Sappho the Poetess
Are you thrice removed from reality?
To him you happened to be the tenth muse
The nine being exhausted. A mimicry
As art and banished from the Republic.
Homer’s art is lies, what is yours?
Ai’nt not the poets bring down from
Heavens, life’s tender imagined impulses
Ai’nt not they ‘besides themselves’
The universe is an idea, and you make
A reflection, an imitation. Then what is that
Which can’t be reflected, an inspiration.
An action confined to ‘single circuit of the sun’
Complete, as far as possible, and something near that.
“A tragedy, then, is the imitation of an action that is serious
And, also having magnitude, complete in itself; in language
Embellished with each kind of ornament, each kind
Brought in separately in parts of the work, in dramatic,
Not in narrative form; with incidents arousing pity
And fear, wherewith to accomplish it’s catharsis
Of such emotion” –Poetics of Aristotle
Sappho the Poetess
Are you thrice removed from reality?
Sadiqullah Khan
Islamabad
September 12,2013.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem