Sappho's thrilling lyric verse has been unremittingly popular for more than 2,600 years—certainly a record for poetry of any kind—and love for her art only increases as time goes on. Though her extant work consists only of a collection of fragments and a handful of complete poems, her mystique endures to be discovered anew by each generation, and to inspire new efforts at bringing the spirit of her Greek words faithfully into English. <br> <br>In the past, translators have taken two basic approaches to Sappho: either very literally translating only the words in the fragments, or taking the liberty of reconstructing the missing parts. Willis Barnstone has taken a middle course, in which he remains faithful to the words of the fragments, only very judiciously filling in a word or phrase in cases where the meaning is obvious. This edition includes extensive notes and a special section of “Testimonia”: appreciations of Sappho in the words of ancient writers from Plato to Plutarch. Also included are a glossary of all the figures mentioned in the poems, and suggestions for further reading. <iframe title="YouTube video player" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/rx7uvwrdCrE" width="640" frameborder="0" height="390"> </iframe> <br> <br> <iframe title="YouTube video player" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/lkM21P4-FYU" width="640" frameborder="0" height="390"> </iframe>