“she walks like a saint floats like an angel / sharp like a knife under the table”

[larryhammer]

For Poetry Monday, another short one in another language, this time in multiple translations:

Greek Anthology 7.718, Nossis

original:
Ὦ ξεῖν᾿, εἰ τύ γε πλεῖς ποτὶ καλλίχορον Μυτιλάναν,
τὰν Σαπφὼ χαρίτων ἄνθος ἐναυσαμέναν,
εἰπεῖν, ὡς Μούσαισι φίλαν τήνᾳ τε Λοκρὶς γᾶ
τίκτεν ἴσαν ὅτι θ᾿ οἱ τοὔνομα Νοσσίς· ἴθι.

unsigned translation from Sententiae Antiquae:
Stranger, if you sail to the city of beautiful dances, Mytilene,
The city which fed Sappho, the the Graces’ flower,
Tell them that the land of Lokris bore for the Muses
A woman her equal, by the name of Nossis. Go!

uncredited translation from Locriantica:
Stranger, if you sail to Mitylene, land of beautiful dances,
to catch there the most out of Sappho’s graces,
tell that I was loved by the Muses, and that the Locrian land bore me.
My name, remember, is Nossis. Now go!

translation by Natoli, Pitts, & Hallett:
Wayfarer, if you sail to Mitylene, city of beautiful choral dances,
to draw inspiration from the bloom of Sappho’s graces,
say that the Locrian earth bore me,
dear to the Muses and to her. Having learned that my name is Nossis, go.


Flexing is old, old school (as is dissing). Nossis (fl. c. 300 BCE) was from Epizephyrian Locris, a Greek colony in southern Italy, modern Locri, and was well known enough to be named one of the “nine earthly muses” i.e. best poetesses by Antipater of Thessalonica in the late 1st century BCE (along with, yes, Sappho). A dozen of her epigrams have survived, all in the Greek Anthology. I don’t have enough Greek (or indeed any) to tell whether that “woman her equal,” missing from the other two, is a defensible reading.

---L.

Subject quote from Lethal Woman, Dove Cameron.

Comments

[sovay]

I don’t have enough Greek (or indeed any) to tell whether that “woman her equal,” missing from the other two, is a defensible reading.

With apologies, the Greek quoted in this entry belongs to a different poem of Nossis' than the translations. The one you're comparing translations for is:

Ὦ ξεῖν᾿, εἰ τύ γε πλεῖς ποτὶ καλλίχορον Μυτιλάναν,
τὰν Σαπφὼ χαρίτων ἄνθος ἐναυσαμέναν,
εἰπεῖν, ὡς Μούσαισι φίλαν τήνᾳ τε Λοκρὶς γᾶ
τίκτεν ἴσαν ὅτι θ᾿ οἱ τοὔνομα Νοσσίς· ἴθι.

and the first translation is pretty literal. "O stranger, if you are sailing to Mytilene of the beautiful dances / the one which sparked Sappho, the flower of the Graces / say that Lokris earth bore one dear to the Muses and equal / to her and that her name was Nossis: go." τήνᾳ . . . ἴσαν is "equal to her." I would wonder if it's riffing a little on Sappho 31, which begins famously φαίνεταί μοι κῆνος ἴσος θέοισιν "he seems to me to be equal to the gods, that one," but it could also just be bragging.

[larryhammer]

the Greek quoted in this entry belongs to a different poem of Nossis' than the translations

🤦🏼‍♂️ Snagged the wrong one, didn't I. Fixed. Thanks for pointing that out.

Thanks for the vauntful confirmation. I wondered about echoes of Sappho 31, but speculating about it felt out of my scope.