Fragment 118, tr. R. (so signed)
Does any ask? I answer from the dead;A voice that lives is graven o'er my head:To dark-eyed Dian, ere my days begun,Aristo vowed me, wife of Saon's son:Then hear thy priestess, hear, O virgin Power,And thy best gifts on Saon's lineage shower.
Words in this poem
- graven p. p.
- Carved. Graven image, an idol; an object of worship carved from wood, stone, etc.
- priestess n.
- A woman who officiated in sacred rites among pagans. Abp.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Fragment 118, tr. R. (so signed) is in the public domain. This text is taken from Sappho: Memoir, Text, Selected Renderings, and a Literal Translation (ed. Henry Thornton Wharton, John Lane, 1908, fifth edition), Project Gutenberg ebook #57390, the Various (ed. H. T. Wharton) translation; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Sappho, Fragment 118, tr. R. (so signed), in Sappho: Selected Renderings (1908), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #57390, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sappho-wharton/fr-118.html, id L29203.
Form and metre
Fragment 118, tr. R. (so signed) is 6 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%).
See other poems in heroic couplets, other poems in iambic pentameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 AABBCC deadA · headA · begunB · sonB · powerC · showerC
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Does any ask? I answer from the dead; | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| A voice that lives is graven o'er my head: | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| To dark-eyed Dian, ere my days begun, | 10 | ···/˘···˘/ |
| Aristo vowed me, wife of Saon's son: | 9 | ········· |
| Then hear thy priestess, hear, O virgin Power, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘/ |
| And thy best gifts on Saon's lineage shower. | 9 | ······/˘/ |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.