LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Sappho: Fragments
built 269 days ago
The fragments of Sappho that survive come from ancient quotations in other authors and from papyrus. Here is a fragment of papyrus from Oxyrhynchus in Egpyt, that contains "The Wedding of Hektor and Andromache" (Sappho 44). Click on the image to go to the Oxyrhynchus Papyri website and read more about this papyrus (and see a larger image).
Source:
Sappho creates songs which seem spontaneous and of the moment. They use traditional forms (such as prayer formulas and epic conventions), but rework them cleverly. Perhaps fragment 168B can hint at Sappho’s aesthetic and emotional power:
Source:
Broumas often makes use of themes and images from Greek mythology, and, like Sappho, uses them as metaphors for her own situations. She reinterpreted the story of the rape of Leda by Zeus into a tale of lesbian desire by changing the sex of the swan (the form Zeus assumed). But most remarkably, while reviewing notes she had made on Sappho, Broumas found a two-verse epigraph that she assumed must have been from one of Sappho’s fragments. But it is not from any of them. It seems instead that Sappho took the opportunity to write yet more, through her modern inheritors. Perhaps one day, when more fragments are found, this will be among them:
Source:
[Anne Carson has translated all of Sappho's known fragments, including individual words, and gives the original Greek on the facing page. Carson's brief introduction explains her method and goal; her notes are valuable (no superscript leads you to them) and frequently witty:]
Source:
MORE ABOUT
Fragments