MDMD Sappho's Frag

[Otto]

Terrance:
>
> I suspect that that the "somebody somewhere" is female.
> She is "corrected" and we never hear from her again.
> A theme perhaps, the subjugation of women, the patriarchal dominance, a
> transformation of Venus to matter, to fetish, to dynamo....
> Venus
>
> http://www.venus-transit.de/venus.html


Strange, didn't occur to me. I had the slight suspect that it could have
been Dixon corrected by Mason.
But as I've learned these days that Sappho's poems have been burned by early
Christians your idea maybe is the better solution and does indeed make some
sense to me:

"Sappho's books were burned by Christians in the year 380 A.D. at the
instigation of Pope Gregory Nazianzen. Another book burning in the year 1073
A.D. by Pope Gregory VII may have wiped out any remaining trace of her
works. It should be remembered that in antiquity books were copied by hand
and comparatively rare. There may have only been a few copies of her
complete works. The bonfires of the Church destroyed many things, but among
the most tragic of their victims were the poems of Sappho."
J.B. Hare at:
http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/sappho/index.htm

That poetry of this kind can be perceived as a threat I never will
understand:
-------------------------------------
"...the lovely times we.shared."

"I simply wish to die."
Weeping she left me
and said this too:
"We've suffered terribly
Sappho I leave you against my will."
I answered, go happily
and remember me,
you know how we cared for you,
if not, let me remind you
...the lovely times we.shared.
-------------------------------------

additional Sappho-links.

"The Sappho Companion" by Margaret Reynolds,
http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2001/08/01/lesbos/
including an William Carlos Williams translation of one poem:
Complaints that Phaon no longer "clap'd my Buttocks, o're and o're agen"
http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2001/08/01/lesbos/index1.html

Sappho's Legacy: an essay
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/classes/JLSp.html
Poems
http://cmgm.stanford.edu/~ahmad/sappho.html

Otto