Sappho was born on the island of Lesbos in the seventh century BC. Although she is said to have married a man and had a daughter by him named Cleïs, the poems in which she divulged her feelings for women have ensured that she has remained the ‘Lesbian’ poet in the popular imagination. In this fragmentary poem, her beloved Anaktoria has left her. Sappho compares her favourably to Helen of Troy. The implication is not simply that Anaktoria is beautiful, but that she has been led away almost against her will – like Helen, whom Paris took as his prize through the machinations of Aphrodite. Sappho hereby ingeniously avoids placing the blame on Anaktoria, and leaves the door open for a reconciliation.

Some say an army of horsemen, others

say foot soldiers, still others say a fleet

is the finest thing on the dark earth.

I say it is whatever one loves.

Everyone can understand this – consider

that Helen, far surpassing the beauty

of mortals, left behind

the best man of all

to sail away to Troy. She remembered

neither daughter nor dear parents,

as [Aphrodite] led her away

… [un]bending … mind

… lightly … chinks.

… reminding me now

of Anaktoria gone.

I would rather see her lovely step

and the radiant sparkle of her face

than all the war chariots in Lydia

and soldiers battling in arms.

Impossible … to happen

… human, but to pray for a share

… and for myself

PERSEPHONE AND THE POMEGRANATE SEEDS

Homeric Hymn to Demeter

Anon.

Translated by Peter McDonald, 2016

Demeter, goddess of the harvest, is devastated when her daughter Persephone is snatched away. Who is guilty of the crime? None other than Zeus’ brother Hades, god of the Underworld. As Demeter pines for her loss, the earth’s crops stop growing. This story, told in the form of a hymn in the seventh or sixth century BC, provides an explanation for the seasons. Peter McDonald’s translation is suitably emotionally charged.

Hymn 2: To Demeter

This is about Demeter, the long-haired goddess

Demeter, and about her child, a skinny-legged

little girl who was just taken away

one morning by Hades, Death himself, on the say-so

of his brother Zeus, the deep- and wide-bellowing God.

She was apart from her mother, and from Demeter’s

protecting sword, made all of gold, when he came;

she was running about in an uncut spring meadow

with her friends, the daughters of the god Ocean,

and picking flowers here and there – crocuses and wild roses,

with violets and tiny irises, then hyacinths

and one narcissus planted there by Gaia, the Earth,

as Zeus demanded, and as a favour to Death,

to trap the girl, whose own eyes were as small and bright

as the buds of flowers: it blazed and shone out

with astonishing colours, a prodigy as much for

the immortal gods as for people who die.

A hundred flower-heads sprung from the root

with a sweet smell so heavy and overpowering