Sappho’s ‘Supreme Sight on the Black Earth’

By Scott Horton

Some say cavalry and others claim infantry or a fleet of long oars is the supreme sight on the black earth.

I say it is the one you love.

Some say cavalry and others claim

infantry or a fleet of long oars

is the supreme sight on the black earth.

I say it is

the one you love. And easily proved.

Didn’t Helen, who far surpassed all

mortals in beauty, desert the best

of men, her king,

and sail off to Troy and forget

her daughter and her dear parents? Merely

Aphrodite’s gaze made her readily bend

and led her far

from her path. These tales remind me now

of Anaktoria who isn’t here,

yet I

for one

would rather see her warm supple step

and the sparkle in her face than watch all

the chariots in Lydia and foot soldiers armored

in glittering bronze.

–Sappho (Σαπφω), Supreme Sight on the Black Earth (ca. 590 BCE)(W. Barnstone transl.)