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Sappho sang her poetry to the accompaniment of the lyre on the Greek island of Lesbos over 2500 years ago. Throughout the Greek world, her contemporaries composed lyric poetry full of passion, and in the centuries that followed the golden age of archaic lyric, new forms of poetry emerged. In this unique anthology, today's reader can enjoy the works of seventeen poets, including a selection of archaic lyric and the complete surviving works of the ancient Greek women poets--the latter appearing together in one volume for the first time.
Sappho's Lyre is a combination of diligent research and poetic artistry. The translations are based on the most recent discoveries of papyri (including "new" Archilochos and Stesichoros) and the latest editions and scholarship. The introduction and notes provide historical and literary contexts that make this ancient poetry more accessible to modern readers.
Although this book is primarily aimed at the reader who does not know Greek, it would be a splendid supplement to a Greek language course. It will also have wide appeal for readers of' ancient literature, women's studies, mythology, and lovers of poetry.

Sappho's Lyre: Archaic Lyric and Women Poets of Ancient Greece

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By Diane J. Rayor

University of California Press

Copyright © 1991 Diane J. Rayor
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0520073355

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Introduction

Sappho's Lyre includes poets from the seventh to the second centuries B.C.E.: eight archaic lyric poets and nine later women poets. From the archaic period (the seventh and sixth centuries) Sappho is the only extant female poet, and is today the best known of all these poets. Three of the later women poets wrote in the fifth century, during the classical period when the great tragedies were produced in Athens. The remaining six women poets are from the Hellenistic period (dating from the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C.E. to 30 B.C.E.). This ancient poetry provides "glimpses that would make [us] less forlorn"1 —glimpses into unfamiliar rituals and culture, somewhat familiar myths, and modern emotions. The poems speak of passion, friendship, betrayal, loss, and endurance. The unique voice of each poet draws us back in time and forward again in our recognition of its truth and beauty.

The first collection of Greek poetry was made in the third century B.C.E., at the royal court in Alexandria. After conquering Egypt, Alexander founded the city, which became the literary center of the Greek world. There Ptolemy II developed the impressive Museum and Library. Alexandrian scholars selected the work of nine lyric poets to preserve in editions and commentaries: Alkman, Stesichoros, Sappho, Alkaios, Ibykos, Anakreon,

William Wordsworth, "The World Is Too Much with Us."

Simonides, Bacchylides, and Pindar. This present anthology of Greek poetry includes poems by all but the last two. The extant poems of Pindar and Bacchylides are primarily epinikia, odes in praise of victors in the Panhellenic athletic games. Their work deserves a separate volume. Sappho's Lyre consists of a representative selection of the archaic lyric, beginning with the "father of lyric poetry," Archilochos, and includes the best-known poems, those in Campbell's (1967) Greek edition, the most recent papyrus finds, and personal favorites. All of Sappho's poems that are whole enough to make sense are included, as well as the complete surviving works of the later women writers Korinna, Praxilla, Telesilla, Erinna, Anyte, Nossis, Moiro, Hedyla, and Melinno.

I have gathered these particular poets together for reasons both pragmatic and poetic. There is no other single volume available that includes the complete women poets. Their poems are remarkable for their variety and appeal. As for the archaic lyric poets, I accept the Alexandrian canon, and exclude nonlyric poets of the archaic period for two reasons. First, the lyric poets composed their poems to be sung, accompanied by a lyre. The musical quality of these poems, in addition to their vivid and intriguing content, has always attracted modern readers. Their straightforward language and their use of sound make it imperative for us to translate these poems repeatedly into a modern lyric voice. Second, the nonlyric poetry from the same period is available elsewhere, and perhaps of more interest for its historical value than for the quality of the poetry itself.

These glimpses from the past are rarely complete because the seventeen poets collected here wrote a diversity of poetry now lost to us. No original manuscripts from the authors survive. Only a small quantity of poems remain from the large body of work, many with pieces missing. Indeed, of the nine books of Sappho's poetry collected in Hellenistic times (some five hundred poems), only one definitely complete poem remains.

The poetry survives only as quotations in other texts or in assorted papyri. Ancient grammarians interested in unusual meters, dialects, usage, or language quote whole poems occasionally, or more often lines or only a few

words from poems. For example, a fragment of Alkman's poem 7 was quoted to show that he uses the word knodalon , usually meaning any wild creature, to mean specifically a sea monster:

All asleep: mountain peaks and chasms,
ridges and cutting streams,
the reptile tribes that black earth feeds,
mountain beasts and race of bees,
monsters deep in the purple sea ,
and tribes of long-winged birds all sleep.

Some notes on the poems, which can provide evidence for missing words, have been preserved in the margins of ancient manuscripts. These marginal notes, called scholia, are usually extracts from lengthier commentaries. The scholia on Alkman 1, for example, attest that the god Resource (Poros ) was mentioned in the poem, although the word is now missing. In this instance, the scholium allows us to fill in a few vital missing words:

. . . for Destiny [and Resource]
. . . oldest of all [gods]

Since the works were copied by hand, however, there are frequent errors in the texts, especially in the placement of scholia.

Texts of all kinds were copied onto rolls of papyrus and stored in the library at Alexandria, among other places. Papyrus plants grew well along the Nile and were processed into a writing paper cheaper than parchment (animal skin) and more versatile for long works than carving in stone, painting on vases, or scratching into clay. The paper was made from strips of papyrus pith laid crosswise, soaked, and dried under pressure. Through the long intervening centuries, many papyrus manuscripts survived in the dry climate of Egypt. New discoveries continue to tantalize us. Unfortunately, Egyptian papyri containing poetry turn up in various stages of disintegration or in pieces. Old, worn papyrus rolls were reused in many ways. Like many other recent papyrus finds, Stesichoros 6 was found on strips of papyrus used to wrap a mummy. The poem as translated reflects the disinte-

gration and tearing of the papyrus. Only the Hellenistic epigrams from the Greek Anthology, compiled around 100 B.C.E., have a relatively dependable manuscript tradition.

With the increased literacy and scholarly atmosphere of the Hellenistic period, poetry was written to be read. People read aloud to themselves or in small gatherings. We experience modern printed poetry in a similar fashion, although we generally read silently and privately. Archaic poetry, however, was written to be performed. Texts were copied primarily to assist in subsequent oral performances. The Alexandrian scholars in the third century were able to collect such a large selection of archaic poetry partly because it was popular enough to be performed (and therefore recopied) continuously throughout the centuries from the time of its composition until its compilation.2

Although we now consider Archilochos the father of lyric poetry, he is excluded from the Alexandrian list of lyric poets because his poetry, written in elegiac and iambic meters, was not sung. Elegiac (developed from epic hexameter) and iambic (considered the closest meter to regular speech by Aristotle and the meter of choice for invective poetry) were recited or chanted. The ancient term for lyric is "melic," from the Greek melos , meaning melody. Only poetry sung to a melody, therefore, was classified as lyric. Yet Archilochos presents the earliest example of poetry that today we would call lyric in theme and style. His poems primarily are brief and written in the first person about events and values of his society, as, for example, poem 3:

Some Thracian exults in an excellent shield,
which I left—not willingly—by a bush.
I saved myself. What do I care for that shield?
To hell with it. I'll buy one again, no worse.

See Herington for a complete discussion of performance and transmission of lyric poetry.

The difference between Archilochos and the lyric poets is less visible to us now because the music and spectacle of ancient lyric are gone. Yet the music in the poems, their lyric quality, has not faded with time.

Ancient lyric poetry contains a greater diversity of form and content than perhaps we would expect. Some of the once-sung poetry is like Archilochos', but there are also the long, mythological narratives of Stesichoros and Korinna, and the elaborate choral odes of Alkman.

Lyric poetry could be sung by a soloist or by a choir. Solo (monodic) lyric was considered more suitable for informal situations, and choral lyric for formal and ceremonial occasions. Both kinds of lyric were accompanied by musical instruments—usually a stringed instrument, either the lyre or a variety of lyre like the more elaborate kithara or lower-pitched barbitos , or, less commonly, a reed pipe (aulos ). The poets themselves composed the melodic music, which enhanced the effects of the various Greek meters. The Greek language has an inherent melody in pitch accentuation and a quantitative meter based on long and short vowels. For monodic lyric, the singer accompanied himself or herself with the lyre at a small gathering of friends, such as a symposium (drinking party). Choral lyric included more instruments and the added element of dance. Under the direction of the poet, a chorus of seven to fifty men, women, boys, or girls, sang and danced at religious festivals, poetry competitions, and other citywide celebrations.

The performance conventions of choral lyric and monody provide us with clues to interpret the poetry. For example, although certain poems by Alkman and Sappho imply female homosexuality, their impact on an audience might have been quite different. The two poets use female same-sex attraction for different purposes, reflected in the different genres of choral and monodic lyric. In Alkman's partheneion, the homosexual attraction is part of a poem which seems to be encouraging marriage. In Sappho's poetry homoeroticism and marriage songs occur in separate poems.

Alkman 1 portrays female homosexuality in the context of a choral performance in a state-sponsored festival for a large, mixed-sex audience. The

poem describes the attractions of the female chorus through their praise of each other, in order to present them as newly marriageable young women, appropriate objects of desire for men like the Spartan heroes listed in the fragmentary first part of the poem. Although the female chorus members seem to be conversing freely among themselves, we must remember that they sang and danced a rehearsed script. It would be inappropriate under the circumstances for Alkman to glorify female homosexuality in itself or to present the young women as objects of desire for women in the audience in this celebratory rite of transition. Sappho, on the other hand, probably sang most of her poems in small gatherings among a group of women friends. Under these circumstances Sappho could present erotic desire among women as a subject worthy of exploration in its own right.

The relationship of individuals to the community broadly distinguishes choral lyric from monody. Choral lyric supports the solidarity of the civic community through spectacular public productions. Choral hymns praise the gods, and praise humans as representatives of their city. With pithy statements on the relationship of humans to gods, choral lyric links mythic and contemporary events. In Alkman 1, aphorisms such as "Let no man fly to heaven . . . nor try to marry Aphrodite" connect the mythic tale of Spartan heroes defeated by the Dioscuri (Helen's brothers) to the contemporary performance, which praises the goddesses Aotis and Orthria (perhaps cult names for Helen or Aphrodite) and the choir itself. Lessons from the past thereby inform present values and the unity of the city.

Monodic lyric stresses the unity of a group with common interests as separate from other groups in the same city. Monody focuses on individual relationships—personal and political—concerning friendship, love, and betrayal. Using the conventions of praise and blame, the poetry praises group members and current friends and lovers, and vilifies members of other groups or former friends who switched alliances. A clear example of blame poetry would be Archilochos 9, which curses a former friend by wishing that, after being shipwrecked, he wash up naked on an enemy shore and be forced into slavery:

That I would like to see,
to him who wronged me and trampled his oaths,
who was my friend before.

Monody represents the personal voice of an individual (not necessarily that of the poet) within society; choral lyric represents the voice of a community.3

The poets did not necessarily restrict themselves to either choral lyric or monody alone. Furthermore, it is often difficult now to distinguish between the two forms. Although Stesichoros is usually classified as a choral poet, the epic content and narrative style of his poems suggest a solo singer. The remains of Sappho's, Alkaios', and Anakreon's poetry are primarily monodic, but at least Sappho's epithalamia were probably sung by a group. And the love poetry of the choral poets Alkman and Ibykos is probably monodic. Simonides was famous for his boys' choirs and choral victory odes, but much of his poetry translated here appears to be monodic.

The five earliest archaic poets performed locally; the later archaic poets travelled beyond their home territories. Ibykos provides the first examples of court poetry, written and performed not for a private circle of friends (as was the earlier monodic poetry) or by a citizen among citizens, but for the entertainment of a royal court. Ibykos, Anakreon, and Simonides each were invited to the court of a ruler, and supported by a patron of the arts. Poetry composed for the court tends toward lighter songs of drinking, love, and proverbs. A good example of proverbial poetry is Simonides 14, which may have been written for court symposia:

There is a tale
that Excellence lives on inaccessible rocks,
keeping to her holy place—
nor is she visible to the eyes of all
mortals, for whom heart-biting sweat

See Most (1982) for a detailed discussion of choral and monodic lyric.

does not come from within
and who do not reach that peak of prowess.

Simonides also is said to have been the first to write poetry for pay.

The location of the poet and the kind of lyric determines the poetic language used. Court poets, for example, do not necessarily use their home dialects, while poets such as Alkman, Sappho, and Alkaios, who write for their fellow citizens, do. In general, monody combines conventional language with vernacular in the local dialects of the poets, mostly Aeolic and Ionic (from the islands near Asia Minor). Choral song develops an artificial literary language highly influenced by the Doric dialect (from western and central Greece) regardless of each poet's own region. Of the choral poets, only Alkman uses his local dialect, which is the Lakonian (Spartan) version of Doric.

All the lyric poets use the diction of, and adapt formulas found in, the epic tradition. Formulas are the phrases, and even the whole scenes, repeated throughout epic poetry; they reflect the oral composition of epic. Although the earliest lyric poetry remaining today was written after Homer, lyric did not come after or develop from epic. Lyric has an oral tradition at least as old as epic's.4 The advent of writing in the eighth century B.C.E. brought to a close the composition of oral epic and led to the first record of archaic lyric. (Fifth century Athenian drama combines both elements: the dialogue of epic with choral song.)

In language and in content the lyric poets often allude to epic, either to borrow the authority of tradition or to posit a contrasting ethic. Archilochos defines a practical heroic code in which honor is not bound to one's armor (poem 3) and appearance counts less than steadfastness in battle (poem 2):

I don't like a tall general, swaggering,
proud of his curls, with a fancy shave.
I'd rather have a short man, who looks
bow-legged, with a firm stride, full of heart.

See Nagy (1974) on the epic and lyric tradition.

In the Iliad , a man's appearance is expected to reflect his inner worth—Hektor's complaint against Paris is for having the looks without the substance.

Ibykos, a century later than Archilochos, mocks epic, only to call on it to provide "undying fame" (an epic formula) for his patron, Polykrates (poem 5, lines 47–48):

And you, Polykrates, will have undying fame
through song and my fame.

In his humorous "epic" poem, Ibykos speeds through the Trojan War like a two-minute Hamlet , only to say that epic is not his subject. He uses the epic frame to praise his patron: Polykrates will receive fame through Ibykos' poem, as did the Homeric heroes through epic.

The immediacy of the language leads us to read some lyric poems as if they were letters or windows into the poets' private lives. We need to remember that poets speak through various personae. The "I" of the speaker in a poem is not necessarily equivalent to the poet. Critics no longer tend to read a literary text, especially an ancient text, as a nonfiction record of the poet's life. Most of the so-called biographical information on the lives of ancient Greek poets has been shown to derive from later scholarly constructions based on the poetry itself.5

The controversy surrounding Archilochos 20, discovered in 1973, can help put biographical readings into perspective. The poem narrates a dialogue between the speaker and a woman, and her ensuing seduction. Archilochos combines the conventions of praise and blame poetry6 in order to contrast two kinds of women, the one the narrator desires:

I'd much rather have you
because you are not faithless or two-faced,

See Lefkowitz.

See Nagy (1979).

and the one he rejects:

             Let another man
    have Neobule.
    No, she is over-ripe . . .

The biographical school of interpreters would consider that Archilochos, the man, describes a personal conquest and expresses personal hatred regarding two actual women. However, we should consider that Archilochos, the poet, uses a "lover persona" to narrate the story. This moves us away from speculation on the personal life of a poet dead for over twenty-five centuries, to the recognition of the distinction between the narrator and the author of a literary work. The poets tell stories through the various personae of their narrators.

The use of personae does not render the poetic voice somehow less direct or immediate. Lyric poetry was never a spontaneous outpouring of emotion; rather, it developed as a carefully crafted and stylized art from traditional literary conventions. Thus, when the speaker of Archilochos 3 refers to having lost his shield, whether the historical Archilochos actually did lose it is irrelevant. Sappho herself does not actually watch her beloved in conversation with a man as she recites her poem 8,

that man has the fortune of gods,
whoever sits beside you . . .

nor has Anakreon been slighted by a woman from Lesbos at the symposium where he sings (poem 4), "and she gapes after another girl." Trying to ferret out the "real" deed of an individual behind the poetic word leads one astray.

Biographical readings, or those based on the pretense that the audience merely overhears the poet's passionate expression of emotion, misjudge the purpose and ignore the context of lyric. For example, since Sappho describes human passions and situations in a deceptively simple manner, the passion in her poetry has been seen as the direct expression of a woman lacking self-control. In poem 8, Sappho skillfully combines an exploration of passion

with a conventional formula of praise (like Odysseus' praise of the princess Nausikaa as he approaches her dirty and naked after being shipwrecked [Odyssey 6.145–69]).7 The ancient poets did not speak to themselves or directly to the "you" in the poem, but to their audience. They composed with the audience in mind and for the purpose of performance. The poets use their own experiences to present ideas of the world, to persuade the audience to accept their view of reality. The lyric present, which is always now, draws the audience into the dramatic moment of the story.8

The fifth century women poets Korinna, Telesilla, and Praxilla continue the lyric tradition of the archaic poets, but lyric drops off sharply at the close of that century. From the late fourth and the third centuries Erinna, Anyte, Nossis, and Moiro wrote epigrams in elegiac couplets, and Moiro and Hedyla short mythical narratives in epic hexameters. Erinna also has a long lament in hexameters influenced by both Sappho and Homeric epic. In the second century Melinno returns to lyric with rather rigid Sapphic stanzas for her deification of Roman power.

Epigram, as opposed to the sung lyric, is a written, bookish form. The word "epigram" means "inscription." While epigrams began as actual inscriptions accompanying dedications or on tombstones, many or even most Hellenistic epigrams probably are purely literary. Their meter, elegiac couplets, emphasizes symmetry and closure (as if they were written on a tombstone). The literary pretense of epigrams is that they are inscribed on some sort of monument for passersby to read, as in poem 4 by Erinna:

Stele and my sirens and mournful urn,
which holds the meagre ashes belonging to Hades,
tell those passing by my tomb "farewell"
(be they townsmen or from other places)
and that this grave holds me, a bride. Say too,

See Winkler (1981), 73–76.

See Johnson.

that my father called me Baukis and my family
is from Tenos, so they may know, and that my friend
Erinna on the tombstone engraved this epigram.

Epitaphs for unmarried or newly wed women or for warriors killed in battle, dedicatory epigrams, and "portrait" epigrams may have been written to stand on their own and may not refer to actual artifacts. Anyte, who probably invented the popular pastoral epigram and animal epitaphs, provides some evidence. Her insect and dolphin epitaphs certainly lead us to read all epigrams as potentially literary; for example, her poem 11:

No longer will I fling up my neck, exulting
in the buoyant seas arising from the deep,
nor around the ship's bow (with fine oarlocks)
do I blow, delighting in my figurehead:
the darkened seawater thrust me on land;
I lie beached by this shallow, sandy coast.

Some war-horses and prize dogs were given burial and tombstones, but it is hard to believe that all of the many animal epitaphs were actually inscribed on stone. A poet's fiction can include, of course, occasion as well as persona.

The archaic poets offered later poets a rich literary tradition, from love poems to mythological narratives. Some women's poetry clearly shows Sappho's influence, some is more like Stesichoros', and some is harder to pin down.

Sappho avoids either imitating or polemically rejecting the male literary tradition as she explores human values through women's experience. For example, in Greek poetry after Homer, Helen usually appears as the evil force whose lust for Paris causes the Trojan War (see Alkaios 5 and 6). Sappho, in poem 4, uses the myth to illustrate her argument that "whatever one loves" appears most desirable:

Some say an army of horsemen, others
say foot-soldiers, still others, a fleet,

is the fairest thing on the dark earth:
I say it is whatever one loves.

Sappho provides two examples: Helen illustrates the decision to follow what one loves, regardless of consequences or of whom one leaves behind. Anaktoria provides a contemporary example; the speaker remembers the absent Anaktoria, the fairest sight in her eyes. Sappho's poem does not judge or blame Helen for the consequences of her decision or reproach Anaktoria for her absence. Who is to blame for the destruction in the Trojan War, the woman who followed her desire for one man or the men who followed their desire for war? Sappho accepts Homer's position in the Iliad , that Helen should not be blamed for the war, but emphasizes Helen's choice and desire in the matter. The most beautiful woman, the object of men's desire, became the subject of desire in leaving her husband to follow her heart. Just as Helen preferred Paris over Menelaos, "the best man of all," so the speaker would rather see the absent Anaktoria than the traditionally male-valued glitter of war. Thus she presents a persuasive argument for her opening statement on desire: personal testimony is backed by the authority of the past (reinterpreted).

Besides Sappho, we know of no other women poets from the archaic period, with the possible exception of women mentioned in Sappho's and Alkman's poetry. Alkman says Megalostrata shows "this gift from the sweet Muses" (poem 6); perhaps she was a contemporary poet. Sappho mentions women who rival her in drawing young women into their circles. Andromeda attracts one of Sappho's young women: "you fly off to Andromeda" (poem 36). Poem 33 declares that an unnamed woman has "no part of the Pierian roses," that is, the art of poetry. These "rivals" may have been literary rivals, and the young women they attracted poets themselves. Yet only Sappho's work remains; there is no other direct evidence of women poets.

Perhaps Sappho's and Alkman's societies were more conducive to women writing than other places during the seventh and sixth centuries B.C.E. Women were active in public performances and contests in Sparta and

Lesbos; they seem to have had greater freedom of movement and association there. In addition, women of Sparta and Lesbos were reported as being sexually uninhibited. Alkman's and Sappho's poetry certainly provides evidence for the acceptance of female homoerotic relationships. Later sources, such as Plutarch, state that pedagogic homosexual relations among women were a normal part of Spartan society. In these settings, women may have had more opportunities, and recognition, for composing poetry.

More names of women poets survive from the fifth century, but only the fragmentary work of three. Perhaps other women wrote poetry for their home audiences (as Korinna, Telesilla, and Praxilla did), but their work was lost in time. Since few women travelled as performers, their writing would not have had the wide exposure of travelling male poets of the time. After the fifth century, in the Hellenistic period, we find many more female poets, perhaps due to better educational and travel opportunities for women than in earlier times.

One of the early Hellenistic writers, Erinna, looked back three centuries to Sappho for her inspiration. In her poem in epic hexameters, Erinna picks up Sappho's strong "I," her women-directed discourse, and borrows from her Aeolic dialect, but in a nonlyric form and meter. Erinna's poetry was meant to be read, not sung and performed as Sappho's was. Yet by focusing entirely on the life of one young woman and the death of her friend, presented in the first person singular, Erinna imitates the emotional immediacy of Sappho's lyric. Through Erinna's skillful use of personal content and epic meter, the poem reads both as a diary and a heroic (Iliadic) lament.9

Erinna writes about the loss of a beloved friend through the friend's marriage and subsequent death (poem 1):

But when into the bed . . . you forgot everything
that as a baby . . . you heard from your mother,
dear Baukis; Aphrodite . . . forgetfulness.

See Skinner (1982).

She recalls the games of tag and dolls they played as children, and laments her death. Even in the fragmentary remains of her long poem, we can see the narrator's sense of loss at growing old without her friend. Her feelings are complicated by the fear of marriage, which led to her friend's death, as well as the desire not to remain in her mother's house unwed. In this poem Erinna explores women's fear of loneliness, marriage, death, and aging.

While Erinna recognizes Sappho as her literary foremother, other women poets made different choices. Korinna, for example, follows the more impersonal lyric tradition of mythological narrative, best exemplified by Stesichoros. Stesichoros does not seem to use myth to reflect on contemporary life, but for its own sake, putting epic tales to song. His long narratives present unusual versions of standard myths. He wrote two Helen poems, one of which reviles Helen, as Alkaios does, for deserting her husband (poem 2), and another, a palinode, which apologizes for the first poem. The palinode relates a different version of the events, as this fragment (poem 3) shows:

This story is not true,
you did not sail in full-decked ships
nor reach the towers of Troy.

Stesichoros asserts that Helen never went to Troy; he may have originated the story that Zeus had Hermes carry Helen off to Egypt, while Paris took an image of her to Troy—Zeus used the Trojan war to combat overpopulation. According to legend, Stesichoros went blind after composing his first Helen poem and regained his vision after recanting in the second. Since the Spartans worshiped Helen as a goddess, the second version would please them better. His palinode inspired much art and Euripides' Helen .

Little is left of Stesichoros' Helen poems, but recently long papyrus fragments of two other unusual versions of myths, the Herakles and the Oedipus cycles (poems 5 and 6), have been found. One of Herakles' labors was to steal cattle from the three-bodied monster Geryon. In Stesichoros'

story our sympathy is wholly for the monster. Geryon's mother begs him not to fight Herakles, and Geryon himself is reluctant. he doesn't know whether he inherited his father's immortality or his mother's mortality, but his sense of honor impels him to protect his cattle from the thieving Herakles (who is always supported by Zeus and Athena). He discovers the hard way that he takes after his mother.

The Oedipus papyrus shows a strong Jocasta proposing a way around the prophecy that her sons by Oedipus will either kill each other or destroy Thebes. Sophocles' Jocasta kills herself on discovering Oedipus' identity. Stesichoros' Jocasta not only survives the discovery, she later proposes a sensible way for her sons to divide Oedipus' inheritance: by lot, one will take the throne and rule, the other will keep the major possessions and leave town. Stesichoros' transformation of epic themes into lyric poetry provides a model for later writers.

Korinna's mythological narratives possess the odd slant, wry humor, and rich characterization found in Stesichoros' writing. Her poetry, however, is crafted particularly for a female audience. In one of her three long fragments (poem 1), Korinna emphasizes her poetic strategy and repertoire:

Terpsichore [told] me
lovely old tales to sing
to the white-robed women of Tanagra,
and the city delighted greatly
in my voice, clear as the swallow's.

Korinna describes her art as reworking the old myths, "father-songs," in her own way to delight the women of her home town, Tanagra. This and other fragments show the poet's awareness of her double role in winning and conferring fame (kleos ). Her popular poetry wins fame for her and for the subjects of her poetry. Like Ibykos in his poem written for Polykrates, she too celebrates her role in creating fame.

Korinna's narratives are about local heroes, both male and female, from her Boiotian district; she says, "I sing the excellence [arete ] of heroes, male

and female" (poem 10). In the longer fragment, about a singing contest between the Boiotian mountains Kithairon and Helikon (poem 2), the winning song focuses on the goddess Rhea (rather than her son Zeus or husband Kronos). Rhea wins honor (time ) from the other gods when she tricks Kronos to save Zeus.

Hesiod composed the standard version of this story three hundrd years earlier. His Theogony describes the transition of power from female to male: from Gaia (Mother Earth) who gives virgin birth to her husband, to her grandson Zeus who gives solo birth to Athena. Kronos and Zeus each gain power through conquering their fathers; Zeus keeps his power by preventing his wife from conceiving the son that would conquer him (he swallows her). Korinna takes one part of Hesiod's story and reworks it for her audience of women. She changes the tale of Rhea and Kronos by putting it in another context (from succession story to singing contest) and by emphasizing Rhea's heroic action. In Korinna's poem Rhea is the heroine, the clever woman who saves her son by outwitting his crafty father. In a society in which the father decided whether to let a newborn baby live or die through exposure, this story must have touched a chord with the female audience—a mother, seen in a heroic manner, able to save her child, regaining control over her progeny, and winning honor for doing so.

Korinna's poem continues with the results of the contest. The gods vote on the two songs and crown Kithairon the victor. Helikon is a poor loser, throwing a temper tantrum in which he rips out large chunks of a mountain. Korinna thus repossesses tradition without breaking from it. She places a familiar story in an unusual framework.

The ancient poets draw on their expansive poetic tradition and add their unique voices. Poems that have survived through the ages provide a glimpse of the past mingled with the present through these translations—a new blend of tradition and innovation. These voices from the past join us in our own modern poetic voice.

A translation and its Greek text depend on each other to live. New translations become necessary because perceptions of texts and culture, literary and translation theory, and language and styles of poetry change over time. In the past, translators have had a tendency to add or subtract phrases, and have sometimes used poor texts not based on the latest findings or the most accurate scholarship. Assumptions concerning ancient poetry, and especially women's poetry, have sometimes contributed to distorted or censored renderings. Obvious examples include translations that switch pronouns or even the subject from female to male. And some translations fill in the fragment gaps with inappropriate or trivializing phrases.

Reading a translation should be as close to the experience of reading the Greek text as possible. The reader, however, can only discover the possibilities of the Greek text through the eyes of the translator. One language cannot be copied into another language intact, as if through tracing paper. The poem enters and exits the translator, filtered through individual bias and insight. A translator is the most active of readers—reading, interpreting, and then writing that interpretation into a new text for new readers.

Each translation is crafted from a multitude of decisions concerning the relative importance of different aspects of the Greek text. Thus the translation expresses whatever the translator perceives as most important. For example, in a prose translation of poetry, the translator has decided that form and content can be separated, that it is enough to record content. Although the "soul of sweet delight can never be defil'd",10 if the poetry is lost in the transfer, so is the poem.

Through specific choice of words and style, the translations here reflect my individual response to the ancient poetry. My response is informed by knowledge of Greek and of the historical context of the poetry. My gender, my background in contemporary American culture, and my personal enjoyment of contemporary American poetry also influence that response. To-

William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell .

gether, the cultural context of translator and text define the kinds of translations that are possible at any given time.

In translating this poetry, I decided to respond to poetry with poetry (not prose), to use our modern poetic idiom (instead of archaizing), to keep the ancient images (not substitute modern ones), to recreate sound and tempo effects where possible (but not meter), not to impose formal rhyme schemes on unrhymed poetry, and to show the fragmentary state of our texts (not pretend they are whole). I tried to retain specific details, while compensating for formal aspects that work clumsily in English, such as meter, to recreate the vivid and direct effects of the Greek.

In translating fragments, the gaps need to be represented along with the words. Fragments force readers to read between the lines, to draw mental connections between gaps. It is the task of the translator to make this extra reading effort worthwhile, but without providing the words she imagines might have been there.

It has sometimes been fashionable to expand, sometimes to trim the text translated. Overtranslation and undertranslation erase evidence of physical gaps in fragmentary texts. "Completing" the poem by filling in gaps overly privileges the translator's interpretation, and fragmentary lines left out through condensing often contain vital information. Both practices simplify the poetry and mislead the reader. While the translator's interpretation of the text always informs the translation, she should resist the temptation to add or subtract text itself.

The standard Greek editions include generally accepted supplements based on quotations in other ancient authors, probable readings of papyri, information from scholia, and the sense of the texts themselves. The translator accepts or rejects these supplements on an individual basis according to probability and necessity. It is not overtranslation to accept a suggested word that is likely paleographically and needed for an intelligible reading. For example, in Archilochos 20, line 52, one editor, Page (1974), supplies the adjective "white": "I released my white force." Since the line almost

certainly refers to the ejaculation of semen, "white" is a necessary clarification of "force." Some additions to fragmented texts are acceptable, and it would be a disservice not to include them.

On the other hand, early editions of the Greek, such as Edmonds' Sappho (1928), contain large-scale reconstruction. Edmonds fills in passages missing in the extant texts of Sappho; he even composes entire poems from a few fragments. More recent editions of Sappho by Lobel and Page (1955) and Voigt (1971) provide texts free from these restorations. Translations based on poorer editions, therefore, are an additional stage removed from the original poetry.

The translator can make the most of the extant text by indicating missing parts through line breaks and punctuation. Some translations can even imitate the physical texture of the papyrus by showing where the lines were torn (see the beginning of Alkman 1). My translations provide the typographical signs of absence and uncertainty that least hinder reading: an asterisk to mark a missing line, ellipsis dots for missing words, and an occasional bracket to enclose words illegible in the text, but fairly certain and necessary to the sense:

. . . word or words missing

* line missing

* * * many lines missing

[] highly likely reading, often partially legible in manuscript

() paraphrase from other sources or educated guess

§§ beginning or ending of poem is certain

The translations are grouped by poet in the probable chronological order of the poets' lives. The selections from each poet are thematically arranged where possible. Each poet's poems are numbered sequentially in the body of the text; the notes provide the numeration of the Greek editions.

Continues...

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Excerpted from Sappho's Lyre: Archaic Lyric and Women Poets of Ancient Greece by Diane J. Rayor Copyright © 1991 by Diane J. Rayor. Excerpted by permission.
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