Hymn to Aphrodite (remixed)

Sappho's Hymn to Aphrodite
(recited in Classical Greek with the English translation as text in the video)

excerpted from my earlier video "Lesbian Poetry" (which I will post as a response to this) but without all the useless talk. (You should watch the useless talk, though, too, since it will stand as my memorial to the recently passed Dispatcher.)

Note that I pronounce Classical Greek using the Erasmian convention, which is quite different (harsher and more stately) from Modern Greek and also somewhat different from more recent scholarly ideas of how the ancients actually spoke. (Also note that this is the American version of the Erasmian convention, which differs slightly from , say, the Dutch version or the Italian version. Moreover it's my own idiosyncratic accent, which is influenced in part by my Greek teacher who was from New Zealand.) Some day I'll do a video about all that.

[EDIT: Oops, I misspoke in the line
αι δε μη φιλει ταχεως φιλησει
("Ai de maa filei, takheos filaasei," translated here as "and if she does not love, she shall presently love"). I said φιλεις ("fileis") where it should have been φιλει ("filei"). Oh, well, maybe I'll do a corrected version some day....]

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Sappho
• Hymn
• to
• Aphrodite
• Lesbian
• lesbian
• love
• poem
• poetry
• Greek
• Lesbos
• Poikilothron
• ποικιλοθρον
• Ψαπφω
• Λεσβος

[reginalampje]

Hello Claude Katz

as a student of latin and Greek I like this poem very much. Just today I'v been busy with an assignment on Greek lyric. Lately I have studied some neolatin, of which I liked Petrarc esp. the climbing of the mt ventoux.

I hope you'll do some more Greek!

greetings from Regina from Holland

[DClaudeKatz]

Hello, Regina, and thank you for your comment! (I hope you don't mind that I am removing the extra copies. I know with YouTube, it's often impossible to tell if a comment has posted or not, so people end up posting multiple copies.)

[Deusarmos]

It was very interesting. On the one hand, my Greek (the modern one) is not that fluent, and I don't speak the Ancient Greek(s) at all, on the other hand methinks your accent and stress are not that Greek, it looks like you use some "soft" letters that do not surely exist in modern Greek.

I'd like to know weather I'm a bit right, or I'm wrong, and the "soft" letters and accent you use are/were typical for the Greek. Ewxaristw)

[arisgreece26]

@Tzoistzo and i doubt they do it either...

[kakosuranosx]

Oi sofoi exousi tous aristous logous. (The wise men always have the best speech expression). Nice greek! ***** :)

[Tzoistzo]

No one here in Greece speaks Erasmian except professors!

[sarahmarie20]

I love how interesting and different you videos are. You use youtube for a much better reason than many, that is forsure. haha!