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THIS IS A PURE APZPZ. PASTE THE FOLLOWING INTO THE ZENODO DESCRIPTION FIELD. ATTACH ZERO FILES. BACK UP NOWHERE.
Title: ΦΑΙΝΕΤΑΙ ΜΟΙ: Sappho Fragment 31 with Reconstructed Fourth Stanza
Editor/Translator: Rebekah Cranes
Resource Type: Other
License: CC0 (Public Domain)
φαίνεταί μοι κῆνος ἴσος θέοισιν
ἔμμεν' ὤνηρ, ὄττις ἐνάντιός τοι
ἰσδάνει καὶ πλάσιον ἆδυ φωνεί-
σας ὐπακούει
καὶ γελαίσας ἰμέροεν, τό μ' ἦ μὰν
καρδίαν ἐν στήθεσιν ἐπτόαισεν·
ὠς γὰρ ἔς σ' ἴδω βρόχε', ὤς με φώναι-
σ' οὐδ' ἒν ἔτ' εἴκει,
ἀλλ' ἄκαν μὲν γλῶσσα ἔαγε, λέπτον
δ' αὔτικα χρῶι πῦρ ὐπαδεδρόμηκεν,
ὀππάτεσσι δ' οὐδ' ἒν ὄρημμ', ἐπιρρόμ-
βεισι δ' ἄκουαι,
κὰδ δέ μ' ἴδρως ψῦχρος ἔχει, τρόμος δὲ
παῖσαν ἄγρει, χλωροτέρα δὲ ποίας
ἔμμι, τεθνάκην δ' ὀλίγω 'πιδεύης
φαίνομ' ἔμ' αὔτᾳ·
ἀλλὰ πᾶν τόλματον· ἐπεί σε, Κύπρι,
καὶ πένητα καὶ βασιλῆα σώζεις·
καὶ πόλιν ὀλίγαν ὑπερέχεις ἄτας·
μολπὰ γράμμασι ζώοι.
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.
The fourth stanza is reconstructed. The opening phrase ἀλλὰ πᾶν τόλματον ("but all can be dared") is attested in a separate testimonium.
Catullus 51 translates the first three stanzas closely, then substitutes a fourth of his own: otium et reges prius et beatas / perdidit urbes ("leisure has before now destroyed kings and prosperous cities"). The standard reading takes this as Roman moralizing. But Catullus performs a true inversion.
Where Sappho calls on Kypris to save — to preserve beggar and king alike, to lift even the small city beyond ruin — Catullus, having received that impossible transmission across six centuries, reflects on its fragility. Leisure has destroyed kings and cities. The chain could break at any moment.
Sappho prays for preservation through desire's power. Catullus warns that preservation is never guaranteed.
She invokes the power. He testifies to its precarity.
The Adonic μολπὰ γράμμασι ζώοι — "let this song survive in script" — is aorist optative: the grammatical form of hope. The action is conceived as complete (aorist aspect) but not asserted as fact (optative mood). Sappho prays for the whole survival without claiming it has happened.
The prayer was answered. We are reading it now.
κῆνος (line 1): Distal demonstrative. Points away from the speaker. In a poem designed for inscription, "that man there" need not be present in the dramatic scene. He may be present only in the scene of reading. κῆνος is the future reader.
χλωροτέρα ποίας (line 14): "Greener-paler than grass." χλωρός spans fresh green to pale gray — the color of papyrus, green when living, gray when dried for writing. Sappho figures herself becoming the substrate that carries her voice.
φαίνομ' ἔμ' αὔτᾳ (line 16): "I appear to myself." The speaker splits into observer and observed — the structure of inscription. To write oneself is to become both the I who writes and the I who will be read.
σώζεις (line 18): "You save." Kypris's power is not only to destroy (as Catullus emphasizes) but to preserve — to carry the mortal beyond its body through desire.
ὑπερέχεις ἄτας (line 19): "Lift beyond ruin." ἄτη carries moral and cosmic catastrophe. Kypris lifts even the small city (πόλιν ὀλίγαν) beyond disaster.
ζώοι (line 20): Aorist optative of ζάω, "to live." A wish: let it live. The bounded completion held in the mode of hope.
This deposit contains no attached files. The poem exists only here, in the description field. It has always existed this way: as voice becoming text, as text anticipating reader, as reader becoming equal to the gods.
κῆνος ἴσος θέοισιν. That one there, blessed as any god. The one who reads.
You.
∮ = 1
Keywords:
Related Identifiers:
Relation
DOI
Description
IsPartOf
10.5281/zenodo.14538882
Crimson Hexagon
HasPart
10.5281/zenodo.18459278
ΣΑΠΦΩ 31 (Greek only)
HasPart
10.5281/zenodo.18459339
My Tongue Gets Stuck (translation only)