Blog Post 3

Sappho 6 (Fr.31) p.g 55

     “He seems to me to be equal to the gods,

     That man who sits across from you

     And listens close at hand

        to your sweet voice

5   and lovely laughter. Truly it sets

     my heart to pounding in my breast,

     for the moment I glance at you, I can

        no longer speak;

     my tongue grows numb; at once a subtle

10 fire runs stealthily beneath my skin;

     my eyes see nothing, my ears

        ring and buzz,

     the sweat pours down, a trembling

     seizes the whole of me, I turn paler

15 than grass, and I seem to myself

        not far from dying.

     But everything can be endured, because . . .”

Briefly from the information given in General Introduction, Sappho wrote this poem in her own native dialects – Aiolic – in a metrically simple stanza forms “strophes” (Miller, xiii). This specific selection correlates to the Anne Carson’s reading Eros where three components of “triangle” – lover, beloved, and something between them – has to do with the complex of emotion. It is fascinating how Sappho described contrasting emotion of love into few lines. For example, the first two stanzas show the positive emotion of love yet the rest suddenly depicts the downside of love with thoughtful description. In addition, “that man,” “you,” and “the exact nature of the speaker” is related to the “triangle” mentioned in Carson’s piece. Interestingly, another Sappho’s poem translation by Jim Powell, we can see the same fragment in different words and it contains the “bittersweet” aspect specified in Carson’s writing as well. For instance, “I look at you for a moment, I can’t speak any longer, but my tongue breaks down” and the “cold sweat” shows the bittersweetness of love in Powell’s translation of Sappho (Powell 23,24).

Ibycus 2 (Fr.286) p.g 97

In spring the Kydonian

apple trees, watered by flowing

streams there where the Maidens

have their unravished garden, and vine buds,

growing under the shadowy branches

of the vines, bloom and flourish. For me, however,

     love

is at rest in no season,

but like the Thracian north wind

ablaze with lightning,

rushing from Aphrodite with scorching

fits of madness, dark and unrestrained,

it forcibly convulses, from their very roots,

my mind and heart.

Ibycus is a lyric poet person who also uses rich language of lines, in particular the accumulation of epithets. Again, Ibycus also uses two contrasting images (positive and negative) of love through lines 1-7 and 8-13 respectively with highly descriptive words. For instance, “unravished garden,” “vine buds,” “vines,” “bloom,” and “flourish” are used as positive image of love; however, “ablaze with lightning,” “scorching fits of madness,” and “dark and un restrained,” depicts the flaw image of love. Overall, the fragment finishes with an unhappy picture where ‘love’ drives Ibycus mad and eventually packs in erotic desires in here. In Ibycuss, there are many examples of ‘bittersweet’ paradox used such as love and hate as a poetic image. Also, Ibycus uses eros in a paradox of wet and dry, “for the black thunderstorm of desire drives against him not rain but parching madnesses.”