2. Time Eats Poetry
and Sappho sorely suffered from that devoration…
There were many libraries in the ancient world
and libraries are often the victims of war
& the ancient libraries were virtually all rubbed out of the
tracks of time
When Ceasar set fire to the fleet in Alexandria’s harbor
the flames accidentally destroyed one of the big libraries
Around 391 AD, Christians destroyed the books in the Serapeum,
another big library in Alexandria
It is alleged that when the Muslims seized Egypt
the ancient manuscripts were used to heat the
water in the baths
They’re not sure today exactly where
the Great Library at Alexandria was located.
Though war hates books, poets are sometimes fascinated with it
but you won’t find any talk of war in the
shreds of Sappho,
but rather the melodies of love, tenderness, family,
partying, arousal, longing, sadness and fun.
Some say that the most beautiful thing
on the darkling earth
is a stroton of horsemen, others a stroton of troops
and yet others a stroton of ships
but to me the most beautiful
is the one whom someone loves.
Like this:
Like Loading...
Related
~ by shantam on October 27, 2007.
Posted in Aeolian dialect of Greek, Aeolic Word pais, Ancient Greece, ancient languages, Apocryphal, aristocracy, art, art and society, Art Anthologies, Art History, artists, creative writing, creativity, cult of personality, cultural icons, cultural legacy, culture, dactylic hexameter, dactylic tetrameter, Daughter of Zeus, Dionysius, Ed Sanders, Epithalamia, European Renaissance, feminism, femme fatale, gender equality, Greek Mythology, Greek Tenth Muse, Homoerotica, Hymn to Aphrodite, Island of Lesbos, Leucadian cliffs, life, Literary coterie, Literary Group, Literary Legacy, literature, love, Love of Phaon, Lyric Poetess, Metrics & Verse of Sappho, open eroticism, Oxyrhynchus remains, Palla Athene, Papyrus fragments, Phainetai Moi, Philosophy, Platonic Idealism, Pleiades, poet Alcaeus, poetry, Poets/Icons, Posidippus of Pella, sacred texts, Sagas Legends, Sappho, Sappho's Aeolic dialect, synonym sapphie, Thirsting for Peace in a Raging Century, Women of Mytilene, Writing & Poetics
Tags: Aeolic Word pais, Ancient Greece, ancient languages, Aphrodite, Apocryphal, aristocracy, art, Croesus, culture, dactylic hexameter, dactylic tetrameter, Ed Sanders, education, epic poetry, Epithalamia, European Renaissance, feminism, Homoerotica, inspiration, Island of Lesbos, Journal, King Midas, Leucadian cliffs, life, Literary Group, Literary Legacy, literature, Love of Phaon, Lyric Poetess, Oxyrhynchus remains, Papyrus fragments, Pleiades, poetry, politics, Posidippus of Pella, Sappho, Sappho's Aeolic dialect, Thirsting for Peace in a Raging Century, travel, writing
