#sappho poetry | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

embeccy · 2 months

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kaleb-is-definitely-sane · 4 months

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Does anyone else just sit and listen to the wind? Sit and listen as the wind whispers, and try to decipher their secrets? What are the secrets of the winds? They pass, hovering over the face of the stoic earth and the chaotic waters; surely they must know something?

Maybe on the winds are the words we leave unsaid. Maybe on the winds are each “I love you”, each “I’m sorry”, each “I’m… different.” Maybe on the wind is each curse, each rebuttle that was muttered in the prescense of oppression but never spoken loud enough to be heard over the wind. Maybe on the wind is the voice of the Divine, reaching out to us, filling us with life and spirit after our souls have been drained by the drudgery of everyday life.

Maybe it is poetry on the wind.

In the wind, I hear the love-filled melancholic poetry lost to time. But not lost forever: we hear. We know. We remember. We are the someone, in another time, that remembers the beautiful love and the desirous sin that we did in our reckless, wild youth of the past. And this poetry breathes in us, transforming us until we too breathe poetry. Until we too are living poetry.

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lady-battlecrow · 6 months

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“Stand to face me beloved

and open out the grace of your eyes;

for when I look at you, even a moment, no speaking is left in me

no: tongue breaks and thin

fire is racing under skin

You came and I was longing for you.

You cooled a heart that burned with desire.”

- Sappho🌹

(poetic fragments)

#omg these two #why am I so obsessed #bg3 #baldursgate3 #baldurs gate 3 #baldur’s gate 3 oc #bg3 karlach #bg3 karlach romance #karlach x elvór #karlach x tav #baldurs gate karlach #karlach cliffgate #karlach #karlach x oc #bg3 spoilers #bg3 tav #sappho #sappho poetry #sapphic poetry

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whilereadingandwalking · 2 months

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Much of what we know of Sappho's poetry is actually inaccurate. Poets over centuries have filled in, guessed, and translated, but the truth is that Sappho is one of the most iconic poets of antiquity—quoted and referenced by Plutarch, Galen, Aristotle—as well as a queer woman legend, but all we actually have of her poetry is in tattered, halting fragments or quoted excerpts. In If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho, Anne Carson takes a stab at translating these excerpts, using open brackets to show the reader where lines are missing, giving us a glimpse into the reality of Sappho's verses.

I admit I feel lied to! The complete poems of Sappho's I've read are ones with much of the verse filled in or with added context. This was a fascinating look into the truth. Sappho's yearning, evocations of Aphrodite, and discussion of soft throats, bundles of violets, and music are gorgeous and hint at the poetic genius we might have known. She wrote nine books of poetry, but this is all we have, and there's a true tragedy in that (my little bookworm heart wonders whether the Library of Alexandria had copies!)

To be honest...I found this volume difficult at times. First of all, my readability pet peeve: footnotes instead of endnotes, PLEASE. The flipping back and forth makes putting the pieces together a lot harder! But rising past my qualms about end notes...they weren't that well done. Included were: comparisons between Sappho and more modern poetry (fun but unnecessary), notes that punted you on to later notes (aren't you supposed to give the explanation at the earliest reference, not latest?), notes that were frustratingly brief and required Wikipedia follow-ups, notes that were so specific they weren't actually useful, and technical notes about where each fragment was found or discovered.

Her translation could be opaque at times, and the end notes didn't give any help (someone explain the uninterrupted line "the blamer may winds and terrors / carry him off" to me). At times a translation may have been accurate, but the meaning wasn't clear, and the notes didn't help. Some verses could have used some literary analysis from someone who knows more about Sappho than the average reader, but only a few had that. For some of Sappho's most iconic verses, I would have loved some insight into the translation choices Carson made. And sometimes I wondered if Carson failed to make a leap in her insights (ex. might the mysterious use of "courtesan" to describe female friends mean something closer to "lover"?)

Overall, I loved Sappho, and this presentation—but wonder if Carson's translation work was let down by the book's execution and the work of the end notes.

#sappho #anne carson #sappho poetry #sapphic love #valentine's day #my book reviews

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woelfin-sheeps-clothing · 9 months

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Had something else planned for Julycanthropy but likely won’t have time to work on it till later.

#julycanthropy #july challenge #July art challenge #werewolf #werewolves #red riding hood #digital art #illustration #mixed media #brush pens #kuretake #sappho #sappho poetry

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bacch4nte · 5 months

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Sappho just gets it

#sappho #bacchante #girlblogging #poetry #sappho poetry #coffee

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blve-dkyb · 5 months

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sappho,

an excerpt.

#dkyb-art #ive had this idea since i bought a book of womens poems last june #and im so happy with how it turned out qwqwq #sappho #lgbtq #lgbt #sapphic art #original art #concept art #my art #wlw #wlw art #comic #original comic #wlw comic #lgbt comic #poetry art #poem #sappho poetry

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prettyguardian-prettygirl · 2 years

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My favorite Sappho poem (i’m not sure if it’s translated perfectly)

#sapphic love #sapphic longing #sapphic yearning #sapphic #sappho #sappho poetry #femme lesbian #lesbian #queer poetry #lesbian poetry #aphrodite #aphrodite poem #black femme #femme

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readrenard · 9 months

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When you die you'll lie dead. No memory of you, no desire will survive, since you've no share in the Pieran roses. But once you've flown away you'll wander among the obscure dead, invisible even in the house of Hades.

#my favourite sappho poem #sappho #poetry #read recently #queer lit #sappho poetry #sappho poem

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fuckingwhateverdude · 1 year

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sappho fragment 37: IN MY PAIN

#been reading a collected work of her poems and its making me emotional 😔#my pain drips too!!!! fuck !!!!#my writing #my writing tag #poetry #sappho #sappho poetry #fragments of sappho #quotes #spilled ink

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weeklypoetry · 7 months

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Sappho, Fragment 34 Voigt

ἄστερες μὲν ἀμφὶ κάλαν σελάνναν

ἂψ ἀπυκρύπτοισι φάεννον εἶδος

ὄπποτα πλήθοισα μάλιστα λάμπη

γᾶν <ἐπὶ παῖσαν>

****

ἀργυρία

Poetic translation:

The gleaming stars all about the shining moon Hide their bright faces, when full-orbed and splendid In the sky she floats, flooding the shadowed earth ⁠with clear silver light.

Literal translation: The stars about the fair moon lose their bright beauty when she, almost full, shines [on all] earth with silver.

Free of any human interaction, somehow still full of Sappho's typical melanchony, it offers a personified view of the cosmos like embarassed little girls watching in awe as a woung woman shines bright with silver. Because the stars are clearly the focus, the first word we can see and what I think the reader should relate to; we all pale in comparison to bright, shiny full moon, so gracious to bathe of all us in her light - and the stars are, here, no less human.

For italian speakers, I higly recommend this analysis by the University of Bologna, that goes into finer detail than I ever could.

Certainly my very favorite of all of Sappho's work. I'm already a sucker for nocturnals - Sappho and Leopardi, long loves of mine, feed me well in that regard - and this one takes the cake. Also one of the firsts of hers I've ever had to translare, which doesn't helo lessen my enjoyment for sure. The beauty in her fragments is also in the unsaid, unseen; was the silver surely the light, or is there in the line we're missing, some other feminine noun to complete it? It also makes me kind of mad, solely because a lot of poetry sites out there dealing with ancient greek poetry conviniently forget to inform that we don't actually have the whole poem, a lot of it are just guesses (even if based on studies and evidences) and meaning isn't as clear as they make it seem. For example, almost none of the sites i've searched through for a translation mentioned that "on all" the earth isn't in the text, but was assumed through studies and is often marked as such in greek. Or that there's a whole missing line between that and "silver".

Regardless, I hope that this translitteration and translation can be of satisfaction, especially to those much more expert in this subject than little ol me.

↑ the analysis link again, for easier clicking.

#poetry #poem #poems #poets #poetry on tumblr #poesia #poesie #poeti #ancient poetry #sappho #ancient greek poetry #poetry analysis #greek poetry #sappho poetry #this one is super early bc i couln't wait to start lmao #next ones are each going to be on a monday i prommy

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star-princess-princess · 2 years

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