The songs of Bilitis : Translated from the Greek : A new rendering in English…
"The songs of Bilitis : Translated from the Greek : A new rendering in English…." by Pierre Louÿs is a collection of lyric poetry written in the late 19th century. Framed as translations of ancient Greek verses by a sixth‑century woman named Bilitis, it weaves pastoral imagery, mythic invocations, and frankly erotic feeling. In intimate first‑person songs, Bilitis moves from a rustic girlhood in Pamphylia to Sapphic love on Lesbos and, later,
a courtesan’s life in Cyprus, tracing desire, jealousy, ritual, and memory. The opening of the work presents a mock-scholarly “Life of Bilitis” that situates her birth, travels, and supposed connections to Sappho, capped by a fanciful tale of her tomb inscribed with the poems. The first sequence, Bucolics in Pamphylia, offers vivid vignettes of rural chores, nymph worship, playful friendships, and a hesitant sexual awakening that turns to ardor with the shepherd Lykas. The next, Elegiacs at Mytilene, shifts to Lesbos, where Bilitis meets Psappha (Sappho) and enters a consuming relationship with Mnasidika, depicted through tender domestic scenes, jealousy, separation, and aching attempts at forgetfulness. The third part begins in Cyprus with hymns to Astarte, Bacchic revels, and the refined, commercialized arts of love among courtesans, before the excerpt breaks off. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
Read or download for free
| How to read | Url | Size | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Read now! | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76646.html.images | 210 kB | |||
| EPUB3 (E-readers incl. Send-to-Kindle) | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76646.epub3.images | 346 kB | |||
| EPUB (older E-readers) | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76646.epub.images | 344 kB | |||
| EPUB (no images, older E-readers) | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76646.epub.noimages | 149 kB | |||
| Kindle | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76646.kf8.images | 502 kB | |||
| older Kindles | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76646.kindle.images | 409 kB | |||
| Plain Text UTF-8 | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76646.txt.utf-8 | 165 kB | |||
| Download HTML (zip) | https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/76646/pg76646-h.zip | 327 kB | |||
| There may be more files related to this item. | |||||
Similar Books
About this eBook
| Author | Louÿs, Pierre, 1870-1925 |
|---|---|
| Translator | Buck, Mitchell S. (Mitchell Starrett), 1887-1959 |
| Uniform Title | Les chansons de Bilitis. English |
| Title | The songs of Bilitis : Translated from the Greek : A new rendering in English with notes and comment |
| Original Publication | Unknown: Privately printed, 1919. |
| Note | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Songs_of_Bilitis |
| Note | Purported translation of ancient Greek poems, originally written in French by Pierre Louÿs. |
| Credits | Hannah Wilson, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from scanned images of public domain material from the Google Books project.) |
| Reading Level | Reading ease score: 83.2 (6th grade). Easy to read. |
| Language | English |
| LoC Class | PQ: Language and Literatures: Romance literatures: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese |
| Subject | French poetry -- Translations into English |
| Subject | Lesbians -- Poetry |
| Category | Text |
| EBook-No. | 76646 |
| Release Date | Aug 7, 2025 |
| Copyright Status | Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads | 915 downloads in the last 30 days. |
| Project Gutenberg eBooks are always free! | |