Tenth Muse | Sappho
- Leah Froyd
- 6 hours ago
- 3 min read
Hi and welcome to our last preview of Tenth Muse! Concerts begin Saturday, February 15th. We hope this round of newsletters has been helpful in introducing you to our upcoming program!
For our last preview, we will focus on Cooper Grosscup's inspiration for Tenth Muse, Sappho. To read our previous post on Cooper, click here.
Sappho's Life
Sappho was an ancient Greek poet born approximately c.610. She specialized in lyric poetry, a special combination between music and poetry often accompanied by a lyre. Although we don’t have any surviving records of how her poems sounded, there are still many fragments of the words— of which Grosscup was inspired.
Sappho was a highly charismatic and influential artist during her lifetime. She was a leader to many other female artists, musicians and poets on the island of Lesbos-- so much so that her legacy was augmented by many legends. She alluded to convening with many Greek gods like Aphrodite and Eros in her poetry which led many to speculate on her own status as a deity.
Unlike much of the other poetry during this time, Sappho’s work was very private and was usually addressed to her close friends and often discussed the mundane. Therefore the tone of her work is much more colloquial and less ritualistic than those of her colleagues and predecessors; for example epic poets or elegiac poets.
Despite her popularity— Plato hailed her as “the tenth muse”— she also faced a large amount of disapproval from writers like Ovid and later on the Christian moralist editors who would eliminate lines of her poetry alluding to her sexuality. Christian censors in Alexandria, Rome, and Constantinople burned and condemned her work.
Though many of her poems are about love, not all are erotic or even descriptive of romantic love. Many of her “love” poems capture feelings tied to love. In the last century, the rediscovery of her work has been celebrated for her poignancy and timelessness.
Cooper's song cycle, Tenth Muse is a collection of fragments of Sappho's work. Similar to Schubert's Frauenliebe und Leben, it captures the life of an archetypal woman experiencing the many kinds of love described by Ancient Greek philosophers: Agape, affection; Eros, sexual; Philia, friendship; Storge, love for offspring; Philautia, self love; and Xenia, hospitality and reciprocity.
Excerpts of Sappho's Poetry
Fragment 8 Translated by Julia Dubnoff
The moon is set. And the Pleiades.
It’s the middle of the night.
Time [hōrā] passes.
But I sleep alone.
Fragment 11
You set me on fire.
Fragment 19
Honestly, I wish I were dead.
Weeping many tears, she left me and said,
“Alas, how terribly we suffer, Sappho.
I really leave you against my will.”
And I answered: “Farewell, go and remember me.
You know how we cared for you.
If not, I would remind you
…of our wonderful times.
For by my side you put on
many wreaths of roses
and garlands of flowers
around your soft neck.
And with precious and royal perfume
you anointed yourself.
On soft beds you satisfied your passion.
And there was no dance,
no holy place
from which we were absent.”
Fragment 23
Like a sweet-apple
turning red
high
on the tip
of the topmost branch.
Forgotten by pickers.
Not forgotten—
they couldn’t reach it.
Fragment 34
Death is an evil.
That’s what the gods think.
Or they would die.
Fragment 58 Translated by Anne Carson
You, children, be zealous for the beautiful gifts of the violetlapped Muses
and for the clear songloving lyre.
But my skin once soft is now taken by old age,
my hair turns white from black.
And my heart is weighed down and my knees do not lift,
that once were light to dance as fawns.
I groan for this. But what can I do?
A human being without old age is not a possibility.
There is the story of Tithonos, loved by Dawn with her arms of roses
and she carried him off to the ends of the earth
when he was beautiful and young. Even so was he gripped
by white old age. He still has his deathless wife.
That concludes our preview series of Tenth Muse! We hope to see you at our performances next weekend!
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