Charaxos & Larichos

BY SAPPHO

 

 

Say what you like about Charaxos,

that’s a fellow with a fat-bellied ship

always in some port or other.

What does Zeus care, or the rest of his gang?

Now you’d like me on my knees,

crying out to Hera, “Blah, blah, blah,

bring him home safe and free of warts,”

or blubbering, “Wah, wah, wah, thank you,

thank you, for curing my liver condition.”

Good grief, gods do what they like.

They call down hurricanes with a whisper

or send off a tsunami the way you would a love letter.

If they have a whim, they make some henchmen

fix it up, like those idiots in the Iliad.

A puff of smoke, a little fog, away goes the hero,

it’s happily ever after. As for Larichos,

that lay-a-bed lives for the pillow. If for once

he’d get off his ass, he might make something of himself.

Then from that reeking sewer of my life

I might haul up a bucket of spring water.

 

 

 

 translated by William Logan