An essay from the Chained Muse - by Martin Mc Carthy. Not much is known about the Greek poet Sappho, except that she was born around 630 B.C. on the island of Lesbos in the port city of Mytilene, and was apparently exiled to Sicily...
It was my honor to have my Sappho translations reviewed by Martin Mc Carthy, a gentleman and a scholar who, if I remember things correctly, said that he had read 14 different collections of translations of Sappho's poems. Martin's love of Sappho's poetry and his deep-and-wide readings of her work make him uniquely qualified to write such a review, and that fact that he considers some of my translations to be the best, or among the best, of specific poems, makes me happy and proud.
Yes, you are correct. Including Anne Carson and yourself, I have read 14 different translators of Sappho's collected poems and fragments, and your translations are, in my opinion, as close as one can get to the real thing. In your hands, I can feel Sappho breathing and living still. And that is not only a truly enormous achievement, it also a great service to all of us who love great poetry.
My main goal as an editor and publisher of poetry for the last 30 years has been to help readers connect with poets. My main goal as a translator is the same. So if my translations of Sappho help her connect with more readers, that makes me happy.
It makes me happy also, because so much of Sappho's work was either lost or destroyed, and what remains of it does not adequately represent her. Yet, in the pieces you've assembled - sometimes from the merest of fragments - you have indeed managed to connect her with more readers than she would otherwise have attracted. So, almost miraculously and quite justly, there is just enough there now to suggest that she was immensely gifted - perhaps the most gifted poet of all time!
Sappho's ancient peers certainly thought she was the greatest lyric poet of all time, when they called her the Tenth Muse. Who am I to argue with Plato, Antipater, et al?
Well, in that case, let's have a little bit more of her. Would you please do me the honour of posting your latest Sappho fragment below? I just love that one. I mean the one regarding her religion. It’s quite amazing just how much is being said in so few words!
I have never found Sappho compelling…until now. Mr Burch’s translation is a revelation. I feel exactly like Keats upon his reading Chapman’s translation of Homer, “Then felt I like I some watcher of the skies, When a new planet swims into his ken;”
Thank you for making my day Mr . McCarthy for introducing me to this marvelous translation! Finally, I feel I have had a glimpse into the spirit of Sappho’s genius.
By the way, I have always loved that quote from Keats about his travels in the realms of gold. For me, we have gold in abundance in Mike's translations of Sappho.
Patrick, I am very honored by your generous compliment. As a translator and editor, it has always been my goal to help the best poets reach more readers. You make me feel as if I've accomplished my main goal with my Sappho translations, so thanks.
Thank you, Geraldine. I'm already in the process of writing those poems right now. The overall title for them is 'Sapphics', and there will be around 20 poems in all, in Sappho's voice and style (all by me), just to bring her back to life.
This essay is impeccable, and it is a fine tribute in and of itself to Sappho and to Michael R. Burch’s incomparable translations of her work. And what better person to write such an essay than Martin Mc Carthy, who, in my own personal opinion, has written some of the greatest love poems in the English language? Fine work, my friend!
It was a great pleasure to write this review because I esteem both Sappho and Mike very highly. Your remarks about me are much appreciated, because my love poems do have quite a few similarities with Sappho's. In fact, I feel as if her spirit it in me sometimes.
You are very welcome, Martin! I also sense that her spirit is in you sometimes, and I agree that your love poems share similarities with those of the Tenth Muse, which is no small thing, I might add.
Someday I will come back to this spot and I will put a garland of special poems in one of these comment boxes to atone in some way to Sappho for the grave wrong that was done to her when her work was destroyed. You might say I will wreathe her with the roses of Pieria. Maybe you and Mike might help?
I have been waiting to pop this post open, Martin, until I have had some time with nothing to do and good coffee to drink. Having a good old time reading and re-reading slowly. Thank you sir.
Michael's translations are done the way I like translations done. Translating not only content but rhythm and art and feeling... Quite remarkable
Not sure how much of this overlaps what he posted the other day, possibly all of it. Still it reads fresh.
Mike is the best living translator of Sappho. At this stage, I've read over 14 translations of her surviving poems and fragments, and nobody can match him. I know this because I have actually written twenty original poems in Sappho's voice and style. I'll post one here especially for you for taking an interest. Come back and take a look in a short while.
This is the second poem in a sequence I wrote called Sapphics. At present I'm trying to get them all published together. Once I've done that I intend to publish them myself on Substack, with a dedication to Mike for preserving her work.
"leaving nothing but those star-touched sandals"... what a tempting line.
I deeply enjoyed reading this post and have to thank Jed for tuning me into it. Astonishing that anyone would attempt to translate Sappho without a hint of eroticism. Makes one wonder, what was their purpose? Where is the joy in it?
I'm excited to dive into more of your work, Martin.
Thank you for commenting, Faye. It never occurred to me that somebody might make their way through the comments and actually read the poem I posted in response to Jed's interest in this post, so I can hardly express how happy I am because of what you said about 'Sappho's Prayer'. And yes, more of my Sappho poems will appear in due course, Happily for many, thet are quite erotic!
This is not a translation, Jed. But I'm so very glad you think so. This is me writing an original poem in her voice and style. It's part of our attempt to atone to her for the grave wrong that was done when the church destroyed most of her writings.
Ah ... Of course... Remarkable in any case. As a jazz musician, I have a long appreciation of composing and improvising original work in a classic style. You do Sappho a service here. I clearly have homework to do as I do not know her back story.
Obviously another in a cascade of tragedies perpetrated by the institutional church.
It was my honor to have my Sappho translations reviewed by Martin Mc Carthy, a gentleman and a scholar who, if I remember things correctly, said that he had read 14 different collections of translations of Sappho's poems. Martin's love of Sappho's poetry and his deep-and-wide readings of her work make him uniquely qualified to write such a review, and that fact that he considers some of my translations to be the best, or among the best, of specific poems, makes me happy and proud.
Yes, you are correct. Including Anne Carson and yourself, I have read 14 different translators of Sappho's collected poems and fragments, and your translations are, in my opinion, as close as one can get to the real thing. In your hands, I can feel Sappho breathing and living still. And that is not only a truly enormous achievement, it also a great service to all of us who love great poetry.
My main goal as an editor and publisher of poetry for the last 30 years has been to help readers connect with poets. My main goal as a translator is the same. So if my translations of Sappho help her connect with more readers, that makes me happy.
It makes me happy also, because so much of Sappho's work was either lost or destroyed, and what remains of it does not adequately represent her. Yet, in the pieces you've assembled - sometimes from the merest of fragments - you have indeed managed to connect her with more readers than she would otherwise have attracted. So, almost miraculously and quite justly, there is just enough there now to suggest that she was immensely gifted - perhaps the most gifted poet of all time!
Sappho's ancient peers certainly thought she was the greatest lyric poet of all time, when they called her the Tenth Muse. Who am I to argue with Plato, Antipater, et al?
Well, in that case, let's have a little bit more of her. Would you please do me the honour of posting your latest Sappho fragment below? I just love that one. I mean the one regarding her religion. It’s quite amazing just how much is being said in so few words!
Thanks for asking! This is my latest Sappho translation:
My religion consists of your body's curves and crevasses.—attributed to Sappho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Are you able to post the poem it inspired, or is that one still under wraps?
I have never found Sappho compelling…until now. Mr Burch’s translation is a revelation. I feel exactly like Keats upon his reading Chapman’s translation of Homer, “Then felt I like I some watcher of the skies, When a new planet swims into his ken;”
Thank you for making my day Mr . McCarthy for introducing me to this marvelous translation! Finally, I feel I have had a glimpse into the spirit of Sappho’s genius.
Patrick, you have made my day also.
By the way, I have always loved that quote from Keats about his travels in the realms of gold. For me, we have gold in abundance in Mike's translations of Sappho.
Patrick, I am very honored by your generous compliment. As a translator and editor, it has always been my goal to help the best poets reach more readers. You make me feel as if I've accomplished my main goal with my Sappho translations, so thanks.
Beautiful
Thank you, Geraldine. I'm already in the process of writing those poems right now. The overall title for them is 'Sapphics', and there will be around 20 poems in all, in Sappho's voice and style (all by me), just to bring her back to life.
This essay is impeccable, and it is a fine tribute in and of itself to Sappho and to Michael R. Burch’s incomparable translations of her work. And what better person to write such an essay than Martin Mc Carthy, who, in my own personal opinion, has written some of the greatest love poems in the English language? Fine work, my friend!
It was a great pleasure to write this review because I esteem both Sappho and Mike very highly. Your remarks about me are much appreciated, because my love poems do have quite a few similarities with Sappho's. In fact, I feel as if her spirit it in me sometimes.
You are very welcome, Martin! I also sense that her spirit is in you sometimes, and I agree that your love poems share similarities with those of the Tenth Muse, which is no small thing, I might add.
Someday I will come back to this spot and I will put a garland of special poems in one of these comment boxes to atone in some way to Sappho for the grave wrong that was done to her when her work was destroyed. You might say I will wreathe her with the roses of Pieria. Maybe you and Mike might help?
That is such a wonderful idea, Martin! I definitely think you should do it. How can Mike and I help when the time comes?
I don't know yet. Ideas become more real once they have been put out there. They start making their way into reality.
I have been waiting to pop this post open, Martin, until I have had some time with nothing to do and good coffee to drink. Having a good old time reading and re-reading slowly. Thank you sir.
Michael's translations are done the way I like translations done. Translating not only content but rhythm and art and feeling... Quite remarkable
Not sure how much of this overlaps what he posted the other day, possibly all of it. Still it reads fresh.
Mike is the best living translator of Sappho. At this stage, I've read over 14 translations of her surviving poems and fragments, and nobody can match him. I know this because I have actually written twenty original poems in Sappho's voice and style. I'll post one here especially for you for taking an interest. Come back and take a look in a short while.
Sappho’s Prayer
While these frenzied hands
draw music
from an ancient but still-willing lyre,
I beseech you, Aphrodite:
compel our amorous enchantress
to discard
her alluring garments very slowly …
leaving nothing
but those star-touched sandals …
This is the second poem in a sequence I wrote called Sapphics. At present I'm trying to get them all published together. Once I've done that I intend to publish them myself on Substack, with a dedication to Mike for preserving her work.
"leaving nothing but those star-touched sandals"... what a tempting line.
I deeply enjoyed reading this post and have to thank Jed for tuning me into it. Astonishing that anyone would attempt to translate Sappho without a hint of eroticism. Makes one wonder, what was their purpose? Where is the joy in it?
I'm excited to dive into more of your work, Martin.
Thank you for commenting, Faye. It never occurred to me that somebody might make their way through the comments and actually read the poem I posted in response to Jed's interest in this post, so I can hardly express how happy I am because of what you said about 'Sappho's Prayer'. And yes, more of my Sappho poems will appear in due course, Happily for many, thet are quite erotic!
Your happiness is shared in great measure! I shall eagerly await Sappho's continued presence here
Bravo 👏
I heartily endorse that project. This is a beautiful translation in its own right, Martin.
Calling for patience in the midst of frenzy, particularly with respect to love...
Is a theme for our time.
This is not a translation, Jed. But I'm so very glad you think so. This is me writing an original poem in her voice and style. It's part of our attempt to atone to her for the grave wrong that was done when the church destroyed most of her writings.
Ah ... Of course... Remarkable in any case. As a jazz musician, I have a long appreciation of composing and improvising original work in a classic style. You do Sappho a service here. I clearly have homework to do as I do not know her back story.
Obviously another in a cascade of tragedies perpetrated by the institutional church.
Excellent! Looking forward to the read.
I've just done it.