28 Pick-Up Lines From Sappho To Use At Pride

Photo of a Violet by Frank Vincentz

With Pride events popping up locally and globally for PoCLGBTQWI (and all the rest of letters in the alphabet), why not try a few pick-up lines from Sappho?

Who knows you might wow your future partner.

It would certainly garner my attention with a head-dress of violet flowers.

Through Sappho’s words we can surmise that she was one fearless human being who understood emphatically the importance of ‘gnosis’.

Gnosis is the Greek philosophical concept to ‘know thyself’ and thus live as thyself regardless of what kind (or unkind) times you may find yourself living in.

She knew herself so well, she is widely regarded one of the first poets to get personal and let us in on her life.

To support this style, she used the pronoun ‘I’ in her lyrics, as oppose to the earlier epic poems of Homer and his perspective of divine inspiration. She would have sung her words while playing a lyre.

In this list, Sappho’s words have been translated by the fantastically named Aaron Poochigian from Stung With Love with a foreword by Carol Ann Duffy.

Happy Pride to everyone where-ever you are.

And now over to Sappho…

Coin from the British Museum depicting Sappho from the island of Lesbos 630-570BC

1 Come close

2 He is unrivalled, like a Lesbian

3 The leaves drip slumber

4 Lust has crushed my spirit

5 But come as often, on request

6 Your nectar with pure festal glee / Fill gilded bowls and pass them round / Lavishly

7 And you, sublime and smiling with immortal mirth

8 What was my mad heart dreaming of?

9 She who shuns love will soon pursue it

10 Come to me now

11 Come, please, and in this battle stand at my side

12 Come, girls , beat your fists / Down upon your breasts / And shred your dresses

13 Come close, you precious Graces and Muses

14 That impossible predator / Eros the Limb-Loosener

15 Like a gale smiting an oak

16 Eros with a stroke, shattered my brain

17 That fellow strikes me as god’s double

18 The revelation flutters, my ventricles, my sternum and stomach

19 We have both suffered terribly. But Sappho, it is hard to say goodbye.

20 With fleecy sheets and yielding cushions

21 My heart is lenient

22 Over eyelids dark night fell. Invisible.

23 Stand and face me, dear; release / That fineness in your irises

24 Neither the honey nor the bee / For me

25 The good man will in time be gorgeous too.

26 Your tongue were keen to utter in hot haste

27 Her ankles, captivates you with her charm?

28 Yes, we did many things, then… – all Beautiful

Read more of Sappho’s words translated by Aaron Poochigian see Stung with Love: Poems and Fragments published by Penguin Random House.

#Pride #Blogalism #Blogalist #NikkiWordsmith #Sappho #AaronPoochigian #CarolAnnDuffy

10 Comments

Please leave a comment below ⬇️