Sappho's Hymn to Aphrodite

Translation, notes and metrical explanation copyright 1997 Elizabeth Vandiver; all rights reserved.

Iridescent-throned Aphrodite, deathless

Child of Zeus, wile-weaver, I now implore you,

Don't--I beg you, Lady--with pains and torments

Crush down my spirit,

But before if ever you've heard my pleadings

Then return, as once when you left your father's

Golden house; you yoked to your shining car your

Wing-whirring sparrows;

Skimming down the paths of the sky's bright ether

On they brought you over the earth's black bosom,

Swiftly--then you stood with a sudden brilliance,

Goddess, before me;

Deathless face alight with your smile, you asked me

What I suffered, who was my cause of anguish,

What would ease the pain of my frantic mind, and

Why had I called you

To my side: "And whom should Persuasion summon

Here, to soothe the sting of your passion this time?

Who is now abusing you, Sappho? Who is

Treating you cruelly?

Now she runs away, but she'll soon pursue you;

Gifts she now rejects--soon enough she'll give them;

Now she doesn't love you, but soon her heart will

Burn, though unwilling."

Come to me once more, and abate my torment;

Take the bitter care from my mind, and give me

All I long for; Lady, in all my battles

Fight as my comrade.

1. "Iridescent-throned". There is disagreement in the manuscripts about whether the first word of Sappho's poem is poikiloTHron' or poikiloPHron'. This difference of one Greek letter is quite significant; poikiloTHron means "on a many-colored, or elaborately-worked, throne", while poikiloPHron means "with a many-colored mind". The choice of reading is, ultimately, a matter of the translator's or editor's own taste.
2. "Golden": In the original, the adjective "golden" is grammatically ambiguous, and could refer either to the house or to the chariot that Sappho asks Aphrodite to yoke. I have tried to preserve this ambiguity by giving the adjective "shining" to the car.
3. "Persuasion". The text is corrupt at this point, and editors differ over whether the word *peitho* should be taken as a verb, so that Aphrodite is saying "Whom should I persuade..." or as a noun. If one takes it as a noun, as I have done here, the next question is whether it refers to the personified goddess Peitho, Persuasion, or simply to the abstract concept. I have chosen to personify the noun by capitalizing it. Again, as with *poikilothron/-phron" in line 1, the final guide is each reader's (or translator's) taste.
4. "She". In the Greek, the sex of Sappho's beloved is indicated by only one word, the feminine participle "etheloisa", "wishing/wanting/willing". Unfortunately, the text may be corrupt at this point and the reading is not absolutely certain, although it is generally accepted.
5. See also Diotima's bibliography for Sappho (with additional links there).

Explanation of Meter

- u - X - u u - u - -
- u - X - u u - u - -
- u - X - u u - u - -
- u u - -

www.stoa.org/diotima