“Wedding of Andromache and Hektor:” Sappho

Sappho’s is the sun-drenched voice of the first female poet in the Western corpus.  She lived on Lesbos, an island in the Aegean Sea, a place of grains, grapes, olive groves and orchards.

Her lyric poems, written during the 7th century BCE, largely exist in fragments yet her voice rings bold with passion and candor, an ecstasy of the senses.  In this telling of a wedding feast you can feel the excitement, envision the coming together of family and friends, hear the heavenly songs of love.

Wedding of Andromache and Hektor

The translation is by Willis Barnstone.