THE END OF "TO APHRODITE"

Returning to Sappho and the beatifically celestial face of Aphrodite,
we must remember that at the start of the poem Sappho was praying
to her goddess, kneeling before an seated stone sculpture, which with
its painted poly-coloration as suited for all sculpture of that period,
was probably a monolith with the seatedgoddess carved out of one
piece with the rectilinear marble block.

Now Sappho raises her eyes to behold the sacred face of the Goddess
again, seeing her features more closely as she nears the base of the
statue. Al the workings of her mind in the pervious part of the poem
aare operating on her psyche simultaneously, from the prayer with
the ritual words to the vision of the SUN and Aphrodite the Beatific
and Immortal winging her way down through the sky and middle
aither, with the sound of her chariot birds whirring winds, and then
the SMILE appears.

She stares at the smile for what seems an infinitely long moment of
time, as she gazes at the lovely features tinted with a lifelike light tan
beeswax skin, thinking of deity and love and longing. But when her
mind leaves the statue of stone, suddenly something happens.
There is a transformation, the goddess of marble is no longer cold
stone, but a living apparition, a live apotheosis of the goddess has
come to talk with her, and walk with her and speak with her
alone......Not the first time or last a god has appeared to an island
woman in distress or a farmer in the wheatfield, or anyone who prays
thus earnestly and with a full heart.

And you
smiling
with that immortal face
asked:
Sappho...
What's hurts you?

hvre j ovtti dhu`te pevponqa kvwtti
dhu`te kavlhmmi,

"You asked --- what do I suffer and
what do I ask for,

ere' otti deute popontha kotti
deute kalemmi

The apothesis is now complete in the flash of the moment. Sappho
has seen the living face of the goddess before her eyes, and since this
is as real as her own being, she now can hear the Lady of Love
speaking to her in personal and intimate terms, talking the language
of a mother whose child has been hurt, the comforting words which
only a mother can offer.

It is the mothering words which make this passage real. It is spelled
out in short phrases which write across the paragraph ends and even
across the verse line, in a state of agitated verbal excitement which
contrasts with the quiet tone of the reassuring and mothering language.
The simultaneous tension between these two modes of speech
is brilliant, absolutely perfect for the agitated girl Sappho with her
mothering divine spiritual aide.

hvre j ovtti dhu`te pevponqa kvwtti
dhu`te kavlhmmi,
kvwtti moi mavlista qevlw gevnesqai
mainovla/ quvmw/.

"and what do you I want to happen
with this crazy heart....?

The last two words are somehow different, a quote from what
Sappho would say about herself, my love mad heart, somehow
slipped into the dream world of the divine interview. It brings the
situation back into focus, these are not really two person talking but
two parts of the same consciousness which sees both persons with the
same vision.

Look at the word phrasing, which written across the verse will have
the feeling of daily communication:

ovtti dhu`te pevponqa
kvwtti dhu`te kavlhmmi
kvwtti moi mavlista qevlw gevnesqai

"What hurts
Why calling
What do I want to happen?"

otti deute pepontha
kotti deute kalemmi
kotti moi malista thelo genesthai?

And it continues with the same fast pacing phrasing:

tivna dhu`te peviqw
mai`~ avghn e~ / san filovtata …

"Whom then do you want
Peitho to bring to you, dearest?

tina deute Peitho
mais agen es san philotata?

which can also be rephrased more clearly in question form this way:

tivna dhu`te peviqw mai`~ avghn e~ / san v filovtata …

"Whom do you want Peitho to bring back to you, dearest?"
There is a problem with this line and the meaning of 'peitho'. The
text has been questioned about first word of the following line. If we
follow the reading of P (Parisinus) which has mai saghnessan (bai
corr.) and follow Bergk's old correction to mai~ and then divide the
words thus aghn e~ san, we get a reading which makes sense and
follows the MS fairly well, as above.

The FE reading of 'kai' for 'mai' substitutes an easy word for an less
common one (maomai = *maó), while the correcting hand in P which
wrote 'bai' points phonetically and visually to 'mai' not to 'kai'. With
the verb 'mais' as 2 singular from a unused root verb *maó, not
elsehwere attested but listed in LSJ asthe source of the regular middle
verb 'maomai', 'peitho' has to be a noun and thus the name of the
goddess of pesuasion, Peitho (and not the verb first singular
indic./subj. ! So far as the above reading and translation, my opinion
is: stet !

tiv~ s j w Yavpf j, adikhvei …
"Who, Sappho, does you harm?"
tis s' O Sappho adikéei

This last paragraph was highly agitated, first because of Sappho's frantic
state of mind, second as a result of the epiphanic appearance of the goddess
as a lifelike Vision, one which is not only optically there but can also talk
with her.

What Aphrodite says comes in broken clauses, not because Aphrodite is
agitated herself, but because she is speaking in the short phraseology which
mothers traditionally use when talking to their children.

But this in turn reflects the condition of Sappho's own mind, her agitation
as a hurt child to whom her mother is speaking above her broken sobs. This
incoherence is here artistically coherent and suits the temper of that moment.
But right after that, everything changes, Aphrodite re-assumes her arch and
royal manner and make a series of very orderly statements, in fact
predictions, which are voiced in an "if.....then" mode, reassuringly:

kai gar ei feuvgei tacevw~ diwvxei
ai de dw`ra mh devket, alla dwvsei
ai de mh fivlei tacevw~ filhvsei
kwuk eqevloisa.

"Even if she flees, quickly will she follow
If she gives not gifts, she will give them
If she does not love, she will love
Despite herself"

kai gar ai pheugei, taxeos dioxei
ai de dora me deket', alla dosei
ai de me philei, tacheos philesei
kouk etheloisa.

The arrangement of sounds in this passage is extraordinary. In the first line
above, the balanced array of 'pheugei ......(tacheos) .......dioxei' is doubly
complex, since the two verbs are opposites, virtually reciprocals. And they
rhyme with their final '-ei ' diphthongs, while a thread goes through with
' -eu ' + ( eó- ) ' -ó-' showing back and heavy sounding vowels.
But the next line breaks into an entirely different patterns, with three ' -d- '
sounds virtually anticipating Beowulvian alliteration with:
dw`ra devket dwvsei

while retaining the opposition between receiving and giving gifts.
Then the third line goes back to the compact configuration of the first line
with 'philei........(tacheos)........philesei', emphatically using the same verb
in present and then future tense, with a structural device of "bringing
together" the wording, as subliminally bringing together the two lovers.
This change of mood and manner of speaking is the turning point of the
prayer and a promise of fulfillment, while artistically it stands as severely
contrastive to the emotional closeness and concern of the previous section.
Here is a formal pronouncement in the royal style of a Goddess.
But the last two words must not be under-emphasized. Seen from the
goddess' point of view, IF the situation is to be controlled, it must be
controlled absolutely, and it must be enforced, and that is the meaning of
chukka eqevloisa.. There will be no choice here, willing or not she will
do it this way.

Traditional Classicists have had a problem with this word 'etheloisa' on
what seemed then a textual problem but was certainly more of a sexual than
textual matter. Smyth (Greek Lyric Poets, p.233) summed it up at the turn
of that century, thus:

"Blomfield's eqevloisan was strenuously defended by
Welcker RM 11.266, who held that the subject of filhvsei
was a man. No MS whose readings were known before l892
settled the dispute. Now Piccolomini's VL show eqevloisa
(Hermes 27)"

This mixture of arguments based on MS authority along with Victorian
sensibilities, is interesting, and a caution to anyone involved with the
interpretation of a questionable text. One might quote Horace's remark
("Nulla ne habes vitia....?) and wonder if there are any prejudices in our
times which we are not aware of. It may be that some equally culpable proprejudices
can be found in our 21st century thinking, perhaps an overly
confident trust in an Oedipal interpretation in one situation, of a Lesbian in
another. Best not smile at the Victorians too hard, remembering that the
future will be laughing at some of our positive pronouncements.
And so the interview with the Vision concludes, vanishing away in the turn
of an instant, as is made clear by the tone of the following stanza. The clue
for a return is the very first word 'elthe' ...... "Come (back) to me now..."

evlqe moi kai nu`n, calevpan de lu`son
ek merivmnan, ovssa de moi tevlessai
qu`mo~ imevrrei, tevleson. su d jauvta
suvmmaco~ evsso

"Come to me now, release the hard
Agitation. What my heart wants
Done, do it! And you yourself,
Be my "Battle Ally".

elthe moi kai nun, chalepan de luson
ek merimnan, ossa de moi telessai
thumos imerrei, teleson, su d'auta
summachos esso.

With the disappearance of her Saintly Guide, Sappho's agitation appears
again. There is a string of short words

evlqe moi kai nu`n, su d jauvta evsso........

but beyond that, the phrases cross the verse line abruptly, something that
Greek lyric poetry does not do by chance or mistake:

calevpan de lu`son
ek merivmnan,
ovssa de moi tevlessai
qu`mo~ imevrrei
su d jauvta
(suvmmaco~) evsso

In this subdued and checked mood the prayer-poem comes to an end, with
only one last thing to consider, the special meaning of that critical word,
which is clumsily and dysphonetically translated here as "Battle Ally".
The verb 'sum-machein' ,or more usually in the historians
'summachesthai' as a medio-passive form, means literally "fight along
with....". It is not used in Epic language, so there can be no Homeric
allusion to search for when Sappho uses the word in a poem. In fact
this is basically a military and political word, used extensively by
Herodotus (e.g. I.102) and Thucydides passim. The regular use of the
form 'summachos' is adjectival "allied", although as with most
adjectives it can be used as a noun "an Ally", as here.

It is surprising is that on a verbal level, Sappho chooses a key word without
Epic antecedent, furthermore that she elects a word which would later appear
as he keyword for the interminable associations and dissociations of all
sorts of political parties in the unstable world of early Greek politics. On
the other hand, the fact that Ally is her word for an alliance with the powerful
partner Aphrodite, points to her estimate of herself as a real person in
the newly developing Archaic world. As with all alliances. she is capable of
making connections and treaties with powerful forces .

An Epic hero must have a deic partner, and someone like Ajax who has
none is doomed from the start. Sappho struggles to connect herself with a
protecting force, seeking alliance in the battle of life, and not illogically she
chooses the same word as political writer later use for states aligning themselves
with others in warfare.

What is the battle that Sappho faces? It is the battle of a woman of talent,
intent on living a life of heart and emotion, in a world of confused political
happenings. If any alliance were possible, it would have to be outside the
normal frame of reference, it would have to be spiritual and approached
with a religious sentiment, and for the poet whose life is devoted to beauty,
it would have to be an alliance with beauty itself, with none other than
Aphrodite.

So ends a remarkable poem, one which was selected for discussion by the
able and sensitive critic Dionysos of Halicarnassos as a prime example of
fine lyric poetry, out of a library which contained all of Sappho's writing
and a host of other lyric authors of whom we know little more than names.
The poem is so fine and delicate, even with the interpretational problems
which we have to face in reading it, that it needs no recommendation from
Dionysos or any other critic. It is worth noting that his choice means that
the educated Greeks of the Hellenistic period recognized this poem as a
prime example of lyric art, and this recognition can serve as validation for
the long analysis and detailed evocation of this study.

What is perhaps of greater importance is the way Dionysos does his analysis,
proceeding from meaning and overall form, down to the microanalysis
of the sounds as esthetically acoustic items. For him, this represents the way
Greeks approached their poetry, seeing a poem as a woven web of sounds
and forms, in short a textural art. This is something which our modern
criticism has not understood, concentrating on unraveling and sifting the
multiple layers of meaning. The Form generates inner meanings and subtle
innuendoes of its own, which stand beside and within the level of the
communicated message.

Reading Sappho without this awareness, you have nice little love poems
which you can read in a minute or two. Reading Sappho with an awareness
of the inner workings of her writing and the faithful care with which she
put her words together, you find an entirely different and much richer result.
But this is not only important as the way to read Greek poetry. It is a
warning to us that unless we devote ourselves to a slower and more inspective
method in reading the poetry of our own time, we are likely to miss the
depth which the art of poetry can possess. Reading too much, scanning too
fast, rushing to the Meaning, we even lose the need for having poetry in our
lives at all. When we read Sappho in depth, we get a sense of the possibilities
of the poetic art.