'Fearless, bloodless ... like the Gods': Sappho 31 and the rhetoric of 'godlike'

Classical Quarterly

Volumn 50, Issue 1, 2000, Pages 7-15

  Furley, William D ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF HEIDELBERG   (Germany)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 61249302572     PISSN: 00098388     EISSN: 14716844     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/cq/50.1.7     Document Type: Article

References (22)

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)
2. G. W. Most, 'Reflecting Sappho', BICS (1995), 15-38 (bibl. 34-8)
3. M. Marcovich, 'Sappho fr. 31: anxiety attack or love declaration?', CQ 22 (1972), 19-32, at 20, identifies the first proponent of the jealousy thesis as H. J. Heller in Philoiogus 11 (1856), 432
4. D. Page, Sappho and Alcaeus (Oxford, 1955), 19-33, is perhaps its strongest recent advocate
5. D. A. Campbell, Greek Lyric Poetry (Bristol, 1982), 271, 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...
6. For example, C. M. Bowra, Greek Lyric Poetry (Oxford, 1961), 188: '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.
7. Wilamowitz, Sappho und Simonides (Berlin, 1913), 56ff
8. Cf. B. Snell, Hermes 66 (1931), 71ff. (= Gesammelte Schriften [Göttingen, 1966], 82-97
9. On p. 82 Snell speaks of the '.. . Tatsache, daß es ein Hochzeitsgedicht ist, wie Wilamowitz gesehen hat, ein Glückwünsch und Abschied für eines der Mädchen, das in Sapphos Kreise gelebt hat.' But J. Latacz, 'Realität und Imagination. Eine neue Lyrik-Theorie und Sapphos - Lied', MH 42 (1985), 67-94
10. 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)
11. M. J. Edwards, 'Greek into Latin: a note on Catullus and Sappho', Latomus 48 (1989), 590-600
12. P. E. Knox, 'Sappho fr. 31 LP and Catullus 51: a suggestion', QUCC 46 (1984), 97-102
13. 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
14. In particular by W. H. Race, '"That Man" in Sappho fr. 31 L-P', ClAnt 2 (1983), 92-101
15. A. P. Burnett, Three Archaic Poets: Archilochus, Alcaeus, Sappho (Harvard, 1983), 233-5
16. E. L. Bundy, Studia Pindarica (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1962). 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)
17. W. H. Race, The Classical Priamel from Homer to Boethius (Leiden, 1982), 28
18. similarly T. Krischer, 'Die logischen Formen der Priamel', GB 2 (1974), 79-91
19. Cf. H. Saake, Sapphostudien. Forschungsgeschichtliche, biographische und literatur-ästhetische Untersuchungen (München, Paderborn and Vienna, 1972), Die Priamel-Ode, 70-4
20. 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)...
21. J. M. Bremer, 'A reaction to Tsagarakis' discussion of Sappho fr. 31', RhM 125 (1982), 113-16, at 114
22. I 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-tête mit dem Mädchen - 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.