A Fragment of Sappho Reinterpreted

Extract

It seems very commonly agreed that Sappho's wedding-songs display none of the ritual obscenity so frequent in the genre. Thus D. L. Page wrote of fr. i ioa (Lobel-Page) that ‘There is no trace here or elsewhere in Sappho of that ribaldry which was characteristic of the songs recited at this and other stages of Greek wedding-ceremonies’ (Sappho and Alcaeus [Oxford, 1955], p. 120). Similarly Sir Maurice Bowra asserted of fr. 111 (L.-P.) that it is ‘neither bawdy nor exalted, but playful. If the humour is a bit primitive, that is due to tradition, which expected jokes at this level’ (Greek Lyric Poetry [Oxford, 1961], p. 216). On the next page he writes of the songs sung outside the bridal chamber, as distinct from those sung in the procession thither, that ‘Here too Sappho seems to avoid bawdry but is not averse from rather elementary jokes’.