Sappho

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Depiction of Sappho on a Kalathos , around 470 BC. Chr., State Collections of Antiquities , Munich (Inv. 2416)

Sappho ( Attic and modern Greek Σαπφώ Sappho , debate usually [⁠ zapfoː ⁠] , classic [⁠ sapʰːɔ̌ː ⁠] ;.. * 630-612 BC .; † around 570 BC.) Was an ancient Greek poet . She is considered the most important poet of classical antiquity and has canonical meaning . Sappho lived in Mytilene on the island of Lesbos in the North Aegean , the cultural center of the 7th century BC . Erotic love plays an important role in her poetry. According to current estimates, only about seven percent of their complete works have been preserved.

Surname

Sappho calls himself Ψάπφω Psapphō , classical pronunciation [psápʰːɔː] in her texts . A similar spelling can only be found on a black-figure hydria in the National Museum in Warsaw , where the poet's (possibly prescribed) name Psathō is assigned. All other ancient authors and inscriptions, however, use the form Sápphō , which is in use today . This also applies to Sappho's compatriot and contemporaries of Alkaius ; the different spellings can hardly be explained as changes that have occurred over time or are dialectically determined. Under certain circumstances, their name, which cannot be traced back to any Greek root , began with a sibilant sound used in the Anatolian region , which could only be rendered imperfectly in the Greek alphabet and was therefore transliterated differently .

Life

Portrait of Sappho, Palazzo Massimo alle Terme , Rome. Photo by Paolo Monti , 1969.

The life of the Sappho is only recorded in later legends. "Thanks to ancient sources and autobiographical references from her works", her life can be reproduced to some extent. She came from an old Mytilenian noble family. The marble Parium tells us that Sappho was banished from Mytilene and went to Sicily. This banishment, which probably only affected her as a family member and was not personal, happened between 604/03 BC. BC and 596/95 BC Around the year 591 BC BC she returned to Lesbos and gathered a group of young girls of distinguished origin as schoolgirls around her. She taught the young women musical skills such as poetry, music, song and dance and performed with them at festivals in honor of the gods.

After Chamaileon of Herakleia , her father was called Scamandros or Skamandronymos, the latter form of name also gives Herodotus. According to Chamaileon, her mother's name was Kleis, that of her brothers Charaxos, Erigyios and Larichos. According to her own testimonies, she had a daughter, whom she probably addresses directly as Kleïs in a fragment and whose shape she compares with that of golden flowers. The Suda also names a daughter of Kleïs, as well as the child's father, an otherwise unreported husband named Kerkylas from the Cycladic island of Andros .

The assertion already assumed by Menander and Ovid that Sappho threw himself off a rock out of unrequited love for Phaon must also be referred to the realm of later legends . Since the mythical tradition localized Phaon, endowed with divine beauty, as a ferryman between Lesbos and Asia Minor, the geographical proximity to the home of the Sappho is likely to have favored the development of this construction.

plant

overview

Sappho goes to bed
Charles Gleyre (1867)

The work of the Sappho included gods' hymns , wedding and love songs, which were collected in nine books in antiquity, but are all lost today. The tradition must therefore be based on references and quotations from other authors or on papyrus fragments . To date, only four of her aeolian poems have been reconstructed with sufficient certainty in this way. One of the last of these only became known in 2004, when the two professors Michael Gronewald and Robert Daniel from the Institute of Antiquities at the University of Cologne found parts of it on a papyrus that had been used as mummy boxes and were able to use them for reconstruction. Another was discovered in 2005. Fragments of two other previously unknown poems, including the so-called “Brethren poem”, in which Sappho sings about the return of her older brother Charaxos and also mentions her younger brother Larichos, were discovered in 2014 by the American papyrologist Dirk Obbink .

Sappho is considered the most important poet of antiquity; Its clear and expressive language was particularly praised in antiquity, which made it the model of the Roman poet Horace , among other things . Even Catullus impressed Sappho's works, it that they even quoted in his poems (z. B. carmen 51, 62). Two centuries after her death, Plato valued her poetry so much that he called Sappho the tenth muse . She was often seen in the ancient reception as Homer in female form, and Friedrich Schlegel wrote in 1798: "If we still had all of the Sapphic poems: perhaps we would not be reminded of Homer anywhere."

Her songs, in which she sings about the beauty of her friends, students and, above all, her daughter, have been related to Sappho's love for women following a Scholion to Martial's epigram 7,67 since Domizio Calderino (1474); from this interpretation of the martial epigram the term " lesbian " or "sapphic" love for female homosexuality is derived.

The four-line sapphic stanza is named after her and goes back to her. With her she invented a new lyrical form of a monody .

According to the Greek rhetorician and grammarian Athenaios (2nd / 3rd century AD), Sappho is said to have invented the " Mixolydian tune ", an octave genre of the Greek tone system . The "passionate character" of this melody seems to "actually correspond to the spirited language of the poet."

Text examples

Δέδυκε μὲν ἀ σελάννα ...

In the Aiolic dialect of ancient Greek :

Δέδυκε μὲν ἀ σελάννα
καὶ Πληίαδες · μέσαι δὲ
νύκτες, πάρα δ᾿ ἔρχετ ὤρα ·
ἔγω δὲ μόνα κατεύδω

The moon woman has sunk
with her the pleiades. Middle of
the night. The hours go by.
But I have to sleep alone.

Ode to Aphrodite

Song on the Shard

Aphrodite. Almighty come down from the ether ...
to your temple. once built by Cretans.
Under the apple trees of the holy grove.
when they offered you sacrifices on the altars.
then smoldered
clouds of incense along the cooling spring .
The water is still running. shaded by branches.
down to the garden and water the roses in the arbor.
where I happily await Kypris while they silently defoliate.
Over there. there in the pasture horses frolic.
graze in the clover and in the ripening ears.
The sweet smell of flowers wafts
towards me from the meadow .
Goddess of love! Receive my bouquet.
Come and appear to us. Fill the golden bowls.
mix the wine with nectar and give us a
heavenly joy.

reception

Sappho representation in operas

Poster for Massenet's opera Sapho

A series of opera compositions with the subject Sappho originated in France .

18th century:

19th century:

20th century:

  • Charles Louis Paul Cuvillier: Sapho . Operetta, 1912, libretto: André Barde / Michel Carré
  • Hugo Kaun : Sappho , 1917, Leipzig, based on Franz Grillparzer's tragedy
  • Peggy Glanville-Hicks : Sappho , composition commissioned by the San Francisco Opera in 1963, with the idea that Maria Callas could take over the title role, composition completed in 1965, rejected by the opera house, never performed, CD production Lisbon 2012, libretto by the composer based on the drama Sappho by Lawrence Durrell and Sappho translations by Bliss Carman
  • Wilbur Lee (Will) Ogden: The Awakening of Sappho , Chamber Opera, playing time approx. 30 min, first performance 1979 or 1980, libretto by the composer based on the drama by Lawrence Durrell

In addition, there are other compositions for the stage, for example theatrical music ( Carl Maria von Weber , 1818, at least one choir Heil dir, Sappho! For Franz Grillparzer's tragedy), ballets ( Johann Nepomuk Hummel , Sappho von Mytilene or Die Rache der Venus op.68, Vienna 1812), melodramas (anonymous, "JJ H ‑ b ‑ r", Sappho , 1790; Bernhard Anselm Weber , Sappho , Berlin 1816, after Friedrich Wilhelm Gubitz ). For Carl Orff's Sappho settings in Trionfo di Afrodite see below.

Settings of poems by Sapphos

The composition of vocal works on real Sappho texts started late, depending on the availability of Greek texts and modern translations.

  • Charles Gounod : À une jeune grecque (“De la belle Timar c'est ici le tombeau”). Song for voice and piano, composed around 1885–1891, translation: Prosper Yraven (see the opera by the same composer, written much earlier)
  • Granville Bantock : Sappho . Prelude and Nine Fragments for mezzo soprano and orchestra, 1905, text: Helen Maude Francesca Bantock based on the Sappho prose translation by Henry Thornton Warton
  • Botho Sigwart Graf zu Eulenburg : Ode of Sappho . In the translation by Grillparzer and in the original, with piano accompaniment, op. 18, melodrama for speaking voice and piano, approx. 1912–1914, posthumously printed in 1923
  • Luigi Dallapiccola : Cinque frammenti di Saffo (=  Liriche greche No. 1) for voice and 15 (?) Instruments / mezzo-soprano and chamber orchestra, composed 1942, first performance Rome 1949, text: Italian translation by Salvatore Quasimodo
  • Goffredo Petrassi : Due liriche di Saffo (“Tramontata è la luna” and Invito all'Eràno : “Venite al tempio sacro delle vergini”), text: Italian translation by Salvatore Quasimodo
  • Hermann Reutter : Five ancient odes based on poems by Sappho op. 57 for a medium female voice, viola and piano. 1947
  • Carl Orff : Trionfo di Afrodite . Concerto scenico (= 3rd part of Trionfi ), based on texts by Sappho, Euripides, C. Valerius Catullus (both in Greek and Latin original), world premiere in Milan 1953
  • Argyris Kounadis : Nocturnes for soprano and small ensemble (3 pieces), 1960
  • Hans Studer : The Fragments. Seven chants based on ancient Greek poems for soprano, flute, oboe, clarinet and bassoon (based on texts by Alkaios, Sappho, Plato, Meleagros and others), 1962. Therein two pieces based on Sappho in translations by Eckart Peterich : No. 3: Die Krretischen Mädchen und danced to the beat , No. 6: Sleep you king of the blessed gods and mortal people
  • Harrison Birtwistle : Entr'actes and Sappho Fragments , 1962
  • Cindy McTee : Songs of Spring and the Moon for soprano and 8 instruments, 1983, text: Willis Barnstone after Sappho
  • Hans-Jürgen von Bose : Sappho-Gesänge for mezzo-soprano and chamber orchestra, 1983
  • Wilfried Hiller : Sappho-Fragments for girls' choir, flute and cello, 1997
  • Esa-Pekka Salonen : Five Images after Sappho for soprano and chamber ensemble, 1999
  • Aribert Reimann : Three poems by Sappho for soprano and nine instruments, composed after a transmission by Walter Jens , world premiere in Hanover 2000. Mainz: Schott Musik International, 2000 (score 50403).
  • Angélique Ionatos (composition and vocals), Nena Venetsanou (vocals): Sappho de Mytilène (CD album), Auvidis 2008 (1991); after a translation into modern Greek by Odysseas Elytis
  • Claus Kühnl : Five songs based on lyrical fragments by Sappho plus an old age song for mezzo-soprano and piano, 2010
  • Hans Wagner : Die Mondin has fallen I. and II. Setting of the translation by Ondřej Cikán in the soundtrack of the film Menandros & Thaïs , 2016.
  • Margarete Sorg-Rose : There you come, with wreaths, Kypris for women's choir a cappella, 2018. Based on a poem by Sappho in German translation by Joachim Latacz

Various compositions

Here are a few pieces of music put together (a selection) that have Sappho as their subject, have them in the title or set texts by other authors to music.

  • John Blow : Sappho to the Goddess of Love ("Oh Venus! Daughter of the mighty Jove!") And Sappho to the Goddess of Beauty ("Happy the man who languishing doth sit"), printed in Amphion Anglicus , 1700
  • Ludwig Berger : Sapho , for violin, orchestra and piano
  • John Wall Callcott: Sappho to Phaon , for soprano, choir and harpsichord
  • John Danby: When Sappho tun'd the raptur'd strain , also set to music by others
  • Carlos Ehrensperger : Sapphos Gesang (1963) for mixed Choir and ensemble
  • Friedrich August Kanne: Anakreon and Sappho , for soprano and piano (see the opera by the same composer)
  • Désiré Beaulieu : Sapho à Leucade (Sappho in Leukas). Scène lyrique (first performance 1813, text by JA Vinaty)
  • Johannes Brahms : Sapphic Ode op. 94,4 ("I broke roses"), song for voice and piano, 1883/1884, printed in 1884, text: Hans Schmidt (no Sappho translation, but in the meter of the Sapphic verse )
  • Louis Lacombe : Sappho . Prize cantata of the 1878 World's Fair
  • Adolphe Gauwin: Sapho . Valse pour piano, printed in Paris 1901
  • Waldemar von Baußnern : Singing the Sappho , for alto and piano
  • Anton Schoendlinger : Das Grab der Sappho (“So you cover aeolian earth, the Sappho”), for soprano and orchestra, composed 1975, text: Johann Gottfried Herder

Literary representations

Various in the 20th century

Text-critical editions

  • Poetarum Lesbiorum Fragmenta. Edited by Edgar Lobel and Denys Lionel Page . Clarendon Press, Oxford 1955.
  • Sappho and Alcaeus. An Introduction to the Study of Ancient Lesbian Poetry. Published by Denys Lionel Page. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1955 (numerous new editions and reprints, most recently 2001).
  • Anton Bierl , André Lardinois (Ed.): The newest Sappho: P. Sapph. Obbink and P. GC inv. 105, Frs. 1-4. (= Studies in archaic and classical Greek song, vol. 2 = Mnemosyne supplements, 392). Brill, Leiden, Boston 2016.

Translations

  • Sappho. And I sleep alone Poems. Newly translated by Albert von Schirnding . CH Beck, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-406-65323-0 .
  • Sappho. Shards - sketches. Translations and revisions by Dirk Uwe Hansen . Udo Degener Verlag, Potsdam 2012, ISBN 978-3-940531-70-4 .
  • Sappho: songs. Greek and German. Published by Max Treu . 4th, through Edition. Heimeran, Munich 1968.
  • Sappho: poems. Greek - German. Edited and translated by Andreas Bagordo . Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-05-005415-5 .
  • Sappho. Stanzas and verses. Translated and edited by Joachim Schickel. Insel-Verlag, Frankfurt a. M. 1978, ISBN 3-458-32009-1 .
  • Sappho. Love poems. Selected by Marion Giebel, translated by Joachim Schickel. Insel-Verlag, Frankfurt a. M. 2007, ISBN 978-3-458-34945-7 .
  • Greek Lyric. Volume 1: Sappho and Alcaeus. Edited and translated by David A. Campbell. Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Mass.) 1982, ISBN 0-674-99157-5 (Greek - English).
  • Greek poetry in one volume. Translated and edited by Dietrich Ebener . 2nd Edition. Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin / Weimar 1980.
  • Ancient poetry from Homer to Nonnos . Selection by Mark Lehmstedt. Directmedia, Berlin 2000 (= digital library. Number 30; CD-ROM). (Sappho based on the translation by Dietrich Ebener.)
  • Sappho. The moon has set. Songs and verses, selected and newly translated by Michael Schroeder. Artemis & Winkler, Düsseldorf 2006, ISBN 3-538-06318-4 .
  • The most beautiful poems by Sappho. Ancient Greek-German. Edited and translated by Kurt Steinmann . Diogenes Verlag, Zurich 2002, ISBN 978-3-257-70170-8 .
  • If not, winter. Fragments of Sappho. Edited and translated by Anne Carson . Vintage Books, New York 2002, ISBN 0-375-72451-6 .
  • Sappho: A New Translation of the Complete Works. Translated by Diane Rayor and André Lardinois. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2014, ISBN 978-1-107-02359-8 .

literature

Web links

Wikisource: Sappho  - sources and full texts
Commons : Sappho  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Elke Hartmann : Women in antiquity. Feminine worlds from Sappho to Theodora. CH Beck, Munich 2007, ISBN 3-406-54755-9 , p. 28.
  2. ↑ Inventory number 142333.
  3. ^ Günther Zuntz: On the etymology of the name Sappho. In: Museum Helveticum 8, 1951, pp. 12–35, doi: 10.5169 / seals-9844 .
  4. ↑ Annarita Zazzaroni: Article Sappho . In: Annette Kreuziger-Herr, Melanie Unseld (eds.): Lexicon Music and Gender , Bärenreiter / Metzler, Kassel / Stuttgart a. Weimar 2010, ISBN 978-3-7618-2043-8 (Bär.), P. 456 f.
  5. ^ Felix Jacoby : The marble parium. Weidemann, Berlin 1904, p. 12 to Ep. 36 ( digitized version ).
  6. ↑ Denys Page: Sappho and Alcaeus. Oxford 1955, p. 225.
  7. ↑ a b Chamaileon Fr. 27 Wehrli.
  8. ↑ Herodotus 2,135.
  9. ↑ Sappho Fr. 132 LP.
  10. ↑ Suda , keyword Σαπφώ , Adler number: sigma 107 , Suda-Online .
  11. ↑ But this is possibly just a later joke, probably in a comedy, since Andros , the supposed place of origin, is the same as the genitive of anēr "man", which in Greek forms the stem of the first part of a compound word . Kerkos as the second part of the name meant "tail" (also in a figurative sense); compare to this interpretation Wolfgang Aly : Sappho. In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume IA, 2, Stuttgart 1920, Sp. 2357-2385 (here: Sp. 2361 digitized version ).
  12. ↑ Menander, fragment 258 grains = PCG VI 1; Ovid, epistulae 15.
  13. ↑ Heinrich Dörrie : P. Ovidius Naso: The letter of Sappho to Phaon (= Zetemata . Book 58). CH Beck, Munich 1975, passim; but see also Wolfgang Aly: Sappho. In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume IA, 2, Stuttgart 1920, Col. 2364 f.
  14. ↑ "Brethren Poem": English translation ; German translation .
  15. ↑ Lost Poems of Greek Poetess Sappho Found on thearchaeologynewsnetwork.
  16. ↑ J. Minor (Ed.): Friedrich Schlegel, 1794–1802: His prosaic youth writings. Carl Konegen, Vienna 1882, p. 242.
  17. ↑ Annarita Zazzaroni in Lexikon Musik und Gender 2010, p. 456.
  18. ^ Eva Weissweiler: Musically creative women from antiquity to the Middle Ages. An overview of cultural history. In: Women composers from the Middle Ages to the present. Bärenreiter / DTV, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-423-30726-9 (first edition: female composers from 500 years 1981), pp. 23–57, here pp. 26–28 and footnote 12, p. 55.
  19. ↑ Metric translation by Ondřej Cikán , set to music by Hans Wagner from the soundtrack of the film Menandros & Thaïs : Lied 1 and Lied 17 . The female view of the stars (here the Pleiades [the seven stars ] and the [bow] moon goddess) is often under-emphasized. Cf. Lars Clausen , Once Mytilene; and back , in: Der Rabe No. 16, 1987, p. LVI f. with translation reviews and the suggestion: You sank to seven-star girl, | Bowmoon Gunner! - In the middle of the | The hour goes by in the dark | me, oh, the lonely I munch.
  20. ↑ Website for the presentation of the CD project , CD booklet
  21. ↑ Prosper Yraven combined two antique Grabepigramme in its free adaptation. The first, Anthologia Palatina 7,489, has in fact been handed down under the name of Sappho, but is now considered Hellenistic (David A. Campbell).
  22. Jump up ↑ Song 1 and Song 17 of the soundtrack.
  23. ^ Georg Friedrich Haas: Nocturno musikfabrik.eu
  24. ^ "Nocturno" by Georg Friedrich Haas premiered in Bonn nmz.de, March 26, 2013.
  25. ↑ Muse, the tenth. Answers to Sappho from Mytilene. (No longer available online.) Freiraum Verlag, November 12, 2014, archived from the original on December 8, 2014 ; Retrieved December 6, 2014 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / freiraum-verlag.com
personal data
SURNAME Sappho
BRIEF DESCRIPTION ancient Greek poet
DATE OF BIRTH between 630 BC BC and 612 BC Chr.
DATE OF DEATH around 570 BC Chr.