I have been looking for this for ages

[intaglio]

Saw it quoted in an article in the Guardian back in the 1980's and could never trace it. Gave up and then chanced to Google again just now.

‘Aphrodite’ (from ancient Greece)
-Sophocles, [ trans . Richard Winn Livingstone ]

My children,
Know that Love is not love alone,
but in her name lie many names concealed.

For she is Death,
imperishable force,
desire unmixed,
wild frenzy,
lamentation.

In her are summed all impulses
that drive to
violence,
energy,
tranquility.

Deep in each living breast the goddess dwells,
and all become her prey:
the tribes that swim,
the four-foot tribes that pace upon the earth
harbor her,

and in birds her wing is sovereign.
In beasts,
in mortal men,
in gods above.

What god but wrestles with her
and is thrown?

If I may tell,
and truth is right to tell,
she rules the heart of Zeus
without a spear,
without sword.

Truly the Cyprian shatters
all purposes
of men
and gods.

[In_The_Wind]

1. I believe that Love influences everything.

thank you

[Petrushka]

2. Another, more telling translation --->

http://bostonreview.net/BR34.1/gibbons.php

Fragment 941: Aphrodite of Kypros

Translated from the Ancient Greek by Reginald Gibbons


O children—she of Kypros is
Not only called “the Kyprian”
But is named many
Times with many names.
She’s death—and the realm thereof,
She’s undestroyable life,
She’s madness raving loose, She’s
Undiluted hot desire,
She is a wailing with pain,
With sorrow, with rage, with fear.
All real, excellent energy’s
In her, and all restedness too.
And all that leads us into
Violence. She pours in, She
Saturates thought and what’s
Inside the breast of all
That has the breath of life.
For who is not hungry
For this goddess? She goes
Into the swimming fish,
Into the four-legged
Creatures on dry land, and
Ranging among the birds
Of omen is Her wing [. . . ]
Among wild beasts, and mortals,
Among the gods up above.
Wrestling Her, which of the gods
Does She fail to throw three times?
If I have a right to speak
The truth—and I have the right—
Over what aches in the breast of Zeus
Himself She rules, and needing no spear-
Shaft nor iron to do it.
Plans, however many,
Of mortals and of gods, the
Kyprian cuts to pieces.


—Sophocles (c. 496–406 BCE)

===========================



FWIW:
I find the above translation more in keeping with Aphrodite as the goddess of beauty, fertility, and sexual love.

[Sweeney]

5. Undiluted hot desire? Oh come to me cause I'm on fire!

I like this translation much better.

I could write this poem. I knew this Goddess in the form of a girl. Several in fact. I hate to brag, and being a slave is no prize the brag on. I wonder how she'd like me now, and what fine sport she'd make of this old fool.

[Sweeney]

6. Do you get the birds of omen part?

Greeks and Roman's practiced Augury, and we have that word in our inauguration. Whether birds were flying left to right or right to left had an auspicious or inauspicious meaning, and these auspices were the tool the augurs used to inspect the innards of animals to look for signs in the organs of a sacrificed animal. Left or right meant something opposite to the Greeks or Romans. Our word sinister comes from the latin, whose appearance would have been auspicious to the Greeks.

[theexwife]

3. Wow

This is incredibly deep and highly accurate. Love does govern most other emotions...

[Sweeney]

4. I understand their philosophers once believed that love was the force behind all creation.

Can this be true?