Quotes from Sappho

delicate Adonis is dying Kythereia what should we do? strike yourselves maidens and tear your garments

the doorkeeper's feet are seven armlengths long five oxhides for his sandals ten shoemakers worked on them

We shall give, says father.

Often those I treat well are just the ones who most harm me vainly You I want to suffer In me I know it

I bid you sing … as (now again) longing floats around you, you beauty.

Some call ships, infantry, or horsemen The greatest beauty earth can offer; I say it is whatever a person Most lusts after.

Andromeda in a beautiful exchange, 'Psapfo, why ignore Afroditi rich in blessings?

It is not right in a house serving the Muses to have mourning. For us it is unbecoming.

If for things good and noble thou wert yearning, If to speak baseness were thy tongue not burning, No load of shame would on thine eyelids weigh; What thou with honour wishest thou wouldst say.

But you have forgotten me or you love some man more than me

Don't madden my mind

Night, you who gather in your lovely lap The things the shining dawn flung far and wide, The ewe-lamb you bring back, the straying goat, The child you lead unto its mothers side.

In pity and trembling old age now covers my flesh. Yet there is chasing and floating after a young woman. Pick up your lyre and sing to us of one with roses on her robe, especially wandering

I care for neither honey nor the honey bee

Who, Sappho, at a word, must grow Again receptive to your love? Who wronged you so?

Gongyla surely a sign especially for children who came here I said, O master [...] by the blessed Afroditi [...] I swear I take no pleasure in being on the earth but a longing seizes me to die and see the dewy lotus banks of the Aheron

As you are dear to me, go claim a younger Bed as your due. I can't stand being the old one any longer, Living with you.

Age weighs heavily on me, and the knees Buckle that long ago, like fawns, pranced nimbly. I groan much but to what end? Humans simply Cannot be ageless like divinities. They say that rosy-forearmed Dawn, when stung With love, swept a sweet youth to the earth's rim - Tithonus. Even there age withered him, Bound still to a wife forever young.

You have done wrong, Mika, I won't allow you to faithless you chose love in the house of Penthilos A sweet song in a honey voice sings clear nightingales over dew fields.

Really, if you are my friend, chose a younger bed. I cannot bear to live with you when I am the older.

To have beauty is to have only that, but to have goodness is to be beautiful too" As translated by Suzy Q. Groden in Sappho: Poems (1966)

I want to say something to you but shame disarms me' 'If you longed for the good or beautiful and your tongue were not concocting evil shame would not cover your eyes. Rather you would speak about the just

My pain drips May terrifying winds carry off him who blames me

You will remember we did these things in our youth many and beautiful things. In the city for us the harsh We live opposite a daring person stone foundation thin-voiced