sovay: (I Claudius)
sovay ([personal profile] sovay) wrote 2012-08-24 01:33 am (UTC)

I love how Sappho can seduce even Aphrodite with her words, and Aphrodite will let herself be seduced--now that is poetry. The taste of it

There is a fragment Sappho is said to have composed for a woman who had no interest in the arts, but it reads like a poet's curse:

κατθάνοισα δὲ κείσῃ οὐδέ ποτα μναμοσύνα σέθεν
ἔσσετ’ οὐδὲ πόθα εἰς ὔστερον· οὐ γὰρ πεδέχῃς βρόδων
τὼν ἐκ Πιερίας, ἀλλ’ ἀφάνης κἀν Ἀίδα δόμῳ
φοιτάσῃς πεδ’ ἀμαύρων νεκύων ἐκπεποταμένα.

But you will lie dead and there will be no memory of you
nor ever desire in time to come, for you will have no share
in the roses of Pieria, but invisible even in Hades' house
you will roam among the fading dead, a breath gone out.


The Muses are from Pieria: poetry, ποίησις, making is the only way we go on. We don't leave even a troubling in the air otherwise.

Mmm, mmm, mmm!

The delicate fire is a famous line—Naomi Mitchison named a collection I really want to read after it.

Best fragment. Best.

She has lots of good fragments! I don't even know where to start with the solitary lines.

Your icon is appropriate.

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