1.
May I write words more naked than flesh, stronger than bone, more resilient than sinew, sensitive than nerve.
Sappho
'May I craft phrases more candid than skin, tougher than skeleton, hardier than tendons, and keener than sensation.'
2.
When I look on you a moment, then I can speak no more, but my tongue falls silent, and at once a delicate flame courses beneath my skin, and with my eyes I see nothing, and my ears hum, and a wet sweat bathes me and a trembling seizes me all over.
Sappho
3.
You may forget but
let me tell you
this: someone in
some future time
will think of us
Sappho
4.
Beauty endures only for as long as it can be seen; goodness, beautiful today, will remain so tomorrow.
Sappho
5.
What cannot be said will be wept.
Sappho
6.
Someone, I tell you, in another time will remember us
Sappho
7.
Whatever one loves most is beautiful.
Sappho
8.
Once again love drives me on, that loosener of limbs, bittersweet creature against which nothing can be done.
Sappho
9.
Although only breath, words which I command are immortal.
Sappho
10.
Stand and face me, my love,and scatter the grace in your eyes.
Sappho
11.
All the while, believe me, I prayed our night would last twice as long.
Sappho
12.
Love shook my heart/ Like the wind on the mountain/ Troubling the oak-trees
Sappho
13.
Stars veil their beauty soon / Beside the glorious moon, / When her full silver light / Doth make the whole earth bright.
Sappho
14.
Love is a cunning weaver of fantasies and fables.
Sappho
15.
Some say an army of horsemen, or infantry,
A fleet of ships is the fairest thing
On the face of the black earth, but I say
It's what one loves.
Sappho
16.
When anger spreads through the breath, guard thy tongue from barking idly.
Sappho
17.
Mere air, these words, but delicious to hear.
Sappho
18.
Death is an evil; the gods have so judged; had it been good, they would die.
Sappho
19.
With his venom irresistible and bittersweet that loosener of limbs, Love reptile-like strikes me down
Sappho
20.
I know not what to do, my mind is divided
Sappho
21.
There is no place for grief in a house which serves the Muse.
Sappho
22.
I took my lyre and said: come now, my heavenly tortoise shell: become a speaking instrument.
Sappho
23.
The evening star Is the most beautiful of all stars
Sappho
24.
From all the offspring of the earth and heaven love is the most precious.
Sappho
25.
No honey for me, if it comes with a bee.
Sappho
26.
Love, like a mountain-wind upon an oak, falling upon me, shakes me leaf and bough.
Sappho
27.
Now the Earth with many flowers puts on her spring embroidery
Sappho
28.
Eros seizes and shakes my very soul like the wind on the mountain
shaking ancient oaks.
Sappho
29.
Death is an ill; 'tis thus the Gods decide: / For had death been a boon, the Gods had died.
Sappho
30.
Death must be an evil and the gods agree; for why else would they live for ever?
Sappho
31.
He who is fair to look upon is good, and he who is good will soon be fair also.
Sappho
32.
The moon has set, and the Pleiades; it is midnight, and time passes, and I sleep alone.
Sappho
33.
Eros harrows my heart: wild gales sweeping desolate mountains, uprooting oaks.
Sappho
34.
Love - bittersweet, irrepressible - loosens my limbs and I tremble.
Sappho
35.
To me the Muses truly gave / An envied and a happy lot: / E'en when I lie within the grave, / I cannot, shall not, be forgot.
Sappho
36.
How love the limb-loosener sweeps me away
Sappho
37.
Without warning as a whirlwind swoops on an oak Love shakes my heart
Sappho
38.
Dancing up the full moon
Round some fair new altar
Trample the soft blossoms of fine grass.
Sappho
39.
Experience shows us Wealth unchaperoned by Virtue is never an innocuous neighbor.
Sappho
40.
Hesperus bringing together All that the morning star scattered.
Sappho
41.
In gold sandals / dawn like a thief / fell upon me.
Sappho
42.
I would not think to touch the sky with two arms
Sappho
43.
If you are squeamish
Don't prod the
beach rubble.
Sappho
44.
Raise high the roof-beam, carpenters. Like Ares comes the bridegroom, taller far than a tall man.
Sappho
45.
For some the fairest thing on the dark earth is Thermopylae,
And the Spartan phalanx lowering lances to die.
Sappho
46.
I do not know what to do, my mind's in two.
Sappho
47.
The moon has set In a bank of jet That fringes the Western sky, The pleiads seven Have sunk from heaven And the midnight hurries by; My hopes are flown And, alas! alone On my weary couch I lie.
Sappho
48.
Builders, raise the ceiling high, Raise the dome into the sky, Hear the wedding song! For the happy groom is near, Tall as Mars, and statelier, Hear the wedding song!
Sappho
49.
I will let my body flow like water over the gentle cushions.
Sappho
50.
The Moon and Pleiades have set, / Midnight is nigh, / The time is passing, passing, yet / Alone I lie.
Sappho
