Greek Lyrics, Second Edition: More than a Hundred Poems and Poetic Fragments from the Great Age of Greek Lyric Poetry

by Richmond Lattimore (Translator)

"Professor Lattimore, holding closely to the original metres, has produced renderings of great power and beauty. His feeling for the telling noun and verb, the simple yet poignant epithet, and the dramatic turn of syntax is marked. He has completely freed the poems from sentimentality, and the thrilling ancient names—Anacreon, Alcaeus, Simonides, Sappho—acquire fresh brilliance and vitality under his hand."—Louise Bogan, The New Yorker

"The significant quality of Mr. Lattimore's versions is that they are pure. The lenses he provides are as clear as our language is capable of making them."—Moses Hadas, N.Y. Herald Tribune

Contents:
Archílochus
Callínus
Semónides of Amórgos
Hippónax
Tyrtaéus
Mimnérmus
Solon
Phocýlides
Xenóphanes
Theógnis
Early Metrical Inscriptions
Terpánder
Alcman
Stesíchorus
íbycus
Sappho
Alcaéus
Anácreon
Anonymous Drinking Songs
Hýbrias
Praxílla
Anonymous Lyrics
Corínna
Simónides of Ceos
Pindar
Bacchýlides

Genres: Poetry, Classics, Greece, Ancient, Ancient History, Fiction, Humanities

82 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 451

About the author

Richmond Lattimore graduated from Dartmouth in 1926 and received an A.B. from Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar at Christ Church in 1932. He took his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois in 1934.

He was an American poet and classicist known for his translations of the Greek classics, especially his versions of the Iliad and Odyssey, which are generally considered as among the best English translations available

Reviews

[Caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

So, sometimes having a home library makes reading more complicated.

I was entranced while reading Lattimore’s translations of Greek Lyric poetry. I thought, what a felicitous combination of original poets and 20th century translator. And how contemporary many of these poems are. The emotions of love, lust, revenge, fear, patriotism, and uncertainty are very fresh. The thoughts on the balance of power among men, gods and destiny on what happens to an individual are varied and helpful to reading other Greek literature.

Archilochus especially appealed to me. He was a mercenary from the island of Paros, and at the same time an eminent poet, the first one we know after Homer. Even though we know only fragments, sometimes only a word or two found on the waste paper used to wrap up Egyptian mummies centuries later. But his contemporaries knew him as a highly skilled poet. And they knew him as a ruthless satirist.

So it occurred to me that I had purchased, many years ago, a book of Archilochus translations by Guy Davenport, that I had never read. Well, an hour later, in comparison, Lattimore suddenly could seem rather wordy. As in three or four times the words of Davenport, and significantly more descriptive.

Lattimore, seven lines:

Heart, my heart, so battered with misfortune far beyond your strength,
Up, and face the men who hate us. Bare your chest to the assault
Of the enemy, and fight them off. Stand fast among the beamlike spears.
Give no ground; and if you beat them, do not brag in open show,
Nor, if they beat you, run home and lie down on your bed and cry.
Keep some measure in the joy you take in luck, and the degree
You give way to sorrow. All our life is up-and-down like this.

Davenport, eleven lines:

Soul, soul,
Torn by perplexity,
On your feet now!
Throw forward your chest
To the enemy;
Keep close in the attack;
Move back not an inch.
But never crow in victory,
Nor mope hang-dog in loss.
Overdo neither sorrow nor joy:
A measured motion governs man.

Moreover, in some cases they understood a poem in almost opposite ways.
Lattimore:

Glaukos, a soldier of fortune’s your friend as long as he’s fighting.

Davenport:

Keep a mercenary for a friend
Glaukos, to stand by in battle.

A reviewer of Davenport’s book suggested Barnstone’s translations, where I found:

Glaukos, soldier of fortune, will be your friend
Until he begins to fight.

Now I had three readings.

Back and forth I went. Sometimes one had the most potent version, although it might not be the most literal:

Barnstone:

The vessel wavered on the cutting edge
Between the stormwinds and the waves.

Davenport, much more appealing:

Decks awash, Mast-top dipping,
And all
Balanced on the keen edge
Now of the wind’s sword,
Now of the wave’s blade.

Sometimes Lattimore was breath-taking:

Such is the passion for love that has twisted its way beneath my heartstrings
And closed deep mist across my eyes
Stealing the soft heart from inside my body…

Or

Here I lie mournful with desire,
Feeble in bitterness of the pain gods inflicted upon me,
Stuck through the bones with love.

Then I began to think, perhaps a Greek would have brought so much mental culture to reading or hearing Archilochus that Lattimore is closer to how a Greek would have understood the poems. Or maybe Davenport, despite Hugh Kenner’s introduction and his own claims in the translator’s note, when pretty far out on the contemporary limb. He certainly doesn’t mention any other versions as influences, although Lattimore published only a few years before he did. Kenner claims, in fact, that it is only now that we can appreciate Archilochos (their spelling) because we are finally able to appreciate random parts and fragments of larger things as ‘found objects’ and works of art in themselves. How to know? If anyone has light to shed, please comment! I ended up still thinking that Lattimore’s are beautiful poems.

There are many more fine poets in this anthology. Sappho of course, Pindar, Solon, but many I had never heard of. With few exceptions, all we have from these poets are a few pieces or fragments. I had rejected Pindar based on being left cold by his athlete odes, but the works here are wonderful. Also, a comparison of Lattimore’s Sappho with Mary Barnard’s suggests the same verbose/terse difference as with Archilochus. (All following translations by Lattimore.)

Consider Solon:

This city of ours will never be destroyed by the planning of Zeus, nor according to the wish of the immortal gods;
such is she who, great hearted, mightily fathered, protects us,
Pallas Athene, who hands are stretched out over our heads.
But the citizens themselves in their wildness are bent on destruction
Of their great city, and money is the compulsive cause.
The leaders of the people are evil-minded. The next stage
Will be great suffering, recompense for their violent acts,
For they do not know enough to restrain their greed and apportion
Orderly shares for all as if at a decorous feast.

Xenophanes argues in a nice (too long for here) poem that the poet should get the glory and respect currently showered on Olympic athletes.

Pindar:

But he who sits among the peaks and the golden snows of Olympos,
Zeus, gods’ guard, had no heart
To break destiny…

And

O shining and wreathed in violets, city of singing,
stanchion of Hellas, glorious Athens,
citadel full of divinity.

And

O Thrasyboúlos, I send this gear of racing and lovely
songs to you for the end of your revels. So may you share it
with them who drink beside you…
at that time of night when the troublesome cares of humanity
drift from our hearts and on seas of luxury streaming in gold

we swim together, and make for a shore that is nowhere…

And so I suggest unearthing this out of print volume and reading it with a glass of wine in your other hand, or reading stanzas aloud to friend or spouse. Then read the other versions, and enjoy all of them, because a good poem has many readings, and one of the pleasures of translation is hearing from two artists, the author and the translator.

Those who follow my reviews know I just finished Edward Gibbon’s autobiography. In it he says the most powerful method by which he taught himself Greek and Latin was to translate the original into English, lay his work aside for a while, then translate his English version back into Greek or Latin and compare it to the original. Over time, he got better and better at adhering closely to the original. I would love to have his translations of these fragments!

[grllopez ~ with freedom and books · Rating 3 out of 5]

It helps to have prior knowledge of the Greek histories and myths because many of these short poems and fragments are about such things. The translation was well done and helpful, though I have nothing to compare it. I read all of the entries, and some of them were more entertaining than others. Overall it was OK. This is a work for someone invested in the Ancient Greeks or appreciates poetry of all sorts.

[Castles · Rating 3 out of 5]

The translation of those poems can’t be exact because some of them are embarrassingly modern. In fact, comparing the verses of Sappho here to other books of her writings is disappointingly different. I’m no Greek poems expert, but there are much better translations of Sappho these days.

I do thank this book for introducing me with so many poets I didn’t know, especially when it comes to “secular”, lesser-known poetry. And yet it’s interesting to see how war, militarism, money, and misogyny, are themes as old as human culture.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Concise and rather short. Good translations.

[su · Rating 3 out of 5]

Perhaps I would have enjoyed this concise collection if I had a more comprehensive knowledge of Greek mythology and history, but still it was at some parts enjoyable, some parts boring depending on the poet.

[Henry Phillips · Rating 5 out of 5]

A nearly flawless introduction by one of the great translators of Ancient Greek Poetry.

[Mehran Qandi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can't judge the accuracy of translations but I really liked the collection. The Sappho part in comparison with other translations felt a bit modern but did the whole book in general.
I enjoyed it.

[Dorotea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very poor translation

[Lino · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book did nothing for me. All the poetry here sounds the same to my (untrained) mind. It's either about the gods, their city, or spears.

There's a lot of reference to previous writings (that I haven't read) or to some mythological story (that I'm not familiar with), so it's partly my fault that I couldn't appreciate them. But those references are are too direct, too dry and too frequent. There's no subtlety, no surprise and delight we find in more modern poetry.

[Josh Wilks · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book number three on my humanities reading list - Ted Gioia reccomended Sappho (spelling?) and this collection as one of the earliest surviving fragments of people writing about things that aren’t just war and pillaging. Sappho was actually seen as a little bit of a heretic, and it was probably seen as unbecoming or unrefined to put words to the feelings of love or passion or wanting. There were also a few funny drinking songs and other banter-type fragments that survived from this time.

Reading this really made me feel compassion for humans as a species. For thousands of years, we have been struggling with the same primal problems. It is like we cannot solve them through culture or technology, and each human must go through their own journey of discovery. But do we really want them to be solved? Sure, there are things like unrequited love that hurt more than anything. But that hurting is what it means to be alive, to care.

I have talked about this with others before, and I believe that there are some people that are more steady with even keels and those that are more turbulent, that feel more and are more passionate. I think I am further along the scale to passion, and although that can come with some higher highs, it also means lower lows. Each type comes with its own problems, and we do have to learn to love the problems that our genetics/upbringing has presented us with.

Thank you Sappho for making me feel more connected to humanity.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

I sort of glossed over the lesser well-known ones, but Pindar and Bacchylides (the latter in particular) were incredible. Sappho was, of course, breathtaking as usual.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some of these are really great. Some of the fragments are nearly as good as the complete poems.

[Maan Kawas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enchanting book of ancient Greek poems and lyrics! Lattimore's translation was excellent and readable.

[Nathan Albright · Rating 5 out of 5]

I must admit I found this book a lot more humorous than I thought it would be.  Part of this comes from the poems themselves, which show a great deal of emotional variety and demonstrate something genuinely funny about the Greek lyric poets of the archaic age, many of whom come from obscure places that hardly anyone has ever hard of rather than the more familiar Greek cities of the classical ages.  There is, for example, only one Athenian poet included in this short anthology of about 80 pages, and he is Solon, the notable lawgiver of Athens who helped kickstart its push to democracy.  But part of the humor of this book comes from the framing, as the translator (a noted classicist) notes that this book is for those who are interested in Greek writings but who do not know how to read Greek, and that those who do know Greek who read the book may do so for malicious reasons.  I could see how a writer would think that--I often assume that at least some people read me for malicious reasons--but to say it in a book is another thing altogether than thinking it.  Any book written with a sense of humor that borders on paranoia is going to become a lot more interesting to me.

The book's contents certainly warrant that interest.  They include a broad and sometimes deep selection of lyric poets from the Greek-speaking world of the pre-classical period of the sixth and seventh centuries, including the sardonic poems of Archilochus, selections by Callinus, Semonides, Hipponax, Tyrtaeus, Minmermus, Solon, Phocylides, and Xenophanes.  Some of these writers I had previously heard about (more on that anon), but most of them were entirely unknown to me before.  After these poets there are plenty of metrical poets that are represented in this volume, including some early works, some anonymous later works, and ones by Terpander, Alcman, Stesicorus, Ibychus, the famous Sappho, Alcaeus, Anaceron, Praxilla, Corinna, Simonides, some anonymous and funny drinking songs, and a large selection of works by Pindar.  Throughout the selections the author makes notes about the poet or about what he (or she) may have thought, and about the background and legends surrounding the various authors or potential authors, and how they were immortalized by later generations of Greek.  Not only, then, is is this book a poetry book, but also a worthwhile history of an obscure time.

I mentioned before that I had heard of some of these poets previously.  Sappho, of course, is famous for writing romantic poetry about younger women who then married, although she was a married woman herself.  Solon, I had heard about because of my interest in Greek political history.  Pindar was a noted Theban poet, and rustic Boetia has always reminded me of my own background as a farmer's son.  The other poet I came into this collection knowing about was Archilochus, one of the first poetic celebrities of the Greek world, and I knew of his sarcastic poetry from the writings of Victor Davis Hansen, who uses them as the basis for some of his ideas about Greek hoplite and pre-hoplite warfare.  Being more familiar with Greek poetry is, I think, a very good thing.  Even if these poets have perspectives that are far different than my own, in one very true sense, as a fellow Western writer who writes for love and not for wealthy sponsors (although I wouldn't mind making more money from writing), many of these writers are the same sort of Nathanish people I find in many books.  Archilochus, for example, had an unfortunate romance, was a rather cynical writer, and was a distinctly unheroic person made a hero after his death for his writing prowess. That's something worthwhile, at least.

[Bonnie Mcclellan-Broussard · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading this brief selection of fragments and poems. By the end I was wishing that I understood more about the grammatical structure of ancient Greek so that I could understand where the translator had taken things into his own hands. I have Anne Carson's translation of Sappho's fragments where the hand of the translator is more clearly delineated, something I really appreciated.

That said, as a brief introduction to these poets, the book had just enough introductory information to answer the reader's basic questions about the writers and their works but the focus was really the poems themselves. For me, it was a relief not to have to wade through infinite pages of scholarly notes.
I found some of the imagery in the work of the last poet in the collection, Bacchylides of Ceos, particularly masterful:

"what news of war is this that the trumpet's
bronze-belled braying call announces?
Is it some enemy war captain
overstriding our land's boundaries
with his own host at heel?"

This is an example of what makes me curious about how the pen of the translator has sifted the text...

[Hugolane · Rating 3 out of 5]

I stumbled on this a while ago, and thought that now that I am reading literature from the 17th and 18th C, it would not be amiss to read a bit more. These are different from the Greek poetry I read a few years back when I began this project. It is made up primarily of fragments. I still find it more an anthropological exercise than a literary pleasure to read Greek poetry. Poems about brave enemies and occasional poetry celebrating sports victories just don't grab me. Perhaps if I could read them in the original I might feel differently. I did find a few poems, mostly epigrams that I was glad to be exposed to.

[Keely · Rating 4 out of 5]

every time i’m at the used bookstore and see one of the beautiful old mid-century lattimore translations (published by the university of chicago press, always very yellowed around the edges, usually smelling faintly of cigarette smoke), i snag it for my personal collection. lattimore’s translations are lovely: clear, thrilling, poetic, with bright sparks of humor i must ascribe as much to him as to the source material (he translates semónides, complaining about his wife, with the phrase “ball-and-chain”).

[Timothy Roessler · Rating 4 out of 5]

These translations read well and conveyed both sound and sense. Perhaps it's merely a cliché, but to find in a in a set of poems from 23 centuries ago the same concerns, impulses, yearnings as yours is still stunning and strange. That said, I've found more juice in Guy Davenport's and Ann Carson's versions of ancient Greek poems.

[Harrison · Rating 4 out of 5]

The aesthetic quality of these are hit or miss but that's not really the point of a collection like this. I found it exceedingly interesting to read these.

"The time of afterdeath for us is very long.
We live a wretched sum of years, and badly, too."

[Bill Sikes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lattimore does his usual superb job here.

[S Moss · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating but unfortunately very brief insights into poetry that is mostly now lost.

[Matt Vigneau · Rating 4 out of 5]

A treasure. Wonderful that Lattimore made the effort to translate some of these lesser-known poems and fragments. On the material, Archilochus, Alcaeus, and Bacchylides are most special to me.

[Luciano · Rating 4 out of 5]

Everything has been said about this.

[casually_20th_century · Rating 5 out of 5]

Decent but not perfect translations.

[Lisa (Harmonybites) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Included here are over a hundred poems and poetic fragments from thirty Greek lyric poets of antiquity as well as some anonymous verse spanning from the 7th to the 5th Century. It's a slim book--only 82 pages in paperback. Almost all of the above survive only in fragments found in pot shards, scraps of papyrus used to wrap mummies and quotations by grammarians and others. The most notable--or at least poets I’ve heard mentioned and seen anthologized elsewhere are: Archilochos of Paros, Solon (legendary statesman of Athens), Alcman of Sparta, Stesichorus of Hemera, Ibycus of Rhegium, Alcaeus of Mytilene, Anakreon of Teos (who is supposed to have influenced Aeschylus) Simonides of Ceos (to whom the famous epitaph for Sparta’s 400 who fell at Thermopylae is ascribed), Bacchylides of Ceos, Pindar of Thebes (famous for his Olympic Victory Odes) and Sappho of Lesbos, Praxilla of Sicyon and Corinna of Tanagra, notable woman poets.

Among the poets represented I regret most all we’ve lost by Archilochos and Sappho. Both of them despite the fragmentary nature of what survived come through as personalities and amazing poets--in what couldn't be a wider contrast. Archilochos was a mercenary with has been called a "nettle tongue;" there was a legend wasps hovered over his grave. In a translation of his poems by Davenport, I could definitely see the soldier--often biting, crude, lewd, blunt. That wasn’t as apparent in this edition by Lattimore. Sappho is the great lyric poet of antiquity. Plato called her the "tenth muse." She's Archilochos opposite pole, vernal, refined--but like him at times frank in speaking of desire. Her poems were preserved until nearly A.D 1000, at least according to A Book of Woman Poets, "when a wrathful church destroyed whatever it could find. In 1073 her writings were publicly burned in Rome and Constantinople by order of Pope Gregory VIII." Otherwise, I find it valuable to have collected in one place such a wide range of the notable Greek poets and I appreciate the introductions to each poet. Not knowing Greek, it’s hard for me to judge the translations--except that I’ve seen renderings of the famous epitaph to the Spartans and of Sappho and Archilochos I’ve liked better--but perhaps these are truer--I can’t know. I do know I didn't much like the Lattimore translation of Homer I encountered in high school and it took Robert Fitzgerald's translation for it to catch fire with me.

[Heidi'sbooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

I only read selections out of this book. I read the poems of Solon, Sappho, and Pindar. The selections hail from different areas of the ancient Greek world, from different genders, one female poet and two male poets, with different meters and styles. I liked Sappho the best.

One of her fragments states,
Like the sweet apple turning red on the branch top, on the
top of the topmost branch, and the gatherers did not notice it,
rather, they did notice, but could not reach up to take it.
I don't know what the metaphor is! A beautiful, young woman with unfulfilled hopes? Unfulfilled dreams of the gatherers? But it reminded me of Robert Frost's poem "After Apple Picking."

My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there's a barrel that I didn't fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.

Robert Frost's poem has the same item--an apple or two left at the top of a tree, unpicked. This may be a metaphor for death, and the apples may be unfulfilled dreams.

What a great reminder to think about in this season of apple-picking when the crisp fall air seeps in through the windows each evening. It reminds us to live life to the fullest and pick those apples off the top branches. Reach for them.

[Isaac · Rating 4 out of 5]

A taste of Archilochus:

"I don't like the towering captain with the spraddly length of leg,
one who swaggers in his lovelocks and cleanshaves beneath the chin.
Give me a man short and squarely set upon his legs, a man
full of heart, not to be shaken from the place he plants his feet."

"Glaukos, look! The open sea is churning to a wash of waves
deep within. A cloud stands upright over the Gyrean, cape,
signal of a storm, and terror rises from the unforeseen."

"Luxurious in a spray of myrtle, she wore too
the glory of the rose upon her, and her hair
was all a darkness on her shoulders and her back."

"Here I lie mournful with desire,
feeble in bitterness of the pain gods inflicted upon me,
struck through the bones with love."


The only surviving fragment by Callinus, written about the need to "resist the barbaric Cimmerians," according to Richard Lattimore, is an awesome little thing. More to come.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love how the poems in this collection show that the ancient Greek writers had so many of the same concerns and thoughts as we do today. Universal issues of love, life, death, society, goodness, greed, and so on.

I wish more than these short fragments were available. And I wish I knew all of the names and places the poems allude to.

[Tobias · Rating 4 out of 5]

Handy collection of lyrical Greek poetry, often little more than fragments. Some forgettable, but enjoyed the Pindar, Solon, Sappho, Archilochus, others. It's always remarkable how modern the sentiments expressed seem in places, but then it's hard to argue that we've improved as far as the art of living is concerned.

[Ronald · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this slim book of Greek verse. Better read after you master some classical Greek history to put things in perspective.