Talk:Sappho/Archive 2

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copyvio?

The extensive quotations on this page, introduced by 'dab' were covered by copyright and also misleading: The text of fr. 1 was taken from the copyright edition of Lobel and Page and shorn of its last line. Fr. 16 ditto. Fr. 31 taken over from their edition of frr. 31-42, without indication of fragment-boundaries! Fr. 58 taken over from their edition, and a poem is now known to begin at line 11 and end at line 22 within this sequence of line-ends ('dab' has missed this point), and the new accessions are not included, so that this Greek text is positively misleading and unhelpful. The last reliable work on this section of the text seems to be that in the version of 28 June 16.34, to which I have reverted. Also, it is not true to say that 'West did just the translation'. He produced a completely new reconstruction of the text, published and explained at the place indicated in the earlier version of the article, a reference deleted by 'dab'. And '80% complete' is a considerable underestimate. [unsigned, by User:81.179.125.227 ]

dear '81.179.125.227', the shearing of their last lines of the fragments was unintentional, please correct them. As for your claim that the fragments are copyrighted, because they are taken from an edition, I have my doubts. Are you saying the Greek text of the Iliad is copyrighted too, because it was edited? We can attribute the conjectures, or in the extreme, remove the conjectures altogether, but the text of the papyri itself is certainly not copyrightable. As for "missing the point" of the recent fragment 58 developments, well, see above: we have been trying to piece together what happened from sparse online references. If you know better, by all means correct the current version, no hostility is necessary. Since you seem to have access to the current reading, why not post it rather than deleting the current text of fragment 58? dab (ᛏ) 3 July 2005 13:41 (UTC)

thanks to User:Chronographos, we have the reconstructed text now, Image:Sappho new.gif. dab (ᛏ) 5 July 2005 11:58 (UTC)

I quickly typed it in, but somebody with a polytonic keyboard layout could do a better job. Or else we could give all texts in capitals, as it is attested anyway. I removed my attempt at translating the fragment, since the whole text should now be considered. dab (ᛏ) 5 July 2005 12:26 (UTC)

Copyright probably does cover a scholarly edition of a text to the extent that the scholarly work is creative. In the case of the present text, it seems to me fairly clear that most of the interpolations (and possibly also the word-breaks, accents, and punctuation) are covered by copyright. The text on the papyri is not copyrightable to the extent that it doesn't require creative scholarship to read. In more practical terms: is there room for disagreement among competant scholars, or is it a routine (though perhaps difficult) task? I don't know enough about papyrology in general, or these particular papyri in particular, to judge. Perhaps someone could write to the editors and see what they claim. --Macrakis 5 July 2005 16:29 (UTC)

punctuation and diacritics are certainly not covered. Where West restitutes entire half-lines, they should be considered his intellectual property. For this reason I omitted the restituted three half-lines from his text. West's conjectures consist of about 12 words. Since it was published in an academic journal, it should be permissible to quote this restitution, clearly attributing it to him. We are not trying to plagiarize West's text, we are referencing it. dab (ᛏ) 5 July 2005 16:55 (UTC)

---

In Suda lexicon (800 b.c) she is too reported as killing herself over a man.

Fragment 16

This translation is unattributed yet it is clearly a modern one typical of the 20th century translations and subject to copyright. Whoever inserted this translation should, at the very least, provide an attribution and permission for its use. If no-one provides a proper attribution I will remove this translation in order to aviod copyright violations. Ande B. 23:26, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Since no-one has responded to my previous concerns about copyright violations, I have removed the very nice but unauthorized translation of frgment 16. If I find an adequate sample in the public domain, I will add it later. Ande B. 00:20, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

I copied Bliss Carman's version of "peer of the gods" as a public domain alternative to the earlier copyright protected sample. Ande B. 21:32, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Merge material?

There's a section about Sappho, including long poetry excerpts, at History of lesbianism - anything there worth merging or otherwise commenting on? Tearlach 14:13, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

Please do not merge the useless drivel on the History of Lesbianism page with the material in the Sappho article. Groundless assertions are made in nearly every sentence, sources are not cited, common falsehoods are repeated and, perhaps worst of all, there appear to be quite a few quotes from translations that are under copyright protection. Ande B. 06:43, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

I removed the request to merge from the History of Lesbianism page. The two articles cover different topics and no-one has voiced any support for the merger in 7 months. Ande B 07:39, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

"Peer of the gods"

I applaud the idea of putting a translation of fr. 31 in the article, but the one given is IMO awful. "Peer of the gods he seems/Who in thy presence/Sits..." may have been decent poetic style at the turn of the 19th/20th cent., but it doesn't work for this early 21st century reader. Plus, the fifth and sixth stanzas aren't in the Greek text.

I realize that it's hard to find public domain translations, but if this one were my first exposure to Sappho I don't think I'd want to read more. Can we find something else? (I could even try my hand at translating it, if there's nothing available.) Akhilleus 21:46, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree that these public domain styles are not to the taste of many people at all. I only read them to get a historical comparison. You're right about the extra lines that Carman added; that's typical of the majority of translators prior to Barnard. Personally, I wouldn't mind if someone posted their own translation but I was under the impression that we weren't supposed to be doing that on the Wikipedia. Otherwise I might have been tempted to post one of my own! I could be totally wrong about that restriction, however, so don't take my word on it. My own preference is the original language with a near literal translation. If you don't like this poem, just remove it. Ande B. 02:32, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Oxyrynchus link is great

Thanks to whoever added the P.Oxy link to the "New Poem" section. I've added a link to the full collection at Oxford to the External links. If you can read ancient Greek, it's well worth taking a look at these hi-res jpegs. They're not always as clear as you might like, but for the mast part, I'm quite happy to see them. Ande B 03:16, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Clarification needed?

This passage: "Starting in the Rennaissance, at least two different Gregories have been accused of having copies of Sappho's poetry deliberately destroyed. Bishop Gregory of Nazianzus (329-374) is alleged to have incited the burning of many texts by pagan writers, either on his own instance or at the urging of his son, who is known as St. Gregory of Nazianzus. Pope Gregory VII(1073–1085)" reads to me as if the two Gregories lived in the Renaissance, which of course is not what's meant. Presumably uit really means that some critics in the Renaissance were saying this. Might be useful to clarify this, naming the critics. (Sorry but I'm in no position to do this myself). PiCo 10:06, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Good point, Pico. I'll try to pull out my reference books to get a more precise description of the critical sources. In the mean time, I'll tighten up the language a bit. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. Ande B 21:36, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Unclear implication

Older critics sometimes alleged that she led an aesthetic movement away from typical themes of gods to the themes of individual human experiences and emotions, but it is now considered more likely that her work belongs in a long tradition of Lesbian poetry, and is simply among the first to have been recorded in writing.

I'm a bit confused as to the meaning of this passage. Why are these two theories contradictory?--Starwed 07:05, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure. It sounds a bit POV to me. I'd remove it, as the category of "Lesbian poetry" wasn't around in Sappho's time, at least not in the modern sense as it's used here. Also: is is sourced? If not, needs to be clipped as POV (IMHO). --DanielCD 23:41, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

It's possible "Lesbian poetry" simply meant poetry from Lesbos. If so, it should probably be reworded... but it would need a source either way. --Starwed 07:29, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

I corrected "Lesbian" to "lyric." Basically what this sentence says is that there was a view, once common among scholars, that Sappho and the other lyric poets were the first Greek poets to focus on an individual's emotions as the basis for poetry, in opposition to epic, which was about the noble deeds of heroes and gods. You can find older critics talking about lyric poetry as the first place in Greek literature where we have a true sense of an individual personality behind the poetry. Following Nagy and other scholars, many people now think there was a long tradition of oral composition of lyric poetry, just as there was for epic poetry, but this tradition is lost to us because it didn't get written down.

This sentence, while not particularly well-written, conveys pretty commonplace ideas, so I don't feel like it's crying out for sources. However, if others feel they are required, a place to look for the "older" view might be Albin Lesky's Greek Literature, and a place for the "newer" view might be Gregory Nagy's Pindar's Homer, or the article on Greek Lyric in the Cambridge History of Greek Literature. --Akhilleus (talk) 18:25, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Poor text

Sapphos' other love was well, women. This was inventing of lesbians.

I can't think of a good way to rephrase these entences, but I think it needs attention. 125.62.94.252 11:53, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Olisbos

The article states:

"With less certainty, she may have invented the plectrum, or pick, which is used to strum the strings of the lyre. Prior to the development of the plectrum, the strings of the lyre were plucked by the fingers. The word which is generally understood to refer to the plectrum is olisbos, but its derivation is uncertain and other meanings have been proposed, thus the uncertainty of it being the specific invention of Sappho. It does appear, however, that she made great use of the plectrum at a time when others were content to pluck the strings."

I was under the impression that olisbos was the Greek term for dildo. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Narkissos (talk • contribs) .

You're quite right,[1] and "generally understood" is perhaps too strong. West has proposed that the phrase in fr. 99, col. 1, be translated "[strings] which welcome the plectrum." But Campbell (Greek Lyric Loeb vol. 1, p. 125 with n. 1) also regards "[women] who use the dildo" as possible, commenting, "perhaps with hostile reference to the descendants of Polyanax; text uncertain." (Campbell leaves olisbos untranslated in his actual translation: "...descendants of Polyanax...strike the strings...receiving the 'olisbos'...kindly...quivers...") Wareh 13:23, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

: So, I changed it to "often understood".

Vultur 04:08, 22 November 2006 (UTC)Vultur (21 November 2006)

scholar or scholars?

The recent edit provides one reference from J. Fairweather. Is that the only reference to assert that "scholars have rejected a biographical reading of the poetry and have cast grave doubts"? If that is the only ref, we should attributed to that specific scholar. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 04:07, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Nope, two references, one to Fairweather, one to Lefkowitz. I'd be very interested in any references to scholarship on Sappho since these publications that has disputed their views. These are very widely cited works. Wareh 04:15, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

There is a collection of refs in the References section thaty seem to provide support for the material in the article. I would argue for adding some wording about the fact that there is a dipute about the historicity of Sappho, rather than assert that the "grave doubts" are a fact. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 04:19, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

It's not clear to me why you think those books support an optimistic view about what we know of Sappho's life. Are you familiar with these books? The first sentence of the publisher's blurb for duBois's Sappho is Burning is "To know all we know about Sappho is to know little." Likewise, the publisher's blurb on Margaret Williamson's book:

She lived on the island of Lesbos around 600 B.C.E. She composed lyric poetry, only fragments of which survive. And she was--and is--the most highly regarded woman poet of Greek and Roman antiquity. Little more than this can be said with certainty about Sappho, and yet a great deal more is said.

How true. Of the remaining titles, only the Greek editions are even meant to be taken as works of scholarship, and I don't remember that Campbell takes a particularly credulous attitude either. So what support is there? I could have just deleted huge passages of the "Life" section for just this reason (what it implies is almost universally regarded as false or doubtful). But that's not my Wikipedia philosophy. Instead, I added the valuable content I knew I could add: a warning about scholarly skepticism regarding the ancient traditions of authors' biographies. I must point out that my addition is currently the only part of this article that is specifically supported by references to respected works of scholarship, so that I'm mystified at being called out for this. Wareh 04:36, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

You are doing good work, Wareh. When I read the text you added, it seemed to be just an unsupported opinion. You are welcome to re-add it, this time with an inline ref for these sources. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 20:11, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Assessing recent major edit

(diff) I don't have Barnard's translation at home, and obviously Barnard's numbers are not a standard of reference. Now, enough context for "#78" is there to recognize it as a fragment Lobel-Page consider "Sappho or Alcaeus" (frr. adespota 11). So this uncertainty should be noted. If an important statement is to be retained on the basis of "#72," we need to check it carefully. Does someone here have easy access to Barnard? If so, please post the translation, so it can be identified and checked in Greek. Wareh 01:22, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

This edit was well-intentioned and added valuable substance. But inevitably, by relying on a 50-year-old translation to support some of its points, it is subject to criticism. I have tried to make the minimum necessary cutback, which I will explain here. For the statement, "Certainly, Sappho wrote love poetry to men," the editor cites fr. 121 Lobel-Page. The problem here is that the poem's speaker is giving a reason why she will not share a bed with the male addressee, so it just makes too fine a point to suggest that the spaker's reasoning ("for I will not endure being the elder one in a partnership," trans. Campbell) somehow makes it certain or even likely that Sappho addressed love poems to males. For this, to put it bluntly, we'd need an "I want to be with you" poem, not a "Here's why I won't be with you" poem. Now for the point about Sappho as teacher. Fr. adesp. 11 LP is not evidence for this, for two reasons. First, as I mentioned above, there is no good reason to suppose that Sappho wrote the poem; Herodian cites it simply as an example of the Aeolic dialect, and it could be by Alcaeus. Second, while there are evident textual problems with the fragment, the manuscript reading is ἐξεδίδαξε Γυάρων, "he/she taught"—not "I taught," though this latter could interpret Schneidewin's conjecture ἐξείδαξ' ἐκ Γυάρω. Wareh 18:39, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi - I was responsible for the last 'major edit'. I have also recently been blocked for trolling and uttering physical threats by Luna Santin - I am an unregistered user (so I brought this on myself - normal IP 65.94.86.69) and when I last edited Sappho before being blocked I could see something to the effect of "ewwww...lesbianism" on the page, but when I clicked "edit" to remove the text, this mysterious and juvenile message had already disappeared. Anyway - I appreciate Wareh's comments on my edit - I am glad it was considered well intentioned (it was!). I also have Barnard's translation at home, but because of the blocking can't access Wiki from home anymore: I will add her text here in the discussion page and you all can discuss its meaning/any implications it may have re. Sappho's sexual preferences. I am obviously a Wiki-noob, so if anyone could guide me through this unblocking process I would much appreciate it. 132.206.99.13 20:42, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

You say you are an unregistered user. If you mean that you have never registered, and that your IP was blocked for someone else's actions, the obvious solution is to create an account and start taking responsibility for your own edits & avoiding responsibility for others'. (If your registered account was blocked, perhaps the information at Wikipedia:Appealing a block could be relevant.) In any case, please see my second comment above. I did get Barnard's translation from the library, and I checked more scholarly sources and explained above my reasons for not keeping some of your edit. I was able to determine which texts you were citing, so there's no reason for any further checking on your part. If you have any questions about Sappho or ideas about the article you'd like to discuss, please do bring them up here. Wareh 21:44, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I missed your second point - studying for a Judicial Institutions and Civil Procedure exam rots the mind! Ok - I set up an account - but I can't find out how to contact the relevant administrator/editor, LUNA SANTIN (it seems i can only acces their email from home on my 'you are blocked' page, which also of course prevents me from actually emailing them). The Appealing Block page is useful but only suggests ways to go about handling the situation and, aside from leaving messages here, doesn't really suggest how I can go about actually interacting with the relevent editor. Anyway, this is all very irrelevent to Sappho and everyone else on this page -- so if LUNA could email me at my new account that would be fantastic.Brutus cassius 22:42, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

This is Luna Santin's talk page. Click here to leave Luna Santin a message on the talk page, or click here to email Luna Santin. Wareh 23:00, 2 December 2006 (UTC)