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Sappho Fr. 16. 6–7L–P

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

G. W. Most
G. W. Most
Affiliation:
Heidelberg
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π⋯γχυ δ' εὔμαρες σ⋯νετον πóησαι | π⋯ντι το⋯το, sang Sappho (Fr. 16. 5–6 L–P); but, to judge from the controversies which have marked the scholarly discussion of her poem in the sixty-five years since its first publication, her confidence was at least premature. Some problems can indeed be considered to have been settled, either through new finds or through gradual consensus: thus the man of line 7 is Menelaus, not Paris, and few today would see in the poem merely an affirmation of exclusively feminine as opposed to masculine values. But to the twin questions of the function first of the story of Helen in the poem, and especially second of the words with which Helen is introduced — ⋯ γ⋯ρ πóλυ περσκ⋯θοισα | κ⋯λλος ⋯νθρώπων 'Eλ⋯να (6–7) — no satisfactory answer has yet been found. The strictures of Fränkel and of Page on this passage are well known; yet even where their judgements have not been simply taken over, the explanations that have been offered for these two distinct but closely connected problems fail to convince.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 31 , Issue 1 , May 1981 , pp. 11 - 17
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1981

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References

1 I quote throughout from the text of Lobel, E. and Page, D., Poetarum Lesbiorum Fragmenta (Oxford, 1955)Google Scholar, omitting all papyrological signs. For the passages in question, the more recent critical editions (Page, D. L., Lyrica Graeca Selecta [Oxford, 1968], p. 101Google Scholar, Voigt, E. M., Sappho el Alcaeus [Amsterdam, 1971], pp. 42 f.Google Scholar) offer no significant variation.

2 Fränkel, H., Wege und Formen frühgriechischen Denkens (Munich, 1955), 92Google Scholar: ‘ein umständlich lehrhafter Übergang’.

3 Page, D., Sappho and Alcaeus (Oxford, 1955), 53Google Scholar: ‘The sequence of thought might have been clearer. The preceding stanza had asked the question, ‘What is τ⋯ κ⋯λλιστον, the most beautiful thing on earth?’ Helen is to prove the truth of this: τ⋯ κ⋯λλιστον, for her, was ‘the one whom she loved’ — her paramour, for whose sake she deserted home and family. It seems then inelegant to begin this parable, the point of which is that Helen found τ⋯ κ⋯λλιστον in her lover, by stating that she herself surpassed all mortals in this very quality.’

4 Bowra, C. M., Greek Lyric Poetry from Alcman to Simonides (Oxford, 1961 2), 226Google Scholar; Page, op. cit. (n. 3), 56, 129.

5 Jurenka, H., ‘Neue Lieder der Sappho und des Alkaios (Oxyrh. Pap. x, S. 20 ff.)’, Wiener Studien 36 (1914), 207Google Scholar; Merkelbach, R., ‘Sappho und ihr Kreis’, Philologus 101 (1957), 14–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Bowra, op. cit. (n. 4), 226; Eisenberger, H., ‘Ein Beitrag zur Interpretation von Sapphos Fragment 16 LP’, Philologus 103 (1959), 135CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Page, op. cit. (n. 3), 129–30.

7 Jurenka, op. cit. (n. 5), 207.

8 Hom. H. Aphr. 36–44. That there is an affinity between these two texts is stressed by Bona, G., ‘Elena, la più bella di tutti i mortali (Nota a Saffo, fr. 16 Voigt e a hom. hy. ad Aphr. 33–44)’, in Livrea, E. and Privitera, G. A., ed., Studi in onore di Anthos Ardizzoni (Rome, 1978), 79 ff.Google Scholar; but it cannot explain the choice of Helen.

9 If mortal examples are preferred, one might think of Odysseus, who rejected Circe and Calypso, goddesses though they were, in favour of his mortal spouse Penelope, or of Penelope herself, who waited twenty years for her beloved husband to return: though Homer himself would not have regarded Odysseus and Penelope as bound primarily by erotic ties (cf. Finley, M. I., The World of Odysseus 3 [New York, 1978], 126 ff.Google Scholar), there is no reason that Sappho could not have interpreted their relation in this way.

10 Carey, C., ‘Sappho Fr. 96 LP’, CQ N.S. 28 (1978), 368–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Macleod, C. W., ‘Two Comparisons in Sappho’, ZPE 15 (1974), 217–19Google Scholar; Bagg, R., ‘Love, Ceremony and Daydream in Sappho's Lyrics’, Arion 3 (1964), 69Google Scholar, and Merkelbach, op. cit. (n. 5), 14–16 find a parallel to Anactoria alone.

11 cf. the criticisms of Eisenberger, op. cit. (n. 6), 130–5, and Saake, H., Zur Kunst Sapphos (Munich–Paderborn–Vienna, 1971), 138 fGoogle Scholar. What reason do we have to think that Anactoria was to be gone for more than a few days when this poem was composed?

12 Campbell, D. A., Greek Lyric Poetry (New York, 1967), 270Google Scholar; Degani, E. and Burzacchini, G., Lirici Greci (Florence, 1977), 134–5Google Scholar; Jurenka, op. cit. (n. 5), 203 f.; Kirkwood, G. M., Early Greek Monody (Ithaca–London, 1974), 108Google Scholar; Koniaris, G. L., ‘On Sappho, Fr. 16 (L.P.)’, Hermes 95 (1967), 263–7Google Scholar; implied also in von Wilamowitz-Möllendorff, U., ‘Lesbische Lyrik’, Neue Jahrbücher 33 (1914), 226–7Google Scholar) = Kleine Schriften (Berlin, 1971 2), 1. 386–7Google Scholar.

13 Howie, J. G., ‘Sappho Fr. 16 (LP): Self-consolation and Encomium’, Arca 2 (1976), 214, 216, 222Google Scholar; Koniaris, op. cit. (n. 12), 264; Theander, C., ‘Studia Sapphica’, Eranos 32 (1934), 70Google Scholar; Wills, G., ‘The Sapphic “Umwertung aller Werte”’, AJP 88 (1967), 440–1Google Scholar.

14 cf. the criticisms of Page, op. cit. (n. 3), 56 n. 2.

15 Bona, op. cit. (n. 8), 79 ff.; Gentili, B., ‘La veneranda Saffo’, QUCC 4 (1967), 184Google Scholar; W. Schadewaldt, Sappho (Potsdam, 1950), 127 f.; Stern, E. M., ‘Sappho Fr. 16 L.P.: Zur strukturellen Einheit ihrer Lyrik’, Mnemosyne 23 (1970), 355CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 cf. the criticisms of Burzacchini apud Degani-Burzacchini, op. cit. (n. 12), 135. The fact that beauty is a δ⋯ρον ' Αɸροδ⋯της for Homer (Il. 3. 54 f.) and elsewhere for Sappho (112 L–P) does not mean that, in this poem, Helen's beauty must serve only as a reference to Aphrodite: that beauty can function as a standard in its own right (cf. 23.5 L–P).

17 cf. Max. Tyr. Decl. 18. 7.

18 Yet it is not enough to say ‘Aphrodites Hilfe scheint nur gleichsam als Erklärung noch angehängt zu sein’ (Barner, W., Neuere Alkaios-Papyri aus Oxyrhynchos [Hildesheim, 1967], 220Google Scholar). The significance of the reference to Aphrodite is discussed below, p. 16.

19 e.g. Bagg. op cit. (n. 10), 69; Bona, op. cit. (n. 8), 83; des Bourne Thorsen, S., ‘The Interpretation of Sappho's Fragment 16 L.-P.’, Symb. Osl. 53 (1978), 16Google Scholar; Saake, H., Sappho-Studien (Munich–Paderborn–Vienna, 1972), 71Google Scholar.

20 Koniaris, op. cit. (n. 12), 263 n. 2; Theander, op. cit. (n. 13), 65. The fact that the state of preservation of the papyrus is unsatisfactory should provide no incentive for doubting the authenticity of the readings it offers.

21 I quote from the text of Kassel, R., Aristotelis Ars Rhetorica (Berlin, 1976)Google Scholar. Treu, M., Sappho (Munich, 1976 5), 156Google Scholar refers to this passage in Aristotle while discussing Fr. 16 but fails to draw the consequences.

22 The only apparent exception, the example of Agesipolis, is in fact none, for the question Agesipolis posed the oracles concerned the positive or negative value to be attributed to an action: χρηστηριαζóμενος ⋯πηρώτα τòν θεòν εỉ ⋯σ⋯ως ἄν ἔχοι αὐτῷ μ⋯ δεχομ⋯νω τàς σπονδàς τ⋯ν 'Αργε⋯ων, ὅτι οὐχ ⋯πóτε καθήκοι ⋯ χρóνος, ⋯λλ' ⋯πóτε ⋯μβ⋯μλλειν μ⋯λλοιεν Λακεδαιμóνιοι, τóτε ὐπ⋯ɸερον τοὺς μ⋯νας. ⋯ δ⋯ θε⋯ς ⋯πεσήμαινεν αὐτ⋯ ὅσιον εἶναι μ⋯ δεχομ⋯νῳ σπονδàς ⋯δ⋯κως ὐποɸερομ⋯νας (Xen. Hell. 4. 7. 2).

23 Agesipolis again provides only an apparent exception: for the utterance of an oracle is not an instance of ordinary language (which may be related truthfully to reality, but need not be), but is instead a token of what inevitably will take place in reality or already has. ⋯ ἄναξ, οὗ τ⋯ μαντεῖóν ⋯στι τò ⋯ν Δελɸοῖς, οὔτε λ⋯γει οὔτε κρ⋯πτει ⋯λλ⋯ σημα⋯νει (Heraclitus 93 D–K). Consequently the oracle's judgement of value is not so much a verbal act nor even the verbal expression of the cognitive act of acknowledging the reality of the value in question: rather, the judgement of the oracle is the reality of that value. In this privileged instance alone coincided for the Greeks language and being. This is expressed mythologically in Apollo's receiving his oracles from Zeus as the fundamental principle of reality (Hom. H. Ap. 132, H. Herm. 471–2, Aesch. Fr. 86N, Schol. Soph. O.C. 793).

24 It is probably the fact that Sappho has cast this first strophe in the form of a priamel that has delayed for so long recognition of the poem's structure: for it has meant that the interpreters have tended to concentrate so exclusively on the first strophe that the transition to the second could not be properly thematized. This is especially clear in the case of H. Fränkel, op. cit. (n. 2), 92.

25 This is clear not only from ɸ⋯λων in line 10 (which is hardly likely to mean merely ‘her own’ parents in this context: whose else's could possibly be meant?), but also from κωὐδε…π⋯μπαν … ⋯μν⋯σθη and the reference to Aphrodite's activity in lines 10 f., which only make sense if Helen had indeed loved husband, child and parents before she left them and if she could only be seduced from them by divine intervention, cf. Il. 3. 139 f., 173 f.; Od. 4. 259–64. See also n. 32.

26 For the structure of the poem, cf. especially Privitera, op. cit. (n. 14), 182–7.

27 For examples of similar appeals to an authority's κρ⋯σις in Homer, cf. Il. 1. 260–73, 9. 524–600; they are readily distinguishable from simple mythical exempla such as the story of Niobe, Il. 24. 602–17 (where it is not the personal authority of Niobe that is rhetorically effective, but the extremity of her suffering). I hope to examine such passages more systematically in a future study of strategies of moral argument in archaic Greek thought.

28 So already Schmid, U., Die Priamel der Werte im Griechischen von Homer bis Paulus (Wiesbaden, 1964), 55Google Scholar.

29 cf. especially Müller, C. W., Gleiches zu Gleichem: Ein Prinzip frühgriechischen Denkens (Wiesbaden, 1965)Google Scholar. Examples occur already in Homer (Od. 17. 217–18), then are frequent in both literary texts (e.g. Theognis 31–8, and cf. the basic tenet of archaic Greek morality, τ⋯ν ɸιλ⋯οντα μ⋯ν ɸιλεῖν, τòν δ' ⋯χθρòν ⋯χθα⋯ρειν, Archilochus 23. 14–15 West and passim) and philosophical ones (e.g. Plato Lys. 214A–D; Gorg. 510B; Symp. 180C–185C, 195B; Laws 6. 773 B).

30 The conceptual and historical distance that separates Aristotle from Sappho must not be minimized, despite his usefulness for interpreting her poem: what for Sappho is still undifferentiated, Aristotle tries to rationalize and systematize. Thus there is a certain peculiarity in limiting Helen to the category of the ⋯γαθο⋯; yet in Aristotle's scheme, all the other pigeonholes are even more inappropriate. Here, as often in the Rhetoric, Aristotle's examples must be read to a certain extent against the grain of his own categorization of them.

31 It was Lessing, in chapters 20 and 21 of Laokoon, who first emphasized how effectively Homer communicates a sense of Helen's beauty, not by describing it, but by indicating the Trojans' reaction to it (Werke 6: Kunsttheoretische und Kunsthistorische Schriften [Darmstadt, 1974], 129–41Google Scholar). The closest Homer comes to providing a direct antecedent for Sappho's phrase is Il. 9. 140 = 282: αἵ κε μετ' ' Αργε⋯ν 'Ελ⋯νην κ⋯λλισται ἔωσιν. But that is not very close at all (cf. Il. 9. 130).

32 Some, e.g. Kirkwood (op. cit. [n. 11], 108), have seen in παρ⋯γαγ' (11) an implicit condemnation of Helen's action. This is not quite accurate. In archaic Greek lyric (the word does not occur in Homer or Hesiod), παρ⋯γω describes the way a non-rational force interferes with one's purposively calculating intellect, irresistibly diverting (παρ⋯-ἄγω) one from the intended goal to others: Archil. 124b. 4 West (γαστ⋯ρ), Theogn. 386 (πεν⋯η), 404 (δα⋯μων πρóɸρων), Pind. P. 11. 25 (ἔννυχοι κοῖται), N. 7.23 (σοɸῖα). Such an overpowering of the rational capabilities is often attributed to erotic divinities (Il. 14. 217, Hes. Theog. 121–2), and is dramatized in the encounter between Helen and Aphrodite (especially Il. 3. 420)–hence Paris must be rejected as a supplement for line 13. Characteristically, the Greeks were particularly alive to the dangers of such a surrender on the part of reason, and indeed in all these usages of παρ⋯γω the diversion is condemned. But that condemnation is performed not by the verb παρ⋯γω itself, but instead by prepositional phrases indicating the results (Arch., Theogn.) or by the context (Pind.): the verb itself simply designates the condition of possibility of one's doing something other than what one intended, and here means ‘overpowered’. cf. Calame, C., ‘Sappho immorale?’, QUCC 28 (1978), 211–14Google Scholar.

33 Alcaeus' poem makes most sense in this context if it is thought of as a scandalized reaction to Sappho's poem or to similar sentiments: Alcaeus, who knew what war was, could not skip so glibly over these bloody consequences, and must have felt, in Pindar's words, γλυκὺ δ⋯ πóλεμος ⋯πε⋯ροισιν, ⋯μπε⋯ρων δ⋯ τις | ταρβεῖ προσιóντα νιν καρδ⋯ᾳ περισσ⋯ς (Fr. 110 Snell).

34 cf. Kannicht, R., Euripides' Helena (Heidelberg, 1969), 1. 22Google Scholar, and ‘Helen and the Discovery of the Erotic in Homer’ (text of a lecture). On the relationship between this poem and Il. 3, cf. also Davison, J. A., From Archilochus to Pindar (London, 1968), 236Google Scholar.

35 Despite the unsatisfactory transmission of this fragment, it is certain that two kinds of καλóς are described, one which is purely optical and another which contains an essential ethical component; yet the same word is used for both. Schadewaldt's paraphrase for τ⋯ κ⋯λλιστον in Fr. 16 (op. cit. [n. 15], 125: ‘das Höchste, Beste, Wirklichste auf Erden. Auch das, was wir als den “höchsten Wert” bezeichnen, von dem alles andere in der Welt seinen Wert empfängt, ist dabei, wenn nicht mitgedacht, so doch mitgemeint: das “Ideal”, so wie es auch in unserem Volksmund heißt, daß dieses und jenes jemandes Ideal ist') is a bit over-enthusiastic, but is closer to the truth than Stern's attempt (op. cit. [n. 15], 350 f.) to limit the word to the purely aesthetic (Sappho is not likely to have meant that Helen left for Troy because Paris was handsomer than Menelaus or Helen's child and parents), In Fr. 132L–P, Sappho is careful to stress the purely aesthetic side of what is otherwise an exactly parallel situation: yet here too it is unlikely she meant to imply that her daughter was not also morally καλ⋯.

36 Kirkwood, op. cit. (n. 12), 108. He goes on to say that Sappho's choice is also ‘effective’.

37 Schadewaldt, op. cit. (n. 15), p. 131.

38 I wish to thank for their help Prof. A. Dihle, Prof. R. Kannicht, Prof. K. Gaiser, Dr C. Larmore, Dr W.-L. Liebermann (whose article on this poem, forthcoming in Antike und Abendland, drew my attention to the problem of its structure of argumentation), and Prof. E. A. Schmidt.