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rravenii's review against another edition
4.0
“‘Maidenhead, maidenhead, where have you gone?’ / ‘I shall never, ever join you again.’”
Second read through. Lost a star because the translation bugged me in a few places, particularly the use of “ventricles” instead of “heart” (“kardia”) in Fragment 31 (“That fellow strikes me as a god’s double…”). It’s so jarring. I have next to zero knowledge about Greek so I don’t know how justified he was in that choice (which he briefly explains in the notes), but in reading some dozen other (and older) translations, I feel I’ve been robbed! Penguin Classics, I trusted you!
-
Less “review”, rather mere notes:
That poem in particular is a special one as I only bought this book after John Donne’s Sappho to Philaenis piqued my curiosity. I wondered how some rabid Anglican cleric from the 16-17th c. captured a heated jealous desire by a woman for another woman SO accurately. How many women’s diaries did he validate? How did he express feelings I didn’t know I had? Wow.
-
Donne echoes and builds on the first stanza of Fragment 31, which is here translated as such:
”That fellow strikes me as a god’s double,
Couched with you face to face, delighting
In your warm manner, your amiable
Talk and inviting [laughter]”
and here is Donne, elaborating on that covetousness:
“…thou art so fair,
As, gods, when gods to thee I do compare,
Are graced thereby; and to make blind men see,
What things gods are, I say they are like to thee.
…
Plays some soft boy with thee, oh there wants yet
A mutual feeling which should sweeten it.
…
Thy body is a natural paradise,
in whose self, all pleasure lies,
Nor needs perfection; why shouldst thou then
Admit the tillage of a harsh rough man?”
My mind is so poisoned that I cannot help but imagine Donne had read Ovid on his Macbook and wanted to write AU fanfiction with his OTP Sappho x Philaenis. hashtag girlboss. Kyrie eleison.
Second read through. Lost a star because the translation bugged me in a few places, particularly the use of “ventricles” instead of “heart” (“kardia”) in Fragment 31 (“That fellow strikes me as a god’s double…”). It’s so jarring. I have next to zero knowledge about Greek so I don’t know how justified he was in that choice (which he briefly explains in the notes), but in reading some dozen other (and older) translations, I feel I’ve been robbed! Penguin Classics, I trusted you!
-
Less “review”, rather mere notes:
That poem in particular is a special one as I only bought this book after John Donne’s Sappho to Philaenis piqued my curiosity. I wondered how some rabid Anglican cleric from the 16-17th c. captured a heated jealous desire by a woman for another woman SO accurately. How many women’s diaries did he validate? How did he express feelings I didn’t know I had? Wow.
-
Donne echoes and builds on the first stanza of Fragment 31, which is here translated as such:
”That fellow strikes me as a god’s double,
Couched with you face to face, delighting
In your warm manner, your amiable
Talk and inviting [laughter]”
and here is Donne, elaborating on that covetousness:
“…thou art so fair,
As, gods, when gods to thee I do compare,
Are graced thereby; and to make blind men see,
What things gods are, I say they are like to thee.
…
Plays some soft boy with thee, oh there wants yet
A mutual feeling which should sweeten it.
…
Thy body is a natural paradise,
in whose self, all pleasure lies,
Nor needs perfection; why shouldst thou then
Admit the tillage of a harsh rough man?”
My mind is so poisoned that I cannot help but imagine Donne had read Ovid on his Macbook and wanted to write AU fanfiction with his OTP Sappho x Philaenis. hashtag girlboss. Kyrie eleison.
jananomore's review against another edition
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
slow-paced
5.0
The translation and notes are just too good I love Poochigian.
+ Sappho is iconic, but that is known.
+ Sappho is iconic, but that is known.
ed_moore's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
relaxing
slow-paced
4.75
Sappho’s Fragments were absolutely wonderful. The poetry was so beautifully crafted and explored the likes of love, womanhood, marriage, the gods, death and my personal favourite couple being on Troy. There was also analysis and notes accompanying each fragment which was really engaging and gave great context of each. It was really unstressful, beautifully written poems which I kind of needed in my current read as I don’t think I could’ve coped with much that was heavy. It’s just upsetting that we only have fragments but I suppose we can be thankful at least those survived.
Really loved this little book.
merelkouwenhoven's review against another edition
"I declare
That later on,
Even in an age unlike our own,
Someone will remember who we are."
Always gets me ... Fave poem
That later on,
Even in an age unlike our own,
Someone will remember who we are."
Always gets me ... Fave poem
caidyn's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
fast-paced
4.0
Poetry isn't usually my thing, but I've always wanted to read Sappho. Beautiful poetry and now I want to read more since I know this isn't a complete collection.
elliecatmorgan's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
4.5
breanneporter's review against another edition
Got bogged down in the intro/historical stuff, will return to in the future