58 ("The New Sappho")

῎Υμμες πεδὰ Μοίσαν ἰ]οκ[ό]λπων κάλα δῶρα, παῖδες,
σπουδάσδετε καὶ τὰ]ν φιλἀοιδον λιγύραν χελύνναν·

ἔμοι δ᾽ἄπαλον πρίν] ποτ᾽ [ἔ]οντα χρόα γῆρας ἤδη
ἐπέλλαβε, λεῦκαι δ’ ἐγ]ένοντο τρίχες ἐκ μελαίναν·

βάρυς δέ μ’ ὀ [θ]ῦμος πεπόηται, γόνα δ’ [ο]ὐ φέροισι,
τὰ δή ποτα λαίψηρ’ ἔον ὄρχησθ’ ἴσα νεβρίοισι.

τὰ <μὲν> στεναχίσδω θαμέως· ἀλλὰ τί κεν ποείην;
ἀγήραον ἄνθρωπον ἔοντ᾽ οὐ δύνατον γένεσθαι.

καὶ γἀρ π[ο]τα Τίθωνον ἔφαντο βροδόπαχυν Αὔων
ἔρωι φ . . αθεισαν βάμεν’ εἰς ἔσχατα γᾶς φέροισα[ν,

ἔοντα [κ]άλον καὶ νέον, ἀλλ’ αὖτον ὔμως ἔμαρψε
χρόνωι πόλιον γῆρας, ἔχ[ο]ντ’ ἀθανάταν ἄκοιτιν.


You, girls, make haste to reap the lovely gifts
of the sweet Muses with their violet breasts,
and the clear-singing lyre.

My own once tender skin is now grown parched,
withered by age, and all my flowing hair
has turned from black to white;

my spirit sinks in heaviness; my knees
no longer bear me up, though once I danced
as lithely as a fawn.

So often I lament these things; but what
can one do? To be human, not grow old—
it is impossible.

For rosy-armed Aurora, so they say,
once bore away Tithonus for her love,
off to the wide world's end;

and beautiful and young as he was then,
yet grizzled age in time seized hold of him,
clasping his deathless wife.