Sappho: On What Is Best Some celebrate the beauty of knights, or infantry, or billowing flotillas at battle on the sea. Warfare has its glory, but I place far above these military splendors the one thing that you love. For proof of this contention examine history: we all remember Helen, who left her family, her child, and royal husband, to take a stranger's hand: her beauty had no equal, but bowed to love's command. As love then is the power that none can disobey, so too my thoughts must follow my darling far away: the sparkle of her laughter would give me greater joy than all the bronze-clad heroes who fought it out at Troy. -- translated from the Greek by Jon Corelis previously published in Summoning the sea: an anthology of contemporary poetry and prose (Salzburg and Oxford 1996) ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%