Josephine Balmer (2018): Sappho: Poems & Fragments (Second expanded edition). Bloodaxe Books.
141pp. 125 fragments.
Immortal Aphrodite, on your patterned throne,
daughter of Zeus, guile-weaver,
I beg you goddess, don’t subjugate my heart
with anguish, with grief
Josephine Balmer originally published her translation of Sappho in 1984. A revised and corrected edition was published in 1996, and in 2018 she published a “new expanded edition”, incorporating the 2004 and 2014 discoveries. This new revised edition has much to recommend it, but a few frustrating elements remain.
To begin, it’s worth noting that Balmer is fairly selective with her inclusions; where Anne Carson includes every fragment from Voigt’s edition of Sappho “of which at least one word is legible”1, Balmer tends to omit the excessively fragmentary. Thus, of the 24 single-word glosses included in Voigt’s edition of Sappho (frr. 169–192), Balmer includes only three – merging two, both descriptions of the god Eros quoted by different authors, into a single fragment. She also omits excessively fragmentary sections even of poems that she includes; for instance cutting fr. 5 after line 10, despite there being at least some legible text on another six lines.
Balmer’s translations are generally clear and read well. Her introduction is helpful – and on the more accessible end for lay readers, with useful social and historical context, and thorough discussion of the issue of Sappho’s sexuality. There are few notes on specific fragments, but those that are included are easily accessible in footnotes rather than at the back of the book, and Balmer is careful to ensure that she explains points which are likely to be confusing for a general reader (e.g. explaining the myth of Eos and Tithonus in a footnote to fr. 58 = 31 Balmer). She also notes important points of scholarly dispute (the meaning of “greener/paler than grass” in fr. 31 = 20 Balmer; the attribution of fr. 168B = 38 Balmer to Sappho).
Now to my issues with this translation. The first is that this is clearly a new revised edition of the existing translation. Not only is the introduction that of the 1996 edition with a new section on the more recent discoveries tacked on the end, so too is the translation. Where the rest of the fragments were organised by theme (with fragments on e.g. love, marriage, or mother/daughter relationships grouped together), the new discoveries are just tacked on at the end rather than being incorporated into that organisation. Frustratingly, for the already-known fragments where new text was discovered, this has been resolved either by (1) keeping the old translation in place, and adding a separate new translation at the end or (2) simply noting the new discovery in a footnote. Thus in the case of fr. 58 = 31 Balmer, a revised translation is included at the end of the book as fr. 128 Balmer, but the original remains in place, with only a footnote marking the existence of the revised version. On the other hand, fr. 5 = 80 Balmer is left unamended in place, with only a footnote to explain that the translation given for the first line is now known to be based on an incorrect speculation.
My second issue with Balmer is the inclusion of fragment 100 Balmer (Sappho 1a Edmonds = PMG 938d). This fragment, which comes from a fifth-century vase depicting Sappho, was proposed in 1922 by J. M. Edmonds to be part of an authentic poem by Sappho. However, this proposal has not found any supporters, and no scholarly editions of Sappho since Edmonds have included it. Given that Balmer carefully notes the dispute over attribution for fr. 168B = 38 Balmer, including this without any sort of disclaimer or justification is a strange choice.
A personal quibble is Balmer’s ordering of the poems. She does provide a comparative numeration (though only to Lobel & Page’s edition; in the three cases where she includes fragments not in LP she gives the number in Edmonds’ edition rather than something more modern!) but I would really rather just have the standard numeration.
1. Carson, If Not, Winter, x. ↩