Sappho



This treat is a four-line solo lyric poem of Sappho’s. The lines say that the moon has set, and the Pleiades, and the Midnight; and the hour, the season of fruition (ὤρα) was passing by, but as for me— alone, I lay down to sleep. All the subjects in the poem are feminine, the moon, the Pleiades, the Midnight and the Hour; there is a wondrous sorority in the cosmos that the speaker feels; and yet she is all alone, going to sleep unconsummated. There is no telling when she may wake up. She is the loneliest woman in all poetry.

© A P David 2019