Some excerpts.
The first is the first 3 stanzas of a longer piece (I think the only complete poem we still have from Sappho)
Poochigian:
Subtly bedizened Aphrodite,
Deathless daughter of Zeus, Wile-weaver,
I beg you, Empress, do not smite me
With anguish and fever
But come as often, on request,
(Hearing me, heeding from afar,)
You left your father's gleaming feast,
Yoked team to car,
And came. Fair sparrows in compact
Flurries of winged rapidity
Cleft sky and over a gloomy tract
Brought you to me -
Carson:
Deathless Aphrodite of the spangled mind
child of Zeus, who twists lures, I beg you
do not break with hard pains,
O lady, my heart
but come here if ever before
you caught my voice far off
and listening left your father's
golden house and came,
yoking your car. And fine birds brought you,
quick sparrows over the black earth
whipping their wings down the sky
through midair--
Carson's use of spacing and brackets does sort of remind me of more experimental modern poetry although Sappho is the farthest thing from modern and the themes are very traditional for poetry: love, broken hearts, nature, beauty, proverbs, etc. I think it was a positive, but if strange formating is not your cup of tea, then Carson's version probably won't work for you.
An example:
]
]
]
] youth
]
]
]
]
]
]
Or just these words on an otherwise empty page:
spangled is
the earth with her crowns
The first is the first 3 stanzas of a longer piece (I think the only complete poem we still have from Sappho)
Poochigian:
Subtly bedizened Aphrodite,
Deathless daughter of Zeus, Wile-weaver,
I beg you, Empress, do not smite me
With anguish and fever
But come as often, on request,
(Hearing me, heeding from afar,)
You left your father's gleaming feast,
Yoked team to car,
And came. Fair sparrows in compact
Flurries of winged rapidity
Cleft sky and over a gloomy tract
Brought you to me -
Carson:
Deathless Aphrodite of the spangled mind
child of Zeus, who twists lures, I beg you
do not break with hard pains,
O lady, my heart
but come here if ever before
you caught my voice far off
and listening left your father's
golden house and came,
yoking your car. And fine birds brought you,
quick sparrows over the black earth
whipping their wings down the sky
through midair--
Carson's use of spacing and brackets does sort of remind me of more experimental modern poetry although Sappho is the farthest thing from modern and the themes are very traditional for poetry: love, broken hearts, nature, beauty, proverbs, etc. I think it was a positive, but if strange formating is not your cup of tea, then Carson's version probably won't work for you.
An example:
]
]
]
] youth
]
]
]
]
]
]
Or just these words on an otherwise empty page:
spangled is
the earth with her crowns