Chapter 8. The Meter and Metrical Style of the New Poem Joel Lidov POxy. 1787, including Sappho 58 V—and so the “New Poem”—has been assigned to Book Four of the Alexandrian edition of her works since its first publication (Ox. Pap. XV:26; cf. Lobel 1925:xii). Because the assignment is a conjecture, this is a good moment to review the status of the question, and at the… Read more
Chapter 7. Acceptance or Assertion?Sappho’s New Poem in its Books Joel Lidov That time of year thou mayst in me behold, When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. Shakespeare’s image of the absence of song neatly sums up the familiar notion that… Read more
Chapter 6. No Way Out? Aging in the New (and Old) Sappho Deborah Boedeker I will not rehearse in detail the brief but exciting history of the “New Sappho” Cologne papyrus that was published in 2004 by Michael Gronewald and Robert Daniel, familiar as it is to readers of this volume. [1] Suffice it to say that P.Köln 21351 (with… Read more
Chapter 5. Tithonus in the “New Sappho” and the Narrated Mythical Exemplum in Archaic Greek Poetry Lowell Edmunds carminis fi nem statueram, nunc dubito —M.L. West [1] At present, some think that the twelve lines of the “New Sappho” are a complete poem; some think that the poem must have continued, as it appears to do in the… Read more
Chapter 4. The New Sappho Poem (P.Köln 21351 and 21376): Key to the Old Fragments André Lardinois The Egyptian desert continues to reveal to us its treasures. The most spectacular find in recent years is probably the Milan papyrus, containing over one hundred new epigrams of the Hellenistic poet Posidippus, published in 2001. [1] No less spectacular is the… Read more
Chapter 3. The Cologne Sappho: Its Discovery and Textual Constitution Jürgen Hammerstaedt Discovery and Acquisition In 2002 a group of more than 20 papyri was on the market. They belonged to a private collector outside Egypt. We do not know how and when the papyri became his property. But only after acquisition by the Cologne Papyrus Collection could these ancient documents of inestimable cultural value… Read more
Chapter 2. Sappho Fragments 58–59: Text, Apparatus Criticus, and Translation Dirk Obbink “The New Sappho” actually comprises a group of papyrus fragments, quotations, and testimonia for Sappho’s poetry dating back more than two millennia. Scholars who were amazed to learn that Sappho had “composed a new poem” when Edgar Lobel published it a half-century ago—she had, after all, been dead for over 2600 years—would have been… Read more
Chapter 1. Introduction Marilyn B. Skinner Papyrological finds, no matter how momentous for papyrologists and other specialists studying the ancient world, ordinarily do not make international headlines. Yet M. L. West’s 2005 article in the Times Literary Supplement announcing the apparent recovery of a virtually intact poem by Sappho, only the fourth to have survived almost complete, was quickly picked up by newspapers on both sides… Read more
A Note on Classics@ This volume, The New Sappho on Old Age, is Issue 4 of the Center for Hellenic Studies journal Classics@, available free online from the Center’s website (http://chs.harvard.edu). The goal of Classics@ is to bring the best of contemporary classical scholarship to a wide audience. Each issue is dedicated to its own topic, often with guest editors, for an in-depth exploration of important current… Read more
Finding Aid for Cross-References Part One: Nestor’s Indo-European Background Chapter One: The Problem; §1.1–§1.12, nn1.1–1.26.Chapter Two: Greek; §1.13–§1.41, nn1.27–1.116.Chapter Three: Vedic; §1.42–§1.69, nn1.117–1.225. Part Two: Nestor’s Homeric Role Chapter Four: Iliad 11; §2.1–§2.18, nn2.1–2.26.Chapter Five: Iliad 23; §2.19–§2.55, nn2.27–2.70.Chapter Six: Odyssey 3 and Iliad 8; §2.56–§2.99, nn2.71–2.127.Chapter Seven: Odyssey 11 and the Phaeacians; §2.100–§2.168, nn2.128–2.244. Part Three: Athens… Read more
