Friday, July 08, 2005
The New Sappho
The poem ends with a reference to the myth of Tithonus, who was granted eternal life, but not eternal youth. The following passages from Greek literature also tell the tale of Tithonus:
- Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite 218-238 (tr. Hugh G. Evelyn White): So also golden-throned Eos [Dawn] rapt away Tithonus who was of your race and like the deathless gods. So she went to ask the dark-clouded Son of Cronos that he should be deathless and live eternally; and Zeus bowed his head to her prayer and fulfilled her desire. Too simple was queenly Eos; she thought not in her heart to ask youth for him and to strip him of the slough of deadly age. So while he enjoyed the sweet flower of life he lived rapturously with golden-throned Eos, the early-born, by the streams of Ocean, at the ends of the earth; but when the first grey hairs began to ripple from his comely head and noble chin, queenly Eos kept away from his bed, though she cherished him in her house and gave him rich clothing. But when loathsome old age pressed full upon him, and he could not move nor lift his limbs, this seemed to her in her heart the best counsel: she laid him in a room and put to the shining doors. There he babbles endlessly, and no more has strength at all, such as once he had in his supple limbs.
- Mimnermus, fragment 4: To Tithonus Zeus gave an evil to have, undying old age, which is even more dreadful than hard death.