30 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Achingly Beautiful, November 27, 1998
"To Eros: You crush me." The tenderness and splendor of Sappho's poetry has never been so lusciously rendered as in this translation. Every little word sings with love and warmth. Thank you, Willis Barnstone, for omitting the cumbersone ellipses and brackets of translations past. Now we can enjoy Sappho's passion undisturbed.
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11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Elegant in its simplicity, February 12, 2000
This review is from: Sappho - Poems, A New Version (Paperback)
This polished translation brilliantly reflects those spare but sparkling lines from the winsome poet of a lonely isle and heart. I find it still superb after many readings. Highly recommended.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A translation., April 12, 2005
More or less 150 years after Homer's Iliad, Sappho lived on the island of Lesbos west off the coast what is present Turkey. (Due to political upheavel she went two times in exile, the second time to Sicily for a short time ).
Sappho takes a special place among the poets of Antiquity. She was already famous in her own time. Plato said that she was the tenth Muse and someone called her poetry " as refreshing as a morning breeze ". Her poems are vivid and she needs only a few words to describe essential human feelings. She calls solitude for instance " this icy numbness of being alone ".
( Nice to know: from Sappho's poems remain about 500 lines. All Tragedies by Aeschylus have a total of 8144 lines. Conclusion: What's left of Sappho's poems is next to nothing. )
" Wedding of Andromache " is one of the most vivid descriptions in the poetry of Antiquity. It gives an almost journalistic account of the homecoming of Hector and Andromache. A fragment of Barnstone's translation:
" ...
and all set out for Troy
in a confusion of sweet-voiced flutes, citharas,
and small crashing cymbals
and young girls sang a loud heavenly song
..."
Sappho excels also in describing landscapes and nature ( something you don't find often in Ancient literature ). A fragment of " Aphrodite of the flowers ",
"...
Here ice water babbles through the apple branches
and roses leave shadow on the ground
..."
This translation was published in 1998 but as a work of art in itself, it's by no means outdated.
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