By Charles M. Sumid
Copyright 2025 Written 1973

… mater, non possum tenuem telam
texere—me frangit tenera puella
Cypridis dono; digiti trementes
linea relinquunt.

Vidi eam heri sub arbore mali—
risit, et mundus cecidit ruina.
Nunc ego langueo velut aestivo
sole cicada.

Dulcior melle mihi vox sonabat,
mollior pluma rosa gena fulget.
Quid faciam? Fugio an… sed quo fugiam
me mea flamma?

Translation

A Sapphic Fragment (Rendered from Latin)

…mother, I cannot weave the slender thread—
a tender girl, gift of Cypris, breaks me.
My fingers tremble; the line slips away.

I saw her yesterday beneath the apple tree—
she smiled, and the world collapsed in ruin.
Now I languish like a cicada
in the summer sun.

Her voice was sweeter than honey to me,
her cheek glowed softer than feathered rose.
What can I do? Shall I flee—or…
but where can I escape my own flame?

---

Notes on Style

This fragment imagines how Sappho might sound translated into Latin, preserving her characteristic intimacy and directness. The poem moves from domestic frustration (the dropped weaving) to cosmic devastation (the world’s collapse) to natural simile (the cicada) to desperate questioning—all typical Sapphic movements.

The Latin maintains Greek elements: Cypridis (Aphrodite), the apple tree (sacred to the goddess), and the cicada image familiar from Greek lyric. The Sapphic stanza form (three hendecasyllabic lines plus one shorter adonic) creates that characteristic rhythm of building tension and release.

Most Sapphic: that shift from “risit” (she laughed/smiled) to total destruction. In Sappho, a girl’s smile can indeed end worlds. The fragment breaks off mid-thought with “an…” (or…), suggesting desire too intense for words—leaving us, like the speaker, suspended in that impossible moment between fleeing and surrendering.