There is something about the way that Greek poets, say Aeschylus, use metaphor that really attracts me. I don't think I can imitate it, but there's a density to it that I think I'm always trying to push towards in English.

He was trying to fit this Herakles onto the one he knew.

All human desire is poised on an axis of paradox, absence and presence its poles, love and hate its motive energies.

It is easier to tell a story of how people wound one another than of what binds them together.

I emphasize the distinction between brackets and no brackets because it will affect your reading experience, if you will allow it. Brackets are exciting. Even though you are approaching Sappho in translation, that is no reason you should miss the drama of trying to read a papyrus torn in half or riddled with holes or smaller than a postage stamp--brackets imply a free space of imaginal adventure.

Philosophy - hopeless. Yet it gives me hope.

Aristotle says that metaphor causes the mind to experience itself in the act of making a mistake.