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The Nature of Sappho's Seizure in FR. 31 LP as Evidence of her Inversion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

George Devereux
George Devereux
Affiliation:
École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris
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Extract

It is proposed to reappraise the nature of Sappho's seizure (2 B = 2 D = 31 LP), to demonstrate that it constitutes proof positive of her lesbianism and to delimit, on the basis of psycho-physiological considerations, the sense any emendation of (v. 9) must have, if it is to match the clinical precision and to fit the rest of the seizure she describes.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , May 1970 , pp. 17 - 31
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1970

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References

page 17 note 1 Romilly, J. de (La crainte et l'angoisse dans le théatre d'Eschyle, 1958) rightly distinguishes between anxiety and (objective) fear.Google Scholar

page 17 note 2 Cf. the ‘parallels’ cited by Page, D. L., Sappho and Alcaeus (1959), 29–30;Google ScholarBowra, C. M., Greek Lyric Poetry 2 (1961), 188–9, etc.Google Scholar

page 17 note 3 Fever, diarrhoea, and dehydration occur both in typhoid and in cholera, cf., infra, the analysis of fundamental differences between Sappho's and Menelaos' ‘silence’.

page 17 note 4 Pandaros, at least, used poisoned arrows, cf. Murray, G., The Rise of the Greek Epic 4 (1934: paperback is identical with ed. 4), 130. Cf. my comments infra on Hor. Carm. 1.22.3.Google Scholar

page 18 note 1 That (pace Ps.-Longin. de sublim. 10. 1) Sappho's enumeration is exhaustive was noted by Page, (op. cit. 27).Google Scholar That A. Ag. 410–19 is practically an epitome of Freud, S., ‘Mourning and Melancholia’, Standard Edn. xiv (1957), 243–58,Google Scholar is shown by Devereux, G., ‘L'État dépressif et le rève de Ménélas’, REG lxxxi (1968) xii–xv.Google Scholar

page 19 note 1 Esser, A., Das Antlitz der Blindheit in der Antike 2 (1961),Google Scholar does not discuss this passage; cf. his discussion of Hdt. 6. 117 (pp. 26–7).

page 19 note 2 A somatic response almost identical with an anxiety attack can be produced pharmacodynamically, but, as Russell, B. (An Outline to Philosophy [Meridian paperback edn., 1960], 226 ff.)Google Scholar noted after being given an adrenalin injection: ‘I was not actually feeling fear … something extra … was absent … the cognitive part.’

page 19 note 3 Devereux, G., From Anxiety to Method in the Behavioral Sciences (1967), passim.Google Scholar

page 20 note 1 Freud, S., ‘Some Neurotic Mechanisms in Jealousy, Paranoia and Homosexuality’, Standard Edn. xviii (1955), 221–32.Google Scholar Though in this essay I do not explicitly expand Freud's views, I am convinced, on the basis of my own clinical experience (cf. case cited infra), that a love-crisis, of any nature whatsoever, elicits anxiety, as distinct from grief, anger, etc., only if at least one of the two persons involved has (at least latent) perverted, and preferably homosexual, inclinations. Otherwise stated, even the griefs of a normal love—and, assuredly, its joys as well—are totally free from anxiety (Hor, . Carm. i. 22, cf. infra), because the participants are not even latently perverted.Google Scholar

page 20 note 2 Ar. Nub. 1083 (and Dover ad loc.); Ar. Pl. 168; X. Mem. 2. i.5; Catull. 15. 19; Val. Max. 6. 1. 13. For further evidence (to which add: (Hor. Sat. 1.2.4; Apul. Met. 12), and for a general theory of sexual ‘retaliation’, cf. Devereux, G., ‘Considérations ethnopsychanalytiques sur la notion de parenté’, L'Homme, v (1965) 224–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 20 note 3 These attacks included all of the symptoms mentioned by Sappho and were so intense that tranquillizers (ataractics) could not control them. The patient's internist had to prescribe also quinidine for the palpitations, and injections of male hormone (testosterone) to control sudden, profuse cold sweats.

page 21 note 1 The intrusion of unconscious—and sometimes of conscious—homosexual elements into behaviourally ‘heterosexual’ acts was well understood by Lucian (Amor. 17; cf. Apul. Met. 4 fun.) and explains coitus per anum with women in Greek society (Dover, K. J., ‘Eros and Nomos’, Univ. London, Bull. Inst. Cl. Stud. xi (1964), 31–42;CrossRefGoogle ScholarDevereux, G., ‘Greek Pseudo-Homosexuality’, Symb. Oslo. xlii (1967), 69–92).Google Scholar A severe neurotic visualized his mistress as a masculine lesbian, and himself as a feminine lesbian (Devereux, G., ‘Loss of Identity, Impairment of Relationship, Reading Disability’, Psychoanal. Quart. xxxv (1966), 18–39).Google Scholar

page 21 note 2 By contrast, the speculation that she was a prostitute (Sen, . Ep. 88, etc.) is hardly credible. It does, however, reinforce the view that she was a lesbian: female homosexuality is notoriously common amongst prostitutes (cf. any serious monograph on prostitution). This suggests that the speculation that she was a prostitute is partly a conclusion Didymos drew from her being a lesbian. It would seem desirable, in classical studies, to spend less time on proving that some gossipy tradition is manifestly untenable on logical grounds, and to start examining what latent, psychological truths such objectively untrustworthy canards contain.Google Scholar

page 21 note 3 Devereux, ‘Greek Pseudo-Homosexuality’, cited supra, n. 1.

page 22 note 1 The same is true, pari passu, of a deserted heterosexual man.

page 22 note 2 Freud, ‘Some Neurotic Mechanisms’, supra (p. 20, n. 1).

page 22 note 3 Not counting Freud's own writings, there are literally dozens of psychoanalytic clinical papers dealing with this problem. Cf. Devereux, G., ‘The Female Castration Complex’, Amer. Imago, xvii (1960), 1–19,Google Scholar and, for Greek evidence, Devereux, , ‘La Naissance d'Aphrodite’, in Echanges et Communications (Milanges Lévi-Strauss), 1970.Google Scholar

page 22 note 4 Anyone with some experience of the world has probably witnessed such scenes. One such occurrence was described in detail by the Mohave Indians, cf. Devereux, G., ‘Mohave Ethnopsychiatry and Suicide’ Bureau of Amer. Ethnology, Bull. 175 (1961), 416–25 (Case 105).Google Scholar

page 22 note 5 Greenacre, P., ‘Penis Awe and its Relation to Penis Envy’ (in) Loewenstein, R. M. (ed.), Drives, Affects, Behavior, 1953.Google Scholar By a curious coincidence, the woman patient Greenacre describes was what Sappho was alleged to have been: small, slender, and fairly dark-complexioned (schol. Luc. Imag. 18).

page 23 note 1 I deal with this word briefly in Devereux, , ‘LaNaissanced' Aphrodite’, (supra p. 22, n. 3).Google Scholar

page 23 note 2 The dubious stories about Sappho's life as a prostitute, her switch to heterosexuality, and her suicide rigorously parallel several reliably reported details of the life of the Mohave Indian lesbian witch Sahaykwisā. The latter first prostituted herself to whites, so as to provide well for her successive ‘wives’, then was raped by the husband of a woman she tried to seduce, and then turned ‘heterosexual’, but conducted her heterosexual (?) amours in such a manner that she literally forced her two lovers to murder her. (The tendency of Mohave witches to force others to murder them—i.e. their vicarious suicide—is an explicit and important part of Mohave witch behaviour.) Cf. Devereux, , ‘Mohave Ethnopsychiatry’, (supra p. 22, n. 4).Google Scholar

page 23 note 3 Even primitives know that in anxiety states the mouth becomes dry. Cf. the judicial practice of causing suspects to stick out their tongues, so that the ‘detective’ can briefly touch them with a hot iron. The anxious culprit's mouth being dry, he will suffer a slight burn; the moistness of the innocent suspect's mouth will, by contrast, protect him long enough to escape a burn.

page 23 note 4 Corpora rigentia gelu torpebant, Livy 21. 55. 7.

page 24 note 1 Adeo torpentibus metu qui aderant, ut ne gemitus quidem exaudiretur, Livy 28.29. 11.

page 24 note 2 I cite, almost at random, the medieval Malay national prose epic, Hikayat Hang Tuah, which happens to be available in a German translation by Overbeck, H. (2 vols., München, Georg Müller, 1922), and which contains several striking examples of this kind. Of course, Sappho does not experience love, but distress, at first sight.Google Scholar

page 25 note 1 This was discussed in Devereux, , ‘Greek Pseudo-Homosexuality’ (supra p. 21, n. 1),Google Scholar especially in connection with love in Hades. I profit by this occasion to substantiate further my interpretation of the sense in which Aphrodite is by referring to Plu, . Amor. 761Google Scholar e–f, which states that only Love's commands are obeyed even in Hades, and cites in support of this view the surrendering by Hades of Eurydike, Alkestis, and Protesilaos.

page 25 note 2 Cf. Devereux, G., Essais d'ethnopsychiatrie générale (provisional title) (Paris, 1970, in press); several chapters discuss this problem.Google Scholar

page 25 note 3 Cf. also the preceding remarks about the ‘displacement’ of

page 25 note 4 The ‘dissolution—liberation’ process can also be observed in purely neurological disorders, cf. Jackson, J. Hughling, The Selected Writings (Taylor, J., ed.), 2 vols., 1931–1932.Google Scholar

page 25 note 5 Kroeber, A. L., ‘Psychosis or Social Sanction’, (in) The Nature of Culture (1952), 310–19.Google Scholar

page 26 note 1 The manner in which Plu. se ips. citra inv. land. 12. 543 d cites this verse shows that he contrasts it with sober and sane virtues.

page 26 note 2 Which Plutarch probably—and mistakenly—thought to imply blushing: cf. his use, a few lines earlier, of the word

page 26 note 3 Though Plutarch may have learned this trick from Plato, in his case it reflects only an amiable scholar's compulsion to pepper his text with quotations … as a modern philologist peppers his with what M. P. Nilsson rightly calls ‘Fussnotennester’. (Et ego!)

page 26 note 4 I stress that, even though a (psychiatric) katharsis can produce at least palliative results, katharsis presupposes an antecedent pent-up neurotic state, and that katharsis is, itself, a neurotic process.

page 27 note 1 Laboratory experiments show that ‘auditory driving’ (drumming first in a rhythm synchronized with the electrical waves of the auditory cortex and then accelerating the beat somewhat) can produce severe seizures, sometimes involving convulsions. Cf. Neher, A., ‘A Physiological Explanation of Unusual Behavior in Ceremonies Involving Drums’, Human Biol. xxxiv (1962), 151–60;Google Scholar id., ‘Auditory Driving Observed with Scalp Electrodes in Normal Subjects’, Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurology, xiii (1961), 449–51.Google Scholar

page 27 note 2 I note, in passing, that Plutarch's wording is not exactly happy: it is Sappho who ‘appears’ (arrives on the scene) and not the seated beloved girl.

page 27 note 3 Like Lafaye, I doubt that there is a lacuna between vv. 12–13.

page 27 note 4 This point is based upon my own clinical experience.

page 27 note 5 Devereux, , ‘Greek Pseudo-Homosexuality, (supra p. 21, n. 1).Google Scholar

page 27 note 6 This observation is correct; both animals and psychotics attack mainly the fearful and the anxious.

page 27 note 7 Page, who quite rightly rejects (p. 26) Paton's view that Lalage is an anagram for Agallis, could have pointed out that while Lalage brings happiness, ‘Agallis’ (?) brings only grief.

page 28 note 1 Cf. Paris' claim that Menelaos is practically throwing Helen into his arms, vv. 304 ff.

page 28 note 2 The fantasy that the seducer homosexually attacks the cuckold, by cohabiting with the latter's wife, cf. supra, p. 20, n. 2.

page 28 note 3 Towards the end of the last century, some men married—or tried to marry—the daughter of their mistress: Freud, S., ‘Psychoanalysis and Telepathy’, Standard Edn. xviii (1957), 175–93Google Scholar and Farrère, C., La Marche FunèbreGoogle Scholar (a novel). American Indians: Kroeber, A. L., ‘Stepdaughter Marriage’, Amer. Anthropol. xlii (1940), 563–70;Google ScholarDevereux, G., ‘Atypical and Deviant Mohave Marriages’, Samiksa (J. Indian Psycho-Anal. Soc.) iv (1951), 200–15.Google Scholar On socially rewarded affairs with both mother and daughter: Fürer-Haimendorf, C. v., The Naked Naga, 1946.Google Scholar Cf. E. Hipp.; Plu, . Dem. 38, for a different kind of switch (father to son).Google Scholar

page 28 note 4 Plu. Quaest. Conv. 622 c; Max. Tyr. 24. 7; schol. Il. 22. 2; Cramer, , Anecd. Oxon. i. 208. 15;Google Scholar id., Anecd. Par. 1. 39; Ap. Dysc. 333a and 366 marg. Cf. Lobel, E. and Page, D., Poetarum Lesbiorum Fragmenta, 155, p. 32, etc.Google Scholar

page 28 note 5 This invention well demonstrates the truth that ‘everyone's unconscious perfectly understands everyone else’s unconscious’ (S. Ferenczi). Much of man's compulsive ‘rationality’ is an unconscious, self-protective defence against such an ‘overcommunication’, cf. Devereux, , From Anxiety to Method, (supra p. 19, n. 3).Google Scholar

page 29 note 1 This somewhat pleonastic medical term means that the diagnostician not only says ‘This person is ill’ but specifies the nature of the illness, by differentiating it from similar ones. (Cf. G. Devereux, ‘Primitive Psychiatric Diagnosis: A General Theory of the Diagnostic Process’, in Galdston, I. (ed.), Man's Image in Medicine and Anthropology (1963), 337–73.)Google Scholar

page 29 note 2 This is a decisive reason why Bowra's comparing of this fragment with Sappho's poem is psychologically inadmissible (Greek Lyric Poetry, 188, n. 2).Google Scholar

page 30 note 1 On the legitimacy of conjoining in this argument love and artistic creativity, cf. E. Sthen. fr. 663 N2; Plu. Amor. 762 b f.; G. Devereux, ‘Art and Mythology: A General Theory’, in Kaplan, B. (ed.), Studying Personality Cross-Culturally (1961), 361–86.Google Scholar

page 31 note 1 Devereux, , ‘Greek Pseudo-Homosexuality’, (supra p. 21, n. 1).Google Scholar