BY EMMA GEORGE
Sappho, the 7th century BCE poet whose body of work is woven into these landscapes, her poems and songs have been trashed by time but remain poetic fragments of longing and yearning, the great swells of desire like missives of truth from otherworlds. “Where cold water ripples through apple branches, the whole place shadowed in roses,” was scribbled onto a broken clay pot. Are these poems actually incantations to lift sexual yearning “out of the realm of the
formless and terrible, bring it into the light of form, make it visible to the individual poet and, by extension, to his or her society”? Saphho tells us that without longing, there can be no love, and because the cosmos is infinite, so is desire.
In a dream I spoke with the Cyprus-born,
And said to her,
“Mother of beauty, mother of joy,
Why hast thou given to men
This thing called love, like the ache of
a wound
In beauty’s side,
To burn and throb and be quelled for
an hour
And never wholly depart?”
And the daughter of Cyprus said to me,
“Child of the earth,
Behold, all things are born and attain,
But only as they desire —
“The sun that is strong, the gods that
are wise,
The loving heart,
Deeds and knowledge and beauty
and joy —
But before all else was desire.”
XII by Sappho
We discover her anatomy, her physical presence, her biography, her landscapes, her exile, her death, the fragments of her we can piece together. Where is she,
under layer upon layer of conjecture, speculation and slander? Sappho, like the orgasm, is there and not there, is only validated by the androcentric. As an artist
she is often disregarded, erased and negated. New prose and the retelling of old stories take the form of Sappho’s physical journeys through landscapes past and present. Here we see Sappho as a female Homer, an eternal storyteller, about whose life we know little, and whose artistic merit is often tainted with contempt, disgust and moral outrage. Does the purity of her thought, the eroticism of her lyrics and her enduring influence reveal something deep or hidden in our own nature?
Sappho, the 7th century BCE poet whose body of work is woven into these landscapes, her poems and songs have been trashed by time but remain poetic fragments of longing and yearning, the great swells of desire like missives of truth from otherworlds. “Where cold water ripples through apple branches, the whole place shadowed in roses,” was scribbled onto a broken clay pot. Are these poems actually incantations to lift sexual yearning “out of the realm of the
formless and terrible, bring it into the light of form, make it visible to the individual poet and, by extension, to his or her society”? Saphho tells us that without longing, there can be no love, and because the cosmos is infinite, so is desire.
In a dream I spoke with the Cyprus-born,
And said to her,
“Mother of beauty, mother of joy,
Why hast thou given to men
This thing called love, like the ache of
a wound
In beauty’s side,
To burn and throb and be quelled for
an hour
And never wholly depart?”
And the daughter of Cyprus said to me,
“Child of the earth,
Behold, all things are born and attain,
But only as they desire —
“The sun that is strong, the gods that
are wise,
The loving heart,
Deeds and knowledge and beauty
and joy —
But before all else was desire.”
XII by Sappho
We discover her anatomy, her physical presence, her biography, her landscapes, her exile, her death, the fragments of her we can piece together. Where is she,
under layer upon layer of conjecture, speculation and slander? Sappho, like the orgasm, is there and not there, is only validated by the androcentric. As an artist
she is often disregarded, erased and negated. New prose and the retelling of old stories take the form of Sappho’s physical journeys through landscapes past and present. Here we see Sappho as a female Homer, an eternal storyteller, about whose life we know little, and whose artistic merit is often tainted with contempt, disgust and moral outrage. Does the purity of her thought, the eroticism of her lyrics and her enduring influence reveal something deep or hidden in our own nature?
Emma George is a filmmaker, writer and mythologist.
BY EMMA GEORGE
Sappho, the 7th century BCE poet whose body of work is woven into these landscapes, her poems and songs have been trashed by time but remain poetic fragments of longing and yearning, the great swells of desire like missives of truth from otherworlds. “Where cold water ripples through apple branches, the whole place shadowed in roses,” was scribbled onto a broken clay pot. Are these poems actually incantations to lift sexual yearning “out of the realm of the
formless and terrible, bring it into the light of form, make it visible to the individual poet and, by extension, to his or her society”? Saphho tells us that without longing, there can be no love, and because the cosmos is infinite, so is desire.
In a dream I spoke with the Cyprus-born,
And said to her,
“Mother of beauty, mother of joy,
Why hast thou given to men
This thing called love, like the ache of
a wound
In beauty’s side,
To burn and throb and be quelled for
an hour
And never wholly depart?”
And the daughter of Cyprus said to me,
“Child of the earth,
Behold, all things are born and attain,
But only as they desire —
“The sun that is strong, the gods that
are wise,
The loving heart,
Deeds and knowledge and beauty
and joy —
But before all else was desire.”
XII by Sappho
We discover her anatomy, her physical presence, her biography, her landscapes, her exile, her death, the fragments of her we can piece together. Where is she,
under layer upon layer of conjecture, speculation and slander? Sappho, like the orgasm, is there and not there, is only validated by the androcentric. As an artist
she is often disregarded, erased and negated. New prose and the retelling of old stories take the form of Sappho’s physical journeys through landscapes past and present. Here we see Sappho as a female Homer, an eternal storyteller, about whose life we know little, and whose artistic merit is often tainted with contempt, disgust and moral outrage. Does the purity of her thought, the eroticism of her lyrics and her enduring influence reveal something deep or hidden in our own nature?
Sappho, the 7th century BCE poet whose body of work is woven into these landscapes, her poems and songs have been trashed by time but remain poetic fragments of longing and yearning, the great swells of desire like missives of truth from otherworlds. “Where cold water ripples through apple branches, the whole place shadowed in roses,” was scribbled onto a broken clay pot. Are these poems actually incantations to lift sexual yearning “out of the realm of the
formless and terrible, bring it into the light of form, make it visible to the individual poet and, by extension, to his or her society”? Saphho tells us that without longing, there can be no love, and because the cosmos is infinite, so is desire.
In a dream I spoke with the Cyprus-born,
And said to her,
“Mother of beauty, mother of joy,
Why hast thou given to men
This thing called love, like the ache of
a wound
In beauty’s side,
To burn and throb and be quelled for
an hour
And never wholly depart?”
And the daughter of Cyprus said to me,
“Child of the earth,
Behold, all things are born and attain,
But only as they desire —
“The sun that is strong, the gods that
are wise,
The loving heart,
Deeds and knowledge and beauty
and joy —
But before all else was desire.”
XII by Sappho
We discover her anatomy, her physical presence, her biography, her landscapes, her exile, her death, the fragments of her we can piece together. Where is she,
under layer upon layer of conjecture, speculation and slander? Sappho, like the orgasm, is there and not there, is only validated by the androcentric. As an artist
she is often disregarded, erased and negated. New prose and the retelling of old stories take the form of Sappho’s physical journeys through landscapes past and present. Here we see Sappho as a female Homer, an eternal storyteller, about whose life we know little, and whose artistic merit is often tainted with contempt, disgust and moral outrage. Does the purity of her thought, the eroticism of her lyrics and her enduring influence reveal something deep or hidden in our own nature?
Emma George is a filmmaker, writer and mythologist.
BY EMMA GEORGE
Sappho, the 7th century BCE poet whose body of work is woven into these landscapes, her poems and songs have been trashed by time but remain poetic fragments of longing and yearning, the great swells of desire like missives of truth from otherworlds. “Where cold water ripples through apple branches, the whole place shadowed in roses,” was scribbled onto a broken clay pot. Are these poems actually incantations to lift sexual yearning “out of the realm of the
formless and terrible, bring it into the light of form, make it visible to the individual poet and, by extension, to his or her society”? Saphho tells us that without longing, there can be no love, and because the cosmos is infinite, so is desire.
In a dream I spoke with the Cyprus-born,
And said to her,
“Mother of beauty, mother of joy,
Why hast thou given to men
This thing called love, like the ache of
a wound
In beauty’s side,
To burn and throb and be quelled for
an hour
And never wholly depart?”
And the daughter of Cyprus said to me,
“Child of the earth,
Behold, all things are born and attain,
But only as they desire —
“The sun that is strong, the gods that
are wise,
The loving heart,
Deeds and knowledge and beauty
and joy —
But before all else was desire.”
XII by Sappho
We discover her anatomy, her physical presence, her biography, her landscapes, her exile, her death, the fragments of her we can piece together. Where is she,
under layer upon layer of conjecture, speculation and slander? Sappho, like the orgasm, is there and not there, is only validated by the androcentric. As an artist
she is often disregarded, erased and negated. New prose and the retelling of old stories take the form of Sappho’s physical journeys through landscapes past and present. Here we see Sappho as a female Homer, an eternal storyteller, about whose life we know little, and whose artistic merit is often tainted with contempt, disgust and moral outrage. Does the purity of her thought, the eroticism of her lyrics and her enduring influence reveal something deep or hidden in our own nature?
Sappho, the 7th century BCE poet whose body of work is woven into these landscapes, her poems and songs have been trashed by time but remain poetic fragments of longing and yearning, the great swells of desire like missives of truth from otherworlds. “Where cold water ripples through apple branches, the whole place shadowed in roses,” was scribbled onto a broken clay pot. Are these poems actually incantations to lift sexual yearning “out of the realm of the
formless and terrible, bring it into the light of form, make it visible to the individual poet and, by extension, to his or her society”? Saphho tells us that without longing, there can be no love, and because the cosmos is infinite, so is desire.
In a dream I spoke with the Cyprus-born,
And said to her,
“Mother of beauty, mother of joy,
Why hast thou given to men
This thing called love, like the ache of
a wound
In beauty’s side,
To burn and throb and be quelled for
an hour
And never wholly depart?”
And the daughter of Cyprus said to me,
“Child of the earth,
Behold, all things are born and attain,
But only as they desire —
“The sun that is strong, the gods that
are wise,
The loving heart,
Deeds and knowledge and beauty
and joy —
But before all else was desire.”
XII by Sappho
We discover her anatomy, her physical presence, her biography, her landscapes, her exile, her death, the fragments of her we can piece together. Where is she,
under layer upon layer of conjecture, speculation and slander? Sappho, like the orgasm, is there and not there, is only validated by the androcentric. As an artist
she is often disregarded, erased and negated. New prose and the retelling of old stories take the form of Sappho’s physical journeys through landscapes past and present. Here we see Sappho as a female Homer, an eternal storyteller, about whose life we know little, and whose artistic merit is often tainted with contempt, disgust and moral outrage. Does the purity of her thought, the eroticism of her lyrics and her enduring influence reveal something deep or hidden in our own nature?
Emma George is a filmmaker, writer and mythologist.
BY EMMA GEORGE
Sappho, the 7th century BCE poet whose body of work is woven into these landscapes, her poems and songs have been trashed by time but remain poetic fragments of longing and yearning, the great swells of desire like missives of truth from otherworlds. “Where cold water ripples through apple branches, the whole place shadowed in roses,” was scribbled onto a broken clay pot. Are these poems actually incantations to lift sexual yearning “out of the realm of the
formless and terrible, bring it into the light of form, make it visible to the individual poet and, by extension, to his or her society”? Saphho tells us that without longing, there can be no love, and because the cosmos is infinite, so is desire.
In a dream I spoke with the Cyprus-born,
And said to her,
“Mother of beauty, mother of joy,
Why hast thou given to men
This thing called love, like the ache of
a wound
In beauty’s side,
To burn and throb and be quelled for
an hour
And never wholly depart?”
And the daughter of Cyprus said to me,
“Child of the earth,
Behold, all things are born and attain,
But only as they desire —
“The sun that is strong, the gods that
are wise,
The loving heart,
Deeds and knowledge and beauty
and joy —
But before all else was desire.”
XII by Sappho
We discover her anatomy, her physical presence, her biography, her landscapes, her exile, her death, the fragments of her we can piece together. Where is she,
under layer upon layer of conjecture, speculation and slander? Sappho, like the orgasm, is there and not there, is only validated by the androcentric. As an artist
she is often disregarded, erased and negated. New prose and the retelling of old stories take the form of Sappho’s physical journeys through landscapes past and present. Here we see Sappho as a female Homer, an eternal storyteller, about whose life we know little, and whose artistic merit is often tainted with contempt, disgust and moral outrage. Does the purity of her thought, the eroticism of her lyrics and her enduring influence reveal something deep or hidden in our own nature?
Sappho, the 7th century BCE poet whose body of work is woven into these landscapes, her poems and songs have been trashed by time but remain poetic fragments of longing and yearning, the great swells of desire like missives of truth from otherworlds. “Where cold water ripples through apple branches, the whole place shadowed in roses,” was scribbled onto a broken clay pot. Are these poems actually incantations to lift sexual yearning “out of the realm of the
formless and terrible, bring it into the light of form, make it visible to the individual poet and, by extension, to his or her society”? Saphho tells us that without longing, there can be no love, and because the cosmos is infinite, so is desire.
In a dream I spoke with the Cyprus-born,
And said to her,
“Mother of beauty, mother of joy,
Why hast thou given to men
This thing called love, like the ache of
a wound
In beauty’s side,
To burn and throb and be quelled for
an hour
And never wholly depart?”
And the daughter of Cyprus said to me,
“Child of the earth,
Behold, all things are born and attain,
But only as they desire —
“The sun that is strong, the gods that
are wise,
The loving heart,
Deeds and knowledge and beauty
and joy —
But before all else was desire.”
XII by Sappho
We discover her anatomy, her physical presence, her biography, her landscapes, her exile, her death, the fragments of her we can piece together. Where is she,
under layer upon layer of conjecture, speculation and slander? Sappho, like the orgasm, is there and not there, is only validated by the androcentric. As an artist
she is often disregarded, erased and negated. New prose and the retelling of old stories take the form of Sappho’s physical journeys through landscapes past and present. Here we see Sappho as a female Homer, an eternal storyteller, about whose life we know little, and whose artistic merit is often tainted with contempt, disgust and moral outrage. Does the purity of her thought, the eroticism of her lyrics and her enduring influence reveal something deep or hidden in our own nature?
Emma George is a filmmaker, writer and mythologist.