Willis Barnstone

Sappho’s thrilling lyric verse has been unremittingly popular for more than 2,600 years—certainly a record for poetry of any kind—and love for her art only increases as time goes on. Though her extant work consists only of a collection of fragments and a handful of complete poems, her mystique endures to be discovered anew by each generation, and to inspire new efforts at bringing the spirit of her Greek words faithfully into English. In the past, translators have taken two basic approaches to Sappho: either very literally translating only the words in the fragments, or taking the liberty of reconstructing the missing parts. Willis Barnstone has taken a middle course, in which he remains faithful to the words of the fragments, only very judiciously filling in a word or phrase in cases where the meaning is obvious. This edition includes extensive notes and a special section of "Testimonia": appreciations of Sappho in the words of ancient writers from Plato to Plutarch. Also included are a glossary of all the figures mentioned in the poems, and suggestions for further reading.

The Complete Poems of Sappho

Larissa Campos

Sappho’s lyrics, composed in the seventh century B.C.E., transcend their time and place to enchant us now. In lines that are at once passionate and precise, seemingly artless and yet magical, she writes of the cycles of life and death, and of erotic desire as a sacred calling. She looks into the burning center of things, and expresses pure wonder in the evening star, the moon, birdsong.

Someone, I tell you, in another time, will remember us.

You will remember we did these things in our youth, many and beautiful things.

Love shook my heart like wind on a mountain punishing oak trees.

You came and I went mad about you. You cooled my mind burning with longing. 

When she left me she wept profusely and told me, “Oh how we’ve suffered in all this. Psapfo, I swear I go unwillingly.”

And I answered her, “Be happy, go and remember me, you know how we worshiped you. But if not, I want to remind you of beautiful days we shared, how you took wreaths of violets, roses and crocuses, and at my side tied them in garlands made of flowers round your tender throat, and with sweet myrrh oil worthy of a queen you anointed your limbs and on a soft bed gently you would satisfy your longing and how there was no holy shrine where we were absent, no grove no dance no sound”

When anger is flooding through your chest best to quiet your reckless barking tongue [158] 

Often those I treat well are just the ones who most harm me

Hello and Goodbye A hearty good day to the daughter of the house of Polyanax [155]

I am not of a wounding spirit rather I have a gentle heart [120]

The Complete Poems of Sappho quotes

Join the club