Les Chanson de Bilitis illustrated by George Barbier – 1922
The Songs of Bilitis or Les Chanson de Bilitis is a collection of erotic lesbian poetry by Pierre Louys published in Paris in 1894. Louys originally claimed that he had translated Ancient Greek poetry in the manner of Sappho but were in fact completely made up and written by Louys himself.
The collection’s introduction says that the poems were found on the walls of a tomb in Cypress written by a woman called Bilitis – a courtesan and contemporary of Sappho. When the book was published it initially hoodwinked Ancient Greek experts. Louys even sketched Bilitis’s life and described how her tomb had been discovered by a fictional German archeological expedition and included a list of additional, “untranslated”, works by her.
George Barbier was one of the great French illustrators of the early part of the 20th century. He was born in Nantes in 1882 but it wasn’t until 29 years later when he mounted his first exhibition in 1911 and was almost an immediate success and was commissioned to design theatre and ballet costumes as well as haute couture fashion illustrations. He illustrated Pierre Louys in 1922.
Claude Debussy, a close friend of Louys created Musique de scène pour les chansons de bilitis (also known as Chansons de bilitis) to be played during the recitation of twelve of Louys’ poems in 1900. Apparently the recitation and music were accompanied by tableaux vivants.
The first gave me a necklace, a necklace of pearls which belonged to a town. With palaces and temples and treasures and slaves – The second wrote verses for me. He said that my hair is black like that of the night on the sea and my eyes blue like those of the morning
Child, keep a close eye on the door and don’t let passers-by enter, because I and six girls with beautiful arms secretly bathe in the warm waters of the pool – We just want to laugh and swim. Leave the lovers in the street. We will dip our legs in the water and, sitting on the edge of the marble, we will play knucklebones –
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