Saturday 10 February 2018

The moon has set

From sunset to moonset, today we look at a short poem by Sappho, a quote from Hephaestio's Handbook on Meters starting with "The moon has set". This is Bergk 58, Edmonds 111, Campbell 168B, Lobel-Page curiously doesn't have it. Translated presumably in summer/fall/early winter 2010, the text presents no controversies except for a psilosis on ὥρα which is only absent in Bergk, the meter is x–uu–u–x, rendered in Italian and English as u–uu–u–u with alternating rhymes. I also want to advertise the IMO real nice Edmonds translation, which is in tetrasyllabics with rhymes ABCABC. A PDF from Sep 24 2012 mentions a change, dated "14/9", which turns «Alone my sadnèss I fight» to its current form. I had previously missed the change and only implemented it here on 16/5/21 at 23:15. Let's go!


Δέδυκε μὲν ἀ σελάννα
καὶ Πληίαδες· μέσαι δὲ
νύκτες, παρὰ δ’ ἔρχετ’ ὤρα·
ἔγω δὲ μόνα κατεύδω.


La luna è tramontata,
Le Pleiadi pure;͜ e mezza
La notte s’è già volata;
Son sola͜ e non ho dolcezza.
Nūnc ōccĭdĭt īllă lūnă
Ēt Plēĭădēsquĕ; nōxquĕ
Mēdi͞ast, ĕt ăbīvĭt hōră;
Āc sōlă iăce͞o ĕg’ īpsă.


The moon has alrè͞ady set,
The Pleiadès too; the night
Is half-gone away; in bed
My sadness alone I fight.



The moon has set,
The Pleiads too,
Midnight is nigh;
Time passes on
And passes, yet
Alone I lie.

No comments:

Post a Comment