Sappho expressed how it feels to see someone you love with another person and how that consumes his every thought. His entire body is feeling the effects of seeing the person he loves in the arms of someone else such as going mute and a flame invading their flesh. 5 After Midnight expressed how living without the person they love is driving them insane. They want so badly to have the one they love back. Near the middle of the song, similar to the pain that Sappho expressed, losing the one they love caused misery and pain and caused them to break down and cry. Both the song and the poem put emphasis on the person they love and how losing that person have affected him physically and emotionally.
Both the text and modern song display the feelings that come about from losing the one you love. Each does so by expressing how terrible they feel internally and externally, but the focus in the modern song is more about the person they lost and the ancient text is about the person they lost their beloved to. Unlike the song chosen, Sappho puts a lot of emphasis on the other person who is now with his beloved. This man was said to be “equal with the gods.” The song focuses on the other person by saying that they would bring the person flowers in the rain and never let them go.
Sappho 31(L-P) lines 1-16
“He seems equal of the gods, that man, who sits with you face to face and, near you, listens closely to your lilting voice, your tempting laugh, which sets my heart a-flutter in my breast. For when I see you even a moment, I can’t speak any longer, but my tongue goes mute…., a sudden, slender flame invades my flesh, my eyes go dark, my ears are roaring, cold sweat covers me, a trembling seizes all my body, paler than grass am I, and little short of dead I seem to myself”