I set that man above the gods and heroes —

all day, he sits before you face to face,
like a cardplayer. Your elbow brushes his elbow —
if you should speak, he hears.

The touched heart madly stirs,
your laughter is water hurrying over pebbles —
every gesture is a proclamation,
every sound is speech . . .

Refining fire purifies my flesh!
I hear you: a hollowness in my ears
thunders and stuns me. I cannot speak.
I cannot see.

I shiver. A dead whiteness spreads over
my body, trickling pinpricks of sweat.
I am greener than the greenest green grass —
I die!

Sappho’s wonderful Poem of Jealousy, translated by the Boston Brahmin Robert Lowell. On this page (via MetaFilter) are 26 translations of the same poem, beginning with Sappho’s original of around 500 BC and ending up in the 21st century.

If you can be bothered to read this, you might start to appreciate how bloody difficult poetry translation can be!