Tag: oleander | Mediterranean Poetry

Of Sappho much has been said and many there are who would have given anything to know a little more about this Greek Muse – the tenth Muse. Still, although we have a rather meagre corpus of her poetry at hand the following lines from her stylus are enough to convince me of her divine status:

The Moon has left the sky,
Lost is the Pleiads’ light;
It is midnight,
And time slips by,
But on my couch alone I lie. ¹

J. A. Symonds, 1883

Is there anything more to add?

Still, for those who have not been so fortunate to reside on a veranda on a warm summer’s night somewhere in the Aegean or just anywhere in the Mediterranean world the scene may have to be painted – there must be some words said.

So, please place you on Sappho’s couch with a glass of wine next to you and midnight soon-to-be. Feel the breeze – warm but not as during the light hours. Listen to what the cicadas have to say accompanied by the sound of the waves caressing the sandy beach just below your house. Smell the sweet fragrance of oleander and magnolia and taste the wonderful juice of the grapes in that glass beside you.

Now open your eyes and, I promise you, you’ll be absolutely, yes, totally mesmerized by the sky, the sky where the ancient Greeks saw both Aphrodite and the lyre that Apollo played to open lovers’ hearts.

Yes, even if you’re not waiting for the love of your life at this hour (maybe he or she is there right beside you already) I still dare to state that you’ll be embodied by a feeling of happiness, gratefulness, and the greatest love while looking at the world we have above us.

—

So, dearest Sappho, whenever I gaze at the sky – not always trying to navigate to Orion, Pegasus, or the Pleiades – I sense a bond to you and all ancestors but also my living brothers and sisters who are looking at the same stars at the very same moment as I search for your reflections there.

Reflections of your eyes and thoughts and thus sense a warm wonderful feeling of love to mankind. Being a part of a never-ending chain of people, bond through thoughts, feelings – sometimes so wonderfully expressed by a Muse that her words still echo in our minds as we look at the very same twinkling stars as our ancestors did and our children will do …

¹ Based on today’s knowledge most researchers no longer believe that these lines are composed by Sappho. Enjoying the fragments, and lines which today are attributed to her creation makes her position as the “tenth Muse” obvious anyway.