat

that dawn scattered. you carry home

the little child

to mother.

you are twilight lovely

evening

star.