Morn is nigh

Today we have another familiar meter: the Aeolic pentapody. The fragment we have is from a papyrus (P.Oxy. 1232 col. i). Bergk doesn't have it, and Campbell and Edmonds start it at different places. I copy the whole thing from Grenfell and Hunt. One line is completed, and from what I read on Edmonds' notes I gather it was thought up by topic similarity with a poem by Alcaeus. The end has a reference to singing, so we link back to two posts ago, "Let's sing for the couple", and this is the end of the night. The Latin originally read «ăgĭt'» instead of «hĕiă» but, preparing this post on Oct 30 2017 ~23:34, I figured that was too Greek and too little Latin, so I made that easy fix. The dotless i exploit of the previous post was used here too, so keep that in mind when copypasting. I recently discovered I mistranslated this. So the adjective ἄκαλος seems evidently privative alpha + καλός, so "not beautiful, ugly". Except not. Perseus tells me it means "peaceful, still". So not "ugly things", but "peaceful things". So let's get to the poem.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . ]ν̣ . . . . . . . . . . . . . ] . . . . . . . . . . ]λ̣ε γὰ̣ρ̣ . . . . . . . . . . ] κάλος 5. . . . . ] ̣’ ἄ̣καλα κλόνει . . . . . ] κάματος φρένα . . . . . ]ε̣ κ̣ατισδάνε[ι] . . . . . ] ἀ̣λλ’ ἄγιτ’, ὦ φίλα̣ı̣, ἀοίδας ἀπυλήξομεν], ἄ̣γ̣χ̣ı̣ γὰρ ἀμέρα. [xx–uu–uu–uu–ux xx–uu–uu–uu–ux xx–uu–uu–uu–ux xx–uu–uu–uu] bello [x xx–uu–u] brutture͜ egli agita [xx–uu–u] fatica del cuor [ux xx–uu–uu–uu] si͜ed[e] giù [xx–uu–uu] o care mi͜e, orsù, [Or cantar cesseremo], ché prossimo͜ a no͜i è ’l dì.

[xx–uu–uu–uu–ux xx–uu–uu–uu–ux xx–uu–uu–uu–ux xx–uu–uu–uu] pūlchĕr [x] Īmpūlchr’ īst’ ăgĭtāt [uu–uu–ux xx–uu–uu] cōrdĭ’ lăbōr [ux xx–uu–uu–uu] dēsĭdĕ[t xx–uu–uu] cār’ hĕiă ō mĕǣ, Cāntūs fīnĕm hăbēbĭmŭ’], prōxĭmŭ’ nām dĭēs. [xx-uu–uu–uu–ux xx-uu–uu–uu–ux xx-uu–uu–uu–ux xx-uu–uu–uu] beautiful [xx-uu–uu] ugly things he doth stir [xx-uu–uu] toil of the heart [ux xx-uu–uu] down he [doth] sit [ux xx-uu–uu–] o my dears, come on, [We shall cease to be singing], for close is the day to us.

References

• Grenfell and Hunt on Oxyrhynchus papyri;
• Edmonds' edition of Sappho;
• Campbell's edition of Sappho;
• Bergk's edition of Sappho;
• Diehls' Supplementum Lyricum;
• Greek Wikisource;
• Other Greek Wikisource link;
• Wharton's edition of Sappho;
• SaffoComm1.doc;
• safopoemas;
• S.B. Palmer's The Complete Poems Of Sappho;
• Bibliotheca Augustana;
• Carson's edition of Sappho (not available online).

Note: these are all the references I ever used for Sappho as of now. I may not have used all of these in the present post.