I decided to wade into Jean’s Howling Frog Books Greek Challenge with something easy, so I pulled down Mary Barnard’s translation of Sappho from my bookshelf. Whereas other versions of Sappho sometimes read like Victorian diarrhea (pardon my French), Barnard’s translations are crisp, modern and clear even though they were published over half a century ago.

When you hear the name “Sappho” usually one thing comes to mind these days, so I was surprised to rediscover that her poems cover such a wide range of topics and emotions. My favorite was fragment 17, which I first highlighted 15 years ago before I ever had children, or even met my husband:

Sleep, darling

I have a small

daughter called

Cleis, who is

like a golden

flower

I wouldn’t

take all Croseus’

kingdom with love

thrown in, for her