Interesting, Jon. But, then it depends on what each one of us means by
'richness.' I certainly found something I would call that in the
translation by Mary Barnard (who apparently wrote & asked Ezra Pound
what she should do to learn to become a poet, to which he answered,
Learn Sapphics.
Still that 'weaving' you speak of is I guess one of those things lost
in translation (I confess that I would not like to read those poems in
English sounding like Dylan Thomas).
Doug
On 19-Oct-07, at 9:45 AM, Jon Corelis wrote:
> To my perception (speaking just as a reader and with no pretensions to
> scholarship,) Sappho's poetry fuses two characteristics, only one of
> which translators into English have ever brought across: purity and
> richness.
Douglas Barbour
11655 - 72 Avenue NW
Edmonton Ab T6G 0B9
(780) 436 3320
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
Latest book: Continuations (with Sheila E Murphy)
http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=664
It's the first lesson, loss.
Who hasn't tried to learn it
at the hands of wind or thieves?
Jan Zwicky
|