Willis Barnstone Quotes

“Suddenly
Dawn in gold sandals”
― Sappho, The Complete Poems of Sappho

“I have flown to you like a child to her mother.”
― Sappho

“When anger is flooding through your chest
best to quiet your reckless barking tongue”
― Sappho

“What farm girl dolled up in a farm dress
captivates your wits
not knowing how to pull her rags down to her ankles?”
― Sappho

“Her breasts and her dark hair were perfume
and even an old man would desire her.”
― Archilochos

“I care for neither honey
nor the honey bee”
― Sappho

“My girlfriend was Archeanassa from Kolophon
and her wrinkles are scars of a sour love.
Pain, horror. On her first voyage she loved
a graceful young man, and passed through fire.”
― Plato

“Passionate love relentlessly twists a chord
under my heart and spreads deep mist on my eyes,
stealing the unguarded brains from my head.”
― Archilochos

“One and all,
you have proclaimed Pittakos, the lowborn,
to be tyrant of your lifeless and doomed
land. Moreover, you deafen him with praise.”
― Alkaios

“Eutychides the lyric poet is dead.
Escape! you who inhabit the underworld,
for he comes with odes,
and orders thirteen lyres and twenty crates of music
to burn beside him on his funeral pyre.
Now Charon has you,
for where can you escape
with Eutychides established in Hell?”
― Lucillius

“Like the Mykonians, Perikles,
you drink our unmixed wine
and pay for nothing.
You broke into this party, uninvited,
and act as if among old friends.
Your stomach has tricked the brains in your skull
and now you are shameless.”
― Archilochos

“As the figtree on its rock feeds many crows,
so this simple girl sleeps with strangers.”
― Archilochos

“His penis is swollen
like a donkey from Priene
taking his fill of barley.”
― Archilochos

“Many of them, I hope, will be dried up
by the sharp rays of the sun in its zenith,
by the sun in the time of the Dog Star.”
― Archilochos

“My javelin is good white bread and Ismarian wine.
When I find rest on my javelin I drink wine.”
― Archilochos

“O father Zeus, you who control the cosmos,
and oversee the actions of man,
his criminal and lawful acts,
you also judge the arrogance and trial of wild beasts.”
― Archilochos

“Lady, you are much too old
to rub yourself with perfume.”
― Archilochos

“I Korinna am here to sing the courage
of heroes and heroines in old myths.
To daughters of Tanagra in white robes,
I sing. And all the city is delighted
with the clean water of my plaintive voice.”
― Korinna

“Will you sleep forever? There was a time,
Korinna, when you were not a loafer.”
― Korinna

“Although I was her pupil,

Even I reproach Myrtis
of the crystalline voice.

She was a mere woman poet,
yet she challenged Pindar.”
― Korinna

“When he sailed into the harbor
his ship became a snorting horse.
Hermes ravished the white city
while the wind like a nightingale
sang with his whirling battle axe.”
― Korinna

“Kithairon sang of cunning Kronos
and sacred Rhea who stole her son Zeus,
mighty among immortals.

Then the Muses asked the gods to put
their ballot stones in the urn of gold.
All stood up and Kithairon won

the greater part. Hermes shouted loud,
at once proclaiming sweet victory.
The gods adorned his brow with flowers,

and Kithairon rejoiced. But Helikon
was stunned with bitter rage, and tore
a massive boulder from the mountain.

Insanely he shouted and lobbed the rock
down on thousands of mortals below.”
― Korinna

“You have taken in many blind eels.”
― Archilochos

“She is a common woman for rent,
but what sensuality and fat ankles.
O fat whore for hire!”
― Archilochos

“Say goodbye to the island Paros,
farewell to its figs and the seafaring life.”
― Archilochos

“Broad earth, now you entomb Megatimos and Aristophon
who were the two tall columns of this island Naxos.”
― Archilochos (attributed)

“I love and yet do not love.
I am mad yet not quite mad.”
― Anakreon

“Although we call these women loose,
they tighten their thighs around thighs.”
― Anakreon

“We go through Poseidon’s month.
Ponderous clouds sag with water
and furious storms break out
collapsing the rain earthward.”
― Anakreon

“Let us hang garlands of celery
across our foreheads
and call a festival to Dionysos.”
― Anakreon