[Julie Steiner]

Richard Lattimore's 1949 metrical translation of "The Anactoria Poem" by Sappho only works if you know where the stresses are supposed to fall, and promote some syllables and elide others, accordingly. "ON the BLACK EARTH IS an ar-RAY of HORSE-men" is not how any other English speaker would read this, nor "IS the LOVE-liest. LIGHT were the WORK to MAKE THIS / PLAIN to ALL.") Anyway:

Some there are who say that the fairest thing seen
on the black earth is an array of horsemen;
some, men marching; some would say ships; but I say
          she whom one loves best

is the loveliest. Light were the work to make this
plain to all, since she, who surpassed in beauty
all mortality, Helen, once forsaking
          her lordly husband,

fled away to Troy-land across the water.
Not the thought of child nor beloved parents
was remembered, after the Queen of Cyprus
          won her at first sight.

Since young brides have hearts that can be persuaded
easily, light things, palpitant to passion
as am I, remembering Anaktória
          who has gone from me

and whose lovely walk and the shining pallor
of her face I would rather see before my
eyes than Lydia's chariots in all their glory
          armored for battle.


I must confess that I've never really understood this poem. Who, other than jerks like Putin and Trump, wouldn't rather see their beloved than a military parade? And wouldn't even those jerks rather see an attractive woman than enemy forces arrayed against them? So even if this is riffing on a then-famous quotation by a conqueror, it seems like a no-brainer. "PLAIN to ALL" indeed.