A complete primer for first-time readers

Reading Sappho

Sappho from fragment to context: a reading guide to the surviving poems, the ancient reports, the translations and the world of the lyric poet of Lesbos.

Recommended Translation

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If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho, translated by Anne Carson: cover
Recommended

Anne Carson (2002)

Anne Carson’s If Not, Winter (2002) sets Greek and English on facing pages and brackets papyrus gaps; suited to readers wanting fragmentary texts shown.

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Sappho: A New Translation of the Complete Works, translated by Diane J. Rayor, introduction and notes by André Lardinois: cover
Most complete

Rayor and Lardinois (2014)

Diane Rayor’s translation of the complete works, with notes by André Lardinois; it includes the Cologne papyrus and the Brothers Poem.

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Short verse versionsMary Barnard
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Wharton’s Sappho, free

Henry Thornton Wharton’s literal prose translation, with notes on where each fragment survives, collected verse renderings and the Greek, can be read online free.

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Quick Reference

The quick-reference pages cover fragment numbers, well-known poems, key Greek terms and the sources that preserved Sappho’s work.

The Most Cited FragmentsNineteen well-known fragments, each given with a famous line, its length and how it survives, and linked to its own page.Concordance of Fragment NumbersWharton/Bergk, Voigt, Lobel-Page and Edmonds numbers set side by side, with the evidence for each match.How Sappho’s Poems SurvivedWhat was lost, how the fragments survive, and the finds from papyri and parchments.The Ancient Lives of SapphoAncient reports about Sappho in date order, each excerpted with author, work and section, and kept separate from what her poems say.Key Words and FormsGreek words that translations render differently, the Sapphic stanza and other metres, and the Aeolic dialect.Translating SapphoLiteral prose, rhymed verse and the Sapphic stanza as approaches to translation, with one fragment shown in several public-domain versions.

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Three Things to Know Before Page One

I

Only fragments survive

Sappho wrote around 600 BC. Her poems survive only as fragments, quoted by later writers or copied on damaged papyri and parchment.

II

Two numbering systems

Wharton numbers fragments as Bergk did in 1882; Voigt numbers stand beside his where independent texts agree. “That man seems to me peer of gods” is 2 and 31.

III

Later finds are separate

Poems on papyri published from 1902 onward are not in Wharton’s translation. Rayor’s translation, with Lardinois, includes the Cologne papyrus and 2014 finds, among them the Brothers Poem.

More from the Guide

Read Sappho: Index of FragmentsAn index of every fragment by Wharton’s number, with the Voigt number beside it and the opening words, or the name of the reporting author where no words survive.The Writers Who Preserved HerThe authors who quoted Sappho and the fragments each preserved, with a list of downloaded works not used elsewhere.The World of SapphoLesbos and Mytilene around 600 B.C., Alcaeus and Pittacus, Lydia, women’s song and festival.Prefaces and In MemoriamWharton’s three prefaces (1885, 1887, 1895) and J. S. Cotton’s In Memoriam.Life of SapphoWharton’s memoir of Sappho, as printed.Sappho to PhaonPope’s translation of Ovid’s Heroides 15, with Wharton’s bibliography.About This EditionThe source, conventions and numbering of the edition, Wharton’s English, the Voigt numbers and a note on poems found since 1908.Further ReadingBiographies and scholarship on Sappho, each described, with affiliate links.Full TextThe whole edition on one page: every fragment with its notes, in Wharton’s order.