Sweet-voiced Sappho - Theodore Stephanides

In this dual-language volume Anthony Hirst has brought together for publication - first publication in nearly every case - all of Theodore Stephanides' translations of Ancient Greek poetry, consisting chiefly of consummate examples of personal or choral lyric created by Sappho in the seventh or sixth century BC. Stephanides, who is associated with the island of Corfu, off the Greek mainland, echoes the work of Sappho of Lesbos, an island off the coast of Asia Minor, not far from luxurious Sardis, the Lydian capital (which figures in these poems). Known later as the "Tenth Muse", Sappho was to lyric poetry what Homer was to epic; while Homer sang of men and the slaughter of war, Sappho's songs are of beauty, women and nature; desire, jealousies and rapture; youth, loves and life; but also of old age, memories and death. We have little or no knowledge of Sappho's music, vocal or as played on her lyre, but the virtuosity of the ancient world's pre-eminent female composer and singer of songs still shines through in these glowing versions. Only a minute portion of her voluminous work is preserved, but even in its fragmentary state it is at once enticing and entrancing. We hear of Sappho's love for her baby daughter, Cleis, and of the companions in her circle; Anactoria, Atthis, Dica Gongyla, Gorgo. The verses, mostly short and apparently simple, are both memorable and sumptuous. Other ancient authors -mostly from the Greek Anthology - whose short poems are translated here include: Anacreon, renowned for his drinking songs; Tymnes, who mourns a Maltese watch-dog; the famous epigrammatist Simonides of Keos, whose two epigraphs here laud the Greeks who died fighting the Persians; and Palladas, whose "All life's a stage" was taken up by Shakespeare.