We hear that ancient Greek poetry was often sung, so I have made a little song for this poem. I have also attempted to bring out the vowel-lengths and pitch-accents, and to make phrases and ideas as intelligible as possible by separating them with pauses.
Transcript of English translation (free to use under CC-BY-4.0, or attribution only):
That man seems equal to the gods to me, who sits and faces you, and hears you sweetly speak nearby, and laugh in your lovely way. Oh, it terrifies my heart within my breast! For whenever I look at you, even for the briefest moment, nothing of my voice comes to me. But my tongue is completely broken; a subtle fire runs straight beneath my flesh; with my eyes I see nothing; my ears ring. Sweat pours down and down me; trembling takes hold of all of me; I am paler-green than grass; I seem little short of death.
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An excerpt from Longinus "On the Sublime," in which the author speaks of this fragment:
"One cause of sublimity is the choice of the most striking circumstances involved in whatever we are describing, and, further, the power of afterwards combining them into one animate whole. The reader is attracted partly by the selection of the incidents, partly by the skill which has welded them together. For instance, Sappho, in dealing with the passionate manifestations attending on the frenzy of lovers, always chooses her strokes from the signs which she has observed to be actually exhibited in such cases. But her peculiar excellence lies in the felicity with which she chooses and unites together the most striking and powerful features." (tr. by H. L. Havell.)
An extract from J. M. Edmonds, on Sappho:
“Plato calls her ‘the tenth Muse’; Strabo ‘a marvel’, and adds ‘In all the centuries since history began we know of no woman who could be said with any approach to truth to have rivalled her as a poet.’ To us, of all the ancient Greek poets, she stands supreme, and it is not only because her monodies strike the personal note so rare among them which makes all ages kin, but because we can hardly read a line of hers without feeling somehow that this could be neither better conceived nor better said.”
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Transcript of Greek text:
φαίνεταί μοι κῆνος ἴσος θέοισιν
ἔμμεν ὤνηρ, ὄττις ἐνάντιός τοι
ἰσδάνει καὶ πλάσιον ἆδυ φωνεί-
σας ὐπακούει
καὶ γελαίσας ἰμέροεν, τό μ' ἦ μὰν
καρδίαν ἐν στήθεσιν ἐπτόαισεν:
ὠς γὰρ εἰσίδω βροχέως σε, φώνας
οὐδὲν ἔτ᾽ ἴκει·
ἀλλὰ καμ μὲν γλῶσσα ἔαγε, λέπτον
δ’ αὔτικα χρῷ πῦρ ὐπαδεδρόμακεν,
ὀππάτεσσι δ᾽ οὐδὲν ὄρημ᾽, ἐπιρρόμ-
βεισι δ᾽ ἄκουαι.
καδ δέ μ᾽ ἴδρως κακχέεται, τρόμος δὲ
παῖσαν ἄγρει, χλωροτέρα δὲ ποίας
ἔμμι, τεθνάκην δ᾽ ὀλίγω ᾽πιδεύης
φαίνομαι […].
