![]() ![]() Sermons of Gregory of Nazianzus copied in 972: Add MS 18231, f. Scaliger’s dubious remark is probably a distorted quotation from Cardano, confusing the two Gregories. Lamenting over the miserable destruction of classical writers in the Middle Ages, Scaliger stated first that Pope Gregory VII in 1073 had ordered the burning of all lascivious Roman writers, and secondly that, in Constantinople in the 4th century, Gregory of Nazianzus, had burnt the works of comedians and lyrical poets, including Sappho. ![]() Scaliger was probably quoting in turn from a work by Geronimo Cardano, a 16th-century Italian polymath who wrote a book about the transmission of ancient wisdom. This tradition can probably be traced to a collection of the sayings of the French scholar Joseph Scaliger, published in 1666. However, this is rather unrealistic: it is unclear how a Roman Pope could command the destruction of texts in Constantinople after the great schism of 1054. There is a widespread tradition that, in 1073, Pope Gregory VII ordered that all of Sappho’s works be burnt in Rome as well as in Constantinople. It has often been suggested that it was this love of girls that led to the systematic destruction of Sappho's poetry in the Middle Ages. Image of book burning, from the start of Aristotle's Physica, England (Oxford?), 3rd quarter of the 13th century: Harley MS 3847, f. This 'subtle flame that runs over her skin', as she describes it in a famous piece, is directed at various individuals: her brother Charaxus, as in the British Library fragment beautiful boys (one of whom later tradition identified with Phaon, whose unrequited love reportedly made Sappho commit suicide) and a number of girls, including Pyrrha, Cydro and Anactoria, as recorded by the 1st-century Roman poet Ovid. What survives seems to justify Sappho’s poetic fame: she wrote in various styles, verses and voices, mainly about passionate love. Moreover, the clear designation of the scroll as 'the first' book of the poems indicates that there was probably a second or maybe even a third volume of Sappho’s poems, the majority of which is now lost. It preserves the closing stanza of another Sappho poem from the end of a papyrus scroll with a short note: ' the first book of the poems – 1320 lines.' On this basis, the scroll may have contained 330 of Sappho’s characteristic strophes, making almost a hundred poems. 191rĪnother 2nd-century fragment, held at the Bodleian Library in Oxford, is more tantalising. Girl with a lyre from the Theodore Psalter, Constantinople, 1066: Add MS 19352, f. We've previously blogged about this poem. The British Library holds a papyrus fragment from the 3rd century which, complemented by a newly identified piece in an American private collection, provides us with an almost complete text of a hitherto unknown poem of Sappho. However, others in the ancient world did record her poems. Sappho sang her poems, and there is no evidence she wrote them down herself. The third and final talk in the series will be given on Monday, 11 December, and is titled Sappho: The Shame. Complete with Carson s introduction and notes, it will become the standard translation of Sappho for our time.The British Library is currently hosting the 2017 Panizzi Lectures, delivered by Professor Germaine Greer on the subject of Sappho. IF NOT, WINTER gives us an extraordinary ancient poet brought alive by a brilliantly empathetic contemporary poet. And certainly her translation illuminates Sappho s reflections on love and desire, her companions and rivals, the goddess Aphrodite, her own daughter, Kleis. Carson says of her method of translation: I like to think that, the more I stand out of the way, the more Sappho shows through. ![]() In IF NOT, WINTER, Carson presents all the extant fragments of Sappho s verse, employing brackets and white space to denote missing text - allowing the reader to imagine the poems as they were written. During her life on the island of Lesbos, Sappho is said to have composed nine books of lyrics. If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho (Vintage Contemporaries) Sapphoįrom the critically acclaimed poet and classicist Anne Carson: a brilliant new translation of the work of Sappho, together with the original Greek. ![]()
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