Poetry Compared
...goddesses. Then in Prayer the word “cow” was used in the sentence, “Don’t I beg you, cow my heart with grief!” I find this to be a very interesting word. It seems to be referring to a burden or slow weighty feeling of absolution that cows seem to often have once they realize they will never have more they have. In Artfully the conflicting part of the sentence says, “don’t overcome my spirit, goddess, with longing.” This sort of relates to the “cow” word but chooses “overcome” to show that it is also a burden he doesn’t want to carry. Prayer also use the word “grief” to attract the attention to that passionate emotion where as Artfully uses the words “hurt” and “longing” to make the reader sympathize. Artfully states, in reference of the goddess leaving her fathers house, “your father’s house, all golden” and the variance in Prayer is “to your gold car.” This shows the reader that either the house is golden, or the car is, but neither tells us which is actually in Sappho’s original poem. The sentence fragment “beautiful thick-feathered wings” in Prayer leaves an impression of suppleness of the birds and that they are big, strong, and healthy. It makes us feel that these birds are powerful and thick in appearance. Then Artfully describes the birds as having “fine beating wings.” This could lead to thoughts of wings that are in good health like the Prayer poem or it could make the reader imagine the wings are thin and delicate which is quite the opposite of the bold and “thick-feathered” wings in Prayer. Artfully uses the words “raving heart” when Aphrodite is asking Sappho what ails him again (since he had obviously called her before). Rav...