Love, Worship and Death

A spring beside a grave, a sailor washed ashore and a small shrine above a fishing harbour bring ancient Greek lives into close view in Rennell Rodd's verse translations. Drawn from the Greek Anthology, these short poems move among affection, friendship, worship and grief. Voices include Sappho, Anyte of Tegea, Nossis and Meleager. The selection places named poets alongside anonymous voices from the ancient world.

Rodd's introduction explains his wish to make each English version work as a poem in its own right. The collection follows an approximately chronological order, allowing readers to compare the restraint of earlier lyrics with the more elaborate expression of later writers. The poems themselves offer smaller points of contact: evening gathering children home, cool water beneath trees, the hopes of fishing communities and remembrance of people lost at sea. Their brief forms suit readers interested in how everyday feeling survives through translation.