Searching for Sappho

by Philip Freeman

68 “When, as so often happens”: Illnesses of Women 1.67.

  69 Carved in stone: See P. J. Rhodes and Robin Osborne, eds. Greek Historical Inscriptions 404–323 BC (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 102.10–22. Another inscription (102.3–9) from the same site reports a five-year pregnancy.

  69 One medical text claimed: Nature of the Child 12–29.

  70 to avoid stepping over a raven’s egg: Pliny, Natural History 30.44.

  71 the poet Hesiod advised: Hesiod, Works and Days 780–813.

  72 “I would rather stand in battle”: Euripides, Medea 250.

  72 “Why would I want to go to bed?”: Plutarch, Advice on Marriage 39.

  73 A midwife would apply: Soranus, Gynecology 1.56–57.

  74 In Sparta these women: Plutarch, Lycurgus 27.

  74 The gruesome details of the procedure: Cutting Up the Fetus 1; Garland, Greek Way of Life, 76–77.

  74 the physician Soranus recommended: Soranus, Gynecology 4.9.

  75 “The son of Cichesias dedicates”: Garland, Greek Way of Life, 83.

  75 “It’s the woman who becomes pregnant”: Xenophon, Memorabilia 2.2.5.

  76 One such image is from: Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art, Providence, 25.088; Jenifer Neils and John H. Oakley, eds., Coming of Age in Ancient Greece (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003), 236.

  76 Another vase from the same century: British Museum, London, E 396; Neils and Oakley, Coming of Age, 237.

  77 A small Athenian terra-cotta figurine: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 02.38; Neils and Oakley, Coming of Age, 239.

  77 One of the most charming: Royal Museums of Art and History, Brussels, A 890; Neils and Oakley, Coming of Age, 240–41.

  77 a fifth-century-BC terra-cotta figurine: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, H.10.7; Neils and Oakley, Coming of Age, 112, 257.

  79 “Oh, my dear Orestes”: Aeschylus, Libation Bearers 749–60.

  80 but the relationship between: See Nancy Demand, Birth, Death, and Motherhood in Classical Greece (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), 15–17.

  81 “Leaving two young daughters”: Inscriptiones Graecae II2 12335.

  81 “. . . hurry and write to me”: Oxyrhynchus papyrus 930.

  82 “She stepped up close to him”: Homer, Odyssey 6.59–67.

  CHAPTER FOUR: FAMILY MATTERS

  85 “ANTIGONE: Will you help”: Sophocles, Antigone 44–50.

  88 “She had three brothers, Erigyius, Larichus, and Charaxus”: Oxyrhynchus papyrus 1800, frag. 1, http://www.papyrology.ox.ac.uk/POxy.

  88 “She had three brothers, Larichus, Charaxus, and Erigyius”: Suda S 107, in Greek Lyric I: Sappho and Alcaeus, ed. David Campbell (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), 4–7.

  88 “Cha(raxus) . . . / and . . . / dearest . . . (Lari)chus . . .”: Oxyrhynchus papyrus 2506, frag. 48.

  89 “The lovely Sappho often praises”: Athenaeus, Learned Diners 10.425a.

  89 “It was the custom, as Sappho says”: Ancient commentator on Homer’s Iliad, 20.234.

  89 as Nehemiah did for the Persian King: Neh. 2:1.

  89 In the Archaic period: An excellent summary of the Archaic political history of Lesbos can be found in A. R. Burn, The Lyric Age of Greece (London: Edward Arnold, 1978), 226–46.

  90 Aristotle says Megacles: Aristotle, Politics 1311b.

  92 “But Potbelly didn’t”: Alcaeus, Poem 129.

  93 “. . . Mica / . . . I will not allow you”: Sappho, Poem 71.

  94 “But for you, Cleis”: Sappho, Poem 98B.

  95 The Parian Marble, a chronology: Parian Marble 36 (see p. 1955, 224–25), in Greek Lyric I: Sappho and Alcaeus, ed. David Campbell (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), 8–9.

  96 Sappho mentions Panormus: Sappho, Poem 35.

  96 We know from the first-century-BC Roman orator Cicero: Cicero, Against Verres 2.4.125–27.

  98 “. . . hand cloths / . . . purple”: Sappho, Poem 101.

  99 goods from Lydia: Sappho, Poems 39, 98, 132.

  99 incense from southern Arabia: Sappho, Poem 44.

  100 “. . . Nereids, grant that”: Sappho, Poem 5.

  102 “of Doricha . . . / commands, for not . . .”: Sappho, Poem 7.

  102 “. . . that he atone for his past mistakes”: Sappho, Poem 15.

  103 The historian Herodotus: Herodotus 2.135.

  103 The Greek geographer Strabo: Strabo 17.1.33.

  103 “Doricha, your bones fell asleep long ago . . .”: Athenaeus, Learned Diners 13.596c–d.

  104 There is a hint: Ovid, Letters of the Heroines 15.63–70.

  105 “But you are always chattering”: Sappho, “The Brothers Poem.”

  107 “Leave everything else to the gods”: Horace, Ode 1.9.

  CHAPTER FIVE: LOVING WOMEN

  109 “This is why we have”: Plato, Symposium 191.

  109 There is no word for “homosexual”: For an introduction to same-sex relationships in classical times and the variety of modern scholarly opinions on the subject, see Thomas K. Hubbard, ed., Homosexuality in Greece and Rome: A Sourcebook of Basic Documents (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 1–20.

  111 “In youth you can sleep”: Theognis 1063–64.

  111 “Although your first down”: Strato, AP 12.10.

  111 The poet Archilochus: Archilochus frag. 25.1–5.

  112 “Cosmos, the slave of Equitia”: Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum 4.1825.

  112 One graffito of Jewish or Christian origin: Ibid., 4.4976.

  112 “The girls from Samos”: Asclepiades, Palatine Anthology 5.207.

  112 Archilochus, who mocked sexual relations: Archilochus frag. 294.

  113 “Love was so esteemed among them”: Plutarch, Lycurgus 18.4.

  113 The noted physician Hippocrates: Hippocrates, On Regimen 1.29.

  113 as did Plato in the famous parable: Plato, Symposium 189–93.

  113 “We hear interesting things”: Lucian, Dialogues of the Courtesans 5.

  114 “I implore you, Good Messenger”: Papyri Graecae Magicae 32.

  115 Root of gloomy darkness: Supplementum Magicum 1.42.

  116 “Deathless Aphrodite on your dazzling throne”: Sappho, Poem 1.

  119 Love charms and magic spells: For Sappho’s use of magic charms in her poetry, see J. C. B. Petropoulos, “Sappho the Sorceress—Another Look at Fr. 1,” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 97 (1993): 43–56; Charles Segal, “Eros and Incantation: Sappho and Oral Poetry,” in Reading Sappho: Contemporary Approaches, ed. Ellen Greene (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 58–75. For spells and magic in the ancient world in general, see John G. Gager, Curse Tablets and Binding Spells from the Ancient World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992); Hans Dieter Betz, ed., The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992); Georg Luck, Arcana Mundi: Magic and the Occult in the Greek and Roman Worlds (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006).

  119 Homer even sings of incantations: Homer, Odyssey 19.457–58.

  120 “He seems to me equal to the gods”: Sappho, Poem 31.

  121 “Sappho each time uses the emotions”: Pseudo-Longinus, On the Sublime 10.1–3.

  121 Readers of this poem for two thousand years: For a discussion of the poem, see Denys Page, Sappho and Alcaeus: An Introduction to the Study of Ancient Lesbian Poetry (Oxford: Clarendon, 1965), 19–33; Jane McIntosh Snyder, Lesbian Desire in the Lyrics of Sappho (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), 27–38; G. O. Hutchinson, Greek Lyric Poetry: A Commentary on Selected Larger Pieces (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 168–77; Marguerite Johnson, Sappho (Bristol, England: Bristol Classical Press, 2007), 79–84.

  123 “raw physicality”: Snyder, Lesbian Desire, 29.

  123 Homer uses the same Greek word: Homer, Odyssey 22.298.

  123 as does Alcaeus when he says: Alcaeus, Poem 283, though the text here is uncertain.

  123 using the same word that Homer does: Homer, Iliad 8.403.

/>   124 classical scholar Eleanor Irwin: Eleanor Irwin, Colour Terms in Greek Poetry (Toronto: Hakkert, 1974), 31–78. See also Robert J. Edgeworth, “Sappho Fr. 31.14,” Acta Classica 27 (1984): 121–24; Snyder, Lesbian Desire, 33.

  125 “. . . ‘I honestly wish I were dead’”: Sappho, Poem 94. For a discussion, see Page, Sappho and Alcaeus, 75–83; Snyder, Lesbian Desire, 55–60; Johnson, Sappho, 84–87.

  127 And just as Hera anoints herself: Homer, Iliad 14.153–92.

  127 “. . . Sardis / . . . often turning her thoughts to this”: Sappho, Poem 96. Only the first part of the poem is given here. For commentary, see Snyder, Lesbian Desire, 45–55; Johnson, Sappho, 87–93.

  128 “I loved you, Atthis, once long ago”: Sappho, Poem 49.

  128 “for you, Atthis . . .”: Sappho, Poem 8.

  129 “shameful friendship”: Suda S 107, in Greek Lyric I: Sappho and Alcaeus, ed. David Campbell (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), 4–7.

  129 “But Atthis, it’s become hateful”: Sappho, Poem 131.

  129 “What country girl bewitches your mind . . .”: Sappho, Poem 57.

  130 “The moon in its fullness appeared”: Sappho, Poem 154.

  CHAPTER SIX: THE GODDESS

  133 “In the beginning there was Chaos”: Hesiod, Theogony 116–22.

  133 Ancient Greek religion: The best scholarly introduction to Greek religion is Walter Burkert, Greek Religion (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985). An excellent look at women in Greek religion is Joan Breton Connelly, Portrait of a Priestess: Women and Ritual in Ancient Greece (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007).

  140 “I talked with you in a dream”: Sappho, Poem 134.

  140 “. . . you and my servant Love”: Sappho, Poem 159.

  141 “Come to me here from Crete”: Sappho, Poem 2. For a discussion of the poem, see Denys Page, Sappho and Alcaeus: An Introduction to the Study of Ancient Lesbian Poetry (Oxford: Clarendon, 1965), 34–44; Anne Carson, If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho (New York: Vintage Books, 2002), 6–7, 358–59; Marguerite Johnson, Sappho (Bristol, England: Bristol Classical Press, 2007), 50–54; Anne L. Klinck, “Sappho’s Company of Friends,” Hermes 136 (2008): 17–18; Aaron Poochigian, Sappho: Stung with Love: Poems and Fragments (New York: Penguin, 2009), 4–5.

  142 a powerful trance such as that: Homer, Iliad 14.359.

  142 which overcomes an audience: Pindar, Pythian 1.12.

  142 “The moon in its fullness appeared”: Sappho, Poem 154.

  144 “Come close to me, I pray”: Sappho, Poem 17.

  145 “The people of Lesbos founded”: Alcaeus, Poem 129.

  146 Alcaeus and a later ancient commentator: Alcaeus, Poem 130; Scholiast on Iliad 9.129 (David Campbell, ed., Greek Lyric I: Sappho and Alcaeus [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002], 300–303). See also Jerome D. Quinn, “Cape Phokas, Lesbos: Site of an Archaic Sanctuary for Zeus, Hera and Dionysus?” American Journal for Archaeology 65, no. 4 (1961): 391–93.

  146 “‘Delicate Adonis is dying, Cytherea’”: Sappho, Poem 140. Sappho also mourns Adonis in Poem 168.

  CHAPTER SEVEN: UNYIELDING TIME

  149 “It’s not by strength”: Cicero, On Growing Old 17.

  149 “Here lies Ennia Fructosa”: Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum 8.2756.

  150 The Greeks had no concept of middle age: Robert Garland, The Greek Way of Life (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990), 242–45. The whole of Garland’s chapter “Elders and the Elderly” (pages 242–87) is an excellent introduction to old age in ancient Greece.

  150 “There was once a man of middle age”: Babrius, Fable 22.

  151 “A woman who leaves her house”: Hyperides frag. 205.

  151 Greek medical writers: Aristotle, History of Animals 7.585b2–5; Aristotle, Politics 7.1335a9; Soranus, Gynecology 1.20.1, 26.3–5.

  152 “It is precious, this light the gods send”: Euripides, Alcestis 722.

  152 “O shining Odysseus”: Homer, Odyssey 11.488–91.

  153 “But when you die you will lie there”: Sappho, Poem 55.

  155 “. . . beautiful gifts . . . children”: Sappho, Poem 58.

  156 Then, exactly eighty years later: See the excellent essays on the rediscovery, text, translation, and interpretation of this poem in Ellen Greene and Marilyn B. Skinner, eds., The New Sappho on Old Age: Textual and Philosophical Issues (Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies, 2009).

  157 This discovery was so startling: M. L. West, “A New Sappho Poem,” Times Literary Supplement, June 25, 2005.

  158 “a small masterpiece, simple, concise”: Ibid.

  158 “Sappho is simply nothing less”: “Sappho,” Saturday Review, February 21, 1914, 228.

  159 “It is not right in the house”: Sappho, Poem 150.

  EPILOGUE

  161 “Someone, I say, will remember us”: Sappho, Poem 147.

  161 Sappho was certainly the first and greatest: For other female poets, see Jane McIntosh Snyder, The Woman and the Lyre: Women Writers in Classical Greece and Rome (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1989); Ellen Greene, ed., Women Poets in Ancient Greece and Rome (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2005).

  162 but we do have a paraphrase: Plutarch, Moralia 300cd.

  162 In the next century, a woman named Corinna: Her dates are disputed, with some scholars claiming that Corinna lived in the third century BC.

  162 She was reportedly a rival of Pindar: Pausanias 9.22; Aelian, History 13.25.

  162 “I sing of the great deeds”: Corinna frag. 664b.

  163 “O friend, watch out”: Praxilla frag. 750.

  163 “O you who gaze in such beauty”: Praxilla frag. 754.

  163 When Argos was attacked by the Spartans: Pausanias 2.20.8. Modern scholars are skeptical of the veracity of this story, but it could well be true.

  164 “This is the Lesbian honeycomb of Erinna”: Greek Anthology 9.190.

  165 “No bedchamber and sacred marriage rites for you”: Ibid., 7.649.

  165 “For her grasshopper, nightingale of the fields”: Ibid., 7.190.

  165 The town was unusual: Polybius, Histories 12.5.9.

  165 “Nothing is sweeter than Eros”: Greek Anthology 5.170.

  166 “Stranger, if you sail to Mytilene”: Ibid., 7.718.

  166 “Come to the temple”: Ibid., 9.332.

  167 “At last love has come”: Sulpicia, Poem 1.

  168 the power of each generation: The best introductions to the afterlife of Sappho are Joan DeJean, Fictions of Sappho: 1546–1937 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989); Ellen Greene, ed., Re-reading Sappho: Reception and Transmission (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996); Yopie Prins, Victorian Sappho (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999); Margaret Reynolds, The Sappho Companion (New York: Palgrave, 2000); Marguerite Johnson, Sappho (Bristol, England: Bristol Classical Press, 2007), 19–40, 122–42.

  168 “Some people say there are nine Muses”: According to Aelian, Miscellaneous Histories 12.9. The Palatine Anthology (9.506) allegedly reproduces the words of Plato in calling her the tenth muse. In Plato’s genuine dialogue Phaedrus (235v), the philosopher does speak of “lovely Sappho” in the same breath as Anacreon.

  168 “Sappho, so goes the story”: Menander frag. 258.

  170 “. . . the love / of the Aeolian girl breathes still”: Horace, Ode 4.9.

  171 “So if the fire still burns in your breast”: Ovid, Tristia 3.7.

  171 “The stars around the beautiful moon”: Sappho, Poem 34.

  172 “The passage of time has destroyed Sappho”: Tzetzes, On the Meters of Pindar 20–22.

  THE POEMS OF SAPPHO

  174 Poem 1: Dionysius of Halicarnassus, On the Arrangement of Words 173–79; Oxyrhynchus papyrus 2288, http://www.papyrology.ox.ac.uk/POxy.

  This poem is preserved by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, who wrote a book on literary style at the time of the Roman emperor Augustus. He quotes and praises this prayer of Sappho as “polished and
exuberant,” with the words skillfully woven together. Parts of the poem are also preserved in a second-century-AD Oxyrhynchus papyrus fragment.

  The first word of the poem in Greek presents a problem. The adjective poikilothron (“on a dazzling/ornate throne”) also appears in some early manuscripts as poikilophron (“wily-minded”). The former is better attested in the manuscript tradition, but an argument can be made for either as the original. Which word editors and translators choose depends on what they think Sappho is saying. Is she sitting on her beautiful throne in the heavens (an image often found of the gods in ancient Greek art and literature), or does she want to highlight from the first word that Aphrodite is a crafty goddess?

  In the second stanza, chrusion (“golden”) could modify either the house of Zeus or Aphrodite’s chariot in the following stanza. A punctuation mark in the papyrus fragment suggests the house is the best choice, but once again, either would work.

  175 Poem 2: Florence ostracon (Papyri Greci e Latini 1300); Hermogenes, On Kinds of Style 2.4; Athenaeus, Learned Diners 11.463e.

  Unique among the poems of Sappho, these verses are preserved primarily on a piece of broken pottery (an ostracon), measuring only a few inches across, from the third century BC. It was first published just before World War II and is now housed in the Laurentian Library Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana in Florence, Italy. The faded Greek letters are difficult to read in several places, inviting many attempts over the years to fill in the gaps.

  A few lines of the second and fourth stanzas with slight variants also survive in quotations by two later ancient authors, Hermogenes and Athenaeus.

  At the top of the potsherd, a few letters are visible before the start of the poem. They seem to read anothen katiou—perhaps “coming down from heaven”—but the meaning is uncertain, as is the fact of whether those words belong with this poem.

  The third stanza presents several problems, both because it’s difficult to read what is written on the potsherd and because part of the third line and all of the last line are omitted. Blossoming spring flowers and gentle breezes seem fairly certain, but what Sappho intended next is unknown. The same is true for a missing word from the middle of the first line of the final stanza.

  176 Poem 3: Berlin parchment 5006; Oxyrhynchus papyrus 424.