Unlike Sappho 3's private meditation, this fragment places her within a ritual circle, in a song for public performance on the right ordering of voice, desire and presence under the gaze of Aphrodite.
Blah ...
Performance ...
Test the Assembly
This time
In the open.
If you don't, the cold
Baring ache
Now ...
Sing, I ask you, Abanthis, of Gongyla,
Pick at the strings, pluck her echo of absence
Circuiting the air,
The loved one, bearing the weight of her return,
Who stunned you when you saw her into trembling,
Which brought me succor
For I've been tagged with lacking the sanctified
Desire before, O Cyprus born
To whom I pray
That word, that sound
I die for.
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]βλα.[
]εργον, . . λ᾿ α . . [
]ν ῤέθος δοκιμ̣[
]ησθαι
]ν αὐάδην χ . [
αἰ δ]ὲ μή, χείμων[
].οισαναλγεα . [
]δε
.]. ε .[ …. ] . [ … κ]έλομαι σ᾿ ἀ̣[είδην
Γο]γγύλαν̣ [Ἄβ]α̣νθι λαβοισαν ἀ . [
πᾶ[κτιν, ἆς̣ σε δηὖτε πόθος τ̣ . [
ἀμφιπόταται
τὰν κάλαν· ἀ γὰρ κατάγωγις αὔτ̣α[ς σ᾿
ἐπτόαισ᾿ ἴδοισαν, ἐγὼ δὲ χαίρω·
καὶ γαρ αὔτ̣α δήπο[τ᾿] ἐμέμφ[ετ᾿ ἄγνα
Κ]υπρογέν[ηα
ὠ̣ς ἄραμα̣[ι
τοῦτο τὦ[πος
β]όλλομα̣[ι
From Digital Sappho
