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:
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.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 8 April 2025 03:49 am (UTC)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.