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'Fearless, bloodless … like the gods': Sappho 31 and the rhetoric of ‘godlike’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

William D. Furley
William D. Furley
Affiliation:
University of Heidelberg
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Extract

Poem 31 in our collections of Sappho's fragments is so well-known both through the original version, quoted partially by ‘Longinus’ (De sublimitate 10.1–3), and through Catullus’ adaptation (no. 51), that it is difficult to achieve sufficient distance from one's preconceptions to permit reappraisal. For the poem has in the modern period elicited such startlingly contradictory responses that one wonders whether we may not all along have been missing, or misconstruing, some point which was obvious enough to Sappho and her listeners.

A major source of dissent among modern interpreters of the poem concerns the question of jealousy: is Sappho moved to such convulsions of emotion by jealousy at seeing her beloved girlfriend in intimate colloquy with a man, or is she not? For the situation is, simply put, the following: a man is said to be godlike who sits opposite a certain girl, enjoying her conversation and her laughter. This, says Sappho, makes her boil over with a mixture of passionate emotions. Now one may take these emotions either as a response to the sight of her beloved girlfriend talking to a man (that is, jealousy), or one may refer the emotions described to the love Sappho feels for the girl under ‘normal’ circumstances: the man is simply extraordinarily fortunate (‘like the gods’) in enjoying her affection.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 50 , Issue 1 , May 2000 , pp. 7 - 15
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2000

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References

1 For fuller bibliography of recent studies, see Joel B. Lidov, ‘The second stanza of Sappho fr. 31: another look’, AJP 114 (1993), 503–35 (bibl. 533–5); G. W. Most, ‘Reflecting Sappho’, BICS (1995), 15–38 (bibl. 34–8).

2 Marcovich, M., ‘Sappho fr. 31: anxiety attack or love declaration?‘, CQ 22 (1972), 19–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 20, identifies the first proponent of the jealousy thesis as Heller, H. J. in Philologus 11 (1856), 432CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Page, D., Sappho and Alcaeus (Oxford, 1955), 19–33Google Scholar, is perhaps its strongest recent advocate. Campbell, D. A., Greek Lyric Poetry (Bristol, 1982), 271Google Scholar, writes: ‘Sappho sets out the physical concomitants of her love when jealousy inflames it.’ Most (n. 1), 28: ‘… just what is Sappho responding to? Is she expressing sexual passion for the woman, or sexual jealousy at the man's relation to the woman, or admiration for the woman's beauty, or admiration at the man's fortitude in enduring the woman's beauty, or some mixture of these, or something else?’ with n. 65:‘… there is a clear drift in the last decades towards interpreting the poem as an expression of homoerotic passion for the woman concerned…’

3 For example, Bowra, C. M., Greek Lyric Poetry (Oxford, 1961), 188Google Scholar: ‘She means rather that in her eyes the man seems to enjoy a divine felicity and is at this moment like the gods in the inestimable happiness of holding the girl's attention.’

4 Wilamowitz, , Sappho und Simonides (Berlin, 1913), 56ff.Google Scholar Cf. Snell, B., Hermes 66 (1931), 71ff.Google Scholar (= Gesammelte Schriften [Göttingen, 1966], 82–97. On p. 82 Snell speaks of the ‘… Tatsache, daβ es ein Hochzeitsgedicht ist, wie Wilamowitz gesehen hat, ein Glückwunsch und Abschied für eines der Mädchen, das in Sapphos Kreise gelebt hat.’ But J. Latacz, ‘Realität und Imagination. Eine neue Lyrik-Theorie und Sapphos Φαἰνεταί μοι κῆνος, MH 42 (1985), 67–94, and J. J. Winkler, The Constraints of Desire. The Anthropology of Sex and Gender in Ancient Greece (New York and London, 1990), 178, continue to see the first stanza as a makarismos explicitly or implicitly describing a husband for the girl (though a potential rather than present one).

5 Bowra (n. 3), 186–7, recognizes that ‘Longinus’ and Plutarch (and others) regarded the poem as an artistic declaration of love for a girl, but goes on to argue that the poem has the immediacy of an actual scene vividly experienced (i.e. witnessing the object of love with a man, not necessarily the groom).

6 Edwards, M. J., ‘Greek into Latin: a note on Catullus and Sappho’, Latomus 48 (1989), 590–600Google Scholar; Knox, P. E., ‘Sappho fr. 31 LP and Catullus 51: a suggestion’, QUCC 46 (1984), 97–102.Google Scholar

7 Theokr. 2, ‘Pharmakeutria’ and Herodas, Mini. 5, spring to mind as examples of Hellenistic poems treating the theme of jealousy in sexual love.

8 G. Devereux, ‘The nature of Sappho's seizure in fr. 31 LP as evidence of her inversion’, CQ 20 (1970), 17–31, maintains that the symptoms of love Sappho describes are typical of a lesbian lover confronted with her partner in a heterosexual relationship. He reads the poem ‘clinically’. A basic weakness of this reading is that Sappho and her public would probably not have regarded homosexual love as sick in any way.

9 In particular by Race, W. H., ‘“That Man” in Sappho fr. 31 L-P’ ClAnt 2 (1983), 92–101Google Scholar; Burnett, A. P., Three Archaic Poets: Archilochus, Alcaeus, Sappho (Harvard, 1983), 233–5Google Scholar; Marcovich (n.2).

10 Most's solution (n. 1)—to leave the source of Sappho's violent emotion as undetermined as possible—that is, perhaps the girl, perhaps the man-with-girl, perhaps even the man—supports the main thesis of his article (that Sappho's poetry may give rise to a very varied reception) but leaves this reader at least feeling frustrated: how can we sympathize with Sappho's emotions, if we do not even know what causes them? Her poem, we feel, is not a scholarly game, where ambiguity or teasing allusion is at a premium, but rather a heartfelt statement, a cri de coeur.

11 Bundy, E. L., Studia Pindarica (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1962).Google Scholar In vol. I Bundy gave detailed studies of O. 11, in II of I. 2. He sees behind the elements of a Pindaric ode ‘… the fulfillment of a single purpose through a complex orchestration of motives and themes that conduce to one end’. Key terms in his analysis of priamel are ‘foil’ (the element used to throw the focus of attention into relief), ‘cap’ (pronominal cap, name cap: a syntactic marker to cap a foil before naming of climax), ‘climax’ (the goal to which a priamel or foil had been leading).

12 Race, W. H., The Classical Priamel from Homer to Boethius (Leiden, 1982), 28Google Scholar; Krischer, Similarly T., ‘Die logischen Formen der Priamel’, GB 2 (1974), 79–91.Google Scholar

13 Race (n. 12), 22: ‘This withholding of specific information until the very end is an essential feature of the priamel, for it is one of the ways of “closing” or “completing” the form, after having aroused an expectation.’

14 Cf. Saake, H., Sapphostudien. Forschungsgeschichtliche, biographische und literatur-asthetische Untersuchungen (Miinchen, Paderborn and Vienna, 1972), Die Priamel-Ode, 70–4Google Scholar; Race (n. 12), 63fF.

15 For more on typical structures exhibited by priamels throughout classical literature, see Race (n. 12), esp. 7–30. Krischer (n. 12) classifies priamels according to the relation in which they stand to the main focus of attention; they may be ‘kontrastierend', ‘spezifizierend', ‘relativierend', or ‘verabsolutierend’.

16 The text has Παρθένων but, as Campbell says (n. 2), 310: ‘The Maidens must be Nymphs, but the title occurs nowhere else.’

17 As Bowra does (n. 3), 260–3: ‘These lines are metaphorical and even symbolical in the sense that they consist entirely of images which stand for something else…’ I disagree; they stand only for themselves as counterpoint to what follows. Of course, Ibykos is also drawing on the connection often made between spring, the rising of the sap, and human (and animal) lust.

18 At Od. 16.155ff. Athena restores Odysseus’ youthful beauty and Telemachus comments that only a δαίμων could have worked the change in his appearance (194ff); at Od. 18.187ff. Athena beautifies Penelope after a bath and at 19.54 she is compared to Artemis or Aphrodite. At Od. 23.156ff. Athena similarly lends Odysseus grace and stature after a bath.

19 An example close to the situation described by Sappho comes at Od. 6.309: Alkinoos seated on a throne drinking wine, next to his weaving wife, looks ‘like a god’, ἀθάνατος ὥς. Similarly in 7.56ff. Athena tells Odysseus that Alkinoos’ wife Arete is revered ‘like a god’ when she moves through town: οἳ μίν ῥα θεὸν ὣς εἰσορόωντες ⁄ δειδέχαται μύθοιον, ὂτε στείχησ΄ ἀνὰ ἂστν.

20 Further examples: at Il.10.556 Nestor praises Rhesos’ horses and says that a god must have given them to him, as they surpass any he had seen in Troy: this converts to the formula ‘You'd have to be a god to possess horses like these.’ At Od. 6.280 we find an ironical use of the formula ‘he's so handsome he must be a god’. A stranger (Nausicaa suggests), seeing her return to town with Odysseus, might think she had fetched herself a husband, in scorn of the Phaeacians, either a shipwrecked sailor or a god in answer to her prayers: τίς δ᾽ ὃδε Ναυσικάᾀ ἒπεται καλός τε μέγας τε ⁄ …ΰξαμέν ῃ πολυάρητος θεός θεός ᾗλθεν ⁄ οΰρανόθεν καταβάς….

21 Whether the words άλλά τόλματον έπεί καὶ πένητα, which follow in [Longinus] belong to the poem or not, is debated. They are metrically flawed, although a relatively slight emendation such as dAAd άλλά τόλματον έπεί καὶ πένητα, ‘but since everything is endurable for the poorly-off', is at least conceivable. Catullus’ adaptation continues for another quatrain, in which he girds himself for action (it seems) rather than inert sloth.

22 Most (n. 1), 28: ‘It (sc. τό) could well refer to the nearest possible antecedent, the woman's laughter, picking up the adjective (sϊc) applied to that laughter, ἰμέροεν. τό TO could, however, refer to the fact that the girl laughs seductively.

23 Cf. Page (n. 2), p. 22 ‘ὠς with the subjunctive without κε, ἂν, in the sense of ὂταν, is very rare…. It may have been characteristic of Lesbian, cf. Sappho 16.4 ὂττω τις ἒρᾱται, without κε, 98.3.’

24 Although R. O. Evans, ‘Remarks on Sappho's “Phainetai moi”’, Studium Generate 22 (1969), 1016–25, is prepared to accept this sense: ‘The poet now relates the intensity of the emotional reaction of the speaker to the sight of the lovers in conversation…. The description is of the intensity of emotional reaction of the voyeur (or perhaps the eavesdropper)… a lyric which deals with the fierce fire of sexual passion, brought about by observation of a youth and a girl in discourse. The poem is about lust of the eye (and ear)… ’

25 Most (n. 1) argues that εἰσίδω is a better supplement than ἒς σ᾽ ἲδω on palaeographical grounds, but that is hardly the case. The text of cod. P is σἲδω, indicating that the scribe assumed elision of at before ἲδω, rather than shortening εἰσίδω by prodelision. The form εἰσίδω is metrically impossible, so that if this compound verb was in Sappho's text it must have been in the form εἰσίδω, and the scribe, if he mistakenly wrote this as σἲδω, committed a number of palaeo-graphically untypical errors.

26 J. M. Bremer, ‘A reaction to Tsagarakis’ discussion of Sappho fr. 31', RhM 125 (1982), 113–16, at 114.1 also thank Prof. Bremer for referring me (in conversation) to S. L. Radt's note on the same problem in ‘Sapphica', Mnem 23 (1970), 340–3. Radt writes (340–1) ‘Der Mann dient als Kontrast zu Sappho; seine Ruhe bei dem tête-à-téte mit dem Madchen—und nicht Sapphos Eifersucht—bildet den Anlass zu dem Gedicht; diese Ruhe stellt Sappho den Sturm der Erregung gegenüber, die sie selber in der gleichen Situation ergreifen würde. Der Mann bildet so die Folie für das, worum es Sappho eigentlich geht.'

27 Cf. Bremer (n. 26), 115: ‘The crucial point of lines 1–5 of Sappho's poem is not “the man's presence and its effect upon the girl”, as Tsagarakis put it, but the effect of the girl's sweet talk and laughter upon the man, how he ἰσδάνει and ὐπακούει.'

28 Winkle r (n. 4), 179, is close t o this position: ‘The anonymous “that man whosoever”… is a rhetorical cliché, not an actor in the imagined scene. Interpretations which focus on “that someone (male)” as a bridegroom (or suitor or friend) who is actually present and occupying the attention of the addressee miss the strategy of persuasion which informs the poem and in doing so reveal their own androcentric premises. In depicting “the man” as a concrete person central to the scene and god-like in power, such interpretations misread a figure of speech as a literal statement…’ His own interpretation, however, relies too heavily, in my opinion, on comparison of the Sappho poem with Odysseus’ speech to Nausicaa in the Odyssey.

29 For example. Page (n. 2), 19.

30 [Longinus] ibid.: ὡ ἀλλότορια διοιχόμενα, perhaps ‘as if they were somebody else's sufferings', διοίχομαι in the sense ‘fall apart, fail, die’. W. Rhys Roberts translates ‘as though they were all alien from herself and dispersed’.

31 The same ironical contrast between the world of epic valour and (sympotic) love comes out in fr. 16 where Sappho asserts that the object of one's love is the finest thing, not military pomp and splendour, as some think. Marcovich (n. 23), 23, quoting epic ΐσόθεος Φώς δαίμονι ΐσος, recognizes that ‘This “heroic” meaning is the most likely for Sappho's ἲσος θέιοι᾽, but does not see the irony.

32 Cf. Marcovich (n. 2), 25: ‘Sappho draws the playful conclusion that the man must possess some superhuman strength…”

33 Cf. Race (n. 12), 41–2: ‘their (sc. priamels') common goal is to make the hie et nunc more striking by prefacing it with other instances, thereby providing a context for an otherwise flat assertion or naked particular… It is obvious that the priamel provides a measure of intensity that the bare statement of fact would otherwise lack.’