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lesty_gibbs's review
emotional
reflective
fast-paced
4.5
Oh my goodness this was beyond beautiful, definitely my favourite translation. My only thing is it would have been nice for some more in depth translation notes!
spacestationtrustfund's review
4.0
Diane J. Rayor is a genius. I love her translations (although I usually maintain that if a Sappho fragment feels like a complete poem, you're doing translation wrong). Worth noting is that Rayor was one of the first to translate the neuter noun παῖδοσ as "girl" (Voigt 102, Bergk 90, Lobel-Page 102); other translators—notably including Carson and Barnard—used the masculine "boy." Neither is more accurate: Sappho did not use a gendered article to clarify the object of desire's gender, although she identified the speaker as female via the participle δάμεισα.
As a comparison to contrast Rayor's translation against various others, take this fragment (Voigt 130.1-2, Bergk 40, Lobel-Page 130):
Josephine Balmer:
//
*The word ἀμάχανον is from ἀ- (apocopic: ἀν) ("not") + μᾰ́χη (n., battle, fight, etc.) (cf. μάχομαι).
**The word ὄρπετον is the Aeolic of ἑρπετόν, which refers to anything that "goes on all fours," creeps, crawls, slithers, etc.; it's usually interpreted as a snake (or other reptile or amphibian), and in fact is from whence is derived the English herpetology.
***It's inordinately amusing to me that Carson here says "sweetbitter" but also wrote Eros the Bittersweet, named after this very fragment.
As a comparison to contrast Rayor's translation against various others, take this fragment (Voigt 130.1-2, Bergk 40, Lobel-Page 130):
Ερος δαὖτέ μ' ὀ λυσιμέλης δόνει,Rayor's version:
γλυκύπικρον ἀμάχανον ὄρπετον
Once again that loosener of limbs, Love,This is a really solid translation, probably one of the most accurate I've encountered. Rayor translates γλυκύπικρον as "bittersweet"; ἀμάχανον,* "inescapable"; ὄρπετον,** "crawling thing." She translates δονέω as "seize," which is a viable translation; it's a flexible little verb what can mean anything from "to shake, cause to quiver" (esp. of the wind) to "to disturb, terrify" to "to agitate, excite" (esp. of love). The main issue I'd have would be with the literal translation of Ερος (eros) as "Love," which I believe glosses over the fact that Eros is both a god and a feeling, but that distinction is not crucial to the understanding of the fragment. (My own translation would be, roughly: "Eros, limb-loosening, shakes me again, / that bittersweet indomitable creature.")
bittersweet and inescapable, crawling thing,
seizes me.
Josephine Balmer:
Love makes me tremble yet againJim Powell:
sapping all the strength from my limbs,
bittersweet, undefeated creature,
against you there is no defence.
Eros limbslackener shakes me again—Julia Dubnoff:
that sweet, bitter, impossible creature.
Again love, the limb-loosener, rattles meA.S. Kline:
bittersweet,
irresistible,
a crawling beast.
Eros, again now, the loosener of limbs troubles me,Andrew M. Miller:
Bittersweet, sly, uncontrollable creature...
Once again Love drives me on, that loosener of limbs,Unknown:
bittersweet creature against which nothing can be done.
Again Desire agitates me, the limb-loosener,Gillian Spraggs:
bitter-sweet, inescapable, creeping on all fours
Once more Love stirs me up, the limb-loosener,Anne Carson:
a creature bitter-sweet, baffling.
Eros the melter of limbs (now again) stirs me—Mary Barnard:
sweetbitter*** unmanageable creature who steals in
With his venomThere's a lot of competition, to be sure, but I would still argue that Rayor's translation is the best.
irresistible
and bittersweet
that loosener
of limbs, Love
reptile-like
strikes me down
//
*The word ἀμάχανον is from ἀ- (apocopic: ἀν) ("not") + μᾰ́χη (n., battle, fight, etc.) (cf. μάχομαι).
**The word ὄρπετον is the Aeolic of ἑρπετόν, which refers to anything that "goes on all fours," creeps, crawls, slithers, etc.; it's usually interpreted as a snake (or other reptile or amphibian), and in fact is from whence is derived the English herpetology.
***It's inordinately amusing to me that Carson here says "sweetbitter" but also wrote Eros the Bittersweet, named after this very fragment.