i am pleased to say that i've read all 114 pages of this forum over the past few hours, and MAN this is a generous bunch of antiquity scholars. while my request is for only a temporary tattoo i hope you won't mind addressing it in this thread (i intend on writing these poems on my body with indelible marker for valentine's day as a gift to my girlfriend, a greek philosophy grad student). i'm also aware that my request is enthusiastically over the 12-word allowance, but hopefully my project is simple enough that you won't mind that too much either.
my handwriting is shaky at best and no way will i be able to make the diacritical marks etc legible on my skin, so if you wouldn't mind transliterating these verses into capital letters the bittersweet arrow of love will surely thank you. it may seem like a heap of text but i have some creative ideas as to body placement; i hope you will also understand if i don't offer to send jpgs of the finished work.
(i've appended the wharton translation in all cases. it seems the most authoritative?)
Ἄστερες μὲν ἀμφὶ κάλαν σελάνναν
αἶψ ἀπυκρύπτοισι φάεννον εἶδος,
ὄπποτα πλήθοισα μάλιστα λάμπῃ
γᾶν [ἐπὶ πᾶσαν]
... ἀργυρία ...
The stars about the fair moon in their turn hide their bright face when she at about her full lights up all earth with silver.
Ερος δαὖτέ μ' ὀ λυσιμέλης δόνει,
γλυκύπικρον ἀμάχανον ὄρπετον.
Now Love masters my limbs and shakes me, fatal creature, bitter-sweet.
Ἔρος δαὖτ' ἐτίναξεν ἔμοι φρένας,
ἄνεμος κατ' ὄρος δρύσιν ἐμπέσων.
Now Eros shakes my soul, a wind on the mountain falling on the oaks.
Δαύοις ἀπάλας ἐτάρας
ἐν στήθεσιν ...
Sleep thou in the bosom of thy tender girlfriend.
with much sapphic appreciation!
stu