Ancient Greek Lyrics collects Willis Barnstone's elegant translations of Greek lyric poetry—including the most complete Sappho in English, newly translated. This volume includes a representative sampling of all the significant poets, from Archilochos, in the 7th century BCE, through Pindar and the other great singers of the classical age, down to the Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine periods. William E. McCulloh's introduction illuminates the forms and development of the Greek lyric while Barnstone provides a brief biographical and literary sketch for each poet and adds a substantial introduction to Sappho—revised for this edition—complete with notes and sources.
Today, thousands of years after her birth, in lands remote from her native island of Lesbos and in languages that did not exist when she wrote her poetry in Aeolic Greek, Sappho remains an important name among lovers of poetry and poets alike. Celebrated throughout antiquity as the supreme Greek poet of love and of the personal lyric, noted especially for her limpid fusion of formal poise, lucid insight, and incandescent passion, today her poetry is also prized for its uniquely vivid participation in a living paganism.
This volume contains the poetic fragments of the two illustrious singers
of early sixth-century Lesbos: Sappho, the most famous woman poet of
antiquity, whose main theme was love; and Alcaeus, poet of wine, war,
and politics, and composer of short hymns to the gods. Also included
are the principal testimonia, the ancients' reports on the lives and
work of the two poets.
BILINGUAL
Greek (some latin in Testimonia) on left page, English translation on the adjoining page.