Quotes from Sappho

gracious your form and your eyes as honey : desire is poured upon your lovely face Aphrodite has honored you exceedingly...

Eros, again now, the loosener of limbs troubles me, Bittersweet, sly, uncontrollable creature….

You will have memories Because of what we did back then When we were new at this, Yes, we did many things, then - all Beautiful...

I know not what to do, my mind is divided

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.

You may blame Aphrodite soft as she is she has almost killed me with love for that boy

I would not think to touch the sky with two arms

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

The moon has set, and the Pleiades; it is midnight, and time passes, and I sleep alone.

Sweet mother, I cannot ply the loom, vanquished by desire for a youth through the work of soft Aphrodite.

Deathless Aphrodite on your rich-wrought throne.

As an apple reddens on the high bough; high atop the highest bough the apple pickers passed it by—no, not passed it by, but they could not reach it.

Hesperus, you herd homeward whatever Dawn's light dispersed: you herd sheep—herd goats—herd children home to their mothers.

The moon has set, and the Pleiades; it is midnight, and time passes, and I sleep alone.

I loved you once long ago, Athis… you seemed to me a small, ungainly child.

The stars about the lovely moon hide their shining forms when it lights up the earth at its fullest.

may you sleep on the breast of your delicate friend

The moon has set And the Pleiades. Midnight. I lie in bed alone.

yet if you had a desire for good or beautiful things and your tongue were not concocting some evil to say shame would not hold down your eyes but rather you would speak about what is just

Sardis often turning her thoughts here ] you like a goddess and in your song most of all she rejoiced. But now she is conspicuous among Lydian women as sometimes at sunset the rosyfingered moon surpasses all the stars. And her light stretches over salt sea equally and flowerdeep fields. And the beautiful dew is poured out and roses bloom and frail chervil and flowering sweetclover. But she goes back and forth remembering gentle Atthis and in longing she bites her tender mind

sing to us the one with violets in her lap ]mostly ]goes astray

Come to me now and loosen me from blunt agony. Labor and fill my heart with fire. Stand by me and be my ally.

The evening star Is the most beautiful of all stars

Some say an army of horsemen, or infantry, A fleet of ships is the fairest thing On the face of the black earth, but I say It's what one loves.