Fragment 30

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COMMENTARY

νυκτ[ . . . ] . [
πάρθενοι δ[
παννυχίσδοι̣[σ]α̣ι̣[
σὰν ἀείδοιε̣ν φ[ιλότατα καὶ νύμ-
φας ἰοκόλπω.
ἀλλ᾿ ἐγέρθε̣ι̣ς ἠϊθ[έοις
στεῖχε σοὶς ὐμάλικ̣[ας, ὠς ἐλάσσω
ἤπερ ὄσσον ἀ λιγ̣ύφω̣[νος ὄρνις
ὔπνον [ἴ]δωμεν. ⊗

Page 30

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Book I

Meter: Sapphic Stanzas

– ᴗ – × | – ᴗ ᴗ – | ᴗ – ×

– ᴗ ᴗ – ×

Text: Campbell, David A. 1982. Greek Lyric, Vol. I: Sappho and Alcaeus. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Source: P. Oxy. 1231 fr. 56 + 2166(a) 6A

NB: ⊗ indicates the beginning or end of a new poem.

Activity

1	νύξ, νυκτός (ἡ) night
2	παρθένος (ἡ) maiden
3	παννυχίσδω to celebrate or stay awake all night long (pres. act. partic. nom. pl. fem.)
4	σός, σή, σόν your
	ἀείδω to sing. Campbell reads ἀείδοιεν (3rd pl. pres. act. opt.). Voigt reads ἀείδοισιν (3rd pl. pres. act. indic.).
	φιλότης, φιλότητος (ἡ) love, affection (acc. sg.)
	νύμφη (ἡ) bride (gen. sg.)
5	ἰόκολπος, ον wearing a purple robe (gen. sg. fem.)
6	ἐγείρομαι to wake (yourself) up (aor. pass. partic. nom. sg. masc.). The addressee is the groom.
	ἠΐθεος (ὁ) unmarried youth (acc. pl.). The force of σοίς ("your") is "your friends, the unmarried young men." They seem to be the direct object of a missing verb, like "fetch" (Campbell)¹ or "call" (Rayor and Lardinois).²
7	στείχω to go, come
	ὐμᾶλιξ, ικος Aeol. for ὁμῆλιξ of the same age
	ὠς so that
	ἐλάσσων, ον less (acc. sg. masc.)
8	ἤπερ in the same way as
	ὄσσος, η, ον as much as. It modifies ὔπνον, but makes clumsy English: May we see less sleep than the sweet-voiced bird, as much as it gets, in the same way as it.
	ἀ Aeol. for ἤ, than
	λιγύφωνος, ον clear-toned, sweet-voiced, loud
	ὄρνις, ὄρνιθος (ὁ, ἡ) bird
9	ὔπνος (ὁ) sleep
	ἴδωμεν (1st pl. aor. act. subj from εἶδον) to see

¹ Campbell, David A. 1982. Greek Lyric, Vol. I: Sappho and Alcaeus. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

² Rayor, Diane J., and André Lardinois, eds. 2014. Sappho: A New Translation of the Complete Works. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Source: https://digitalsappho.org/fragments/fr30/

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