Love

Invocation to Aphrodite (Way)

by Sappho c. 630 – c. 570 BC

Translated by Arthur S. Way (1920) · From Sappho and the Vigil of Venus (1920)

Love

Come, Queen of Cyprus, come to me!
Float hither from thy Paphian home;
From the all-welcoming haven come
To me, to my maid-friends and thine!
Be golden chalices by thee
Brimmed up with heaven's nectar-wine
With banquet-joys blent daintily.
So for thank-offering shall be led
A white kid to thy fane, to stand
Before thine altar, and mine hand
Libation-drops thereon shall shed.

✦ ✦ ✦

Way weaves several fragments in the same metre into one connected poem (his preface); the joins are his.

MLA

Sappho. “Invocation to Aphrodite (Way).” Translated by Arthur S. Way. Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/sappho/132/.

Chicago

Sappho. “Invocation to Aphrodite (Way).” Translated by Arthur S. Way. Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/sappho/132/.

Read this poem with the Codex →

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