If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho

Sappho lived on the island of Lesbos from about 630 b.c. She was a musical genius who devoted her life to composing and performing songs. Of the nine books of lyrics Sappho is said to have composed, none of the music is extant and only one poem has survived complete. All the rest are fragments. In ‘If Not, Winter’ Carson presents all of Sappho's fragments in Greek and in English. Brackets and space give the reader a sense of what is absent on the papyrus. Carson's translation illuminates Sappho's reflections on love, desire, marriage, exile, cushions, bees, old age, shame, time, chickpeas, and many other aspects of the human situation.