Sappho








sappho looking thoughtful, composing poetry

Davenport’s Fragment 119 reads:

[
[
[Her] shirt
Yel[low]
[Her] petticoat
And splendor
Radiant yellow
[Her] red dress
Robes the color of peaches
Peach-flower crowns
Pretty eyes
Phrygian
Red
Carpet
[
P[

Next to Davenport’s conjecture, Anne Carson’s rendering in If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho(2002) is humdrum, merely utile, summoning up the cliché’d sumptuous:

]
]
]
]
robe
and
colored with saffron
purple robe
cloaks
crowns
beautiful
]
purple
rugs
]
]

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