Sappho in Middle English

Illustration from an early incunable of “De mulieribus Claris” (1362)

Thursday it was Homer in Old English. Yesterday it was Hesiod in Early Middle English. Today some Sappho.

If (in my timeline, at any rate) Hesiod’s 7th-century Greek maps onto an early Middle-English idiom, then Sappho’s 6th-century lyrics ought to be renderable into a kind of Chaucerese without doing too much violence to the time-scheme of the project. I’ve elected to do this, at any rate, for three of her poems, starting with one of her few poems to have survived complete: the ‘Hymn to Aphrodite’ (here’s a modern English translation of the poem by Elizabeth Vandiverby).

Glytering-troned and deethless Afroditte,
Gods dowhter, wunder-wicche, on me haf pitee,
Let passe me, queene, thes agonie and thole,
Grinde not my soule.

Wheneer byfor thou hast mi hearkenéd —
And ploumbed the distans heering that I said,
And heeding, thou hast com, and left behand
Gods golden land,

In chaar moste flete bi wingéd steedes drawn,
Upon the skye al dark afore the dawn,
Throgh hevenes hy and wide espace in glyde
Doun to erthside;

Than soonest com thou blessedest ladie,
With contenance devyne and asketh me
Asmile, what wo anonder me did falle,
That I thee calle?

What in my leesting hertes maddenesse
Who now most feel my ane besechenesse?
Who is it most thir oun hertsease ago
For wreyed Sapfo?

For yif she fleeth, fresshly shal she folowe,
Today turn gifts, yet offreth them tomorwe,
She chues nat love, yet loving shal her chues
Thogh she eschewes.

Com then, I preye, gyf me an end to grief,
Remoeven care o godess if thou leef,
What I moste coveite an it be provyde,
Thou at my syde!

Ποικιλόθρον᾽ ἀθάνατ᾽ ᾽Αφρόδιτα,
παῖ Δίος, δολόπλοκε, λίσσομαί σε
μή μ᾽ ἄσαισι μήτ᾽ ὀνίαισι δάμνα,
πότνια, θῦμον.

ἀλλὰ τυίδ᾽ ἔλθ᾽, αἴποτα κἀτέρωτα
τᾶς ἔμας αὔδως ἀίοισα πήλοι
ἔκλυες, πάτρος δὲ δόμον λίποισα
χρύσιον ἦλθες

ἄρμ᾽ ὐποσδεύξαια• κάλοι δέ σ᾽ ἆγον
ὤκεες στροῦθοι περὶ γᾶς μελαίνας
πύκνα δινεῦντες πτέρ᾽ ἀπ᾽ ὠράν᾽ αἴθε-
ρος διὰ μέσσω,

αἶψα δ᾽ ἐξίκοντο• σὺ δ᾽, ὦ μάκαιραv
μειδιάσαισ᾽ ἀθάνατῳ προσώπῳ,
ἤρε᾽ ὄττι δηὖτε πέπονθα κὤττι
δηὖτε κάλημι

κὤττι μοι μάλιστα θέλω γένεσθαι
μαινόλᾳ θύμῳ• “τίνα δηὖτε †πείθω
ἄψ σ᾽ ἄγην† ἐς σὰν φιλότατα; τίς τ᾽, ὦ
Ψάπφ᾽, ἀδίκηει;

καὶ γάρ αἰ φεύγει, ταχέως διώξει,
αἰ δὲ δῶρα μὴ δέκετ᾽, ἀλλὰ δώσει,
αἰ δὲ μὴ φίλει, ταχέως φιλήσει,
κωὐκ ἐθέλοισα”.

ἔλθε μοι καὶ νῦν, χαλέπαν δὲ λῦσον
ἐκ μερίμναν, ὄσσα δέ μοι τέλεσσαι
θῦμος ἰμέρρει, τέλεσον• σὐ δ᾽ αὔτα
σύμμαχος ἔσσο.

Secondly, here’s a medieval version of a Sappho poem only very recently discovered, in papyrus (you can find the text and literal translations here). I’m taking on the one sometimes called ‘the Brothers poem’. The TLS ran an article about these two lyrics, including Christopher Pelling’s translation. Below I post my late medieval version, followed by the Greek, and then a more literal stanza-by-stanza rendering.

Sett ay again; say Craccseus cometh soon
His boet al ful of boety; Jovis wat
And al the eother goddes swich are knoown
Think not of that!

In sted of it: goe gush out many praoyers
To Hera Queen Divine; and fro her crave
To bring this boet back whol unto these shoars
To porte, and safe.

To chanse upon us stationed at the side
The rest let leev to Goddes keeping balme
Greeat stormblasts fyl the sky and quicker ride,
Yet cede to calme.

Erst King Olympus send a gide to bles
The paysage home, and piloted from far
To safe againe: whens wealth and blesydness
Acheyéd are.

And us: if Lareicus but lay his head,
And be the man of idle eses loy
From souls in dragging depths encarcerréd
We rise to joy.

[. . .]

ἀλλ’ ἄϊ θρύλησθα Χάραξον ἔλθην
νᾶϊ σὺν πλήαι. τὰ μέν οἴομαι Ζεῦς
οἶδε σύμπαντές τε θέοι· σὲ δ᾽οὐ χρῆ
ταῦτα νόησθαι,

ἀλλὰ καὶ πέμπην ἔμε καὶ κέλεσθαι
πόλλα λίσσεσθαι βασίληαν Ἤραν
ἐξίκεσθαι τυίδε σάαν ἄγοντα
νᾶα Χάραξον

κἄμμ’ ἐπεύρην ἀρτέμεας. τὰ δ’ ἄλλα
πάντα δαιμόνεσσιν ἐπιτρόπωμεν·
εὐδίαι γὰρ ἐκ μεγάλαν ἀήταν
αἶψα πέλονται.

τῶν κε βόλληται βασίλευς Ὀλύμπω
δαίμον’ ἐκ πόνων ἐπάρωγον ἤδη
περτρόπην, κῆνοι μάκαρες πέλονται
καὶ πολύολβοι·

κἄμμες, αἴ κε τὰν κεφάλαν ἀέρρη
Λάριχος καὶ δή ποτ᾽ ἄνηρ γένηται,
καὶ μάλ’ ἐκ πόλλαν βαρυθυμίαν κεν
αἶψα λύθειμεν.

[stanza 1] But though you talk of how Charaxus has returned with his ship full of cargo; in fact only Zeus and all the other gods can truly know. It’s not for you to say.
[stanza 2] Instead you should instruct me to offer up many prayers to Queen Hera, and beg her that his ship be brought safely back, intact.
[stanza 3] and that he be reunited with us, happy and healthy. We should leave all the rest of it to the gods. The ocean knows angry storms and tempests, but calm can return very quickly.
[stanza 4] If it is the will of the King of Olympus, we may find a helper, a guide to bring us back to safety, and a blessed life and happiness.
[stanza 5] And for us too, should Larichus be an idle man, we will be quickly released from a great deal of severe distress …

Finally, ‘Sappho 31’: ‘ … also known as phainetai moi (φαίνεταί μοι) after the opening words of its first line, or Lobel-Page 31, Voigt 31, Gallavotti 2, Diehl 2, Bergk 2, after the location of the poem in various editions containing the collected works of Sappho. … Sappho 31 was one of the two substantially complete poems by Sappho to survive from ancient times, written in Sappho’s vernacular form of Greek, the Lesbian-Aeolic dialect. More fragments have been found in recent years, particularly in the Oxyrhynchus papyri.’

Meseemeth him of goddes lykenness
That man beforen thuu
Who sitting close and speking sweetenness
He listneth to;

And thine the laughter that beguyles my breest
Thrusting my hart aflyte
For at the very moment thee I seest
Myself am quiet

My tonge it seiseth fast, and in fyn ore
Heat reds aflame my skin,
Mine eyen blinded and a drowning rore
Mine earres in:

Peerspiring wet I shuddre with the fors
In color cuntrie greene,
Close ene to dying I have run my corse
So I am seene

Swich al in venture, peyne of being poor

Here’s the ‘literal’ (line by line) translation Wikipedia attributes (without fuller reference) to Gregory Nagy:

He appears to me, that one, equal to the gods,
the man who, facing you,
is seated and, up close, that sweet voice of yours
he listens to

And how you laugh your charming laugh. Why it
makes my heart flutter within my breast,
because the moment I look at you, right then, for me,
to make any sound at all won’t work any more.

My tongue has a breakdown and a delicate
— all of a sudden — fire rushes under my skin.
With my eyes I see not a thing, and there is a roar
that my ears make.

Sweat pours down me and a trembling
seizes all of me; paler than grass
am I, and a little short of death
do I appear to me.

But all may be ventured, since even [the poor]…

And here’s the Greek:

φαίνεταί μοι κῆνος ἴσος θέοισιν
ἔμμεν’ ὤνηρ, ὄττις ἐνάντιός τοι
ἰσδάνει καὶ πλάσιον ἆδυ φωνεί-
σας ὐπακούει

καὶ γελαίσας ἰμέροεν, τό μ’ ἦ μὰν
καρδίαν ἐν στήθεσιν ἐπτόαισεν·
ὠς γὰρ ἔς σ’ ἴδω βρόχε’, ὤς με φώναί-
σ’ οὐδ’ ἒν ἔτ’ εἴκει,

ἀλλά κὰμ μὲν γλῶσσα †ἔαγε†, λέπτον
δ’ αὔτικα χρῷ πῦρ ὐπαδεδρόμηκεν,
ὀππάτεσσι δ’ οὐδ’ ἒν ὄρημμ’, ἐπιρρόμ-
βεισι δ’ ἄκουαι,

κὰδ’ δέ ἴδρως κακχέεται, τρόμος δὲ
παῖσαν ἄγρει, χλωροτέρα δὲ ποίας
ἔμμι, τεθνάκην δ’ ὀλίγω ‘πιδεύης
φαίνομ’ ἔμ’ αὔτᾳ.

ἀλλὰ πὰν τόλματον, ἐπεὶ †καὶ πένητα†…