Yep, love again. But this time in Greek. Yes, we are going back to Sappho after quite some time.
Today, I have… how many poems? This is a very good questions. Let's start by saying it's 3 distinct quotations: one is a single line found in Hephaestio's Handbook of meter, the following one is another line found in three other books, and the third one is 4 lines again in Hephaestio. Now my three main references, Bergk Edmonds and Campbell, all agree in putting the first two into the same poem, on the basis of a quote from Terentianus Maurus's Handbook of meter (this one in Latin, the other one was in Greek) which goes "Cordi quando fuisse sibi canit Atthida / Parvam, florea virginitas sua cum foret", which has both a paraphrase of the first line and an adjective of the second one, and is also the basis for Edmond's in-between line Ἆς ἔμ' ἀνθεμόεσσ' ἔτι παρθενία, σὺ δὲ, «As I still had my flowery virginity, and you», and maybe other things I can't find. So that would make two poems.
Some, however, for I don't know what reason, decide to split the last quote into two isolated couplets, making 3 poems. I don't see any reason to do so, so I'll make these two poems. [Well, I read a paper about that after posting this, and it convinced me that the joining is a flawed argument, but since this post has to include translations from high school where I had no idea anyone argued against these being joined, they stay joined for this post.]
In the first one, the only oscillation between those references is ἔμμεν / ἔμμεν', which doesn't change the meaning one bit. I have no arguments for one or for the other, so I'll just be lazy and stick to whatever I have in my translations file.
In the second one, we have δαὖτε / δηὖτε and δόνει / δύνει. For the latter, I feel δόνει is the only choice with a fitting meaning, and most codices have that, so I'll take it. For the former, written evidence seems to point to δ' αὖτε, and only Campbell changes the alpha. I assume it's on the basis of the δηὖτεs in the Hymn to Aphrodite. Whatever the case, the meaning doesn't change one bit, so I'll just be lazy as with poem 2. And that is my critical note.
The meter of poem 1 is xx–uu–uu–uu–ux, which is kept in Latin and rendered as –u–uu–uu–uu–u– with consecutive lines rhyming in English and Italian (cfr. Hector and Andromacha, which is written in the same meter). The Italian translation, minus l. 2, is from 6/8/10 as per my diary from back then, but the diary doesn't report it, and thus it first appears in the 16/8 file, as below; in that same file, the original English shows up, with «wi' no grace», for which see below, being thus from between 26/7 and 16/8; as for the Latin, within 17/8 it must have been done, as the diary says that I translated everything left up to fr. 36 and this was fr. 33; once again, it is a file's residue, in this case the 2/11/10 one, so between then and 17/8 tweaks may have occurred; one last tweak happened between 10/8/11 and 28/8/11: the addition of «t'» in l. 3.
All of this leaves l. 2 out of the equation. I only found out it existed in blog times, it would seem. I typed that translation above on 18/12/17 at 21:15/16, not realizing it fit the meter (or maybe I did, but never wrote it down). Then 18/8/24 23:36 I translated l. 2 to Latin, stealing it from Terentianus Maurus mostly, but mistakenly writing flōrida instead of flōrea, which I soon corrected. The English then got «As I was in the flower of maidenhood still, u–» (23:39), «and a / Little child […]» (23:39), and the tweak «without grace» at 23:51. The Italian got its l. 2 within 4:38 on 11/9/19, for the Italian edition I recently launched. Then I read a bit of intro, and found that translation. Realizing it was metrical, I tweaked l. 3 19/8/24 12:43, obtaning the remake below. I had the doubt that that translation above might be an excerpt from Edmonds, but nope, he has «I loved you, Atthis, long ago, when my own girlhood was still all flowers, and you—you seemed to me a small ungainly child.» for the whole thing.
The meter of poem 2 is xx–uu–uu–ux, kept in Latin and rendered as –u–uu–uu–u– with consecutive lines rhyming in English and Italian. The older translations are all S5b residues, thus from between 16/8 and 21/8/10. The English appears there exactly as below, the Italian has typos "sciogliemi 'il" and "infincibile" which are fixed in S9 (so between 9/12/10 and 5/1/11), and the Latin starts out with «Odisti volitas ad e' Andromedanque nunc» as its last line, which is in the meter of poem 1, and gets fixed to the form below in S6, thus between 23/8/10 and 2/11/10. The English remake is from 13/5/24 23:48-14/5/24 0:10.
So let's jump into the poems!
Today, I have… how many poems? This is a very good questions. Let's start by saying it's 3 distinct quotations: one is a single line found in Hephaestio's Handbook of meter, the following one is another line found in three other books, and the third one is 4 lines again in Hephaestio. Now my three main references, Bergk Edmonds and Campbell, all agree in putting the first two into the same poem, on the basis of a quote from Terentianus Maurus's Handbook of meter (this one in Latin, the other one was in Greek) which goes "Cordi quando fuisse sibi canit Atthida / Parvam, florea virginitas sua cum foret", which has both a paraphrase of the first line and an adjective of the second one, and is also the basis for Edmond's in-between line Ἆς ἔμ' ἀνθεμόεσσ' ἔτι παρθενία, σὺ δὲ, «As I still had my flowery virginity, and you», and maybe other things I can't find. So that would make two poems.
Some, however, for I don't know what reason, decide to split the last quote into two isolated couplets, making 3 poems. I don't see any reason to do so, so I'll make these two poems. [Well, I read a paper about that after posting this, and it convinced me that the joining is a flawed argument, but since this post has to include translations from high school where I had no idea anyone argued against these being joined, they stay joined for this post.]
In the first one, the only oscillation between those references is ἔμμεν / ἔμμεν', which doesn't change the meaning one bit. I have no arguments for one or for the other, so I'll just be lazy and stick to whatever I have in my translations file.
In the second one, we have δαὖτε / δηὖτε and δόνει / δύνει. For the latter, I feel δόνει is the only choice with a fitting meaning, and most codices have that, so I'll take it. For the former, written evidence seems to point to δ' αὖτε, and only Campbell changes the alpha. I assume it's on the basis of the δηὖτεs in the Hymn to Aphrodite. Whatever the case, the meaning doesn't change one bit, so I'll just be lazy as with poem 2. And that is my critical note.
The meter of poem 1 is xx–uu–uu–uu–ux, which is kept in Latin and rendered as –u–uu–uu–uu–u– with consecutive lines rhyming in English and Italian (cfr. Hector and Andromacha, which is written in the same meter). The Italian translation, minus l. 2, is from 6/8/10 as per my diary from back then, but the diary doesn't report it, and thus it first appears in the 16/8 file, as below; in that same file, the original English shows up, with «wi' no grace», for which see below, being thus from between 26/7 and 16/8; as for the Latin, within 17/8 it must have been done, as the diary says that I translated everything left up to fr. 36 and this was fr. 33; once again, it is a file's residue, in this case the 2/11/10 one, so between then and 17/8 tweaks may have occurred; one last tweak happened between 10/8/11 and 28/8/11: the addition of «t'» in l. 3.
All of this leaves l. 2 out of the equation. I only found out it existed in blog times, it would seem. I typed that translation above on 18/12/17 at 21:15/16, not realizing it fit the meter (or maybe I did, but never wrote it down). Then 18/8/24 23:36 I translated l. 2 to Latin, stealing it from Terentianus Maurus mostly, but mistakenly writing flōrida instead of flōrea, which I soon corrected. The English then got «As I was in the flower of maidenhood still, u–» (23:39), «and a / Little child […]» (23:39), and the tweak «without grace» at 23:51. The Italian got its l. 2 within 4:38 on 11/9/19, for the Italian edition I recently launched. Then I read a bit of intro, and found that translation. Realizing it was metrical, I tweaked l. 3 19/8/24 12:43, obtaning the remake below. I had the doubt that that translation above might be an excerpt from Edmonds, but nope, he has «I loved you, Atthis, long ago, when my own girlhood was still all flowers, and you—you seemed to me a small ungainly child.» for the whole thing.
The meter of poem 2 is xx–uu–uu–ux, kept in Latin and rendered as –u–uu–uu–u– with consecutive lines rhyming in English and Italian. The older translations are all S5b residues, thus from between 16/8 and 21/8/10. The English appears there exactly as below, the Italian has typos "sciogliemi 'il" and "infincibile" which are fixed in S9 (so between 9/12/10 and 5/1/11), and the Latin starts out with «Odisti volitas ad e' Andromedanque nunc» as its last line, which is in the meter of poem 1, and gets fixed to the form below in S6, thus between 23/8/10 and 2/11/10. The English remake is from 13/5/24 23:48-14/5/24 0:10.
So let's jump into the poems!
Ἠράμαν μὲν ἔγω σέθεν, Ἄτθι, πάλαι πότα. [Ἆς ἔμ' ἀνθεμόεσσ' ἔτι παρθενία, σὺ δὲ] Σμίκρα μοι πάϊς ἔμμεν ἐφαίνεο κἄχαρις. Io t’amavo, o cara mi͜a Attide, tempo fa. [Mentre della mia verginità ero ancor nel fior,] Bimbettina parevimi tu senza grazïa. Ἔρος δηὖτέ μ’ ὀ λυσιμέλης δόνει γλυκύπικρον ἀμάχανον ὄρπετον, Ἄτθι, σοὶ δ᾽ ἔμεθεν μὲν ἀπήχθετο φροντίσδην, ἐπὶ δ’ Ἀνδρομέδαν πότῃ. Anco sciogliemi ’l corpo͜ e m’investe ’l cuor Dolce͜amara͜ invincibile fiera, Amor. Ora, Attide, odi pensare͜ a me, Ed Andromeda meta͜ al tuo volo è. |
Ămābām t’ ĕgŏ plūrĭmă tēmpŏrĭs āntĕhāc, [Ādhūc flōrĭdă vīrgĭnĭtās mĕă cūm fŏrĕt.] Vĭdēbārĭ’ pŭēllŭlă rūstĭcă t’, Ātthĭ, mī.
Long ago, o my dear little Atthis, I did love thee.
[As I was in the flower of maidenhood still, and a] Little child without grace at that time you did seem to me.
Long ago, o my dear little Atthis, I did love thee.
[As I still had my flowery virginity, and you] Like a small little child without grace did then seem to me. Sōlvīcōrpõr’ Ămōr pĕtĭt ēt nūnc mē Fĕr’ īnvīctăquĕ dūlcĭs ămārăquĕ. Mē īn mēntĕ hăbērĕ, mĕ’ Ātthĭ, tū Ōdīst’, Āndrŏmĕdān vŏlĭtānsqu’ ădi̽s.
Body-melting again love investeth me,
Sweet and bitter a beast, never won can be. Now, my Atthis, the thought of myself to thee Loathed’s, Andromeda end of a flight’s for thee.
Love the body-dissolver doth strike again,
Sweet and bitter a beast that can ne'er be slain. Now, my Atthis, you hate to but think of me, With great speed to Andromeda, ay, you flee |
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