Psychopomps

Existing in many religions, a psychopomp is a figure that escorts newly deceased souls to the afterlife, and has been portrayed in many different ways. In Egyptian mythology, for example, Anubis is a jackal-headed god, being depicted as a protector of graves, an embalmer, and the god who not only ushers souls into the afterlife, but also weighs their hearts to determine whether the soul will be allowed to enter the realm of the dead.

Depicted (clockwise) above are several psychopomps: Hermes, an Olympian god from Greek mythology, Mercury, the Roman deity, Anubis, mentioned above, a horse, raven, whip-poor-will, cuckoo, owl, crow, sparrow, and hart. There are many other psychopomps (such as the Welsh Gwyn ap Nudd / Arawn), and in several cultures dead relatives (parents, siblings, forefathers) function as psychopomps.

The word psychopomp originates from the Greek word psuchopompus (ψυχοπομπός), which literally means "guide of souls", and when the depiction is of birds, they are often seen in huge masses, waiting outside the home of the dying. On perhaps an unrelated note, feel free to take a minute to read The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe. One could imagine that the raven is a psychopomp who carried away the soul of "the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore"...

Sapphic Stanza

Yesterday I came across the Greek poet Sappho and was fascinated not only by her poetry (most of which has been lost to time), but also by her life and reputation. I was particularly intrigued by the below quote by the 3rd-century philosopher Maximus of Tyre, which led to a very interesting journey along the pages of Wikipedia concerning Socrates and the other names mentioned in the quote.

"What else could one call the love of the Lesbian [note: from Lesbos] woman than the Socratic art of love? For they seem to me to have practised love after their own fashion, she the love of women, he of boys. For they said they loved many, and were captivated by all things beautiful. What Alcibiades and Charmides and Phaedrus were to him, Gyrinna and Atthis and Anactoria were to her ..."

Sappho wasn't a philosopher, but refreshing my memory on Socratic values and reading Plato's dialogue Phaedrus was just as interesting as learning about the Sapphic stanza, a meter Sappho may or may not have originated. It's an Aeolic verse form (Aeolic Greek being a dialect of Ancient Greek spoken on the Aegean island of Lesbos, where Sappho came from) that spans four lines.

With "-" for a long syllable, "u" for a short one and "x" for an anceps (or free syllable), the metric is thus:

- u -  x  - u u -   u - -
- u -  x  - u u -   u - -
- u -  x  - u u -   u - -
- u u - u

Sappho's poems are, of course, in Ancient Greek (a language I unfortunately don't understand), but there is an excellent page here with a large number of her poems both in their original forms and their translations. There are, however, some rather humorous attempts by more contemporary poets to use the metric with English words. From Wikipedia, my favorites have to be this one by the Australian poet John Tranter:

Writing Sapphics well is a tricky business.

Lines begin and end with a pair of trochees;

in between them dozes a dactyl, rhythm

rising and falling,

like a drunk asleep at a party. Ancient

Greek — the language seemed to be made for Sapphics,

not a worry; anyone used to English

finds it a bastard.

and this one by Oxford classicist Armand D'Angour:

Independent metre is overrated:

What's the point if nobody knows the dance-form?

Wisely, Sappho chose to create a stately

regular stanza.

I made my own attempt, and after failing terribly in English I tried in in German. It worked out slightly better, but I believe my metric is flawed in more than one place. So tricky! But, to end this post, here's my attempt.

            Auch auf Deutsch ist's schwieriger als man denken
            würde; aber hey, einen Versuch ist's doch
            wert, nicht wahr? Da kommt man doch in's Probieren,
                      strengt das Gehirn an.