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More than 2,500 years ago, one of ancient Greece's most celebrated popstars and erotic poets enraptured listeners.
在距今2500多年前，一位希腊最出名的流行歌星和情色诗人，使听众心醉神迷。
In one legend, a prominent Athenian heard his nephew singing one of their songs and enjoyed it so much
有则传说提到，一位雅典名人，听见其侄子唱着其中一首歌，他非常陶醉，
that he asked the boy to teach it to him -- "So that I may learn it and die," he said.
便问侄子能不能教他唱这首歌，他说：“我学了这首歌便能死而无憾了。”
So, who was this revered figure? Her name was Sappho. She lived on the Greek island of Lesbos around 600 BCE.
那么，这位备受尊敬的大人物是谁呢？她便是萨福。公元前600年左右，她生活在希腊莱斯波斯岛。
Like other singer-songwriters of the time, she sang while playing the lyre, a stringed instrument from which the term "lyrics" is derived.
她如同那个时代其他创作歌手一样，她边唱边弹着竖琴，歌词（lyrics）一词就来自竖琴（lyre）。
But Sappho lyrics offered a uniquely intimate perspective on love, passion, and longing.
但萨福的歌词带给人与众不同的亲密视角，她歌颂爱、热情和渴望。
She's the first on record to combine the words "bitter" and "sweet," for instance, to describe at once the thrills and devastations of romance.
例如，她是记载里首个把“苦”和“甜”合成一个词，来描绘在浪漫关系中同时存在的震颤与毁灭的人。
Sappho was an aristocrat thought to have married a man, though none of her surviving work mentions him.
萨福是一个贵族，后世认为她嫁了一个男人，尽管她现存的所有作品中从未提到过他。
It does reference other family as well as festivals, colorful clothing, and growing old.
她的作品里提到过其他家人、节日，多彩的服饰，以及衰老。
But Sappho is best known for her lyrics about homoerotic desire for women.
但萨福最著名的是歌词里对女性的同性欲望。
In one song, as her female companion departs tearfully, Sappho says, "let me remind you / ... the lovely times we shared."
在一首歌里，与她的女性爱人挥泪而别时，她说道，“就让我来提醒你...我们消磨过的美好光阴。”
She describes flower garlands, perfumes, "and," she says, "on soft beds / ... you quenched your desire."
她描绘花环、香水，还说，“在柔软的床上...你释出欲望。”
In another, she describes a friend in a distant city, "Pacing far away, her gentle heart devoured by powerful desire, she remembers slender Atthis."
在另一首诗里，她这样描写一位千里之外的朋友，“踱步远行，她温柔的心，被强烈的欲望吞噬，她无法忘记身段苗条的阿特斯。”
The word "Lesbian" means someone from Lesbos, but, because of Sappho, it now also describes a woman who's gay.
“蕾丝边（Lesbian)”一词原指来自莱斯波斯岛（Lesbos）的人，但因为萨福，现在这个词也被用来形容女同性恋者。
In ancient Greece, the norm was for everyone to marry and have children.
古希腊的社会规范是，每个人都得结婚生子。
While men were usually permitted to have homosexual relationships based on their status, women weren't.
尽管男性通常会被允许有同性恋关系，根据他们的地位而定，女性却不能。
But it appears that, on Lesbos at this time, aristocratic women generally had more freedom.
但好像在那时的莱斯波斯岛上，贵族女性通常拥有更多的自由。
Yet the details of Sappho's life remain mysterious, partially because only fragments of her poetry survive.
但萨福的生活细节仍不为人知，一部分是因为她的现存诗歌仅剩片段。
In ancient times, however, so much of it persisted that it seemed it would last forever.
但古时萨福有非常多的诗歌，就像这些诗歌会永远流传。
Admirers performed Sappho cover songs and committed her poetry to papyrus, parchment, and pottery.
仰慕者表演萨福的诗歌，并把她的诗歌留存在莎草纸、羊皮纸和陶器上。
Three centuries after Sappho's death, a Greek author declared that her words would endure "as long as ships sail from the Nile."
萨福去世三个世纪后，一位希腊作家声称她的作品会恒久流传，“只要船只还会从尼罗河上扬帆起航。”
Another century later, the Library of Alexandria housed nine scrolls of her work, numbering over 10,000 lines.
又过去一个世纪之后，亚历山大图书馆里存放了九大卷轴她的作品，总共有超过五万行。
But natural forces eroded the collection. And monks, tasked with preserving ancient writing, likely neglected or destroyed her work.
但这些收藏遭到了自然力量的侵蚀。而负责保护古代著作的僧侣则很可能无视或摧毁了她的作品。
One 2nd century Christian leader called Sappho "a whore who sang about her own licentiousness."
公元2世纪，一位基督教领袖称萨福是“歌颂自身放荡的妓女。”
Later, a Pope and Archbishop ordered her poetry burned. Almost all of it had vanished by the Middle Ages.
之后，有位教皇和大主教下令烧掉她的诗歌。她的作品在中世纪前几乎全被销毁了。
Then, about a century ago, people began rediscovering Sappho's poetry -- in locations like an ancient Egyptian garbage dump.
此后，大约在一个世纪前，人们在一个像古埃及垃圾场的地方重新发现了萨福的诗歌。
Now, we have around 700 lines, representing less than 10% of Sappho's total known work. We only have one complete poem of hers.
现在我们还有大概700行她的诗歌，仅是萨福所有已知作品的不到10%。我们仅有一首完整的萨福的诗歌。
About a dozen others are substantial, but most are mere fragments. New pieces of Sappho's songs probably will be found.
大约十几首诗歌有较为完整，但绝大多数都仅有片段。我们可能还会找到萨福诗歌的一些新片段。
Some may already be sitting in museum archives, to be revealed when technology allows scholars to read through scrolls too fragile to unroll.
有些片段可能已在博物馆档案室里，一旦科技能让学者翻动过于脆弱的卷轴，阅读就能被揭晓。
What we are currently left with is an incomplete record -- and many historical rumors.
我们现在仅有的是不完整的记录以及许多历史上的传闻。
Ovid insisted that Sappho fell in love with a ferryman and, upon being rejected, leapt from a cliff to her death.
奥维德坚称萨福曾与一名船夫相爱，但遭到了拒绝后坠崖而亡。
Another tale asserts that she ran a girls' school and those mentioned in her poems were merely students for whom she felt platonic affection.
另一则传闻则说她办了一所女子学校，那些她诗中提到的人只不过是让她有着柏拉图式喜爱的学生。
Current consensus is that these stories, which ridicule Sappho or deny her work's homoeroticism, are probably all untrue artifacts of misogyny and homophobia.
目前的共识则是，这些奚落萨福或否认其同性恋的故事，可能都是出于厌女症和恐同症而捏造的谣言。
Despite the distortions of the intervening millennia, Sappho's words reach across time and resonate today.
尽管几千年中遭遇了各种扭曲，萨福的词句仍穿越时间，使今天的人产生共鸣。
More than 2,000 years ago, she wrote: "I say someone in another time will remember us". And, thankfully, we do.
在两千多年前，她写道：“我相信其他时代的某人会记得我们”。幸好，我们现在记得。
