Solon

Translated by Taije Silverman and Marina Della Putta Johnston. Used by permission of authors

Sad the feast where no one sings,

like temples lacking sacrifice.

It’s what a happy life entreats:

to listen undistracted to the song

of one whose voice contains a trace

of the unknown. No pleasure can compete

with that of sitting down to plates

of bread and fresh grilled meat

while some fine singer overwhelms the air.

Young servants brim the cups with wine;

the zither raises up its hymn;

then moodily, the harpist plucks

a chord that seems to weep with grief.

You listen, glad, for in your ear,

the sadness of the sound transforms to joy.

“You once expounded, Solon, how a man

who loves is lucky, as is he with gold,

or hunting dogs, or friends in foreign lands.

But now you’re old. And neither love nor travel

combats time. A brimming cup is what you need;

we favor youth in song, but years in wine.”

So Phocus claimed, then shared the news

from Athens’ port: a woman from Eressos

had just docked there, bringing springtime

and the first spring birds, as well as songs

that none had ever heard. Solon told his host,

“Invite her in. Give welcome to this swallow

who’s been guided by spring wind.”

It was the time of Bacchus: early March.

The smoky wine was open by the hearth.

The singer came with fresh spring light

and the Aegean’s salty breath. She bore

two songs: a love song and a song that told

of death. As Phocus placed a cup of wine

before his guest, she sat down on a carved

gold stool and tuned her Lydian lyre.

With trembling chords, she then began to sing—

Beneath a rounded moon the orchard gleams.

The silvery boughs of apples slightly shudder.

From distant, sky-tinged mountain peaks,

wind whistles.

It roars, the wind, unflooring gorges, throws

itself against the oaks. In me it seems

a tremor … but it’s love that rushes through

and shakes my limbs.

No nearer than the distant sun

to my fine curls, but like the sun, love seeps

into my being. Lovely, but the loveliness

of light, which dies.

To disappear. Just this: I don’t want more.

Become the light emerging from its source.

Far cliff of clear, enormous light—sharp cliff

above the wave:

how sweet to fall along your edge that ends

in peace. As sun falls to the shoreless sea

while trailing after, twilight falls, and falling,

trembles, gleaming—

Old Solon wept, “I know this song! It’s death!”

The guest looked up: You’re wrong. This one is love.

She pulled the lyre nearer now, and strummed:

Enough with tears. We’re in a poet’s house;

what will she think? If you should cry, then cry

instead for athletes whose entire beauty dies

when they are dead.

The hero’s courage dies as well, while bravely

breaking battle lines; even the helmsman’s

steady eye; even the breasts of Rhodopis

will end in death.

But any song which lifts aloft its bright

wide wings between the lyre’s thrumming strings

is never wholly gone. The poet lives

beyond herself

as long as someone sings the words; we shun

the need for mourning clothes. Our lives,

our strength, our souls, are fed with song.

Grief’s not for us.

Whoever longs for my return

can touch these strings and sing my lines:

through song they’ll gaze again at Sappho’s

petaled light.

This was the song of death. “Let me learn it,”

Solon cried. “I want to sing this song and die.”