Fragments from Sappho: three versions

A New Sappho Poem

[You for] the fragrant-bosomed [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'er took him, husband of immortal wife.

Trans. Martin West (2005)   

Sappho to Her Pupils

Live for the gifts the fragrant-breasted Muses

send, for the clear, the singing, lyre, my children.

Old age freezes my body, once so lithe,

rinses the darkness from my hair, now white.

My heart's heavy, my knees no longer keep me

up through the dance they used to prance like fawns in.

Oh, I grumble about it, but for what?

Nothing can stop a person's growing old.

They say that Tithonus was swept away

in Dawn's passionate rose-flushed arms to live

forever, but he lost his looks, his youth,

failing husband of an immortal bride.

Trans. Lachlan Mackinnon (2005)

Sappho and the Weight of Years

Girls, be good to these spirits of music and poetry

that breast your threshold with their scented gifts.

Lift the lyre, clear and sweet, they leave with you.

As for me, this body is now so arthritic

I cannot play, hardly even hold the instrument.

Can you believe my white hair was once black?

And oh, the soul grows heavy with the body.

Complaining knee-joints creak at every move.

To think I danced as delicate as a deer!

Some gloomy poems came from these thoughts:

useless: we are all born to lose life,

And what is worse, girls, to lose youth.

The legend of the goddess of the dawn

I'm sure you know: how rosy Eos

madly in love with gorgeous young Tithonus

swept him like booty to her hiding place

but then forgot he would grow old and grey

while she in despair pursued her immortal way.

Trans. Edwin Morgan (2005) 

From the TLS, Poem of the Week.