{"id":1817,"date":"2012-02-03T02:50:47","date_gmt":"2012-02-03T02:50:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/?p=1817"},"modified":"2014-06-24T18:04:26","modified_gmt":"2014-06-24T17:04:26","slug":"fridays-words-of-wisdom-sappho","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/?p=1817","title":{"rendered":"FRIDAY&#8217;S WORDS OF WISDOM: SAPPHO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This week I have been reading the Penguin Classics edition of Sappho\u2019s poetry (<em>Stung With Love: Poems and Fragments<\/em>). It is a wonderful little book full of extraordinary language. One thing that made me stop was this bit from Aaron Poochigian&#8217;s introduction<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The Spartan poet Alcman\u2019s First and Third <em>Panthenia <\/em>(\u2018Maiden\u2019s Songs\u2019, seventh century BCE) provide evidence of socially sanctioned homoerotic attachments. In the First a chorus of maidens expresses admiration for the awe-striking beauty of its chorus leaders, Agido and Hegesichora. In the Third the chorus looks on Astymeloisa\u2019s beauty with \u201climb-loosening desire.\u201d(xxv)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>That phrase, \u201climb-loosening desire\u201d is wonderful, a perfect invocation of lust \u2013 Sappho uses it (21 \u2013 trans. Poochigian):<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 90px;\">That impossible predator,<br \/>\nEros, the Limb-Loosener,<br \/>\nBitter-sweetly and afresh<br \/>\nSavages my flesh.<\/p>\n<p>I have fallen in love with the little moments in Sappho that stop your heart. Here\u2019s another that made my limbs go loose (35).<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 90px;\">May you bed down,<br \/>\nHead to breast, upon<br \/>\nThe flesh<br \/>\nOf a plush<br \/>\nCompanion.<\/p>\n<p>These lines manage to be both spare and incredibly lush \u2013 so little says so much. One more (29)\u2026<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 90px;\">Moon and The Pleiades go down.<br \/>\nMidnight and the tryst pass by,<br \/>\nI, though, lie<br \/>\nAlone.<\/p>\n<p>Isn&#8217;t that beautiful? And isn&#8217;t heartbreaking that perhaps 90% of Sappho&#8217;s poetry is lost to us?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This week I have been reading the Penguin Classics edition of Sappho\u2019s poetry (Stung With Love: Poems and Fragments). It is a wonderful little book full of extraordinary language. One thing that made me stop was this bit from Aaron Poochigian&#8217;s introduction The Spartan poet Alcman\u2019s First and Third Panthenia (\u2018Maiden\u2019s Songs\u2019, seventh century BCE) [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[20,111],"tags":[69,101,96,35],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p27AP7-tj","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1817"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1817"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2028,"href":"http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1817\/revisions\/2028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}