Sappho: A New Translation of the Complete Works

by Sappho, Diane J. Rayor (Translator), André Lardinois (Introduction and notes)

Sappho, the earliest and most famous Greek woman poet, sang her songs around 600 BCE on the island of Lesbos. Of what survives from the approximately nine papyrus scrolls collected in antiquity, all is translated substantial poems and fragments, including three poems discovered in the last two decades. The power of Sappho's poetry ‒ her direct style, rich imagery, and passion ‒ is apparent even in these remnants. Diane Rayor's translations of Greek poetry are graceful, modern in diction yet faithful to the originals. Sappho's voice is heard in these poems about love, friendship, rivalry, and family. In the introduction and notes, André Lardinois plausibly reconstructs Sappho's life and work, the performance of her songs, and how these fragments survived. This second edition incorporates thirty-two more fragments primarily based on Camillo Neri's 2021 Greek edition and revisions of over seventy fragments.

Genres: Poetry, Classics, Queer, Lesbian, History, Nonfiction, Greece

214 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 601

About the author

Work of Greek lyric poet Sappho, noted for its passionate and erotic celebration of the beauty of young women and men, after flourit circa 600 BC and survives only in fragments.

Ancient history poetry texts associate Sappho (Σαπφώ or Ψάπφω) sometimes with the city of Mytilene or suppose her birth in Eresos, another city, sometime between 630 BC and 612 BC. She died around 570 BC. People throughout antiquity well knew and greatly admired the bulk, now lost, but her immense reputation endured.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sappho

Reviews

[Carmen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was great- I really appreciated all the context for where these fragments were found or were they were quoted. Lots of really good background information.

This is only my 2nd Sappho translation reading and I'm enjoying the differences. This translation seemed less poetic than Carson, so probably this is a more accurate translation and less arranged to be more poetic. I just like the different choices even if I didn't get as melancholy reading Rayor.

I especially liked this fragment's translation:

The Moon and Pleiades have set-
Half the night is gone.
I sleep alone.
Time passes.
(Sappho 168b, Rayor)

[Eva Helena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read for my class ‘western literature, texts and contexts’

The lesbian queen herself!! Forever love Sappho!!

This edition also gave a very interesting introduction that read quite nicely and fluently. I do think I would have remembered more of the notes if they had been placed right after each fragment instead of all together at the end of the book. They were quite interesting as well, though, I don’t think I ever actually knew much of the history behind Sappho’s fragments and now I do, so that’s nice. What’s less nice, and actually extremely sad, is that these fragments are all that remains. I would absolutely love to be able to read all Sappho had written instead of just little bits and pieces found in other sources.

PS: all the ‘see fragment’ ‘see notes’ ‘see introduction’ did very much annoy me, like just repeat it summarised or something because I don’t want to go flipping through the entire book the whole time.

[Amanda Sapphie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pretty gay in my opinion (:

Sappho seems hilarious and I'm a fan. I wish so many of her works weren't lost

[Lieze Doyen · Rating 4 out of 5]

sappho zou nu een rapper zijn met haar one liners
[91]
'[I] never met anyone more irritating, Eirana, than you.'

read em queen!

[Renée De Coster · Rating 4 out of 5]

"A handsome man is good to look at,
but a good man will be handsome as well."

- valid point from a Lesbian

[Steven "Steve" · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent collection and translation of the many small pieces left of Sappho’s poetry. In some ways the collection is mostly heartbreaking because it shows only fragments, some being only a single word. The longer remainders are tantalizing parts that hint at what has been lost. There are notes concerning source material and interpretation.

[Floor Martinez]

(see introduction) (see fragment x) (see appendix) (see page x) omg STOOOOOOP ik las dit op een e-reader en kon niet zomaar terugbladeren :(

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh my goddess this is divine!

"Golden crowned Aphrodite, may I draw this lot....
Stars around the beautiful moon
Hide away from their radiant form
Whenever in fullness she lights the earth....
Silvery....

you, either Cyprus, Paphos or Palermo....
I yearn and I desire."--Sappho

I love Sappho's poetry and I love this translation!
I also enjoyed the extra chapter at the beginning discussing a bit of history about her and her poetry. I had no idea, she at some point lived in Sicily! And there are extra notes at the back for even more information.

This book was put together by two professors-- One a professor of the classics and the other a professor of Language and Literature (Plus he is Greek too so you know the translation will be as accurate as possible).

This is a beautiful book of translated fragments of Sappho's poetry.

[Kara Jorgensen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't quite realize HOW fragmented Sappho's poetry was. This is an interesting collection that gives context to the fragments and how much we don't know about Sappho and the background of poetry attributed to her.

[maité · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 ⭐ – I loved this collection of sappho's works!! especially with the context the authors gave. I would've loved to see some of the actual old Greek in the book too though, it would've been really cool.

[linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

barring some bullshitting in the introduction it was alright

[Mariana Bonina · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book made me cry, not because Sappho’s writing is so beautiful and important for history but because of the sheer amount of missing verses, I’m not kidding when I say most of the fragments were single words. Apart from that it was pretty cool, the introduction felt like it was written by chatgpt but the few fragments that were coherent were really beautiful. I hope one day I can enjoy reading these in their original language.

[Caitlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this translation of Sappho’s works. I love how they set up the poems and I love the notes on the translations in the back as well.

I originally got this through the library but quickly realized I needed to own this addition. It’s one I will come back to often.

Her work is beautiful, even in the incompleteness of it all.

[ajš(a) ⋆౨ৎ˚ ࣪ · Rating 4 out of 5]

LET'S GO LESBIANS LET'S GO


I will gladly return to this book, re-reading the fragments and thinking about their meaning. The fully translated poems/fragments are beautiful, but I loved seeing that even the single translated lines, the small specks of her lost work have some meaning behind them.

[Sydney Strange · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I love you as long as breath is in me."

[Leni · Rating 4 out of 5]

Date-idé: Lese erodert lesbisk lyrikk og råkline?

[Destinie Vidrio · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sappho the original Chappell Roan

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fantastic collection of scholarly and popular appeal. The translations are brilliant finished products (I must simply trust their veracity). Sappho has very little extant verse, and the vast majority of it is either fragmentary or else only attested. I expected the fragments to be of little interest, solely there for the historical record, but the commentary helped bring together their connections to Grecian society, their bearing on scholarship (the speaker, the audience, etc.), and their meaning. Several poems were funny; others still were familiar in their classical hyperbole; some of the more complete ones will stay with me. The ode to Aphrodite is by far the most famous but not my favorite.

I only wish there were more. Why not include the attested fragments? Excluding dozens of potential Sapphos seems unnecessary when one can warn against too strongly attributing them, especially when already included are a few potentially due to Alkaios. What’s more, additional context could have opened this up more to a broader audience. As it stands, this is really only for professionals and those like me who have at least read a lot of original Greek works to have broad familiarity with myth and practices, at least enough to pick up on the blatant references without having to research everything. The professional-first attitude is fine and is exemplified by the structure of introduction-Sapphos-notes (rather than providing notes beside the poems), but I feel it was a missed opportunity to stretch a bit and add more about the society Sapphos belonged to and perhaps even some (clearly delineated!) speculation about where Sapphos might have fit into that world.

Still, I’m glad I picked this up from my university library display shelf on a whim. I knew barely the name Sapphos before this, and now I have some appreciation for why she was so revered by the ancients.

[Knitography · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading Sappho, it’s impossible not to feel a level of disappointment that so little of her work remains to us, and that so much of what we do have is mere fragments (in many cases, a single word). What we do have is at turns evocative and moving, (fragment 37, “in the dripping of my pain”) or sly and amusing (as in fragment 57 when Sappho says of a rival that she’s “too ignorant to cover her ankles with her rags” - Sappho had the capacity to be a bit of a mean girl!).

Her description of love as a “loosener of limbs” (fragment 130) is reminiscent of Homer’s use of the phrase “unstrung his limbs” to describe death in the Iliad; the comparison of love to death is more explicit in fragment 31 when Sappho says “To myself I seem / needing but little to die”.

Even the incomplete fragments sometimes read as poetic, as in fragment 130:

“As when…

before...
light…
all…
like honey…

Still…”

The introduction does an excellent job of summarising what we do and do not know about Sappho and her life, while also providing insight into the time and place in which she lived (which is essential to understanding Sappho’s work). It’s clear from the translator’s notes that translating Sappho has been a long time labour of love for Diane Rayor, and I appreciated the insight she provided into her approach to the translation. Lastly, the notes are informative, providing both the provenance of the fragments along with additional commentary (where possible - there’s not much one can say about fragments of just one word).

[Shannon]

Going into this book I didn't know much about Sappho: ancient Greek, lesbian icon was about it. I had seen her poems around and liked them enough to where I thought I would enjoy a whole book of her poetry.

Well let me tell the uninitiated, most of what we know as Sappho has been curated, created out of fragments or single lines of poetry. The writing about her is very thorough, the authors give historical context, and notes on the fragments.

This book is more a textbook or history of Sappho and less an actual book of poetry. It is so sad to see how little remains of her work, but interesting to see how we've created this poetry, and still call it Sappho, when it is more our interpretation of what had been there and what we've lost.

[Karlina · Rating 5 out of 5]

The transparency in the beginning of this book, in terms of what actual sources are available on Sappho (or Psappho) and the kind of misinformation/misattribution that has happened throughout millennia is good to see :) much better than half assed assumptions and interpretations
But that means there was less about Sappho (or Psappho) than I wanted X) even just having more historical context explained or more exploration of the things the author mentions are more concrete about her would be grand!
Either way, her poetry really does transcend time. Even through the fragments and the translation her words are less descriptions, than they are experiences. Very lovely to read :))

[Seolhe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Undeniably the most up-to-date collection of the works of Sappho, published just earlier this year.
I can't speak too much about Rayor's translation, but I really appreciate both the introduction and the extensive notes on each of the fragments that goes along with this collection.

Now, how do I even rate this?
Sappho's poetry, what little remains of it, is beautiful, but it's also so fragmented, sometimes down to nothing more than single words, and what do you even do with that?
I don't really have an answer to that I'm afraid.

[Oranssin Kirjo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reviewing Sappho’s work is no easy feat. It isn’t only that classics usually resist simple critique, but also that the fragmentary nature of her surviving poetry makes any attempt at reviewing elusive. What is there to review when hardly a single poem survives intact, save for a precious few?

What little remains is the elegance of absence. Each missing line or stanza becomes an invitation, forcing the reader to participate in the poetic act. Perhaps it is this forced exercise in imagination that makes Sappho so intriguing. It is, in some strange and tender way, an act of resurrection👌

[Katie Worthy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Literally got me an 98% on a research assignment. Mix of biography/poem fragments, and each fragment is summarized perfectly by each stanza!! This is such a great RECENT book about Sappho and her life. As a queer person myself, its super refreshing to see Sappho represented historically accurate, and not straight-washed. Excellent short read by a great queer author! Research was well done. Please read this if you have to analyse any poems, or have an interest in queer literature in general.

[Sunday · Rating 2 out of 5]

I got exactly what I paid for with this, I just didn't realize how lackluster the poetry itself would be. It's definitely well researched and the additional context for each poem is helpful. There's very few poems with enough surviving content to find any true meaning in, and I wasn't moved much by what remained. I left still enjoying the two Sappho fragments I was familiar with prior to reading the book, and absolutely nothing new. It actually changed my opinion of her for the worse.

[effie allison · Rating 5 out of 5]

sappho gives me the shivers. and this translation is really lovely. i think rayor strikes a good balance between poetic artistry and being faithful to the originals. i want to read the anne carson one again to see how it compares. i also really liked the historical context, translation notes, and in general the info in this one.

[Giuliana Matas · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved reading the introduction and learning more about this interesting woman. So much is obscure about her, but I really liked what they could tell us about her. I would highly recommend this for anyone wanting to learn more about Sappho and get into her work. The poetry itself is beautiful and wonderfully translated in my opinion, although some of the fragments were too short and nonsensical.

[mars · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very intriguing to see the different translations! I especially compared some passages to Anne Carson's translations in If Not, Winter and seeing the choices of how to translate certain complex ancient Greek words was fascinating. I am very much so a Sappho nerd and aim to be a scholar in the field one day! Excellent book for that :)

[Kayleigh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love this edition with information about the fragments in the back. It gives more depth about the single sentences which have survived.
I would love to get my own copy of this edition. I got this at my university library.

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lovely translation of Sappho’s poems. I particularly like that the Introduction highlights the fragmentation of her surviving works, and how the translation is only one such interpretation, as all translations are.