They are nice, the people of Plomari. A small town on the southern tip of Lesvos, with 5000 inhabitants and few tourists. There is no local newspaper on the island. Every morning a man’s voice is heard from loudspeakers installed all over the city. He reads the news, he informs the people about a lost set of keys, and that if someone finds it, they should kindly return it to the police. And he asks whoever has parked illegally outside the supermarket to move their car.

Greek to me!

I drop by Vasilis’ tavern. He is sitting outside with some friends, enjoying the seafood of the day while sipping ouzo. I am asked to join them, and I eat all sorts of fish. Salted, smoked, fried, raw. Alive mussels and sea urchins too. The only dish I do not taste is the Norwegian smoked salmon. Vasilis claims that I have to drink ouzo in order to kill the seafood I have crawling around in my stomach, but an ouzo incident I had the day before, and which I could have been spared, makes me decline. For later I will remember that one glass of ouzo is fine. Two may be dire.

Meze

The Greeks drink watered out ouzo and eat meze – a sort of Greek tapas – for hours if they do not have to go to work. They argue about what soccer team is the best: Panatinaikos or Olympiakos? It is a heated debate. One night I joined the guys in Vasilis’ apartment and watched a game. By God were they crazy about sports, be that soccer or basketball. They got so worked up, they had to switch to Love Radio and Celine Dion during the commercials in order to calm down. I have noticed that the old men sitting around in cafés and bars are always playing with a string of beads. Apparently this is supposed to make them relax. But I cannot help but wonder what it is that they have to relax from. It is a quiet life here in Plomari. I think it says a lot about me that I struggle with relaxing in the beginning, in this town the travel agency describes as «sleepy». Except from sports, the Greeks do not seem to need much entertainment. They just sit around and do not talk that much either. Their work changes with the season, though. During fall and winter Jorgos is an electrician. During spring he is a fisherman. And during summer he is a bartender and rents out sun beds.

Melinda

I rent a bike and go west along the coast. After 45 minutes I arrive in Melinda, a tiny fisher village with two taverns and five inhabitants. One of them is sitting on the beach cleaning a fish. A small hour later I eat that fish. I pick beautiful rocks and listen to the waves. It is not entirely summer on Lesvos yet, and a swim is not very tempting. But May is a good month to come here. In just a few weeks the island will be burnt brown by the sun. Now it is covered in shimmering silver olive trees, the source of the world’s best olive oil. Red poppies nod in the tall grass, and the air is heavy with floral scents.

I <3 Poppies

Katarina comes every other day to clean my apartment. The day before yesterday she took a plate from my cabinet, walked down to the man in the neighbouring garden and handed over the plate to him. The man then disappeared into his house. A while later the plate was returned, covered with fresh, home-made goat cheese and grape leaves filled with meat and rice. It was for me! There is a thoughtfulness and decency in everything these people do. «Pretentious» is the last word I would use to describe them. In a restaurant menu I read: Wine of the month: Red. Vasilis’ brother had told me about this big rock out in the sea in Melinda that I had to see. «You can climb on top of it!» As soon as I arrived in Melinda I spotted the rock. I could not understand what was so special about it, but I climbed on top of it anyway, took a few photos, sat and listened to the sea for a few minutes. I think this is how it is. When the Greeks recommend stuff I should do while I am here, it is never about things that happen. No events. Just places I have to visit, specific things like a rock or the woods or a dried up river. I think it says something about how down to earth these people are.

Tomorrow I am going home. Now that I am finally starting to find the rhythm with this city. I wish Dimitri was wrong when describing Oslo. (Dimitri married a Norwegian girl and lives six out of twelve months in Oslo.) «In Oslo you have to make appointments in order to see your friends,» he says. Both he and I wish my home town were more like Plomari. If you friends are not at Vasilis’ tavern, they are at Oseanis. And if they are not at Oseanis, then they are at Sun Bar. And if they are not at Sun Bar, then you will find them at Nautilus. For sure. Everyone is welcome. Yamas!

De er snille, menneskene som bor i Plomari. En liten by på sydspissen av Lesvos med 5000 innbyggere og få turister. Det finnes ikke lokalavis på øya. Hver morgen høres en mannsstemme over et callinganlegg som er installert over hele byen. Han leser opp nyheter, han forteller at noen har mistet et nøkkelknippe og at den som finner nøklene må returnere dem på politistasjonen. Og han ber den som har parkert forkjært utenfor supermarkedet om å flytte bilen sin.

Greek to me!

Jeg går innom Vasilis taverna, han sitter ute og spiser dagens sjømat og drikker ouzo med noen venner. Jeg blir bedt om å slå meg ned, og jeg spiser fisk i alle mulige varianter. Saltet, røkt, fritert, rå. Levende muslinger og kråkeboller også. Det eneste jeg ikke smaker på er den norske røkelaksen. Vasili påstår at jeg må drikke ouzo for å ta livet av sjømaten jeg har kravlende rundt i magen, men en ouzo-episode dagen i forveien jeg kunne vært spart for gjør at jeg takker nei. Til en annen gang skal jeg huske at ett glass ouzo går fint. To kan få fatale konsekvenser.

Meze

Grekerne drikker utvannet ouzo og spiser meze – greske tapasretter – i timevis om ikke de må på jobb. De diskuterer hvem som er best: Panatinaikos eller Olympiakos? Det går hett for seg. En kveld blir jeg med Vasili og noen venner hjem og ser fotballkamp på TV. For et levende idrettsengasjement, om det så gjelder basket eller fotball! De jobbet seg så opp underveis at de i hver reklamepause måtte svitsje til Love Radio og Celine Dion for å roe nervene. De eldre mennene holder alltid perlekjeder lekende mellom fingrene. Det skal angivelig virke avslappende. Jeg tar meg i å lure på hva de skal slappe av fra, bortsett fra sportsengasjementet. Det er et stille liv her i Plomari. Jeg synes det sier mye om meg at jeg i begynnelsen strever med å slappe av i denne byen reisebyrået beskriver som «døsig». Bortsett fra sport, ser det visst ikke ut til at grekerne har særlig behov for underholdning. De bare sitter sammen og trenger ikke snakke så mye heller. Arbeidet deres varierer dog med sesongen. Om høsten og vinteren er Jorgos elektriker. Om våren er han fisker. Om sommeren er han bartender og leier ut solsenger.

Melinda

Jeg leier sykkel, sykler vestover langs kysten, og kommer til Melinda, en bitteliten fiskerlandsby med to tavernaer og fem innbyggere. En av dem sitter på huk på stranden og renser fisk. En snau time senere spiser jeg nettopp den fisken. På stranden plukker jeg fine steiner og hører på bølgebrus. Det er ikke sommer på Lesvos ennå, og en dukkert frister ikke. Men det er en fin årstid å reise hit på. Om noen ganske få uker ligger øya brunsvidd og skvulper i Egeerhavet. Nå er den dekket av sølvskimrende oliventrær som avgir verdens beste olivenolje. Valmuene nikker i det høye gresset, og blomsterduften henger tung i luften.

I <3 poppies

Katarina kommer og vasker leiligheten min annenhver dag. I forgårs tok hun med seg en tallerken fra kjøkkenet mitt, gikk ned til mannen i nabohagen og rakte ham den. Han forsvant så inn i huset sitt. Etter en liten stund ble tallerkenen returnert, full av helt fersk, hjemmelaget geitost og grapeblader fylt med ris og kjøtt. Den var til meg! Det er en omtenksomhet og real holdning i alt disse menneskene gjør. Det siste ordet jeg ville brukt til å beskrive dem er “jålete”. På en restaurantmeny leser jeg: Wine of the month: Red. Vasilis bror hadde fortalt meg om en stor stein som ligger ute i vannet i Melinda. “Den kan du klatre opp på!” Da jeg kom til Melinda, så jeg straks steinen han siktet til. Jeg skjønte ikke helt hva som var så spesielt med denne steinen, men jeg klatret nå opp, tok noen bilder, satt og hørte på havet i noen minutter. Jeg tror det er sånn det er. Når grekerne forteller meg om det jeg bør få med meg her på øya, er det ikke ting som skjer. Ingen begivenheter. Det er bare steder jeg må være på, konkrete ting som en stein eller en skog eller et tørrlagt elvefar. Jeg synes det sier noe om hvor jordnære disse menneskene er.

I morgen reiser jeg hjem. Nå som jeg endelig begynner å finne takten med denne byen. Jeg skulle ønske det ikke var sånn som Dimitri sier. (Dimitri bor halve året i Norge, etter å ha giftet seg med en norsk jente.) “I Oslo må man ringe hverandre og gjøre en avtale.” I likhet med Dimitri skulle jeg ønske Oslo var litt mer som Plomari. Hvis ikke folk er hos Vasilis, så er de på Oseanis. Og er de ikke på Oseanis, så er de på Sun Bar. Og er de ikke der, så er de på Nautilus. Helt sikkert. Alle er velkommen. Jamas!

The literature of ancient Greece was the foundation of modern Western culture, yet we don’t know much about it, aside from the fragments which have survived into modern times. We know the scholars in Alexandria in the second century edited and annotated the works of many writers of earlier times, and the Byzantines preserved digests of some of this material. But very often the 10th century Byzantine scholar known as Suidas gives details about ancient authors which are merely derived from their works.

We don’t know whether Aeschylus had a nickname, if poets wrote drafts or spoke their words until they had them right, if Homer was an actor, an editor or an original composer, whether farmers from the outskirts fell asleep during a recitation of Pindar like a 19th century tycoon during the Ring cycle.

We do know that writers and scholars of classical times in the fifth and fourth centuries BC thought the three greatest poets of Greece were Homer, Archilochus and Sappho. We know that (according to Gibbon) there was an edition of the complete poems of Sappho in 10th century Constantinople. We know Sappho was an aristocrat from the island of Lesbos in the northeast Aegean Sea who lived about 600 BC and who may have been involved in some of the political warfare between rival parties occurring in her lifetime. The two stories which have survived, from much later periods than her own, were that she was passionately involved with young women in her society, and that she committed suicide when abandoned by her husband. These are both considered by many to be derived from satyrical references in fourth century comedy.

The edition of Sappho’s poems did not survive the sack of Constantinople by the Venetians, and we have only one poem of hers, and fragments of others quoted by later grammarians to illustrate dialect variations or unusual constructions.

Somehow Sappho’s reputation has survived into modern times. She has come to stand for the fragility of human culture, for the destruction that awaits us all and all of our creations. Her poetry haunts us, and reminds us, in the words of Thomas Lodge in plaguestruck London:

Brightness falls from the air
Queens have died young and fair.

Is there any way in which Sappho could be one of the greatest poets? Some things can be recovered which give us a clearer picture about her and her work.

She was a lyric poet, with quite different metres and subject matter than Homer, who wrote, or recited, in the epic form of poetry, the hexameter. Lyric poetry has come to mean the expression of personal emotion in poetry (largely because of Sappho) but at first it referred to a particular metre, and to an accompaniment on the lyre. We don’t really know whether Sappho’s poems were sung, chanted or recited, or whether she composed the music and played the lyre herself (we don’t even know this for the fifth century tragedians). This is because ancient music has not survived at all, in any form. We have lost both the colour from ancient building facades and statues and the sounds and music of ancient times.

The most obvious characteristic of Sappho’s poetry is the simplicity and directness of her expression (which has been imitated in the form of modern ‘lyric’ poetry). All the more reason to be aware that in her society, like all ancient societies, public life was much more extensive than it has since become. It was considered to be the mark of a pious and loyal citizen to participate in the many seasonal, religious and political ceremonies, rituals and festivities that filled the year. Much of Sappho’s work is likely to have been written for performance on these occasions, and is more closely related to drama than the lyric poetry we know from later times. In other words it is antecedent to both those later forms.

Sappho’s poems were probably performed at public ceremonies, some of which were marriage feasts. It may be that some of her compositions were dramatic ones written for the bridegroom to recite, just as the Jewish Song of Solomon might have been, and that this may have been the origin of her later reputation as a ‘lesbian’. It’s worth remarking that in Sappho’s world there was no sanction against homosexuality, and there is no actual advocacy or descriptions of homosexuality in her poems. What the poems express often is the emotion of longing and desire. Prominent in the fragments are invocations to Aphrodite, which might indicate performance at her festivals. What we don’t know is the identity of the ‘I’ who often speaks in her poetry. Is it Sappho telling us how she feels? Is she celebrating the power of the goddess? Is she speaking for a character from a mythological story?

One of the best books on Sappho I’ve read is by Arthur Weigall. Sappho of Lesbos was written in 1932 and has long been out of print, but it contains the most vivid evocation of the island of Lesbos I’ve ever read, and I’ve never forgotten it. There are two choices if you want to read Sappho’s poems: you can read the original words or their translation as the fragments they are, and occasionally appreciate an adjective or even a metaphor, or part of a narrative; or you can read ‘reconstructions’ of the poems, in which fragments have been put together, gaps filled, and an attempt made to recreate the effect of the original poem. Both are helpful, but it must be remembered that neither are Sappho. Her works have been irrecoverably lost. Of interest are modern musical reconstructions of Sappho. Both Eleftheria Arvanitaki and Angelique Ionatos (Sappho of Mytilene) have sung Sappho’s lyrics.

So though it’s easy to answer the first question about Sappho, ‘was she a lesbian, did she make love with other women?’ with a ‘we don’t know, and don’t have enough information about her to find out, but it’s unlikely’, how do we answer the next question, ‘was she a great poet?’

Poetry is difficult to translate, many would say impossible. While it is just possible to appreciate the power of Catullus’ ‘Odi et amo’ without knowing Latin, what can the non Greek speaker make of ‘Ποικιλόθρον᾽ ὰθάνατ᾽ ᾽Αφροδιτα’? The first problem is that each language uses different means to create music, in Greek it’s the measure, or length, of the vowels, in English it’s the emphasis placed upon them, or the beat. So translators can’t reproduce the metres of Sappho’s lyrics because their language won’t let them. They have to try and recreate a similar effect using other means, such as rhyme. This usually distorts the meaning of the words translated and lessens their impact.

My lovely daughter, Kleis, a golden flower
I love her more than golden Lydia or lovely Lesbos

I have a child, a lovely one,
In beauty like the golden sun,
Or like sweet flowers of earliest bloom;
And Claïs is her name, for whom
I Lydia’s treasures, were they mine,
Would glad resign.
(J. H. Merivale)

A lovely little girl is ours,
Kleïs the beloved,
Kleïs is her name,
Whose beauty is as the golden flowers.
(Frederick Tennyson)

I have a beautiful daughter
Like a golden flower
My beloved Kleis.
I would not trade her for all Lydia nor lovely…
(Julia Dubnoff)

They’re all different, but none of them are Sappho, and none of them is poetry. They do give us an idea of what she meant in these few lines, and what’s good about her poetry. We don’t know if they are personal, about her own child (the traditional interpretation) or written for a birth celebration, or the dedication by the parents of their child to a deity and sung by the parents at the ceremony.

What we can say is that the surviving fragments show Sappho to have had a genius in the use of metaphor, that this concrete imagery is as vivid as Keats’. That her pictures are mostly of simple natural objects, fruit and flowers, and the feelings she speaks of are simple direct ones we all have and recognise (none of Catullus’ ‘I lovehate you’). She had the rare ability to express a strong emotion through words whose music makes us feel it. Our first impulse when writing is to overelaborate, and we achieve the complex easily. The simple is much harder work. Sappho writes invisible poetry. Almost all her work has vanished, yet we can still hear it, and that makes her unique among poets, among writers.

the apple branches sway above the stream
their gentle sounds bring slumber…

Cool murmur of water through apple-wood
Troughs without number
The whole orchard fills, while the leaves
Lend their music to slumber.
(H de Vere Stacpoole)

Sappho’s poems are available at http://classicpersuasion.org/pw/sappho/ in several translations (and in Greek), with links to sources of further information.

Chapter 2

ELEGIES AT MYTILENE

<Eumorphote’rha Mnasidi’ka ta^s hapala^s Gyrhinn_o^s.>

(Mnasidica is far more beautiful than the gentle Gyrrhino”) 

                                                                           SAPPHO

47 – TO THE SHIP  

Beautiful ship which brought me here, all along

the coast of Ionia, I abandon you to the shining

waves and with light feet jump onto the beach.

You will return to the land where the virgin is

the friend of the nymphs.  Don’t forget to thank

the invisible counsellors, and take them

in offering this branch cut by my own hands.

You, made of pine, and on the mountains, the vast

inflamed Southern Wind stirred your spiny branches,

your squirrels and your birds.

The North Wind now guides you, and

pushes you gently towards the port, black prow

escorted by dolphins by the will of the benevolent sea.

48 — PSAPPHO

I rubbed my eyes… It was already day,

I thought.  Ah!  Who is near me…?  A

woman…?  By Paphia, I had forgotten…

Oh!  Charity!  I am so ashamed…

Into which country have I come, and what is

this isle where one hears so much about love?

If I were not so weary, I would have believed it was

some dream… Is it possible that this is Psappha?

She is sleeping… She is certainly beautiful,

although her hair was cut short like that of

an athlete.  But this strange face, this

mannish chest and narrow hips…

I want to leave before she wakes.

Alas!  I am beside the wall.  I must

jump over her.  I’m afraid of grazing her hip and

that she will not take me back to the thoroughfare.

49 – THE DANCE OF GLOTTIS AND KYSE

Two little girls brought me to their home,

and as the door was closed, they

lit the wick of a lamp and

wanted to dance for me.

Their cheeks were not made-up, and

as brown as their little tummies.  They

pulled each other by the arms and spoke at

the same time, in an agony of gaiety.

Sitting on their mattress which was born by two

raised trestles, Glottis sang in a sharp

voice and clapped her resonant little hands in time.

Kyse danced by jerks, then stopping,

out of breath from laughing, and, taking her sister

by the breasts, bit her shoulder and

turned her round, like a goat which wants to play.

50 – ADVICE

Then Syllikhmas came in, and seeing us

so familiar, she sat down on the bench.

she took Glottis on one knee, Kyse on

the other and she said:

“Come here little one.”  But I stayed distant.

She said again:  “Are you scared of us?

Come on… these children love you.  They

could teach you something you don’t know:  the

honey of a woman’s caresses.

“A man is violent and parasitic.  You

know that, undoubtedly.  Hate them.  They have

flat chests, rough skin, short hair and hairy arms.

but women are completely beautiful.

“Women alone know how to love; stay with

us, Bilitis, stay.  And if you have an ardent

soul, you will see your beauty as in a

mirror on the body of your lovers.”

51 – UNCERTAINTY

Between Glottis or of Kyse I don’t know which

I would marry.  As they do not resemble each

other, the one could not console me for the other

and I’m afraid of making the wrong choice.

Each of them has one of my hands,

and one of my breasts also.  But to who*91

should I give my mouth?  To whom should I give

my heart and all that with which I am unable to part?

We could not stay like this, all

three in the same house.  They would talk about us

in Mytilene.  Yesterday, in front of the temple of Ares,

a woman didn’t say “Hello!”

It’s Glottis that I prefer; but I

cannot reject Kyse.  What will become of her

all alone?  Should I leave them together as

they were and take another friend for myself?

52 – THE MEETING

I found her like a treasure, in a

field, under a myrtle bush, enveloped

from throat to feet in a yellow robe

embroidered with blue.

“I have no friends,” she said to me, “Because the

nearest town is five miles from

Here.  I live alone with my mother who is

old and always sad.  If you want, I’ll follow you.

“I will follow you to your house, leaving her on

the other side of the isle and I will live with you

until you send me back.  Your hand is

tender, your eyes are blue.

“Let’s go.  I’m taking nothing with me, but

the little Aphrodite which is hanging around my

neck.  We will put her next to yours,

and we will give them roses in

payment for each night.”

53 – THE LITTLE APHRODITE OF BAKED EARTH

The little guardian Aphrodite which protected

Mnasidika was modelled on Camiros by a potter

of great skill.  It is as big as my thumb,

and of fine yellow earth.

Her hair falls all around

her narrow shoulders.  Her eyes are

long slits, and her mouth is very

small, because she is the “Ever-Beautiful.”

With her right hand she indicates her divinity,

which is riddled with little holes on the

lower belly and along the groin.  Because she

is the “Very Amorous”.

In her left hand she holds her round

heavy breasts.  Between her broadened hips

swells a fertile belly.  Because

she is the “Mother-Of-All-Things”.

54 – DESIRE

She entered, and passionately, her eyes

half-closed, she united her lips with

mine and our tongues entwined…

Never in my life have I ever had a kiss

like that.

She was standing up against me, all in

love and consenting.  One of my knees,

bit by bit, climbed between her warm thighs

which yielded as if for a lover.

My creeping hand under her tunic searched

to divine her unclothed body, which turn and turn

about sinuously writhed, or stiffly bent

with the trembling of her skin.

With the eyes of delirium she indicated her bed;

but we did not have the right to love before the

wedding ceremony and we separated brusquely.

55 — THE WEDDING

In the morning, we made a wedding repast, in the

house of Acalanthis whom she had adopted

as a mother.  Mnasidika wore the white veil

and I a man’s tunic.

And then, in the midst of twenty women, she

took off her festal robe.  We perfumed it with

Bakkaris; powdered it with golden powder,

and removed her jewels.

In her bedroom, full of foliage, she

waited for me like a wife.  And I

placed her on a chariot between me and the

nymphs’ shrine and we cheered all who passed by.

We sang the Nuptial Song; The flutes

were also played.  With one arm

round her shoulders and the other under her knees,

I carried Mnasidika across the rose-covered threshold.

56 – THE BED (not translated)

57 – SURVIVORS OF THE PAST

I left the bed as she had left it,

unmade and rumpled, the sheets tangled, so that

the shape of her body stayed imprinted beside mine.

Until tomorrow I shall not go to the baths, I shall

not wear clothes and I shall not

comb my hair, for fear of rubbing away her kisses.

This morning, I shall not eat, nor this evening,

and on my lips I will put neither rouge nor

powder, so that her kisses will remain.

I shall leave the shutters closed and I shall not open

the door, for fear that the memory which remained

might blow away on the wind.

58 – METAMORPHOSIS

Once I was a lover of the beauty of

young men, and the memory of their

speech, of old, would wake me up.

I remember having engraved a name in

the bark of a plane tree.  I remember

having left a piece of my tunic in

a path where someone passes by.

I remember having loved you… Oh Pannychis,

my child, in whose hands have I left you?

How, oh unhappy me, could I have abandoned you?

Today, Mnasidika alone, and for

always, possesses me.  She receives in

sacrifice the happiness of those whom I have left

for her.

59 – THE NAMELESS TOMB

Mnasidika took me by the hand to

lead me out of the gates of the town, up to a

little meadow where there was a column of

marble.  And she said,

“This was my mother’s friend.”

Then I felt a great shudder, and without

letting go of her hand, I leant

on her shoulder, so as to read the four verses

between the hollow cup and the serpent:

“It was not Death who kidnapped me, but

the Nymphs of the streams.  I rest here

under an earth lightened by a ‘hairstyle’

cut by Xantho.  Let her alone cry for me.

I will not tell my name.

For a long time we remained standing there, and we

put no verse to the libation.  Because what

does one call an unknown soul who has entered the multitudes

of Hades?

60 – THE THREE BEAUTIES OF MNASIDIKA

I sacrificed two male hares and two doves

to Aphrodite-The-Lover-Of-Smiles

so that Mnasidika will be protected by the gods.

And I sacrificed to Ares two cocks armed

for the fray, and to the sinister Hecate two

dogs who howled under the knife.

And it is not without reason that I have implored

these three Immortals, because Mnasidika wears on

her face the reflection of their triple divinity:

Her lips are red as copper, her

hair is blue-tinged like iron, and her eyes are

black, like silver.

61 – THE LAIR OF THE NYMPHS

Your feet are more delicate than those of

Thetis of the Silver Hair.

Between your crossed arms you

reunite your breasts, and you gently rock them to sleep

like the bodies of two beautiful doves.

Under your hair you conceal your moist

eyes, your trembling mouth and the red

flowers of your ears; but nothing will stop

my look nor the hot breath of your embrace.

Because, in the secret of your body, it is you,

beloved Mnasidika, who conceal the lair of the

nymphs of whom Old Homer spoke, the place

where the nyads weave their cloths of purple,

The place where flow, spout by spout,

inexhaustible springs, and from where the door to

the North allows men to descend and where the

door to the South allows the Immortals entry.

62 – THE BREASTS OF MNASIDIKA

With care, she opened my tunic with one hand

and held my warm, soft breasts; thus

one offers to the goddess a pair of

living turtledoves.

“Love them well,” she tells me; “I love them

so much!  They are darlings, little

children. I busy myself with them when I’m

alone.  I play with them; I give them pleasure.

“I wash them with milk.  I powder them

with flowers.  My fine hair which dries them

is dear down to its little roots. Trembling,

I kiss them.  I put them to bed in wool.

“So I shall never have children, to

keep them well-nourished, my love; and, seeing that

they are so far from my mouth, give them lots of

kisses from me.”

63 – CONTEMPLATION  (not translated)

64 – THE DOLL

I gave her a doll.  A doll made of

wax with pink cheeks.  Her arms were attached

by little pins and one could bend her legs.

When we were together she put it to bed

between us and it was our child.  In the evening

she rocked it and gave it her breast

before putting it to sleep.

She wove it three little tunics, and

we gave it jewels on Aphrodite’s Day;

jewels and flowers, too.

She cares for her virtue and never lets her

go out without her; not in the sun, above all, because

the little doll was moulded from little pieces of wax.

65 – TENDERNESS

Softly enclose your arms, like a girdle,

around me.  Oh touch, Oh touch my skin like this!

neither water nor the midday breeze are as

sweet as your hand.

Today, my darling, little sister, it is

your turn.  Remember the tenderness

I taught you last night, and come near to me, 

Who is wearily kneeling to you without speaking.

Your lips descend onto my lips.  All

Your hair, undone, follows them, as an

Embrace follows a kiss.  It slides over my

Left breast; hiding your eyes from me.

Give me your hand.  It’s so warm!

Entwine it in mine, and don’t take it away. 

Hands unite better than lips, and their

Passion is equal to nothing.

66 – GAMES

More than her all her balls or her doll, I am

for her a toy.  All the parts of

my body she plays with like a child,

for long hours, without speaking.

She undid my hair and redid it according

to her whim, presently knotted under the chin

like a stuffed cushion, or twisted into

coils or plaited to the ends.

She looks with astonishment at the colour

of my eyelashes, the creases of my throat.  Sometimes

she makes me get down on my knees to pose with my

hands on the sheets;

Then (and it is one of those days) she slides

her little head underneath and imitates the

trembling kid suckling at the belly

of its mother.

67 – EPISODE (not translated)

68 – PENUMBRA

Under the transparent woollen sheet we

slid, she and I.  Even our heads

were snuggled down, and the lamp lit

the stuffing underneath us.

Thus I saw her darling body under a

mysterious light.  We were nearer to

each other, and free, and intimate, and

naked.  “In the same shirt,” she said.

We remained thus hooded to be even more

uncovered, and in the thin air of the

bed, the odours of two women grew, a stew

of two natural aromas.

Nothing of the world, not even the lamp, saw

us that night.  Whether or not we made

love, she and I alone could say.

But the men will know nothing.

69 – THE SLEEPER

She sleeps with her undone hair, her hands

entwined behind her neck.  Is she dreaming?  Her

mouth is open; she breathes softly.

With something of the white swan’s grace, I wiped, 

without waking her, the sweat from her arms, the

fever from her cheeks.  Her closed eyelids

are two blue flowers.

Ever so softly I rise; I will have

to draw water, milk the cow and ask for

some fire from the neighbours.  I want my hair curled,

and to be dressed when she opens her eyes.

Sleep, stay a while longer between her

beautifully-curved eyelashes and let her night continue

happily with a dream of good omen.

70 – THE KISS

I shall kiss the long black sails of your neck

from one end to the other , oh sweet bird,

captured dove, whose heart leaps under my hand.

I shall take her mouth in my mouth

as a child takes the breast of its mother.

Shudder!  … Because the kiss penetrates

deeply, permissive to love.

I shall promenade my lips like fire on

your arms, and around your neck, and I shall make you

turn onto your ticklish side with the

dragging caress of my fingernails.

Listen to me whisper in your ear: all the rumours

of the sea… Mnasidika!  Your look

teases me.  I shall close your frail

and smokey eyelids with my kiss.

71 – THE PAINS OF JEALOUSY

You must not have your hair styled, for fear

a too-hot iron may burn your neck or your

hair.  Leave it on your shoulders and

spreading along the length of your arm.

You must not get dressed, for fear

that a girdle might make sharp red

crease-marks on your hips. 

Stay naked like a little girl.

You must not even get up, for fear

that your delicate feet may be hurt by

walking.  You shall rest in bed, O victim

Of Eros, and I shall dress your poor sores.

It is because I don’t want to see on your body any other

Marks, Mnasidika, but the mark of a kiss held

Too long, the scratch of a slender nail,

Or the purpled band of my embrace.

72 – THE BEWILDERED CARESS

Love me, not with smiles, with flutes

or with cut flowers, but with your

heart and your tears, as I love you with my

breasts and with my groans.

When your breasts alternate with my breasts,

when I feel your life against my life, when

your knees stand erect behind me, then

my breathless mouth will not know even

how to find yours.

Train me as I train you!  See, the

lamp is nearly dead, we are rolling in the

night; but I press your smoking body and I

hear your perpetual plea…

Moan! moan! moan! O woman!  Eros

trains us in sadness.  You shall suffer

less on this bed to bring a child into this

world than to lie in it with your love.

73 – REPRISE (not translated)

74 — THE HEART

Breathless, I took her hand and I

firmly pressed it under the moist skin of

my left breast.  And I turned my head here

and there and I moved my lips without speaking.

My panic-stricken heart, abrupt and hard, was beating

and beating in my chest, like a bruised and

imprisoned satyr knocks, looking for a way out.

She said to me, “Your heart is hurting you…”

“Oh, Mnasidika,” I replied, the heart of

women is not there.  This is a poor

bird, a dove who is beating her feeble

wings.  The heart of a woman is more terrible.

“Similarly to a little bay of myrtle,

it burns with a red flame and under an

abundant sap.  It is there where I feel

bitten by the voraciousness of Aphrodite.”

75 – WORDS IN THE NIGHT

We rest, with eyes closed; the silence

is great around our bed.  Ineffable

nights of summer!  But she, thinking

I was asleep, placed her warm hand on my arm.

She murmured, “Bilitis, are you sleeping?”   My heart

beat faster, but without answering, I breathed

regularly like a sleeping woman in her

dreams.  Then she began to speak:

“So that you will not hear me,” she said,

“Ah, how I love you!”  And she repeated my name.

“Bilitis… Bilitis…” And she lightly touched me with

the tip of her trembling fingers:

“It is mine, this mouth!  Mine alone!

Is there a more beautiful one in the world?  Ah!

My happiness, my happiness!  It is mine

This naked arm, this neck and this hair…”

76 – THE ABSENCE

She has left, she is far away, but I see

her, because everything is full of her in this bedroom,

everything is hers, and I am like the rest.

This bed is still warm where I let my mouth

stray, it is pressed down in the form of her body.

In this soft cushion slept her little head

enveloped in hair.

This basin is the one in which she washed; this

comb has penetrated the knots of her tangled

hair.  These slippers held her naked

feet.  These pockets of gauze contained her breasts.

But what I dare not even touch with my finger, is

this mirror where she saw her hot bruises, and where still lives

perhaps, the reflection of her moistened lips.   

77 – LOVE

Alas, if I think of her, my throat dries up,

my head spins, my breasts harden and

hurt me, I shudder and I cry while walking.

If I see her, my heart stops, my hands

tremble, my feet slip, the redness

of a fire climbs to my cheeks, my temples throb painfully.

If I touch her, I become foolish, my arms

stiffen; my knees fail me.  I fall

in front of her, and I lie there like a

woman about to die.

For all that she said to me I feel wounded.

Her love is a torture and the passers-by

hear my pleas… Alas!  How

can I call her my Beloved?

78 – PURIFICATION

There you are!  Get rid of your little bands, and your

fasteners and your tunic.  Rid yourself of everything down to

your sandals, to the ribbons on your legs,

to the band at your breast.

Wash the black from your eyelashes, and the rouge from

your lips.  Rub away the white from your shoulders

and straighten your hair with water.

Because I want to have you completely pure, so that you are

naked on the bed, at the feet of your fertile mother

and in front of your glorious father,

So chaste that my hand in your hand makes you

blush from head to toe and that one word from me

in your ear will distract your straying eyes.

79 – MNASIDIKA’S NURSEMAID

My little child, I have so few years

left with you, I love you, no, not

like a lover, but as if you had

come from my own painfully labouring entrails.

When I stretch out on my knees, your two

frail arms around me, your mouth straining,

you search my breast and my teats slowly slip

between your palpitating lips.

Then I dream of other times, I really suckled

that sensitive mouth, supple and

clean, the vase of purple-coloured myrrh

in which the happiness of Bilitis is mysteriously

enclosed.

Sleep.  I will rock you with one hand on my

knee which gently rocks your cradle up and down.  Sleep then.

I shall sing for you some sad little

songs which send the newborn to sleep…

80 – A WALK ALONG THE SEASHORE

As we were walking along the beach, without

speaking, and enveloped up to the chin

in our robes of sombre wool, some happy young

girls passed by.

“Ah! It is Bilitis and Mnasidika!  See

the beautiful little squirrel that we caught:

it’s as soft as a bird and frightened as a rabbit.

“At Lydia’s house we will put it in a cage and we

will give it lots of milk with some

leaves of lettuce.  It’s a female, she

will live a long time.”

And the fools ran on.  For

us, without speaking we sat,

me on a rock, she on the sand, and we

watched the sea.

81 – THE OBJECT

“Hello, Bilitis, Mnasidika, hello.”

“Sit down. how is your husband?” 

“Too good.  Don’t tell

him you’ve seen me.  He will kill me if he

knows I’m here.” 

“Don’t be scared.”

“And that is your bedroom?  And there is your

bed?  Forgive me.  I am curious.”

“You know however, Myrrhine’s bed.”

“Yes, a bit.”

“One would say pretty.”

“And lascivious, O my

dear!  But we must be quiet.”

“What do you want of me?”

“What do you want to borrow?”

“Speak.”

“I dare not name the object.”

“We don’t have any.”

“Truly?”

“Mnasidika is a virgin.”

“Well, where can one buy it?”

“At the house of the shoemaker, Drakhon.”

“Tell me also:  Who sold you your embroidery thread?

Mine was broken when I looked at it.”

“I made it myself, but Nais sells excellent thread.” 

“At what price?  Three obols.”

“That’s dear.  And the object?” 

“Two drachmas”

“Goodbye.”

82 –  AN EVENING BY THE FIRE

Winter was hard, Mnasidika.  Everything is cold

outside our bed.  Get up, in the meantime, come

with me, because I have lit a big fire with

dead stumps and split wood.

We warm ourselves squatting on our heels, all

naked, our hair on our backs, and we drink milk

from the same cup and we eat millet cakes.

How loud and gay the flames are!  Aren’t you too close?

Your skin is turning red.

Let me kiss everywhere the flame has burned.

In the midst of the burning firebrands I am going to heat

the iron and style your hair.  With the dead coals

I shall write your name on the wall.

83 – PRAYERS

“What do you want?”  said he.  “If I must, I

would sell my last jewels for just one

attentive slave to watch for desire in your

eyes, the least thirst of your lips.

“If the milk of our goats seems insipid to you, I

will rent some for you, as for a child; a

wet-nurse with swollen breasts which each

morning you will milk.

“If our bed seems rough, I shall buy all

the soft cushions, all the silken

covers, all the sheets, furry with feathers from

the Amathusian merchants.

“All!  But that must suffice, and if

we should sleep on the earth, the earth

must be softer to you than the warm bed

of a stranger.”

84 – THE EYES

Large eyes of Mnasidika, how

happy you make me when love darkens

your eyelids and animates you and you sink

under the tears;

But how foolish, when you

turn elsewhere, distracted by a woman

passing by, or by a memory which is not

mine.

Then my cheeks become hollow, my hands

tremble and I suffer, it seems to me

all over; before you my life is gone.

Large eyes of Mnasidika, don’t stop

looking at me!  Or I shall poke holes in you with my

needle and you will see nothing more

but terrible night.

85 –  MAKE-UP

Everything, and my life, and the world, and men,

everything which is not her is nothing.

everything which is not her, I give to you,

passer-by. 

Does she know how much work I put into

being beautiful in her eyes, with my hairstyle and with

my make-up, with my dresses and my perfumes.

I would spend as much time turning a millstone, I

would row the oars of a ship or I would dig the

earth, if it could keep this prize here.

But all done so that she never learns about it,

goddesses who live above us!  The day

she knows that I love her she will look for

another woman.

86  –  THE SILENCE OF MNASIDIKA

She laughed all day long, and she was even

a little mocking of me. 

She refused to obey me, in front of several foreign

women.

When we had gone home, I pretended

I wasn’t speaking to her, and how she threw

Herself on my neck, saying:  “You’re angry?”

I said to her,

“Ah!  You are not how you were, you are not

still like you were that first day.  I no longer

recognize you, Mnasidika.”  She made no

reply;

But she put on all her jewels which she hadn’t

Worn for a long time, and the same

Yellow dress embroidered with blue as the day of

Our meeting.

87  –  SCENE

“Where were you?” 

“At the flower-sellers’.

I bought some beautiful Irises.  Here you are,

I brought them for you.” 

“How long did it take you

to buy four flowers?”

“The merchant kept me back.”

“You have pale cheeks and your eyes are

shining.” 

“It’s fatigue from the road.” 

“Your hair is moist and tangled.”

“It’s the heat and the wind

which have messed up my hair.”

“Someone has undone your girdle.  I tied the

knot myself; looser than this one.” 

“So loose that it came undone; a passing

slave re-did it for me.”

“There is something on your dress.”

“It’s the water which has fallen from the flowers.”

“Mnasidika, my little soul, your Irises are the most beautiful in all

Mytilene.” 

“I know it well, I know it well.”

88  –  WAITING

The sun has spent the whole night with the

dead since I’ve been waiting for you, sitting on my

bed, weary from my vigil.  The wick of the lamp

has nearly burnt down to the end.

She hasn’t come home yet:  here is the last

star.  I know well that she won’t come home.

I know even the name which I hate.  And meanwhile

I still wait.

Now she’s coming!  Yes, she

comes, her hair undone and without roses,

her robe soiled, stained, rumpled, her tongue

dry and her eyelids black.

As soon as she opened the door, I said to her…

“But here she is… This is her dress which I’m touching,

her hands, her hair, her skin.” 

I kiss a mouth, lost to me, and I cry.

89  –  LONELINESS

For whom now shall I paint my lips?

For whom shall I polish my fingernails?  For whom

Shall I perfume my hair?

For whom are my breasts powdered with rouge, if they

must no longer tempt her?  For whom are my arms

washed with milk if they must no longer

embrace her?

How can I sleep?  How

can I go to bed?  This evening my hand,

in all my bed, did not find your warm hand.

I dare no longer return home, in the

bedroom, horribly empty.  I dare no longer

open the door.  I dare not even open my eyes.

90  –  LETTER

It’s impossible, impossible.  I beg

you on my knees, with tears, all the

tears that I have cried over this horrible

letter, do not abandon me like this.

Can you dream how horrible it is to lose you again

for the second time, after having

had the immense joy of hoping to win you back.

Ah!  My love!  Do you not feel how much I love you!

Listen to me.  Consent to see me one

more time.  Would you like, tomorrow, to lie

in the sun, in front of your door?  Tomorrow or the next

day.  I shall come to fetch you.  Do not refuse me this.

This may be the last time perhaps, but just this one

more time, just this once more!  I ask

you, I cry out to you, and dream that on your

answer depends the whole of the rest of my life.

91  –  THE TENTATIVE ONE

You were jealous of us, Gyrinno, you

too-ardent girl.  Such bouquets

you have suspended from the mantle of our door!  You

were waiting for us in the passage and you followed us

in the street.

Now you are as you wished, held

in the beloved place, and with your head on the cushion

where floats another woman’s scent.  You are

larger than she was.  Your

different body astonishes me.

Look, I finally give in.  Yes, it is

me.  You can play with my breasts, caress

my hips, open my knees.  My body

entirely I surrender to your

untiring lips,  –  Alas!

Ah!  Gyrinno!  With love my tears are also

overflowing!  Wipe them away with your hair,

do not kiss them, my darling; and hold me even

Closer to master my trembling.

92  –  EFFORT

Again!  Enough of sighs and of reaching arms!

Begin again!  Do you think then, that love

is a relaxation?  Gyrinno, it is a

task, and of all tasks it is the toughest.

Wake up!  You must not sleep.

What matters it, your blue eyelids and

the bar of sorrow which burns your

meagre legs.  Astarte boils in my loins.

We were lying together before the twilight.

Here already is hurtful daybreak; but I

am not weary for so little.  I shall not sleep

before the following evening.

I shall not sleep:  you must not

Sleep.  Oh! How bitter is the savour of

the morning!  Gyrinno, appreciate that.  Embraces

are more difficult… stranger and slower.

93  –  MYRRHINE (not translated)

94  –  TO GYRINNO

Don’t think I loved you.  I ate

you like a ripe fig, I drank you

like a burning water, I wore you around

me like a girdle of skin.

I am amused by your body, because

you have short hair and pointy breasts

above a meagre body, and black nipples

like two little dates.

As one needs water and fruit, a

woman is also necessary, but already I no

longer know your name, you who have passed through my

arms like the shadow of another adored one.

Between your flesh and mine, a burning dream

possessed me.  I shall press you onto me as

onto a wound and I shall cry:  Mnasidika!

Mnasidika!  Mnasidika!

95  –  THE FINAL ATTEMPT

“What do you want, old woman?”

“To console you.”

“It is lost sorrow.”

“Someone told me that since your

break-up, you would go from love to love 

finding neither forgetfulness nor peace.  I come to

propose someone.”

“Speak.” 

“She is a young slave born in

Sardis.  She has no equal in the world,

because she is at the same time man and woman, even

though her chest and her long hair and her clear

voice create the illusion.

“Her age?  Sixteen years.”

“Her height?”

“Tall. She didn’t know anyone here, apart from Psappha

who is lost in love and wanted me to buy her for twenty minas. 

If you hire her, she is yours.”

And what could I do?

For twenty-two nights I have tried in vain

to escape into memory…

“Well and good, I shall take

this one again, but warn the poor

little thing, that she is not to be afraid at all if I

sob in her arms.”

96  –  THE HEART-RENDING MEMORY

I remember… (at what time of day do

I not have her in front of my eyes?)  I remember

the way she put up her hair

with her feeble fingers, so pale.

I remember a night she spent here,

her cheek lay on my breast, so gently, that

happiness woke me up, and the next day she

had on her face the little round mark of my nipple.

I saw her holding her cup of milk and looking

sideways at me with a smile.  I saw

her, powdered and coiffed, opening her large

eyes in front of her mirror, and retouching with

her finger the rouge on her lips.

And above all, if my despair is a perpetual

torture, it is because I know, moment by

moment, how she fainted in the arms

of another, and that whatever she asked him

he gave her.

97  –  THE WAX DOLL

Doll of wax, cherished toy that she called

her child, she left you too and she

forgot you like me, who made, with her, your

father or mother, I don’t know…

The pressure of her lips have faded

your little cheeks; and here is your broken

left hand which made her cry so much.  This

little cyclas you are wearing is the one she

embroidered.

From listening to her, you already know how to read.  So that

you were not deprived, and in the evening, inclined over

you, she would open her tunic and give you her

breast, “So that you will not cry”, she said.

Doll, if I wanted to see her again, I would give you

to Aphrodite, as the dearest of my gifts.

But I want to think that she is completely dead.

98  –  FUNERAL SONG

Sing a funereal song, Mytilenian muses,

Sing!  The earth is sombre as a mourning

robe and the yellow trees shiver like

a head shorn of hair.

Heraios!  Oh, sad, sweet month!  The leaves

fall gently like snow; the sun

is more penetrating in the opening forest

I hear nothing more but silence.

Here is what I wore to the tomb of Pittakos

burdened with years.  Many are dead, that

I knew.  And she who lives is for me

as if she were no more.

This one is the tenth autumn that I have seen

death on this plain.  It is time too

that I disappear.  Weep with me, Mytilenian

Muses, weep over my footsteps.

Safo - por Xan

Depois desta linda ilustração feita por Alexandre e de ter ouvido uma  certa pessoa perguntar quem é Safo (além do fato deste blog levar esse nome né XD), me senti na obrigação de escrever sobre a musa-mor deste blog.
É importante ressaltar que muito da história desta figura feminina única  e excepcional não é confirmado, seus romances principalmente.

Safo nasceu no século VII a.C., segundo alguns teria nascido em Mitilene, na ilha de Lesbos, no mar Egeu. Outros, porém, afirmam ser ela de Éreso. Filha de pais nobres, e vivendo no centro de cultura da época (Mitilene), teve acesso a poesia, música e dança, aos 19 anos já estava totalmente envolvida com a poesia.
Foi a primeira mulher a fazer história, e aparentemente a primeira poetisa, sendo assim, a primeira poetisa a ganhar reconhecimento no mundo Ocidental. Seus escritos falavam principalmente de amor, seja de forma pura ou ardente. E enquanto Homero é “o poeta”, ela foi considerada “a poetisa”.
Apesar de ser chamada de “A bela” pelo próprio Sócrates, era considerada um tanto feia para os padrões da época, pois era magra, baixa e tinha olhos e cabelos escuros. Mas pensando bem, para os padrões de hoje ela seria lindíssima. Mas seus rastros provam que ela possuía muitos encantos.

Foi exilada para a Cidade de Pirra, acusada de conspiração, junto com muitos outros aristocratas sob o domínio do Ditador da Cidade de Mitilene (a Capital e a maior Cidade de Lesbos) Pítaco, um dos “Sete Sábios da Grécia”. Há fontes que dizem que ela já tinha envolvimento com política tambem desde os 19 anos, porém há outras que dizem que ela nunca se envolveu com política, e seu exílio foi causado puramente por “moralidade” do cujo Ditador.

Em Pirra trocou cartas com o seu contemporâneo, o poeta e envolvido com política Alceu, que se não fosse pelo brilho de Safo seria o maior poeta de sua época. Ele se apaixonou e fez  declarações através de recados, onde admitia vergonha de falar o que sentia: “Oh pura Safo, de violetas coroada e de suave sorriso, queria dizer-te algo, mas a vergonha me impede.” E então veio a famosa resposta: “Se teus desejos fossem decentes e nobres e tua língua incapaz de proferir baixezas, não permitirias que a vergonha te nublasse os olhos – dirias claramente aquilo que desejasses”. Não se sabe se dali passou, mas Safo rendeu a Alceu vários odes e serenatas.

Busto com a inscrição Safo de Eressos (Sappho Eresia), uma cópia romana de um original grego datado do século V a.C..

Depois foi exilada novamente, desta vez para a Sicília, onde casou com um rico comerciante de nome Cercilas, com quem teve uma filha chamada Cleis. Logo cedo tornou-se uma viúva rica.

Depois de 5 anos exilada, voltou para Lesbos, mas não se contentou com a ociosidade do luxo de sua riqueza e fundou uma escola para moças para ensinar-lhes poesia, música, dança e amor (há versões que tambem foi para culto a Afrodite), a primeira “Escola de Aperfeiçoamento” da História. Para suas hetairai (companheiras – era como ela as chamava ao invés de alunas) ela era uma grande mestra que por  seus dotes culturais e físicos, Safo não só ensinava como também inspirava suas hetairas.

Foi nessa graça que a “10ª musa” (termo criado por Platão) perdeu sua escola, pois espalhou-se pela Cidade os boatos do que acontecia lá dentro. Daí surgiu o termo Lesbianismo, por causa da escola, que era na Ilha de Lesbos.

Safo teria se apaixonado por suas alunas, e houve uma, a preferida, a amada e a que tornou-se sua maior amante: Átis:

Átis depois  foi tirada da escola por seus pais irados,  ”seria bem melhor para mim se tivesse morrido” – disse Safo.

Não minto: eu me queria morta.
Deixava-me, desfeita em lágrimas:

“Mas, ah, que triste a nossa sina!
Eu vou contra a vontade, juro,
Safo”. “Seja feliz”, eu disse,

“E lembre-se de quanto a quero.
Ou já esqueceu? Pois vou lembrar-lhe
Os nossos momentos de amor.

Quantas grinaldas, no seu colo,
— Rosas, violetas, açafrão —
Trançamos juntas! Multiflores

Colares atei para o tenro
Pescoço de Átis; os perfumes
Nos cabelos, os óleos raros

Da sua pele em minha pele!
[...]
Cama macia, o amor nascia
De sua beleza, e eu matava
A sua sede” […}

Cai a lua, caem as plêiades e
É meia-noite, o tempo passa e
Eu só, aqui deitada, desejante.

— Adolescência, adolescência,
Você se vai, aonde vai?
— Não volto mais para você,
Para você volto mais não.

E então sua saída declinou ainda mais a escola, causando seu fim.

Depois disso, o que se tem são lendas suspeitas sobre sua vida, ou melhor, sua morte. Há uma que diz que Safo se apaixonou por um marinheiro chamado Faon e se jogou ao mar. Mas há indícios mais confiáveis, pois há escritos, que teria chegado a velhice; teria até recusado um pedido de casamento:
“Se meu peito ainda pudesse dar leite e meu ventre frutificasse, iria sem temor para um novo tálamo. Mas o tempo já gravou demasiadas rugas sobre minha pele e o amor já não me alcança mais com o açoite de suas deliciosas penas.”

OBRA

Como muitos outros grandes artistas, Safo teve seu trabalho injustiçado pela hipocrisia, ignorância e injustiça da Inquisição. Teve sua obra toda queimada, contida em 9 volumes, no sec. XI. Porem, no sec. XIX, em 2004, foi descoberto por pesquisadores da Universidade de Colônia, na Alemanha., um poema de Safo em um papiro do séc. III a.C. Foi publicado no ano seguinte, em 2005. foram encontrados por acaso, em sarcófagos em Oxorinco, cerca de 600 versos (legíveis) da musa. Sua poesia engloba odes, epitalâmios, elegias e hinos.

Ela escrevia baseando-se no eólico. Ela usou em seus poemas uma grande variedade de metros, um dos quais, o sáfico, está associado especialmente a seu nome. Foi reverenciada por muitos poetas da Antologia Grega e por “Longinos” no tratado sobre o Sublime (os dois últimos preservaram dois dos fragmentos mais longos). Suas estrofes foram imitadas literalmente por Catulo em seu poema 51 (Ille me par esse deo videtur). Horácio refere-se a ela nas Odes II, xiii, 24-25, e IV, ix, 11-12 (Vivuntque commissi calores Aeoliae fidibus puellae). Ovídio escreveu em suas Heroides uma epístola imaginária de Safo a Fáon (traduzida por Alexander Pope, 1707). Safo inspirou também muitas passagens de poetas ingleses, inclusive Swinburne (“Anactoria”) e Frederick Tennyson.

Safo era considerada uma dos chamados “Nove Poetas Líricos“ (os outros eram: Álcman, Alceu, Estesicoro, Ibico, Anacreonte, Simonides, Píndaro e Baquilides).

Algumas poesias:

Quando eu te vejo, penso que jamais

Hermíone foi tua semelhante;

que justo é comparar-te à loura Helena,

não a qualquer mortal;

porque só assim faria justiça à beleza dela:

Quando eu te vejo, penso que jamais

Hermíone foi tua semelhante;

que justo é comparar-te à loura Helena,

não a qualquer mortal;

Oh, eu farei à tua formosura

o sacrifício dos meus pensamentos,

todos eles, eu digo, e adorar-te-ei

com tudo quanto eu sinto.

———————————————————–

Eu vos rogo, ó cretenses, vinde ao templo:
ao redor há um bosque de macieiras,
e dos altares sempre se levantao odor do incenso.

Aqui a água fria rumoreja calma,
em meio aos ramos; cobre este lugar
uma sombra de rosas; cai o sono
das folhas trêmulas.

Aqui num campo onde os cavalos pastam
desabrocham as flores do carvalho
e os anetos exalam seu aroma
igual ao mel.

Apanhando grinaldas, vem, ó Cípris,
e dá-me um pouco desse claro néctar
que tão graciosa serves para a festa,em taças de ouro.

————————————————————————–

Com as meigas mãos, ó Dice,
trança ramos de aneto,
e põe essa coroa
em teus cabelos:

fogem as Graças
de quem não tem grinalda,
mas felizes acolhem
quem se enfeita de flores.

————————————————————

O amor, esse ser invencível, doce e sublime
que desata os membros, de novo me socorre.
Ele agita meu espírito como a avalanche
sacode monte abaixo as encostas. Lutar
contra o amor é impossível, pois como uma
criança faz ao ver sua mãe, vôo para ele.
Minha alma está dividida: algo a detém aqui,
mas algo diz a ela para no amor viver…

————————————————————

Como a doce maçã que rubra, muito rubra,
lá em cima, no alto do mais alto ramo
os colhedores esqueceram; não,
não esqueceram, não puderam atingir.

——————————————————————

E ela, divina Vênus de Afrodite, sobreviveu ao fogo e aos séculos, pois seu brilho é grande demais e não se apaga.

Plus de 850 immigrés illégaux, dont 200 enfants seuls, sont détenus dans des conditions choquantes dans un centre de rétention sur l’île grecque de Lesbos

Situation très compliquée que celle de la Grèce complètement déstabilisée qui ne sait pas (ne peut pas ?) gérer : c’est vers les directives européennes qu’elle se tourne pour faire face à l’immigration illégale venue par mer, par montagne… via le commissaire européen Jacques Barrot ! Ce sont des directives européennes qui “prescrivent” des “solutions” pour des enfants d’hommes qui ne sont pas européens.

Les incidents en mer Egée se multiplient :

entre, d’une part,
- l’aviation et la navale turques volant et naviguant dans les “zones grises”
et, d’autre part,
- les garde-côtes grecs,
- les pêcheurs grecs tentant de venir en aide aux réfugiés,
- enfin, récemment, un hélicoptère letton de la FRONTEX (cf. déclarations de Dora , Ministre grecque des Affaires Etrangères*)
autour
- des sauvetages des immigrés illlégaux dont les frais de passage sont une manne pour la maffia.

Selon les garde-côtes grecs, 2.648 enfants non accompagnés se sont réfugiés illégalement en Grèce en 2008. Ce sont des enfants afghans pour l’essentiel. Mais leur nombre pourrait être beaucoup plus important, d’après les témoignages des pêcheurs.

En plus des camps sur les îles égéennes, il existe un autre camp important à Patras, sur le territoire.

Que mes remarques appuient la détresse des enfants afghans de Pagani et de Patras -des enfants d’Afghanistan en Occident-, qui ne me font pas oublier les enfants souriants, les enfants blessés.

http://www.mfa.gr/www.mfa.gr/Articles/fr-FR/15092009_ALK1108.htm
http://www.mfa.gr/www.mfa.gr/Articles/fr-FR/18092009_SB1001.htm

Parmi les 800 immigrants illégaux détenus à Pagani sur l’île de Lesbos, en début de soirée hier soir, une rébellion a pris forme. Ce sont les adultes immigrants qui ont commencé à endommager les locaux, réclamant leur libération immédiate, tout en se plaignant de leurs conditions de vie. A l’extérieur du camp, étaient déployées les forces de police, en nombre important. Les mineurs, en parallèle, ont brisé les barreaux des fenêtres et sont montés sur le toit pour lancer divers objets qui se trouvaient dans leur chambre, matelas et petit mobilier notamment. Les adultes ont cassé les portes et occupé la cour (photo). Il faut également noter que, alors que la rébellion était en cours, un bus transportant des femmes et des enfants est arrivé.

'Safe' underground rooms

The day after Athens we stopped at a Greek island; Mytilene (Lesbos). We were taken ashore by the ships tenders (lifeboats) because the harbours was not deep enough for our ship. We walked up the hill to have a look at the castle and

Islamic university

decided to pay the entrance fee.

We were not disappointed, it was fascinating, we had a wonderful time exploring and finding all sorts of interesting places, like the extensive underground vaulted rooms where people would shelter

Mytilini

when the castle was under attack, the Islamic college, the walls, the prison, the water supply and many other rooms and houses.

From there we walked around the town before finding an excellent beach, where we had a swim in the

Oriana from the beach

mediterranean – it was very cold! We had a lovely relaxing day on the island which was really good, after spending the day before walking around Athens.

Embora autor do famoso juramento, Ulisses, por amor à esposa e ao filho, procurou, de todas as maneiras, fugir ao compromisso assumido.

Quando lhe faltaram argumentos, fingiu-se de louco. Mas Menelau dirigiu-se à Ítaca, onde encontrou Ulisses, que havia atrelado um burro e um boi a uma charrete e abria sulcos nos quais semeava sal. Outros dizem que tentava arar as areias do mar.  Menelau, todavia, não se deixou enganar com o embuste e colocou o pequenino Telêmaco diante das rodas do arado. Ulisses deteve os animais a tempo de salvar o menino. Desmascarado, o herói dedicou-se inteiro à causa dos gregos, mas, no decurso da Guerra de Tróia, vingou-se cruel e covardemente dos heróis da Hélade.

Acompanhado de Miisco, que Laerte lhe dera como conselheiro, e com a missão de velar sobre o filho em Tróia, Ulisses se engajou na armada grega.

Acompanhou Menelau a Delfos para consultar o oráculo e, logo depois, em companhia de Menelau, participou da primeira comissão a Tróia, com o fito de resolver pacificamente o incidente do rapto de Helena. Reclamaram Helena e os tesouros carregados pelo casal. Páris se recusou a devolver tanto Helena, quanto os tesouros, e ainda tentou convencer os troianos a matarem o rei de Esparta, que foi salvo por Antenor, companheiro e prudente conselheiro do velho Príamo.

Com a recusa de Páris e sua traição a Menelau, a guerra se tornou inevitável.

Aquiles/Pirra na corte de Licomedes

Ainda como embaixador, o rei de Ítaca foi enviado à corte de Chipre, onde reinava Cíniras, que, após o incesto involuntário com sua filha Mirra, fora exilado de Biblos e se tornara o primeiro rei da grande ilha grega do mar Egeu, onde introduziu o culto de Afrodite.   

Cíniras prometeu enviar cinquenta naus equipadas contra os troianos, mas mandou apenas uma.

O sacrifício de Ifigênia

Reunidos, finalmente, a armada velejou rumo a Tróada. O mar, no entanto, permanecia inacessível aos audazes navegantes, por causa de prolongada calmaria. Consultado, o adivinho Calcas explicou que o fenômeno se devia à cólera de Artemis, porque Agamêmnon, matando uma corça, afirmara que nem a deusa o faria melhor que ele. Para suspender a calmaria, Artemis exigia o sacrifício da filha primogênita de Agamemnon, Ifigênia. 

Foi nesse triste episódio, que Ulisses continuou a mostrar sua inigualável astúcia e capacidade de liderança.

Agamêmnon, a conselho de seu irmão Menelau e de Ulisses, enviara à esposa Clitemnestra, em Micenas, uma mensagem mentirosa, solicitando-lhe que conduzisse Ifigênia a Áulis, a fim de casá-la com o herói Aquiles. Mas, logo depois, horrorizado com a idéia de sacrificar a própria filha, tentou mandar uma segunda missiva, cancelando a primeira. Menelau, todavia, interceptou-a e Clitemnestra, acompanhada por Ifigênia e o pequenino Orestes, chegou ao acampamento aqueu.

Clitemnestra vinga-se de Agamêmnon por tentar sacrificar sua filha Ifigênia

O rei de Ítaca, percebendo as vacilações de Agamêmnon e os escrúpulos de Menelau, no tocante ao cumprimento do oráculo, excitou os chefes e a soldadesca aquéia, que se viram compelidos a sacrificar a jovem inocente. Não fora a pronta intervenção de Artemis, substituindo Ifigênia por uma corça, Agamêmnon, Menelau e Ulisses teriam agravado ainda mais a situação.

Ulisses levou a Tróia doze navios lotados com heróis, soldados e marujos provenientes das ilhas de Cefalênia, os magnânimos cefalênios; de Ítaca, de Nérito, de Egílipe, de Zacinto e de Same.

Na rota para Tróia, aceitou o desafio do rei de Lesbos, Filomelides, e o matou na luta. Esse episódio, recordado pela Odisséia de Homero, foi reinterpretado, posteriormente, como um verdadeiro assassinato cometido por Ulisses e seu parceiro inseparável em tais casos, o violento Diomedes.

Em Lemnos, durante um banquete dos chefes aqueus, Ulisses e Aquiles discutiram asperamente: o primeiro elogiava a prudência e o segundo exaltava a bravura. Agamêmnon, a quem Apolo havia predito que os aqueus se apossariam de Tróia, quando reinasse a discórdia entre os chefes helenos, viu no episódio o presságio de uma rápida vitória. Os mitógrafos posteriores deturparam o fato e atribuíram a querela a Agamêmnon e Aquiles, primeiro sintoma da grave contenda entre estes dois heróis, o que se constituirá no assunto da Ilíada.

Por todo esse tempo, o heróismo e a astúcia de Ulisses brilharam intensamente. Durante todo o certo a Ìlion o rei de Ítaca mostrou extraordinário bom-senso, destemor, audácia, inteligência prática e criatividade.  Convocavam-no para toda e qualquer missão que demandasse, além de coragem, sagacidade, prudência e habilidade oratória.

Participou, acompanhado de Ajax, da embaixada junto a Aquiles, para que este voltasse ao combate, o que não aconteceu, apesar do belo e convincente discurso do rei da Ítaca.

Como a guerra se prolongasse além do esperado, Ulisses, em companhia de Menelau, dirigiu-se à corte de Ânio, rei e sacerdote de Delos. Esse Ânio, filho de Apolo e de Reia, era pai de três filhas: Elaís, Espermo e Eno, cujos nomes lembram, respectivamente, óleo, trigo e vinho. Como houvessem recebido de Dionísio, o poder de fazer surgir do solo esses três produtos indispensáveis, os chefes aqueus, dado o prolongamento da guerra, mandaram buscá-las. De bom grado as filhas do rei de Delos acompanharam os embaixadores gregos, mas, já cansadas de uma tarefa incessante, fugiram. Perseguidas pelos Helenos, pediram proteção a Dionisio, que as transformou em pombas. Por isso, na ilha de Delos, era proibido matar pombas.

Audacioso e destemido, o herói arriscou muitas vezes a vida em defesa da honra ofendida da família grega.

Dólon aprisionado por Ulisses e Diomedes

Dólon, espião troiano, é aprisionado por Ulisses e Diomedes. Após revelar tudo quanto os dois desejavam saber, Diomedes, impiedosamente, apesar das súplicas de Dólon, cortou-lhe a cabeça. Guiados pelas informações do troiano, penetram no acampamento inimgo e surpreenderam dormindo o herói trácio Reso, que viera em auxílio dos Troianos no décimo ano da guerra. Mataram-no e levaram-lhe os brancos corcéis, rápidos como o vento. Conta-se que a audaciosa expedição dos dois bravos aqueus contra Reso fora inspirada pelas deusas Hera e Atena, pois um oráculo predissera que, se Reso e seus cavalos bebessem da água do rio Escamandro, o herói trácio seria invencível.

Desejando penetrar como espião em Ílion, Ulisses, para não ser reconhecido, fez-se chicotear até o sangue por Toas. Ensanguentado e coberto de andrajos, apresentou-se em Tróia. Conseguiu furtivamente chegar até Helena, que, após a morte de Páris, estava casada com Deífobo e a teria convencido a trair os Troianos. Relata-se igualmente que Helena teria denunciado a Hécuba, rainha de Tróia, a presença de Ulisses, mas este, com suas lágrimas, suas manhas e palavras artificiosas, teria convencido a esposa de Príamo a prometer que guardaria segredo a seu respeito. Desse modo foi-lhe possível retirar-se ileso, matanto antes as sentinelas que vigiavam a entrada da fortaleza.

Quando da morte de Aquiles e da ourtorga de suas armas ao mais valente dos aqueus, Ajax, o mais forte e destemido dos gregos, depois do filho de Tétis, disputou-as com Ulisses nos jogos. Face ao embaraço de Agamêmnon, qua não sabia a qual dos dois premiar, Nestor, certamente por instigação de Ulisses, aconselhou que fossem interrogados os prisioneiros troianos; e estes, por unanimidade, afirmaram que o rei de Ítaca fora o que mais danos causara a Tróia. Inconformado com a derrota, Ajax, num acesso de loucura, massacrou um pacífico rebanho de carneiros, pois acreditava estar matando os gregos, que lhe negaram as armas. Voltando a si, compreendeu ter praticado atos de demência e, envergonhado, mergulhou a própria espada na garganta.

Após a queda de Ílion, Ajax pediu a morte de Helena como pena de seu adultério. Tal proposta provocou a ira dos átridas. Ulisses salvou a princesa e conseguiu que a mesma fosse devolvida a Menelau. Logo após este acontecimento, o destemido Ajax solicitou, como parte dos despojos, que lhe fosse entregue o Paládio, a pequena estátua de Atena, dotada de proprieadades mágicas. Por instigação, mais uma vez, de Ulisses, os atridas não lhe atenderam o pedido.

Quando Atena, para mostrar a extensão da desgraça de Ajax e o poder dos deuses, pergunta a Ulisses se, porventura, conhece um herói mais valente, a resposta do filho de Sísifo não se faz esperar:

- Não, não conheço nenhum, embora seja meu inimigo, lamento seu infortúnio. Esmaga-o terrível fatalidade. Em seu destino entrevejo meu próprio destino. Todos quantos vivemos, nada mais somos que farrapos de ilusão e sombras vãs.

O cavalo de Tróia - Tiepolo

O maior feito de Ulisses na Guerra de Tróia foi, sem dúvida, o genial estratagema do Cavalo de Tróia. 

Ulisses foi o primeiro a sair do cavalo, a fim de acompanhar Menelau, que se dirigiu à casa, para se apossar de Helena.

Lá, o rei de Ítaca impediu o átrida de assassinar ali mesmo sua linda esposa.

Conforme outra variante, Ulisses salvou-a da morte certa: escondeu-a e esperou que a cólera dos helenos se mitigasse, evitando que a rainha de Esparta fosse lapidada, como desejavam alguns chefes e a soldadesca.

Andrômaca vela o corpo de Heitor

Foi um dos responsáveis diretos pela morte do filho de Heitor e Andrômaca, o pequenino Astíanax, que, no saque de Tróia, foi lançado de uma torre.

Por instigação de Ulisses, a filha caçula de Príamo e Hécuba, Políxena, foi sacrificada sobre o túmulo de Aquiles por seu filho Neoptólemo. Tal sacrifício, complementar ao de Ifigênia, teria por finalidade proporcionar ventos favoráveis para o retorno das naus aquéias a seus respectivos reinos.