Sappho

Here you will find the Poem The Death Of Adonis of poet Sappho

The Death Of Adonis

Fragments 108, 110, 115, 117, 116, 111, 114, and 113 combined.

This is the lamentation-song
For Adonis ? woe for Adonis, woe!
Thus wailed Aphrodite in anguish-throe,
As she strove to hold him back from death:
'Let thine heart not faint, O love! Be strong!
O me, it burns me, thy failing breath!
It kindles through all my being a fire!
My heart is aflame with despairing desire!'
She calls to her Eros of golden wing,
She bids him steep in the ice-cold spring
Fine linen, and lay on Adonis' brow: ?
'O love, let its coolness revive thee now! . . .
Vain, vain! ? his eyes see me no more;
They are fixed in a gaze upon Hades' door!
They close ? he sleeps ? not the sleep of the dead!
Hush, stir not a pebble with heedless tread!
No, no! this is death! Now remaineth to me
No sweetness on earth ? nor honey nor bee!'