Sappho Translation

Well I would like to premise this post with the notion that translation is really difficult. Its so easy to either just imitate or not get the point across at all!

I really enjoyed the opportunity to explore jealousy. I used the translations by Anne Carson; I chose that one in particular because it was by a woman. I felt that to capture a woman's jealousy it is best to use another woman's perspective. In her translation Ms. Carson compares the beloved to a god which I felt was an unnecessary comparison, I said rather that he was a quintessentially perfect male. To some this may seem the same but I feel that by giving the beloved a godlike quality he then has too much power. Additionally this comparison does not reflect that a god is not always male or all powerful, which flaws the image. If he is just the epitome of male perfection, then the attraction can be there without the danger of having to worship him in any way. While writing my translation I tried to take the idea behind the poem and write from personal experience. I have definitely been in that situation... where the guy you have a HUGE crush on is being snatched up by some other girl. I tried to think of precisely how that made me feel and put it into words.
I really wanted some more vivid imagery in the poem soI tried to flesh out the "drumming fills ears" part into something more tangible with my analogy of an ocean serf. I used similar description as far as the sensation of fire on the skin and sweating and trembling. My description of "sweat trickling between my breasts" I thought made the poem more gender specific. Instead of my translation saying that my tongue breaks, which implies it wont work I wanted something more aggressive. I like the imagery of biting my tongue to restrain the words I'm thinking and I felt this reflected more realistically how this situation would play out. I think in this day and age women are more outspoken so it is more likely that a woman would have to hold her tongue than for it to stop working.
I changed the use of the color green in the poem. I still used the description, green as grass, but rather than to describe my appearance I used it to describe how I saw other things. People viewing me may not know I am jealous, but this fit of jealousy will overpower my vision and cast itself upon everything I do. I felt this internalized the emotion more and made me more responsible for it. Additionally, I still included a death like state but I did it in such a way that it was more like blacking out. As though the effort needed to control my emotions was such that it was causing my body to break down and my mind to shut down.

I feel that by translating this poem you are able to evaluate your own emotions and try to capture their essence. I have been jealous before, but now I have a very distinct description of how this emotion affects me.