Last year, scholars identified a papyrus at the University of Cologne as part of a roll containing the poems of Sappho. Of the three poems represented there by fragments, one was previously unknown. On June 24, the TLS published that poem in the original text (with conjectural restorations) and an English translation by Martin West; here we print two further versions of it made from those materials.
SAPPHO TO HER PUPILS
Live for the gifts the fragrant-breasted Muses
send, for the clear, the singing, lyre, my children.
Old age freezes my body, once so lithe,
rinses the darkness from my hair, now white.
My heart's heavy, my knees no longer keep me
up through the dance they used to prance like fawns in.
Oh, I grumble about it, but for what?
Nothing can stop a person's growing old.
