I am fated to journey hand in hand with my strange heroes and to survey the surging immensity of life, to survey it through the laughter that all can see and through the tears unseen and unknown by anyone.
“He seems to me equal to gods that man / who opposite you / sits and listens close / to your sweet speaking
and lovely laughing — oh it / puts the heart in my chest on wings / for when I look at you, a moment, then no speaking / is left in me
no: tongue breaks, and thin / fire is racing under skin / and in eyes no sight and drumming / fills ears
and cold sweat holds me and shaking / grips me all, greener than grass / I am and dead — or almost / I seem to me.”
Sappho | Fragment 31