Tithonus poem

The Tithonus poem, also known as the old age poem or (with fragments of another poem by Sappho discovered at the same time) the New Sappho, is a poem by the archaic Greek poet Sappho. It is part of fragment 58 in Eva-Maria Voigt's edition of Sappho. The poem is from Book IV of the Alexandrian edition of Sappho's poetry. The poem was first published in 1922, after a fragment of papyrus on which it was partially preserved was discovered at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt. Papyrus fragments published in 2004 almost completed the poem, drawing international media attention. The poem is one of very few substantially complete works by Sappho, and deals with the effects of ageing. There is scholarly debate about where the poem ends, as four lines previously thought to have been part of the poem are not found on the 2004 papyrus.

Two lines of the poem are preserved in Athenaeus' Deipnosophistae. In addition to this quotation, the poem is known from two papyri: one discovered at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt and first published in 1922; the other first published in 2004. The lines quoted by Athenaeus are part of the poem as preserved on the Oxyrhynchus papyrus, but not the Cologne papyrus.

Part of the Tithonus poem was originally published in 1922 on a fragment of papyrus from Oxyrhynchus. This fragment preserved part of 27 lines of Sappho's poetry, including the Tithonus poem. The papyrus appears to be part of a copy of Book IV of the Alexandrian edition of Sappho's poetry, as all of the poems appear to be in the same metre. From the handwriting, the papyrus can be dated to the second century AD. Today the papyrus is part of the collection of the Sackler Library in Oxford University.

In 2004, Martin Gronewald and Robert Daniel published three fragments of papyrus from the Cologne Papyrus Collection, which taken with the existing fragment from Oxyrhynchus provided the almost complete text to five stanzas of the poem. The Cologne papyrus, preserved on cartonnage, is from the early third century BC, making it the oldest known papyrus containing a poem by Sappho.

The papyrus is part of an anthology of poetry, with poems on similar themes grouped together. Along with the Tithonus poem, two others are preserved on the papyrus published by Gronewald and Daniel: one in the same metre, one written in a different hand and in a different metre. The metre of this last poem has characteristics which do not appear in any known metre used by the Lesbian poets. It also contains word forms which appear not to be in the Aeolic dialect used by Sappho, and refers to the myth of Orpheus in a form not known to have existed in Sappho's time. For these reasons, the poem cannot be by Sappho.

...
Wikipedia