0:41

Hi, Hello, Welcome. This

0:43

is Let's talk about myths baby, and

0:46

I am your host, live here

0:49

with another conversation episode

0:51

for Pride Month. Heck

0:54

yeah, I'm recording

0:57

this after spending like four days

0:59

straight writing and recording like fifteen

1:01

episodes, so this is going to be short

1:04

and brief. Today I spoke with Brendan's

1:07

a Turka. We know each other

1:09

through Twitter, and at some point Brennan was like,

1:11

tweet it out, I'm translated

1:14

Sappho, and I was like, Hi,

1:17

Hi, One

1:19

of these days I'd love to read parts of Brendan's

1:22

translation, because he sent it to me and they're great

1:24

and wonderful. But in

1:26

the meantime, here is a conversation

1:29

about translating Sappho,

1:33

translating this ancient poetry

1:35

that is both aolic

1:38

which means I've heard a very

1:40

difficult Greek

1:42

dialect to learn, and

1:45

also like from like seven

1:47

hundred BCE, and also by a

1:50

queer woman or

1:52

an ancient woman that we can very reasonably

1:55

say would be described as queer

1:57

now. So we talk about translating

2:00

that kind of thing, the ins and

2:02

out Sappho as a

2:05

character, as a real person.

2:08

We talk about the time period

2:10

and queerness generally

2:13

in the ancient world and

2:15

in translation. We

2:18

had a really, really fun time and

2:21

I am excited for y'all to listen to it. This

2:23

was recorded quite a while back now, because

2:26

I'd been hoarding it for Pride month,

2:28

so I'm so excited to be sharing it

2:30

with you all today. It is incredibly

2:33

fun, and I will take

2:35

any and all opportunities to learn

2:37

more about Saffo, about her work,

2:39

about translation. I just absolutely

2:41

love having these kinds of conversations, so I'm

2:44

so thrilled to bring it to you today.

3:01

Conversations the love

3:03

of a good woman translating

3:06

Sappho with Brendan's a Turka.

3:23

So why don't you like this is such a unique

3:26

thing because I think, well, you're you've

3:28

you've translated Sapo, but also just

3:30

kind of it seems like for fun slash

3:32

you know you're gonna get self published these, So

3:35

like, why don't you tell me a bit about yourself and

3:37

like your translating background, and also like why

3:39

Safo, I don't know tell me everything

3:41

basically.

3:43

So I guess the first thing

3:45

I'm gonna say is that I'm

3:47

at the forefront. Like I was, I am

3:49

a fantasy writer, I'm a horror, fantasy writer,

3:52

supernatural whatever, and

3:55

I really got into translation kind of by

3:57

accidents, and

3:59

so it really took off

4:03

around unfortunately,

4:05

like everybody has this same benchmark

4:08

of cod and so I

4:10

was I was working on a

4:12

book that was out with a number of agents

4:15

and like a number of dream agents who gave

4:19

me good feedback but initially turned

4:21

it down, and I was having a lot

4:23

of time. I

4:25

was having a big struggle with what

4:28

I wanted to work on next, and none of the words

4:30

were working, and so I thought,

4:34

I have been reading, you know, just little

4:38

like bits of Greek here, and now why don't I

4:40

try translation and

4:42

see if I can like work with

4:44

somebody else's words in

4:46

a different way, and see if I can like express

4:49

my creativity in that way. I

4:52

initially started, of course, with Euripides

4:55

Medea, and then I like dabbled

4:57

in some other lyric poems, and then

5:00

you know, I always liked Sappho's

5:03

you know, the big one, the thirty one,

5:06

and this is just like my own personal

5:09

gripe. None of the translations

5:11

out there really like tickled my soul

5:13

in the way that I wanted it to. And so I was like I'm

5:15

just gonna do it myself. And

5:18

then it just sort of took off from there and I

5:21

worked on Medea.

5:25

I finished that, and it's sort

5:27

of like been tucked away. I shared some of my work

5:29

on you know, Twitter and Instagram,

5:32

and it like accidentally like

5:34

gathered a bunch of people that liked

5:37

it. I was like, okay, so I'll just keep doing

5:39

that. And then

5:41

last winter I was

5:43

like, I'm just gonna do Safo's entire corpus,

5:45

or at least the bits that I could make sense out

5:48

of, and that's sort of where

5:50

I am.

5:51

I mean amazing. Yeah, that Sappho is so interesting

5:53

for that like bits you can make sense of because it is

5:55

so fragmentary and like some

5:58

you know, are these like sort

6:00

of coherent pieces even if they're

6:02

really short, And then of course we have like is it just like

6:04

the one confirmed long one like

6:07

full?

6:08

Yeah? I think they. I think they say that the

6:11

very first fragment is the only one that they

6:13

technically consider complete.

6:15

Right, And I know there was like that

6:17

possible fake one which I never kept track

6:20

enough of, But I like

6:22

the story from what little I know, because it's

6:24

horrifically bananas. Yeah.

6:26

No, I mean Staffe was so interesting because she is so fragmentary,

6:29

and like, yeah, I imagine it would

6:31

be quite fun

6:34

to kind of play around with that. And

6:37

I mean she's just so cool. Like

6:40

I have such a thing for like how we have her work

6:43

in that primarily it's all like really accidental

6:45

and like these little pieces that were just like found

6:47

on other things, and I yeah,

6:50

the sort of transmission of that kind of

6:52

stuff is my little pet obsession

6:54

and I don't know enough about it, but I love whatever

6:56

I learn. But yeah,

6:59

I mean like I don't even know

7:01

what to ask because it's just such a fun thing and

7:03

like Sappho so interesting, but

7:06

she is like I don't even know we like

7:09

basically, maybe you know, did you have favorites?

7:11

Like did you learn something really cool about Taffle? Like

7:13

what are your thoughts on her? And like maybe

7:15

that'll give me actual questions to ask you because

7:17

I'm bad at that. Apparently I

7:20

think.

7:22

I ran into more favorites. I

7:24

actually never read her work

7:27

in translation before. I read like parts

7:29

of Ann Carson's translation, but not from

7:31

cover to back, and so getting

7:34

into some of the poems that I hadn't known

7:36

myself was actually really

7:38

fun and it

7:41

it really I learned more

7:43

about how she would structure

7:45

a Greek sentence as opposed to

7:47

like Homer quote unquote,

7:51

and it was just really interesting to see the flow

7:53

of her words in its original form.

7:55

But also I would like

7:59

discovered just how sensual

8:01

a lot of her poetry is, the kinds of things

8:03

that she focuses on, the

8:05

touching, the sense

8:07

in terms of she sees in what she hears. It's

8:10

just very interesting to me, and

8:13

that's kind of like what kept

8:15

me going through all the like really

8:18

difficult parts.

8:19

Well, yeah, because it's also like Aolic

8:21

Greek, you know, like there's so much

8:24

going on in staff with that makes her kind of like atypical

8:26

even if you are, you know, familiar with

8:28

ancient Greek. More broadly, like

8:31

I have a Sappho fragment

8:34

tattoo, and every time I'm in Greece,

8:36

you know, like ten to fifteen different

8:39

people will be like, oh, that's Greek, and I'll be like, yeah,

8:41

can you read it? And they're like, no, it's nonsense,

8:43

and I'm like, I know because even though like a

8:45

lot of times, you know, modern Greeks can speak or

8:47

not speak, but like can read like decent

8:50

amounts of ancient Greek because they are so you know,

8:52

they're so similar, or at least lots

8:54

of it is similar. But then there's

8:57

you know, there's this iolic and so like

8:59

I even had somebody once who was looking at it and he was

9:01

like so sure that he would know because

9:04

like of an ancient Greek knowledge, and he was like, it's

9:07

misspelled, and I'll like, I don't think

9:09

it is, but like I mean, if it is, like maybe,

9:12

but I've got it Dirrek from Nan Carson, so it's her

9:14

fault if not. But like

9:16

I was like, I think that the issue because he was like it shouldn't

9:18

be like it starts with a with a psi

9:21

and he was like it should be something else, and I was like, I

9:23

think that's the Aolic coming in because

9:26

like even Sappho's name, you

9:28

know in Iola Greek is Sapfo.

9:31

It's like not even starting with a sigma,

9:33

like it is starting with a psi, and so like

9:36

I don't know. I like I know so little. I don't know enough

9:38

ancient Greek, but like I just fucking

9:40

love learning shit like that, and it makes me just think that

9:42

like, yeah, translating her Iola Greek,

9:45

you know from like all, she's all the way off in Lesbos,

9:47

like whereas so much of what we have is from Athens, Like I

9:49

just can imagine that it would be like particularly difficult.

9:54

So obviously, like most people,

9:57

So first off, I need to just

9:59

say, I'm like self taught in ancient

10:01

Greek.

10:01

Amazing.

10:01

I never I never took it in undergrad because

10:03

it never aligned with my schedule or grad

10:06

school. But and so I

10:08

I obviously learned like attic, and I

10:10

started with a lot of the Tragedians, and then

10:12

I like moved into Homeric,

10:14

which to me is kind of like the easiest,

10:18

even if there's like a few different shades of

10:20

difference. It took

10:22

me so long to even just get into

10:24

the groove of Saffle's ale like

10:26

it the spelling would always

10:29

catch me up. I'd be like, oh, that's the word that

10:31

I know, but then it wasn't, or like

10:33

I think I know it, or then it turns

10:35

out to be a really simple word that of course.

10:37

I know that. Yeah,

10:39

Like I get the sense that it is just like often

10:42

like little spelling difference is like little

10:44

like a like a upside instead of a sigma

10:48

if for that you know, like which

10:50

would be extra difficult, I would imagine,

10:52

because yeah, like it's close but

10:55

like not quite you know the word you're expecting

10:57

it to be.

10:59

And then I think there's a lot of different

11:01

vowel shifts. There's a lot

11:04

more I think the ada's than

11:07

in their forms.

11:09

Interesting and so also

11:13

different con like other consonants

11:15

swap out for other consonants. I like

11:18

it all like bled out of my head.

11:19

For now, but valid. Yeah,

11:23

I mean, yeah, I don't know self taught

11:26

generally, I love because I mean I

11:28

do have a classics degree, but like I didn't get to learn

11:30

the languages, and

11:32

and like ninety nine percent of what I

11:34

know at this point is self taught, like at least

11:36

because my degree is really old and I barely remember

11:38

it. But I also like this stuff that I have taught myself

11:41

in this podcast is like so by and

11:43

large more valuable than anything I learned in

11:45

my degree. So it's just so interesting

11:47

and like, yeah, I just think there's something like really

11:50

valid about teaching yourself something like that

11:52

because you just like want to and ancient Greek

11:54

is so lovely, Like if I had a

11:57

little bit more time and I didn't already have to

11:59

devote like every moment of my waking life to ancient

12:01

Greece, Like I would absolutely learn

12:04

it. I love it so much and all

12:06

the little things that I do learn along the way, because I

12:08

just do a lot of like creeping on Perseus

12:11

and trying to like figure shit out

12:13

for myself. Like it's just always so much fun.

12:15

So I can just only imagine like teaching herself

12:17

but then also translating like that. I

12:20

just yeah, I'm jealous basically,

12:22

is what I'm saying. Yeah,

12:25

it's it. Sapho was just

12:27

so interesting, like did you did you do research

12:29

into her?

12:30

You know?

12:31

Or what we what little we do know of her much

12:33

as like a person, or just like kind of focus

12:35

on the translation.

12:37

And so so I teach, I've been teaching.

12:41

I teach Greek and Latin

12:44

literature and translation in the Humanities

12:46

Department and a number of city colleges, and

12:48

so I'm familiar with her enough

12:51

in that aspect, so I had to prepare lecture

12:53

material on her. And so I

12:55

knew of Stapho when I knew what she was

12:58

like a writer of and I was

13:00

familiar with, you know, an Carson and a number

13:02

of the other like archaic

13:04

translations of her stuff. And

13:07

so it was really just like I finally got a chance

13:09

to just dive into her world myself,

13:11

Like I knew who this one was to

13:13

whatever extent that we could say that, and

13:16

I could finally like look at her language

13:19

myself. And so that was like really

13:22

part of like the discovery of Sapho. Like

13:24

I knew of Sappho and I knew

13:27

enough about her life, but like when

13:29

you get into her language, I feel like you

13:32

learn so much more of that

13:35

person, even though we

13:37

only have fragments of her. And

13:40

I think one of the things that really stood out to

13:42

me was just incredibly

13:45

how like queer quote

13:47

unquote her stuff even is there's

13:50

all this talk about like are is she writing

13:52

about friends? Is she writing about

13:54

people that she's really interested? Is she queer?

13:57

Is she actually a lesbian? Does

13:59

she like men? But I mean

14:02

those people that positive those arguments

14:04

I think are like, I don't know, I

14:06

feel like it's pretty obvious to me as

14:09

a you know, queer person.

14:12

Yeah, no, I mean you're you basically

14:14

transition to exactly what I was going to try to figure out how

14:17

to ask, because it is like

14:19

it is such a funny argument, like

14:22

I mean, you know, there's so much to be said

14:24

for placing modern you

14:27

know, sexualities and things like

14:29

onto the ancient world generally, but

14:31

then but they do it all the time with straight

14:33

people, so it's like okay, like chill out, Like I

14:36

remember, I I

14:39

forget how it happened, but I was like again

14:42

in Greece, apparently it's all my stories, and I

14:44

like mentioned came up to I

14:46

was in a shop and talking to a guy and

14:49

and he like went on and on about

14:52

the the like Avid story, like

14:54

as if that was like absolutely factual

14:56

about her life, and like you know, to the listeners,

14:58

I've not ever told that Ovid herodes

15:00

because I don't like it, but

15:03

like basically it pauses the idea that

15:05

like Sappho killed herself over a man,

15:07

and it's like one Avid

15:10

lived like seven hundred years after her, so like

15:12

let's be honest about his ability to tell

15:14

that if he's the only one. And also like

15:16

absolute bull shit, not at all, Like I

15:19

mean, like the straightwashing of her would be like a

15:21

problem in itself, but the idea of her also ugh,

15:24

anyway, it's wrong. So but

15:27

I love that, Like I mean, I think to say that at

15:29

the very like the broad word of

15:31

just saying that she was queer feels to me to

15:33

be like deeply accurate and like

15:35

problematic to suggest otherwise, even if you don't

15:37

want to prescribe like what you know,

15:40

specific modern type of queerness

15:42

she might have inhabited, you

15:44

know, like the woman was queer, But like,

15:47

yeah, when when it comes to those poems

15:49

that really stood out to you, like, I

15:52

mean, what was it about them? I guess

15:54

because you know, you mentioned the idea that like people

15:57

say like, oh, yeah, was she writing about friends or like I know, there's

15:59

also the argument that's like was she writing

16:02

for other people? You

16:04

know? Like was she writing a love poem

16:06

to a woman for a man?

16:08

You know?

16:09

Like you know, that's I think how

16:11

a lot of people have like written off the idea

16:13

that she was queer. But yeah,

16:15

like do you, I mean, did stuff? Did anything

16:17

specific stand out to you about that?

16:20

I think one of the things that stood out to me, and

16:24

I fall into the camp

16:26

of I think that many like

16:30

scholars bend over backwards

16:32

to erase this kind

16:34

of queerness from her narrative. I

16:37

mean, the story that she has a

16:39

husband whose name is like Big

16:42

Dick of Man Island is It's

16:44

just so funny to me. And the fact that Avid

16:46

says this that she like killed

16:48

herself over a man, I think is ridiculous

16:50

because if you look at her poetry of what we have,

16:54

the vast majority of it is aimed at women,

16:56

and the real only men

16:59

that she talks about are like nameless

17:02

grooms in her marriage poems,

17:04

her brothers, and then a few

17:06

mythological figures. And

17:10

I think that one thing that really stood

17:12

out to me is just the way that she has an eye

17:14

for an eye for detail in regards

17:16

to women, Like a

17:18

lot of the time she's focusing on the dressing

17:21

of the woman. You know, she looks at the dress,

17:24

she talks about how beautiful it is or

17:27

how it fits on their body, or

17:29

just basically calling that woman

17:31

beautiful in any language

17:33

that she can. And so in

17:36

my head, I'm like, God,

17:38

a queer person obviously wrote this, like

17:40

a really thirsty queer person. And

17:43

whether or not that lover is like reciprocated,

17:47

you know, Sappha was definitely like thirsty.

17:52

I'm writing that line down

17:54

because I think I want to make it the title.

17:56

So just give me just a really

17:59

thirsty queer person. I

18:01

feel like that fits wonderfully.

18:06

Oh my gosh, yeah, I

18:08

think that's such a like what

18:11

a lovely way of seeing it that way,

18:13

because but it does make so much sense. I haven't read her,

18:15

you know, cover to cover either or obviously

18:17

you have. I haven't read her cover to cover, but

18:21

like, mostly I just don't read just straight

18:24

poems like that. I wish I did. I have

18:26

an English degree, I should, but yeah,

18:28

you know, but but from what I've seen,

18:31

like I've always just the stuff I've read of and like this just

18:33

feels like it's woman to woman. Yeah, from

18:35

my like you know, at this point,

18:37

I like to say I'm vaguely straight because it doesn't make any sense

18:39

for every single thing in my life. But

18:42

you know, like it just I read her stuff

18:45

and I just think, yeah, like it, I

18:47

mean, I guess I just I personally focus on

18:49

her more as being a

18:51

woman poet whose work survived because

18:54

like from it, like to me, that's

18:56

just like so fucking amazing

18:58

and like yeah, yeah, you just can't. I can't stop

19:00

thinking about it. So like I've thought a little bit less about her

19:02

sexuality, but more so in the way where I'm

19:04

just like, well, I'm just assuming she's queer, because

19:07

everything about that makes more sense to me. But

19:10

what I love is, you know that like this woman's

19:13

work survived in this way, you

19:15

know, and the way that she was so well respected

19:17

in her time from as far as we can tell, which I

19:19

think is so lovely and really

19:21

meaningful, and and it's

19:23

like kind of a nice like not

19:26

necessarily a reminder, but like maybe a

19:28

possibility that the reason why we don't have more

19:30

of hers, or why it is so random and

19:32

fragmentary, is more about the Christians

19:34

who came after her than it is about

19:37

you know, the ancient Greeks who seem to have actually

19:39

respected her her talent. I'm

19:42

not again forming this into a question, but I just sappho

19:45

is so interesting. So I'm I

19:47

love hearing that. That's kind of what stood out

19:50

most, and it feels so right.

19:52

It feels like a very yeah. I mean,

19:55

yeah, sounds like a thirsty

19:57

queer person basically, but

19:59

I like, yeah, it did. So did

20:01

you find like that? You know, when she's writing

20:04

about men, it's pretty obviously different,

20:06

like it's is it, It just like totally lacks

20:08

that kind of detail or just like there's less

20:10

of it. I mean, I know there's also just less of it, but.

20:13

I mean, I guess from what I'm remembering,

20:16

you know, I actually haven't looked at my stuff in a very long time.

20:18

But I feel like she does

20:20

not really focus on the

20:22

physical aesthetic of men quite

20:25

often, unless she's

20:27

talking about like Adonis

20:29

or some other male, you

20:32

know, mythological hero, or

20:35

if she's talking about, you know,

20:37

a groom in a in a wedding

20:39

song, but she's also referring

20:41

to brides in that song, so

20:44

she's never really focusing on like the beauty

20:46

of men. That to me seems

20:48

like she's like, oh, I love this guy in

20:51

the same way that she's like talking about

20:53

women.

20:56

I did. I went through

20:58

and I think I actually must have read all

21:00

of them now that I think about, certainly all the fragments of your

21:03

translation, and like pulled out a bunch

21:05

of my favorite ones. But

21:07

of course, brains weird, and that was like

21:09

a month ago, and now I've forgotten everything. But

21:13

like, I just, I

21:15

mean, I think it's so interesting the way

21:17

that she writes about love generally,

21:19

not least because it's it's sort

21:21

of unique in the ancient world, even if

21:24

it's just because we don't have a ton of like love

21:26

poetry from ancient Greece more

21:28

broadly, and I love that it is. It's

21:31

so much more just like about the people like we're

21:33

so used to, particularly

21:35

from ancient Greece. You know, the poetry is

21:38

so mythological, it is so based

21:42

in storytelling, and like it

21:44

just you know, serves this really different purpose

21:47

then, you know, just this poet

21:50

off in this random Eastern

21:53

island like writing about

21:55

all the hot women that she encounters, Like

21:58

it just feels so unique generally

22:01

that apparently again, I'm just gonna say, like, I just

22:03

think Sappho is really interesting. Do

22:09

you have like a favorite poem that stood

22:11

out that you remember or like or

22:13

some I don't even know, So I like weird random

22:16

things you know that might have come up if you recall

22:18

and if not all cut out me asking snory.

22:22

Oh geez I there

22:26

were a number of those like one line

22:28

little fragments that I just really

22:30

enjoy just because of there's simplicity. Well obviously

22:33

we don't have the one line. Who knows if they're part

22:35

of like larger poems, but the

22:37

simplicity of them and just

22:39

like the things that she chooses to pay attention

22:41

to, Like it's

22:44

it's like a really insignificant

22:46

line, but the fact that she, like we have a little

22:48

fragment of her talking about like the way that

22:50

chickpeas grow on a shoreline, or

22:53

the way that you know, she hints

22:55

at the myth of oh

22:58

god, who is that? Oh?

23:03

The one the one where it's like they say that Leeda

23:06

came across an egg of cloudy blue in

23:08

reference to the myth of like the swan eggs,

23:11

And it's like, it's it's those small

23:13

little details that she pays attention to. But

23:16

I think the one that really is

23:18

my favorite currently is

23:20

the one the like the

23:22

winter one, the one that Ann Carson's translation

23:25

gets its title from.

23:27

And I like it in itself

23:30

because it's kind of like broken up and it's so interesting.

23:33

But I also just like my own translation

23:35

of it because of the flow that I managed

23:37

to get.

23:38

In it amazing.

23:41

Do you have it open? Is it? Do

23:43

you want to read it? I?

23:44

Actually yeah, sure. So

23:49

keep in mind this is all fragmentary. It's

23:52

got a lipsy, it's got brackets, all

23:54

those cool things, the

23:56

work, a splendid face, a

23:59

pleasant nott not winter

24:01

time, not with an ache. I beg

24:03

you take the lyre until again

24:05

desire flies all around youutiful.

24:09

Her dress excites you when you see,

24:12

and so I smile and aphrodite

24:14

once upon a time. Accuse me when

24:17

I prayed this word, I

24:19

wish.

24:21

Oh yeah, I love that. But

24:24

the fragmentary nature does lend itself

24:27

so well to it though, like it is I

24:29

mean, one, I know people talk about this whole time, but like visually,

24:31

it's really love like interesting to see those

24:33

like ellipses and the brackets like you're talking about,

24:37

because it is just like it feels so Sappho

24:39

at this point, you know. But

24:41

I but yeah, like the fragmentary

24:43

nature also just like really does lend itself to that

24:46

type of poetry, and it feels very like

24:48

angsty in a lovely

24:50

like Emo kid kind of way. If

24:53

I'd known more about Sappho, you know, back in the early

24:55

two thousands, like I would have used her lyrics as

24:57

my like MSN status instead

25:00

of all of the Emo songs. But like, you

25:02

know, I just yeah, she feels

25:04

like that to me in a way. And then even just you

25:06

know, the reference

25:09

to the dress, Yeah, like, I

25:11

just, yeah, I know, I just want to go through all

25:13

of them and like pick out everything. I

25:46

just, yeah, I think it is just

25:48

like what I'm sort of focusing on is how

25:50

different it is to me in terms of

25:52

what I read, because it really is just like this nice

25:55

love poem that it almost

25:57

feels like she's not necessarily writing this stuff

25:59

or I mean, you know, of course she also would have like sung

26:02

it and played music to it, which is hard

26:04

to kind of keep in your mind in modern context,

26:08

but like it almost feels

26:10

like she she's not writing it for other people so

26:12

much as it is just like a like a journal kind

26:15

of thing, you know, And I it

26:17

just it feels like a peak I guess, into an ancient woman,

26:20

which is why I just keep focusing on that part because

26:22

it's rare.

26:26

No, I agree with you. I think I

26:29

don't really buy

26:32

into the argument that she might have been writing

26:34

for other people. You know, maybe she was

26:36

at some point, but you're right that a lot

26:38

of her work does feel very like

26:42

like a journal or a diary. It feels like

26:44

very much like she is putting herself into

26:46

it.

26:47

Yeah. Yeah, it just feels like her own.

26:50

Yeah, her her own thoughts. And that's why it

26:53

does feel unrealistic, this idea that

26:55

she was writing these poems for women but like writing

26:57

them for men, you know, writing to a woman,

27:00

not least because like one, it just

27:02

feels unlikely, but two, like I

27:05

don't know was it supposed to be convincing, because

27:07

like if a woman, if I read

27:09

that, I wouldn't be like,

27:11

yeah, that man wrote it, you know, like it does

27:13

it does feel like a woman writing for a woman

27:16

because it just has this like

27:19

or this you know, like certainly wouldn't assume like a straight

27:21

man wrote it for you know, like it just feels like come

27:23

on, you know, unless unless he's Avid,

27:26

which is ironic for me to say because I

27:28

just edited an episode on ovid's ours Amatoria,

27:30

which is a whole other beast,

27:33

you know, but yeah, it just it feels so much

27:35

like like the way a woman would talk about another

27:37

woman, and you know

27:39

like, yeah,

27:41

I mean it doesn't sound like a straight woman. I

27:43

guess that is my point, but

27:47

I just yeah, I also do love

27:50

I like the idea that the joke was

27:53

that she was married to a guy that's named

27:56

like, you know, big Dick from Man Island, Like I like

27:58

that it was it was an actual tongue

28:00

in cheek joke in the ancient world that was

28:02

like making, not

28:05

fun, but like almost just making.

28:07

It was like sort of it was how obvious that she loved

28:09

women that they would just joke about that, you

28:11

know, like that is what feels right to me about

28:13

that, rather than you know, some weird

28:16

straight washing idea

28:20

like it's a good joke.

28:22

Like. So

28:27

one of the classes that I teach it, I

28:30

structured it myself. It is, you know, love

28:32

in the ancient world, and I

28:34

I like, I jumped at that tweet that you

28:36

posted less a few days ago because

28:38

it was like literally on the in the top of my

28:41

head, like there's not a single

28:43

happy ending in Greek mythology,

28:45

and I like, we talk about this

28:47

in my class so much. And then

28:50

one of the things that usually

28:52

in every semester that I've taught this

28:54

class, people always point out

28:57

Sappho is so clearly talking about

28:59

a woman, because the way that she talks about women

29:02

is so different from like Avid

29:04

or Catullus how they write

29:06

poetry about women. And I

29:08

think Catalas can be somewhat romantic in

29:10

some ways, but I think that the things that they pay attention

29:13

to. They men are

29:15

so different from what Sapho is giving us.

29:20

Yeah, that's the thing, right, it does. Yeah,

29:23

it just doesn't feel like a

29:25

love poem written by a straight person

29:28

or the very least a straight man, because like, yeah,

29:32

I mean it, That's why I think. Yeah, like no, she

29:35

couldn't have convinced anyone that that was written by

29:37

a dude. It's just yeah, focusing

29:39

on different things, prioritizing different things,

29:42

like being attracted to different things.

29:44

Like it feels like very non traditional.

29:46

Like again, like I have the r

29:48

sanmatoria in my head right now, and

29:51

you know, like it is. It is the exact

29:53

opposite of that, right, like like as ours

29:56

is is is him being

29:58

like, you know, here is every

30:01

cliche stereotype about

30:03

what men want and women that somehow

30:05

have existed for two thousand years because they're all exactly

30:07

the same now, which is horrifying,

30:10

you know. And then he's like, play up these ladies,

30:12

like don't there there was one line that's

30:15

like, you know, if you have big teeth, don't

30:18

laugh too big, like like

30:20

that's the ship that men write about women,

30:22

even in the ancient world. And then meanwhile,

30:24

Sappho's like her dress was so pretty,

30:27

Like you know, it's just like it's

30:29

so different, and she

30:31

is just so unique, and

30:34

I mean, it's so it's so interesting to me how little

30:37

she really is studied.

30:39

And maybe it's because you know, when I did my

30:41

degree, there was certainly nothing like that, like all

30:43

the classes that exist now I'm so jealous of because

30:45

this line was it was so simple. But

30:49

yeah, like you know, I feel like she's just not

30:51

not talked about enough, and then so often when

30:53

she is, it's like, but was she queer?

30:55

And it's like, I mean, you know, part

30:58

of it is like what is what is

31:00

the point of trying to

31:02

to make her into a straight

31:04

woman? Like it's bizarre and pointless and

31:07

entirely rooted in, you know, all of this patriarchal

31:10

Christian like Western nonsense.

31:14

But also it's like I

31:16

think feel like she would be mad. She'd be like, I'm a fucking

31:18

poet and you're still reading my shit like almost

31:21

three thousand years later, like let

31:23

it speak for itself kind of, you know, And I don't

31:26

want to, you know, suggest that we should just like not talk about

31:28

her sexuality at all. But at the same time, like

31:31

like, yeah, I mean, her poetry does kind

31:33

of speak for itself, and it's fucking screaming

31:35

that she liked.

31:36

Lady, because

31:43

when I think of like a Nacreon

31:46

or even sometimes Pindar

31:48

has some like really homoerotic poems,

31:51

like just the way that like

31:54

queer men talk about other men

31:56

and the way that Stapho writes about

31:58

women is just very different from like Avid

32:01

Catullus and like a few of the other Romans

32:03

or like other you know, straight

32:06

ish yeah poets.

32:09

Ish,

32:13

Yeah, Okay, now I have a like

32:15

so the only Anacreon that I have

32:17

read is a poem

32:19

about basically

32:22

breaking a woman like a horse. So

32:28

I'm like, I'm I mean, and

32:30

I don't want to make this about an Acreon at all, but like

32:32

does has he does he write nicer stuff,

32:34

like you mentioned him alongside Pindar. So I'm

32:36

just like, now I'm generally curious

32:38

and I should maybe look at him more.

32:39

But a lot of a

32:42

lot of his stuff, his like shorter fragments,

32:44

are very centered on men, and

32:47

he's often paying attention to them,

32:49

and he's like calling them like you

32:52

know, pretty or like you

32:54

know, he says, don't you see how I fancy

32:56

you or or stuff like one of one of

32:58

my favorites from him,

33:01

and this is mine, uh is

33:03

he says, men would love me for my words,

33:05

for I sing sweet things, no

33:08

to say sweet things, and

33:10

so he's very sensual

33:14

in the same way that Sappho is and not like.

33:18

Yeah, I

33:20

guess except for the time he wrote about breaking a woman like

33:22

a horse. But you know, I like, I like to know

33:24

about that one too. I'm glad I asked. I

33:27

found it in a very like I should

33:29

say it was. I did not believe it was necessarily,

33:32

you know, indicative of all of his work, but

33:35

it was funny. I think I'd googled

33:37

like raunchy Greek

33:39

love poems or something. Just

33:44

anyway, that's for a different project.

33:48

Yeah, it's yes, Apple

33:50

stuff is just so pretty. This is just apparently

33:53

this is just the episode of me saying that I just find

33:55

your cool and pretty and interesting, which

33:57

is again where I go. You know, I call myself

34:00

somehow questionably straight when

34:04

I talk about Tavo. But no, it's so

34:06

you mentioned you know this will be airing in June,

34:08

but you and I were talking about the I did

34:10

tweet last week for looking

34:12

for Valentine's Day ideas. It's

34:15

just like I was just like, I want

34:17

a love store, like I think I said

34:19

romance. I think the key my I was saying, I

34:22

would like a romance from Greek

34:24

myth that ends in a

34:26

happy ending, and then

34:28

in quotations or in brackets

34:30

rather Cupid and Psyche doesn't count.

34:32

I want it Greek. And then, of course I did

34:34

get a response that said, what about Aros and Psyche? And I

34:36

say, we got things to talk

34:38

about here, but that's not it anyway,

34:42

that's neither here nor there. The person I'm sure

34:45

did just didn't register that I'd explosedly

34:48

simply don't count. But

34:50

yeah, and it is true, like there there

34:53

isn't. That was the general consensus.

34:55

I ended up writing an episode on Pigmali

34:57

and instead I went the other way. And

35:02

just a note if you haven't read

35:04

Stephanie McCarter's translation, at least

35:06

of I mean, her stuff is generally so good, but

35:08

her pig Malion is like maybe perfect.

35:11

I just nearly died laughing. But

35:14

yeah, like Greek myth specifically

35:17

when it comes to romance, not happy endings,

35:19

especially queer ones, though like

35:22

they all die. It's always Apollo

35:25

or Zeus, like falling

35:28

in love with a dude and having

35:30

that poor guy die, like I

35:32

think of hyacinthis. I googled like

35:35

Greek myth love stories, which is always a shit

35:37

show generally, not least because it's always Avid, and I'm

35:39

like, what did I say? I want Greek? But

35:42

yeah, you know, like hyacinthis was like

35:45

on all the lists, and I was like, I mean, like I

35:47

guess, but like you call it a romance,

35:49

but like I just think that's a bummer if they

35:51

always die in the end in which case like in

35:53

that case getting hit by a fucking frisbee. Like there's

35:57

just so much but I love the idea that sappho stuff

36:00

like while not mythology, like it's

36:02

not like happy ending, but it is

36:05

hopeful in a lot of cases,

36:08

and like romantic and hopeful in this

36:10

way that just does not exist in

36:12

my experience from ancient Greece.

36:16

No, there is this, like really I

36:19

feel like it's a very like modern

36:22

and something like when you have like your first crush

36:25

in like middle school or high school, and

36:28

there's this like intense longing

36:30

for that person or just to even like be noticed

36:32

by them, And I feel like that kind

36:34

of desire is very present all

36:37

throughout Steph's work. I mean, the jealousy

36:40

poem is the most obvious one, but I think

36:42

it's very scattered

36:44

throughout her work.

36:47

Yeah no, but it does like it feels

36:49

like an emo journal, like live journal.

36:52

You'd get that e efence.

36:53

How many of my listeners will?

36:56

My god, I know, like

37:00

I like stumbled across my live journal

37:03

like three years ago, I was like, oh my god,

37:05

why is this still up? Oh my god?

37:07

I wrote this in high school. Oh god,

37:09

this is horrible.

37:12

I didn't have a live journal, but I do wish

37:15

every day that I could go in and like get

37:17

a log of all of my ridiculously

37:20

emotional like song

37:22

lyrics as MSN status

37:25

updates. You're just like you want

37:27

your crush to pay attention to you, so

37:29

you put in like a really emo song lyric, and you

37:31

like, look, I'm the sad message. I

37:34

can see your online. These

37:36

are like niche two thousand and one

37:38

references, but

37:41

like, yeah, that's that's what it

37:43

feels like, though, you know, like, and I think

37:45

that this might be like a downer to

37:47

bring it up, but it is unfortunately very relevant.

37:50

But I think that that is another great

37:53

example or piece of evidence for

37:56

her queerness because obviously

37:59

there were, you know the same

38:01

number of queer people, like

38:03

statistical wise, you know, in the ancient

38:06

world, but they weren't allowed to like necessarily

38:08

be that openly. And so you

38:10

know, like I imagine

38:13

if you are a woman writing love poetry to other

38:15

women, like it's pretty angsty because

38:18

even if they love you back, like, it takes

38:21

a lot to be able to like do

38:23

anything real in that kind

38:25

of like to have any kind of

38:27

real romantic relationship. And maybe it was better

38:30

on on Lesbos, Like you

38:32

know, so much of what we have is in Athens, where

38:35

like if women were you know, together,

38:37

they were doing it in secret. I'm so convinced that

38:39

that was why they all hung out all of the time, and

38:41

men didn't think it was sex because they only believed

38:44

in penetration as sex. But

38:47

like, you know, I imagine it would be tricky, even

38:49

a Lesbos to like find a girl who could actually

38:51

even if she did like you back, but like was actually willing

38:53

to do something about it. I don't know, it just feels

38:56

so real and like it

38:58

just feels like such a real person writing stuff

39:00

that that's what makes her so special.

39:03

It's really interesting to me, especially

39:06

like clearly I'm not a lesbian, but like

39:08

ancient lesbianism or or same

39:10

sex attraction between women don't want to like

39:12

the label, can you really

39:14

use that. One

39:17

of the things that's really interesting to me about it

39:19

is because it's it's so quiet

39:21

in the texts like Plato

39:25

the whole like Aristophanese

39:27

story in plato Symposium about like the circle

39:30

people, like he spends a whole paragraph talking about

39:32

like how men are attracted

39:34

to men because it's like the manliest like kind

39:36

of love. It's like the most like it's

39:39

got the most integrity or whatever. And

39:41

he has like one line that's like women

39:44

who are attracted to women don't speak

39:46

to men, and that's about

39:48

it. There's like one line dedicated to that specific

39:51

form of desire. And for

39:54

me, I think you're right, like that's

39:56

why women were hanging out all the time, Like come on, like,

39:59

I'm sure tons of women loved other women.

40:02

Like the fact that we have like

40:05

a huge queer population today.

40:08

It doesn't mean that like there were no queer people

40:10

back then. It just means that people had

40:13

to, you know, find other ways of

40:15

expressing.

40:15

That Yeah, yeah, I mean,

40:17

I mean, you know it makes me think of I

40:20

try to bring this up every or as often as

40:22

possible, but like you know that there

40:24

are stories of trans people in the ancient world. Like

40:26

it's not new, it's it's just simply that people

40:28

are slightly unfortunately

40:30

not as much as it should be, but like allowed

40:32

to be that way, you know, Like

40:35

it's not like people are suddenly there's

40:37

more trans people or more gay people. It's just like no,

40:39

like the world has just become marginally slightly kind

40:41

of better, except maybe it's turning around but hopefully

40:44

not. Everything's

40:46

garbage right now. But

40:50

like, yeah, I mean I say this on the show

40:52

all the time because I have this like very

40:54

long standing theory about

40:57

how many women were probably in

41:00

what they were able to see as like pretty

41:02

great romantic relationships because at the very

41:04

least in Athens, like the men were

41:06

like they're not doing anything, they're just the wives.

41:09

The wives spend time together because they're

41:11

not really allowed to be anywhere else. They're just

41:13

doing wifely things. And meanwhile the ladies are

41:15

like this is pretty chill, Like I'm

41:18

married to this guy because I have do but

41:20

like he's always off, like, you know, with

41:22

doing his own things. There's a lot to do there, and

41:26

you know, and she's got all of her you know,

41:28

quote unquote friends or that one really

41:30

good friend that she spends all of her time with, and

41:32

like, I just love this idea that they'll

41:34

like that. They probably didn't even conceptualize

41:37

women having sex. They probably

41:40

for the most part thought that it was like impossible

41:43

and thus was not an issue, you

41:46

know, because they're just so like exactly. The Symposium

41:48

is the greatest example. Like Plato

41:51

wrote an entire thing about

41:54

love. A huge portion

41:56

of it is about men loving other men,

41:58

granted in you know, very problematic,

42:02

pediastic ways, but like

42:04

a huge part of it is about having

42:06

real and lasting and romantic relationship

42:08

between men. And then

42:10

he's like, Ladies, I don't know, you know, like

42:13

it just feels like this

42:15

kind of bizarre blind spot

42:18

where it's just like it didn't exist, and you're

42:20

like, well, what are the chances it didn't exist

42:22

or the men were just not paying

42:24

attention. It's it's just yeah,

42:27

I mean, the angel world generally, like looking

42:29

at queerness as we can conceptualize

42:32

it in the ancient world is so interesting

42:35

and.

42:36

So difficult to talk about, and just

42:38

modern language too, and people always want to put

42:40

into boxes and it's like, no, it's a little bit more fluid

42:42

than that. And I always just like

42:46

with my students, I say, you know, I'm using these

42:48

words right now, but it was a little more like loosey

42:51

goosey back then.

42:53

Yeah, I like to say, like, you know, they're

42:55

somebody who you know, safely kind

42:57

of call queer, but like if we were to put

43:00

a more specific modern label on it, we would say,

43:02

you know X like And

43:04

then, of course, do you know the history of

43:08

how how we got to a point where the word

43:10

lesbian means you're from

43:12

Lesbos and the

43:15

word safik comes from Saho

43:17

and basically means you know, lesbian,

43:20

And yet we have this entire existence

43:22

of people being like Sapho was straight. Like

43:25

I just feel like there are two

43:27

like very like contradictory notions

43:29

out in the world. Do you know anything about like

43:31

the history of the words versus like straight washing

43:34

her?

43:37

I honestly, that's actually a really good question.

43:39

Now I feel like I need to go deep diving

43:41

into that.

43:42

Yeah, I think I probably will before this episode airs,

43:44

because I'm like I have to know.

43:48

I mean, I feel like the

43:52

word lesbian must come

43:54

around the time that

43:57

a lot of sapho stuff is getting sort

44:00

of rediscovered

44:03

in the Victorian period. And

44:06

that's also like around the time when like you

44:08

know, Oxford and Cambridge

44:11

start like straight washing a lot of stuff,

44:13

and like I think,

44:16

I mean, I actually have no idea

44:18

that.

44:19

Yeah, I think that's a great question because

44:21

it is. It feels so contradictory, you

44:23

know, and I think and I am obligated

44:27

to both say that I recognize it in modern

44:29

Creek it is les voss. I

44:32

understand this. I am saying, let's boss because

44:35

we won't get into it, but I

44:38

recognize that. And in

44:40

addition, I have to always

44:42

mention I don't know if we were mutuals at this time.

44:44

It was years ago now, but I did an episode on Stappho

44:46

a couple of years ago, and I

44:49

did get a d M from

44:52

a nice, young young woman. I'm

44:54

going to assume her profile photo was Taylor

44:56

Swift. So tough to say, and

45:00

it was the greatest thing that's ever happened to me because

45:02

it was like this big, long message and it was like, Hi, I

45:05

found your podcast, and I was scrolling through episode

45:07

titles. No, did not say they were

45:09

listening scrolling through episode

45:12

titles. And I just wanted to let you

45:14

know that you used a slur.

45:17

Oh my god.

45:19

She was like, lesbo

45:22

is a slur, and

45:23

I and then went on

45:25

even better to be like, if

45:28

you were a lesbian, then it's

45:30

okay with me something where it was like

45:33

very specifically, like they were giving

45:35

me permission. If you're a lesbian,

45:37

then it's okay, but if you're not, I would

45:39

appreciate you taking it down or something. I was like,

45:41

it's an island. It's

45:44

an island where

45:46

we get the word lesbian from. It

45:49

is the history of your people. If what you're

45:51

saying to me means you are a lesbian yourself, Like, it is

45:53

literally the etymological history

45:55

of your people. And you are telling

45:57

me that I've used a slur. And

46:00

anyway, I just like screenshotted it and posted

46:02

it and then it went viral and it became

46:04

a whole thing where now a large part

46:06

of my friend group refers to lesbi as

46:09

slur island. Anyway,

46:13

it's I actually remember that. I'm

46:16

glad it was peak.

46:18

It was my favorite moment on Twitter

46:20

ever. Was the

46:22

way that that took off from me being like I

46:25

was giving you a history of Sappho

46:28

are you talking about It's

46:30

like literally the episode title was like Sappho the

46:32

lesbian from Lesbos, Like I was

46:35

making it pretty fucking clear,

46:37

like even grammatically it couldn't have

46:39

been a slur. Like anyway,

46:43

this is a joy and I think about it every

46:45

time I think about Sapho. But

46:49

she, you know, anyway that

46:52

it gets down to, I am so curious about

46:54

the enomology there, because especially

46:57

Sappig, like her name is so synonymous

47:00

with queerness, but specifically with

47:03

lesbianism. I'm like, how did it

47:05

become this thing where we're really arguing about whether

47:07

or not, you know, she liked women.

47:09

It just feels so nonsense,

47:12

which, of course, so much of general

47:14

homophobia is nonsense, so it's impossible

47:16

to understand. But I still,

47:19

you know, get baffled.

47:49

I think, like, one thing I

47:52

like enjoyed about my own working

47:54

with the translation and

47:57

something that I don't see a lot with Sappho

48:01

specifically is

48:03

meter and a

48:05

lot of I've seen

48:08

some people try to do meter

48:11

with Sappho. It works,

48:14

whether or not the lines themselves, like

48:16

are good sentences. To me, it's

48:19

like a coin toss. I've got

48:22

gripes with translations, but I'll

48:25

be kind about that. And

48:28

so one thing that I really wanted to stick

48:30

to because I didn't want to

48:32

just be like, oh, yeah, I'm doing an Carson

48:35

because Ann Carson's poetry is so beautiful,

48:38

but it's also like it's

48:41

not so much focused on the meter.

48:43

She's much more focused on the way that

48:46

a sentence can flow or

48:48

end, and like the kind of word

48:51

choices and the content that she can use with

48:53

that ambiguity and the breaking

48:55

of the fragments, Whereas

48:57

I really wanted to like lean into the meter

49:00

because you know, she was a musician.

49:02

She did sing these songs or they were

49:04

sung, and you know they there's

49:07

a whole like specific kind

49:09

of metrical verse that's named after

49:12

her, and so I wanted to like really

49:14

honor the meter in her

49:16

poetry.

49:19

That's really interesting. It

49:21

sounds like you have more to say, which is great because I do want

49:23

to hear more. Also, I did not know that

49:26

that there's like a meter. I never think of meter, So

49:29

I'm really cud you brought it up. I'm

49:31

not a poetry girl, even though it's what I do for

49:33

a job. It's great ancient.

49:41

Yeah, there's this. I just want to

49:43

look at my intro because

49:46

that's where all this stuff is. So

49:48

she's known they call a Sapphix

49:50

stanza because she's the one who's sort

49:53

of like using

49:55

the word invent is so problematic

49:59

in a number of ways, but I'm just gonna use it anyway. She like

50:01

invented or at least made it popular of

50:04

this stanza where it's

50:08

like three longer

50:10

lines that have a very specific

50:12

like lyric meter that's

50:16

too complex for me to even like get

50:18

into, and then like a shorter

50:20

line, so you have like a four line stanza

50:23

where you have three and then a half line.

50:25

And most of her first

50:28

book of poems

50:30

consists of that stanza, and

50:32

then some of her later works, you know, they follow

50:35

you know, deck tilla, caxameter. She's pulling

50:37

from the epic tradition or

50:39

she's like playing around with some other stuff.

50:43

And so I also wanted to like maybe

50:45

play around with meter a lot throughout the

50:47

poems.

50:49

Yeah, I mean just even hearing

50:51

that, and again, like I don't have a lot of

50:54

you know, grounding in meter, but

50:57

it feels to me. Like again, it's another good example of

50:59

how her stuff feels a

51:01

little more natural and playful than a lot of

51:03

what else we have. Like it does feel like she's

51:05

just kind of having fun, like almost

51:08

like she's doing this because she loves it,

51:10

and like I imagine that's true of all the other poets,

51:12

but it does feel like more formal,

51:14

I guess, and in terms of what I've read. But

51:16

again I do tend to stick to mythology other

51:19

than my just general love of Sappho. But

51:22

like, yeah, like I mean, yeah, she just

51:24

she just seems to be having fun. So like I like hearing the idea

51:26

that she was, you know, playing around with other meters in addition,

51:29

you know, to to something like decktail

51:31

caccimeter, which yeah,

51:33

is so what I know is

51:36

that it is from the you know, epic storytelling,

51:39

but like I have

51:41

an English degree. Woh,

51:45

yeah, it's you know. I like the idea that she that

51:47

she's playing around with that a little bit more, mostly

51:49

because I just like the idea that she was just like a fun

51:51

woman doing what she loved and she we

51:53

still talk about her twenty seven hundred years later,

51:56

Like that just feels so fucking cool.

52:00

Yeah, yeah, so I did,

52:02

like meant to bring up how

52:05

I very much like that you are able to rhyme liar

52:07

with desire in

52:10

your translation, because I feel like I

52:12

and maybe this is just me, I feel like that would be like

52:14

a really satisfying thing to realize that you can

52:17

do right, because

52:19

it's like.

52:19

It was actually kind of like

52:21

an accidental rhyme too love

52:23

it. That

52:27

was one of the things that I also wanted to focus on

52:29

because in Sappho's there's a

52:31

lot of in the Greek

52:33

there's a lot of like alliteration

52:36

and internal rhyme. I

52:38

don't know if she did it on purpose or if it was just

52:40

because that's how Greek was at the time, that's how it

52:42

worked. But I also wanted to try

52:45

to fit in a few of those sort

52:47

of internal rhymes, and a lot of them mexically

52:49

ended up being just on accident, just pure

52:52

happenstance, Like that line

52:54

is specific.

52:56

It's I mean, yeah, that

52:58

that feels very right, that that just

53:01

kind of have happens that way. I'm

53:04

so curious about, like when you said, you know, whether it's just that

53:07

Greek was that way, Like, I mean, so much

53:09

of any Greek that was written down was because it

53:11

was poetry, and so often

53:13

epic poetry. So I feel like, yeah, it would have just kind

53:16

of been a language that that just sounded

53:18

more poetic because the entire

53:20

purpose to so much of the development

53:22

of their language was to like record

53:25

kind of these words, I guess written language. But like, I

53:28

just love that idea, I think you.

53:31

I mean, I don't know the precise like division,

53:34

but from what it looks like, it seems

53:36

that there's a lot more poetry that's been

53:38

preserved than just like regular prose.

53:41

But you know, I might be wrong about that.

53:43

Well, I don't think that they were typically and

53:46

maybe again maybe it is a preservation, but as far

53:48

as I understand it, it was like just not

53:50

common to write anything in prose until

53:53

somebody, like, you know, we're getting closer to like Plato's

53:55

time when he's doing that. But that's I

53:57

think that that it makes a lot of sense

54:00

because you know, until

54:02

we have people like Plato and Herodidas,

54:04

so maybe Herodicus being first, not maybe

54:06

definitely Geese, I'm doing well, I Herodidas

54:10

came first. I want to acknowledge that. I know that, like,

54:13

before we get to these people like Krotadas

54:16

and Plato who are writing things

54:18

for such a specifically different purpose.

54:21

Like I feel like that's kind of when this

54:24

be bullshitting, but like I feel like that's

54:26

kind of when you know, pros became

54:28

more you know, commonly used,

54:30

but it's all about functionality,

54:33

right, Like it's just they were writing

54:35

poems because that's literally what they did. They

54:37

were, but it's more because they were songs, right.

54:39

They were their poems because they were sung

54:42

until people like Carotatas come along and they're like, nah,

54:44

I just want to share history with you. I

54:47

don't need to sing it. That'd be weird, but you

54:49

know, like yeah, I like

54:51

thinking about that kind of side of it of just like I

54:54

mean, the ancient world is so interesting because so

54:56

everything developed out of necessity more

54:58

than intention, and it's so different

55:01

from our world now that I yeah, it's

55:03

just that's really it's interesting.

55:06

Because because you get these like really

55:08

like brilliant poets, like whoever wrote

55:10

the Homeric epics, you

55:12

know, like Sappho and

55:15

all the other lyric poets. Pindar,

55:17

who's kind of a mess if you look at his Greek

55:19

it's so complicated.

55:22

And then like all the playwrights they

55:24

were poets, you know, they're plays.

55:26

They were plays. There were dramatic performances,

55:29

but everything was done in meter. And

55:32

so it's so interesting that you get

55:34

like roaditis thucididies

55:36

who write some really

55:39

long sentences.

55:42

Well, they also didn't have punctuation. No,

55:46

So like I just like

55:48

that's in its own thing, you know, Like

55:51

I think these are things that people that

55:53

we don't think about until it's like pointed out. And then

55:55

I also feel like it's easy to forget, you

55:58

know that, like they didn't have punctuation,

56:00

they didn't have spaces between

56:03

words, they didn't have uppercase

56:05

or lowercase. We're just looking at

56:07

a series of Greek letters all

56:09

next to each other and figuring it out.

56:12

And like I like to remind people that,

56:14

like the plays didn't have

56:16

stage directions or even tell us

56:18

who was singing what line, Like, it's

56:20

all just figure it out. And

56:23

so yeah, like I mean it makes sense.

56:25

I guess that poetry was the

56:28

main form of everything for so long, not

56:30

least because they were sung, you

56:32

know, even Homeric, the

56:35

Homeric poems, you know, yeah, again, whoever wrote

56:37

them, there's no way anyone will ever

56:40

convince me that the same guy wrote both. They are completely

56:42

contradictory. But

56:44

like even those when they were finally

56:46

written down, was about preservation, not

56:49

about reading them, Like so

56:51

these things were just meant to be sung

56:53

and recited in that kind of way. So like,

56:55

of course they're songs. I

56:58

don't rather of course their poems

57:00

like I

57:02

and the meter of course comes with that, like because

57:04

the meter is all about memorizing it,

57:07

which again, like I just we don't think about in

57:10

our modern world, but like meter exists,

57:12

so that memorization was easier, Like,

57:15

oh my god, anyway, sorry, now I'm just like getting existential

57:18

with my ancient world. So

57:20

you write horror mostly.

57:22

You said, right, and fantasy.

57:24

And fantasy, yeah, Like I don't

57:27

see necessarily how these things can connect,

57:29

but like I'm fascinated if

57:32

anything even in your head in like as

57:34

you're translating these things, or if it like inspired

57:37

you to go from there, like to your

57:39

typical genre, like I've been writing fantasy

57:42

lately or trying to, but

57:44

like in a Greek myth realm, and I feel

57:46

like I don't know, sappho

57:49

doesn't feel like necessarily something that would lend itself

57:51

to those genres. But I'm curious.

57:56

It's funny that you mentioned Hyacinthus

58:00

because I did write a short story about

58:03

him a few years ago that

58:05

got published, and then I did also

58:07

write a

58:10

version of Orpheus's Death,

58:12

which was very like horror inspired.

58:15

I would hope so.

58:22

But with Sappho, I

58:24

think I maybe have taken like

58:27

like descriptions from Sappho

58:29

that I think we're really rich and like

58:32

almost tactile. But I

58:35

haven't really been inspired by her work in

58:37

terms of transfiguring it

58:39

into fantasy or horror. But

58:42

her stuff is so vibrant that I think it

58:44

sort of like inspires

58:47

my own personal word choice when I

58:49

get into actually writing my own stuff.

58:52

That's actually one thing that I noticed when

58:54

I started translating in

58:57

earnest, you know, I with between

58:59

Euripides the Odyssey,

59:01

which is just metaphorically so

59:04

crazy and so beautiful in a number of

59:06

ways, and then Sappho, my

59:08

own writing became a little more

59:13

vibrant.

59:15

Hmmm.

59:17

I think, like the Greeks just

59:19

have like such interesting metaphors

59:22

that I think it makes it pushes me to

59:25

think about like language and imagery

59:27

in different ways.

59:30

Yeah, I mean, oh,

59:33

I mean, I just like that. I

59:37

think that's very poignant

59:40

and I love it. And I also

59:42

though, because you brought it up, do want to

59:44

hear about Hyacynthus and

59:49

Orpheus's death as horror? How

59:51

did you handle Hyacinth If you want

59:53

to talk about it, I should say, but

59:55

I'm so curious.

59:57

So I dab. I

1:00:00

kind of pulled from a number of sources,

1:00:03

and I the crux

1:00:05

of it was that it was kind of a love triangle

1:00:08

that I pulled from, like

1:00:10

Zephyrus and then Apollo

1:00:13

both wanting him for some reason

1:00:16

or another, and like both of

1:00:18

these relationships Hyacinth this they're

1:00:21

both toxic in a number of ways,

1:00:23

and he's just like, I

1:00:25

mean, this is like, to me, a very quintessential

1:00:28

queer experience where you find yourself in a relationship

1:00:30

where you like, you long for them, you

1:00:33

like them, you know they're you know

1:00:35

that they're bad for you, you know that they have these like

1:00:37

blaring red flags, and

1:00:39

you're just like, I'm gonna wear my roast

1:00:41

tinted glasses. And

1:00:44

that's that's really the crux of that short

1:00:46

story. It was all

1:00:48

about the longing that Hyacinthus

1:00:51

has for Apollo. Well, at the same

1:00:53

time, it's not a happy

1:00:55

ending. He like he dies, and

1:01:00

I don't know, it's it's a very tragic

1:01:02

story. And I actually did

1:01:04

borrow a lot of Avid's imagery

1:01:06

from that.

1:01:08

It's a beautiful story that's so horrifying,

1:01:11

Like not

1:01:13

at least because I just I have trouble with

1:01:16

Apollo generally and like seeing

1:01:18

any kind of redemption in him.

1:01:21

So I'm always just like, well, I feel like, you

1:01:24

know, he was shittier than he seemed, even in

1:01:26

whatever source that we might have. But

1:01:28

yeah, that's that's really interesting I generally

1:01:32

just I mean, I love

1:01:34

and hate that story. I love that that it

1:01:36

is like this triangle because like in

1:01:39

terms of sources, it's like

1:01:41

like I think Zephyr's always involved, but it's like

1:01:43

sometimes, you know, sometimes Hycinthus

1:01:46

loves Zephyr and sometimes he loves Apollo, and

1:01:48

it's kind of like what is kind of going on in

1:01:50

that realm? And it's I don't know, it's interesting

1:01:52

because especially because Zphyrs is like such

1:01:55

a minor god by comparison,

1:01:57

like how do you go up against Apollo? And then there's

1:01:59

the Frisbee and I know it's just supposed to be tragedy

1:02:02

but like a discus, I know, but it's a

1:02:04

frisbee. Like the idea

1:02:07

that this like one of them love

1:02:09

story endings in like in

1:02:11

in myth is because he gets hit in the head

1:02:13

by a discus is like, oh,

1:02:16

there's just so much in there too, I

1:02:21

hocus it. I have to tell this like so

1:02:23

often of just like they always die

1:02:26

like all it's it's like the earliest

1:02:28

barrier gaze where it's like every time

1:02:31

it is it's so sad, but it like it

1:02:33

is and like but like

1:02:35

almost every time, Yeah, like a god falls

1:02:37

in love with a man of any kind or of any

1:02:40

yeah, I guess any kind, it's still a mythology, like

1:02:43

it just always ends badly, and

1:02:46

and then of course there's just like again back to

1:02:48

Sappho and the women, like there's just like no stories

1:02:51

of women Goddess is falling in love

1:02:53

with other women, Like it's just that's why

1:02:55

I think that's even more evidence

1:02:57

for my ongoing theories, which is just like you

1:03:00

know, Athena and Artemis both have

1:03:03

no real like you know, we could say, oh

1:03:07

my God, Callisto. We can say Callisto,

1:03:09

but I mean again, it's tragedy,

1:03:11

and it's also still not really explicit,

1:03:13

like there's a lot of oh, she just was

1:03:15

a devotee to Artemis, you

1:03:18

know, Like it's so interesting

1:03:20

how many stories there are of gods

1:03:23

and romantic relationships with men, and like all

1:03:25

the goddesses are like no, no, if they didn't like

1:03:27

a man, that's because they didn't like anyone. Orpheus

1:03:32

though, like I mean, he to

1:03:35

my listeners to remind them, his death

1:03:37

story as it exists, is just that he gets like

1:03:39

torn apart by manads

1:03:42

and then his like head floats down a river. So

1:03:44

yeah, like I can see how would land itself to horror. I

1:03:48

love that, Like, I don't know do you

1:03:50

want to tell me about that at all?

1:03:54

So actually his

1:03:57

death scene as actually the very first

1:03:59

thing that popped into my head, and it like it

1:04:02

was the inspiration for the whole rest of the story.

1:04:05

Amazing. It's also like

1:04:07

quite minor in the scheme of his story, but

1:04:09

it's great. So I'm glad.

1:04:15

I mean, if you want me to, I have the excerpt

1:04:18

pulled up. It's a brief little passage.

1:04:21

So.

1:04:24

Obviously this is from Orpheus's point

1:04:26

of view. It's a first person's story. And this

1:04:28

is just like the very first paragraph that kind

1:04:30

of like popped into my head and I was like,

1:04:32

okay, I'm going to write about this so

1:04:35

inhuman. The women move fast,

1:04:38

the bacantes. Soon

1:04:40

their hands are on me, their hands

1:04:42

are in me, their nails dig into flesh,

1:04:44

and I feel my heart fall from my hand as

1:04:46

each one grabs onto a limb. They

1:04:49

are strong, they are mad,

1:04:51

but all I think of is you. They

1:04:54

break my body open like a pomegranate, and

1:04:56

their nails, deep red scoop out

1:04:58

the seeds of my grief. My

1:05:00

blood drips like juice into the grass.

1:05:03

They break me into pieces. Skin

1:05:05

splits here, and there

1:05:08

is wet, a wetness that loosens

1:05:11

me, a wetness I feel as the sorrowful

1:05:13

river begins to swell over

1:05:15

the shores, washing over me, flooding

1:05:18

over the women and their

1:05:20

bloodied nails. The

1:05:22

water pulls the pieces of me into its

1:05:25

hurried stream, washing them down,

1:05:27

down, down.

1:05:31

I just want to say, I'm definitely smiling too much for that

1:05:33

poem, but that's sht line,

1:05:35

But that's wonderful.

1:05:37

I just basically

1:05:41

one, I'm very glad I asked so thank

1:05:43

you for reading that, but also I'm

1:05:46

so excited to know about these because like one of the things,

1:05:48

like I love all the retellings, all the Greek

1:05:50

myth retellings that are coming out right now, I absolutely love

1:05:52

them. But my

1:05:55

biggest gripe with the whole realm

1:05:57

of this and what I'm also working on on my own

1:05:59

end, is like Greek

1:06:02

myth is fantasy and it is

1:06:04

horror. It is

1:06:06

like that's it, And I feel

1:06:08

like both of those things are the

1:06:11

things that are least represented

1:06:13

in the current realm, at least

1:06:16

in terms of like the most mainstream, like

1:06:18

I'm sure that they exist, but in terms of like

1:06:20

the commonly popular

1:06:23

Greek myth retellings these days, I do feel like the

1:06:25

element of fantasy is bizarrely left

1:06:27

out, often for something

1:06:29

that is fucking mythology, but especially

1:06:32

horror, Like Greek myths are horrifying.

1:06:34

That's why I love them. They are fucked up,

1:06:38

and I think that like examining

1:06:40

them in that way is just so much I

1:06:42

don't want to say it's more interesting, but to me

1:06:45

it is like a little a little bit more interesting than

1:06:48

just like the stories you know on their kind

1:06:50

of face or or like I don't

1:06:52

want to suggest that these the retelling sanitize

1:06:54

them, but I just think they don't focus on the

1:06:57

parts that I like, which is the horror.

1:07:00

Like fuck, that's yeah, like pomegranate

1:07:03

oar. I really like that,

1:07:05

thank you.

1:07:08

And that's one of the things that I like about Greek literature

1:07:10

is that it's so like

1:07:13

genre bendy that I feel like a

1:07:15

lot of it is not sequestered

1:07:17

into like little groups of genres,

1:07:21

and that is unfortunately, I kind of

1:07:23

I agree with you. I think that a lot of retellings

1:07:25

these days. These days, a lot

1:07:28

of them are very much focused on like a

1:07:30

realism, like trying to make

1:07:33

the Greek world feel very

1:07:35

realistic to a

1:07:37

very realistic audience. And

1:07:40

you're right that there's all this horror and

1:07:42

this horrible stuff that that's like supernatural

1:07:46

fantasy esque that I feel like needs

1:07:49

to be represented more.

1:07:50

Yeah, I'm I'm currently trying

1:07:53

to turn a myth into like

1:07:55

a romanticy, but like a really

1:07:57

fucked up romanticy. Yeah,

1:08:01

but like but really emphasizing the fantasy

1:08:03

element, like I want, I'm trying

1:08:05

to, you know, build my own version

1:08:08

of a Greek of the Greek mythological

1:08:10

world that is a fantasy

1:08:12

world, like in the same vein of any

1:08:14

of the big fantasy realms, because like it

1:08:16

is like it it is pre

1:08:19

existing, like as a fantasy realm, you don't

1:08:21

even have to invent it, you know, And I

1:08:23

just feel like it's it's being underused. So but

1:08:26

yeah, along with the horror, because I

1:08:28

think ignoring all of the

1:08:31

utter monstrosities that

1:08:33

exist in Greek myth is just doing

1:08:35

them a disservice slash. I think it's

1:08:37

just, yeah, indicative of what I want to read, which is

1:08:39

the fucked up side of agreemth, hence

1:08:42

this podcast. But anyway, ostensibly

1:08:45

this episode is about Zappo. It really is.

1:08:47

But I like Harry about the horror too. But

1:08:51

yeah, I just I

1:08:53

was just gonna say the same thing all over again. But it's still true.

1:08:55

I love that we have this woman's work, even though we don't

1:08:58

have nearly enough of it, but yeah,

1:09:00

that we get this sense of of what kind

1:09:02

of like a real person. To me, she feels like more

1:09:04

of a real person than a lot

1:09:06

of the other poets, and just like writing

1:09:08

what she wants to write, like writing her angsty love

1:09:11

poems to the women who hopefully you

1:09:13

know, like her back, but maybe they you

1:09:15

know, they had their own hurdles, hopefully

1:09:18

if you were in Lesbos than in

1:09:20

Athens. But yeah,

1:09:23

I just I mean, and I you know, all

1:09:25

of this came about because I I think you must have

1:09:27

just tweeted that you had a STAFFO

1:09:29

translation and I was like, Hi, can

1:09:32

I can I have it? So

1:09:35

I haven't figured out what I'm going to do yet, but I you know, because

1:09:37

you so lovely graciously agreed

1:09:39

to let me read some of it on the shows, I'm going to have

1:09:41

done that at some point. I still figuring out how

1:09:43

because I'm very excited, but

1:09:45

yeah, so I'm like, I'm just I'm thrilled to talk about

1:09:47

it too. I love the idea of doing this just because you wanted

1:09:50

to, just because you love it. And

1:09:53

I realized too, you do you have information

1:09:55

about any kind of release because you were going

1:09:57

to I feel like you were hopefully gonna have something.

1:10:00

Yeah, So I think I really want to

1:10:02

try to get this out

1:10:04

about a year from now. So I think when

1:10:08

ever this comes out, it would be like a great

1:10:11

midpoint to when the

1:10:14

date or the general date.

1:10:16

So I wanted to like do it

1:10:18

sometime around Valentine's Day next

1:10:20

year, and so it'll probably

1:10:22

be in February, great,

1:10:25

which is.

1:10:25

When we're recording, so very appropriate. Well,

1:10:28

I'll check in with you in case you've anything updated

1:10:30

by the time it releases, in case I can add that in

1:10:32

afterwards. But

1:10:35

yeah, I mean, thank you so much for doing this. This

1:10:37

was so much fun. Do

1:10:40

you have things you want to share with my

1:10:42

listeners, particularly the

1:10:44

Greek myth or slash short stories

1:10:46

that you've written, because now I think people will want to read

1:10:48

them, But anything you want to share.

1:10:54

I get so h I sent this

1:10:56

is out on Catapult when they

1:10:58

were still running. The

1:11:01

Orpheus story is in a small

1:11:03

little publication. I think they are sold

1:11:05

out, but I think in a few years I get

1:11:08

the rights back to that story.

1:11:11

And that's fun of publishing short stories. I met.

1:11:15

And then I'm like up to my

1:11:18

elbows in Euripides black Eye

1:11:20

right now. So I'm like, hopefully

1:11:23

in a year or two, I can like compile

1:11:25

a nice little, I

1:11:28

guess collection of Euripides plays

1:11:31

to also self publish him throw

1:11:33

out there. I'm having a lot of fun

1:11:35

with black Eye. It's one of my favorite

1:11:38

plays.

1:11:41

When you said up to your elbows. I was like, there is a

1:11:43

lot to be said for saying

1:11:46

that about back guy speaking of

1:11:48

Orpheus, because yeah,

1:11:53

I'm looking forward to that, not least because

1:11:56

I just fucking love Euripides. But yeah, back Eye

1:11:58

and Medea are my I

1:12:00

mean, I want to say they're my peak. But then every

1:12:02

time I read something else, I'm like, well, I don't know, because

1:12:04

al Castis is there, and so is Helen, and

1:12:07

he's just eurip is perfect.

1:12:10

He is by far my favorite. I will

1:12:13

say that Eschylus's Agamemnon

1:12:15

is probably one of my very

1:12:17

most favorite plays ever. But

1:12:20

you know, Euripides is just he is

1:12:24

such like he's

1:12:27

such a horror writer. All of

1:12:29

his plays are all about these horrible

1:12:31

things, and he like pushes it to the limit

1:12:34

too, to the.

1:12:35

Point of it being like almost dark comedy. Sometimes.

1:12:37

I think like like he's got like Jordan

1:12:39

Peele kind of aspect, Like

1:12:43

you know, it's like it's dark and fucked up, but like

1:12:45

there's also like there's like an irony in

1:12:47

there. There's like there's layers, you know.

1:12:50

Yeah, fuck, euip is amazing because

1:12:53

we're already kind of in this realm. I

1:12:55

am so convinced that he was queer. Do

1:12:58

you have thoughts? Have you formed opinions?

1:13:01

I actually have never thought about

1:13:03

that. I have just

1:13:06

in my head. He's just an outlier and a

1:13:08

number of ways just because of

1:13:11

how many like women his

1:13:14

place focus on, how many

1:13:16

women who do like really horrible,

1:13:18

fucked up things, and just

1:13:20

like all the voices of

1:13:24

like women and slaves and like

1:13:26

people that you don't typically see in plays

1:13:29

get brought up in his material. And

1:13:31

he really I hate to like throw around

1:13:33

the word that he's like a proto feminist, because

1:13:36

like, was he really a feminist?

1:13:38

We have though, like yeah,

1:13:41

in terms of if we can put it on anybody,

1:13:44

it is him.

1:13:46

I just enjoy Europedes because he puts

1:13:48

forward all those like marginalized

1:13:51

voices of people who typically

1:13:54

fall to the background in any other like

1:13:57

playwrights.

1:13:59

Yeah, no, exactly, like he

1:14:01

he was interested in women

1:14:04

as real people. That's like

1:14:06

how I tend to say it is like he

1:14:08

he wanted to write realistic

1:14:11

women, flawed, broken, like

1:14:13

horrible women, but like real

1:14:16

ones instead of like caricatures.

1:14:19

Yeah, but I'm just like I don't know,

1:14:22

I had I forget which guest So apologies,

1:14:24

but I've definitely had a guest on who maintains

1:14:27

that he was like a closeted

1:14:30

trans woman, which

1:14:33

like I could kind of see or

1:14:35

or maybe it was that that he's anyway,

1:14:38

like just basically you know, like there's

1:14:40

some gender thing, you know, going on,

1:14:42

Like I could absolutely see that. But

1:14:46

yeah, I mean he's just yeah, he's

1:14:48

fucking interesting. Anyway. This is not about your bodies,

1:14:51

but I could make anything about your buddies

1:14:54

try. Oh,

1:14:56

but thank you so much for doing this. Sappho is amazing.

1:14:59

I'm really glad that you got to like

1:15:01

play around and have fun with her poetry

1:15:04

and and yeah that I also that we

1:15:06

got to talk about her.

1:15:07

I know, thanks for having me on here. I love

1:15:10

talking to anybody about Stappho, and I'm glad that

1:15:12

you are super into her and the way that

1:15:14

I am.

1:15:17

Who could who could not be honestly, But

1:15:19

I recognize that there are people out there, but there do

1:15:22

you have any like social media handles or

1:15:25

websites or anything that you want to promote as well?

1:15:28

Yeah, you can find me on Twitter. I'm still

1:15:30

gonna call it twitter at, just you know, my full

1:15:32

name Brendan At Brandan's at Turka

1:15:35

no punctuation uh. And then

1:15:37

my website is also just Brendan's

1:15:39

at turka dot com, and that's where I typically

1:15:41

have like links to other you know,

1:15:43

writings that have been published out there.

1:15:46

Wonderful. You also saved me

1:15:48

the trouble of asking how to pronounce your last name. So thank

1:15:50

you, Hey,

1:16:08

thank you all so much for listening.

1:16:11

I really it's

1:16:14

I'm recording so many things up front,

1:16:16

as I've said a few times now, because

1:16:19

I have this travel and

1:16:22

so what that means is that I have been doing

1:16:24

like for a day, and so now

1:16:26

my voice is going. And also I

1:16:31

just am so overtaken

1:16:33

by the horrors of the world that I just don't know how to say

1:16:35

nice, happy things into this microphone.

1:16:38

So thankfully I have this conversation

1:16:40

that was recorded before. So I am

1:16:44

sorry for not giving this outro it's

1:16:46

due, but honestly, thank you so much to

1:16:48

Brendan for talking to me. We had such

1:16:50

a fun time. And yeah,

1:16:53

you can read more everywhere

1:16:56

that he mentioned. I've linked to everything in the episode's

1:16:58

description and hopefully we will

1:17:00

all be able to read this sappho

1:17:02

translation very soon. Thank

1:17:06

you all so much. For listening.

1:17:09

Let's Talk About MIT's Baby is written and produced by

1:17:11

Me Live Albert. MICHAELA. Smith is the

1:17:14

assistant producer. Laura Smith is the production

1:17:16

assistant an audio engineer. The

1:17:19

podcast is part of the iHeart Podcast

1:17:21

Network. Listen on Spotify or Apple

1:17:23

or wherever you get your podcasts. I

1:17:25

am Live and I Love

1:17:28

this shit.