MDMD (10) Sappho 2

[Michel Ryckx]

Otto wrote:

> "Abendstern - bringst alles heim, was der strahlende Morgen zerstreute -
> bringst das Schaf, bringst die Ziege - bringst zurück zur Mutter die
> Tochter."
> http://www.venus-transit.de/text/MasonDixon.html
>
> Fr. 95
> Evening, thou that bringest all that bright morning scattered; thou bringest
> the  sheep, the goat, the child back to her mother.
> H. T. Wharton

[snip interesting stuff]

Italy lies west of Greece.  For the ancient Greeks, nowadays southern Italy was
their "Far West"even in literal sense; in fact in latin it was called "Magna
Graecia" or Greater Greece.  Indeed, everything there, compared to the homeland
--home-polis-- was larger than life.

Naming a country West of Greece 'Hesperia' was that common that Horace (Quintus
H. Flaccus that is --his satires were a basis for some of Alexander Pope's
satires, as mr. Pope says himself in their title) calls Italy more than once
'Hesperia'.  He uses it also when referring to Romans living in Spain.

The Street of Gibraltar, the gate between Mediterrranean and Atlantic was called
"the Hesperides", daughters of Hesperus.  It was, except for some courageous
adventurer, the end of the world.  For the Greeks the West was the end of the
world --if you'd pass the Hesperides, you would be likely to fall off the world.

My point: invoking Hesperus is invoking the West.

I think it may be possible that the quotation of Fragment 95 is a pun on Mason
and Dixon's later adventures in America.  Not to mention that the US was, and
continues to be, so I'm told, not the Sunset, but the Sunrise of many a man's
life.  And note that specific tone of home-coming in the Sappho quote.

"Does Britain, when she sleeps, dream?  [. . .]"

Michel.