Sappho Quotations

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!

Death is an ill; 'tis thus the Gods decide: / For had death been a boon, the Gods had died.

Would Jove appoint some flower to reign, in matchless beauty on the plain, the Rose (mankind will all agree). The Rose the queen of flowers should be.

The Moon and Pleiades have set, / Midnight is nigh, / The time is passing, passing, yet / Alone I lie.

The moon is setand the Pleiades; Middle ofthe night, time passes by,I lie alone.

I will let my body flow like water over the gentle cushions.

Dancing up the full moon Round some fair new altar Trample the soft blossoms of fine grass.

For some the fairest thing on the dark earth is Thermopylae, And the Spartan phalanx lowering lances to die.

Without warning as a whirlwind swoops on an oak Love shakes my heart

I would not think to touch the sky with two arms

I do not know what to do, my mind's in two.

Experience shows us Wealth unchaperoned by Virtue is never an innocuous neighbor.

Now the Earth with many flowers puts on her spring embroidery

Love - bittersweet, irrepressible - loosens my limbs and I tremble.

Hesperus bringing together All that the morning star scattered.

How love the limb-loosener sweeps me away

If you are squeamish Don't prod the beach rubble.

In gold sandals / dawn like a thief / fell upon me.

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.

From all the offspring of the earth and heaven love is the most precious.

Love is a cunning weaver of fantasies and fables.

Raise high the roof beam, carpenters. Like Ares comes the bridegroom, taller far than a tall man.

Eros harrows my heart: wild gales sweeping desolate mountains, uprooting oaks.

Love, like a mountain-wind upon an oak, falling upon me, shakes me leaf and bough.

I took my lyre and said: come now, my heavenly tortoise shell: become a speaking instrument.

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.

The moon has set, and the Pleiades; it is midnight, and time passes, and I sleep alone.

No honey for me, if it comes with a bee.

The evening star Is the most beautiful of all stars

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.

He who is fair to look upon is good, and he who is good will soon be fair also.

There is no place for grief in a house which serves the Muse.

Mere air, these words, but delicious to hear.

All the while, believe me, I prayed our night would last twice as long.

Eros seizes and shakes my very soul like the wind on the mountain shaking ancient oaks.

Death must be an evil and the gods agree; for why else would they live for ever?

With his venom irresistible and bittersweet that loosener of limbs, Love reptile-like strikes me down

Someone, I tell you, in another time will remember us

Stand and face me, my love,and scatter the grace in your eyes.

Love shook my heart/ Like the wind on the mountain/ Troubling the oak-trees

When anger spreads through the breath, guard thy tongue from barking idly.

Death is an evil; the gods have so judged; had it been good, they would die.

Stars veil their beauty soon / Beside the glorious moon, / When her full silver light / Doth make the whole earth bright.

Beauty endures only for as long as it can be seen; goodness, beautiful today, will remain so tomorrow.

Once again love drives me on, that loosener of limbs, bittersweet creature against which nothing can be done.

I know not what to do, my mind is divided

Whatever one loves most is beautiful.

You may forget but let me tell you this: someone in some future time will think of us

What cannot be said will be wept.

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.

Although only breath, words which I command are immortal.

May I write words more naked than flesh, stronger than bone, more resilient than sinew, sensitive than nerve.