Sappho
(b. 630-612 BCE)
Age and Light
Here is success for your tongue, my children,
the poems of the pear-breasted Muses,
which are the fine gifts for the singer
on the clear tortoise lyre,
yet old age already wrinkles my skin,
my black hair has faded to white,
my legs can no longer carry me,
once nimble like a dancing fawn's,
but what can I do?
To be ageless is impossible,
no more than can the pink-armed Dawn
not end in darkness on the earth.
or keep her love for old Tithonos
who must waste away.
Yet I love refinement, and beauty and light
are for me the same as desire for the sun.
Translated by Willis Barnstone
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