Poems and Fragments [Hardcover]

Sappho (Author), Susan Warden (Editor), Stanley Lombardo (Translator)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0872205924 | ISBN-13: 978-0872205925 | Publication Date: March 2002

This title is a new Sappho by a master poet and translator that treats the fragments as aesthetic wholes, complete in their fragmentariness, and which is also, as the translator puts it: 'ever mindful of performative qualities, quality of voice, changes of voice...'

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Greek

About the Author

Stanley Lombardo is Professor of Classics, University of Kansas.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 96 pages
• Publisher: Hackett Pub Co Inc (March 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0872205924
• ISBN-13: 978-0872205925
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,597,120 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Shining and Resplendent Sappho..., October 3, 2008

By 

Ryan Kouroukis "In 1882 Richard Wagner said: ... - See all my reviews

This review is from: Poems and Fragments (Paperback)

These translations of Sappho are for me the most beautiful I've ever encountered...

Lombardo presents each fragment on its own page, and presents them Thematically (in other words, not in order). He has used ALL of the long and shorter fragments.

In the Introduction he says that he did not want to use every single fragment because some of them are only one word and thus incomprehensible for poetic purposes (which I also agree)...so in total he presents over 90 of the fragments in the most beautiful and ravishing renditions I've ever seen!

These may be Lombardo's most beautiful translations he's done for Hackett Publishing!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sappho: Poems and Fragments, January 20, 2011

By 

Richard Theobald - See all my reviews

This review is from: Poems and Fragments (Paperback)

Sappho: Poems and Fragments, translated by Stanley Lombardo



Finally I got to read/review some sapphic literature (sorry, but I've been looking forward to making that pun all week)!

Sappho was an ancient Greek poet, who lived sometime between Homer and Socrates. Very little is known about her life, but much is speculated. A plausible theory (to pick one at random from the many) was that she was a headmistress of a school for girls on the island of Lesbos. It is from Sappho's home and her poetry's descriptions of a woman in love with another woman that the word "lesbian" arises (which should explain the pun to anyone who did not get it...).

Unfortunately, we really only have fragments of her poems. They come mostly from other people who mention her poetry quoting bits of it here and there (suggesting that anyone who was anyone would have read her work), and also from bits of "scrap" pottery found in ancient trash-heaps in Egypt. I say "unfortunately", but it may be that the lack of context makes her poetry all the more beautiful!

As for the translator, he happened to be the head of the classics department where I attended college; not only have I met him, but I've also heard him read Latin aloud (a very rare thing in this day and age). For my final project in my final Latin course, I had to write a paper comparing my translation of a section of the Aeneid with that of another translator; I chose Lombardo's version. It turned out to be a bad choice; fundamentally our translations were the same, but his language choices were far more poetic (whereas I chose a literal path), and thus the paper was really difficult to write!

As for this version, I paid $9. Sadly, the book was (by necessity) mostly blank pages; I do not know if it was worth the price. But if I had to choose to purchase any version, I would definitely choose this one.



Memorable Quote:

I do not expect my fingers to graze the sky.

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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "The moon has set...", June 12, 2004

By 

Jan Dierckx (Belgium, Turnhout) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Poems and Fragments (Paperback)

In Antiquity decent women were supposed to work in the kitchen and to raise their children, nothing more, but there were exceptions. More or less 150 years after Homer's Iliad, Sappho lived on the island of Lesbos, west off the coast of what is Turkey today.. (She went in exile for a short period due to political upheavel).
Sappho was already famous in Antiquity. Plato called her the tenth Muze and someone said her poetry was "as refreshing as a morning breeze".
Some of the best poems of Sappho are those that describe her loneliness.
(#62)
"But if you are my friend,
Go to a younger woman's bed,
For I will not endure an affair
In which I am older than the man."
(#73)
"The moon has set,
And the Pleiades
Midnight
The hour has gone by
I sleep alone."