Fragments 108, 110, 115, 117, 116, 111, 114, and 113 combined. This is the lamentation-song
For Adonis woe for Adonis, woe!
Thus wailed Aphrodite in anguish-throe,
As she strove to hold him back from death:
"Let thine heart not faint, O love! Be strong!
O me, it burns me, thy failing breath!
It kindles through all my being a fire!
My heart is aflame with despairing desire!"
She calls to her Eros of golden wing,
She bids him steep in the ice-cold spring
Fine linen, and lay on Adonis' brow:
"O love, let its coolness revive thee now!...
Vain, vain! His eyes see me no more;
They are fixed in a gaze upon Hades' door!
They close he sleeps not the sleep of the dead!
Hush, stir not a pebble with heedless tread!
No, no! This is death! Now remaineth to me
No sweetness on earth nor honey nor bee!"
- Sappho