Sappho and Catullus: Sexual Politics

The intensity of Sappho's passion, her vivid and detailed enumeration of the physical symptoms the sight of the loved one produces in the lover, still seems to burn as brightly today as it did when the poem was first written. Yet for all its sense of modernity, the text still poses a number of problems for contemporary translators and their audience:

Is the poem complete or fragmentary? Is its final line the first line of a new stanza? Or is it the beginning of another poem altogether?

Scholars are divided on the issue, lining up plausible evidence on either side. The difficulty for the translator is what they do with this problematic last line. Should they omit it altogether like Mary Barnard in her 1958 version? Or finish the line to make the poem complete for modern readers as Willis Barnstone did in 1962? Or leave the reader dangling - to convey the impression of a broken line hanging in mid-air - as I did in my own version ?

You can post your suggestions/solutions to this problem on the Discussion Boards.  

Read more...What is the Poem Really About?

Top of page

Back to previous page