New Lines On Aging
Lines from a new Sappho poem - 2004 Cologne - 2005 Britain -
Martin West's translation appearing in the Times Literary Supplement
[but my once tender] body old age nowLachlan MacKinnon's version acknowledging West's rendering and appearing under the title "Sappho to Her Pupils" in Small Hours ...
[has seized;] my hair’s turned [white] instead of dark;
Old age freezes my body, once so lithe,I like the particularity of the verb "rinse". It gives a sense of time passing and washing away. Startling also is the agency of old age.
rinses the darkness from my hair, now white.
And so for day 1131
17.01.2010