Long Ago, A Collection of Sapphic Poems Written by Michael Field : A Japanese Translation (1)

Michael Field is the collective pseudonym used by two late 19th century female British poets, Katharine Harris Bradley and Edith Emma Cooper. They were inspired by the ancient Greek poet Sappho’s surviving fragments of verse, and extended some of them into complete poems in English. Their first collection of poems, Long Ago (1889), explores Sappho’s days spent with “fair maidens”, playing the lyre and singing, and her unrequited love for a young man named Phaon. Here I offer a Japanese translation of the preface and of twelve of the poems.