Fragment 32 (Voigt 147)
32 · Voigt 147Men I think will remember us even hereafter.
Μνάσεσθαί τινά φαμι καὶ ὔστερον ἄμμεων.
Compare Swinburne’s—
Thou art more than I,
Though my voice die not till the whole world die.
and—
Memories shall mix and metaphors of me.
and—
I Sappho shall be one with all these things,
With all high things for ever.
Anactoria.
Dio Chrysostom, the celebrated Greek rhetorician, writing about 100 A.D., observes that Sappho says this ‘with perfect beauty.’
To illustrate this use of φαμι, Bergk quotes a fragment preserved by Plutarch, which may have been written by Sappho:
. . . . . ἔγω φᾶμι ἰοπλόκων
Μοισᾶν εὖ λάχεμεν.
I think I have a goodly portion in the violet weaving Muses.