Talk:Sappho/Archive 1

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The paragraph about Renaissance speculation needs to go, since it's silly and ahistorical (and badly spelled). The notion of some monolithic “early Roman Catholic and Byzantine church” destroying classical works because they were erotically charged could only emerge from some undergrad fever dream. Ovid, anyone? Catullus? Or, for that matter, the Song of Songs?

If you have a fact, then state it. Leave the speculation to the novelists. _______ A very weird article indeed. It was not only due to Sappho's eroticism that her texts didn't come to us, actually this happened with all arcaic lyric texts except Theognis and Pindar, of various subjects. Even Solon, who is praised by St. Basil or Clement of Alexandria, survived only in quotes of various auctors... Such lines stating "work was disapproved of by the Christian church" must be deleted, for there are several other reasons.

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This article has a strange view of the transmission of Greek classics to the modern world. I'd like to know the source for the Arab transmission of Sappho, particularly; that's one I've never read. I've never done any specialized reading on the text of Sappho, but i've read a lot about transmission in general. --MichaelTinkler

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I'm embarassed to say that I was working from a quote I recalled from a quite old book on greek history. I transposed some concepts in my mind, and committed them to the wiki. It was in reference to Plato, of course.

From now on, I'm afraid I can't take for granted what I remember :-( --Alan D

Welcome to middle age! I can't trust my right knee, myself. Actually, I'm glad to hear it's Plato. I couldn't imagine a nice Syriac Christian gentleman translating Sappho into Arabic for ANY amount of money.

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Regarding the "Fragment 1V" subpage. Is it actually called 1V (arabic numeral 1, roman letter V), or is this just someone's mistyping of the roman numeral IV, as I suspect? -- SJK

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It is actually just fragment 1. Typo. Will an admin please move the page? Thanks --Dmerrill

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questions about the fragment - is it public domain? who's the translator (even if it's public domain the translator deserves credit)?

I'm not really sure. To keep Wikipedia safe I replace the text with one I know is out of copyright -- from a 1925 translation in public domain -- noted the source, with url, on the page as well. --Dmerrill

Odd. I always thought fr. 16 was considered a complete poem. If there is interest, I have a translation of it (under my copyright) at [1]. -- llywrch 00:56 Dec 14, 2002 (UTC)

Mean old Christians!

I've changed the final paragraph, which had said outright that frowning Christians had invented Sappho's love affair with Phaon. That kind of nonsense is sloppy and childish. The story of Phaon with Sappho goes to Rome, to Ovid and Lucian, so it was hardly some conspiracy of men. Also, it's a bit silly to say that Sappho had to be a "lesbian." First, it's not clear that she was ever entirely same-sex oriented. Second, demanding that the dead conform to our narrow, historically bounded concept of "queer" is fulsome nonsense. She was not a bourgeoise, Western woman, and to imagine that something like lesbianism is a transhistorical condition is absurd. Let her sleep, and stop playing football with her sexuality as we report on what the ancients said and the later have done with it. Geogre 21:08, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

New Sappho papyrus

Just thought I would throw this out there for others to peruse as this is not my area. [Lost Sappho love poem published after 2,600 years] --jphillips66

[2] — if anyone can get their hands on the original text published in the TLS, please post it here! dab (ᛏ) 14:16, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

it's fragment 58, which was about half complete already. So it is not really proper to say a new poem has been discovered. Rather, about half-a-poem. dab (ᛏ) 28 June 2005 07:34 (UTC)

re [3], wrong, the journal article was by Daniel and Gronewald. West did just the translation in the TLS article. Also, the poem was already half-complete all along, they just discovered maybe another quarter, so that it is now something like 80% complete. It's not a "new" poem. The text of fragment 58 (which will remain to be the text of fragment 58) I put here specifically so it can be expanded when the additional fragment becomes available. It is not "outdated" until the "new" text is posted here. dab (ᛏ) 29 June 2005 07:02 (UTC)

21351.II begins with barys. This must be West's

my heart’s grown heavy, my knees will not support me,

corresponding to

[                       ]α̣ι, γόνα δ' [ο]ὐ φέροισι

i.e.

barus de mo[i] um.ttetto ēt]α̣ι, γόνα δ' [ο]ὐ φέροισι
pad etot..a..estiorkh'ησθ' ἴσα νεβρίοισιν 

(I can really hardly read this...) dab (ᛏ) 29 June 2005 09:51 (UTC)

Νεβρός is a young deer, for whatever it's worth Chronographos 29 June 2005 10:45 (UTC)

Generally translated as fawn; see [4] for example. Filiocht | Talk June 29, 2005 11:14 (UTC)

Also, a piece of useless information; "βροδόπαχυν" in this fragment is the Doric version of the Ionic, Homeric "ροδόπαχυν", usually translated "rosy-fingered [dawn]". Filiocht | Talk June 29, 2005 11:19 (UTC)

that would be rhodo-daktylos, here we have "rosy-armed" Dawn. rhodo-pachus would be "rosy-thick", rhodo-pechus rosy-armed :). Anyway, this is a bit of a hoax. West's translation has 12 lines. Fragment 58 has at least 26 lines. So what they have is at best a complete half-a-poem. dab (ᛏ) 29 June 2005 11:37 (UTC)

Bizarre

Someone stupid could say "Sappho=Satan".

Well, they could. But if they put that in the article, it would be vandalism, and the Elders of Wikipedia would have to send the Wikipedia Militia to take their computer away. --FOo 14:11, 29 August 2005 (UTC)