Sappho’s Sapphires

The beauty in a missing ancient text.

Painting by John William Godward, Reverie (also known as In the Days of Sappho), 1904.

There is a certain beauty in a missing line from an ancient text. It’s a missing piece from time itself, one whose echo still lingers, whose brilliance endures as sapphires rooted in the solid rocks of history.

I heard this echo and beheld these sapphires the first time I immersed myself, body and soul, into Sappho’s poetic fragments.

I found myself stumbling — not upon, but over — several lines that read “[missing text].”

Like any mortal whose soul has been gripped by the immortality of Sappho’s words, despite much of them being lost to time or translation (since I can’t read ancient Greek), I found myself rereading, reliving each fragment.

Here are some of Sappho’s fragmented texts:

“Aphrodite. For easily bent…

and nimbly…[missing text]…

has reminded me now of

Anactoria who is not here;”

🏺🏺🏺

“A servant

of wile-weaving

Aphrodite…”

🏺🏺🏺

“Eros,

giver of pain…”

🏺🏺🏺

“…like gods