II. Résumé making (text compression).

Listen to the recorded text, make notes and write a résumé in Russian /Ukrainian /English. (Reduce the text to the core, and then develop it back without consulting the text).

Translate into English using text compression (omit redundant words, convert nominative structure into verbal, use noun clusters etc.)

First, do it in writing; then orally, observe transformations in translation.

III. Text development.

Develop a text from the given core (first do it in one language in writing, then with interpretation – orally).

IV. Sight translation practice.

Pay attention to precision information (proper names, geographical names, dates) and correct word order. Suggest background information required for a proper translation of the text.

V. Check yourself (your translation) against the pattern translation version.

VI. Listen to the recorded text and practise consecutive interpreting.

Sappho

(VII–VI c. B. C.)

Ancient Greek Рoetess

Time has almost erased her profile on the ancient coins, but the words of love sound so passionately as if they left her hot lips only yesterday…

«I loved,

I enticed many to

My lonely bed,

I spoke in language of true passion…

No poetess before Sappho could speak about their feelings so openly and with such an unusual intensity. If Homer is considered the father of epic poetry, Sappho created lyrics.

«Passionate Sappho» – this is what she was called by her contemporaries. She was born on the island of Lesbos, in the town of Eros, 612 years Before Christ. Like other girls of the Lesbos Island she received a strict and versatile education. Having a perfect tan, she practiced gymnastics, participated in the beauty contests, learned music and poetry at the school of hetaeras. She was keen on versification as early as in her youth. She wrote hymns, odes, elegies and holiday songs.

When some turmoil began on the island and Lesbos residents tried to overthrow the cruel tyrant Pittaka, Sappho and her brothers were forced to look for asylum away from the island.

Sappho returned to her native island a mature woman and famous poetess.

Sappho was not a beauty according to the beauty standards of those days dictated by the delicate white-skinned women of Athens. She was of small height, dark-skinned, with lively shining eyes. Ovidius put into her lips such words: «I am not very tall, but I can fill all the countries with my name».

Soon after Sappho’s return to the island love broke out between Sappho and her exile associate, a very young poet, Alcei by name; and this love was to remain platonic. The striking personality of the poetess attracted Alcei and scared him off at the same time. He thought he was unworthy of great Sappho’s love and dared not to reveal his feelings for a long time.

I would speak out,

If what I wanted to say were decent.

Shame would hardly embarrass you.

The romance with Alcei faded. Sappho’s brothers chose a husband for her, a rich merchant. A year later their daughter was born.

But merciless fate did not allow her to enjoy her family happiness. Soon both her husband and her beloved daughter descended into the kingdom of Aide.

Deprived of her family Sappho completely devoted herself to creative work. She became famous throughout Ellada thanks to her poetic gift.

She headed the school of rhetoric which she called the House of Muses. It was an original antique Bohemian salon where the daughters of noble families having left men to create antique history got together to write and recite poetry and enjoy communicating with each other. Here the feasts were arranged, wine flew like a river and tender hands stretched towards tender hands.

…as for me,

I will abandon myself

to sensuality.

Till I am able to see

The glitter of the radiant

luminary.

And I will always admire

All beautiful things!

And what can be more beautiful than a woman?

In the culture of ancient Greece unisexual love was not a rare phenomenon. Sappho’s contemporaries did not find it reprehensible: the poetess was respected by Alcei, Salon, then Plato and other outstanding people of the time; Socrates called Sappho his teacher in love issues, and the picture of the famous poetess was placed on the coins.

Sappho’s literary works are permeated with love passion and admiration, joy of tender communication and jealousy.

Sappho loved – and she loved the way not many people are able to, devoted herself entirely to frightful elemental force impossible resist.

My tongue’s speechless,

My blood’s full of fire streams,

Bursting and running like sparks.

The eyes are filled with the dark thing

And ears cannot hear

For there is the silence of the surf’s ring…

But youth and freshness were relentlessly leaving her. Love failures wounded her heart. Once the poetess’s brother bought a beautiful hetaera, Rodopa by name, from slavery for a huge amount of money. She was so beautiful that Sappho was consumed with passion and became a rival of her own brother. But the young beauty remained indifferent to Sappho’s feeling and Sappho’s brother took her away from Lesbos.

Sappho paid the highest price for her last love. The legend says she fell in love with a young handsome Greek, Phaon by name, but he remained untouched by the passion of not very young and not so beautiful Sappho who forgot all her friends for his sake.

And let them defame me

For I reveled in delight.

But I learnt all mysteries,

The divine mysteries of life.

My eyes were dazzled

By the shining light.

For they for they saw

The dawning of the divine love.

Sappho climbed the top of the Leucat rock and threw herself into the sea.

She was too strong, too talented and self-sufficient to find happiness in the world where men ruled undividedly. And only in the 20^th century, society appeared to be prepared to perceive independent and gifted woman free both in love and creative work.