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Friday, June 24, 2005

[You for] the fragrant-blossomed Muses' lovely gifts
[be zealous,] girls, [and the] clear melodious lyre:

[but my once tender] body old age now
[has seized;] my hair's turned [white] instead of dark;

my heart's grown heavy, my knees will not support me,
that once on a time were fleet for the dance as fawns.

This state I oft bemoan; but what's to do?
Not to grow old, being human, there's no way.

Tithonus once, the tale was, rose-armed Dawn,
love-smitten, carried off to the world's end,

handsome and young then, yet in time grey age
o'ertook him, husband of immortal wife.


-- Only the fourth "complete" poem by Sappho known to modern scholarship, finally revealed by a find in Cologne last year, published for the first time in the TLS today, translated with a short commentary by Martin West. (Not sure if the link will be good for longer than a week.)

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