Woman's Songs in Ancient Greece 9780773577213

Table of contents :
Contents
Preface
Abbreviations
Note on Greek Text, Translation, and Transliteration
Metres
Illustrations
Introduction
Poetry as Performance
Kinds and Genres
“Woman’s Songs”
Partheneia and the Girls’ Chorus
Lyric in the Drama
Echoes and Imitations of Woman’s Song in Hellenistic Poetry
Male and Female Authors: An Overview and Some Conclusions
1 ALCMAN
2 SAPPHO
3 CORINNA
4 PINDAR
5 OTHER LYRIC POETS: MALE, FEMALE, AND ANONYMOUS
6 SOPHOCLES
7 EURIPIDES
8 NOSSIS
9 THEOCRITUS AND BION
Works Cited
Index
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
R
S
T
U
V
W
Z

Citation preview

woman’s songs in ancient greece

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Woman’s Songs in Ancient Greece anne l. klinck

McGill-Queen’s University Press Montreal & Kingston • London • Ithaca

© McGill-Queen’s University Press 2008 isbn 978-0-7735-3448-3 (cloth) isbn 978-0-7735-3449-0 (paper) Legal deposit fourth quarter 2008 Bibliothèque nationale du Québec Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free (100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Aid to Scholarly Publications Programme, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. McGill-Queen’s University Press acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing programme. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Programme (bpidp) for our publishing activities.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Klinck, Anne Lingard, 1943– Woman’s Songs in Ancient Greece / Anne L. Klinck. Includes bibliographical references. isbn 978-0-7735-3448-3 (bound) isbn 978-0-7735-3449-0 (pbk.) 1. Greek poetry – Texts – Translations into English. 2. Lyric poetry. 3. Femininity in literature. 4. Oral poetry – History 5. Women in literature. 6. Women and literature – Greece – History 7. Greek poetry – History and criticism. 8. Lyric poetry – History and criticism. I. Title. Pa3021.k58 2008

881'.010803522

C2008-903613-1

This book was typeset by Interscript in 11.5/15 Bembo.

To Haruo and Allan, with thanks – and pleasant memories

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Contents

Preface ix Abbreviations xiii Note on Greek Text, Translation, and Transliteration Metres xvii Illustrations xix

xv

Introduction 3 Poetry as Performance 3 Kinds and Genres 7 “Woman’s Songs” 13 Partheneia and the Girls’ Chorus 23 Lyric in the Drama 25 Echoes and Imitations of Woman’s Song in Hellenistic Poetry Male and Female Authors: An Overview and Some Conclusions 30 1 alcman 2 sappho

34 62

3 corinna 4 pindar

152 165

5 other lyric poets: male, female, and anonymous 6 sophocles

192

180

28

viii

Contents

7 euripides 8 nossis

212

233

9 theocritus and bion Works Cited Index

275

261

241

Preface

The inspiration for this book goes back almost twenty years to the time when I took a seminar on Greek lyric given by Anne Carson at McGill. I subsequently went on to write an ma thesis, supervised by Albert Schachter, on “Women’s Songs and their Cultic Background in Archaic Greece.” It was then that I translated the more substantial fragments of Alcman and Sappho, and Pindar’s “Daphnephoricon.” The task was a pleasant one; my enjoyment of the poetry made me want to recapture it in my own language. I cannot claim to have produced translations that are poetically distinguished, but I hope they capture the feeling of the originals. A useful sense of the enormous range of existing translations and adaptations into English poetry is provided by the multifarious renderings of Sappho collected in Margaret Reynolds’ Sappho Companion. While teaching English language and medieval literature at the University of New Brunswick, I have continued to read and enjoy Greek poetry with my friends Haruo Konishi and Allan Whitney. Other projects and other books intervened, but for a long time I have wanted to write this one. I loved the poetry, and was interested in the art of translation; at the same time, I was attracted to the idea of a collection and study based on voice and performance rather than authorship. I have tried to relate all the poetry selected here to a performative definition of woman’s song, and to present the poems, passages, and fragments as, in their different ways, expressions of a sense of female community. They reproduce a constructed, rather

x

Preface

than an essential, femininity – constructed differently by male and female authors. My aim has been to assemble and to explore a poetry of female voices singing their female concerns. Concentrating on the archaic period, but also tracing a development through classical drama into Hellenistic poetry, I have done my best to bring the poems to life, not just as texts for silent reading, but as what most of them originally were – the vital collective experience of song. Inevitably, some of my inclusions and omissions are arbitrary. Much of Sappho’s poetry is extremely fragmentary, and it was hard to decide which of the really short or severely damaged fragments to select. I chose those that, to my mind, shed light on Sappho’s interests and relationships. Corinna’s poetry doesn’t seem particularly feminine at all, but I include it because it is woman-authored, very likely maiden song, and, as I believe, reflects a certain female amusement at male heroic pretensions. Songs from the drama represent an important continuation of archaic lyric; I could well have included many more, but this would have changed the emphasis of the book. Also, these passages are better appreciated in their dramatic contexts than in isolation. The Hellenistic selection was designed to illustrate the reminiscence of archaic lyric in these extremely literary poets. I chose Nossis as a representative woman author, rather than Erinna, who also reflects a feminine world (technically neither is a lyric poet or a composer of song), since Nossis explicitly emulates the epitome of Greek woman’s song: Sappho. I am grateful to all those who, in one way or another, have helped me to write this book, most especially Haruo Konishi, for so generously sharing his knowledge and his time over the course of many years. I would like to thank the English Department and the Faculty of Arts at the University of New Brunswick for their support; the staff at unb’s Harriet Irving Library, and the Document Delivery Department in particular, for supplying me so quickly with the materials I needed; Jonathan Crago at McGill-Queen’s University Press for his sound advice regarding the structuring of this book; and the anonymous readers for the Aid to Scholarly Publications Programme for their extremely helpful suggestions, most of which I have implemented. Remaining defects are, of course, my own.

Preface

xi

Woman’s Songs in Ancient Greece draws, passim, on several of my previous publications, notably the following: “Lyric Voice and the Feminine in Some Ancient and Mediaeval Frauenlieder.” Florilegium 13 (1994): 13–36. “Male Poets and Maiden Voices: Gender and Genre in Pindar and Alcman.” Hermes 129 (2001): 276–9. Medieval Woman’s Song: Cross-Cultural Approaches. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002. (Edited with Ann Marie Rasmussen) An Anthology of Ancient and Medieval Woman’s Song. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. “Sleeping in the Bosom of a Tender Companion.” “Sweet Longing”: Same-Sex Desire and Love in Greco-Roman Antiquity and in the Classical Tradition of the West. Ed. Beert C. Verstraete and Vernon Provencal. Special issue of the Journal of Homosexuality 49.3–4 (2006). Binghamton, ny: Haworth Press. 193–208. “Sappho’s Company of Friends.” Hermes 136 (2008): 15–29.

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Abbreviations

bce ce Calame Campbell Diggle EG gd

Gow Gow and Page Jebb Kells lp Lloyd-Jones Lloyd-Jones and Wilson oct PMG PMGF

Before the Common Era Common Era Claude Calame, ed., Alcman David A. Campbell, ed., Greek Lyric James Diggle, ed., Euripidis fabulae Denys Page, ed., Epigrammata Graeca Michael Gronewald and Robert W. Daniel, “Ein neuer Sappho-Papyrus” and “Nachtrag zum neuen Sappho-Papyrus” A.S.F. Gow, ed., Bucolici Graeci A.S.F. Gow and Denys L. Page, eds., The Greek Anthology: Hellenistic Epigrams Richard C. Jebb, ed. and trans., Sophocles J.H. Kells, ed., Sophocles: Electra Edgar Lobel and Denys Page, eds., Poetarum Lesbiorum Fragmenta Hugh Lloyd-Jones, ed. and trans., Sophocles: Ajax, Electra, Oedipus Tyrannus Hugh Lloyd-Jones and N.G. Wilson, eds., Sophoclis fabulae Oxford Classical Texts Denys Page, ed., Poetae Melici Graeci Malcolm Davies, ed., Poetarum Melicorum Graecorum

xiv

Reed Seaford Snell-Maehler T Voigt

Abbreviations

Fragmenta J.D. Reed, ed., Bion of Smyrna: The Fragments and the Adonis Richard Seaford, ed., Euripides: Bacchae Bruno Snell and Hervig Maehler, eds., Pindari carmina cum fragmentis Testimonia Eva-Maria Voigt, ed., Sappho et Alcaeus

Note on Greek Text, Translation, and Transliteration

Texts are based on the following editions: Alcman: Calame; poem numbers PMG, PMGF, Calame numbers in parentheses Sappho and Alcaeus: Voigt Pindar: Snell-Maehler Other lyric: PMG. Sophocles: Lloyd-Jones and Wilson Euripides: Diggle Nossis: EG Theocritus and Bion: Gow. Deviations from these texts are indicated in my notes. For Sappho and Alcaeus I refer also to lp and Campbell; for other lyric texts to Campbell; for Sophocles to Jebb, Kells, and Lloyd-Jones; for Euripides’ Bacchae to Seaford; for Bion to Reed. Line numbers are conventional and do not always correspond to the lineation of standard modern editions. The conventional marks alerting the reader to textual problems and editorial conjectures are simplified here. I retain square brackets for missing text, and use subscript dots for estimated missing letters. Dots within brackets indicate letters actually lost; outside brackets, letters that are illegible. A gap or incompleteness in the transmitted text is indicated by ellipsis marks; a large omission (a full line or more) by a line of spaced periods. The dagger (†) marks unreconstructed faulty text.

xvi

Note on Greek Text, Translation, and Transliteration

Translations are loosely line for line, in free verse, allowing for some changes in word order. Transliterations use m for h; k for ù; ch for ÷; y for õ in simple vowels, u in diphthongs and when õ corresponds to Attic ï.

Metres

The following are the metrical sequences mentioned here, defined quantitatively, according to whether the syllable in a given position is long –, short 艛, or optional as to length x. anapaest choriamb cretic dactyl dochmiac glyconic iamb ionic trochee

艛艛–艛艛–

–艛艛–. Aeolic metres are based on the choriamb. –艛– –艛艛 irregular, frequently 艛––艛–; often with runs of syllables of the same length xx–艛艛–艛– x–艛– 艛艛–– –艛–x

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Attic red-figure kalyx-krater (wine bowl) depicting Sappho holding a barbitos and a plectrum, circa 480 BCE , inventory no. S 508. Courtesy of the Kunstsammlungen, Ruhr-Universität Bochum.

Red-figure hydria (water jar) found in a grave at Vari, depicting Sappho reading, accompanied by attendants holding a garland and a lyre, by the Group of Polygnotos, 420–40 BCE , inventory no. 1260. Courtesy of the National Archaeological Museum, Athens.

Attic red-figure kalathos (wine cooler) depicting Sappho and Alcaeus, 1st half of 5th century bce, inventory no 2416. Courtesy of the Staatliche Antikensammlungen und Glyptothek, Munich.

Attic red-figure skyphos (cup) depicting maenads dancing around a statue of Dionysus, attributed to Macron, and signed by the potter Hieron, 490–80 BCE , inventory no. 2290. Courtesy of the Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz / Art Resource, NY.

woman’s songs in ancient greece

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Introduction

poetry as performance We think of Greece as the cradle of western civilization, born with the advent of a literacy transplanted from the Middle East. Yet early Greece, like all the societies it came in contact with, was an oral culture. In ancient Greece, as in traditional societies the world over, oral poetry was a part of everyone’s experience. All kinds of poems and songs must have flourished, of which only a small fraction transmitted by a literary élite survive. The genres in which the recorded poets worked must have had their counterparts in traditional oral poetry of a popular rather than an élite kind, frequently transmitted anonymously and never committed to writing. Though literacy came to Greece in the first half of the eighth century bce, it coexisted with this vigorous oral culture for many centuries, supplanting it only very gradually. Within this oral tradition Homer worked, but he did not mark the end of it. Classicists investigating poetry as an oral tradition have tended to concentrate on Homer. This has been so ever since the pioneering work on oral formulas, and their place in extempore composition, by Milman Parry and his student Albert Lord in the thirties of the last century, who bolstered their theories with field work on the performance of oral epic in contemporary Yugoslavia (out of this came Lord’s seminal study The Singer of Tales, published in 1960). Eric Havelock, for instance, documented the confrontation between an oral, imagistic, Homeric state of mind, and a literate, abstract,

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Platonic one (Preface to Plato 47 and passim). Much of his book gives the impression that epic and oral poetry are synonymous (see in particular Preface 63, 95, 125), although he does in passing note that this could not have been the case (Preface 292). Of course, epic is only one among many types of oral verse – the type that, in Greece, happens to be the oldest recorded. Perhaps the availability of writing affected archaic poets working in other genres, making possible what Bruno Snell called “The Discovery of the Mind,” meaning the individual consciousness, a concept not explored in Homer. Snell himself made no connection with the advent of literacy, although he did see this development as a chronological evolution, which took place after Homer and is visible in the archaic poets following him (See Discovery, 43–70). Still, the ways of orality continued, even though from the classical period on poets, like prose authors, increasingly composed in writing. As Rosalind Thomas emphasizes, the ancient, and indeed the medieval, world remained oral in its reception and often its creation of poetry and song, and “there is no simple transition from a ‘song culture’ to a book culture” (Literacy and Orality in Ancient Greece 123). Thomas is borrowing a term from John Herington, and responding to his view that archaic and early classical Greece was “a society whose prime medium for the expression and communication of its most important feelings and ideas was song” (Poetry into Drama 3). This “song culture” provides the frame within which I want to present the poetry selected here, most of it deriving from a time when compositions were created with a specific performance context in mind and depended on “a process of interaction between singer and audience” (Gentili, Poetry and Its Public 22). The guiding principle behind my selection has been the genesis of the poems and passages – sometimes more immediately, sometimes more distantly – in songs performed by women and perceived as contrastive to male songs. Among the authors included, non-classicist readers have probably encountered Sappho, very likely in the context of women writers. I would like to present her here as a woman singer of poetry, which is the way the ancient world saw her (Cf. illustrations on xix and xx). Witness the Athenian lawgiver Solon, probably a younger contemporary of Sappho; the story goes that when

Introduction

5

asked why he wished to be taught one of her songs, he replied, “that I may learn it and die” (T10 Campbell [Stobaeus 3.29.58]). Solon’s words suggest not reading, but listening and practising. It is doubtful whether Sappho herself was literate. Some modern scholars assume that she was (e.g., Rabinowitz, “Excavating Women’s Homoeroticism” 155 n.41), some that she wasn’t (e.g., Skinner, “Aphrodite Garlanded” 76 n.18, in the same volume). Obviously, the works that have been preserved for us survived because they were written down. Nevertheless, the poetry composed in archaic and classical times – that is, from the eighth to the fourth century bce – was intended for live performance; it was received orally, frequently sung to an instrument, and often accompanied by dance. By the time we get to the fifth century, composition in writing is probable, even if the writing only took place at the end of the process or was taken down by an amanuensis, as suggested by Herington (Poetry into Drama 47) and Havelock (Preface 137), respectively. It has even been argued that the lyric of the archaic period should be defined by its orality and its creation for a specific situation (Rösler, Frühe gr. Lyrik 180–8). Most classicists would probably not go that far but Eva Stehle, too, has stressed the performative character of Greek poetry (Performance and Gender 3). As Egbert Bakker notes in connection with Homeric verse, “performance, and not silent reading, remained the only medium of presentation ... until well into the classical period” (“How Oral Is Oral Composition?” 35–6). Even in the Hellenistic period following that, and for centuries afterwards, poetry was typically read aloud, not silently; in fact, silent reading did not become common until the late Middle Ages (see Herington 234–5 n.4; Thomas 23). The selection in this book emphasizes the post-Homeric archaic period, when lyric was first written down, and when it was still synonymous with song. Most of the surviving archaic lyric by female authors or in the female voice is collected here, along with representative samples from the classical period, and from the Hellenistic age (conventionally dated 323 bce – 30 bce, between the deaths of Alexander and Cleopatra). Readers will find poetry by the Spartan Alcman, Pindar from Thebes, Corinna of Tanagra, Sappho of Lesbos, Simonides from

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the Ionian island of Ceos, as well as one or two other archaic authors and anonymous fragments, a few songs and lyric passages from the dramas of Sophocles and Euripides, several short poems by Nossis, who was influenced by Sappho, and finally, a sample poem by Theocritus and one by Bion. All of these authors except the last three composed for a specific performance context, so I have tried to convey a sense of that, considering the setting and occasion, as well as the relationship between the performers and their audience. I have not pursued an enquiry into the circumstances of composition or the marks of orality in the text, subjects which are major concerns of the ParryLord school, in more recent times represented especially by the work of Gregory Nagy. Some of the poetry included here is composed by men, some by women. Although nowadays we tend to regard authorial gender as a major classifying category, the early Greeks probably saw the gender of the performer as more important. Indeed, in their performance-oriented “song culture,” in which orally transmitted works could easily be remodelled with every performance, it would often be hard to distinguish between the author and the singer of a song. The modern emphasis on authorship arises out of our conception of literature as text: a thing composed in writing, by a known individual, that person’s property. This view was only beginning to develop in archaic Greece. We find it in the “seal” which the poet Theognis speaks of, expressing a proprietorial attitude to his poetry. David Campbell thinks “Theognis may be the first to express this anxiety” (Golden Lyre 266). I find his explanation more probable than Nagy’s theory that “Theognis” and his seal represent a kind of authorial mystique present in a multiplicity of oral variants, rather than this new desire to fix the text (“Theognis and Megara 33; Poetry as Performance 220–5; contra the Nagy school, see Hubbard, “Theognis’ Sphrêgis”). Nagy does see the concept of individual authorship developing a little later, evolving out of the concept of authority as the dramatist evolved from the presenter of choruses in the Athens of the tyrants (see Pindar’s Homer 411, and p. 26, below). Even when written texts became widespread, ancient society remained an oral, performance-oriented culture. It is entirely possible

Introduction

7

that the earlier poets represented here composed orally and their songs were committed to writing by others. If they composed in writing, they almost certainly did not intend their poems for private reading, like modern poets and to some extent the writers of later antiquity (though it has been suggested that Sappho’s more psychologically complex lyrics were composed in or for writing so that her absent friends could sing them while alone; see Stehle, Performance and Gender 310, 318). Since the performer was more visible than the author if the two were different, it would have been natural for an audience, with in Coleridge’s phrase a “willing suspension of disbelief” (Biographia Literaria 2:6), to attribute the feelings represented to the girls or women representing them (cf. Stehle 5). Again, I find the Coleridgean insight more persuasive than the oral-purist view that in the minds of the audience the performer of archaic poetry and early classical drama actually becomes the composer or the persona (Nagy, Poetry as Performance 59– 86; cf. Havelock’s idea that the audience identifies “almost pathologically” with the performance, Preface 45). This notion becomes rather problematic when there is an obvious difference, say, in age or in sex.

kinds and genres The songs performed by girls and women need to be seen against a wider background of poetry that, as far as the written record goes, is mainly male-oriented. After the hexameter verse of Homer’s epics and Hesiod’s didactic poetry, archaic Greece preserved poetry of other types, beginning with Archilochus and ending with Pindar and Bacchylides, whose activity extended into the classical period. The various genres tended to be associated with particular metres, although at first the choice of metre seems to have been freer (see Campbell, Gk. Lyric Poetry 138–9). Elegiac couplets (hexameter followed by pentameter) were chosen for poems on various subjects. Archilochus used them to celebrate battle or carousing, or to console. Subsequently elegiacs were applied to battle poetry by Callinus and Tyrtaeus; reflections on love and aging by Mimnermus; moralizing by Solon, and, in the context of pederastic love, Theognis; to brief epigrams and funerary inscriptions by

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Simonides and many later poets. Iambic and trochaic verse was used for political polemic by Solon; for lampoon and invective by Archilochus, Semonides, and Hipponax. A multiplicity of lyric metres were devoted to poems on a wide range of topics, including wine, women (or boys) and song, as well as politics, by poets like Alcaeus, Anacreon, and Ibycus, who all composed for solo performance. Also, Ibycus, Simonides, his nephew Bacchylides, Pindar, and others produced choral poetry, with mythic and moralizing content, for royal patrons and ritual occasions. In all likelihood these various kinds of verse long predate their earliest recorded examples (cf. Page, “Archilochus and the Oral Tradition,” 145). Homer, for instance, speaks of the performance of poetry, not all of which is epic. Among the depictions of life in all its richness on Achilles’ shield are two scenes that involve singing: a choral wedding song (hymenaios, Iliad 18.493) and a solo performance of the Linus song by a boy accompanying himself on the lyre (Iliad 18.569–71). The Iliad also mentions the paean, a choral hymn of thanksgiving sung to Apollo (1.473, 22.391), and the thrēnos (lament), performed by mourners at Hector’s funeral (24.720–2). Even if the genres themselves are older, it is possible that the individualism that makes its appearance in the nonepic poetry of the archaic period is actually the product of writing. Denys Page argues that the more removed Archilochus’ verses are from the dactylic lines of epic, the less formulaic his language becomes, a development Page associates with the recent introduction of writing (“Archilochus and the Oral Tradition,” 119–20, 162). Anne Carson sees alphabetic literacy as bringing a new sense of the self, its precariousness, and its boundaries, an exploration of “the edge between oral and literate procedure” (Eros the Bittersweet 41–4, and, quoted, 78; see also duBois, “Sappho and Helen,” 12). Not that early Greek poetry of any kind is intimately and searchingly confessional, like modern poetry from the Romantics on. On public subjects, to be sure, but also on personal themes, the poetry of archaic Greece is conventional, and even formulaic. Most of the poems I have included in this book are lyric not in the sense of expressing personal emotion, but in the word’s etymological sense: at least in the earlier periods they were composed “for the lyre,”

Introduction

9

or another instrument. The Greeks called them “melic” because they were designed for a melody. The term lyrikos for this kind of poetry is recorded only from the first century bce and later (see Gentili, Poetry and Its Public 243 n.1). Paul Allen Miller argues that “what is now generally considered lyric – a short poem of personal revelation, confession or complaint ... is only possible in a culture of writing,” and contends that lyric in this sense does not begin until the Roman period (Lyric Texts 1, 3). The melic poems were essentially songs although, sadly, their music, transmitted only by performance, has long been lost, and we tend not to think of them in that way now. Nor does the convention of referring to ancient poems by their numbers in standard editions rather than by expressive titles help to stir our imagination. When Plato talks about the lyric genres, of which he mentions several, he speaks of music (mousikē) and song (ōidē) (Laws 700a-d). The Ambrosian Life of Pindar, perhaps the greatest of the Greek lyric poets, lists nine genres in which he composed: hymns, paeans of joy and victory, ecstatic dithyrambs, processional songs, partheneia or maidens’ songs, dance songs, encomia, dirges, and victory odes (I have translated and expanded some of the terms; see Campbell, Gk. Lyric 2: 262; based on Drachmann 1: 3,7). All the genres in the Ambrosian list except the encomia are choral, intended for performance before a large public audience. This is the kind of poetry from which drama developed in the context of religious festivals, a more vivid rendition, with individual characters as well as the chorus, of myths and stories presented in choral song. As Herington says, “both [the poetry and the drama of the Greeks] were performing arts,” and choral lyric “had a strong tendency to become a kind of drama in itself” (Poetry into Drama 39–40). As well as bringing together male- and female-authored texts, there are one or two other categories that I want to mingle here. Some of these poems are choral, others monodic; some designed for a public, others for a private audience. Choral poems tended to be created for specific, public, occasions. Their metres are complex, often arranged in stanza pairs or triads of strophe and metrically equivalent antistrophe, sometimes followed by epode in a different metre, and they were usually danced as well as sung. Monody – that is solo poetry – can be more

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Woman’s Songs in Ancient Greece

personal, is typically composed for performance in more intimate, private, settings, and tends to be much simpler metrically. Most of Sappho’s surviving poetry is of this kind (although, as we shall see later, the possibility of some kind of choral presentation has been suggested). Many of her poems are composed in the simple “Sapphic” stanza consisting of three eleven-syllable lines and one five-syllable. Modern studies of Greek poetry have traditionally considered monody and choral lyric separately, but this was not a distinction reflected in the ancient classifications, which specify the function rather than the form of the song (on ancient terminology for different kinds of poems, see Harvey). Malcolm Davies castigates Gordon Kirkwood’s Early Greek Monody for separating solo and choral verse so categorically (“Monody, Choral Lyric” 52, 61 n.59). We are frequently uncertain what the performance context of the poem was; different settings would create different dynamics. And it is possible that the same poems could be performed both chorally and solo, as thinks Paul Allen Miller, who plays down the distinction between public and private settings (Lyric Texts 84). In the past twenty-five years or so there has been some serious questioning of assumptions about performance, especially with regard to Pindar and the possibility that his triadic poetry was not always staged chorally (see especially Lefkowitz, First Person Fictions, and, contra, Carey). Nevertheless, the two kinds of poetry still tend to be considered separately, or to be contrasted. Thus, Campbell’s collection of Greek lyric for the Loeb series, published in five volumes between 1982 and 1993, devotes the first one and a half to solo and the next two and a half to choral poetry (the final volume includes both kinds). Davies’ proposed distinction between poems that are simpler and more complex (in language and metre) ends up with essentially the same classification (“Monody, Choral Lyric” 63–4). And the reluctance of scholars to draw together Alcman and Sappho is based on their contrasting performance agendas as well as on their different sexes (see Stehle, Performance and Gender 71–118; Ingalls). While these categorizations have their value, they can be misleading, particularly when not just poems but also poets are assigned to one category or the other. It is likely that most of the archaic poets composed

Introduction

11

both choral and monodic poetry. Again, the distinction between public and private is an important one, but even so it will often be unclear which applies, and sometimes it will be hard to draw the line. Epithalamia (wedding songs), for example, may be performed in the context of two family groups, and thus are in some ways public, in others private. John Winkler has argued that a woman poet like Sappho has a “double consciousness” both public and private, specifically in her feminine takes on traditional material found in Homer (see Constraints of Desire 162–87; I quote from the chapter title). Choral or monodic, communal or personal, songs of many kinds in the female voice can offer recreations of feminine experience. As we shall see, in both the monody of Sappho, sung solo to a small intimate group, and the choral lyric of Alcman, performed to a large mixed audience but by a select and closeknit choir of girls, a distinctively feminine milieu is suggested, a world of female feelings and female camaraderie. A further dichotomy I want to bridge is that between élite and popular art. Most of the poems included in this anthology are by known, aristocratic, authors, and ipso facto constitute élite poetry. But they have links with genres that must have been shared by the population at large: hymns, praise poems, laments, wedding songs, and many more. Also, the terms “élite” and “popular,” as applied to poetry, can be defined in different ways: according to authorship, subject matter, style, audience (real or implied), etc. Often the original social context is unknown. The section entitled “Carmina Popularia” by Page in his Poetae Melici Graeci (847–83) consists of a mixed bag of short pieces: ritual chants, proverbs, marching songs, game and work songs, and songs accompanying other activities. A heterogeneous assortment, brought together on the basis of brevity and anonymity. Poems may be both élite and popular at the same time, depending on what we are looking at. Athenian drama was aristocratic in terms of its principal characters and, in a different way, its authors, but directed to a very broad audience. In another (medieval) framework I have advocated avoiding the classification “popular” altogether (see Klinck, “The Oldest Folk Poetry?”). Here, I will use the word in an inclusive, rather than an exclusive, sense. Some classicists have postulated two levels of

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preliterate poetry: epic, which was aristocratic, and folksong, which was “popular.” The distinction, while probably containing an element of truth, is too simple. As Havelock stresses – a little inconsistently, since he rejects the parallel between Homer and the Yugoslavian analogues on the grounds that the former represents “the Homeric governing class” and the latter “the Balkan peasantry” – the Homeric poems were enjoyed by the whole population (Preface 93–4). Pace Havelock, the South Slavic heroic songs that continued to be performed until recently also represented the governing class, although their authors and their public did not. Thus, both the ancient Greek and the modern Yugoslavian epics are aristocratic in respect of their characters, but are not, or not exclusively, in their authors and publics. As for lyric, if it is derived from folksong, which in terms of its forms and functions seems likely (see Slings 28), aristocratic authors of lyric were composing in genres that had roots in and persisting affinities with anonymous and traditional songs that were “popular” in the sense of belonging to the whole social spectrum. All the identifiable poets in this book are members of the upper class, but they were familiar with and must to some extent have been influenced by these popular songs. Whereas the major authors of the classical and later periods are largely represented by works preserved more or less intact, the lyrics of the archaic age are a corpus of bits and pieces. When they were composed, those who sang them would have expected them to be preserved through repeated performance. Just at what stage they were written down we do not know, and opinions differ (cf. Currie, “Performance Scenarios”; Hubbard, “Epinician Lyric”). Some authors must have had sufficient prestige to circulate in writing early on, or even immediately. Certainly the corpus of archaic lyric was well known to the authors of later antiquity, who quoted it, and thus preserved fragments in their own works. It is in this form that much has come to us. Other, often more substantial, fragments have been discovered only in the last century and a half, usually on papyrus, and especially in the treasure trove found in the rubbish dump at Oxyrhynchus in the Egyptian desert from 1897 on. The papyrus fragments have added enormously to our knowledge. Unfortunately, the papyri are usually so damaged that

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their contents are patchy and in some places indecipherable. For the modern reader, this poetry is full of hints and suggestions and offers few certainties – which is what makes it so intriguing. One wonders too why so much archaic lyric was lost. Was it regarded as frivolous and hopelessly pagan? It seems to have survived until the tenth century or so, and then to have disappeared, either accidentally obliterated at a time when it was not regarded as important enough to be widely disseminated, or systematically destroyed, as legend has it that Sappho’s poetry was (see Mora 146–50; and, on the lack of evidence, Reynolds and Wilson 51).

“woman’s songs” Some of the genres of Greek lyric poetry were created specifically to be performed by women – or girls. They were “woman’s songs” in the sense of being in the female voice, and expressing, or claiming to express, the concerns of the women or girls who voiced them; actually, in the recorded period most of the people who composed them seem to have been male. It is quite possible, though, that at an earlier stage or in a purely oral context the authors too – who may have been hard to distinguish from the performers – were female. In the archaic age “woman’s songs” were indeed performed by women. They were genuinely gynaikeia melē. Somewhat later, in the drama, the performers were male; and the Hellenistic imitations were aimed at a literate public and probably not intended for a specific performance situation. As we shall see, the phrase gynaikeia melē suggests a parallel between a type of poem or song found in ancient Greece – in archaic Greece especially – and a type widespread in Europe from medieval to modern times. Since, as far as I know, the expression occurs only once, around 200 CE , in Athenaeus quoting a passage of poetry by Critias (the poet, politician, and friend of Socrates) about Anacreon, the precise meaning is debatable, and can usefully be explored further. Let me begin with the Athenaeus context. In Book 13 of his enormous collection of table talk, the Deipnosophistae (“Philosophers at the Banquet”), Athenaeus is speaking about love. Eros, he says, is the god Anacreon is always hymning.

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Woman’s Songs in Ancient Greece

Athenaeus goes on to quote a few hexameters by Critias about Anacreon “weaving the strains of woman’s songs” (gynaikeiōn meleōn plexanta pot’ ōidas) and declares his fame will never die as long as banquets flourish “and female choruses go about their holy night-time festivals” (pannychidas th’ hieras thēleis choroi amphiepōsin, Athenaeus 13.600d-e; in 500 PMG). What can be meant by “woman’s song” here? Two meanings are assigned by the Liddell-Scott-Jones Lexicon to the adjective gynaikeios: a neutral one, “belonging to women,” with examples relating to the body, clothing, or the character and occupations of women; and a derogatory one, “effeminate.” In practice, the two senses might overlap, as a glance at the occurrences of the word in context suggests. There is also overlap with thēlys, meaning “female” more broadly. Since Athenaeus has been talking about the power of Aphrodite and Eros, one might expect erotic songs about women uttered in the persona of Anacreon himself, as C.D. Yonge’s 1854 translation of The Deipnosophists and Gulick’s Loeb edition assume. But this is an unsupported use of gynaikeios. The passage is also included in editions of Anacreon and Critias. Edmonds’ 1922 edition of the Greek lyric poets for the Loeb series, Lyra Graeca, translates “weaver of womanish song,” which could be interpreted in various ways and might imply negative connotations (Lyr. Graec. 2.129). Freeman’s 1948 Ancilla to Diels’ Fragmente der Vorsorkratiker translates “he who once wove poems for women’s song,” making it clear that the songs are sung by not about women, while Campbell’s more recent Loeb edition of the lyric poets translates “songs for women’s melodies,” and adds a footnote indicating that they are partheneia (Gk. Lyric 2: 139). Another question raised by the term is whether gynaikeios in this context refers specifically to adult women or simply to females in general. When Critias uses the terms gynaikeios and then thēlys, with reference to the pannychis (night festival), is he thinking of women in the first usage and girls in the second, or has he the same thing in mind in both, as Campbell supposes? Immediately after quoting from Critias, Athenaeus turns to Alcman as a composer of erotic poetry (erōtikōn melōn) and naughty song (melos akolaston). Alcman is known mainly as the author of partheneia, but he composed in other genres too. In fact, both he and Anacreon composed a variety of songs, some of them doubtless

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rather risqué. The Critias quotation evokes the various contexts in which Anacreon’s songs, of different kinds, were still enjoyed, including public festivals and private symposia, and the way in which the transition is made to Alcman suggests a fairly broad interpretation of gynaikeia, as an adjective pertaining to songs for both women and girls. I would infer that the gynaikeia melē Critias and Athenaeus have especially in mind are choral songs performed on festal occasions. Like the choral lyrics that survive, whether partheneia or other genres, they would have typically referred to a myth, drawn a moral from it, and related it to the contemporary occasion. Further, since Athenaeus seems to have in his mind a connection between Anacreon and Alcman via gynaikeia melē and licentiousness, I suggest that these songs were often about the dangers of excess, especially sexual excess in the form of young women suffering pangs of love for unresponsive young men, a theme I will comment further on below. If this is what Critias is thinking of, a derogatory tinge to the word gynaikeios would be appropriate. Collectively, songs for girls and women were different from those for boys and men, a separation that would be a natural result of a society with sharply differentiated gender roles, as early Greece was. Especially characteristic were the singing and dancing of maiden choruses at public festivals, and the lamentation of mature women at funerals (see Lonsdale 233, 236–47). Woman’s-voice song represents an alternative tradition that would have sustained women poets (McClure 36–7 n.20, Goff 241, Dué 36). At the same time it is in some ways a subcategory of a body of lyric verse that, at least in terms of the written record, is male-dominated. In classical Athens – to take the best documented case – women’s part in public life was limited to participation in cult activities, and “respectable” upper-class women were largely confined to the home, though this seclusion need not mean that they were powerless and inconspicuous (see Humphreys, “Oikos and Polis”; Foxhall, “Pandora Unbound”; Blok, “Virtual Voices”). According to Thucydides, Pericles pronounced the best fame for women to be no mention at all (Thucydides 2.45.2). In Euripides’ Children of Heracles (476–7), the maiden Macaria recommends silence and chastity and staying quietly at home. Public performance of lament and cult song by women could be

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regarded by men as transgressive and threatening. Plutarch describes with approval how Solon imposed restrictions on women’s processions, mourning rites, and festivals, and thus disciplined their “irregular and licentious behaviour” (to atakton kai akolaston, Solon 21.4; Interestingly, being ataktos is one of the later criticisms applied to Sappho (see p. 62, below). Our evidence for women in cities other than Athens is scantier; Spartan girls and women seem to have had more freedom, and Athenians tended to be shocked at “the verbal license and domination associated with women in Sparta” (McClure 173; see also 166–7). Still, women’s social interactions would have been mainly with other women. Also, in a society where marriage was arranged and where teenage girls married mature men (Xenophon, Oeconomicus 7.5; Demosthenes 27.4, 29.43) females would have been likely to form their closest attachments with members of their own sex. Limitations on their participation in public life coupled with the public nature of many of the traditional subjects for poetry and song could lead to an “intricate relationship between ‘public’ and ‘private’ discourses ... in women’s poetry” (Greene, Women Poets xiii). Woman’s songs as found in ancient Greece represent a particular manifestation of a much more widespread phenomenon, which has not received much attention in classical scholarship but has long been an object of study among medievalists. However, recently and usefully, Casey Dué has approached the subject from the perspective of women’s oral traditions, and has related some of the traditional genres performed by women in early Greece to songs for women in oral cultures right down to the twentieth century. Critias’ mention of gynaikeia melē suggests that this phrase may have been an expression for a familiar concept. Gentili thought that the term implied the existence of a corpus of poetry of this kind, which he tentatively identified with partheneia (Anacreon xxv), a rather narrow definition. Athenaeus’ quotation from Critias certainly implies that Anacreon composed partheneia, but he may have composed gynaikeia melē of other kinds too. Elsewhere Athenaeus repeats Aristotle’s pupil Clearchus’ observation that the lovesongs called Locrian were no different from the songs of Sappho and Anacreon (14.638e), presumably in their sensuous eroticism. These

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songs may not always have been in the female voice, but the surviving specimen, which I have included here, is. Athenaeus quotes it, assigning it to a whole genre of bawdy and adulterous songs that people call Locrian (15.697bc; actually, the rudimentary example he quotes isn’t particularly bawdy – nor very poetic). Perhaps Locri (either in mainland Greece or its colony in southern Italy) had a reputation for sexual license. It was songs of this kind that Elvira Gangutia was especially thinking of when, rather speculatively, she traced a long line of development of woman’s songs from Middle Eastern origins in the second millenium bce through Greece into the western Mediterranean and Spain (see her article “Poesía griega ‘de amigo’ y poesía arabigo-española,” and subsequent book Cantos de Mujeres en Grecia). Gangutia was thinking of erotic poetry, but of course there are many kinds of woman’s songs, of which the erotic is only one, albeit an important one. In her account of the Greek gynaikeia melē Gangutia was influenced by the use of similar terms by medievalists to denote this sort of poetry. To modern Romance and Germanist scholars, chansons de femme (along with the Hispanic canciones de mujeres, of which cantigas de amigo are a subcategory) and Frauenlieder are familiar designations for types of poems. Different ethnic and linguistic groups have produced their own culture-specific varieties of woman’s song. For example, the chanson de femme, embracing a range of female-voice genres, mainly from Northern France but also from Occitania, has conventionally been considered a popular or anti-courtly mode; by contrast, the medieval German Frauenstrophe and Frauenlied are fully integrated into the world of courtly discourse (see Kasten’s introduction to her collection Frauenlieder des Mittelalters 21). Nevertheless, the French-Occitan and the German woman’s songs have much in common. The overwhelming majority of both are male-authored, or anonymous and widely assumed to be maleauthored, and the same goes for their Hispanic and Italian counterparts. We find here a constructed femininity: frank, outspoken, sometimes innocent and sometimes knowing, conveyed in language that is syntactically simple – which does not necessarily mean it is also simple conceptually. I would define woman’s song – not restricting it to erotic subjects – in the following way:

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Woman’s Songs in Ancient Greece

1 the femininity lies in voice or performance rather than authorship; 2 the utterance is perceived as in some way contrastive to male-voice song; 3 the language and style are simple, or affect simplicity; 4 the subject is the loves, loyalties, and longings of the speaker (see Klinck, “Lyric Voice and the Feminine” 14; I have added “or performance” to specification 1). These criteria will inevitably be problematic in particular cases, but I believe they provide a useful working definition and are helpful in bringing together a body of poetry that is by its nature rather loose and without clear boundaries. From a male point of view this poetry, with its focus on a female presence and a female sensibility, is decidedly “other.” It may well go back to popular songs actually composed by women, but as preserved most of it is aristocratic, and by men. However, as I have emphasized above, I believe that there is significant overlap between popular and élite poetry, and therefore good reason to make the connection between poetry by named aristocratic women – whether Sappho and Corinna in ancient Greece or the women trobadours in medieval Provence – and the conventions of woman’s song as an oral, performative tradition, as well as between these women-authored poems and the numerous examples of woman’s song authored by men. While acknowledging the affinities of this mode with popular tradition, we can thus accommodate compositions that may be aristocratic in origin, complex in intent, and authored by either men or women. In ancient Greece, as later in Europe, woman’s song expresses especially lament and love-longing, and the two subjects often merge (see the examples in Klinck, Anthology of Ancient and Medieval Woman’s Song; also Mitchell and Nagy’s Foreword to Vidan; and, on Greek epic and tragedy, Dué 80). The history of funeral lament in Greece has been traced down to modern times by Margaret Alexiou: women’s keening contrasts with male eulogy, the former representing the unrestrained expression of sorrow, the latter the dignified commemoration of the dead (Alexiou 105; cf. Dillon 292). Archilochus, urging a friend to bear up in the face of their loss of comrades drowned at sea, declares that mourning is gynaikeion – the word

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has its derogatory tinge here - and should be put aside by men (Fr. 13 West). Women’s lamentation ranged from inarticulate wailing to emotional but coherent utterance. In the myth of the transformation of the Gorgon’s mourning wail into the music of the flute, Charles Segal has seen a symbol for the socialization of the frightening sound of female lament (“Song, Ritual, and Commemoration” 349; “The Gorgon and the Nightingale” 31). Similarly, in the myth of Procne and her vengeance killing of her son Itys, “the mother’s mourning has been transformed into [the nightingale’s] melodious song” (Loraux 59). Traces of mourning song are found in Sappho: a couple of fragments of Adonis poems suggest that she composed ritual laments for choral performance (see Battezzato 37; and cf. Lardinois, “Keening Sappho” 86–7). It is in Sappho that the Adonis cult and its lamentations are first recorded in Greece. The responsibility of women for mourning is, indeed, very widespread. It may be that “women all over the world have been singers of lament since ancient times” (Dué 32). The other major strand of woman’s song, the love complaint, is equally widespread, and better documented in the written record. In fact, it was once regarded by writers and scholars of a Romantic persuasion as the source of modern European lyric. Goethe and Jakob Grimm, for example, looked to the early German and Balkan Frauenlieder, and later in the nineteenth century, Alfred Jeanroy to chansons de femme, which he defined as female-voice love poems, usually sad (see Klinck, “Lyric Voice and the Feminine” 13, and 28 nn.4, 5). Poems of this type are found too in Jewish and Arab society (see Garulo; Cohen; also the Arabic and Mozarabic examples in Klinck, Anthology, 57–62). Aida Vidan’s edition of Bosnian songs drawn from the Parry Collection documents the persistence into modern times of an oral song culture specific to girls and women, in this case a leisured class who gathered in their homes to embroider and sing (see Vidan 82, 83, 87). Although most of the surviving early Greek “woman’s songs” cannot be neatly classified as lament or love-complaint, reflections of these two major categories are constantly found. The genres must have been numerous. Most of the traditional oral poetry has disappeared, but occasionally a source from later antiquity offers a tantalizing glimpse. For instance, Athenaeus discusses various kinds of old songs, some of them

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Woman’s Songs in Ancient Greece

specific to women: the linos or ailinos (“alas for Linus!”) sung at the loom and related to Homer’s boy-soprano song mentioned above, the ioulos (spinning song), and the katabaukalēseis (lullabies) sung by nursing mothers (Athenaeus 14.618). The lullaby of folk tradition is obliquely reflected by Danaë’s touching words to the infant Perseus as they drift on the tossing sea, in Simonides’ poem. The genres mentioned by Athenaeus seem to be private songs, performed in women’s separate spaces, and sung alone or in very small groups. Other songs involve choral performance and more open settings, often associated with religious festivals. The fragmentary partheneia and epithalamia that survive because they were composed by aristocratic poets and written down must also have had popular oral counterparts, well known and remembered, and sung chorally, in unison, rather than improvised extempore (cf. Vidan 42 n.112). The performance-oriented woman’s songs of archaic Greece evoke the emotions and relationships of the persons within the female group to whom, or by whom, they are performed. This sense of solidarity is continued in the choral lyrics of the drama, though here directed to the agendas of particular plays. And echoes of this sentiment persist in Hellenistic imitations of earlier lyric, as well as in the women’s world evoked by a Hellenistic poet like Nossis. The ethos is similar to that in later European woman’s song, with its various kinds of Frauenlieder or chansons de femme. One thinks of the early French chansons de toile, said to have been sung by women at their embroidery, and featuring the amours of women who sing and sew in their castle rooms, a setting and a subject very like those reflected in the much later Bosnian ballads; the Galician-Portuguese cantigas de amigo, “songs about a lover,” composed by aristocratic male poets and featuring young girls confiding their feelings to mothers or girlfriends; and “the spinsters and the knitters in the sun” who sing love-songs that are “old and plain,” to quote the sentimental Orsino in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night (II.4.43–4). The chansons de toile, the Bosnian “woman’s songs,” the cantigas de amigo, and the songs of the “spinsters and the knitters in the sun” are about love. So are many of Sappho’s songs, in her case usually same-sex love. Interestingly, Alcman’s First and Third Partheneion also suggest homoerotic feelings between the members of the girls’ group; here, in

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the shape of passionate admiration for the beautiful chorus-leaders. The partheneia are not love-songs but songs performed as part of the cult of a deity. Still, the depiction of personal erotic feeling is striking, even if it is merely conventional. By contrast, Sappho’s surviving poems are not, with one or two exceptions, cult songs, but the worship of the gods is often part of the setting. In archaic Greek poetry, communal religious and personal feeling are not contrastive, separate, and perhaps mutually antagonistic, as we might expect them to be, but inextricably bound up with each other and mutually reinforcing. “The carnal and the spiritual were interdependent,” notes W.R. Johnson in his foreword to Diane Rayor’s translations (Sappho’s Lyre xiv); “religion was not the differentiated compartment of social life that it is, for the most part, in modern industrial societies,” comments John García (“Ritual Speech” 45). Thus myth, cult, and personal affection blend in Alcman 1, the “Louvre Partheneion.” Mario Puelma emphasizes its ritual function while acknowledging its light and erotic atmosphere (50–1). The poem combines a mythical and a contemporary section, in the latter of which the maiden chorus uses the language of erotic love. In Sappho, participation in cult is one of the activities that cement the bonds between Sappho and her friends. This intertwining of sacred and secular, communal and personal is one of the features that make early Greek woman’s song distinctive, and different from its analogues in later Europe. However, it is a plausible, if unprovable, hypothesis that lyric – ancient, medieval, and modern – is rooted in ritual performance. More tendentiously, it has been argued that woman’s song of a ritual kind constituted the very oldest lyric (see Paris 611). Without necessarily assuming the historical primacy of woman’s song – as accepted by Goethe, Grimm, Gaston Paris, and recently Dué (see Mölk 64–7; Dué 39; also Weinbaum 22, 28), we can still recognise its early connection with ritual, from which it was once perhaps inseparable. For example, the lover’s complaint has a precursor in laments for the Middle Eastern Tammuz, equivalent to the Greek Adonis, beloved of Aphrodite. Hundreds of years after Sappho, Bion’s elaborate “Epitaph for Adonis,” the beautiful youth who died young, makes this mourning both ritual and, in its evocation of the

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goddess’s emotions, highly personal and “human.” The combination of a ritual and a personal function is also to be found at the beginning of Greek literature, in women’s funeral laments as described by Homer. In the Iliad, “the women lamented aloud, Patroclus the cause, but each one of them also (lamented) her own cares” (19.301–2). A ritual background may be discernible too behind the legend of Sappho’s love for the beautiful youth Phaon, best known in the (Pseudo-) Ovidian version (Heroides 15, the Epistula Sapphus), but going back to the Greek comic dramatists. Sappho’s suicide by drowning exactly replicates the action of Aphrodite, who, in a late source, leaped from the Rock of Leucas to cure herself of love for Adonis (Ptolemaeus Chennus, as reported in Photius, Bibliotheca 190, 153a). The dramatic leap may also be linked with the plunge into the sea that climaxes the Adonia, if Theocritus’ account of the festival in Hellenistic Alexandria preserves a traditional element here: the casting of Adonis’ image into the sea by the women celebrants (Idyll 15.132–3). A major genre of woman’s song in early Greece focussed on tragic tales of women who killed themselves for love. As I explained above, I believe it is this genre that Critias, as quoted by Athenaeus, was particularly thinking of when he referred to woman’s songs. Probably these tales drew a moral, as the female chorus does from the story of male hubris told in Alcman 1. Actual examples of such songs are lacking, but there are quite a few references to them, and they must have influenced the apocryphal story about Sappho mentioned above. Euripides speaks of maidens singing about Phaedra’s suicide after Hippolytus scorned her (Hippolytus 1428–30), a song that may have conveyed a warning against the destructive consequences of adulterous passion (cf. McClure 135). Elsewhere a Euripidean maiden chorus complain of the popular practice of singing about women’s “unholy unions of lawless Aphrodite” (Ion 1090–3), and the “evil talk” that circulates about women (Medea 415–20). In his discussion of woman’s songs, Athenaeus quotes a comment by Aristoxenus, in the fourth century bce, about an old poem that was sung by women (though attributed to a man, the archaic poet Stesichorus), telling the story of Calyce, who killed herself for unrequited love by casting herself from the Leucadian Rock into the sea –

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evidently a favourite spot for this lover’s leap. Again, Aristoxenus speaks of a song-contest for maidens in honour of the legendary Harpalyce, who also suffered from unrequited love; Clearchus mentions a story about the lyric poetess Eriphanis, who was similarly afflicted (Athenaeus 14.619c-e). And Plutarch tells how the woman poet Myrtis composed the tale of Ochne, a Phaedra-like figure who, after contriving the death of her unresponsive beloved, hanged herself (Quaestiones Graecae 40 [Moralia 291d]). Tales like these suggest a horror at unbridled female sexuality and a sense of urgency about the need to control it, sentiments which, though voiced by women or girls, seems more likely to have originated with men.

partheneia and the girls’ chorus Some of the songs I have just mentioned about mythical women in love fall into the category of partheneia, a genre especially associated with cult, and perhaps with a specific set of cult activities (see Hamilton 470–1). Critias’ gynaikeia melē seem to include partheneia. Sometimes one is uncertain whether maidens or mature women – or both – are meant. Usually, roles for girls and women in cult were somewhat separate, and singing in choruses seems to have been especially the province of the former (see Stehle, Performance and Gender 104–11; Dillon 211). For instance, on the island of Delos maidens sing in honour of Apollo to a gathering of men, women, and children from all over Ionia (Hymn to Apollo 146–64). But it is the mature women whom the Lesbian poet Alcaeus says he has witnessed in a sacred precinct, taking part in a beauty contest and uttering a ritual cry (Alcaeus 130b.17–20). The question of age and sexual status is significant, because the Greeks regarded parthenoi, “maidens,” as especially qualified to honour the gods, and also because the Greek understanding of girlhood and adulthood was different from our own. As I noted above, in classical Athens girls married in their mid teens or even earlier, and married mature men; in Sparta at the same period they married “perhaps at eighteen to twenty” (Scanlon 191; see also Pomeroy, Spartan Women 56, with reference to Plutarch, Lycurgus 15.3 and Plato, Republic 5.452,

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5.460e). We can assume that parthenoi were very young, sometimes below the age of puberty. As Laura McClure shows, the utterances of maidens were felt to be unthreatening to the adult male public (Spoken like a Woman 25, 55; cf. also Stehle, Performance and Gender 93); being innocent, attractive, and modest, they were appropriate vehicles for acceptable praise to the gods and acceptable admonition to humanity – though I suspect most real girls wouldn’t have conformed to this approved model. The modest maidens of the partheneia charm, but they warn too (see McClure 135, 155–6). Their characterization, like that of the lovecrazed women who represent the other side of the coin, strikes one as a product of the orthodoxies of a male-dominated culture, and an outgrowth of the male imagination, its fears and wishes. The girl chorus has been the subject of a two-volume study by the French semiotist Claude Calame (the first volume translated into English), who focusses especially on the partheneia of Alcman, but also documents a multitude of female groups and their cult rites. Calame regards Sappho’s circle as essentially similar to the girl chorus, and sees both as performing an educative and initiatory function, in which an important element is the homoerotic relationship between a senior and junior partner, like the well-documented male-male relationship between an older erastēs, “lover,” and a younger erōmenos, “beloved” (see “Sappho’s Group,” based on Choruses 210–52; also, Choruses 257–8; Poetics of Eros 98–100). Following a model proposed by Arnold van Gennep a century ago, Calame assumes a rite of passage for the initiand group divided into three phases: separation from the community, transition, and incorporation. Van Gennep’s template has been widely accepted, though most scholars would not accept precisely the application of it that Calame proposes – and Calame himself has criticized the incautious use of the initiation paradigm (“Indigenous and Modern Perspectives on Tribal Initiation Rites” 294–5). Calame’s is an anthropological perspective. The Greeks themselves were less analytical about the purpose and function of woman’s song, and sought no hidden significance in the performance of partheneia. The type was defined by Hellenistic scholars. As Gentili observes, ancient genre theory was after the fact, “the bookish work of a literate age

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(Poetry and Its Public 37). Still, the definitions elaborated by the Alexandrians go back to concepts formulated in the classical period, and knowledge of the genre can be traced at least as far as Plato. According to a treatise associated with (Pseudo-) Plutarch, Plato “was not unaware that ... partheneia had been composed by Alcman, Pindar, Simonides, and Bacchylides” (De musica 1136f; the genre name probably post-dates Plato). Women poets produced partheneia too. Corinna speaks of her songs for the women/girls of Tanagra, which may have been in this genre. Only two tiny fragments of Sappho’s cult songs survive, but there are plenty of (very small) fragments of her epithalamia, which were also sung by a maiden chorus. In his fifth-century ce Chrestomathia, Proclus, quoted by the Byzantine encyclopedist Photius in the ninth century, tells us that partheneia are songs composed for a chorus of maidens and daphnephorica (“hymns for laurel-bearers”) are a subgenre (Bibliotheca 321a). These terms are not recorded in the archaic period itself, but it is clear that the archaic poets, including those whose partheneia are lost, were conscious of composing within a very specific convention.

lyric in the drama As the archaic period moves into the classical around the middle of the fifth century, lyric poetry becomes overshadowed by other genres, including a wide variety of literary prose. Records of songs actually performed by women are thin in the classical period, but women’s voices are plentiful in the drama. Greek plays were, of course, performed by men, and perhaps watched exclusively by men too; the evidence is hard to interpret (see McClure 17). In any case, we are no longer dealing with songs performed by or to women but with men wearing female costume and female masks, and acting in front of other men. Still, if we are looking for a continuation of archaic woman’s song, we will find it in the drama, and especially in the sung odes of the tragic chorus. Women more often use the higher emotional register of lyric (as opposed to metres that are spoken, not sung), and female choruses outnumber males in extant tragedy twenty-one to eleven, discounting Euripides’ satyr play (the Cyclops) and the possible secondary male chorus in his Hippolytus. Thus,

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tragedy can be seen as appropriating the female art of lamentation (see Foley, Female Acts 6, 15, 25; Holst-Warhaft 157; Hall 113 and n.85). As Calame notes, the Greeks themselves saw tragic representations as deriving from choral performances (“From Choral Poetry to Tragic Stasimon” 136). On the basis of a comparison between the Pindaric maiden-chorus in the “Daphnephoricon for Agasicles” (Fr. 94b) and the girl choruses in Aeschylus’ Seven Against Thebes and Euripides’ Phoenician Women, Calame shows how the function of the chorus evolves. However, while the choral role that was primarily ritual becomes narrative, descriptive, and explanatory (“Choral Poetry” 141–7), the odes of the drama maintain the spirit of their archaic predecessors. We find the same lyric intensity, the same moralizing function, and the same group dynamics that we found in the female chorus of earlier times. In the latter two respects, there may also be continuity between traditional oral epic and classical drama (see Havelock 94–5). Tragic choruses, male or female, represent both the fictive and the contemporary community, as distinct from the heroic plane represented by the protagonists (see Barlow, in Halleran 4; Kurke 7). Like the partheneia of Alcman and Pindar, the tragic chorus stirs the emotions of the audience and heightens the atmosphere that surrounds the principals in the action. Whether to delight or, as here, to appall, the innocent, unheroic chorus-members mediate between those larger-than-life figures and the watching public. Drama evolved from cult song in the second half of the sixth century, in the theatre of Dionysus. The transition may have taken place in a purely oral form. At any rate, no examples survive of Greek drama in its earliest phase. But the development was a natural one. Choral lyric had long been performed at religious festivals. And, as noted earlier, this lyric had a strong dramatic potential. The tragic poets probably inherited their role and title of “teacher” (didaskalos) from the choral lyricists as producers who trained their choruses (Herington, Poetry into Drama 39–40). According to Aristotle (Poetics 1449a), tragedy evolved from the dithyramb (the energetic song and dance in honour of Dionysus). The invention is attributed to Thespis. The word means “inspired,” and may be an assumed name (see Pickard-Cambridge

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Dithyramb, Tragedy and Comedy 72). We can infer from the ancient sources “that he introduced an actor, distinct from the chorus, to deliver a previously composed prologue and speeches” (Dithyramb 88). According to tradition, tragedy was born when Thespis stepped onto the stage as an actor addressing his chorus; subsequently a second actor was introduced by Aeschylus, and then a third by Sophocles (Poetics 1449a). If this nicely schematic account is not precisely true, it is at least probable that a first, second, and third actor were progressively introduced (see Cropp, “Lost Tragedies” 272). Thespis is a historical but shadowy figure. First, perhaps, in his hometown of Icaria, which possessed a cult and a theatre of Dionysus, and then in Athens, Thespis produced his proto-dramas. When tragic contests were introduced at the Great Dionysia in Athens by the tyrant Peisistratus around 534, Thespis won the first prize; his achievement is recorded on the Parian Marble, a stone monument of 264–3 bce inscribed with historical records (see Pickard-Cambridge, Dithyramb 69–72, 76–7). All of the three great Athenian tragic dramatists created compelling women characters: Aeschylus’ Clytemnestra and Cassandra, Sophocles’ Electra and Antigone, Euripides’ Phaedra and Medea are salient examples. In various ways – as transgressive women, as lamenting women – these figures draw out the threads of woman’s song, usually in spoken utterance. Desperate women characters from myth, as well as the female choruses who comment on the tragic action, develop the themes of archaic woman’s song with a new depth and resonance. The chorus, as it responds to the tragic events of the play, is especially close in spirit and form to archaic lyric. The odes of the chorus were danced as well as sung, with musical accompaniment, probably on the aulos, a kind of flute. The tragic chorus, male or female, was small, apparently numbering twelve in the plays of Aeschylus and fifteen in those of Sophocles and Euripides. It was thus closer to the size of the girls’ chorus in Alcman’s partheneion (ten or eleven; see Alcman 1.99) than to the twenty-four-person chorus of comedy and the fifty men or boys that formed the dithyrambic chorus (see Pickard-Cambridge, Dramatic Festivals 234 and 236; on gender and other categories defining choruses, see Foley, “Choral Identity”). Aristotle enumerates the formal divisions of

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a drama and their names (Poetics 1452b). The spoken action of Greek drama is divided into a series of episodes, punctuated by sung odes, the latter often containing mythic allusions and written in a stylized Greek marked by Doric forms. The tragic odes generalize the particular into the universal, ritualizing and sublimating the action at these moments. Most of the choral odes I have included here are stasima; that is, they are delivered from the chorus’ position in the orchestra (dancing space), as opposed to the parodos, “entry” (song) delivered as they march in. Although by and large there is a contrast between the spoken words of the principals in the drama and the songs of the chorus, occasionally one of the main characters sings.

echoes and imitations of woman’s song in hellenistic poetry The old sung lyric, essentially a group experience, must have continued, at least as a popular form, after the classical age, but as an art form practised by élite poets it waned. Hellenistic male poets, though no longer using the old lyric strophes, revive the modes of the earlier songs. Women writers, notably Nossis, whose poems I have included here, offer reminiscences of Sappho. Six women poets are recorded from the Hellenistic period: Erinna, Anyte, Nossis, Moero, Hedyla, and Melinno. Of the last three only a few short poems survive, all impersonal and self-consciously literary. Erinna, writing at the end of the fourth century, and Anyte, slightly later, have more to offer. Their poetry is not “segregated” (see Bowman 4), but it does convey a distinctively feminine ethos. Whether it reflects a specifically female ecphrastic tradition of poetry on works of art has been disputed (see Skinner’s “Ladies’ Day” pro, and Goldhill’s “What is Ekphrasis For?” contra). Erinna’s “Distaff,” a touching lament for the early death of her friend Baucis, is a poem of reminiscence about the childhood of the two girls. It is feminine in theme, and it may have been intended to be recited to a group of women, but it is not formally a lyric. The poem does, however, evoke a world of women’s poetry: like Sappho it calls up the memory of an absent companion – but without any sense of a female

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community (see Rayor, “Power of Memory” 65), and it transforms the woman’s oral lament into a literary form (see Manwell 76). Anyte wrote epigrams, that is, short poems originally designed for monumental inscription and composed in elegiac couplets. Her poems commemorate men and women – and pets – sometimes in heroic terms, but often, and more appealingly, in a gentler and more intimate mode. As Ellen Greene comments, Anyte’s poetry “creates a[n] ... interplay between established male literary culture and the domesticity typically associated with women” (“Playing with Tradition” 140), and specifically between female lament and male eulogy. Moero, probably a slightly older contemporary, also wrote epigrams – in the persona of a child; Marilyn Skinner has found hidden depths in their apparent artlessness (“Homer’s Mother” 98–106). Nossis sought, with some success, as we shall see, to “rekindle” Sappho’s “charm.” The effort to rekindle charm is more elaborate in the male poets. Hellenistic poets were not the first to showcase their learning and their intellectual acrobatics; Pindar especially, but also the tragedians, had done so before them. Yet, as Neil Hopkinson observes in the Introduction to his collection, there is a palpable difference between the “learned” details of earlier Greek poetry and the learned nature of many Hellenistic texts, a difference which lies in “the degree of selfconsciousness, cleverness, subtlety or ‘wit’” these poems display in their erudition (Hellenistic Anthology 8). This self-consciousness certainly strikes one in the early and later Hellenistic poets Theocritus and Bion; their poems selected here (one each) recreate in a very literary way the festal and cult songs of previous times. The product of an age of scholarship and consolidation of the literary heritage of the past, Hellenistic poetry was created in the literary circles that flourished in centres of learning, notably Alexandria, where Theocritus wrote, and where he set some of his poems. Female authors were doubtless members of literary circles too, but at least in the surviving poems we don’t see the conscious display of virtuosity that we find in their male counterparts. In a way that the poetry of the archaic period had not been, even when composed by aristocratic authors for noble patrons, this poetry is élitist, appealing to its exclusive

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public’s awareness of their own learning and sophistication – even if it was also heard and read by the less learned (as Hutchinson notes, Hellenistic Poetry 5–7). Nevertheless, when these (male) poets bring on female characters, they can present them with considerable sympathetic insight. An interest in female subjectivity, and especially the psychology of women in love, now becomes common (see Skinner, Sexuality 171– 91). We find it in Theocritus’ Simaetha in Idyll 2 (see p. 241, below), and in the Medea of Apollonius’ Argonautica. Theocritus’ Idyll 18, the “Epithalamion for Helen,” included here as a late representative of a traditional genre, does evoke a feminine atmosphere, but in a conventional and decorative way. Bion’s “Epitaph for Adonis” creates a vivid portrait of Aphrodite, but it might well be said of this poem that, as Hellenistic works often do, it puts learning, polish, and experimentation at the service of “sentimental or lurid subject matter” (Skinner, Sexuality 176).

male and female authors: an overview and some conclusions The gynaikeia melē of ancient Greece can be related to a much broader culture of woman’s songs, found in Europe and the Middle East in medieval times, and in traditional societies right down through the twentieth century. In the written record, gynaikeia melē are not particularly the work of female authors, although this mode of poetry purports to be a spontaneous expression of female concerns. In male authors the technique can be more than a little mechanical as we see in Pindar, and two centuries later in Theocritus. Alcman, the earliest of the authors in this book, though a man, is closest to the anonymous, communal tradition of choral woman’s song. In his partheneia fragments, the female persona is relatively unconstrained and finds voice in a poetry that, if not profound or psychologically complex, is hauntingly evocative. In Pindar’s older contemporary, Simonides, a woman’s speech combines soliloquy, lullaby, and prayer in a moving expression of a young mother’s fears for herself and love for her child. Simonides’ Danaë fragment looks forward to the tragic dramatists’ exploration of human emotions under stress.

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The kinds of femininity typically depicted in woman’s song – youthful, innocent womanhood on the one hand, on the other dangerous passion and rage – are those that would occur to a male sensibility, finding itself alternately attracted and threatened. The mode is thus, I would suggest, ultimately the product of a male-dominated culture, even when it flourishes in women’s circles. A favourite subject is female derangement caused by love, jealousy, grief, or delusion. The topic seems to have been a frequent theme in the choral odes, partheneia in particular. These depictions are now lost, but the very fragmentary Alcaeus 10 looks to me like a spoof of one. The theme is taken up in the drama, especially by Euripides: the chorus of Hippolytus react to Phaedra’s fatal passion; the Maenad chorus of the Bacchae both express and respond to the frenzy of their leader, Agave. Sophocles’ Electra isn’t exactly deranged, but her obsession with her grief and her brooding on vengeance are terrible. And in Bion’s Hellenistic imitation of cult song for Adonis, the bereaved Aphrodite is represented as unhinged by love and grief. All these songs by and about desperate women (or goddesses) are attributed to male authors. Of course, the volume of poetry by women authors is very small. Still, I believe it is significant that we do not find characters like this in their poems except in the lost story by Myrtis about Ochne, and of course, Plutarch’s account of it may be apocryphal. Sappho offers plenty of examples of attractive young femininity. At the same time, she shows how a gifted poet can deepen and problematize stereotypes. She has been contrasted with male authors as being more egalitarian than they are in her representations of sexuality, treating women as autonomous subjects rather than passive objects, and focussing on their activity instead of their appearance (see pp. 63, 66, 74 below). Her depictions are nuanced and complex. Love and attraction are not merely sexual, but may also be maternal, for her daughter Cleis, or protective, for an ungainly little girl. The relationships reflected in her poetry are not untroubled. Jealousy, exasperation, and anger emerge. But we never find those women who have completely “lost it,” so common in male-authored woman’s song. Corinna’s is a more minor talent, but she too has her own take on the conventions. Specifically, she shows us a

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mythical male figure who loses control – and smashes a boulder into a myriad pieces. Her poetry, which seems to have been presented as partheneia, gives the impression of ironizing its heroic subjects. In Sappho, erotic feelings are bound up with the disciplined contemplation of the beautiful as an ideal: a beauty that manifests itself in objects of nature and art as well as in the person of a young woman. And poetic art becomes an important way – perhaps the most important way – of controlling one’s world and one’s destiny. Sappho’s poems clearly distinguish themselves from male-voice lyric. This is immediately obvious if we compare her with her male contemporary and fellow Lesbian Alcaeus, whose surviving poetry is, with the exceptions I have mentioned, composed from a masculine point of view. That Sappho’s concerns were characteristically feminine, Alcaeus’s masculine, is a commonplace of criticism that needs to be qualified (see, for example, Parker, “Sappho’s Public World”) but remains broadly true. Politics and carousing fill Alcaeus’s poetry: the metaphorical ship of state (Frr. 73, 208, 249), conflict between the speaker and his political foes (75, 129), the poet in exile (129, 130b), abuse of the tyrant Pittacus (348, 429), a fine stock of war gear (140), the delights of wine and enjoying it together (346, 347, 352, 401a). Less obviously, Sappho’s poetry is also different from male-authored woman’s song. As far as we can see from the remaining fragments, she never describes the passion-crazed women that seem to have featured in a good many choral songs. At the other extreme, the singers of the partheneia are represented as disarmingly modest. Marilyn Skinner notes that Alcman’s girls are characterized by their “sweet naivety and emotional vulnerability”; they are the “unsuspecting objects of heterosexual desire” (“Woman and Language ” 133–4). This looks like a male view of desirable womanhood. In Sappho a superficially similar view turns out to be something rather different. The female figures in Sappho can also be sweet and vulnerable, but her evocation of femininity is far more multifaceted than Alcman’s. Woman’s songs as a live, communally enjoyed, experience are a phenomenon of the archaic age in Greece. After this, although they must have flourished still as an oral art, in the written record they are developing into other things. In the classical period, lyric is assimilated to the

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drama, mainly to the songs of the chorus. Here, it adds its distinctive contribution – emotionally intense and linguistically stylized – to the exposition in the spoken episodes. Lyric in the tragic drama becomes part of a far more complex and monumental representation of character and situation than anything in archaic song. But in the drama, lyric is directed towards the larger purposes of the plays. When stand-alone lyric poetry reappears in Hellenistic times it has a more literary character, and male-authored Hellenistic imitations of archaic woman’s song are highly self-conscious, far removed from real contemporary life. The atmosphere, if not the form, of the earlier songs is better preserved in the more modest, less ostentatious poems of a woman author like Nossis. Woman’s song is a category with no clear boundaries, its manifestations fluid and changing. Nevertheless, it fulfilled an important social role, at the core of which was a lived experience: the shared performance that brought together and helped to define the female community for whom it was created.

1 alcman

Earliest of the lyric authors I have included in this book is Alcman. Although he was a famous poet, almost nothing is known about his life; he can be approximately dated to the late seventh century. Alcman composed in Sparta, in a form of Doric, the dialect that later came to be conventional for choral lyric. Some say he came originally from Lydia (see Testimonia 1–9 Campbell). The story reported by Athenaeus that he was in love with a woman poet called Megalostrata is very possibly just an inference from his poetry (see Fr. 59b, below, and Athenaeus 600f–601), and the praise of Megalostrata, who displays the “gift of the sweet Muses,” may not be in Alcman’s own voice. He was well known as a creator of songs for choruses of maidens, and a handful of passages survive, of which Fr. 59b may be one. Two of his partheneia are represented by quite substantial fragments: Alcman 1 and 3 according to the usual numbering (Calame’s edition differs). The freshness and delicacy of these two fragmentary poems, their haunting beauty and glimpses of a world long vanished can only make us lament all those poems that have been lost. As found in Alcman 1 and 3, the partheneion constructs an innocent maiden persona who voices the chorus’s praise for their lovely and accomplished leader(s), Agido and Hagesichora in Alcman 1, Astymeloisa in Alcman 3. Both poems are designed for performance on a ritual occasion, but it is impossible to tell with certainty just what that occasion is and what events are taking place. Both fragments are at once puzzling and richly evocative. Let me first outline the action in both poems, as far as it can be ascertained, and then turn to the way in which femininity is constructed here.

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The first part of Alcman 1, the “Louvre Partheneion,” is badly damaged, and the opening lost, but the poem evidently consisted of a mythic narrative ending with a gnomic reflection, followed by praise and celebration for the contemporary occasion. The first section refers to the legendary history of Sparta, to the family of Tyndareus, putative father of Helen’s brothers Castor and Polydeuces or Pollux (all, along with Clytemnestra, actually the children of Zeus), and to the slaying of Hippocoon and his many sons by Heracles, who then gave the Spartan throne to Tyndareus. Names of some of these sons appear in lines 3–12. The Myth now shifts into the Gnome, the moral being that mere human beings should not aspire to rival the gods. This piece of advice applies to the sons of Hippocoon, who apparently vied as suitors with the semi-divine sons of Tyndareus. The second half of the poem is in much better condition. The present scene now unfolds before our eyes, and the speaker comes into view, characterized as a modest member of the maiden chorus. She contrasts herself and her immediate concerns with the myth and its moral that she has just related, and proceeds to point to herself and the other parthenoi (maidens): “As for me, I sing the radiance of Agido” (lines 39-40). From here on the poem is full of references to a religious ceremony that is taking place; the singing girls are a central part of this, but what else is happening, who is being worshipped, and how, remains mysterious. As we shall find, the occasion may be a festival dedicated to a goddess of the dawn. It has also been interpreted as a “morning after” epithalamion – for an “initiatory” marriage between females (Gentili, Poetry and Its Public 75), or a real wedding (Griffiths). The chorus praise Agido and another lovely girl, Hagesichora. Both are “leader” names, the former derived from the same root as the name of the ruling family in Sparta, the Agiades, the latter meaning “leader of the chorus.” The imagery includes stars, racing horses with tossing manes, and battle. Is this a festival that takes place at least partly at night? Does it involve a contest, or, specifically, races? Many answers have been proposed, the most thoroughgoing by Calame in his study of girls’ choruses and his edition of the Alcman fragments. It is Agido who is eulogized first. Her “light” is like the sun, which she summons to shine for us (40-3). Perhaps the sun is actually rising at

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this point. The next lines expand on a marvellously beautiful girl (Agido? Hagesichora?), as splendid among the other girls as a racehorse among cattle. A little later Hagesichora is named, with further imagery of swift-running horses: her “hair” or “mane” (chaita line 51) spreads out like pure gold. In lines 60-3 “the Pelēades, carrying a pharos (robe? plough?) are fighting with/for us as they rise like the star Sirius through the immortal night” (for recent arguments in favour of “robe,” see Priestley). This is happening orthriai (line 61), either “at dawn” or “for Orthria,” maybe a dawn goddess. The language of the description suggests the night sky, so perhaps the Pelēades are to be identified with the Pleiades constellation; the word also means “doves.” And are they fighting, that is competing, against “us,” as a rival chorus (so supposes Page, Alcman 55), or fighting on our behalf? Are they perhaps Agido and Hagesichora, who might be imagined as both doves and stars? Various girls are now named, whose beauty and finery are not enough to ward off (amunai, line 65) some unspecified defeat. There is no point in going to Aenesimbrota’s to ask for lovely girls to look in the speaker’s direction. The name may refer to a more mature woman who is in charge; or, in view of the erotic implications in the vocabulary, who is a purveyor of love-charms (see West, “Alcmanica” 200). But all the other desirable girls are inferior to Hagesichora; it is she who “afflicts me” with love (mē teirei, line 77). In the next passage (78-83), the two leaders are praying and making a dedication on behalf of the chorus. The speaker wishes to please Aotis, presumably a dawn goddess (87-8). The name seems to be derived from the Doric form of eōs, “dawn”; possibly this is the same person as Orthria. She is the healer of their ills, but it is through Hagesichora that the young girls have stepped upon the way of lovely peace (88-91). The final legible lines make a comparison with the voices of the Sirens, and mention a group of ten girls singing instead of eleven (if we accept Page’s expansion on the basis of a marginal comment, Alcman 99), a swan on the streams of Xanthus, and someone “with her beautiful yellow hair” (96-101). It is worth noting at this point that, whatever “ten instead of eleven” means, the chorus is evidently quite small – and quite similar in size to the choruses of tragedy, and to the twelve-girl chorus that

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Theocritus creates to voice his “Epithalamion for Helen” (see Theocritus 18.4, and, on numbers of chorus-members, Calame, Choruses 21–5). Poem 3 is the only other partheneion by Alcman of which a substantial portion survives. Unfortunately only lines 1–10 and 61–85 contain enough preserved text to make much sense. The poem opens with a reference to the Olympian Ones (fem.), probably the Muses, and to singing. Because only parts of lines 2–6 are present, it is impossible to tell exactly what is being said. Someone, or something, will scatter sweet (sleep?) from the eyelids; someone leads me to the meeting place (agōn here meaning something like “arena”); I will toss my yellow hair (lines 6–9). Because the poem later focusses upon Astymeloisa, whose name, “dear to the city” (literally, “being a concern to the city”), like her epithet “darling of the people,” seems to reflect a central role in the performance, very likely it is she who will lead the way to the meeting place, to dance (tossing the hair), early in the morning – implied by the scattering of sleep. Line 10 mentions “tender feet.” After a long missing section, which may have contained the Myth and concluding Gnome, the poem speaks of someone’s melting, limb-loosening gaze (61-2). At this point the beautiful Astymeloisa is mentioned by name (line 64), so she is probably the one whose gaze has such erotic power. She answers me nothing, but, holding a garland, like a shooting star or a golden sapling or a tender (feather?) she has gone by, lovely and swift (lines 65–70). Astymeloisa, named again at line 73, is the darling of the people (melēma damō, line 74, literally “a care to the people”), as she moves past the assembled company (kata straton, line 73), holding a garland (puleōn echoisa, line 65). Line 77 includes words suggestive of longing and value: “throw [or “would that”] ... for if only ... silver” (-enabal’ ai gar argyrin). The speaker now openly declares her love and admiration for Astymeloisa. If she’d come up to me and take my tender hand, immediately I’d become her suppliant (lines 79-80). But as it is (she loves?) a deep-counselled girl (lines 823). The legible section ends with the words “girl” or “child” (pais, line 84) and “grace” (charin, line 85). There is a strong dramatic element in the two poems. They are scripted for performance at a public festival – not necessarily the same one – in which choirs sing and the chorus leaders have special ritual

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duties. Calame and others have thought that the ceremony is an occasion for celebrating the coming-of-age of the chorus leaders: to put it in his terms, the incorporation or “exhibition” phase of an initiation process. Whether or not this is so, we should imagine a group of girls on their special day, in the limelight in front of their whole city, dancing and singing the choral ode Alcman has created for them, while he accompanies them on the lyre. The audience is large, but the choral group is small and intimate. The words evoke a richly alluring physical presence: long hair, embroidered headband, snake-shaped bracelet made of gold, abundance of purple, in Fragment 1; fragrant hair and soft skin, light and graceful movement, in Fragment 3. The original audience would have been looking at the real girls. We need to have their presence in mind as we read the first half of Alcman 1, with its narration of the myth, and its itemization of hubristic, sexually aggressive warriors, focussed on one after another, just as beautiful, modest maidens are mentioned one after another in the second half. The maidens’ words admonish, but their presence delights (cf. McClure 135, 155–6). Choruses tend to make gnomic pronouncements; the maiden chorus’s here are coloured by their lively but modest presence, their beauty, and their warm feelings. In fact, it is in evoking the feelings of the chorus towards their leader(s) that the two partheneia are particularly striking. Calame has stressed the homoerotic element in the girls’ group and its pedagogic function (see, for example, Choruses 1: 258), though some more recent scholars reject this paradigm (e.g. Stehle, Performance and Gender 93; Ingalls 10-11; Goff 86–9). Some support for Calame’s view may be found in Plutarch’s assertion that in early Sparta it was the custom for women of good family to take girls as lovers (Lycurgus 18). Whether the emotions expressed are “real” or merely a conventional tribute, a way of inspiring admiration for a beautiful, marriageable girl, as argued by Stehle, Ingalls, and others, these feelings define the atmosphere of the two poems. In both, the speaker combines wondering admiration for the leader(s) with self-deprecation. In Alcman 1, both leaders are described in equine imagery, suggesting swift feet and flying hair. “Mane” (chaita, line 52) conveniently applies to both humans and horses. Interestingly,

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another archaic poem, by Semonides, describes various kinds of mainly undesirable wives in terms of different animals, the vain one with the splendid hair being the horse-woman (Semonides 7.57–70). Here, the chorus leader (probably Hagesichora) is like a victorious horse with ringing hoofs, set among cattle, a creature “of winged dreams,” or possibly “dreams under a rock” (tōn hyperpetridiōn oneirōn, line 49). The image haunts, eludes analysis – like the beauty of Hagesichora. The speaker’s persona in Alcman 1 is characterized by her girlish beauty and ornaments (lines 65 ff.), and more subtly by a combination of intimacy and awe in the speaker’s relation to her lovely chorus-leaders. Hagesichora is both “my cousin” and a wondrous being whose hair spreads out like unmixed gold (52–4). The speaker protests her own inadequacy: “But I am only a maiden crying shrilly like an owl from the roof-beam in vain” (lines 85–7). In Alcman 3, Astymeloisa is, like Hagesichora and Agido, beautiful and swift. She moves quickly and lightly, like a falling star (astēr... diaipetēs, 66–7), and with pointed – literally “stretched” feet (tanaois posi, line 70), a phrase that suggests dancing or running. The chorus speak deferentially of the “deep-counselled girl” (line 82) who seems to enjoy Astymeloisa’s favour. The speaker longs to be noticed by her, but this honour is reserved for the cleverer girl. As in Alcman 1, girlish beauty and adornment are repeatedly suggested, and there is a similar blend of intimacy and awestruck distance. Astymeloisa is both tender and radiant: she has soft feet, is like a soft feather (lines 10, 68), but also like a star falling through the brilliant heaven (66-7). The two poems differ – judging by the remaining fragments – in their depiction of feelings and relationships. The speaker’s attraction to her leader is powerfully erotic in Alcman 3: “with limb-loosening desire, more meltingly than sleep and death she looks at [me]” (61–2); “not in vain is she sweet” (line 63). In Alcman 1 admiration is everpresent, but erotic love is less conspicuous, emerging clearly only when the speaker says Hagesichora “afflicts” me – i.e., with love (77). Again, in Alcman 1 there are two leading girls. Calame has seen a specifically sexual relationship between Hagesichora, the leader, and Agido, Hagesichora’s favourite and the new initiate (Choeurs 2: 140). However, in

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Alcman 3 there is only one principal girl. Astymeloisa as hauntingly beautiful chorus-leader resembles Hagesichora, but in the text as we have it there is no counterpart for Agido. The “deep-counselled girl” favoured by Astymeloisa seems to be decidedly her junior in status and possibly age (like the choral speaker this other girl is referred to as pais, “child”), rather than a partner. There are no horses, no battle metaphors, and therefore less evidence for a contest or a race. So the two poems, though similar, are not cast in exactly the same mould Fragments 1 and 3 of Alcman are the most substantial surviving representatives of his partheneia. He did write others. In fact, Alcman had a particular reputation as a composer in this genre; the rhetorician Aelius Aristides in the second century ce calls him “the praiser and counsellor of the girls” (Orationes 45.32; Alcman 107 [152 Calame]). It is as a composer of wedding songs that he is commemorated by the epigrammatist Leonidas of Tarentum in the third century bce (T3 Campbell). Though none of his remaining fragments clearly belong to that genre, the argument has been made for some of them (see Contiades-Tsitsoni 46–63). Little is left of his other partheneia. One fragment of a different kind, Alcman 26, is particularly worthy of mention, and I include it here because of its peculiar poignancy and its address to a maiden chorus, although it is not in a maiden’s voice. The passage, only four lines long, is in the persona of the aged poet, and captures his longing to escape from the prison of old age. No longer can he dance, for his limbs are weak. He wishes the sweet-tongued and lovely-voiced girls could carry him as they dance, just as the aged halcyons are carried with untroubled heart over the waves by the young birds. Some fragments indicate by a mere feminine inflection that they are in the female voice and may belong to the partheneion genre: “and I will sing, beginning (archomena, fem.) with Zeus” (Fr. 29); “sweetly singing” (melisdomenai, fem. pl., Fr. 35); “as many of us (hossai, fem.) children as are here, (all) praise the lyre-player” (Fr. 38). The word parthenoi sometimes appears: “maidens (parsen-) ... of winged words ... and the childish concerns of maidens (-rsenō-) chiefly sing together” (Fr. 11); “Muse, come, clear-voiced Muse, immortal singer of many tunes, begin a new song for the maidens (parsenois) to sing” (Fr. 14); “blessed among maidens” (makaira parsenōn, Fr. 59b). These scraps are all that we

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41

have of the poems to which they once belonged. Fragment 4(a)1 of Alcman is in a female voice but can’t be a partheneion. It may be uttered by mature women, as opposed to young girls, performing a rooftop rite. Someone is “leaping” (skairoisa) and there is a “ringing cry from the top of houses.” This sounds like the rooftop Adonis celebrations mentioned by Aristophanes (Lysistrata 387-9), though a dancer at a wedding and the loud wedding song are also possibilities (see Contiades-Tsitsoni 49). All of these tiny pieces, the flotsam which chance has preserved for us, might need to be reinterpreted if we only knew more about them.

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1 (3)

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¼Pwludeuvkh~: oujk ejgw;]n Luvkaison ejn kamou`sin ajlevgw jEna]rsfovron te kai; Sevbron podwvkh ¼n te to;n biatavn ¼ ^ te to;n korustavn Eujteivc]h te úavnaktav t’ jArhvion ¼a t’ e[xocon hJmisivwn. ¼n to;n ajgrevtan ¼mevgan Eu[rutovn te ¼pwvrw klovnon ¼ ^ te tw;~ ajrivstw~ ¼parhvsome~ ¼ ^r Ai\sa pantw`n ¼geraitavtoi ajp¼evdilo~ ajlkav ajnq¼rwvpwn ej~ wjrano;n pothvsqw ph¼rhvtw gamh`n ta;n ÆAfrodivtan ¼ a[n»a¼ssan h[ tin’ ¼h paivda Povrkw Cav¼rite~ de; Dio;~ d»ov¼mon ¼sin ejroglefavroi. ¼tavtoi ¼ta daivmwn ¼i fivloi~ ¼wke dw`ra ¼ ^garevon ¼wvles’ h{ba ¼ ^onon ¼ ^taia~ ¼evba: tw`n d’ a[llo~ ijw/` ¼marmavrw/ mulavkrw/ ¼ ^en jAi>vda~

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1 (3) ... Polydeuces. Lycaithos and Enarsphoros and Thebros swift of foot; not with these among the dead is my concern, and violent ... and armed ... and Euteiches and lord Areios and ... outstanding among the god-born heroes. and the hunter ... mighty ... and Eurytos ... and those who excel in the tumult [of blind war] we shall pass over. But Lot [and Opportunity] are the most venerable deities of all. With unfettered boldness ... let no mortal fly up to the heavens ... [nor] try to wed Lady Aphrodite or some ... or a daughter of Porcos. The Graces whose eyes dart love [frequent] the house of Zeus ... ... a god ... dear ones ... gave gifts ... ... bloom destroyed ... ... went in vain. Another of them with an arrow, with a mighty stone of marble rock. ... Hades there within

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¼autoi ¼pon:. a[lasta dev üevrga pavson kaka; mhsamevnoi. e[sti ti~ siw`n tivsi~: oJ d’ o[lbio~, o{sti~ eu[frwn ajmevran »d¼iaplevkei a[klauto~: ejgw;n d’ajeivdw ÆAgid»w`¼~ to; fw`~: oJrw`sÆ w{t’ a[lion, o{nper a|min ÆAgidw; martuvretai faivnhn: ejme; d’ ou[t’ ejpainh`n ou[te »m¼wmhvsqai nin aJ klenna; coragov~ oujd’ aJmw`~ ejh`/: dokei` ga;r h[men au[ta ejkpreph;~ tw;~ w{per ai[ ti~ ejn botoi`~ stavseien i{ppon pago;n ajeqlofovron kanacavpoda tw`n uJpopetridivwn ojneivrwn. h\ oujc oJrh`/~; oJ me;n kevlh~ jEnhtikov~: aJ de; caivta ta`~ ejma`~ ajneyia`~ JAghsicovra~ ejpanqei` cruso;~ »w{¼t’ ajkhvrato~: tov t’ ajrguvrion provswpon, diafavdan tiv toi levgw; JAghsicovra me;n au{ta: aJ de; deutevra ped’ ÆAgidw; to; üei`do~ i{ppo~ ÆIbhnw`/ Kolaxai`o~ dramhvtai: tai; Pelhavde~ ga;r a|min ojrqrivai fa`ro~ feroivsai~ nuvkta di’ ajmbrosivan a{te Shvrion a[stron ajühromevnai mavcontai. ou[te gavr ti porfuvra~ tovsso~ kovro~ w{st’ ajmuvnai,

ALCMAN

they ... They suffered unforgettably for plotting evil works. A vengeance is established by the gods. Blessed is he who with kindly mind weaves out his day unweeping. As for me, I sing the radiance of Agido. I see her like the sun which Agido calls to witness to shine for us. The glorious chorus-leader lets me neither praise nor blame her in any way. For she herself seems to be a thing apart, just as if someone set among the cattle a horse, strong, victorious, with ringing hoofs, one of those creatures of winged dreams. Or don’t you see? This one’s a Venetic courser. But the mane of my cousin Hagesichora flares out like unmixed gold. And her face is like silver. Why need I tell you plainly? For here is Hagesichora herself. The second girl after Agido in form will run as a Colaxian horse against an Ibenian. For the Peleades strive for us at dawn, as we carry a pharos. Rising like the star Sirius through the immortal night they engage in contest for us. No such abundance have we of purple, to ward off [defeat],

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ou[te poikivlo~ dravkwn pagcruvsio~, oujde; mivtra Ludiva, neanivdwn ijanog»l¼efavrwn a[galma, oujde; tai; Nannw`~ kovmai, ajll’ ouj»d’¼ ÆArevta sieidhv~, oujde; Suvlakiv~ te kai; Klehsishvra, oujde; ej~ Aijnhsimbr»ov¼ta~ ejnqoi`sa fasei`~: jAstafiv~ »t¼ev moi gevnoito kai; potiglevpoi Fivlulla Damarevta t’ ejratav »t¼e üianqemiv~: ajll’ ïAghsicovra me teivrei. ouj ga;r aJ k»a¼llivsfuro~ JAghsic»ovr¼a pavr’ aujtei`, jAgidoi` ^ e ^ ^armevnei, swsthvr»iav t’¼ a{m’ ejpainei`. ajlla; ta`n eujcav~, sioi;, devxasqe: siw`n ga;r a[na kai; tevlo~: »co¼rostavti~, ei[poimiv k’, »ej¼gw;n me;n aujta; parsevno~ mavtan ajpo; qravnw levlaka glauvx: ejgw;»n¼ de; ta`i me;n jAwvti mavlista üandavnhn ejrw`: povnwn ga;r a|min ijavtwr »e[ge¼nto: ejx JAghsicovr»a~¼ de; neavnide~ ijr¼hvna~ ejrata`~ ejpevban. tw`¼/ te ga;r shraf»ov¼rw/ au[¼tw`~ ed ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ t»w;¼~ kubernav»t¼a/ de; crhv khjn na`i> mav»l¼ist’ »aj¼kouvhn: aJ de; ta`n Shrhn»ivd¼wn ajoidotevra m ^ ^ ^»

ALCMAN

nor have we a fine-wrought snake all made of gold, nor a headband from Lydia, the adornment of young maidens with their violet eyes, nor Nanno’s hair, nor Areta like a goddess, nor Sylacis, nor Clëesisera, nor will you go to Ainesimbrota’s and say, “Let Astaphis come to me and let Philylla look this way, and Damareta, and lovely Vianthemis.” It’s Hagesichora who afflicts my heart. Yet graceful-footed Hagesichora stays not here. She remains beside Agido and commends our sacrificial feasts. Receive their prayers, gods. For with the gods is beginning and end. Oh, chorus-leader for I would speak, but I am only a maiden crying shrilly like an owl from the roof-beam, in vain. I desire most of all to please Aotis. For she has been the healer of our pains. But through Hagesichora the young maidens have entered upon lovely peace. Like the trace-horse ... and on board ship it’s most needful to listen to the helmsman. But she is [not] more tuneful than the Sirens,

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100

siai; gavr, ajnt»i; dÆ e{ndeka paivdwn dek»a;~ a{dÆ ajeivd¼ei: fqevggetai d» ^ ^ ^¼ ^» ^ ^¼ ^» ^¼ Xavnqw rJoai`si kuvkno~: aJ d’ ejpimevrw/ xanqa/` komivska/.

3 (26)

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jOl¼umpiavde~ periv me frevna~ ¼~ ajoida~ ¼wd’ ajkouvsai ¼a~ ojpov~ ¼ ^ ^ra kalo;n uJmnioisa`n mevlo~ ¼ ^oi u{pnon aj]po; glefavrwn sked»a¼sei` glukuvn ¼~ dev m’ a[gei ped’ ajgw`n’ i[men mav¼lista kovm[an x]anqa;n tinavxw: ¼ ^sc» aJp¼aloi; povde~ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . lusimelei` te povsw/, takerwvtera d’ u{pnw kai; sanavtw potidevrketai: oujdev ti mayidivw~ gluk»h`a k¼hvna: jA»s¼tumevloisa dev m’ oujden ajmeivbetai to;¼n pulew`n’ e[coisa » ¼ »w{¼ ti~ aijglav»e¼nto~ ajsthvr » ¼ wjranw` diaipethv~ h] cruvsion e[rno~ h] aJpalo;»n yivl¼on ^ ^¼n ¼ ^ dievba tanaoi`~ po»siv:¼ -k¼omo~ notiva Kinuvra c»avr¼i~ ejpi; p¼arsenika`~ caivtaisin i{sdei: jA¼stumevloisa kata; stratovn

ALCMAN

for they are goddesses, and instead of eleven this ten-girl choir sings. It gives voice like a swan on the streams of Xanthos. And she with her beautiful yellow hair

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[four lines are missing from the end of the poem]

3 (26) Around me the Olympian Muses [inspire] my heart ... songs ... to listen to ... voice ... singing the lovely melody ... [She] will scatter sweet sleep from my eyelids, and leads me to go to the contest-place where eagerly I’ll toss my yellow hair. ... tender feet [lines 11–60 badly damaged or missing] with limb-loosening desire, more meltingly than sleep and death she looks at [me]. Not in vain is she sweet. Yet Astymeloisa answers me nothing, but holding the garland like some falling star that darts through the radiant heaven, or like a golden sapling, or a soft feather, ... she has passed along, with light, pointed feet. The scent of Cyprian perfume lies moist on the maiden’s flowing hair. All along the host, Astymeloisa,

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¼ mevlhma davmw/ ¼man eJloi`sa ¼levgw: ¼enabal’ a»i]¼ ga;r a[rgurin ¼ ^» ^¼iva ¼a üivdoim’ ai[ pw~ me ^ ^o ^ fivloi a\s]son ij»o¼i`s’ aJpala`~ chro;~ lavboi, ai\yav k’ »ejgw;n iJ¼kevti~ khvna~ genoivman. nu`n d’» paidi ^» ¼ ^e»

85

¼da paivda ba»s¼uvfrona ¼m’ e[coisan ¼ ^n aJ paiv~ ¼cavrin: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

4a fr. 1 PMGF (13) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^ ^ ^¼ma» ¼ » ¼ klevo~ fer» ¼ skaivroisa t» ¼ ^ ^ ^» ^ ^ ^¼er» ¼ oJ dÆ eujqu;~ ^» ^¼ ^ ^ ^ ^» ¼ ajcw; dÆ ajfÆ uJyhlw`» ¼ dovmwn ajpÆ a[krw` »

11 fr. 35 col. i (24) a

¼ ^ parsen» ¼w/daid» ¼ ~^ eijs»h`¼ktai ejn Pitavnh/ ¼ ^ »^ n^ ¼u`n ga;r ejpi ¼ fhsi; de; Dumain¼ ^ n^ tan ¼ ~^ de; ta;~ Mouvsa~ ¼ e^ nth~ kai; ¼ta;~ parqevnou~ ¼ogou» . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . pol¼lavki~ de; D¼umain»- ajfiv¼konto e»ij~¼ th;n

ALCMAN

the darling of the people, ... taking ... for if ... throw silver. ... I would see if somehow she might love me, if coming close to me she’d take my tender hand; I’d be her suppliant straightaway. But as it is [she loves] a deep-counselled girl, having ... compared to a girl like me. ... This girl ... grace [remaining lines missing or badly damaged; at least another four strophes followed]

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4a fr. 1 PMGF (13) .................... ... ... ... bring fame ... leaping ... ... and he immediately ... ... a cry from high up ... from the rooftops

11 fr. 35 col. i (24) Fragments from a hypomnpma (summary) containing words of a poem a

... maidens ... has come to Pitane ... for now upon ... and says the girls of Dyme ... and the Muses ... maidens ... ....................

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b c

Pitav»n¼hn su ^» t¼ai`~ Pitanavtisi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ejpevwn p»teroevntw¼n: wJ~ {Omhro~, e[pea pterov»enta ka[ma pa»ivgnia pa¼rsevnw»n¼ mavli»s¼t’ ajeivsat»e¼ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

14a (4) Mw`s’ a[ge Mw`sa livgha polummelev~ aijenavoide; mevlo~, neocmo;n a[rce parsevnoi~ ajeivdhn.

26 (90) ou[ m’ e[ti, parsenikai; meligavrue~ iJarovfwnoi, gui`a fevrhn duvnatai: bavle dh; bavle khruvlo~ ei[hn, o{~ t’ ejpi; kuvmato~ a[nqo~ a{m’ ajlkuovnessi pothvtai nhlee;~ h\tor e[cwn, aJlipovrfuro~ iJaro;~ o[rni~.

27 (84) Mw`s’ a[ge Kalliovpa, suvgater Dio;~, a[rc’ ejratw`n ejpevwn, ejpi; d’ i{meron u{mnw/ kai; cariventa tivsei corovn.

29 (89) ejgw;n dÆ ajeivsomai ejk Dio;~ ajrcomevna

35 (141) kavlla melisdomevnai

37b (138) aJmi;n d’ uJpaulhsei` mevlo~

ALCMAN

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... and often [the girls of Dyme] came to Pitane ... to the girls of Pitane ... .................... of winged words like Homer’s “winged words” and the girlish concerns of maidens chiefly sing together ... .................... .................... [remaining fragments left untranslated]

14a (4) Muse, come clear-voiced Muse, immortal singer of many songs. Begin a new melody for the maidens to sing.

26 (90) No longer, sweet-singing, holy-voiced maidens, can my limbs carry me. Would, oh would that I were a halcyon who flies with the kingfishers on the foam of the wave, with untroubled heart, a sacred sea-blue bird.

27 (84) Muse, come, Calliope, daughter of Zeus. Begin your winsome words. Set loveliness upon our song and make the chorus pleasing.

29 (89) and I will sing, beginning with Zeus

35 (141) sweetly singing

37b (138) will play a melody to accompany us on the flute

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38 (137) o{ssai de; paivde~ aJmevwn ejntiv, to;n kisaristavn aijnevonti

59b (149) tou`to üadha`n e[deixe Mwsa`n dw`ron mavkaira parsevnwn aJ xanqa; Megalostravta.

81 (150) Zeu` pavter, ai[ ga;r ejmo;~ povsi~ ei[h

162 fr. 2 (240) a and c . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ¼ ^ ^» ¼ foinivkea » ¼ai ta; kovm»a~ aj¼nadhvmata » ¼a~ te kal» ¼ ^ eia~ muvrw ¼a pa;r puk»ina;¼~ qevsan ijteva»~ ejle¼fantin ^» ¼ ^ » ajq¼uvrmata k» ¼nwn » par¼senivsk»ai ¼a ^ » ¼povda~ » ¼ kavtw kef»al¼e~ u{dwr » ta¼nusiptevr»o. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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38 (137) As many of us girls as are here, all praise the lyre-player.

59b (149) This gift of the sweet Muses, the girl blessed among maidens has shown forth, fair-haired Megalostrata.

81 (150) I wish, Father Zeus, that he were my husband.

162 fr. 2 (240) .................... ... crimson ... ... hair bound up ... ... lovely ... perfume ... placed close-woven willow beside ... ivory ... ... trinkets ... ... ... maidens ... ... feet ... ... from the head ... water ... ... long-winged ....................

notes The Doric forms in Alcman’s poetry include preservation of (long) a (a) instead of Attic h (ē); h for ei (ei); oi (oi) or w (ō) for ou (ou); enti (enti) and onti (onti) for eisi (eisi) and ousi (ousi); s (s) for q (th). Alcman preserves the digamma (w, written ü), lost in Ionic and Attic Greek.

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1 (3) The papyrus on which this fragment is preserved was discovered in Egypt in 1855. Quotations from it in later authors indicate that the author is Alcman. Metrically, the text is in 14-line stanzas; the beginning and end of the poem are missing. The complete poem probably would have consisted of ten stanzas (Page, Alcman 1). As it stands the poem, composed for a Spartan audience, begins with the legendary ruling family of Sparta. The damaged opening (perhaps 35 lines are lost at the beginning) refers to the slaying of Hippocoon and his sons. See Campbell, Gk. Lyric 2: 361; Page, Alcman 30 n.1, 32. 1: Polydeuces (Pollux) appears at the beginning of the extant text. 2: Editors supply ouk to negate alegō. The speaker does not have a care for the slain warriors she proceeds to enumerate. 2-12: These lines list the Hippocoontids, who might be ten or eleven in number; either figure could parallel the number of the maiden chorus in lines 98-9. 10: Campbell and some other editors supply Areos an before pōrō, “blind,” “insensate”; he translates the line “in the hurly-burly (of blind Ares?).” 12: Page supposes a negative: “we shall [not] pass over” (Alcman 21). 13–14: Kai Poros, “and Opportunity,” is supplied by Campbell on the basis of a fragmentary papyrus commentary (Alcman 5.2 col. iii PMGF, Campbell). See also Calame’s note, Alcman 318. Aisa (“Lot”) and Poros, as personifications of the limited possibilities available to human beings, would be an Alcmanic equivalent of Moira, Fate. 15–16: “Unfounded,” “unfettered,” and “unshod” are all possible translations of apedilos. The general sense of these lines seems to be that there is no use in striving to surmount with “unfooted boldness” (apedilos alka) the limits imposed on human aspiration. This idea is developed in the following lines with reference to trying to marry goddesses, which is very likely what the Hippocoontids wanted to do. 19: I supplement –kō to Porkō, following Page, PMG. A “daughter of Porcos” (paida Porkō) is probably a Nereid, i.e., a sea-nymph. The fifth-century lexicographer Hesychius explains Nereus as a sea-god whom Alcman called Porcos. 22–35: Not much can be made of lines 22-9, but the passage that follows must describe hubristic behaviour leading to punishment – perhaps referring to the Hippocoontids, perhaps to the Giants or the Titans. The hurling of a marble millstone (line 31) would be appropriate to their battle with the gods. 36–9: These lines contain the Gnome drawn from the Myth.

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39ff: There is an abrupt transition in the middle of line 39 as the poem turns to the present occasion, and specifically to the chorus and their two leaders. It is hard to tell which of the two, Agido and Hagesichora, takes precedence, and scholarly interpretations vary widely; possibly the two girls are equal, or play different roles. 40: Agido’s “light” is usually understood as her radiant beauty. Puelma (14-15) takes it as a leading or saving light; Clay (57) as a torch. 42–3: Because Agido summons the sun to shine, the ceremony taking place is usually regarded as beginning before sunrise, though some readers understand the setting as a festival taking place at night – or even in full daylight. 52: Hagesichora is described as “my cousin” (tas emas anepsias), which may mean either an actual blood relationship or no more than membership in the same group. 58–9: These lines suggest two girls running a race, but the image is probably metaphorical. The chorus – and presumably their leaders – are dressed in all their finery, not in athletic costume, or naked, as in other contexts Spartan girls were when they exercised. See note on Theocritus 18.22-4. Those who see a singing contest taking place regard the running and the horse imagery as a metaphor for that (e.g. Giangrande 162-3). 60–1: The pharos which “we (girls) carry” (hamin ... pheroisais) could be a robe, its usual meaning, or a (small) plough, as the marginal commentary says it was taken to be by Sosiphanes (a Hellenistic tragedian). Either is entirely possible as a ritual offering. Priestley emphasizes that the meaning “plough” is unsupported, even though plough-related words in phar- are attested (“The faro~ of Alcman’s Partheneion 1” 178-9). Pavese understands it as a sacred cake (Il grande Partenio 77). The Pelēades (Pleiades) may be Agido and Hagesichora imagined as both stars and doves; the marginal note supports the latter comparison. See Scholia A, Campbell 372. Orthriai, related to orthros, “dawn,” could be either nom. pl. fem., referring to the Pelēades, “at dawn,” or dat. sg. fem., “for the dawn goddess.” The word is sometimes emended to Orthia, for Ortheia, a goddess worshipped in Sparta, and in the Roman period identified with Artemis, but the emended form would be unmetrical (see Calame, Alcman 333). 63–5: Machontai, literally “fight,” and amunai, “ to ward off,” belong to the vocabulary of battle, which has prompted the inference that a competition is

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taking place. It is quite possible, however, that the girls are striving against an ideal of excellence rather than against a rival choir. Patterson sees the two leaders as competing against their own chorus, and contrasted with them in the same way as Castor and Polydeuces are contrasted with the sons of Hippocoon in the myth section (“Alcman’s Partheneion 122). For the parallel between the two pairs – Agido-Hagesichora and Castor-Polydeuces – coupled with a contrast between the hubristic Hippocoontids and the modest maiden chorus see also Robbins (“Alcman’s Partheneion” 14) and Too (19, 23–4). 64–77: In these lines, girls and their finery are itemized. Going to “Ainesimbrota’s” (line 73), i.e., to her house, implies that this person is a mature woman who is not present, rather than one of the girls in the chorus. 77: Teirei, “oppresses,” “distresses,” a word used about pain, has an established association with the power of love. Calame provides a long list of examples (Choeurs 2: 89 n.2; see also his Alcman 339–40, and Page, Alcman 91). However some editors, including Campbell, print tērei: “takes care of” or “preserves.” 78ff.: These lines suggest that the two leading girls are performing an act of worship apart from the chorus. Cf. Calame, Alcman, 313, 341. In 78–9 we are told explicitly that Hagesichora is not present (para for paresti, “is here”) – though Page understands this as a rhetorical question: “is not Hagesichora ... here?” (Alcman 22). 80: My translation assumes that armenei is to be supplemented to parmenei, “stays beside.” 81: Sōstēria is Doric for thōstēria, glossed by the marginal commentary as heortē, “feast” (Scholia A, Campbell 372). It may involve ritual offerings (Puelma 19–23). 82: Supplementing tan ... ioi as in Calame’s note (Alcman 341), though not in his text. 87: Aotis, from Doric aōs, “dawn,” has been variously identified with Orthria, Ortheia, and Helen, venerated in Sparta. Page equates Orthria-Aotis with Artemis (Alcman 71–5), Gentili with Aphrodite (“Il Partenio” 64–5). 92–5: Presumably these lines refer to Hagesichora directing the chorus as its leader. 97: In view of the following siai gar, “for they are goddesses,” a negative must be assumed in the missing words. The chorus leader is not more tuneful than the Sirens. Pindar’s maiden chorus is also compared to the Sirens; see Pindar 94b.13–16, and note.

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98–9: Supplemented as in Page, PMG. See Scholia A, Campbell 372–3. 100–1: Probably the golden-haired girl is Hagesichora. 101ff: A coronis, marking the poem’s end, is preserved, indicating that only the last four lines (after line 101) are missing. 3 (26) This papyrus fragment is attributed to Alcman on the basis of dialect, metre, and content. Composed in 9-line stanzas, the poem must originally have had at least 126 lines. The beginning is preserved, in a damaged condition, but there is a large gap in the middle and at the end. Lines 31–7, with very sparse letters, and 91–8, most of which contain a few letters, are printed and commented on by Calame. 7: Hupnon, “sleep,” is the usual conjecture for the first word. Probably Astymeloisa, who seems to be the chorus leader, is the subject of the verbs in lines 7–8. 61: “Limb-loosening” occurs elsewhere as an epithet for desire, in Sappho 130.1–2, for example. Takerōtera, “more melting(ly),” fem., presumably refers to Astymeloisa. 63: Glukēa kēna, “that one (is) sweet”: supplemented as in Campbell and in Calame’s note (Alcman 405). 65: The unusual word pyleōn, glossed by Hesychius’s lexicon as stephanon (“crown” or “wreath”) was, according to Athenaeus, the word used for a garland offered to Hera (15.678a). 68: Psilon, an editorial conjecture, is Doric for pteron, “feather.” 71–2: “The scent of Cyprian perfume” rather freely translates the Greek, literally “the moist grace of Cinyras,” mythical king of Cyprus, an island known for its perfumes and also associated with Aphrodite. Following a suggestion of Campbell (Gk. Lyric Poetry 214), I assume sg. parsenikas rather than pl. parsenikan. 79: The wording of the line is uncertain. I prefer widoim’ (“I would see”), rather than Calame’s widoi m’ (“she would see me”). Page, PMG, and others print idoim’, without the initial digamma. 81–2: Most editors – though not Calame – supplement to hiketis, “suppliant.” I restore Doric s rather than th in basuphrona. See Calame, Alcman 418–19. 4a fr. 1 PMGF (13) Fragment from the end of a song associated with women or girls (indicated by the feminine participle skairoisa), and ascribed in the papyrus to Alcman. Included in PMGF but not in PMG.

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11 fr. 35 col. i (24) The commentary, though damaged, provides interesting information about the performance context for these fragments of a partheneion. Girls from Dyme, glossed by Hesychius as “a tribe and a place in Sparta” (Spartēi phylē kai topos), have come to Pitane, one of the local divisions of the Spartan state, to participate in choruses. Possibly the two sets of girls are competing against each other. Condensing Calame’s text somewhat, I reproduce the sections containing the three meaningful poem-fragments (a,b,c, Calame), and supplement pollakis (“often”) and aphikonto (“came”) from Campbell. 14a ff. These fragments are all preserved as quotations. I have selected the ones likely to represent the female voice. 14a (4) and 27 (84) are both invocations to a Muse, specifically to Calliope (“the beautiful-voiced”) in 27. Cf. Sappho 124. 14a contains the word “maidens” (parsenois); 27 asks that the chorus be made “pleasing” or “charming” (charienta), a word which suggests femininity. 29 (89) and 35 (141) both contain a feminine participle (archomena, melisdomenai, resp.). 38 (137) contains a feminine inflection (hossai), indicating that the “children” (paides) are girls. 37b (138) is probably spoken by a chorus, and very possibly by a female one. All these quotations are very compatible with partheneia. 26 (90) Composed in the dactylic hexameters associated with epic verse rather than in lyric metres, this fragment is not from a partheneion, but may be from the poet’s prelude to one. Quoted by the Hellenistic writer Antigonus of Carystus (Mirabilia 23 [27]). Cf. Sappho 58.15–16 and Euripides, Hippolytus 732–4. Aged male halcyons were said to be carried on the wings of the females. Both the cerulus (line 2) and the halcyon (line 3) were sometimes identified with the kingfisher. The Halcyon Days were a two-week period of expected calm at the winter solstice, when the halcyon produced its young. Flying or being carried over the waves may also be Alcman’s metaphor for being honoured by the voices of the maidens who sing his partheneia (see Fränkel 528; Vestrheim). 59b (149) Very likely from a partheneion, but quoted by Athenaeus (600f-601) as evidence, along with Fr. 59a, for Alcman’s being in love with Megalostrata. See Calame, Alcman 561.

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162 fr. 2 (240) a and c A papyrus fragment of uncertain authorship; it may be Alcman’s. The isolated words and phrases indicating youthful beauty and adornment, a ceremony, and possibly a myth, suggest a partheneion.

2 sappho

Sappho of Lesbos is perhaps the most famous woman poet, and certainly the best known from the ancient world. She lived from the late seventh to the early sixth century bce – the exact dates are uncertain, probably from around 630 to 560 (see Campbell, Gk Lyric 1: x-xi, and, for a careful analysis of the ancient evidence, Hutchinson, Gk. Lyric Poetry 139– 40). Sappho came to be admired as the “Tenth Muse”; so the “Greek” or “Palatine” Anthology calls her in a couple of epigrams (Anthologia Palatina 9.66, 9.506). She lived in turbulent times, and like her male contemporary Alcaeus was involved in Lesbian politics, though she says far less about them. Most of the little that we know about her life comes from much later sources, in the Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine periods. According to a papyrus biography from the late second or early third century CE , she came from Mitylene (the chief city of Lesbos), had three brothers, was married with a daughter Cleis, and was supposed to have been short, dark, and unattractive (T1; for the Testimonia see Campbell, Gk. Lyric 1: 2 ff.). The Parian Marble (see p. 27, above) tells us that she went into exile in Sicily, presumably when a rival faction was in power (T5). The papyrus biography says, “She has been accused by some people of being irregular [ataktos] in her lifestyle and a woman lover [gynaikerastria]” (T1); the Suda, a late-tenth-century lexicon, comments on her friends and her “impure friendship” (aischras philias) with them (T2); while another, comparatively recently discovered, papyrus describes her “in tranquillity teaching the noblest not only from the local area but from Ionia” (Sappho 214B Campbell).

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Until a hundred years ago or so Sappho’s poetry was known only from quotations in later writers. But since 1897 the excavations at Oxyrhynchus have brought many more fragments to light. Some of her work seems to be autobiographical, some is mythical, and some may simply be fictitious. We should approach her not as an isolated genius, but as a “representative of a now lost system of women’s discourse about women” (Stehle, Performance and Gender 322). The milieu of her poetry is female, and centres especially on a circle of friends. Traditionally, these have been regarded as young protégées whom she was training in song, music, and ritual performance; that view, though now often questioned, seems to me to be still the most convincing interpretation of the relationships reflected in her poetry (for a fairly recent defence see Lardinois, “Subject and Circumstance”). Indisputably, the affections among members of a female group form the subject of some of Sappho’s poems and are the basis for the legends about the poet, her friends, and her lovers. That Sappho was a “lesbian” is well known, but exactly what it implies is a matter of speculation. The scholarship of the last twenty years has preferred to see her sexual relationships as same-age and egalitarian, and her group as a hetairia of friends (e.g., Parker, “Sappho Schoolmistress”; Skinner, “Woman and Language”; Greene, “Apostrophe and Women’s Erotics,” “Subjects, Objects”), rather than – as earlier scholars sometimes thought – a thiasos of Aphrodite worshippers (e.g. Wilamowitz 42; Fränkel 175; Merkelbach; Gentili, “La veneranda Sappho”; Poetry and Its Public 77–89). Stehle, emphasizing the possibility of diversity, finds Sappho engaged in quite separate activities – performing for companions, composing for parthenoi, and possibly teaching (Performance and Gender 276–7). As I have argued elsewhere, I believe the ancient evidence suggests that Sappho was indeed older than her companions, in some ways their leader or mentor, and that her group was a hetairia and at the same time a thiasos (see “Sappho’s Company of Friends,” “Sleeping in the Bosom of a Tender Companion”). Sappho herself describes them as young – in our terms they would be adolescent – and beautiful. And there are suggestions in some of her poems (notably Fragments 58, 121, and 125, if the speaker is Sappho) that she herself was older when she composed them. Hutchinson infers that Sappho’s brothers were young when she referred to them (see

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Frr. 5 and 15; also T14), and concludes that she is likely to have been “reasonably” young when she composed these poems, and perhaps old in Fragment 58 (Gk. Lyric Poetry 143). As expressed in her poetry, Sappho’s feelings for young women, and theirs for her and for each other, are passionate, but not graphically carnal (cf. Hallett, “Sappho and Her Social Context” 453–4). In stanza 1 of “The Isles of Greece” Byron called her “burning Sappho,” an often-quoted phrase that crops up in some scholarly titles, like West’s “Burning Sappho” and duBois’ Sappho is Burning. Our knowledge of Sappho expanded a little quite recently, with the discovery, in a collection of papyri at the University of Cologne, of new material on a roll found in mummy wrapping, from the early third century bce, and thus the oldest extant text of her poetry. Michael Gronewald and Robert Daniel identified three successive poems, the first two by Sappho, and the second of these overlapping with Fragment 58, which now became available in a much fuller version. Their findings (published in “Ein neuer Sappho-Papyrus,” 2004) were shortly supplemented with more of Fragment 58 from another papyrus (“Nachtrag,” published later in the same year). The persona in Fragment 58 is now more fully developed; she is a woman who regrets her lost youth and complains of the ravages old age has wrought upon her. It is very tempting to regard this speaker as Sappho (cf. Liberman). But we cannot be certain the poem is autobiographical, or, if so, that it is to be taken completely literally. Sappho may be exaggerating her own decrepitude. Traditionally, most of Sappho’s poetry has been regarded as monody, intended for solo, private performance. However, fairly recently it has been argued that like Alcman Sappho was a trainer of choruses, that the setting for her songs was as public as Alcman’s, that at least some of the songs assumed to be monodic were sung by a chorus, and that some of the others were performed by Sappho while her chorus danced (see Lardinois, “Who Sang Sappho’s Songs?” 170–2; “Keening Sappho” 87– 90). Certainly Sappho and her friends would have taken part in public festivals. Yet there is nothing in her extant fragments to suggest performance in front of the whole community the way there is, say, in Astymeloisa, “the Darling of the City,” flying past the assembled “host” (Alcman 3.70 and 73). Sappho 94 speaks of shared rituals and dances (assuming -ros is to be expanded to choros in line 27), but with a couple of

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small exceptions her poems don’t give the impression of being composed to accompany these rituals and dances. They seem to be intended for performance at gatherings of her friends and protégées; at banquets has been suggested (Parker, “Sappho Schoolmistress” 346; Hutchinson, Gk Lyric Poetry 146). The performance described in Fragment 22 is clearly monodic: Sappho bids Abanthis take down her pectis (lyre) and sing of Gongyla (I am adopting Campbell’s expansion of the proper names). There are descriptions from later antiquity associating Sappho with choral performance – playing her lyre while the chorus circles (AP 9.189, in T59), staging elaborate epithalamia (Himerius, Orations 9.4, in Sappho 194 Campbell) – but these may have been fanciful. Sappho’s epithalamia would have been sung chorally, to be sure, presumably in the presence of family and friends rather than the whole assembled community. If we can be guided by a late imitation, Theocritus’ Idyll 18, the “Epithalamion for Helen” (written in the third century bce and set in Sparta, not Lesbos), the size of the epithalamic chorus, in this case twelve maidens (Theocritus 18.4) is comparable to the chorus of ten or eleven in Alcman. Very likely Sappho’s epithalamia were performed by a group somewhat like this, and her solo poems presented to a similar or the same group. The intimate feelings described are indeed like those in the Alcman chorus, with the significant difference that Sappho, unlike Alcman, occupies a place within the group (cf. Stehle, Performance and Gender 272–3; Hutchinson, Gk Lyric Poetry 149). Male poets like Alcman must construct a persona that is “other” when composing their maiden-songs. For Sappho, obviously, the suppression of self is less necessary. Sometimes she speaks in her own person; at other times she creates another voice, usually female. But still, the femininity of the speaker and the kinds of things she values will tend to unite her with, rather than separate her from, the audience’s perception of the author. Her posture is a more natural one, her evocation of femininity more interiorized, her effects perhaps not more poetic than Alcman’s, but more psychologically complex. In many of Sappho’s more memorable passages, the speaking voice vividly evokes homoerotic desires and anxieties. In some of Sappho’s shorter fragments, though, the retrievable persona is slight. Fragments 112, 113, 115, 116, and 117, all from epithalamia, merely praise the groom and bride. Fragment 114 appears to be a dialogue

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between the bride and virginity, whose loss she laments. Fragment 140 is a dialogue between Aphrodite and the maidens who report Adonis’ death. In Fragment 102, a maiden overcome with love confides in her mother, a “popular” motif found in other literatures and especially common in the Galician-Portuguese cantigas (see p. 20, above). And in the rather Homeric Fragment 44, the narrative is entirely impersonal. As in Alcman, young womanhood is evoked by feminine beauty and adornment. An enclosed world of delicate sensibility, refinement, and luxury is constructed, a world of saffron and purple, fragrance and flowers. Even the world of epic is assimilated to it, as we see in Fragments 16 (on Helen) and 44 (on the Wedding of Hector and Andromache). Jane Snyder comments that “Sappho’s songs may be read as challenges to the patriarchal and heterosexually focussed stories of earlier epic” (Lesbian Desire 64). As Snyder says, Sappho’s aesthetic “values charm [charis], lushness [habrosynē], and variegation [poikilia]” (Lesbian Desire 94). These things could become cloying; they are saved from that by economy of presentation and alternation with more pungent images. David Campbell is missing something when he claims that “wit and rhetoric are nowhere to be found” (Greek Lyric Poetry 261–2). Elegance can be contrasted with its opposite: the country girl who wears clumsy clothes and is too ignorant to pull her skirt up over her ankles (Fr. 57). Another image – not acid this time, but piercingly sharp – is a girl’s flame-coloured hair (Fr. 98a); such a girl needs no fancy headband, only flowers. Apparently this fair-haired girl is Sappho’s daughter Cleis (mentioned in Fr. 98b), for another poem tells us, “I have a beautiful girl, her form like golden flowers” (Fr. 132). Youthful femininity is universally associated with flowers, but in Sappho the connection becomes a guiding principle with religious implications: she directs Dica to put garlands on her hair, because the Graces look with favour on one adorned with flowers and turn away from the ungarlanded (Fr. 81). In other ways too there is more to Sappho than charming evocations of youthful femininity. Poetic art becomes a way of mastering one’s world: evoking the absent or the past, subduing the present, transforming the ordinary into the ideal. Helene Foley (“The Mother of the Argument”) argues that in moving beyond bodily pleasure and possession through the discipline of memory and dialogue Sappho anticipates Plato’s

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Phaedrus. Egbert Bakker explains remembering in early Greek poetry as a bringing into being, a making actual (“Remembering the God’s Arrival” 141–5). In most of Sappho’s pieces where enough is preserved to give us some sense of their intent, the poem’s progress records a change of state which is effected by the poem itself, functioning in more than a metaphorical sense as a kind of magical utterance, an incantation or charm. A conjuring takes place whereby the epiphany of a goddess or a beloved is achieved, a threatening evil or an enemy banished, or a past scene made present. Sometimes by incantatory formula, sometimes by subtler means – transference of imagery, coupling of disparate things, shifting of time and place, unobtrusive changes of proposition – the poems act on the real world. Even when not tied to ritual, ritualistic elements persist, their operation more complex and more enigmatic. The invocation of Aphrodite in Poem 1, for example, irresistibly draws the goddess into the poem. As J.C.B. Petropoulos’s “Sappho the Sorceress” has shown, the poem uses the language not only of a hymnos klētikos (“summoning hymn”) but also of a spell. On Sappho’s exclamation “Come hither” (line 5) Aphrodite gradually materializes: the description of a typical or hypothetical past epiphany – “if ever you came” (lines 5ff.) – brings her from her richly adorned throne in heaven down over the black earth by the whirring wings of sparrows, and mysteriously she is there, smiling with immortal face, at Sappho’s side. Paradoxically the goddess is subject to the mortal’s compulsion, made to enter into and change human affairs. Sappho mingles epithets that link Aphrodite’s heavenly power with mundane qualities. “Elaborate-throned” (poikilothronos), she is also “wile-weaving” (doloplokos); the face which she turns towards Sappho is both loftily immortal and conspiratorially smiling. Her car is drawn through the air of heaven by commonplace sparrows, the proverbial symbols of bold concupiscence as both Catullus and Chaucer know, the one making Lesbia’s sparrow a phallic toy (Catullus 2.1–2), the other his Summoner “hot and lecherous as a sparrow” (Canterbury Tales, Prologue 623). When Sappho prays in the traditional manner to Aphrodite, with the traditional balanced formulas, her words are felt not just as imperative but as prophetic. When she makes her final petition, “Come to me now too” (line 25), Aphrodite has already appeared and acted, speaking, especially in the immediately preceding lines (21–4), “in

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language which itself imitates the incantatory, hypnotic effect of love’s thelxis [spell-chanting]” (Segal, “Eros and Incantation” 149). Thus, the closing stanza becomes less an appeal than the seal on a contract already made. Aphrodite’s absence has become presence and, as Sappho “charmed” her, she has charmed the beloved with words of symmetrical, incantatory repetition: words that compel, so that “if she loves not, soon she’ll love, even unwillingly” (23–4). There is a similar gradual intensification of presence in Fragment 2. Again, Sappho summons Aphrodite to come hither (the first word is the terse imperative deuru). From that moment, the goddess becomes increasingly immanent in her sacred grove, until, finally, she is there in person. Like Aphrodite, the grove is lovely (charien), perfumed (the altars smoke with frankincense), and fruitful (it is a grove of apple trees). John Winkler has related it to the seductive gardens of nymphs, and seen in this place “an extended and multi-perspectived metaphor for women’s sexuality” (Constraints of Desire 186; similarly Burnett, Three Archaic Poets, 266 ff.). The magic of the holy grove deepens in stanza two, where the sound of cold water is carried through apple trees. Like the Celtic Avalon, the Island of Apples to which Arthur passed, this spot seems to be an entrance to the Other World. The flickering leaves (aithyssomenōn phyllōn) are reminiscent, to modern readers, of a bit of latter-day Arthuriana, Tennyson’s enchanted island of Shalott, where “Willows whiten, aspens quiver, / Little breezes dusk and shiver.” The centre of Aphrodite’s grove is a hushed place, where shadowing roses create a murmur by their very name (brodoisi), and the only sounds – of wind in leaves and water on stone – bring an enchanted sleep, a kōma. Precisely at the moment when sleep comes down, one feels that Aphrodite is fully, though still invisibly, there. The third, incomplete, stanza, moves outward from the heart of the grove to flowery meadows, a landscape inviting love. And when, finally, the goddess is summoned to preside at a ritual in this sacred place, her immanence diffused throughout the grove suddenly becomes concrete in a particular spot. In Fragment 16, after the introductory “priamel,” or preamble, offering inadequate examples of the most beautiful thing, Helen of Troy is selected both as the most beautiful of women and as someone who gives up everything in order to follow what she loves. She reminds Sappho of her own absent beloved, Anactoria, whose bright face and light step outshine the

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brilliant display of military might and flashing metal. The materialization of the loved girl is fleeting, but powerful. This poem, which poses the question “what is the most beautiful?”, might have concentrated on the movement of armies and the overthrow of peoples, for Helen, the loveliest of women, though here introduced to justify her arbitrariness in choosing Paris, also means the launching of a thousand ships and the burning of the towers of Ilium. Like Helen, Sappho is imperiously arbitrary: the most beautiful thing is the girl she loves. But she is arbitrary in another sense also. For most people, the bright face and lovely gait of Helen evoke the massing of ships, and armies on foot and horse. For Sappho, these things, which appear at the beginning and end of the poem, are transcended by a beauty that is private, not public, womanly, not male, limited to two, not thousands, peaceful and innocent, not military and destructive. Helen makes her think of the beauty of her own beloved, now departed; but when her image is brought into the poem even for a brief moment (15– 18), “remembering absent Anactoria” (Anaktorias onemnai- / s’ ou pareoisas) with lovely walk (eraton ... bama) and bright face (amarychma lampron prosōpō), she outshines the flashing arms of massed advancing chariots and foot soldiers, whose impressiveness is transferred to her. Another poem, Fragment 96, focusses on a departed friend who is imagined far off in Lydia, wandering about and longing for her dear Atthis. The technique whereby the absent girl is made to appear strikingly resembles the evocation of Aphrodite in Poem 2. First, she is compared to the rosy-fingered moon (a brododaktylos selanna, line 8), characterized with a dawn epithet more appropriate to the young woman than to the moon. The simile shifts into metaphor in an extended description of landscape (9–14): at first the empty waste of the sea, and then verdant meadows which breathe the presence of the desired one. Like the moon spreading her light over land and sea, the beautiful woman is remote and unattainable, but her physical being is subtly recreated in the dew (eersa), the roses (broda), the soft and sweet-smelling chervil and clover (an- / thryska kai melilōtos) – a haunting evocation of a womanly presence via landscape. The plants are cool, moist, tender, and fragrant. Somehow they embody the girl who has gone off to Lydia. The characteristic elements of the vaguely defined scene suggest a meadow like that in the third stanza of Fragment 2, here evoking the flowery garlands that she used to wear. The epithet

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“tender” (apala) is applied to chervil, but like “rosy-fingered” of the moon is more appropriate to the woman. It is strange that Denys Page regards this, one of the most suggestive passages in Sappho, as a digression, “devoid of anything profound in thought or emotion or memorable in language” (Sappho and Alcaeus 94–5). Profound it may not be, but the evocation in these lines of a feminine presence is the product of consummate, and apparently effortless, poetic skill. As in Fragment 2, the intensifying immanence of goddess/woman in the scene leads up to a moment of epiphany. The end of the poem is very fragmentary, but appears to culminate in a ritual: Aphrodite is there, pouring nectar from golden goblets. Re-creation as consolation is implicit in Fragment 96, explicit in Fragment 94, where Sappho parts from a loved and loving girl. Here, Sappho is able, by her art, to make the past present, to bring back vanished happy times and banish sad ones. I take it that the departing girl, who seems to be rather an airhead, speaks in the opening lines (see Burnett, “Desire and Memory” and Three Archaic Poets 292–5; and, contra, Robbins, “Who’s Dying?”): “Truly [adolōs, ‘honestly,’ ‘no kidding’], I want to die!” she says, “blubbering” (psisdomena) and “Alas, what dreadful things we have suffered, Sappho; indeed, I leave you unwillingly!” (4–5). The girl’s exclamatory exaggerations contrast with the serene words of Sappho herself, who bids her friend to go cheerfully (chairoisa, “being happy”), to remember (memnaisa) all that was delightful in their time together (7–8), and then proceeds to make her do both. To her friend’s “what dreadful things” (ōs deina) presumably meaning sorrow at parting, she responds, “we have felt so many pleasures too” (ōs ... kai kal’ epaschomen, line 11). With incantatory repetition she brings back past joy: in my company you have put on many wreaths of violets and other flowers, many garlands, many perfumes (lines 12–20). The text is damaged, but the repetition of poll-, “many,” at the beginning of three successive stanzas seems intended. As Sappho names garlands, flowers, soft skin, and then in the next stanza, yielding couch (strōmnan ... molthakan, line 21) she draws suggestive elements into a vaguely idealized and sensuously gratifying scene. The ending of the poem, again, is very fragmentary, but seems once more to culminate in a ritual celebration. Though mainly a summoning poem, Fragment 94 contains as well elements of exorcism and imprecation. A double function, cletic (invoking

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or calling up) and apotropaic (warding off), is also detectable in the ritual language of Fragment 5, which prays for the safe return of Sappho’s brother from his voyage. The repeated verb “become,” “come to pass” in the infinitive (genesthai, lines 3 and 6) and optative (genoito, line 7) will see that Cypris (Aphrodite) and the Nereid sea-nymphs perform all that he wishes to be done (lines 3–4), make him a source of comfort to his friends and pain to his enemies (lines 6–7), and drive away harm (“let no one become ... to us,” 7–8; a word for something injurious is missing). Fragment 55 functions exclusively, though gently, as an imprecation or ban on a woman who lacks the gifts of music and poetry conferred by the Muses. Here, in contrast to Fragment 94, memory is forbidden to bring back and preserve: “there’ll be no memory of you” (oude pota mnamosyna sethen / esset’). The first extant word of the fragment is katthanoisa, “having died,” announcing a death-sentence that is expanded into a thorough-going abolition: no memory of you, no missing you, no roses from Pieria (sacred to the Muses), invisibility in the house of Hades among the obscure dead. Even the ghost of the wretched, unnamed woman peters out into utter oblivion, as it flutters away. The last word, ekpepotamena, “having flown away,” with its six little wing-beats, each syllable a tiny puff of air, sputters into nothing like a dying candle. Poem 31, the famous description of Sappho’s overwhelming physical helplessness on seeing her loved one in happy conversation with a man, can also be interpreted as a poem of exorcism or banishment. Most of it appears to wallow abjectly in self-pity, yet the sharpness with which the sensations of dumbness (line 9), hot flushing (10), blind eyes and humming ears (11–12), sweating (13), trembling (13–14), and deathly pallor (14–15) are delineated itself bespeaks a certain detachment and control. And, in an ironic contradiction, the whole scene, so vividly made present, is set between two verbs that absent it. However sharp to the senses of sight, sound, and touch, all this is banished to the realm of seeming with an introductory “I think” (phainetai moi, “it seems to me”) and a closing “I seem to myself” (phainom’ em’ autai). What only seems is not a real threat. The end of what remains of the poem, “But everything must be borne,” or “dared” (pan tolmaton), “for even a poor man,” or “especially for a poor man” (kai penēta), marks some kind of transition from apparent, nonpresent helplessness to real, present capability.

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In Sappho, the limpid surface of the poetry can mask a remarkable selectiveness and compression. Thus with Fragment 2, an incremental series of details builds up the atmosphere of Aphrodite’s sacred grove, a place that neither mortal nor goddess could resist. The language is radically simple – but redolent, as it prepares for the epiphany of the goddess by evoking a mystery within the enclosing grove, which both invites and holds off the spectator: the splashing of fresh water heard but not seen from some recess beyond the fruitful trees. Simplicity of image is paralleled by simplicity of narrative, achieved with an equally smooth compression. In Fragment 1, Aphrodite and her sparrow-drawn chariot suddenly emerge as tangibly present, at the end of a sentence that is also the beginning of a strophe: “and promptly they arrived” (aipsa d’exikonto, line 13). There is sweeping simplicity of assertion in “but I [say] it’s whatever you love” (egō de kēn’ ot- / tō tis eratai), at the end of the first strophe of Fragment 16 (3–4) – after the priamel, functioning as foil, of things declared fairest by others. And invocation can be arrestingly simple: “[Come] hither to me from Crete” (deuru m’ek Krētas), at the beginning of Fragment 2. The poem is preserved on a fragment of pottery, and some words, probably not part of the poem, are incised above this beginning. The opening formula is standard, but usually part of a longer invocation. Here its brevity is strikingly contrasted with the detail that follows: the summoned deity is bluntly accosted, and then enticed by that sacred grove, the long description of which fills most of what remains of the poem. In passages like these, there is an elemental directness that seems to proclaim that the speaker is incapable of guile. Sappho uses a similar technique at the opening of Fragment 31: “I think he’s equal to the gods, that man” (phaintetai moi kēnos isos theoisin). It is an artfully artless protestation of admiration for the more fortunate person who enjoys the beloved girl’s attention; whatever else these words accomplish, they have the effect of attributing innocence and candour to the “I” of the poem (cf. Kirkwood, Early Greek Monody 112). And in Fragment 94 both speakers use an uncomplicated, paratactic style, but there is a marked contrast between the agitation of the girl leaving and the serenity of the comforting Sappho voice. These deceptively simple poems are in fact very complex. That Sappho could also move in a more imposing medium is proved by Fragment 44, which is composed in a more Homeric diction and metre,

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and which takes the form of an impersonal narrative telling the wedding story of Hector and Andromache. Stylistically this poem is mixed. As Campbell observes, “It is our only example of Sappho’s narrative poetry, and by far our longest example of her ‘abnormal poetry’ ... in which Lesbian dialect and metrical practice are contaminated by Epic usages” (Gk. Lyric Poetry 273). Though it uses more ostentatiously poetic language, this poem is conceptually fairly simple – without the depth of field that we find in some of Sappho’s more characteristic pieces. If this is an epithalamion it is a very different kind from the light songs voiced by a maiden chorus. Nevertheless, the celebration in which girls and women play a prominent part has much in common with other poems by Sappho, as does the delight in beautiful objects, fine apparel, and perfume. The epithalamic content and the creation of a feminine world full of “elaborate trinkets” (line 9) bring the poem into line with her other poetry, but the more heroic mode sets it apart from the other Sapphic fragments. Sappho’s poems occasionally mention political subjects or are generated by political and social rivalries, but as far as we can see from the scanty evidence politics are not the main focus of her interest. However, Holt Parker suggests that “even Sappho’s most private world ... may be seen also as a public celebration of a world of aristocratic values in opposition to the squalid and rustic world of the rising bourgeoisie” (“Sappho’s Public World” 17). Political troubles are touched on in Fragment 98b because they make a Lydian headband hard to get. Helen, and by implication the origins of the Trojan War, figure in Fragment 16, but Sappho focusses on Helen’s selection of what is to her the best and most beautiful (kalliston, line 3). Though these choices might seem superficial and trivial, they are not so to Sappho, who elevates devotion to beauty and the creation of beauty into a philosophy of life and something which is pleasing to the gods. It is in this light that we should understand Fragment 55, which dismisses the woman who has had no part in the roses of Pieria; Fragment 81, which warns Dica that the Graces turn away from an ungarlanded girl; Fragment 94, where the crying girl is instructed to remember adorning herself with flowers and perfume and sharing joy; Fragment 150, which declares there should be no lamentation in a house of the Muses; and Fragment 160, which announces, “These things now I will sing pleasingly as a delight to my companions.” In Fragment 16, the absolute

74

Woman’s Songs in Ancient Greece

value of the beautiful, regardless of its social implications, is presented as a deliberate counter to socially approved – that is, male approved – choices. Helen, the most beautiful woman of all, abandoned her natural ties and responsibilities to run off with Paris. She chose what was for her the most beautiful thing: what she loved. The poem is seen by Page duBois as an extension of the possibilities of language, so as to present Helen as an autonomous subject (“Sappho and Helen”; Sappho Is Burning 98–126). What Sappho loves, of course, in Fragment 16, is the radiant face and graceful step of Anactoria. Jane Snyder comments that Sappho’s love for Anactoria is expressed in characteristically “female language” which differs from male sentiment by concentrating on “her activity, not on specific physical characteristics” (The Woman and the Lyre 21, “Public Occasion and Private Passion” 13). Mary Lefkowitz makes the same comment on Fragment 31, where it is the girl’s talking and laughter that Sappho mentions (Heroines and Hysterics 66). This perception chimes with my own sense that Sappho evokes female attractiveness in a way that is emblematic, and abstracted from the particular (cf. also Most, “Reflecting Sappho,” on her non-specificity). Of course, male poets too can focus on the charm of a woman’s speech and walk. For example, a potent line in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon describes Helen “stepping lightly” through the gates of Troy (407). Again, the motifs of Fragment 31 are subtly transformed by Catullus (Poem 51) into an expression of his own tormented relationship with Lesbia. One of the memorable moments in Catullus, too, is Lesbia’s graceful step over an adulterous threshold (68. 70–2). And Horace, with a more ironical reminiscence of Sappho 31, ends his poem in praise of the man of spotless life (Integer vitae, Odes 1.22) by averring unswerving loyalty to his Lalage (“prattler”), “sweetly laughing, sweetly talking” (dulce ridentem ... dulce loquentem). Sappho does evoke feminine sensibility with great skill, but one can easily find parallels for particular motifs in male authors and male voices. It is the total impression, with its range of subtleties and telling details, rather than the individual word or phrase, that is distinctive. Most of Sappho’s surviving work is poetry of the affections. The feelings are not always erotic. Sometimes they involve her brother (Frr. 5, and 15, apparently), sometimes her daughter (Frr. 98b and 132). The occasional impersonal poem (Fr. 44, for example) occurs, but the epithalamia,

SAPPHO

75

though their sentiment is collective, seem to be poems of camaraderie and affection – if we can judge from such scanty remains. In some passages of her poetry, the value attached to a person is implicit in the description of a symbolic object: the untouched apple and the crushed hyacinth as symbols of maidenhood ready for picking (Frr. 105a and b). 105a cleverly conveys – by its qualifications, its deferrals, and its straining, stuttering close – the efforts of hopeful aspirants to reach this prize, always in vain (see Carson, Eros the Bittersweet 26–9). At other times, a voluptuous attraction grows from the accumulation of detail in an evocation of place (Frr. 2.2–11, and 96.9–14). What readers have found most characteristic of Sappho is, of course, her expression of homoerotic attachments between girls and women: passionate desire (“You came ... I was wild for you, and you cooled my heart burning with desire,” Fr. 48); physical tenderness (“May you sleep in the bosom of a tender companion,” Fr. 126); jealousy (“Atthis, it’s grown hateful to you to think of me. You’re flying off to Andromeda,” Fr. 130.3–4); and the dysfunction which overwhelms the lover’s body in the presence of the beloved (Fr. 31). Scholars have been struck by these feelings in much the same way, I think, in spite of their vehement disagreements. Ulrich von Wilamowitz, the champion of Sappho’s purity, speaks of “the erotic poetry of Sappho” and her “passionate, longing desire” (Sappho und Simonides 74, 47, resp.); he is just as aware of the sexual charge in her poetry as George Devereux, the psychoanalyst of lesbian neuroses (see “The Nature of Sappho’s Seizure”). But we need to place the explicitly homoerotic passages in Sappho within the context of all her other expressions of sensibility. It is the totality that is specifically Sapphic. Depictions of the power of eros, for example, can be very similar to those in male-voice lyric: it (he?) shakes the heart like a mountain wind falling upon oak-trees (Fr. 47); “limbloosening” (lysimelēs), it overwhelms, creeping upon one irresistibly, bitter, though sweet (Fr. 130.1–2). The force of the attack is like that in Anacreon, where Eros smites the speaker as if with an axe, and plunges him in a wintry torrent (Fr. 413 PMG). In short, Sappho’s work displays the same agility, the same deft choice of telling detail that we find in male lyric poets, but her representation of female subjects, while it seems to stay at the level of the conventional and the external, is far richer, and far more engaged with female psychology.

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Woman’s Songs in Ancient Greece

1

4

PoikilovqronÆ ajqanavtÆAfrovdita, pai` Divo~ dolovploke, livssomaiv se, mhv mÆ a[saisi mhdÆ ojnivaisi davmna, povtnia, qu`mon,

8

ajlla; tuivdÆ e[lqÆ, ai[ pota kajtevrwta ta;~ e[ma~ au[da~ ajivoisa phvloi e[klue~, pavtro~ de; dovmon livpoisa cruvsion h\lqe~

12

a[rmÆ ujpasdeuvxaisa: kavloi dev sÆ a\gon w[kee~ strou`qoi peri; ga`~ melaivna~ puvkna divnnente~ ptevrÆ ajpÆ wjravnwi[qero~ dia; mevssw:

16

ai\ya dÆ ejxivkonto: su; dÆ, w\ mavkaira, meidiaivsaisÆ ajqanavtw/ proswvpw/ h[reÆ o[tti dhu\te pevponqa kw[tti dhu\te kavlhmmi

20

kw[tti moi mavlista qevlw gevnesqai mainovla/ quvmw/: tivna dhu\te peivqw a[y sÆ a[ghn ej~ üa;n filovtata; tiv~ sÆ, w\ YavpfÆ, ajdivkhsi;

24

kai; ga;r aij feuvgei, tacevw~ diwvxei, aij de; dw`ra mh; devketÆ, ajlla; dwvsei, aij de; mh; fivlei, tacevw~ filhvsei kwujk ejqevloisa.

28

e[lqe moi kai; nu`n, calevpan de; lu`son ejk merivmnan, o[ssa dev moi tevlessai qu`mo~ ijmevrrei, tevleson, su; dÆ au[ta suvmmaco~ e[sso.

SAPPHO

77

1 Immortal Aphrodite of the exquisite throne, wile-weaving child of Zeus, to you I pray. Don’t subdue with pains and torments, lady, my heart.

4

But come hither, if ever also in the past, catching my voice from far, you listened, left your father’s home of gold, and came,

8

yoking your car. Beautifully you were drawn, swiftly, over the dark earth, by sparrows whirring a cloud of wings, from heaven through the mid air.

12

Instantly they arrived. And you, oh blessed one, smiling with immortal face, asked what it was I’d suffered again, and why again I called,

16

and what it was I most longed to be done for me, in my maddened heart. Whom again shall I persuade to bring you back into her love? Who, Sappho, is wronging you?

20

For if she flees, soon she’ll pursue; if she takes not your gifts, others she’ll give; if she loves not, soon she’ll love, even unwillingly.

24

Come to me now too, and set me free from grievous cares; fulfill for me those things my heart desires. It’s you I need. Fight on my side!

28

78

Woman’s Songs in Ancient Greece

2

4

deu`ruv mÆ ejk Krhvta~ ejp»i; tovnd¼e nau`on a[gnon o[pp»a/ toi¼ cavrien me;n a[lso~ maliv»an¼, bw`moi de; tequmiavmenoi »li¼banwvtw/:

8

ejn dÆ u[dwr yu`cron kelavdei diÆ u[sdwn malivnwn, brovdoisi de; pai`~ oj cw`ro~ ejskivastÆ, aijqussomevnwn de; fuvllwn kw`ma katevrrei:

12

ejn de; leivmwn ijppovboto~ tevqalen hjrivnoisin a[nqesin, aij dÆ a[htai mevllica pnevoisin » » ¼

16

e[nqa dh; su; ^ ^ ^ ^ e[loisa Kuvpri crusivaisin ejn kulivkessin a[brw~ ojmmemeivcmenon qalivaisi nevktar oijnocovaison

5

4

Kuvpri kai;¼ Nhrhvi>deõ, ajblavbh»n moi to;n kasiv¼gnhton d»ov¼te tuivdÆ i[kesqa»i kw[ssa ü¼oi quvmw/ ke qevlh gevnesqai pavnta te»levsqhn,

8

o[ssa de; pr¼ovsqÆ a[mbrote pavnta lu`sa»i kai; fivlois¼i üoi`si cavran gevnesqai ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ e[¼cqroisi, gevnoito dÆ a[mmi ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ m¼hdÆ ei\~:

12

ta;n kasig¼nhvtan de; qevloi povhsqai ¼tivmaõ, »ojn¼ivan de; luvgran ¼otoisi p»av¼roiqÆ ajceuvwn ¼ ^ na

SAPPHO

79

2 Come hither to me from Crete to [this] holy shrine, where there’s a lovely grove for you, of apple-trees, and altars burning with incense from Lebanon.

4

And here cold water sounds through apple boughs; with roses all the place is shadowed; through flickering leaves charmed sleep comes down.

8

Horses graze in a meadow that blooms with spring flowers; scented breezes breathe perfume ... ...

12

And here you ... Lady of Cyprus, arriving, gracefully in golden cups pour nectar mixed with our festivities, instead of wine!

16

5 Lady of Cyprus, and the Nereids, grant this to me: let my brother arrive here unharmed, and what his heart desires should come to be, perform it all.

4

Let him atone for everything he did amiss before, and let him be a joy to his [friends], [a distress] to his enemies; let no one be [a grief] to us [any more].

8

Let him wish to make his sister [endowed with] honour, but harsh affliction, ... in those things sorrowing before ...

12

80

Woman’s Songs in Ancient Greece

16

¼ ^ eisai?w»n¼ to; kevgcrw ¼lÆ ejpag»oriv¼a/ polivtan ¼llwõ» ^ ^ ^¼nhke dÆ au\tÆ ouj ¼krw»¼ ¼onaik» ¼eo» ¼ ^i ¼ ^ ^ ^¼n: su; »d¼e; Kuvp»ri¼ ^ ^» ^ ^ ^¼na ¼qem»evn¼a kavkan » ¼i.

20

15 ¼a mavkai»ra ¼euplo ^» ¼ ^atoska» ¼

4

8

o[ssa de; pr¼ovsqÆ» a[m»brote kh`»na lu`sai ¼atai~» ¼nem» su;n ¼tuvcai livm» ¼eno~ kl» ¼ ^»

12

Kuv¼pri ka»iv s¼e pi»krotavt¼an ejpeuv»roi, mh¼de; kaucavs»a¼ito tovdÆ ejnnev»poisa D¼wrivca, to; deuv»t¼eron wj~ povqe¼nnon eij~¼ e[ron h\lqe.

16

4

O¼ij me;n ijpphvwn strovton, oij de; pevsdwn, oij de; navwn fai`sÆ ep»i;¼ ga`n mevlai»n¼an e[¼mmenai kavlliston, e[gw de; kh`nÆ o[ttw ti~ e[ratai:

8

pav¼gcu dÆ eu[mareõ suvneton povhsai p¼avnti t»o¼u`tÆ, aj ga;r povlu perskevqoisa kavlloõ »ajnq¼rwvpwn ÆElevna »to;¼n a[ndra to;n » ar¼iston

SAPPHO

81

with millet-seed ... listening to the ... on the accusation of the citizens ... ...

16

... ... and you, Cyprian ... ... putting aside evil ... ...

20

15 [fragments of three stanzas] ... blessed lady ... ... ... ...

4

to redeem all those things he did amiss before ... with good fortune? ...

8

Cypris, and let her find you most bitter; let her not boastfully say this, vain Doricha, that a second time he came to a longed-for love.

12

16 Some say an army of horse, some of foot, some of ships, on the dark earth is the loveliest thing, but I say it’s whatever you love.

4

It’s perfectly easy to make everyone understand this, for she who far exceeded all mortals in beauty, Helen, left the noblest man,

8

82

Woman’s Songs in Ancient Greece

12

kall»ivpoi¼sÆ e[ba Æõ Troi?an plevoi»sa kwujd»e; pa¼i`doõ oujde; fivlwn to»k¼hvwn pav»mpan¼ ejmnavsqh, ajlla; paravgagÆ au[tan ¼san

16

¼ampton ga;r » ¼ ^ ^ ^kouvfw~ t» ¼oh ^» ^¼n ^ ¼^ me nu`n ÆAnaktoriv»aõ oj¼nevmnaisÆ ouj¼ pareoivsaõ,

20

ta`¼õ ke bolloivman e[ratovn te ba`ma kajmavrucma lavmpron i[dhn proswvpw h] ta; Luvdwn a[rmata kajn o[ploisi pesdom¼avcentaõ. ¼ ^men ouj duvnaton gevnesqai ¼ ^n ajnqrwp» ^ ^ ^ p¼edevchn dÆ a[rasqai . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

17

4

Plavsion dhv m» povtniÆ ÇHra sa; c» ta;n ajravtan ÆAt»revidai toi Basivlhe~:

8

ejktelevssante~ m»; prw`ta me;n peri.»; tuivdÆ ajpormavqen»te~ oujk ejduvnanto

12

prin; se; kai; DivÆ ajnt» kai; Quwvna~ ijme» nu`n de; k» ka;t to; pavl»aion

klh`-¼

SAPPHO

83

and went sailing off to Troy. Her child and her own parents she remembered not a whit, but [Paris?] carried her away ...

12

... ... And now I remember Anactoria, who’s gone.

16

I’d rather have her lovely step, her face so full of brightness to look upon, than Lydian chariots, and a host all armed of foot-soldiers.

20

But it’s not possible for it to be ... mortals ... to share in and to pray for . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .[lines 23-32 irrecoverable or very fragmentary]

17 Close to me ... Lady Hera, [may your graceful form appear], to whom the sons of Atreus prayed, those royal kings.

4

When they had finished [many struggles], first round [Ilium] ... setting out hither ... they could not,

8

till they [appealed to] you and Zeus [the suppliant’s friend], and Thyone’s [handsome son]. Now, [aid me too], as is your custom of old.

12

84

16

Woman’s Songs in Ancient Greece

a[gna kai; kav»la p¼arq»en aj¼mfi ^» » ¼ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

21

5

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ¼ ^ epabolhs» ¼andÆ o[lofun » ^ ^ ^ ^¼e . ¼tromevroi~ p ^» ^ ^¼alla ¼ ¼ crova gh`ra~ h[dh ¼n ajmfibavskei ¼~ pevtatai diwvkwn ¼

9

13

¼ta~ ajgauva~ ¼ea, lavboisa ¼ a[eison a[mmi ta;n ijok v olpon. ¼rwn mavlista ¼a~ p»l¼avnatai

22

4

¼bla ^» ¼ergon, ^ ^lÆa ^ ^» ¼n rjevqoõ dokim» ¼hsqai ¼n aujavdhn c ^» d¼e; mhv, ceivmwn»

SAPPHO

Holy one and fair ... maiden(s) ... around ... ...

85

16

.................... [the remains of another damaged stanza follow] 21 [fragments of four stanzas] ..................... ... possessing ... ... lament ... ... trembling ... ...

5

Old age now [mars] my skin ... comes over ... flies in pursuit ...

9

... noble ... taking up [the lyre?] ... sing to us about violet-sashed [Aphrodite?]

13

... most of all ... wanders away

22 ... ... work ... ... fair face ... ... ... disagreeable ... ... and if not, winter ...

4

86

Woman’s Songs in Ancient Greece

¼ o ^ isanalgea ^» ¼de

8

12

^¼ ^e ^» ^ ^ ^ ^¼ ^» ^ ^ ^ k¼evlomai sÆ aÆ»eivdhn Go¼gguvlan »ÒAb¼anqi lavboisan aj.» pa`¼ktin, a\õ se dhu\te povqoõ t.» ajmfipovtatai

16

ta;n kavlan: aj ga;r katavgwgiõ au[ta»~ sÆ ejptovaisÆ i[doisan, e[gw de; caivrw, kai; ga;r au[ta dhv po»tƼ e;memf» K¼uprogevn»ha wj~ a[rama»i tou`to tw`» b»ovlloma»i

23 ¼ e[rwto~ hjlp» 2

6

10

¼ a[n¼tion eijsivdw s»e ¼ ÆErmiovna teauv»ta ¼ xavnqa/ dÆ ÆElevna/ sÆ ejivs»k¼hn ¼ke~ ¼ ^i~ qnavtai~, tovde dÆ i[s»qi¼, ta;/ sa`/ ¼paivsan kev me ta;n merivmnan ¼laisÆ ajntid» ^ ^¼ » ^¼aqoi~ de; ¼ drosoven¼ta~ o[cqoi~ ¼tain pan¼nucivs»d¼hn

SAPPHO

... pain(less?) ... ...

87

8

... I bid you to sing of [Gon]gyla, [Ab]anthis, taking up your strings, of her for whom desire once more whirls over you,

12

the beautiful. Her flowing dress set you afire looking at [it]. I too feel delight, for once the holy goddess blamed me, the Cyprian-Born

16

because I pray ... this ... I wish ...

23 [fragments of four stanzas] ... of eros ... ...

2

When I look at you, ... Hermione like you, and compare you to fair-haired Helen ...

6

... mortal women. But know this, with your ... [release?] me from all cares ... ... ... dewy banks ... ... all night

10

88

Woman’s Songs in Ancient Greece

24(a) ¼anavga» ¼ ^» ¼emnavsesqÆ aj» k¼ai; ga;r a[mme~ ejn neov»tati tau`tÆ »ej¼povhmmen:

4

povlla »m¼e;n ga;r kai; kav»la ^ ^ ^h ^» ¼men, poli» aj¼mme» ^¼ojxeivai~ d»

27 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

4

7

11

^ ^ ^¼ ^ kai; ga;r dh; su; pavi~ pot» ^ ^ ¼^ ikh~ mevlpesqÆ a[gi tau`ta» ^ ^¼ zavlexai, k[ammÆ ajpu; twdek» a[¼dra cavrissai: s¼teivcomen ga;r ej~ gavmon: eu\ de» ka¼i; su; tou`tÆ, ajllÆ o[tti tavcista» pa¼r»q¼evnoi~ a[p»p¼empe, qevoi» ¼en e[coien ¼ o[do~ m»ev¼gan eij~ ÒOl»umpon aj¼nqrw»p ¼aivk ^»

30

5

nuvkt» ^ ^ ^¼ ^»

pavrqenoi d» pannucivsdoi»s¼ai» sa;n ajeivdoien f»ilovtata kai; nuvmfa~ ijokovlpw.

SAPPHO

89

24(a) [fragments of two stanzas] ... you will remember, for we in our youth did these things.

4

For many lovely ... we ... the city us, with clear-voiced ...

27 [fragments of four stanzas] ... ... ... ... for you as a child once ... come, sing these things ... talk to us, and thereby ... please us. For we are going in procession to a wedding ... and you, as quickly as you can, send the maidens away, and may the gods have ...

4

7

11

... a road to mighty Olympus ... for mortals ...

30 [fragments of three stanzas] night ... maidens ... celebrating all night, let them sing the love you share with the violet-sashed bride.

5

90

9

Woman’s Songs in Ancient Greece

ajllÆ ejgevrqei~ hji>q»evoi~ stei`ce soi;~ ujmavlik¼a~ h[per o[sson aj liguvfw»no~ o[rni~ u[pnon »i[¼dwmen.

31

4

Faivnetaiv moi kh`noõ i[soõ qevoisin e[mmenÆ w[nhr, o[ttiõ ejnavntiovõ toi ijsdavnei kai; plavsion a\du fwneivsaõ ujpakouvei

8

kai; gelaivsaõ ijmevroen, tov mÆ h\ ma;n kardivan e;n sthvqesin ejptovaisen: wjõ ga;r e[õ sÆ i[dw brovceÆ w[õ me fwvnhsÆ oujde;n e[tÆ ei[kei,

12

ajlla; ÿkamÿ me;n glw`ssa ÿe[ageÿ, levpton dÆ au[tika crw`/ pu`r ujpadedrovmaken, ojppavtessi dÆ oujde;n o[rhmmÆ, ejpibrovmeisi dÆ a[kouai,

16

ÿevkadeÿ mÆ i[drwõ kakcevetai, trovmoõ de; pai`san a[grei, clwrotevra de; poivaõ e[mmi, teqnavkhn dÆ ojlivgw Æpideuvhõ faivnomÆ e[mÆ au[t»a/. ajlla; pa;n tovlmaton, ejpei; ÿkai; pevnhtaÿ

33 ai[qÆ e[gw, crusostevfanÆ ÆAfrovdita, tovnde to;n pavlon lacoivhn

34 a[stereõ me;n ajmfi; kavlan selavnnan a]y ajpukruvptoisi favennon ei\doõ

SAPPHO

But waking go to the young men, your age-mates, so that less than the clear-voiced nightingale shall we see sleep.

91

9

31 I think he’s equal to the gods, that man – whoever he is – across from you who sits, and close by, while you’re talking sweetly, listens,

4

while you laugh charmingly. But for me, it sets my heart pounding in my breast, as soon as I look at you; for a while, I can’t speak any more.

8

But my tongue is broken, a delicate fire breaks out, runs under my skin, my eyes see nothing, and there’s a humming in my ears,

12

sweat pours down me, trembling grips my whole body; I’m paler than parched grass. I’m almost going to die, it seems to me.

16

But everything must be borne, for even a poor man

33 Oh, golden-crowned Aphrodite, if only this lot might fall to me.

34 The stars around the lovely moon hide away their radiant form

92

Woman’s Songs in Ancient Greece

o[ppota plhvqoisa mavlista lavmph ga`n ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ajrguriva

37 ka;t . . . to;n kai;

e[mon stavlugmon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . dÆ ejpiplavzontÆ a[nemoi fevroien melevdwnai

39 povda~ de; poivkilo~ masvlh~ ejkavlupte, Luvdion kavlon e[rgon

41 tai;~ kavlaisÆ u[mmin to; nohvmma tw\mon ouj diavmeipton

42 taivsi de; yu`cro~ me;n e[gentÆ oj qu`mo~ pa;r dÆ i[eisi ta; ptevra

43 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

5

¼ kalo~ ¼ ^ a[kala klovnei ¼ kavmato~ frevna ¼e katisdavne»i¼

9

¼ ajllÆ a[gitÆ, w\ fivlai, ¼, a[gci ga;f ajmevra.

SAPPHO

93

when at her full most brilliantly she lights the earth. .................... ... silvery ...

37 in my bleeding pain .................... As for the one who attacks [me?], let tempests and troubles carry him off.

39 And her feet fine-wrought Lydian sandals covered, lovely workmanship.

41 To you lovely ones my mind is unchanging.

42 Their hearts have grown cold, and their wings droop.

43 [fragments of five stanzas] .................... ... lovely ... sets quiet things in tumult

5

... toil ... mind ... sits down ... but come, dear girls, ... for day is near.

9

94

Woman’s Songs in Ancient Greece

44

3a 5

10

15

20

25

30

Kupro ^» ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^aõ: ka`rux h\lqe qe» ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^¼ele» ^ ^ ^¼ ^qeiõ [Idaoõ tadeka ^ ^ ^f» ^ ^¼ ^iõ tavcuõ a[ggeloõ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . tavõ tÆ a[llaõ ÆAsivaõ ^» ^¼de ^an klevoõ a[fqiton: ÒEktwr kai; sunevtair»o¼i a[goisÆ ejlikwvpida Qhvbaõ ejx ijevraõ Plakivaõ tÆ ajpÆ »aji>¼nnavw a[bran ÆAndromavcan ejni; nau`sin ejpÆ a[lmuron povnton: povlla dÆ »ejliv¼gmata cruvsia ka[mmata porfuvr»a¼ katauv>t»me¼na, poivkilÆ ajquvrmata, ajrguvra tÆ ajnavriqma pothvria kajlevfaiõ. w]õ ei\pÆ: ojtralevwõ dÆ ajnovrouse pavt»h¼r fivloõ: favma dÆ h\lqe kata; ptovlin eujruvcoron fivloiõ. au[tikÆ ÆIlivadai sativnai»õ¼ ujpÆ ejutrovcoiõ a\gon aijmiovnoiõ, ejp»ev¼baine de; pai`õ o[cloõ gunaivkwn tÆ a[ma parqenivka»n¼ t ^ ^» ^ ^¼ ^sfuvrwn, cw`riõ dÆ au\ Peravmoio qug»a¼treõ» i[pp»oiõ¼ dÆ a[ndreõ u[pagon ujpÆ a[r»mata p» ¼eõ hjivqeoi, megavlw»õ¼ti d» d» ¼ ^ ajnivocoi f» ^ ^ ^ ^ ^¼ ^» p» ¼xa ^o» . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i[¼keloi qevoi»õ ¼ a[gnon ajol»le o[rmatai» ¼non ejõ ÒIlio»n au\loõ dÆ ajdu»m¼evlh~» ¼tÆ ojnemivgnu»to kai; y»ov¼fo»õ k¼rotavl»wn ¼wõ dÆ a[ra pavr»qenoi a[eidon mevloõ a[gn»on, i[ka¼ne dÆ ejõ ai[q»era a[cw qespesiva gel» pavnta/ dÆ h\õ ka;t o[do»iõ kravthreõ fivalaiv tÆ oj» ^ ^ ^¼uede» ^ ^¼ ^ ^eak»^ ^¼ ^» muvrra kai; kasiva livbanovõ tÆ ojnemeivcnuto guvnaikeõ dÆ ejlevlusdon o[sai progenevstera»i pavnteõ dÆ a[ndreõ ejphvraton i[acon o[rqion

SAPPHO

95

44 Cyprus ... a herald came ... Idaeus ... these [words] ... swift messenger “... [one line missing] and the rest of Asia ... immortal glory. Hector and his companions are bringing the glancing-eyed girl from holy Thebes and from ever-flowing Placia, graceful Andromache, in their ships, over the salt sea, with many gold rings, and perfumed purple garments, elaborate trinkets, and countless goblets of silver, and ivories.” This is what he said. Swiftly [Hector’s] dear father leapt up. The news reached their friends throughout the wide-set city. Immediately the Trojan men hitched mules to the smooth-running carriages, and the whole throng of women and [graceful-]ankled maidens mounted together, with the daughters of Priam apart, and the young men yoked horses to their chariots, far and wide ... ... the drivers ... ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [an unknown number of lines missing] ... like the gods ... pure, in crowds, hasten forth ... to Ilium. The sweet-melodied flute and the ... were mingled, and the sound of castanets. The maidens were singing a pure strain, and into the air rose the divine sound ... On every side along the streets were wine-bowls and vessels ... Myrrh and cassia and frankincense were mixed together. Those women who were older raised a cry, and all the men were shouting splendidly aloud,

3a 5

10

15

20

25

30

96

Woman’s Songs in Ancient Greece

PavonÆ ojnkalevonteõ ejkavbolon eujluvran u[mnhn dÆ ÒEktora kÆAndromavcan qeoeikevlo»iõ.

46 e[gw dÆ ejpi; molqavkan tuvlan kaspolevw ÿmevlea: ka]n me;n tetuvlagka~ ajspovleaÿ

47 ÒEroõ dÆ ejtivnaxev moi frevnaõ, wjõ a[nemoõ ka;t o[roõ druvsin ejmpevtwn.

48 h\lqeõ e[gw dev sÆ ejmaiovman, o]n dÆ e[yuxaõ e[man frevna kaiomevnan povqw//.

49 ÆHravman me;n e[gw sevqen, ÒAtqi, pavlai potav: smivkra moi paviõ e[mmenÆ ejfaivneo ka[cariõ.

50 oj me;n ga;r kavlo~ o[sson i[dhn pevletai kavlo~, oj de; ka[gaqo~ au[tika kai; kavlo~ e[ssetai.

51 oujk oi\dÆ o[tti qevw: duvo moi ta; nohvmata.

52 yauvhn dÆ ouj dokivmwmÆ ojravnw ÿduspacevaÿ

53 Brodopavcee~ a[gnai Cavrite~, deu`te Divo~ kovrai.

54 e[lqontÆ ejx ojravnw porfurivan perqevmenon clavmun

SAPPHO

97

calling on Paean, the far-shooter, skilled in the lyre. They were singing in praise of Hector and Andromache, the godlike pair.

46 On soft cushions I will lay my limbs.

47 Eros has shattered my heart, like a mountain wind falling upon the oak-trees.

48 You came, and I was wild for you. You breathed coolness upon my heart, burning with desire.

49 I loved you a long time ago, Atthis. Just a little girl you seemed to me, and ungainly.

50 One who is lovely is so only to look upon, but one who is good is instantly lovely too.

51 I know not what to do – I have two minds.

52 I don’t expect to reach the sky with my two arms [?].

53 Come hither, rosy-armed holy Graces, daughters of Zeus.

54 coming from heaven wrapped in a purple cloak

98

Woman’s Songs in Ancient Greece

55 katqavnoisa de; keivsh/ oujdev pota mnamosuvna sevqen e[ssetÆ oujde; ÿpokÆÿ u[steron: ouj ga;r pedevch/õ brovdwn tw;n ejk Pierivaõ, ajllÆ ajfavnhõ kajn ÆAivda dovmw/ foitavsh/õ pedÆ ajmauvrwn nekuvwn ejkpepotamevna.

56 oujdÆ i[an dokivmwmi prosivdoisan favo~ ajlivw e[ssesqai sofivan pavrqenon eij~ oujdevna pw crovnon teauvtan

57 tivõ dÆ ajgroiv>wtiõ qevlgei novon ... ajgroivw > tin ejpemmevna stovlan ... oujk ejpistamevna ta; bravkeÆ e[lkhn ejpi; tw;n sfuvrwnÉ

58.11-22 (9-20 gd) ij¼ok»vov¼lpwn kavla dw`ra, pai`de~, ¼ ^ filavoidon liguvran celuvnnan. ¼ potÆ »e[¼onta crova gh`ra~ h[dh ejg¼evnonto trivce~ ejg melaivnan, 15

Bavru~ dev mÆ oj »q¼u`mo~ pepovhtai, govna dÆ ouj fevroisi, ta; dhv pota laivyhrÆ e[on o[rchsqÆ i[sa nebrivoisin, ÿtaÿ; stenacivzw qamevw~. ajlla; tiv kem poeivhnÉ ajghvraon a[nqrwpon e[ontÆ ouj duvnaton gevnesqai.

20

kai; gavr p»o¼ta Tivqwnon e[fanto brodovpacun Au[wn e[rw/ devpa~ eijsovmbamenÆ eij~ e[scata ga`~ fevroisa»n e[onta »k¼avlon kai; nevon, ajllÆ au[ton u[mw~ e[marye» crovnw/ povlion gh`ra~ e[c»o¼ntÆ ajqanavtan a[koitin

SAPPHO

99

55 After your death, you’ll lie and there’ll be no memory of you, ever, in future time, for you have no share in the roses of Pieria, but you’ll be invisible in the house of Hades too, wandering among the shadowy dead – when you’ve fluttered away.

56 No girl who sees the light of the sun, I think, will ever be so skilled.

57 What country girl has bewitched your senses ... wearing country clothes ... not even trained to hold her dress above her ankles?

58.11-22 ... lovely gifts, girls, of the violet-sashed [Muses?]. ... the clear-sounding, song-loving tortoise-shell lyre. Already old age [has furrowed?] my skin that once was ... and my hair has become [white] instead of black. My heart has grown heavy, and my knees will not carry me, which once were nimble as fawns in the dance.

15

I lament constantly. But what can I do? A human creature cannot be ageless. For they used to say that once rosy-armed Dawn, in her love of Tithonus, climbed into the cup (of the Sun) to carry him to the ends of the earth, 20 when he was young and fair, but nonetheless grey age seized him, in time, although he had an immortal bedfellow.

100

Woman’s Songs in Ancient Greece

58.23-26 (21-4 gd) ¼imevnan nomivsdei ¼ai~ ojpavsdoi: 25

e[gw de; fivlhmmÆ ajbrosuvnan, » ¼ tou`to kaiv moi to; lavmpron ÿe[rw~ ajelivwÿ kai; to; kavlon levlogce. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

60 ¼tuvcoisa ¼qevlÆ ÿwntapaivsan tev¼leson novhmma ¼evtwn kavlhmi ¼ peda; qu`mon ai\ya o[¼ssa tuvchn qelhvsh¼~ ¼r e[moi mavcesqa»i c¼lidavnai pivqeisa»n ¼i, su; dÆ eu\ ga;r oi\sqa ¼evtei ta» ^¼ ^le ^ ^ ¼klas»

5

10

62 2

ÆEptavxate» davfna~ o[ta»

4

pa;n dÆ a[dion» h[ kh`non ejlo»

6

kai; tai`si me;n aj» ojdoivporo~ a[n» ^ ^ ^ ^¼ ^ ^»

8

muvgi~ dev potÆ eijsavion: ejkl» yuvca dÆ ajgapavtasu ^» ^

10

tevauta de; nu`n e[mm» i[kesqÆ ajgana»

SAPPHO

101

58.23-6 ... considers ... ... confers on ... But I love graceful things ... This to me Eros has granted: the light of the sun, and beauty. ....................

25

60 ... winning ... my wish ... all ... fulfil my desire ... I appeal ... immediately, according to my heart ... as much as you might wish to obtain ... to fight, for me ... obeying the imperious one ... for you well know ... ...

5

10

62 You [pl.] shrank away ... the bay tree when ...

2

and everything sweeter ... than that one ...

4

and to those [women?] ... the traveller ...

6

scarcely did I ever hear ... dearly beloved life ...

8

the same now ... come mildly ...

10

102

12

Woman’s Songs in Ancient Greece

e[fqate: kavlan» tav tÆ e[mmata ka»

63 2

ÒOnoire melaina» f»o¼ivtai~ o[ta tÆ u[pno~ »

4

gluvku~ q»ev¼o~, h\ dei`nÆ onjiva~ m» za; cw`ri~ e[chn ta;n dunam»

6

e[lpi~ dev mÆ e[cei mh; pedevch»n mhde;n makavrwn ejl»

8

ouj gavr kÆ e[on ou[tw» ^ ^ ajqurmata ka ^» gevnoito dev moi» toi;~ pavnta»

65 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^rothvnneme» Yavpfoi, sefivl» 6

Kuvprw/ B»a¼sivl» kaivtoi mevga d »^

8

o[¼ssoi~ faevqwn » pavntai klevo~ »

10

kaiv sÆ ejnn ÆAcevr»ont ^ ^» ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^»np»

68a ¼i gavr mÆ ajpu; ta;~ e ^» u[»mw~ dÆ e[gen»to

SAPPHO

you [pl.] got in first ... lovely ... and the clothes ...

103

12

63 Dream, black ... you haunt whenever sleep ...

2

Sweet god, how strange your power to keep [me] far away from pain.

4

It’s my hope to have no share neither ... of the blessed ones.

6

For I would not be thus ... adornments ...

8

let it be for me ... all for those ...

65 [fragments of six two-line stanzas preserved] .................... ... Sappho, I love you ... in Cyprus, royal one ... though great ...

6

for all those whom the shining [sun] glory everywhere ...

8

and in Acheron ... ...

68a ... for ... me from the ... nevertheless became

10

104

Woman’s Songs in Ancient Greece

¼ i[san qevoisin ¼asan ajlivtra» ÆAn¼dromevdan » ^¼ ^ax» ¼ar» ^ ^ ^¼ ^a mavka»ir¼a ¼eon de; trovpon a» ^¼ ^uvnh» ¼ kovron ouj katisce ^» ¼ka» ^ ^ ^ ^ ^¼ ^ Tundarivdai»~ ¼asu» ^¼ ^ ^ ^ka» ^¼ cariventÆ aj ^» ¼kÆ a[dolon »m¼hkevti sun» ¼ Megavra ^» ^ ^¼na» ^ ^ ^¼a»

5

10

71 misse Mivka ¼ela» ^ ^ ajl¼lav sÆ e[gwujk ejavsw ¼n filov»tatƼ h[leo Penqilhvan» ¼da ka»kov¼tropÆ, a[mma» ¼ mevl»o~¼ ti gluvkeron ^» ¼a mellicovfwn»o~ ¼dei, livgurai dÆ a[h» ¼ dros»ov¼essa»

2 4 6 8

81

5

¼apuvqeõ ^» ¼cistal» ¼emp» su; de; stefavnoiõ, w\ Divka, pevrqesqÆ ejravtoiõ fovbaisin o[rpakaõ ajnhvtw sunaevrraisÆ ajpavlaisi cevrsin: eujavnqea ÿga;r pevletaiÿ kai; Cavriteõ mavkairai ma`llon protovrhn, a;stefanwvtoisi dÆ a;pustrevfontai.

82a Eujmorfotevra Mnasidivka ta;~ ajpavla~ Gurivnnw~

86

¼ ^ akavla ^» ¼aijgiovcw la»

SAPPHO

... like the gods ... sinful ... Andromeda ... ... the blessed one ... a way ... ... did not keep down arrogance ... the sons of Tyndareus ... pleasing ... ... guileless ... no longer ... Megara ...

105

5

10

71 ... Mica ... but I won’t let you ... you chose to be friends with the Penthilian women ... you mischief-maker ... us ... ... some sweet music ... ... mild-voiced ... ... clear-sounding ... ... dewy ...

2 4 6 8

81 ... ... ... Set lovely garlands on your hair, Dica, 5 putting together sprays of dill with your soft hands. For the blessed Graces are wont to look with more favour on one adorned with flowers; they turn away from the ungarlanded.

82a Mnasidica, lovelier than tender Gyrinno

86 ... quiet ... ... aegis-bearing ...

106

5

Woman’s Songs in Ancient Greece

¼ ^ KuqevrhÆ eujcom» ¼on e[coisa qu`mo»n kl¼u`qiv mÆ a[ra~ ai[ p»ota kajtevrwta ¼a~ prolivpoisa k» ¼ ^ pedÆ e[man ijwv» ¼ ^n calevpai ^»

88 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ¼ q ^ evloi~: oujdu» ¼ ^asdoisÆ ojliga» ¼ ^evna fevresqa»i

5

10

ejm» tou`» k» se» hj»

15

20

¼ ^fia tis ^ ^ ^» ¼ ^dÆ a[dion eivsor» o¼i\sqa kau[ta: lev¼laqÆ ajlloniav» ¼ ^an: tirad» ¼aiv ti~ ei[poi

aj» filh» ka`l ^»

¼ ^san: e[gw te gar» ¼mÆ a\~ ken e[nh mÆ » ¼ai melhvshn:

ejst ^» ^¼ca»

¼fivla fai`mÆ ejcuvra gev»nesqai ¼ena» ^¼ai~: ajt» ¼ ^ ^dÆ ojnivar»o¼~ » ¼ ^ pivkro~ u[m» ¼ ^» ¼^ ta ^qa`d» ¼ ^a tovde dÆ i[s»qi ¼ ^ w[tti sÆ e ^»

SAPPHO

... Cytherea, I pray ... ... having a ... heart ... listen to me, if ever in the past my prayers ... leaving ... ... to my ... ... harsh ...

107

5

88 [fragments of about 28 lines] ..................... ... you might wish ... ... little ... to be carried ... ... look on sweeter ... you yourself know

5

10

... forgot ... ... ... if someone should say ... for I shall love ... as long as in me ... will be a fond concern

15

... I say that I have been a firm friend ... ... distressing ... bitter ... ... ... know this: ... whatever you ...

20

108

Woman’s Songs in Ancient Greece

25

¼a filhvsw» ¼tw ti lo» ¼sson ga;r ^» ¼sqai belevw»n ¼ ^ ^»

91 ajsarotevra~ oujdavma pw Ei[rana sevqen tuvcoisan

92

5

10

15

» » pe» kr» ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^¼per» pevplon» ^ ^ ^¼pusc» kai; kle» ^ ^¼saw» krokoenta» pevplon porfu»r ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^¼dexw» ^¼ clainai pers» stevfanoi per» kal».¼ossam» fru» porf»ur tapa» » p»

94 2

teqnavkhn dÆ ajdovlwõ qevlw: a[ me yisdomevna katelivmpanen

5

povlla kai; tovdÆ e[eipev »moi: w[imÆ wjõ dei`na pep»ovnq¼amen, YavpfÆ, h\ mavn sÆ ajevkoisÆ ajpulimpavnw.

SAPPHO

... I shall love ...

109

25

... for ... ... arrows ...

91 I’ve never found you such a pain, Irene.

92 ... ... ... ... robe ... and ... saffron ... purple robe ... Persian mantle ... garlands ... ... [Phrygian?] ... purple ... ... ... ...

5

10

15

94 “Truly, I want to die!” Sobbing, she was leaving me.

2

This, and many other things, she said to me: “Alas, what dreadful things we have suffered, Sappho. Indeed, I leave you unwillingly.”

5

110

8

Woman’s Songs in Ancient Greece

ta;n dÆ e[gw tavdÆ ajmeibovman: caivroisÆ e[rceo ka[meqen mevmnaisÆ, oi\sqa ga;r w[õ se pedhvpomen:

11

aij de; mhv, ajllav sÆ e[gw qevlw o[mnaisai » ^ ^ ^ ^¼ ^» ^ ^ ^¼ ^eai ojs» ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^¼ kai; kavlÆ ejpavscomen:

14

pov»lloiõ ga;r stefavn¼oiõ i[wn kai; br»ovdwn ^ ^ ^¼kivwn tÆ u[moi ka ^ ^» ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^¼ pa;r e[moi pereqhvkao

17

kai; povllaiõ ujpaquvmidaõ plevktaiõ ajmfÆ ajpavla/ devra/ ajnqevwn ej» ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ¼^ pepohmevnaiõ.

20

kai; p ^ ^ ^ ^ ^» ¼ ^ muvrw/ brenqeivw/ ^» ¼ru» ^ ^¼n ejxaleivyao ka»i; bas¼ilhivw/

23

kai; strwvmn»an ej¼pi; molqavkan ajpavlan par» ¼onwn ejxivhõ povqo»n ¼ ^nivdwn

26

kwu[te tiõ» ou[¼te ti i\ron oujdÆ uj» ¼ e[pletÆ o[pp»oqen a[m¼meõ ajpevskomen, oujk a[lsoõ ^»

29

95

^ou»

c¼ovroõ ¼yovfoõ ¼ ^ ^ ^oidiai

SAPPHO

I answered her thus, “Go cheerfully, and remember me, for you know how we have cherished you.

111

8

If not, then I wish to remind you ... ... we have felt so many pleasures too.

11

With many garlands of violets, roses and [crocuses?] ... you adorned yourself beside me.

14

Weaving about your tender throat many necklaces ... made of flowers ...

17

and ... myrrh costly fragrance ... you anointed yourself with royal perfume.

20

On soft beds tender ... you satisfied your desire ...

23

There was no ... nor any sanctuary nor ... from which we were absent,

26

nor grove ... chorus ... sound ...

29

95 ...

112

Woman’s Songs in Ancient Greece

4

h\rÆ aj» dhrat ^» Goggula ^»

7

h\ ti sa`mÆ ejqe ^» paisi mavlista ^» maõ gÆ ei[shlqÆ ejp ^»

10

ei\pon: w\ devspotÆ, ejp ^» o¼uj ma; ga;r mavkairan »e[gwgÆ o¼ujde;n a[domÆ e[parqa ga`»~ e[oisa.

13

katqavnhn dÆ i[merovõ tiõ »e[cei me kai; lwtivnoiõ drosoventaõ »o[c»q¼oiõ i[dhn ÆAcevr»onto~

....................

96 2

¼ Sard ^» ^ ¼^ povl¼laki tuivde »n¼w`n e[coisa

5

wjsp »^ ^ ^ ^¼ ^ wvomen, ^» ^ ^ ^¼ ^ ^c» ^ ^¼se qea/ sÆ ijkevlan ajrignwvta/, sa`/ de; mavlistÆ e[caire movlpa/:

8

nu`n de; Luvdaisin ejmprevpetai gunaivkessin w[õ potÆ ajelivw duvntoõ aj brododavktuloõ selavnna

11

pavnta perrevcoisÆ a[stra: favoõ dÆ ejpivscei qavlassan ejpÆ ajlmuvran i[swõ kai; poluanqevmoiõ ajrouvraiõ:

SAPPHO

113

... ... Gongyla.

4

Some sign ... for all especially ... [Hermes?] came into ...

7

I said, “Lord ... No, by the blessed ... I take no delight in being above the earth. I have a longing to die, and look upon the dewy, lotus-flowered banks of Acheron.” ... ... ...

10

13

96 ... Sardis ... often directing her thoughts ... hither.

2

Just as we ... you, like an illustrious goddess [or “like divine Arignota”], and chiefly delighted in your song.

5

But now she stands out among the women of Lydia, like the moon, rosy-fingered, after the sun has set,

8

surpassing all the other stars. The light is spread alike upon the salt sea and on the flowery fields.

11

114

Woman’s Songs in Ancient Greece

14

aj dÆ ejevrsa kavla kevcutai, teqavlaisi de; brovda ka[palÆ a[nqruska kai; melivlwtoõ ajnqemwvdhõ:

17

povlla de; zafoivtaisÆ ajgavnaõ ejpimnavsqeisÆ [Atqidoõ ijmevrw/ levptan poi frevna k»a`¼r»i sa`/¼ bovrhtai:

20

kh`qi dÆ e[lqhn a[mm ^» ^ ^ ^¼ ^ ^isa tovdÆ ouj nwnta» ^ ^¼ustonum» ^ ^ ^¼ povluõ garuvei » ^ ^ ^¼alon» ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^¼to mevsson:

23

e¼u[mar»eõ m¼e;n oujk a[mmi qevaisi movrfan ejphv»rat¼on ejxivswsqai su» ^ ^¼roõ e[ch/sqÆ aj» ^ ^ ^¼ n^ ivdhon

mal» kai; d» ^¼m»

26

29

35

¼to» ^ ^ ^ ^¼rati¼ ^eroõ ¼oõ ÆAfrodivta

kam» ¼ nevktar e[ceuÆ ajpu; crusiva~ » ¼nan ^ ^ ^ ^¼apour» ¼ cevrsi Peivqw . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ¼eõ to; Geraivstion ¼n fivlai ¼uston oujdeno» ¼eron ijxo»m

98a

^ ^¼ ^qoõ: aj gavr mÆ ejgevnna»t

4

s¼fa`õ ejpÆ ajlikivaõ mevg»an k¼ovsmon ai[ tiõ e[ch fovbais» porfuvrw/ katelixamev»na

SAPPHO

115

The lovely dew is shed, roses are blooming, and soft chervil, and sweet clover is in flower.

14

Wandering abroad, thinking of gentle Atthis, she must be consumed in her tender heart at your fate.

17

For us to go there ... this not ... many a one utters ... middle.

20

It is not easy for us to equal goddesses in loveliness of form ... you have ...

23

... ... and ... Aphrodite

26

... poured nectar from a golden ... ... Peitho, with hands [lines 30-2 very fragmentary] ... the Geraistion ... dear ... no ... come

23

35

98a ... she who bore me ... a great adornment of one’s youth if someone wore her hair fastened up with a purple [band] –

4

116

7

10

Woman’s Songs in Ancient Greece

e[mmenai mavla tou`to ^» ajlla xanqotevraiõ e[ch» tai;õ kovmaiõ davi>doõ prof» s¼tefavnoisin ejpartiva»iõ ajnqevwn ejriqalevwn: » m¼itravnan dÆ ajrtivwõ kl» poikivlan ajpu; Sardivw»n ^ ^ ^¼ ^aonivaõ povliõ »

98b

6

soi; dÆ e[gw Klevi poikivlan » oujk e[cw povqen e[ssetai » mitravnan: ajlla; tw;/ Mutilhnavw/ » . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ¼ ^» pai ^a ^eion e[chn po ^» aijke ^h poikilask ^ ^ ^ ^»

9

tau`ta ta;õ Kleanaktivda»n fuvgaõ ÿ ^ ^isapoliseceiÿ mnavmatÆ: ^i[de ga;r ai\na dievrrue»n

3

99, col. i, lines 1-9 lp (Alcaeus 303 Aa Voigt) ^¼ ^ga ^ ^eda bai`o»n

¼ ^a

d» ¼^ oi` Pwluanakt»ivd¼ai~ ^ ^ a ^ issamiasi ^ie ^» ^¼toiõ ^ ^ ^ ^» ^¼

5

covrdaisi diakrevkhn ojlisb ^ dovkoisi perkaq ^ ^ ^ ^enoõ ^ o ^ u »^ ^ ^¼si filof»rov¼nwõ ¼ ^ ^ ^ d^ Æ ejlelivsd»e¼tai pr ^tanevwõ

SAPPHO

this was a fine thing. But for her with hair yellower than a torch ... decked with garlands of blooming flowers. Recently ... a headband,

117

7

10

brightly worked, from Sardis ... city.

98b For you, Cleis, there is nowhere I shall get a brightly worked headband, but the Mytilenean

3

.................... ... to have if ... brightly coloured ...

6

These souvenirs of the exile of the Cleanactids ... For see, they have vanished quite dreadfully.

9

99, col. i, lines 1-9 lp ... after a little ... the Polyanactids ... ... to strike the strings receiving the dildo ... ... kindly vibrates ...

5

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Woman’s Songs in Ancient Greece

¼wnoõ de; dio» ^ ^¼w ^ ¼ ^ualwdÆ ^» ^¼ ^ ^enhte» ^ ^¼ ^c ^ ^

100 ajmfi; dÆ a[broisÆ

lasivoisÆ eu\ üÆ ejpuvkassen

101 cerrovmaktra de; ÿkaggovnwnÿ porfuvra katau?tmena ÿtatimavseiõÿ e[pemyÆ ajpu; Fwkavaõ dw`ra tivmia ÿkaggovnwnÿ

102 Gluvkha ma`ter, ou[ toi duvnamai krevkhn to;n i[ston povqw/ davmeisa pai`doõ bradivnan diÆ ÆAfrodivtan

103

5

10

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ¼ ^en to; ga;r ejnnepe» ^¼h prob» ¼ ^ate ta;n eu[poda nuvmfan » ¼ta pai`da Kronivda ta;n ijovk»olp¼on » ¼ ^~ o[rgan qemevna ta;n ijovk»ol¼po~ a» ¼ ^ ^ a[gnai Cavrite~ Pievridev»~ te¼ Moi`»sai ¼ ^» ^ o[¼ppotÆ ajoidai frevn» ^ ^ ^¼an ^» ¼saioisa liguvran »ajoiv¼dan gav¼mbron, a[saroi ga;r ujmalik» ¼se fovbaisin qemevna luvra »^ ¼ ^ ^h crusopevdil»o¼~ Au[w~ »

103B (Inc. Auct. 26 lp) ¼rhon qalavmw twdes» ¼i~ eu[poda nuvmfan ajb» ¼ ^nund» ¼n moi:» ¼a~ ge ^ »

SAPPHO

119

... ...

100 and wrapped [her?] well in fabrics of soft linen

101 napkins ... purple, perfumed, ... sent from Phocaea, valuable gifts ...

102 Sweet mother, I cannot ply the loom. I’m overcome with desire for a boy, because of slender Aphrodite.

103 .................... ... for speak ... ... bride with graceful feet ... violet-sashed child of Cronus’ son ... putting aside anger which ... violet-sashed ... holy Graces and Muses of Pieria ... when songs ... the mind ... ... listening to a clear-sounding song ... bridegroom, for displeasing to companions ... hair, laying down the lyre ... golden-sandalled Dawn

103B ... bridal chamber ... bride with graceful feet ... now ... ... to me ... ...

5

10

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Woman’s Songs in Ancient Greece

104a ÒEspere pavnta fevrh/õ o[sa faivnoliõ ejskevdasÆ Au[wõ, fevrh/õ o[in, fevrh/õ ai\ga, fevrh/õ a[pu mavteri pai`da

104b ajstevrwn pavntwn oj kavllistoõ

105a oi\on to; glukuvmalon ejreuvqetai a[krw/ ejpÆ u[sdw/, a[kron ejpÆ ajkrotavtw/, lelavqonto de; malodrovpheõ: ouj ma;n ejklelavqontÆ, ajllÆ oujk ejduvnantÆ ejpivkesqai

105b (105c lp) oi[an ta;n ujavkinqon ejn w[resi poivmeneõ a[ndreõ povssi katasteivboisi, cavmai dev te povrfuron a[nqoõ

106 pevrroco~, wj~ o[tÆ a[oido~ oj Levsbio~ ajllodavpoisin

107 h]rÆ e[ti parqeniva~ ejpibavllomaiÉ

108 w\ kavla, w\ carivessa

109 dwvsomen, h\si pavthr

110 (110a LP ) Qurwvrw/ povdeõ ejptorovguioi, ta; de; savmbala pempeboveia, pivssuggoi de; devkÆ ejxepovnhsan

111 ÒIyoi dh; to; mevlaqron,

SAPPHO

121

104a Hesperus, you bring back everything that bright Dawn dispersed. You bring back the sheep, you bring back the goat, you bring back the child to its mother.

104b loveliest of all the stars

105a Just as the sweet apple reddens on the topmost bough, the highest apple on the highest branch. The apple-pickers missed it – not really missed – it was beyond their reach.

105b Just as in the mountains the shepherd men trample a hyacinth with their feet, and the purple flower lies on the ground

106 excelling as the Lesbian singer over those of other lands

107 Do I still yearn for my virginity?

108 Oh beautiful, oh graceful!

109 The father says, “We will give ...”

110 The doorkeeper’s feet are seven fathoms long, his sandals five ox-hides. Ten cobblers laboured at them.

111 Raise high the roof-beam!

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ujmhvnaon, ajevrrete, tevktoneõ a[ndreõ: ujmhvnaon. gavmbroõ ÿeijsevrcetai i\soõ ÒAreu/ÿ, ujmhvnaon, a[ndroõ megavlw povlu mevsdwn. ujmhvnaon.

112 ÒOlbie gavmbre, soi; me;n dh; gavmoõ wjõ a[rao ejktetevlestÆ, e[ch/õ de; pavrqenon a]n a[rao ... soi; cavrien me;n ei\doõ, o[ppata dÆ ... mevllicÆ, e[roõ dÆ ejpÆ ijmevrtw/ kevcutai proswvpw/ ... tetivmakÆ e[xocav sÆ ÆAfrodivta

113 ouj ga;r ajtevra nu`n paviõ, w\ gavmbre, teauvta

114 (nuvmfh). (parqeniva).

parqeniva, parqeniva, poi` me livpoisÆ ajpoivch/É ÿoujkevti h[xw pro;õ sev, oujkevti h[xwÿ

115 Tivw/ sÆ, w\ fivle gavmbre, kavlwõ ejikavsdwÉ o[rpaki bradivnw/ se mavlistÆ ejikavsdw

116 cai`re, nuvmfa, cai`re, tivmie gavmbre, povlla

117 ÿcaivroiõ aj nuvmfaÿ, cairevtw dÆ oj gavmbroõ

117A xoavnwn proquvrwn

SAPPHO

123

Hymen! Raise it, you carpenters! Hymen! The bridegroom is coming like Ares – much bigger than a big man.

112 Happy bridegroom! Your wedding has come to pass, just as you prayed. You have the maid you prayed for ... Your form is lovely, and your eyes ... honey-soft. Desire flows over your winsome face. ... Aphrodite has favoured you exceedingly.

113 Now there [was] never another girl, bridegroom, like yours.

114 (bride) Maidenhood, maidenhood, whither have you gone and left me (maidenhood) Never will I return to you, never return.

115 To what, dear bridegroom, shall I fittingly compare you? To a slender sapling I chiefly compare you.

116 Farewell, bride; fare you full well, honoured bridegroom!

117 Fare you well, bride, and farewell to the bridegroom.

117A smooth-hewn entrance-way

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117B (Inc. Auct. 24 lp) (a)

ÒEsperÆ ujmhvnaon

(b)

w\ to;n ÆAdwvnion

118 a[gi dh; cevlu di`a ÿmoi levgeÿ fwnavessa ÿde; givneoÿ

120 ajllav ti~ oujk e[mmi paligkovtwn o[rgan, ajllÆ ajbavkhn ta;n frevnÆ e[cw

121 ajllÆ e[wn fivlo~ a[mmi levco~ a[rnuso newvteron: ouj ga;r tlavsomÆ e[gw sunoivkhn e[oisa geraitevra

122 a[nqeÆ ajmevrgoisan pai`dÆ a[gan ajpavlan

123 ajrtivw~ me;n aj crusopevdilo~ Au[w~

124 au[ta de; su; Kalliovpa

125 ÿautaovraÿ ejstefanaplovkhn

126 dauvoiõ ajpavlaõ ejtaivraõ ejn sthvqesin

127 Deu`ro dhu\te Moi`sai cruvsion livpoisai

SAPPHO

117B (a) Hesperus, sing Hymen! (b) Oh, the Adonis song!

118 Come now, divine tortoise-shell lyre, speak to me, be endowed with voice.

120 But I am not one to return spite for spite, wrathfully. I have a quiet disposition.

121 But being my friend pick a more youthful bedfellow. For I will not endure living with someone when I am the older.

122 a most tender girl plucking flowers

123 recently, golden-sandalled Dawn

124 and you yourself, Calliope

125 When I was in my bloom, I myself twined garlands

126 May you sleep in the bosom of a tender companion.

127 Come hither once more, Muses, leaving your golden [home?].

125

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Woman’s Songs in Ancient Greece

128 Deu`tev nun a[brai Carite~ kallivkomoiv te Moi`sai

129 (a)

e[meqen dÆ e[ch/sqa lavqan

(b)

h[ tinÆ a[llon ajnqrwvpwn e[meqen fivlhsqa

130.1-2 ÒEroõ dhu\tev mÆ oj lusimevlhõ dovnei, glukuvpikron ajmavcanon o[rpeton

130.3-4 (131 lp) ÒAtqi, soi; dÆ e[meqen me;n ajphvcqeto frontivsdhn, ejpi; dÆ ÆAndromevdan povth/

132 ÒEsti moi kavla paviõ crusivoisin ajnqevmoisin ejmfevrhn e[coisa movrfan Kleviõ ajgapavta, ajnti; ta`õ e[gwuvde; Ludivan pai`san oujdÆ ejravnnan ...

133 (a)

ÒEcei me;n ÆAndromevda kavlan ajmoiban

(b)

Yavpfoi, tiv ta;n poluvolbon ÆAfrodivtan ... É

134 Zav tÆ ejlexavman o[nar, Kuprogevnha

135 Tiv me Pandivoni~, w\ Ei[rana, celivdwn ... É

136 h\ro~ a[ggelo~ ijmerovfwno~ ajhvdwn

SAPPHO

128 Come hither now, lovely Graces and fair-haired Muses.

129 (a) you have forgotten me (b) or you love someone other than me

130.1-2 Once again limb-loosening Eros shakes me, insinuating, irresistible, bitter though sweet.

130.3-4 Atthis, it’s grown hateful to you to think of me. You’re flying off to Andromeda.

132 I have a beautiful girl, her form like golden flowers, my beloved Cleis, for whom I wouldn’t [take] all Lydia, or lovely ...

133 (a) Andromeda has a nice exchange (b) Sappho, why do you [not trust?] Aphrodite, who brings many blessings?

134 Cyprus-born goddess, we talked together in my dream.

135 Why, Irene, does Pandion’s daughter, the swallow, [summon?] me?

136 the nightingale, lovely-voiced messenger of spring

127

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137 qevlw tiv tÆ ei[phn, ajllav me kwluvei ai[dw~ ... aij dÆ h\ce~ e[slwn i[meron h[ kavlwn kai; mhv tiv tÆ ei[phn glw`ssÆ ejkuvka kavkon, ai[dw~ ÿkevn se oujkÿ h\cen o[ppatÆ, ajllÆ e[lege~ ÿperi; tw` dikaivwÿ

138 sta`qi ÿka[ntaÿ fivlo~ kai; ta;n ejpÆ o[ssoisÆ ojmpevtason cavrin

140 (140a lp) Katqnavskei, KuqevrhÆ, a[broõ ÒAdwniõ: tiv ke qei`menÉ kattuvptesqe, kovrai, kai; katereivkesqe civtwnaõ

141 (a)

kh` dÆ ajmbrosiva~ me;n kravthr ejkevkratÆ, ÒErmai~ dÆ e[lwn o[lpin qevoisÆ ejoinocovhse.

(b)

kh`noi dÆ a[ra pavnte~ karcavsiÆ h\con ka[leibon: ajravsanto de; pavmpan e[sla gamvbrw/.

142 Lavtw kai; Niovba mavla me;n fivlai h\san e[tairai

143 cruvseioi dÆ ejrevbinqoi ejpÆ aji>ovnwn ejfuvonto

144 mavla dh; kekorhmevnoi~ Govrgw~

SAPPHO

137 “I wish to say something to you, but my sense of shame prevents me.” .................... “If you loved the beautiful or the good, and your tongue were not prompting you to say something evil, then you would not lower your eyes in shame, but you would speak out about your rights.”

138 Stand before me as my friend, and reveal the grace that hangs about your eyes.

140 “He is dying, Cytherea, graceful Adonis. What shall we do?” “Beat your breasts, maidens, and tear your garments.”

141 (a) There a bowl of ambrosia had been mixed, and Hermes, taking the flask, poured for the gods. (b) And they all had drinking-cups and made libation, and prayed all should be well for the bridegroom.

142 Leto and Niobe were most dear companions.

143 and golden vetch grew on the banks

144 for people quite fed up with Gorgo

129

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Woman’s Songs in Ancient Greece

145 mh; kivnh cevrado~

146 mhvte moi mevli mhvte mevlissa

147 mnavsesqaiv tinav fai`mi ÿkai; e{teronÿ ajmmevwn

148 oj plou`to~ a[neu ajrevta~ oujk ajsivnh~ pavroiko~, aj dÆ ajmfotevrwn kra`si~ ÿeujdaimoniva~ e[cei to; a[kronÿ

149 o[ta pavnnuco~ a[sfi katavgrei

150 ouj ga;r qevmiõ ejn moisopovlwn dovmw/ qrh`non e[mmenÆ: ou[ kÆ a[mmi prevpoi tavde

151 ojfqavlmoi~ de; mevlai~ nuvkto~ a[wro~

152 pantodavpaisi memeicmevna croivaisin

153 pavrqenon ajduvfwnon

154 Plhvrh~ me;n ejfaivnetÆ aj selavnna, aij dÆ wj~ peri; bw`mon ejstavqhsan

155 povlla moi ta;n Pwluanavktida pai`da caivrhn

SAPPHO

145 Don’t disturb the pebble-heap.

146 for me neither honey nor the bee.

147 I say that someone will remember us, even in another time.

148 Wealth without worth is not harmless to live with. But the union of both means the highest blessing.

149 When night-long [sleep?] overpowers for them

150 It is not lawful in a house of those that serve the Muses that there should be lamentation ... this would not befit us.

151 and the black sleep of night for their eyes

152 mingled with many-hued colours

153 maiden with sweet voice

154 And the moon showed itself at the full, when the [maidens?] took their places at the altar.

155 To the daughter of Polyanax’ family I say a firm farewell.

131

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156 povlu pavktido~ ajdumelestevra ... cruvsw crusotevra ...

157 povtnia Au[w~

158 skidnamevna~ ejn sthvqesin o[rga~ mayulavkan glw`ssan pefuvlacqai

159 suv te ka\mo~ qeravpwn ÆEro~

160 tavde nu`n ejtaivraiõ tai;õ e[maiõ ÿtevrpnaÿ kavlwõ ajeivsw

166 fai`si dhv pota Lhvdan ujakivnqinon w[ion eu[rhn pepukavdmenon

168 w\ to;n ÒAdwnin

168B (Fr. Adesp. 976 PMG) Devduke me;n aj selavnna kai; Plhiv>adeõ: mevsai de; nuvkteõ, para; dÆ e[rcetÆ w[ra, e[gw de; movna kateuvdw.

168C (Fr. Adesp. 964 PMG) poikivlletai me;n gai`a polustevfano~

SAPPHO

156 more musical by far than the lyre, more golden than gold.

157 Lady Dawn

158 When anger surges in your breast, guard your tongue from useless barking.

159 you and Eros, my attendant

160 These things now I will sing pleasingly as a delight to my companions.

166 They say once Leda found an egg, hyacinth-blue, all hidden.

168 Woe for Adonis!

168B The moon has set, and the Pleiades. It is the middle of the night. Time passes on. And I lie alone.

168C The earth is gay with many garlands.

133

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notes Sappho’s poems were arranged by metre into nine books by Alexandrian scholars. Numbers 1–42 here (from Book 1) are composed in her characteristic metre, the Sapphic stanza: three 11–syllable lines followed by one 5–syllable line, all based on the choriamb. The stanza is also used by her contemporary Alcaeus and was probably traditional on Lesbos. Most of her remaining poetry is in various kinds of aeolic (choriambic) metre. Sappho composed – we do not know that she actually “wrote” – in the Aeolic dialect. Words are accented differently than in Attic, and there is no aspirate. As in Doric, (long) a (a) appears instead of Attic h (ē). (Short) o often occurs for a (a). Among other characteristic forms are ai~ (ais) for a~ (as), h (ē) for ei (ei), oi (oi) or w (ō) for ou (ou), u (u) for o, sd (sd) for z (z). Digamma (ü, pronounced w) for initial s (s) appears in third-person pronouns. 1 Quoted by Dionysius of Halicarnassus in the first century bce (De compositione verborum 23), this is the only surviving poem by Sappho preserved in full. The poem evokes the epiphany of the goddess, who materializes, smiles, and speaks words of power. The personal relationship with Aphrodite found in this poem and elsewhere in Sappho is striking. See Robbins, “Sappho, Aphrodite, and the Muses” 229. 1: “Intricate-throned” is the most straightforward rendering of poikilothrona. The word has also been interpreted as “intricate with flowers or (magical) herbs,” referring to Aphrodite’s robe and/or her powers to work love magic. Most editors print poikilothron’; for a lively defence of poikilophron’, “intricate-minded,” see Carson, If Not, Winter 357. 19: aps s’agēn es wan philotata, as in Campbell. 24: kōuk etheloisa (“even unwilling”), with the feminine ending of the adjective, is the only explicit indication in the poem that the beloved is female and that Sappho’s desire is for a person of her own sex. 2 Another prayer to Aphrodite, this poem was copied on a piece of broken pottery in the third or second century bce. The text, perhaps written by someone who didn’t understand it, is full of errors. Bits of the poem,

SAPPHO

135

with slight differences from the ostracon (potsherd) text are quoted in later authors. The fragmentary first words on the potsherd –ranothen katiousa (“coming down from heaven”), probably part of a descriptive title (see Burnett, Three Archaic Poets 260–2 n.85), are omitted here. I follow Campbell’s more interpretive, rather than Voigt’s more conservative, text for this fragment. The first words on the ostracon, omitted by Campbell, appear as line 1a in Lobel-Page and Voigt. 5 For the historical situation that may lie behind Fr. 5, see also the following note on Fr. 15. This poem prays for the welfare of Sappho’s brother Charaxus. Later sources – the classical historian Herodotus and the geographer Strabo from the Augustan period – tell of Charaxus’ involvement with a courtesan in Egypt. It is possible that the occasion is Charaxus’ return from that country. As sea-nymphs, the Nereids would be appropriate deities to watch over a voyage. 7–8: A word for pain, injury, or distress has been lost at the beginning of each line. The wish to be a joy to one’s friends and a distress to one’s enemies is a conventional one. The harmonious marriage Odysseus wishes for Nausicaa would be a pain to ill-wishers, a delight to well-wishers (Odyssey 6.180–5); also Solon prays to be sweet to his friends and bitter to his foes (13.5–6 West). 14: epagoriai, “accusation” (dat. sg.). Supplemented as in Campbell. 15 Again, I follow Campbell’s more restored text for this fragment. Like Fr. 5, this poem, most of which is lost, seems to refer to the love affair between Sappho’s brother Charaxus and a prostitute. Here, however, Sappho expresses open hostility towards her. In Herodotus this woman is called Rhodopis (2.134–5), but Strabo identifies her with Sappho’s Doricha (17.1.33). 1: makaira, “blessed (lady)” – very likely Aphrodite. 5: Supplemented on the basis of the similar line in the preceding poem (5.5). 11: Dōricha. Supplemented by editors, but it has recently been argued that the papyrus traces are incompatible with that name. See Joel Lidov, “Sappho, Herodotus, and the Hetaira” 224–5.

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16 Sappho rejects the values celebrated by epic verse in favour of more personal choices. 11: Helen’s choice is vindicated, though her action is not condoned. Someone (Paris?), or something “carried her away” or “led her astray” (paragage). Cypris (Aphrodite) and Eros are also possibilities as the missing subject of this verb. Although line 20 seems to round off the poem nicely (cf. Pfeijffer, “Shifting Helen” 1 n.1), traces of a further 12 lines are preserved, possibly another poem. 17 A prayer to Hera, along with Zeus and Dionysus (the son of Thyone, i.e. of Semele). Sappho’s contemporary Alcaeus mentions a shrine to these three gods on Lesbos (Fr. 129). The Atreidae are Agamemnon and Menelaus returning from Troy. Since Sappho refers to the Atreidae’s prayer for help on a voyage, possibly she herself is praying for a safe journey. Lobel-Page and Voigt present a conservative text. Page, Sappho and Alcaeus, followed by Campbell, includes substantial supplements to complete the lines in stanzas 1–3. I have drawn on the following in my translation: chariessa morpha, “graceful form” (line 2); mala poll’ aethla, “many struggles” (line 5); per Ilion en te pontōi, “round Ilium ... (and on the sea)” (line 6); antiaon kalessai, “appeal to Zeus the suppliant’s friend” (line 9); imeroenta paida, “handsome son” (line 10); kamoi praümenēs arēxon, “(graciously) aid me too” (line 11). 12: to palaion, “of old”; supplemented as in Lobel-Page and Campbell. 13: kala, “fair”; supplemented as in Campbell. 21 Very fragmentary. Chroa gēras ēdē (“old age now ... my skin,” line 6) recurs in 58.13. Perhaps Sappho speaks as one who is old admiring the beauty of a young companion. 22 Sappho, if she is the speaker, bids another person (Abanthis?) sing in praise of Gongyla’s beauty. Possibly Gongyla, like Anactoria in Fr. 16, has left the group. In that case, in Gongyla’s absence Abanthis was overcome with emotion at the sight of her dress. Alternatively, Gongyla may be still present; then we can translate “looking at her,” and imagine that Abanthis was set afire by the sight of the girl wearing the dress.

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9–13: I draw on Campbell’s more supplemented text for the following: s’ aeidēn (line 9), “(bid) you to sing,” autas s’ (line 13), “her (dress set) you (afire),” and the whole of line 10 (Voigt leaves the names unsupplemented). 23 “Looking at you,” Sappho (?) says, she is reminded of Helen and Helen’s daughter Hermione. Although the poem is too fragmentary to interpret its intent, the comparison indicates that the addressee is female and beautiful. Rebecca Hague suggests that we have a wedding song here (“Ancient Greek Wedding Songs” 133). 3: eisidō se, “(when) I look at you,” as in Campbell. 11: drosoentas, “dewy (banks),” as in Campbell. The occurrence of the phrase in 95.12 makes this the likely word. 24a Sappho speaks of things done in her youth, remembered nostalgically. Ammes (“we,” line 3) may mean “I,” as it often does. 27, 30 Fragments of epithalamia. The speaking voice represents a chorus of maidens, addressing the bride or their leader in 27, the bridegroom in 30. 30.4,6,8 as in Campbell: aeidoien, “let them sing”; ēitheois, “young men”; ligyphōnos ornis, “clear-voiced bird,” i.e. the nightingale (Voigt omits the conjectural ornis). 30.5: for iokolpō see note on Fr. 103. 31 Perhaps Sappho’s most celebrated poem, Fr. 31 is quoted in PseudoLonginus’ On the Sublime (10.1–3), actually an anonymous work of the first century CE . Because of its depiction of an attractive girl sitting opposite a fortunate man, the poem has sometimes been read as an epithalamion. But the overwhelming physical effect of the speaker’s passionate love and not the heterosexual relationship between girl and man are its main focus. He is merely the foil leading up to the description of her own predicament (see Furley). Fr. 31 is translated, with reference to his troubled affair with “Lesbia,” in Poem 51 of Catullus. On the orality of the former, the literacy of the latter, see Miller, “Sappho 31 and Catullus 51.”

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5–7: What makes Sappho (assuming the speaker is Sappho) fall to pieces is the somewhat vague to, “it,” referring to the previously described scene. That it is the girl, rather than the man, who excites her is made clear by “as soon as I look at you” (s[e]). Disregarding the crucial word or reading the line differently makes it possible to interpret the poem as an expression of heterosexual passion. See Most, “Reflecting Sappho” 29–30. 7–8: Line 7 has been variously interpreted. Joel Lidov argues for brocheōs ... phōnai- / s’ oud’ en “to speak not even one thing in a small voice” (“Second Stanza of Sappho 31” 524). 14–15: literally, “I’m greener than grass.” But chlōros here means sickly yellow. For parallels see Liddell-Scott-Jones, sense II.2, “of persons, pale,” and Burnett, who notes that “northerners forget to imagine grass bleached by months of sun” (Three Archaic Poets 242). 17: The Greek is garbled, but the line seems to represent some kind of turn. Lidov suggests words of encouragement from the desired woman (“Second Stanza” 530–1). D’Angour offers an ingeniously reconstructed final stanza on the power of the love goddess (“Conquering Love” 297–30). 32–42 These tantalizingly short fragments are all quotations in later authors. The ones selected here shed some light on Sapphic emotions, images, and motifs. 33: as in Campbell. Voigt supposes a lacuna between palon and lachoiēn. 34: argyria, “silvery,” said to have been applied by Sappho to the moon in relation to the stars, comes from a different source, but may be part of the same poem as the preceding lines. 37: The word stalagmos, “a dripping,” is said to be used of pain here on an analogy with bleeding wounds. The two parts of the fragment are quoted separately in the same work, a Byzantine etymological dictionary. 42: These melancholy words are said to be applied by Sappho to “the doves” (or pigeons). Is this perhaps an image of old age? I follow Campbell for the first line.

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43 Another enigmatic fragment; this is from a papyrus. Lines 8–9 suggest it was composed for a pannychis, an all-night festival at which maidens (the philai, “female friends,” addressed here) would have performed songs. 44 Unique in Sappho’s extant oeuvre, this long papyrus fragment, narrating the wedding of Hector and Andromache, is composed in a heroic style, and combines Homeric language with Sappho’s Aeolic dialect. That it is indeed by Sappho is confirmed by quotations from it attributed to her in Athenaeus. Some of the details in the poem appear to belong to Sappho’s own environment rather than the heroic age: the special carriages for women, the castanets, the myrrh, cassia, and frankincense are unHomeric, and likely reflect customs on contemporary Lesbos. Like the Homeric poems, this one is composed in a dactylic metre (though not in hexameters), and like epic, its narrative voice is impersonal. The ending is complete (marked in the papyrus), but the beginning is damaged, and there is a large gap after line 20. 3: Idaeus was the main herald in Troy. 3a: A line is missing here. 7: abran Andromachan, “graceful Andromache.” For the implications of (h)abros, see note on Fr. 140. 9: I translate kataütmena (from aütmē, “breath,” “scent”) “perfumed” rather than treating it as kat aütmena, “along with the (blowing of the) wind,” referring to the wind-sped ship that brings these precious goods. 27: The achō thespesia, “divine sound,” may be the ritual cry raised by women, the ololugē. Sappho’s Lesbian contemporary Alcaeus describes the ololugē in the same phrase (Alcaeus 130b.19–20 Voigt). 33: Paean is a Homeric name for Apollo. 46 Reclining on a soft couch is a voluptuous motif also found in 94.21. Kan men tetulankas aspolea looks like a garbled repetition of the preceding words. 47, 48 The language of passionate desire finds striking expression in these two fragments, especially in the assault of love/Eros like a mighty wind. For 48 I follow Campbell. Voigt prints ēlthes,ÿkaiÿ epoēsas, “You came,

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yes you did” – the rather clumsy qualifying words probably being a later insertion, adapting the quotation. The manuscript reading for epsyxas, “you cooled,” is ephylaxas, “you guarded,” clearly an error. It has also been emended to ephlexas, “you inflamed.” 49 It is possible the two lines, quoted in two different authors and linked by a third, are not consecutive. For a strong argument in favour of separating them, see Parker, “What Lobel Hath Joined Together.” Atthis is mentioned in other poems as a friend of Sappho’s. What is unusual here is the detail that Sappho first loved her when she was little and not yet sexually appealing. 50–4 These tiny fragments crystalize isolated details of Sapphic reflections. Possibly it was 52 or a similar passage that gave rise to the tradition of Sappho’s being short. The last word in this fragment is uncertain; it seems to be equivalent to dusi pachesin, “two arms” (dat.). The description in 54 applies to Eros. 55 Since Pieria, a mountainous area in northern Greece, is a traditional haunt of the Muses, roses from Pieria symbolize their gifts of music and poetry. According to Plutarch, these lines were addressed to “some uncultivated and ignorant woman” (pros tina tōn amousōn kai amathōn gynaikōn, Quaest conviv. 3.1.2). There is an implied contrast between this woman, who has composed no poetry, and Sappho herself, who will be remembered. 56 Sophia, “wisdom,” here means “skill,” probably skill at composing and performing songs. 57 In the second century ce, the rhetorician Maximus of Tyre calls Andromeda and Gorgo “rival practitioners” (antitechnoi) of Sappho’s, meaning they too trained groups of protégées (Orations 18.9). Slightly later, Athenaeus (21bc) quotes these words as Sappho’s mockery of Andromeda. There is certainly an implied comparison with someone more sophisticated, such as Sappho herself or a young woman she has influenced.

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141

58.11–22 (9–20 GD) The present text is Gronewald and Daniel, with line numbers as in Lobel-Page and Voigt. The poem begins at line 11 of the Papyrus Oxyrhynchus text printed by editors before the discovery of the new fragment. Allusion is made to the myth of Tithonus, loved by the Dawn and given eternal life without eternal youth. Nostalgia for one’s lost youth also appears in Alcman 26, where the poet contrasts his aged self with his maiden chorus. 11: For iokolpōn, here very likely describing the Muses, see note on Fr. 103. 20: Depas, “cup,” is Gronewald and Daniel’s conjecture; the letters are unclear. They see here a reference to the golden cup in which the Sun travelled back after its daytime journey. West notes that “cup” in isolation is insufficient identification (“The New Sappho” 4). Eisombamen’, Gronewald and Daniel’s correction of eisanbamen’. West takes -eisan as a separate word, the ending of a participle. 58.23–6 (21–4 GD) Another poem in two-line stanzas. These lines were formerly regarded as continuing the previous poem, which they immediately follow in the Oxyrhynchus papyrus. However, the indications in the Cologne papyri that 58.22 is a poem-ending mean that 23ff. belong to a separate poem. Tiny fragments of a further three lines are preserved, printed as Fr. 59 in Lobel-Page and Voigt. The love of brightness and gracefulness (abrosynan, line 25) is characteristically Sapphic. For this word, see notes on Fr. 140, and on Bion, Adonis 79. 60–5 Papyrus fragments. 60 may be an invocation somewhat similar to Poem 1. 62 is addressed to a plurality: a group of young women? 63 invokes a personified dream. In 65, the reference to a queen and Cyprus, suggests it may be Aphrodite who says, “Sappho, I love you.” 60.8: pitheisan, as in Campbell. 68a This fragment preserves some names and some intriguing phrases. For Andromeda see Fr. 57 and note. The sons of Tyndareus are Helen’s brothers Castor and Pollux. According to the brief biography in the Suda (T2 Campbell), Megara was one of Sappho’s special companions.

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Possibly Sappho is criticizing hubristic excess; cf. the hubristic warriors who fight unsuccessfully against the sons of Tyndareus in Alcman 1. 71 Mica is possibly a friend of Sappho’s who has transferred her allegiance. The family of Penthilus was that to which the tyrant Pittacus belonged, to whom both Sappho and Alcaeus were opposed. 81, 82a The beauty of young women is tenderly evoked here. In the former poem, what is beautiful is also pleasing to the Graces, daughters of Zeus and divine personifications of the power of beauty (charis). The extremely fragmentary first part of 81 (lines 1–3) is from a papyrus, the second (lines 4–7) from a quotation in Athenaeus (15.674e) which seems to overlap with the papyrus fragment. 81.7: protorēn, “look upon,” emended as in Campbell. 86 Probably a summoning prayer to Aphrodite (Cytherea). “Aegis-bearing” (aigiochō) is an epithet of her father, Zeus. 88, 91, 92 The first and longest of these fragments is clearly a protestation of lasting love, but we cannot tell for whom. The second captures a burst of exasperation against Irene, whose name also appears in Fr 135. The third, preserving only the line-beginnings, is an evocation of exquisite clothing, but its context is a mystery. 92, 94, 95, 96 These fragments are all preserved in the same sixth-century parchment codex. 94 Composed in three-line stanzas of glyconic metre. The first preserved line would have been the second of its stanza. Fr. 94, addressed by Sappho to a departing girl, is one of the most important fragments. Sappho cheers her friend by telling her to remember past joys, which include adornment and ritual – and satisfying desire on soft beds. The last, if not sexually explicit, is certainly sexually suggestive, though some argue that the desire may be merely for sleep.

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1: Since the opening is lost, it is not clear whether the speaker of the rather exaggeratedly despairing first line is Sappho or her friend. I take it to be the latter. See p. 70, above. 7: Chaire, “farewell,” is used as a merely conventional parting formula. Scholars disagree as to whether that is the sense of the participle chairoisa here. Page asserts that Sappho is not “telling her friend to ‘cheer up’” (Sappho and Alcaeus 77). But Sappho is bidding her companion to be sustained by the memory of past joys. 27: choros is the usual supplement for –ros; here I follow Campbell’s text. 95 Gongyla, one of Sappho’s protégées, may be the addressee of this poem, which seems to describe a vision of Hermes (if –mas is to be expanded to Ermas). In his function of psychopomp, Hermes conducted the souls of the dead to the underworld, here seen as seductive, rather than threatening. 9,10–11,13: as in Campbell; Lobel-Page and Voigt leave these lines unsupplemented. 96 Someone has left Sappho’s circle and is now among the women of Lydia (in modern Turkey). It is often assumed that she left to get married, but the poem does not actually tell us this. On marriage as “still the most promising hypothesis,” see Hutchinson, Gk. Lyric Poetry 145. Arignōta, “exceedingly recognized,” may be a proper name or simply an epithet meaning something like “distinguished.” Sappho, if she is the speaker, imagines this absent young woman thinking of the intimate friend she has left, Atthis, whom we also know from Frr. 49 and 130.3–4. 2: [n]ōn as in Lobel-Page and Campbell. 4–5: as in Page, Sappho and Alcaeus 87–9, and Campbell. The text is uncertain. It is likely that se at the beginning of line 4 is the end of a verb. Campbell translates, “(she honoured) you as being like a goddess for all to see,” similarly to Page. 17: supplemented as in Campbell. 20: Although the absence of the coronis (poem-ending marker) suggests continuity, because of the transition apparent in the following lines, Hutchinson (185–6) argues that the poem ends here.

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21,23: ouk ammi, “not ... for us”; echēisth’ a, “you have ... ”; both as in Campbell. 24–36: The last part of the poem seems to describe an epiphany of Aphrodite, similar to that in Fr. 2. Persuasion (Peithō), often personified, is the power possessed by the goddess of love and by those whom she endows with beauty. In the damaged state of this section, the connection of the Geraistion, a shrine in Euboea dedicated to Poseidon, with Aphrodite is obscure. The large island of Euboea, very close to the Greek mainland, is comparatively distant from Lesbos and Lydia. 98a, 98b These two fragments, which may be related to each other, are preserved in a very early papyrus (third century bce). It is likely that they derive from the period of Sappho’s exile in Sicily, when Lydian finery, close at hand on Lesbos, became unavailable. Sardis is the capital of Lydia. The girl who has “hair yellower than a torch” (98a.6–7) could be Sappho’s daughter Cleis (98b.1), also the subject of Fr. 132. As for the other persons in 98b, the identity of “the Mytilenean (man)” is unknown – the tyrant Pittacus is one guess; “the sons of Cleanax” are the family of the tyrant Myrsilus, hostile to Sappho and her associates. Formerly the Cleanactids were exiled; now Sappho’s party is in exile. If the two passages are taken together, and autobiographically, we have here Sappho’s affection for her daughter and regret at her own inability to provide fine things for her; Cleis’s beauty blooms, nonetheless. 98a.10: It is possible that the damaged word kl- is a form of the name Cleis. 98b.1–3: as in Lobel-Page and Campbell. Voigt punctuates pothen essetai as a parenthetical question: “where will it [the unobtainable headband] come from?” 98b.7: Kleanaktidan; final n supplemented as in Campbell. 99, col. i, lines 1–9 LP A damaged fragment, this may be a scurrilous poem about a dildo, but if so it is not very Sapphic. Attributed to Sappho by some editors on the basis of metre, by others to Alcaeus. The metrical argument has recently been challenged by Ferrari, who assigns the poem to Alcaeus (Una mitra per Kleis 84–88). I use Lobel-Page’s numeration (also in Campbell) and Voigt’s text, except as indicated below.

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2: Pōlyanaktidais, as in Campbell. The Polyanactids, that is, the descendants of Polyanax, appear to be a Lesbian family to whom Sappho is hostile. Cf. Fr. 155. 4: as in Campbell. Lobel-Page and Voigt do not indicate word division. 5: Whether the word olisbos, “dildo,” really does appear here is doubtful; the letters are uncertain. Snyder wonders “why scholars have been so eager to find it [this word] in an almost illegible fragment of dubious authorship and uncertain context” (Lesbian Desire 115). However, Page’s examination of the papyrus makes him “practically certain that olisb- is what was written” (Sappho and Alcaeus 145 n.1). 100, 101 Brief quotations containing, as so often in Sappho, sharply vivid sensory details, here appealing to touch and scent as well as sight. 100: The text is uncertain. My spacing indicates a probable omission. 101: Again, the text is garbled. For line 2 I follow Campbell. 102 In the voice of a young girl in love, this fragment strikes a note common in folk poetry, or poetry assuming that mode. No context is given for this quotation. The sex of the “child” (paidos) whom the speaker desires is unspecified, so, considering that this is a poem by Sappho, it is just possible that the person desired by the female speaker is another girl. 103 The papyrus fragment contains, not a poem, but a list of the opening lines of epithalamia. This much is clear from the (damaged) commentary. See Page, Sappho and Alcaeus, 116–19. Judging by these openings, we gather the poems conveyed blessings and advice for bride and groom, in traditional language. Iokolpos, literally “violet-bosomed,” is an adjective applied to brides and goddesses. Cf. Frr. 21.13, 30.5, 58.11. The word, which suggests rich beauty both of figure and of clothing, only occurs in Sappho. For Pieria, see note on Fr. 55. 103B This papyrus fragment of an epithalamion is included by Lobel-Page’s edition among the Incertum Utrius Auctoris Fragmenta, i.e., the passages which might be attributable to either Sappho or Alcaeus.

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104–117B(a) These are all fragments quoted in rhetoricians and gathered as epithalamia by modern editors. Some – 108, 112, 113, 115 – contain conventional compliments. Others – 104a, 105a, 105b, 114 – though their motifs may well be conventional, are remarkable for the delicacy and sensitivity with which they evoke fragile youth. Yet others – 110, 111 – are marked by a heavy-handed humour that seems uncharacteristic of Sappho. 106 has no noticeable connection with weddings; “the Lesbian singer” is a typical figure, male or female, rather than a specific individual. 108 (here printed as in Campbell) is echoed in Theocritus’ “Epithalamion for Helen,” ō kala, ō chariessa kora (18.38); Voigt therefore adds kora in her text. Fr. 104a is aurally interesting for its repeated soft plosive p’s (ph would have been pronounced similarly), underlining the repeated returns of young creatures as the Evening Star summons them to come home. Perhaps the implication is that the young bride will not come back to her mother. Burnett notes the pun on Esperos and espherein, “to bring in” (Three Archaic Poets 223 n.33). 105a, capturing the inaccessibility of the sweet apple at the very top of the tree, may symbolize the bride in her beauty and virginity, which no one so far has been able to gather. In 105b, the crushing of the mountain flower suggests a brutal defloration. The epithalamic connection is certainly not clear; possibly the image offers a contrast to the happy consummation of marriage. In 114, the bride laments for her maidenhood, here personified as a departing friend. Each utters a melancholy repeated call to the other. 110 and 111, if untypical of Sappho, are entirely in line with much wedding humour. The first presents the door-keeper, a clumsy giant, whose role was to prevent the bride’s friends from coming to her rescue in the bridal chamber. The second, with its call to raise the roof for a huge bridegroom, contains an obvious phallic innuendo. I translate the refrain as the name of the god of weddings; the word hymēna(i)os could also mean “wedding song.” 112 Lines 3–5 may refer to the bride. See Page, Sappho and Alcaeus 122 n.3; Campbell, note.

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117B Quoted together but probably quite separate, (a) would come from an epithalamion, (b) from an Adonis song. Regarded by Lobel-Page as attributable to either Sappho or Alcaeus. 118 This fragment is quoted as Sappho apostrophizing her lyre, which is said to speak in return in the (lost) lines that follow. 120–5 Some of these short fragments are quoted as if they were autobiographical. If so, 121 and 125 would indicate that at the time of composing them Sappho regarded herself as no longer young. There may even be a hint of this sentiment in 122, with its implied distance between the observer and the “tender child” (paid’ ... apalan). It may be Sappho speaking in Fr. 120, where someone insists that they are not quarrelsome – or it may not. 121: as in Lobel-Page and Campbell. The metre is uncertain, and Voigt sets the fragment out as two lines, divided after neōteron. 124: Calliope, “the beautiful-voiced,” is one of the Muses. 126 We do not know to whom these words were addressed or by whom they were spoken. (H)etaira, “(female) companion or friend” (the word also occurs in Frr. 142 and 160) does not in Sappho have the meaning “prostitute” or “courtesan” that it acquired later on. Sleeping in the bosom of a tender companion does carry a sexual connotation – whether the sexuality is hetero- or homoerotic. Dauois could be either the optative (“may you sleep”) or the Aeolic feminine participle, dauoisa (“sleeping”), with the final vowel elided. 127, 128, 129(a), 129(b) 127 and 128 are typical invocations. 129(a) and (b), quoted together, briefly evoke an estrangement between lovers, who might be Sappho and a partner – and might not. 130.1–2 These famous lines, yoking contradictions that are nevertheless true, encapsulate the overwhelming assault of Eros, “Desire.” “Limb-loosening”

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is a characteristic adjective, also found in Alcman 3.61. Eros is sweet-bitter, impossible to negotiate with – and amachanon also suggests amachon, “impossible to fight with” – a creeping or sliding creature (Aeolic orpeton for herpeton), and a mighty force that shakes violently (donei). See also the following note. 130.3–4 Quoted, right after the previous quotation, in Hephaestion’s Handbook on Metres (7.7), a work of the second century CE to which we are indebted for many quotations from Sappho. Voigt prints the two fragments as (possibly) parts of the same poem. Lobel-Page and Campbell separate them, but think they may be contiguous. Sappho’s friend has transferred her affections to Andromeda, apparently the leader of a rival group. For Atthis, see also Frr. 49 and 96; for Andromeda, see 68a, 133(a), and note on 57. 132 Sappho speaks lovingly of her daughter Cleis. Cf. Frr. 98a and b. A “beautiful (girl) child” could possibly be one of Sappho’s protégées rather than her daughter, but the adjective agapata, “beloved,” is used for familial, not erotic, feelings, and, specifically, of only children. See Hallett, “Beloved Cleis.” Voigt indicates missing material between Kleis and agapata. I print continuously, as in Lobel-Page and Campbell. For the metrical difficulties in this fragment, see Page, Sappho and Alcaeus 131–2 n.4. The sentence breaks off at the end, incomplete. 133(a),(b)-136 These short quotations mention personages encountered elsewhere in Sappho: Andromeda – in a sarcastic phrase, Aphrodite (called “Cyprus-born” in Fr. 134), Irana or Irene (also addressed in Fr. 91). Perhaps the goddess is the speaker in 133(b). This fragment and 134 suggest a particularly close attachment to her on Sappho’s part. 133: here designated (a) and (b) as in Campbell. Lobel-Page and Voigt simply number 133. Quoted successively by Hephaestion (14.7), these lines may be from the same poem. 134: t’ inserted as in Campbell.

SAPPHO

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135 alludes to the story of Procne (Pandion’s daughter), who was turned into a swallow. In other versions it was her sister Philomela who became a swallow, while Procne became a nightingale. See note on Electra 107. 137 This passage is quoted by Aristotle (Rhetoric 1367a) as an exchange between Alcaeus and Sappho, the first two lines spoken by him, the rest by her. The metre is Alcaic rather than Sapphic. We may have two poems here, by the two poets, or the two parts may be fragments of a single poem by Sappho in dialogue form. As Page notes, use of Alcaeus’ metre would be appropriate in a poem directed towards him (Sappho and Alcaeus 107). The poets were sometimes depicted together; see xxi. Sappho rebukes the first speaker – Alcaeus, if it is him – for having good cause to be held back by aidos, “that which renders one sensitive to the general values of society and inhibits departure from them” (Cairns, Aidos 154). Aidōs, variously translatable as “shame,” “modesty,” or “reverence,” is the faculty that would prompt one to behave appropriately and honourably, especially in religious and sexual matters. Voigt brackets the whole of lines 3–6, presumably to dissociate them from lines 1–2. 138 This is said by Athenaeus (13.564d) to have been addressed mockingly by Sappho to a man who enjoys extravagant compliments for being so handsome. 140 An example of cult song, rare in Sappho’s poetry. These lines re-enact the death of Aphrodite’s beloved, Adonis, as she and her attendants mourn for him, the goddess responding to the maidens. Cf. Fr. 168 and Bion’s Adonis. As Carson notes, the word (h)abros (translated by her as “delicate”) also means “‘soft, luxurious, expensive, dainty, refined’ and carries connotations of aristocracy, sensuality and the East” (If Not, Winter 377). Liberman (46), commenting on abrosynan in Fr. 58, argues that the word implies the aesthetic and moral values of an aristocrat. On the habrosynē of heroes dying in their hēbē (bloom), see Dué 64–77; on habros Adōnis, see Reed 240.

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141 Usually printed as a single fragment. The two parts, which I designate (a) and (b) as in Campbell, are cited by Athenaeus in two different places: (a) in 10.425d, (b) in 11.475a. They seem to belong to the same poem about a divine wedding. 142–9 The contexts that would explain the significance of these quotations are lost. 144, probably, and 147, possibly, have an autobiographical reference. Gorgo, in 144, is a rival of Sappho mentioned by Maximus of Tyre (T20 Campbell). 146 is quoted as a proverb about people who don’t want to take the bad with the good. 147 invites comparison with Fr. 55, which mocks an uncultivated woman who will not be remembered. If Sappho is the speaker, the pl. ammeōn may simply mean “me,” rather than “us.” 142: For Leto and Niobe see note on Electra 150; for (h)etaira see note on Fr. 126. 143: Chick-peas are a vetch-like plant. The image describes the blossom. 147: Possibly from a poem in which Sappho “preens herself on her poetic stature and expresses confidence that she will be remembered” (West, “The New Sappho” 3). 148: The second line may be spurious. Voigt places it in parentheses. 150 These lines are said to have been addressed by Sappho to her daughter, Cleis (mentioned in 98b and 132). That Sappho should speak of a house “of those who serve the Muses” (moisopolōn) lends support to the tradition that Sappho was not only a poet and singer but also someone who trained others in poetry and song. Cf. Fr. 214B Campbell, a papyrus commentary that describes Sappho in this way. 151–60 Many of these fragments contain only isolated images. 154 may describe a pannychis, an all-night celebration in which women and girls often played a prominent part. 155 is quoted as the words of Sappho. The daughter of the house of Polyanax is unknown. She could be a rival practitioner of poetry, a member of an opposing political faction, or

SAPPHO

151

simply someone Sappho dislikes. The Polyanactid family is also mentioned in Fr. 99. 158: for the admonition to guard one’s tongue, cf. Fr. 120. 159 suggests a special intimacy between Sappho and Aphrodite. Cf. Fr. 134. 160: for etairais, see note on Fr. 126. 166 Here Leda “found” the egg from which her children with Zeus – Castor, Pollux, Helen, and Clytemnestra – were born. Voigt indicates something missing at the beginning of the second line. 168 With this fragment of cult song, cf. Fr. 140, and Bion, Adonis 32. 168B, 168C These two evocative fragments are not securely attributed to Sappho. Voigt and Campbell include them. Page places them in the adespota (“anonymous”) section of his edition of the melic poets (PMG).

3 corinna

Although Sappho is the only woman poet from early Greece who is well known in the modern world, there were others, and may have been many. Then, as now, her reputation surpassed the rest, but it is hard for us to make a judgement about them because so little of their poetry survives. Corinna, who came from Tanagra in Boeotia, is the best represented. Scholars disagree as to whether she was an older contemporary of Pindar in the early fifth century, in accordance with the ancient tradition – according to the Suda, for example, “they say” she defeated Pindar five times in competitions – or a Hellenistic author a couple of hundred years later. The later dating is based on the lack of any reference to her before 50 bce (see Allen and Frel; Snyder, The Woman and the Lyre, 43–4; Campbell, Gk Lyric 4: 1). I am inclined to an early dating for Corinna, because her poetry shows a definite awareness of the female group, both performers and audience, for whom she was composing. Eva Stehle suggests that if her cautionary tales about groups of young women were designed for choral performance their message “must have seemed directly applicable to the parthenoi who performed them” (Performance and Gender 103–4). In the third century (bce) these sentiments would no longer relate to a performance context and would have to be self-consciously archaizing. Marilyn Skinner, in fact, infers that her “ostensible simplicity” is a “deliberately archaizing stance” (“Homer’s Mother” 108–9 n.23). In one poem (655 PMG) Corinna speaks of adorning old tales for maidens (lines 9–11) and of the Tanagrian women or girls (Tanagridessi) for whom the Muse of choral poetry bids her sing (1–3). With what looks like the socially approved female self-deprecation, she rebukes the woman poet Myrtis for

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153

venturing to compete with Pindar (664a PMG); but more assertively she says that she herself praises the noble deeds of both heroes and heroines (664b pmg). Legend has it that she criticized the young Pindar for failing to tell the traditional stories (mythous); when he showed her a poem beginning with a whole catalogue of possible subjects, she laughed and said, “You should sow with the hand, not with the whole sack” (Plutarch, De gloria Atheniensium 4.347f-348a). Testy relations between Pindar and Corinna are also implied by the anecdote that he was so annoyed at being defeated by her in the poetic contests he called her a sow – but this report, from Aelian in the second century ce (Varia historia 13.25), may have been prompted by Pindar’s own words about escaping the insult of being a Boeotian pig (Olympian 6.90). Collectively, these glimpses suggest an independent-minded woman who promoted her own sex and presented something of a challenge to men. However, some of Corinna’s poetry is neither in the female voice nor from a particularly feminine perspective – or so it seems. On closer inspection, a certain feminine irony is detectable. Her account of the singing contest between Mounts Helicon and Cithaeron (654a.i pmg) quotes a song about Zeus, who was saved from his child-devouring “crookedcounselled” father by the superior cunning of his “blessed” mother (lines 12–18). After the gods vote for the winner in the contest, Helicon, the sore loser, flies into a rage and hurls a huge boulder into a myriad pieces (654a.i.31–4). It has been suggested that there is a not-so-veiled reference here to a male poet (i.e., Pindar), who also was a bad loser (see Demand 105). In another poem from the same papyrus (654a.iii), the prophet Acraephen foresees a glorious destiny for the nine daughters of the River Asopus, who have been carried off by gods. Remembering that Alcman narrates male-centered myths mediated through his group of singing maidens, one wonders if such is the case with these fragments of Corinna’s. Is the grandiose style in the “Contest of the Mountains” a parody of heroic poetry? I am not the only one to detect humour here (see Collins 20). Are we to imagine a contrast between huge, clumsy mountains and graceful, slender girls singing about them? And is there “at least a whiff of irony” in the pomposity of Acraephen and Asopus (see Larmour 36)? Would the presence of the girl chorus highlight the beautiful daughters of Asopus and their destiny? We need to think of ways in which presentation by a female chorus might affect the narrative and its moral.

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654a col. i 12

15

20

25

30

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ¼eu ^» ^ ^ ^ ^ ^¼ Kwvreite~ e[krou¼yan davqio»n qi¼a`~ brevfo¼~ a[ntroi, laqrav»da¼n ajgko¼ulomeivtao Krovnw, tanivkav nin klevye mavkhra ïReiva meg¼avlan tÆ »aj¼qanavtwn e[s~¼ e{le timavn: tavdÆ e[melyem: mavkara~ dÆ aujtivka Mwvsh f¼erevmen ya`fon e[»t¼atton kr¼oufivan kavlpida~ ejn crousofai`~: tu; dÆ a{ma pavnte»~¼ w\rqen: plivona~ dÆ ei|le Kiqhrwvn: tavca dÆ ïErma`~ ajnevfan»evn ni¼n ajouvsa~ ejrata;n wJ~ e{¼le nivkan stef»av¼nusin ^ ^ ¼^ ^ a ^ twv ^anekovsmion mavka¼re~: tw` de; novo~ gegavqi: oJ de; lo¼uvphsi kav»q¼ekto~ calep¼h`sin üeli»k¼w;n ej^ ^ ^ ^ ¼^ littavda »p¼evtran ^ ^ ^ ^ ¼^ ken dÆ o[»ro¼~: ujktrw`~ ^ ^ ^ ^ ¼^ wn ouJy»ov¼qen ei[risev nin ej¼m mou»ri¼avdessi lavu~: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

654a col. iii 12

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ta`n de; phvdw»n tri`~ m¼e;n e[ci Deuv~ patei;»r pavntw¼n Basileuv~, tri`~ de; povnt»w ga`me¼ mevdwn

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654a col. i “The Curetes reared the goddess’s divine offspring in a cave, kept secret from crooked-counselled Cronus, when blessed Rhea stole him, and from the immortals he received great honour.” These things he sang. And straightaway the Muses were bidding the blessed gods to bring their secret voting pebbles to gold-shining urns. And they all stood up together. And Cithaeron received the majority, and quickly Hermes proclaimed him, calling out that he had received lovely victory, and with garlands ... the blessed gods were adorning him, and his heart rejoiced. But the other, Helicon, overcome with sore resentment ... [took] a smooth rock; and the mountain ... pitiably ... he hurled it from on high into a myriad pieces [traces of about 30 further lines follow 34]

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654a col. iii “Of your daughters, Father Zeus, king of all, has three, and Poseidon, who guards the sea,

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P»otidavwn, t¼a`n de; doui`n Fu`bo~ levkt»ra¼ kratouvni, ta;n dÆ i[an Mhv»a~¼ ajgaqo;~ ph`~ ïErma`~: ou{»t¼w ga;r ÒErw~ kh; Kouvpri~ piqevtan, tiw;~ ejn dovmw~ bavnta~ kroufavdan kwvra~ ejnnivÆ eJlevsqh: thv pokÆ eiJrwvwn genevqlan ejsgennavsonqÆ eiJm»iqiv¼wn ka[ssonqh p»o¼lou»sp¼erive~ tÆ ajgeivrw tÆ ej~ »m¼a»ntos¼ouvnw trivpodo~ w{it» ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ¼^ tovde gevra~ k»ekravteicÆ iJw;¼n ej~ penteivko»nta¼ kraterw`n oJmhvmwn pevr»oco¼~ profavta~ semnw`n »ajdo¼uvtwn lacw;n ajyeuvdian ÆAk»rh¼feivn: pravtoi »me;n¼ ga;»r Lat¼oi?da~ dw`kÆ Eujwnouvmoi tripovdwn ejs~ iJwn` »cre¼ismw;~ ejnevpein, to;n dÆ ej~ ga`~ balw;n OuJrieu;~ tima;»n¼ deuvtero~ i[scen, ph`~ »Pot¼idavwno~: e[pitÆ ÆWa»riv¼wn aJmo;~ genevtwr gh`a»n ü¼a;n ajppasavmeno~: cwj me;n wjran»o;¼n ajmfevpi tima;n dÆ »e[llaco¼n ou{tan. twvnek» ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ¼^ n ejnevpw tÆ ajt»r¼evk»ian crei¼smolovgon: tou; dev »nou üi`kev tÆ aj¼qanavtu~

CORINNA

wedded three, and Phoebus rules the beds of two of them, and one good Hermes, Maia’s son. For thus Eros and Cypris persuaded them, going into your house secretly to choose nine daughters. In the future they shall bear the half-divine race of heroes, and they shall be most fertile and unaging. From the oracular tripod ... [I tell you this]. This privilege [only I have gained] out of fifty strong brothers; I, the distinguished prophet Acraephen, obtained the true interpretation of the reverend mysteries. For first Leto’s son gave to Euonymus the gift of speaking oracles from his tripods, and then Hyrieus cast him from his country and was the second to possess that honoured position, the son of Poseidon. And then Orion my father got back his land, and he dwells in heaven, and [I have now obtained] this honour. Therefore ... I proclaim an unswerving oracle, so now submit to the immortals

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kh; louv» ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^¼ frevna~ dhmovn»essÆ eJkou¼reuvwn.» w}~ e[fa »mavnti~¼ p»e¼raJgeiv~: to;n dÆ ÆA»swpo;~ ajs¼pasivw~ dexia`~ ej»fayavm¼eno~ davkrouv tÆ »ojktavl¼lwn probal»w;n w|dÆ ajmivy»ato f¼wnh`: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

655 fr.1

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ejpiv me Teryicovra » kala; üeroi`Æ ajisom»evnan Tanagrivdessi le»ukopevplu~ mevga dÆ ejmh`~ gevg»aqe povli~ ligourokw»tiv¼lu»~ ejnoph`~. o{tti ga;r megal ^» yeud» ^¼s ^» ^¼adome» »^ ^¼ ^ w ^ gh`an eujrouv»coron lovgia dÆ ejp patevrw»n kosmeivsasa üidio» parq»ev¼nusi kata» po¼lla; me;n Kaf»iso;n iJwvngÆ ajrc¼ago;n kovsm»eisa lovgu¼~, polla; dÆ ÆWriv»wna¼ mevgan kh; penteiv»kontƼ ouJyibiva~ ph`da»~ ou}~ nouv¼mfhsi mig»iv¼~ tevketo, kh; ¼ Libouvan k»alavn ^¼ ^» ^ ^¼qhs» üirivw kovran ^» kala; üidei`n ar» g¼h`an a}n tivkt» ^¼ ^tevketo tu» . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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and set free your mind, [for you will be father-in-law] to gods.”

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Thus spoke the most holy prophet, and Asopus gladly took him by the right hand, shedding a tear from his eyes, thus his voice replied . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [remaining lines badly damaged]

50

655 fr. 1 Terpsichore calls upon me to sing good tales for the white-robed women of Tanagra, and the city delights greatly in my clear, beguiling voice. for whatever ... great ... false ... ... land of wide dancing-places adorning the tales of my ancestors with my own [?] ... for maidens ... ... I ... often celebrating Father Cephisus with my words, often mighty Orion and his fifty powerful sons, whom, in union with the nymphs and lovely Libya he conceived, ... the maiden ... I shall tell ... fair to see earth whom ... conceived ... begat ...

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657 h\ ÿdianekw`~ eu{dei~É ouj ma;n pavro~ h\sqa, Kovrinna

664a mevmfomh de; kh; ligoura;n MourtivdÆ iJwvngÆ o{ti bana; fou`sÆ e[ba Pindavroi po;t e[rin.

664b iJwvnei dÆ eiJrwvwn ajreta;~ ceijrwavdwn.

674 Qevspia kalligevneqle filovxene mwsofivleite

690 ÒA¼a~ me;n wjkianw` lipw`sa p»aga;~¼ iJaro;n favo~ selavna~ spavsa »tÆ wjran¼w`: ÓWrh dÆ ej~ Dio;~ ajmbrovtu »nivonq¼h üevaro~ ejn a[nqesin, gevga»qen de; povnu~ po¼du`n coro;~ ajn eJptavpoulon »povlin.

692 fr.2a ¼u parqevnu kovrh» Kafi¼so;n eu[dendron » w¼n ouJpÆ ojmfa`~ kou`fo~ » li¼gou; de; mevlyon»q ^¼ » ¼n filovmolpon

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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657 Are you still in deep sleep, Corinna? You never used to be.

664a And I blame sweet-voiced Myrtis because, though a woman, she went into competition with Pindar.

664b But I sing the noble deeds of heroes and heroines.

674 Thespia, beautiful in your offspring, welcoming to strangers, haunt of the Muses

690 Dawn, leaving [the springs] of Ocean and drawing from heaven the moon’s holy light. And the hours come, begotten of immortal Zeus among spring flowers. In the work of its feet, the chorus delights throughout Seven-Gated [Thebes].

692 fr. 2a Maiden daughters ... well-wooded Cephisus ... the light ... [foot] along with the voice and they will sing a clear strain ... song-loving ....................

notes Corinna’s poetry is written in a version of the Boeotian dialect, which preserves the digamma (ü, pronounced w). Thus, Mount Helicon

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appears as üelikwvn (welikōn). There are also some distinctive vowels: ei (ei) for Attic h (ē), h for ai (ai), i (i) for e and ei (e, ei), u for oi (oi), w (ō) for ou (ou), oi for w/ (ōi), ou for u. 654a col. i This fragment, from a papyrus of the second century ce, relates the singing contest between Mount Helicon and Mount Cithaeron, personified as minor gods. The immortals vote Cithaeron the winner, whereupon Helicon flies into a rage. Little remains of the first eleven lines. 12: The Curetes are semi-divine martial youths who by their noisy dancing concealed and protected the infant Zeus in Crete when his mother Rhea hid him from his father Cronus, who was swallowing his progeny. 18: The subject of hele, “received” could be either “he,” Zeus, as translated here, or “she,” Rhea. Rayor argues that klepse (line 16) and hele should be understood as grammatically parallel, with Rhea the subject of both (“Korinna” 227). 654a col. iii From the same papyrus as the previous piece, this poem also narrates a mythical event: in this case, the fate of the nine daughters of the river Asopus, nymphs associated with locations in Boeotia. Eros and Aphrodite (Cypris) had persuaded Zeus, Poseidon, Phoebus (Apollo), and Hermes to abduct the girls. As recompense, the maidens will be granted semi-divine status. Lines 1-11 very fragmentary. 12-46: These lines are the words of Acraephen, prophet of Apollo, and one of the fifty sons of Orion, the giant hunter, venerated in Boeotia. Acraephen’s name is suggestive of Acraephia, a Boeotian city. 27, 41, 46: supplemented as in Campbell. The legible text breaks off at the point where Asopus is about to reply. 655 fr. 1 From an Oxyrhynchus papyrus of around 200 ce. Spoken in the voice of the poet or possibly the collective voice of a maiden chorus, this papyrus fragment presents the speaker as a Boeotian from Tanagra proclaiming the legends of her homeland.

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1: Terpsichore, “Delighting in the Chorus,” is the Muse of dance. 2: Weroia is of uncertain meaning; perhaps “tales.” A Roman author mentions it as the title of one of Corinna’s books (Antoninus Liberalis 25; see Page, Corinna 30, 34). 12: Cephisus is the name of a river in Boeotia, here personified. 14: Orion and his sons also figure in the previous fragment. 17-21: Lines 17 and 21 supplemented as in Campbell. Libya is a nymph here. 664a and b, 657, 674 All these fragments are quotations in later authors. The woman poet Myrtis, in 664a, is mentioned by Plutarch and others; see pp. 23 and 152-3, above. Possibly 664a and b are from the same poem; they are quoted (by the grammarian Apollonius Dyscolus) in close proximity. If so, Corinna could be contrasting herself with Myrtis. Hiōnga and hiōngei for Attic egōge, “I, for my part,” and bana for Attic gynē, “woman,” are Boeotian forms. The context for the intriguing Fr. 657, in which someone tells Corinna she is a slug-a-bed, is unknown. Perhaps the speaker is a goddess visiting the poet in her sleep. Thespia, praised in 674, is a town in southern Boeotia, on the eastern side of Mount Helicon, where there was a famous shrine of the Muses. 690, 692 fr. 2a These pieces are both papyrus fragments attributed to unidentified Boeotian authors by PMG. I supplement as in Campbell. Only the second half of 690, after the title “Orestes,” is included here. If it is an account of the well-known son of Agamemnon, this poem is unusual in Corinna’s extant oeuvre, which elsewhere concentrates on local Boeotian characters. However, Orestes is associated with Phocis and Delphi, both near Boeotia. Page suggests that the occasion for this poem was a festival at the Ismenion, a shrine of Apollo in Thebes (Corinna 28). 3: Spasa, “drawing,” as in Campbell; presumably of dawn taking away the moon’s light. 5: Nionthē (supplemented) would be Boeotian for neontai, “come.”

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692 fr. 2a, which seems to describe a maiden chorus, may also be associated with a festival. 2: Kaphison (supplemented), i.e., Cephisus, the Boeotian river.

4 pindar

Chiefly known to modern readers for his victory odes, Pindar came from Thebes in Boeotia but composed in other city-states too, and enjoyed a pan-Hellenic reputation, in his lifetime and after. He lived between about 518 and 438 bce (see Race 1: 5). Pindar became the most admired of the Greek lyric poets, and the only one from whom a substantial body of poetry survives. As is the case with the other archaic authors, little is known about his life outside of what can be inferred from his poetry. He seems to have belonged to an aristocratic family in Thebes, the Aegeidae, whom (if we assume he, and not the chorus, is the speaker here) he calls “my ancestors” (emoi pateres, Pythian 5.76). From the not very reliable ancient vitae we can infer that his father was probably Daïphantos (also the name of Pindar’s son), his mother Cleodice, that he studied with the choral poet Lasus of Hermione, and that his poetry is collected in seventeen books, devoted to his various genres. Being a Theban, he belonged to a more conservative society than that of Athens, and his poetry reflects a “deep admiration for the aristocratic values of the archaic world” (Kirkwood 5). He enjoyed the patronage of powerful rulers in the Greek diaspora like Hieron of Syracuse, Theron of Acragas, both cities in Sicily, and Arcesilas of Cyrene in north Africa. Their victories in horse races at the great games, as well as the victories of athletes from cities all over Greece, Pindar celebrated in grandiloquent verse. Pindar’s victory odes, unlike all the other lyric poems from the archaic period except those of Theognis, have been substantially preserved in a continuous manuscript tradition. Only fragments of his compositions in other genres survive, including some samples of partheneia. The most

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substantial of these is Fragment 94b, the “Daphnephoricon for Agasicles.” As mentioned earlier, daphnephorica and the daphnephoria are described in the Byzantine writer Photius’ Bibliotheca. We know from Proclus, as summarized by Photius, that the ceremony of the Daphnephoria was a procession to the sanctuaries of Apollo (the Ismenion and the Galaxion) in Thebes, and featured a chorus of maidens bearing suppliant branches (Bibliotheca 321a-b). The ceremony is also mentioned by the antiquarian Pausanias in the second century ce, in his Tour of Greece (9.10.4). According to Proclus, the procession was led by a young boy accompanied by his closest male relative carrying a garlanded piece of wood called a kōpō. Though the festival may have evolved and changed in the course of time (see Schachter, “Daphnephoria”), it seems fairly clear that the ceremony that is taking place in Pindar’s poem is the Daphnephoria. The poem praises Agasicles, the laurel-bearer, and his family, celebrating the victories of their horses in the great competitions (41–9) much in the manner of Pindar’s epinician odes composed to honour victors in the games. Evidently the occasion was felt to honour these people, and in some ways belonged to them more than to the god. In addition to Agasicles, other close members of his family seem to figure prominently, including Aioladas and Pagondas (9–10), possibly the grandfather and father of Agasicles, as well as Damaina and Andaisistrota (who may be Agasicles’ sister and mother respectively), and “the father of Damaina” (66–72). The first lines of the poem are damaged, and substantial sections are missing, but the setting is pretty clear: a maiden chorus processing behind Agasicles to a temple of Apollo in Thebes. Instead of Pindar’s usual grand manner, this daphnephoricon has a simplicity and delicacy, less brilliant but not without appeal. As in Alcman, the appearance and sentiments appropriate to a maiden are evoked – in a more obviously programmatic way. The speaker presents herself “swiftly girding up my robe and bearing a bright spray of laurel in my tender hands” (6–7), “decking my maiden head with garlands” (11–12). As in Alcman, the singing emulates the entrancing voices of the Sirens (13–15). Like the Sirens, who seem to be benevolent here, calming the winds that stir up the wintry sea, the speaker will work magic with her song, as she honours Agasicles and his family.

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And, again as in Alcman, she is diffident about herself and her abilities. As best she can she will adorn her theme with words skilfully turned (daidallois’ epesin, line 32). After referring to the knowledge of Zeus, she adds, “For me it is fitting to think maiden thoughts, and utter them with my tongue” (33–5). She speaks of Agasicles’ family with affectionate respect: a man and a woman whose children “I hold dear” (enkeimai, 36–7), and goes on to list their victories – at Onchestus, at the temple of Itonia in Boeotia, and at Pisa where the Olympic Games were held (46–9). She praises their good qualities (61–5), and then turns to the scene before her and the members of the procession (66–75). Some moral seems to follow, but the ending of the poem is largely lost. Pindar composed other partheneia but very little of them survives. The Ambrosian Life, included in the Ambrosian manuscript of his epinicians, and probably going back to a source in the second century ce, says he wrote two books of partheneia and one of kechōrismenōn tōn partheneiōn, i.e., either “of separate partheneia” or “of poems separate from the partheneia.” In the former category, as well as 94b, is 94c, a daphnephoricon for his son Daïphantos, of which only a few words are preserved: “Apollo, Leader of the Muses, bids me sing in the chorus ... lead your servant, renowned Leto.” This poem celebrates Apollo, but its composition is a gesture towards Pindar’s son. Fragment 94a, included by editors among the kechōrismena, is a praise poem complimenting the family of Aioladas, the same people as those praised in 94b. The speaker is a “prophet who fulfils his holy office” (lines 5–6), which must mean the poet, so it is not a partheneion in the usual sense. Pythian 3, one of Pindar’s epinicians, refers in a well-known passage to maidens singing at night to the Mother (goddess) and Pan, at Pindar’s door (lines 77–9), which suggests there was a shrine near his home, but tells us nothing about the content of the hymn. And Fragment 95, containing very brief quotations from a hymn to Pan, is said by a commentator on Pythian 3.78 to be among the kechōrismena. It could have been performed by maidens, but there is nothing about maidens in the surviving words. As far as we can judge from the scanty remains, the performance context of Pindar’s maiden-songs is significantly different from Alcman’s. A procession takes place, rather than a dance, the god honoured is male, and the principal actors in the ceremony are also male. At the same time,

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the purpose and the tone are also quite different (see Klinck, “Male Poets and Maiden Voices”). Pindar’s maiden-songs have a personal and political function. Fragment 94b praises Agasicles and his relations much in the manner of the epinicians, rather than Apollo (cf. Schachter, Cults of Boeotia 1: 85). By contrast, in Alcman 1 and 3 personal power politics seem not to be a concern. One has the impression that the event behind Pindar Fragment 94b belongs to the family of Agasicles, whereas the events behind Alcman 1 and 3 are more genuinely communal. Alcman’s leading characters are typical and representative, with names – like “Leader of the Chorus” (Hagesichora) and “Dear to the City” (Astymeloisa) – that express their roles. I believe it is significant that Alcman is the earlier composer of the two, and thus closer to traditional oral songs. In him the traditional takes precedence over the personal and one has no sense of a particular personal agenda on the poet’s part. By the time of Pindar, a hundred and fifty years later, festal songs have become less anonymous and communal, and identifiable influential people are named. As Gregory Nagy notes, though he is not thinking mainly of partheneia, the reference of Alcman’s poetry is more general, of Pindar’s more specific, and “this pattern corresponds to increasingly fewer instances of individual patronage” as we go further back in time (Pindar’s Homer 382). In Pindar, the epinician voice, which vaunts the excellence of an individual male, intrudes into the anonymous, collective, maiden-voiced sentiments of the partheneion. It is instructive to compare the language that Pindar uses for the partheneion genre with his usually more complex style, visible especially in his epinicians. The difference suggests that the speaking voice of the maiden chorus is not merely a mouthpiece for the poet (as thought, for example, by D’Alessio, “First-Person Problems” 120). Ancient critics were struck by the difference between Pindar’s partheneia and his usual grandiloquent manner. Thus, Dionysius of Halicarnassus cites Pindar, along with Aeschylus, as an example of the “archaic and austere style,” observing that the partheneia are an exception, though they too have a certain nobility (De Demosthene 39; cf. also Lefkowitz, “TW KAI EGW” 189). The studied simplicity of the maiden voice here is a far cry from Pindar’s characteristic density and richness. Those splendid, fugue-like, openings of some of the great

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victory-odes come to mind: the absolute excellence of water, and of gold that blazes like fire in the night, unsurpassed as the sun in the lonely sky (Olympian 1); the brimming heirloom bowl held out in ceremonial offering to the bridegroom (Olympian 7); the power of the golden lyre which the chorus obey – it quenches the thunderbolt and lulls to sleep the mighty eagle on the sceptre of Zeus – his wings relax, his back heaves (Pythian 1). It is as if the brilliance which arrests us in these and many another epinician passage cannot convincingly submerge itself in the maiden persona required by the genre, and Pindar seems out of his element. As choral poetry moves away from collective anonymity, the stamp of individual author and patron becomes more marked. But also, the magisterial presence of the epinician Pindar – the personality he has bequeathed to posterity – could hardly be more different from the innocent voice traditionally created for maiden song. It is tempting to speculate that the absence of those intense and intimate feelings which make the Alcman fragments so compelling may also be in part attributable to Pindar’s discomfort with his feminine persona, a discomfort less likely to be felt by a poet composing when the partheneion was a more genuinely communal genre.

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94a

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rh» ^ ^¼co» ¼eos» aiti» ^ ^¼sal» ^ ^ ^ ^ ^¼ ^» ^ ^ ^ ^¼ dei` desmo;~ » ^ ^ ^¼os» ^ ^ ^ ¼^ qeiaiser» ¼ ^w ^ ena/ k»ar¼diva/ mavnti~ wJ~ televssw

10

iJerapovlo~: timai; de; brotoi`si kekrimevnai: panti; dÆ ejpi; fqovno~ ajndri; kei`tai ajreta`~, oJ de; mhde;n e[cwn uJpo; siga`/ melaivna/ kavra kevkruptai.

15

filevwn dÆ a]n eujcoivman Kronivdai~ ejpÆ Aijolavda/ kai; gevnei eujtucivan tetavsqai oJmalo;n crovnon: ajqavnatai de; brotoi`~ aJmevrai, sw`ma d’ ejsti; qnatovn.

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ajll’ w|/tini mh; lipovtekno~ sfalh`/ pavmpan oi\ko~ biaiva/ damei;~ ajnavgka/, zwvei kavmaton profugw;n ajniarovn: to; g»a;¼r pri;n genev»sqai ¼

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¼ crusop»epl ^ ^ ^¼dwm» ^ ^ ¼^ ^levsh/st» ^ ^ ^ ^¼me »^ h{ke]i ga;r oJ [Lox]iva~ p¼r»ov¼frw»n¼ ajqanavtan cavrin Qhvbai~ ejpimeivxwn. ajlla; zwsamevna te pevplon wjkevw~ cersivn tÆ ejn malakai`sin o{rpak’ ajglaovn

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... ... a bond is necessary ... for the goddesses ... heart ... so that as a holy prophet I may

5

fulfil. Diverse are the honours to mortals. For every man envy awaits his prowess, while he who has nothing hides his head in dark silence.

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In love I would pray to the children of Cronus for Aioladas and his race, that good fortune may have been appointed them, unchanging through time. Immortal are the days of men, yet their bodies are doomed to die.

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94a.

But if a man’s household is not entirely brought low, bereft of children by the compulsion of overmastering necessity, he lives escaping painful toil. That which happens before ...

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94b. ... golden-robed ... ... house ... For Loxias has come graciously mingling immortal delight for Thebes. But swiftly girding up my robe, and bearing a bright spray of laurel

5

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10

davfna~ ojcevoisa pavndoxon Aijolavda staqmovn uiJou` te Pagwvnda

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uJmnhvsw stefavnoisi qavlloisa parqevnion kavra, seirh`na de; kovmpon aujlivskwn uJpo lwtivnwn mimhvsomÆ ajoidai`~

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kei`non, o}~ Zefuvrou te sigavzei pnoa;~ aijyhrav~, oJpovtan te ceimw`no~ sqevnei frivsswn Boreva~ ejpispevrchsÆ wjkuvalon ÿte povntouÿ rJ¼ipa;n ÿejtavraxe kaiÿ; . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ¼^ fen» ^ ^ ^ ^¼ »^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ¼^ asikm»i¼zwnna»

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pol¼la; me;n »t¼a; pavroiq» daidavlloisÆ e[pesin, ta; dÆ a» Zeu;~ oi\dÆ, ejme; de; prevpei parqenhvi>a me;n fronei`n glwvssa/ te levgesqai:

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ajndro;~ dÆ ou[te gunaikov~, w|n qavlessin e[gkeimai, crhv m»e¼ laqei`n ajoida;n provsforon. pista; dÆ ÆAgasiklevei mavrtu~ h[luqon ej~ corovn ejsloi`~ te goneu`sin ajmfi; proxenivaisi: tivmaqen ga;r ta; pavlai ta; nu`n

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in my tender hands, I will hymn the renowned abode of Aioladas and of his son Pagondas,

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decking my maiden head with garlands. Accompanied by lotus-wood flutes, I will imitate in songs that Siren sound

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which stills the swift blasts of Zephyr when with the might of storm rough Boreas rages, and stirs up the restless waves of the salt sea.

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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [either 8 or 23 lines missing] ... ...

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many things of old ... in skilfully turned words, but the ... Zeus knows. For me it is fitting to think maiden thoughts and utter them with my tongue.

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I must not forget a worthy song for a man and woman whose children I hold dear. I have come into the chorus as a sure witness for Agasicles and his noble parents,

40

out of friendly service. They were honoured in the past

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tÆ ajmfiktiovnessin i{ppwn tÆ wjkupovdwn po»lugnwvtoi~ ejpi; nivkai~, ai|~ ejn aji>onv essin ÆOgch»stou` klu¼ta`~, tai`~ de; nao;n ÆItwniva~ a» ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^¼a caivtan stefavnoi~ ejkovsmhqen e[n te Pivsa/ perip» . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

60

rJiza tev » se¼mno;n an» ¼ Q»hvbai~] eJptapuvloisin.

65

ejnh`ken kai; e[peit» ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ¼^ lo~ tw`nd’ ajndrw`n e{ne»ke¼n merivmna~ swvfrono~ ejcqra;n e[rin ouj palivgglwsson, ajlla; divka~ [oJ]douv~ p»is¼ta;~ ejfivlh»s ^¼n.

70

Damaivna~ pa» ^ ^¼r ^ ^» ^ ^ ^¼w/ nu`n moi podi; steivcwn aJgevo: »t¼i;n ga;r e»u[¼frwn e{yetai prwvta qugavthr »oJ¼dou` davfna~ eujpetavlou sced»ov¼n baivnoisa pedivloi~,

75

jAndaisistrovta a}n ejpavskhse mhvdes»i ^¼ ^» ^¼t» ^¼ ^ ^» ¼ aJ d’ e[r»gm¼asi » murivwn e» ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ¼^ ai~ zeuxa» mh; nu`n nevkta»r ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ¼^ na~ ejma`~ diyw`ntÆ a» ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ¼^ parÆ aJlmurovn

PINDAR

as now, among their neighbours, for celebrated victories of swift-footed horses,

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those victories on the shores of renowned Onchestus, and those at the temple of Itonia ... They adorned their hair with garlands, and at Pisa they ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [either 8 or 23 lines missing] and the shoot ... holy ... at seven-gated Thebes.

60

And then incited ... thoughtful solicitude because of these men, not unrelenting hateful strife, but they loved the sure paths of justice.

65

Father of Damaina ... lead the way now for me as you walk with stately step. First in the procession, your daughter will gladly follow you, walking with sandals close to the fair-leaved laurel,

70

whom Andaisistrota trained by her counsels ... she in her labours a myriad ... joining ...

75

Do not now nectar ... from my ... thirsting ... Let them not depart

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oi[cesqon: ej[ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

94c JO Moisagevta~ me kalei` coreu`sai »ÆA¼povllwn» a[goi~, wj` klutav, qeravponta, Latoi`

95 ÇW Pavn, ÆArkadiva~ medevwn kai; semnw`n ajduvtwn fuvlax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Matro;~ megavla~ ojpadev,

semna`n Carivtwn mevlhma terpnovn

PINDAR

177

to a briny ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [remainder of the poem missing or badly damaged]

94c Apollo, the Leader of the Muses, bids me to sing in the chorus. .................... Lead your servant, renowned Leto. 95 Oh, Pan, you who watch over Arcadia and guard the holy shrines. Companion of the Great Mother, favourite of the holy Graces, their delight.

notes Though he came from Boeotia, Pindar composed in the synthetic dialect that had come to be regarded as appropriate to choral lyric. There is a strong Doric element, conveying a flavour of poetic archaism. (Long) a (a) appears for Attic h (ē); oi (oi) or w (ō) is often found for ou (ou); dative plurals in -oisi, -aisi, and –essi are common, as is the Homeric genitive in -oio; vowel sequences contracted in Attic are frequently uncontracted. 94a Included among Pindar’s partheneia by editors, this fragment is preserved on an Oxyrhynchus papyrus of the first century bce, the same papyrus as 94b, which is clearly a daphnephoricon, or “song for a laurel-bearer.” It seems unlikely that 94a was performed by maidens, since the speaking voice is the poet’s. The poem honours Aioladas, also honoured in 94b. The themes mentioned – the pursuit of glory and the envy glory brings, the tyranny of fate, the blessings of children and a long lineage – recur in Pindar’s epinicians. The metre is mainly aeolic (that is, composed of sequences based on the choriamb). See also notes on 94b.

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94b From the same papyrus as 94a. This fragment is attributed to Pindar on the basis of its Theban setting and its genre, Pindar being the only author to whom the ancient testimonia attributed the composition of daphnephorica. The fragment was separately edited by Lehnus in 1984. The poem is composed in 5-line stanzas of aeolic metre. There are two large missing sections in the middle and another at the end. 1: Possibly it is the Muse who is invoked as “golden-robed.” 3: The restoration Loxias is almost certain; see Lehnus 77. The word, meaning “crooked,” is an epithet of Apollo, perhaps from the oblique path of the sun, perhaps from the god’s misleading oracles. 9-10: Aioladas and Pagondas could be the grandfather and father, respectively, of Agasicles the laurel-bearer. See the genealogy in Race, Pindar 2: 415, and the arguments in Lehnus 84–5. Pagondas may be the Theban leader later recorded at the Battle of Delion in 424 bce. 13: Pindar compares the maidens’ voices, accompanied by flute music, to the Sirens, best known as the enchantresses whose luring song Odysseus managed to escape (Odyssey 12.37–54, 165–200). They were sometimes depicted holding flutes made from lotus stalks. Cf. Alcman 1.96–8. 16–20: Zephyr and Boreas are the west and north wind, respectively. 46–9: The three places mentioned are all sites of athletic competitions. Onchestos lay northwest of Thebes; the temple of Itonia (Athene) was located at Coronea in Boeotia; Pisa was a spring at Olympia. 65: My translation assumes ephilēsan, “they loved,” rather than ephilēsen, “he loved.” 66-72: Reading pater (“father”) rather than pai (“son”), Lehnus argues that “father of Daimaina” (line 66) is Pagondas; see Lehnus 84-5. The earlier reading pai would indicate a different genealogy. Damaina may be the sister, and Andaisistrota (line 71) the mother, of Agasicles. 94c The first of these two quotations is found in a papyrus fragment containing biographical information about Pindar. Both the first (minus the word “Apollo,” which in the papyrus is doubtful) and the second quotation are cited by the metricist Hephaestion (second century ce). They may belong to the daphnephoricon for Pindar’s son Daïphantos mentioned in the Ambrosian Life. There is nothing in these lines to indicate a female

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speaker, but if the poem is indeed a daphnephoricon presumably it would be sung by a maiden chorus. The third line may not belong to the same poem. 95 This fragment, quoted in a commentary on Pythian 3, preserves only the beginning and end of a hymn to Pan. The (Great) Mother may be Rhea, Cybele, or Demeter. Lehnus has doubts as to whether the poem was actually performed by maidens, and suspects that, if it was not, this could explain why it is included in the separate (kechōrismena) poems by the scholion to Pythian 3.78. See Lehnus, L’Inno a Pan 70–83.

5 other lyric poets: male, female, and anonymous

The remaining fragments of archaic woman’s song – male-authored, female-authored, and anonymous – are a mixed bag. Since the three male authors are well known for other kinds of poetry, they deserve our attention, although they are represented here by only one or two fragments. Of Alcaeus we have a couple of intriguing tiny excerpts, and of Anacreon only a simple sentence. With Simonides, however, we have something more to go on. Let me turn now to the earliest of the three. Sappho’s contemporary Alcaeus was active on Lesbos in the years around and after 600 bce. Like Sappho, he composed monody, for performance in intimate, private settings, in his case symposia at which he and his friends gathered to drink, be entertained, and talk politics. Like her, he typically used Lesbian metres, especially fairly simple four-line stanzas, the Sapphic and the Alcaic, his favourite. Unlike Sappho working “in tranquillity” (eph’ hēsychias, Fr. 214B Campbell), Alcaeus was involved in battle and political struggle. Both were exiled from Mitylene at approximately the same time, but Alcaeus remained on Lesbos; he seems at some point to have gone to Egypt (Strabo 1.2.30, in Fr. 432 Campbell). As I noted earlier (p. 32, above), the female and male concerns of Sappho and Alcaeus, respectively, are a commonplace of criticism; they have been so for a long time. Horace contrasts Sappho’s songs about girls with Alcaeus’s about the pains of shipwreck, exile, and war (Odes 1.32.3–11, in Alcaeus T26 and Fr. 430 Campbell). The woman’s voice passages I have included here are highly unusual among Alcaeus’s poems, at least among the surviving representatives. Alcaeus 10 is the speech of a maddened woman – maddened by love,

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presumably, and perhaps from a poem satirizing female passion. The language strikes me as rather grotesque. But the remains are too fragmentary to tell. Page links this fragment with the metrically similar Alcaeus 380, which also seems to be about someone (a woman like Phaedra?) destroyed through a fatal obsession inflicted by Aphrodite. An Ionian from the Greek settlements in Asia Minor, Anacreon was born in Teos near Smyrna (now Izmir in Turkey) around 575, lived on the Ionian island of Samos and later in Athens, and died about 490. Like Sappho and Alcaeus, he composed monody in relatively simple metres on a variety of subjects. In antiquity he was best known for his erotic poems in praise of boys. As we saw, Anacreon was said to have also composed choral songs to be performed by women (p. 14, above). Of these choral songs, only one fragment, damaged, of doubtful authenticity, and with nothing feminine about it, survives, so I have not included it in this collection. Commenting on the Homeric warrior Asteropaeus, his son boasts of his ability to throw spears with both hands (501 PMG, a papyrus scholion on Iliad 21.162–3). Apart from this fragment, we have a tiny scrap of woman’s song, an isolated sentence (385 PMG), the speaker’s sex indicated by the feminine participle pherousa as well as the subject matter – bringing the washing up from the river. The words may come from a narrative, or from a work song; the simple, vigorous wording, punctuated by repeated plosive p’s, favours the second possibility. The most substantial of the passages in this group belongs to Simonides, a prolific poet, of whom numerous fragments survive. Danaë’s words to her infant son Perseus are an eloquent example of woman’s voice lyric – although the poem as a whole was probably not a woman’s song. Simonides was born about 556 on the Ionian island of Ceos, and lived to a ripe old age, dying around 468. He was active in Athens and other Greek cities, where, under royal patronage, like his nephew Bacchylides and Pindar, Simonides’ younger contemporary, he produced commemorative and celebratory poems, mainly choral – as the Danaë poem very likely was. During the Persian Wars, Simonides produced poetry in honour of the Greek dead. His final years were spent at the courts of the rulers in Sicily. Though he worked in a variety of genres and modes, Simonides was especially admired for his evocation of pathos. Legend has

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it that he defeated Aeschylus in competition for the elegy on those who had died at Marathon, because Simonides – but not Aeschylus – had the light touch needed for a genre that treats the pathetic (Vita Aeschyli 8; cf. lacrimis Simonideis, “Simonidean tears,” Catullus 38.8). Probably Simonides’ best-known work is the epigram or elegiac epitaph for the Spartans who, under their king Leonidas, died to a man at the pass of Thermopylae. In two unemotional but pregnant lines the passer-by is asked to report to the Spartans that here, in obedience to their commands, we (the dead) lie. It is instructive to contrast this epigram with the Danaë fragment, one conveying a manly, the other a womanly pathos. In spite of being rather stereotypical in their presentation of gender roles, both the epitaph for the fallen and the Danaë lullaby are, in very different ways, remarkable for their command of poetic effects. One strikes us with its plain economy and understatement, the other with its dramatic elaboration, full of visual and aural imagery. One has affinities with decorous male eulogy, the other with emotive female lament. The tenderness of the mother and the vulnerability of her baby are touchingly conveyed, when she describes the huge waves above the child’s “hair” (koman, a more delicate touch than “head”), his sweet face (pros qpon kalon) framed by his mantle, and when she imagines him listening to her with his tiny ear (lepton, “light” or “slight,” a word suggestive of fragility). The scene is the more piquant because the mighty hero and rescuer is seen here in his infant helplessness. There is a similar intimacy in Danaë’s appeal to Zeus as father, not just of gods and mortals, but of her own child. While the emotional world of Simonides’ poem is more developed, in its narration of a story from mythology it may be compared to Alcman 1, and, in its dramatic presentation of a speaking character, to Corinna 654a.iii. In the archaic period, women poets seem to have been not unusual, but they have left us little of their work. Nothing is preserved of Myrtis, mentioned by Corinna and Plutarch. Cleitagora is another woman poet known only by name (Scolia 912, Campbell, Gk. Lyric 5). Telesilla of Argos, in the fifth century, composed choral poetry – if we can make this inference from the only fragment that is more than an isolated word: “Artemis, maidens, fleeing from Alpheus” (717 PMG). According to Plutarch (Moralia 245c), referring to an Argive chronicler, Telesilla rallied

Other Lyric Poets: Male, Female, and Anonymous

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the women of Argos to save their city when its army was defeated by the Spartans. At about the same period, Praxilla was composing in Sicyon. Some of her fragments are mythic and celebratory, others apparently satirical. Her “Hymn to Adonis” may have been sung by maidens but the surviving passage is not particularly feminine. In fact, it prompted the saying “sillier than Praxilla’s Adonis” because the dying youth exclaims that what he will miss most is the light of the sun, moon, and stars – and some fruits and vegetables! Bathos, to be sure, but it need not mean her entire oeuvre was incompetent. Her implied criticism of a woman at a window, probably a location suggesting immodesty (see Klinck, “Sappho and her Daughters” 21–3), manages a nicely snide remark about being a maiden as to her head but “a bride beneath” (754 PMG). Three anonymous and very heterogeneous fragments – one ritual, one political, and one erotic – offer tiny hints of what must have been a multifarious body of lost song. Lines from a cult hymn sung by the women of Elis summon “bull-footed” Dionysus to come (871 PMG). The snatch of song, which the philosopher Thales heard a woman singing, about the tyrant Pittacus of Lesbos “grinding” like her mill, is probably satirical. Finally, Athenaeus provides an example of the kind of song, “Locrian,” his friend Ulpian likes, bawdy and about adultery (Athenaeus 15.697bc). Though extremely late, it is presented as belonging to a traditional type. It is also, as Maurice Bowra pointed out, a precursor of the medieval alba (Gk. Lyric Poetry 83–4).

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alcaeus 10 (=10B LP) e[me deivlan, e[me paivsan kakotavtwn pedevcoisan domono» ¼ei movro~ ai\sc»ro~ ejpi; ga;r pa`ro~ ajnivaton ijkavvnei, ejlavfw de; brovmo~ ejn sthvqesi fuvei fobevroisin m¼ainovmenon » ¼ ajuavtaisÆ wj»

380 e[peton Kuprogenhva~ palavmaisin

anacreon 385 PMG ejk potamou` Æpanevrcomai pavnta fevrousa lamprav.

simonides 543 PMG

5

10

o{te lavrnaki ejn daidaleva/ a[nemov~ te min pnevwn kinhqei`sav te livmna deivmati e[reipen, oujk ajdiavntoisi pareiai`~ ajmfiv te Persevi bavlle fivlan cevra ei\pevn tÆ: «w\ tevko~ oi|on e[cw povnon: su; dÆ ajwtei`~, galaqhnw/` dÆ h[qei> knowvssei~ ejn ajterpevi douvrati calkeogovmfw/ tw`/de nuktilampei`, kuanevw/ dnovfw/ taqeiv~: a[cnan dÆ u{perqe tea`n koma`n baqei`an pariovnto~

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alcaeus 10 Oh my misery, every suffering is mine ... ... a shameful fate, for upon me comes a crushing wound, incurable, and in fearful breast lingers the stag’s belling call ... raging ... mad delusions

380 I fell, by the wiles of Cyprian Aphrodite.

anacreon 385 I’m coming from the river bringing everything bright.

simonides 543 When, in the chest, fine-wrought, the blowing wind and tossing sea were dashing her fearfully, her cheeks wet with tears, she clasped Perseus with loving hand and said, “My child, how I am suffering! But you are sleeping, as children at the breast do; you are slumbering in this comfortless bronze-bound vessel that shines in the deep darkness while you are at rest. Though the foam rears high above your hair as the wave goes by,

5

10

186

15

20

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Woman’s Songs in Ancient Greece

kuvmato~ oujk ajlevgei~, oujdÆ ajnevmou fqovggon, porfureva/ keivmeno~ ejn clanivdi, provswpon kalovn. eij dev toi deino;n tov ge deino;n h\n, kaiv ken ejmw`n rJhmavtwn lepto;n uJpei`ce~ ou\a~. kevlomai dÆ, eu|de brevfo~, euJdevtw de; povnto~, euJdevtw dÆ a[metron kakovn: metabouliva dev ti~ faneivh, Zeu` pavter, ejk sevo: o{tti de; qarsalevon e[po~ eu[comai h] novsfi divka~, suvggnwqiv moi.»

telesilla 717 PMG aJ dÆ ÒArtemi~, w\ kovrai, feuvgoisa to;n ÆAlfeovn

praxilla 747 PMG kavlliston me;n ejgw; leivpw favo~ hjelivoio, deuvteron a[stra faeina; selhnaivh~ te provswpon hjde; kai; wJraivou~ sikuvou~ kai; mh`la kai; o[gcna~.

754 PMG w\ dia; tw`n qurivdwn kalo;n ejmblevpoisa parqevne ta;n kefala;n ta; dÆ e[nerqe nuvmfa

anonymous 853 PMG w] tiv pavscei~É mh; prodw`/~ a[mmÆ, iJketeuvw: pri;n kai; molei`n kei`non, ajnivstw,

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you have no care, nor for the wind’s roar, as you lie in your bright mantle, with your sweet face. If this storm, frightening indeed, were so to you you would hearken to my words with your tiny ear. So I bid you, sleep, little one. Let the sea sleep, let our measureless woes sink to sleep. Let some change of mind be shown, Father Zeus, by you. And if anything in my prayer is overbold or without justice, pardon me.”

15

telesilla 717 Artemis, maidens, fleeing from Alpheus

praxilla 747 Fairest thing of all that I leave is the light of the sun, then the shining stars and the face of the moon, and ripe figs, and apples, and cucumbers.

754 Oh you who look prettily through the window, a maiden as to your head, but a bride beneath.

anonymous 853 PMG Oh, what is the matter with you? Don’t betray us, I beg; get up before “he” comes.

20

25

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mh; kakovn se mevga poihvsh/ kajme; ta;n deilavkran. aJmevra kai; h[dh: to; fw`~ dia; ta`~ qurivdo~ oujk eijsorh`/~É

869 PMG a[lei muvla a[lei: kai; ga;r Pittako;~ a[lei megavla~ Mutilhvna~ Basileuvwn.

871 PMG ejlqei`n h{rw Diovnuse ÆAleivwn ej~ nao;n aJgno;n su;n Carivtessin ej~ nao;n tw`/ boevw/ podi; duvwn, a[xie tau`re,

a[xie tau`re.

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Lest he do violence to you and poor me. It is already day. Don’t you see the light coming in through the window?

869 Grind, mill, grind, for Pittacus grinds, the ruler of great Mitylene.

871 Come, hero Dionysus to your holy temple in Elis with the Graces, to your temple, entering with bull’s foot, worthy bull, worthy bull!

notes Alcaeus 10, 380 Voigt Since both of these seem to be about erotic passion and both are composed in ionic metre, possibly the two fragments are parts of the same poem. See p. 181, above. As a dramatic monologue in the female voice, Fr. 10 is remarkable in Alcaeus. The language seems to me outrageous rather than pathetic, the speaker’s frenzied use of the vocabulary of disaster and her image of the hind mesmerized by the mating-call of the stag more grotesque than tragic. Possibly we have here a poem in which Alcman burlesqued the figure of the lovesick woman. Lines 5–6: phoberoisin / mainomenon as in Lobel-Page.

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Anacreon 385 PMG A snatch of a vigorous song – perhaps a work song or perhaps comic, its beat emphasized by repeated alliteration on p.

Simonides 543 PMG Fragment 543 is quoted by Dionysius of Halicarnassus in the first century bce (De compositione verborum 26), who speaks of its triadic arrangement into strophe, antistrophe, and epode; it is likely, then, to be part of a choral work. As preserved, the metre is uncertain. The rather garbled wording has been variously emended. Danaë was visited by Zeus in a shower of gold after she had been imprisoned by her father Acrisius, warned by an oracle that she would bear a son who would kill his grandfather. She conceived the hero Perseus. Acrisius set them adrift on the sea; they floated to Seriphos, where they were rescued. 1: Larnaki, “chest.” The word is used for the wooden container in which unwanted infants were exposed to die. 3: Min, “her.” As in Campbell. Page, PMG, doubtfully prints unemended mēn, “truly.” 9: Ethei, “custom,” lit., “with the custom of a sucking child,” the emendation adopted by Page. Campbell prints ētori, “heart,” from the version of Athenaeus, who quotes the opening of Danaë’s speech (9.396e). Knoōsseis, “slumber.” The word perhaps imitates the rhythmic sound of the sleeper’s breathing. 12: Kyaneō, lit. “dark blue.” The picture of the little vessel “shining” in the night amid the intense darkness gives it a supernatural quality. 13-14: Achnan ... batheian, “high foam.” Page’s emendation. The manuscripts’ aulean or aulaian ... batheian, “deep screen,” would make the passage far less dramatic.

Telesilla 717 PMG Apart from a few isolated words quoted by scholars of later antiquity (718 and 722–4 PMG), this is the only extant example of Telesilla’s poetry.

Other Lyric Poets: Male, Female, and Anonymous

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Alpheus: the largest river of the Peloponnese, and the god of that river. There was a shrine to Artemis Alpheia at the river mouth. In various versions, Alpheus’ desire for Artemis or for the nymph (of a spring) Arethusa features in myth.

Praxilla 747 PMG The words of Aphrodite’s dying beloved, Adonis. See p. 183, above.

Anonymous 853 PMG Quoted by Athenaeus (15.697b) as a song of the kind they call Locrian. The speaker is a woman. The language, which is rather prosaic and colloquial, has Doric alpha for eta in some words, perhaps reflecting a provenance in the Dorian colony of Locri Epizephyrii in southern Italy. 869 PMG A woman sings as she grinds grain. The language is simple, repetitive, and alliterative. Pittacus: the Lesbian tyrant, contemporary and enemy of Sappho and Alcaeus. Perhaps “grinding” refers to his cruelty; possibly the word conveys a sexual innuendo. 871 PMG Quoted by Plutarch (Quaestiones Graecae 36) as a hymn sung by the women of Elis, near Olympia, when they summon Dionysus to their rite.

6 sophocles

We turn now to classical developments of archaic lyric in the dramatists, and especially in their choral odes. The second of the three great tragedians, Sophocles died in 406 or 405 bce. He won his first victory in the drama competitions of 468 at the age of twenty-eight (recorded on the Parian Marble), and thus must have been born in 496 or 497. According to the Hellenistic Vita (T1 Radt; trans. Lefkowitz, Lives of the Gk. Poets) his father was Sophillus, the family was wealthy, and Sophocles was reputed to be handsome and charming. In the course of a long life his career overlapped with those of Aeschylus, his predecessor, and Euripides, his younger contemporary, whom he outlived by no more than a few months. Perhaps 123 plays were composed by Sophocles. Only seven survive complete, and only two can be dated: Philoctetes, produced in 409, and Oedipus at Colonus, produced posthumously in 401. Electra has affinities with these plays, and is thought to be a late work, probably composed in the years before Philoctetes. Evidently – and remarkably – Sophocles retained his powers into advanced old age. The plot of Electra, with some variations, and the main characters are also found in Aeschylus’ Choephori (“Libation-Bearers”), which Sophocles certainly knew, and in Euripides’ Electra, which possibly he did not; it may or may not have preceded his play. The Sophoclean Electra is a powerful drama with a memorable heroine. In her combination of nobility and obstinacy, contrasting with a less heroic and more reasonable sister, she is like Antigone, but darker and more complex: vulnerable and ferocious, pitiful and dreadful, passionately loving and passionately hating. However much

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we might sympathize with her, we cannot help being appalled when she tells Orestes, in the act of killing their mother, “Strike, if you’re strong enough, twice as hard!” On several occasions in the play, Electra’s heightened emotions burst into lyric verse. As a rule, the spoken iambic trimeters of the actors contrast with the sung lyric metres of the chorus. But a significant proportion of the sung verses in this play are assigned to Electra. In them, we find her taking up the traditional themes of woman’s song. As mourner for her father, we see her at the woman’s task of lamentation. Also, though a virgin and pious, in her desperate pursuit of vengeance against her own mother she is a transgressive woman (cf. Scodel 242), and in this respect too a figure familiar from archaic lyric as well as from other dramas. Electra, who disdains to stay quietly in the house as a woman should (1241–2), is rebuked for this by her sister Chrysothemis (328–9). The first of the passages selected here is located at the beginning of the play. Orestes, accompanied by his friend Pylades and an old servant, has returned secretly to Mycenae to avenge his father’s death on his mother and her lover. The three visitors hear sounds of lamentation within the palace. It is Electra, singing a thrēnos (song of lament). For her the murderous deed that took place many years ago is still fresh, its brutal violence as vivid as ever. This she expresses in a melos apo skēnēs, “song (by an actor) from the stage.” As I noted earlier, impassioned lament is assigned to women rather than men, its expression necessary, and even therapeutic, but deeply disturbing. In its mingling of eloquence with wordless grief Electra’s melos resembles another song of lament, Cassandra’s prophetic ravings in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon (lines 1047–1330, alternating with the chorus). Electra’s thrēnos is immediately followed by a kommos, a sung exchange between actor and chorus, typically a “quasi-ritual lament” (Mastronarde 74). The chorus of Mycenaean women sympathize with Electra; they too recall the horror of her father’s death. But they offer hope and reassurance, and attempt to restrain her from open opposition to those in power. For Electra, the kommos continues the themes of the thrēnos: she thinks of herself and her voice as the mourning nightingale, and the paradigm she looks to is the ever-weeping Niobe, turned to

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stone. Electra’s misery extends yet further. She speaks of her wretched life as an unmarried woman, without respect, no more than a servant in what was once her father’s house. A further kommos (not included here) between Electra and the chorus occurs in the middle of the play (823– 70), when she believes Orestes dead, killed in a chariot fall at the Pythian Games. And she utters yet another lamentation, not in lyric metres this time, perhaps because of its more expansive exposition, over the supposed ashes of her brother (1126–70). When Orestes reveals himself Electra’s sorrow turns to joy, in the Recognition Scene, where the lonely, childless woman realizes that the brother whom she thought dead, and whom she loves as intensely as she might her lover or her child, is standing in front of her. Here, the contrast between the impassioned sister and her cooler brother is reflected in the shifting between lyric metres and the iambic trimetres of regular spoken dialogue. The former are given exclusively to Electra, the latter predominantly to Orestes (see Kells 198–9). Repeatedly, the sister’s rhapsodies, introduced by ecstatic repetitions, are brought down to earth by the brother’s practicalities. The very intensity of her joy has dark and tragic implications (cf. Wright 177–8).

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ÆHlevktra 86-120

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w\ favo~ aJgno;n kai; gh`~ ijsovmoirÆ ajhvr, w{~ moi polla;~ me;n qrhvnwn w/jdav~, polla;~ dÆ ajnthvrei~ h[/sqou stevrnwn plaga;~ aiJmassomevnwn, oJpovtan dnofera; nu;x uJpoleifqh`/: ta; de; pannucivdwn khvdh stugerai; xunivsasÆ eujnai; mogerw`n oi[kwn, o{sa to;n duvsthnon ejmo;n qrhnw` patevrÆ, o{n kata; me;n bavrbaron ai\an foivnio~ ÒArh~ oujk ejxevnisen, mhvthr dÆ hJmh; cwj koinolech;~ Ai[gisqo~ o{pw~ dru`n uJlotovmoi scivzousi kavra fonivw/ pelevkei. koujdei;~ touvtwn oi\kto~ ajpÆ a[llh~ h] Æmou` fevretai, sou`, pavter, ou{tw~ aijkw`~ oijktrw`~ te qanovnto~. ajllÆ ouj me;n dh; lhvxw qrhvnwn stugerw`n te govwn, e[stÆ a[n pamfeggei`~ a[strwn rJipav~, leuvssw de; tovdÆ h[mar, mh; ouj teknolevteirÆ w{~ ti~ ajhdw;n ejpi; kwkutw/` tw`nde patrw/vwn pro; qurw`n hjcw; pa`si profwnei`n. w\ dw`mÆ ÆAivdou kai; Persefovnh~, w\ cqovniÆ ïErmh` kai; povtniÆ ÆArav, semnaiv te qew`n pai`de~ ÆErinuve~, ai{ tou;~ ajdivkw~ qnhv/skonta~ oJra`qÆ, ai} tou;~ eujna;~ uJpokleptomevnou~, e[lqetÆ, ajrhvxate, teivsasqe patro;~ fovnon hJmetevrou, kaiv moi to;n ejmo;n pevmyatÆ ajdelfovn.

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Electra 86-120 Oh holy light, and air boundless as the earth, how many songs of lamentation you have witnessed, how many beatings upon my bleeding breast, when dark night was left behind. My bitter bed in a hated home knows well my night-long sorrows; knows how often I mourn for my poor father. It was not in a barbarous land that bloody Ares gave him hospitality. My mother and her bedfellow, Aegisthus, as woodcutters split an oak, split his head with a bloody axe. And no lamentation rises from any lips but mine, for you, father; thus, shamefully, and pitiably, you died. But I will never cease bewailing and bitter lamentation, as long as I look upon the stars’ universal light and this day, just like some nightingale who’s lost her young, keening at the doors of my ancestral home I’ll raise my voice to all. Oh, house of Hades and Persephone, oh Hermes of the Underworld, and mighty Curse, and Erinyes, august daughters of the gods, you who see unjust deaths, you who see illicit marriage-beds, come, assist, avenge my father’s murder, and send my brother.

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mouvnh ga;r a[gein oujkevti swkw` luvph~ ajntivrropon a[cqo~.

ÆHlevktra 145-232 H.

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nhvpio~ o}~ tw`n oijktrw`~ oijcomevnwn gonevwn ejpilavqetai. ajllÆ ejmev gÆ aJ stonovessÆ a[raren frevna~, a} ÒItun, aijen; ÒItun ojlofuvretai, o[rni~ ajtuzomevna, Dio;~ a[ggelo~. ijw; pantlavmwn Niovba, se; dÆ e[gwge nevmw qeovn, a{tÆ ejn tavfw/ petraivw/, aijai`, dakruvei~. C. ou[toi soi; mouvna/, tevknon, a[co~ ejfavnh brotw`n, pro;~ o{ ti su; tw`n e[ndon ei\ perissav, oi|~ oJmovqen ei\ kai; gona`/ xuvnaimo~, oi{a Crusovqemi~ zwvei kai; ÆIfiavnassa, krupta/` tÆ ajcevwn ejn h{ba/ o[lbio~, o}n aJ kleina; ga` pote Mukhnaivwn devxetai eujpatrivdan, Dio;~ eu[froni bhvmati molovnta tavnde ga`n ÆOrevstan. H. o{n gÆ ejgw; ajkavmata prosmevnousÆ a[tekno~, tavlainÆ ajnuvmfeuto~ aije;n oijcnw`, davkrusi mudaleva, to;n ajnhvnuton oi\ton e[cousa kakw`n: oJ de; lavqetai w|n tÆ e[paqÆ w|n tÆ ejdavh. tiv ga;r oujk ejmoi; e[rcetai ajggeliva~ ajpatwvmenonÉ ajei; me;n ga;r poqei`, poqw`n dÆ oujk ajxioi` fanh`nai.

SOPHOCLES

For alone I no longer have the strength to bear up the weight of grief that sinks me.

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Electra 145-232 (from the kommos following the preceding lament) E. Foolish is he who forgets the piteous death of a parent. But my mind is shaped by the mourning bird that “Itys, Itys” constantly laments, distraught with grief, the messenger of Zeus. Oh, long-suffering Niobe, as a goddess I think of you, who in stone entombed, alas, shed tears. Ch. Not only to you, child, among mortals, is pain made manifest, which you lament far more than those within with whom you share your parentage, for Chrysothemis and Iphianassa live, and he who secretly, away from pain, is happy in his youth, whom one day Mycenae, the glorious land of noble race, shall receive through kindly Zeus, when, setting foot within this land, shall come Orestes. E. For him I wait unresting; I, childless, enduring, unmarried ever, go, wet with tears, suffering an endless fate of ills. He forgets what he has suffered and been told. What message comes to me that does not tell a lie? He always longs, and, longing, never deigns to appear.

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Woman’s Songs in Ancient Greece C.

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qavrsei moi, qavrsei, tevknon. e[ti mevga~ oujranw/` Zeuv~, o}~ ejfora/` pavnta kai; kratuvnei: w|/ to;n uJperalgh` covlon nevmousa mhvqÆ oi|~ ejcqaivrei~ uJperavcqeo mhvtÆ ejpilavqou: crovno~ ga;r eujmarh;~ qeov~. ou[te ga;r oJ ta;n Kri`san bouvnomon e[cwn ajkta;n pai`~ ÆAgamemnonivda~ ajperivtropo~ ou[qÆ oJ para; to;n ÆAcevronta qeo;~ ajnavsswn. H. ajllÆ ejme; me;n oJ polu;~ ajpolevloipen h[dh bivoto~ ajnevlpiston, oujdÆ e[tÆ ajrkw`: a{ti~ a[neu tekevwn katatavkomai, a|~ fivlo~ ou[ti~ ajnh;r uJperivstatai, ajllÆ aJpereiv ti~ e[poiko~ ajnaxiva oijkonomw` qalavmou~ patrov~, w|de me;n ajeikei` su;n stola/`, kenai`~ dÆ ajmfivstamai trapevzai~. C.

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oijktra; me;n novstoi~ aujdav, oijktra; dÆ ejn koivtai~ patrwv/ai~, o{te oiJ pagcavlkwn ajntaiva genuvwn wJrmavqh plagav. dovlo~ h\n oJ fravsa~, e[ro~ oJ kteivna~, deina;n deinw`~ profuteuvsante~ morfavn, ei[tÆ ou\n qeo;~ ei[te brotw`n h\n oJ tau`ta pravsswn. H. w\ pasa`n keivna plevon aJmevra ejlqou`sÆ ejcqivsta dhv moi: w\ nuvx, w\ deivpnwn ajrrhvtwn e[kpaglÆ a[cqh: toi`~ ejmo;~ i[de path;r

SOPHOCLES

Ch. Have courage, have courage, my child. Still great in heaven is Zeus, who sees and rules all things. To him assign the heavy burden of your wrath; Towards your enemies be neither furious nor forgetful. Time is a gentle god. For neither he who dwells upon the cattle-raising coast of Crisa is unconcerned, the son of Agamemnon, nor he who rules as a god beside Acheron. E. The greater part of my life has passed me by, hopes unfulfilled. I can hold out no more. I pine away, without children, without a loving husband to watch over me; like some alien of no worth I am a servant in the chambers of my father’s house; with ragged dress, I stand at empty tables. Ch. Piteous was his cry on his homecoming, piteous, as he reclined in his ancestral home, when the blows of the bronze double-edged axe were hurled upon him. Guile was the doer, Lust the killer, dreadfully begetting a dreadful form, whether god or mortal it be who did this deed. E. Oh, that day, above all days most hateful, coming upon me. Oh, night, oh terrible woes of unspeakable feasts. My father saw

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qanavtou~ aijkei`~ diduvmain ceiroi`n, ai} to;n ejmo;n ei|lon bivon provdoton, ai{ mÆ ajpwvlesan: oi|~ qeo;~ oJ mevga~ ÆOluvmpio~ poivnima pavqea paqei`n povroi, mhdev potÆ ajglai?a~ ajponaivato toiavdÆ ajnuvsante~ e[rga. C.

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fravzou mh; povrsw fwnei`n. ouj gnwvman i[scei~ ejx oi{wn ta; parovntÆ oijkeiva~ eij~ a[ta~ ejmpivptei~ ou{tw~ aijkw`~É polu; gavr ti kakw`n uJperekthvsw, sa`/ dusquvmw/ tivktousÆ aijei; yuca`/ polevmou~: ta; de; toi`~ dunatoi`~ oujk ejrista; plavqein. H. ejn deinoi`~ deivnÆ hjnagkavsqhn: e[xoidÆ, ouj lavqei mÆ ojrgav. ajllÆ ejn ga;r deinoi`~ ouj schvsw tauvta~ a[ta~, o[fra me bivo~ e[ch/. tivni gavr potÆ a[n, w` filiva genevqla, provsforon ajkouvsaimÆ e[po~, tivni fronou`nti kaivriaÉ a[netev mÆ a[nete paravgoroi. tavde ga;r a[luta keklhvsetai: oujdev potÆ ejk kamavtwn ajpopauvsomai ajnavriqmo~ w|de qrhvnwn.

ÆHlevktra 1232-1287 H.

ijw; gonaiv, gonai; swmavtwn ejmoi; filtavtwn,

SOPHOCLES

shameful death at the hands of those two; they took my life away, betrayed, destroyed me. Let the mighty God of Olympus prepare them punishment, make them suffer. Let them never relish glory who have perpetrated such deeds. Ch. Take care to say no more. Don’t you know the way at this moment you are falling so dreadfully into self-inflicted ruin? You’ve taken on too many woes, forever creating wars for your embittered soul. You cannot enter contests with those in power. E. I was compelled by extremity to be extreme. I know. My wrath does not escape me. But in extremity I won’t stop my ruinous course, as long as life possesses me. Who would think, dear band of sisters, that I might ever hear a kindly word – if they thought aptly? Let me alone, let me alone, you comforters. These things will be pronounced insoluble: I’ll never find relief from suffering, and lamentations numberless.

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Electra 1232-87 (exchange between Electra and Orestes) E. Oh, born, born of flesh most dear to me.

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ejmovletÆ ajrtivw~, ejfhuvretÆ, h[lqetÆ, ei[deqÆ ou}~ ejcrhv/zete. O. pavresmen: ajlla; si`gÆ e[cousa provsmene. H. tiv dÆ e[stinÉ O. siga`n a[meinon, mhv ti~ e[ndoqen kluvh/. H. ma; ta;n ÒArtemin ta;n ajei; ajdmhvtan, tovde me;n ou[potÆ ajxiwvsw trevsai, perisso;n a[cqo~ e[ndon gunaikw`n o[n aijeiv. O. o{ra ge me;n dh; kajn gunaixi;n wJ~ ÒArh~ e[nestin: eu\ dÆ e[xoisqa peiraqei`sav pou. H. ojttotoi` ojttotoi`, ajnevfelon ejnevbale~ ou[pote kataluvsimon, oujdev pote lhsovmenon aJmevteron oi|on e[fu kakovn. O. e[xoida kai; tau`tÆ: ajllÆ o{tan parousiva fravzh/, tovtÆ e[rgwn tw`nde memnh`sqai crewvn. H.

1255

oJ pa`~ ejmoi,; oJ pa`~ a]n prevpoi parw;n ejnnevpein tavde divka/ crovno~. movli~ ga;r e[scon nu`n ejleuvqeron stovma. O. xuvmfhmi kajgwv. toigarou`n swv/zou tovde. H. tiv drw`saÉ O. ou| mhv Æsti kairo;~ mh; makra;n bouvlou levgein.

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You have just now arrived, you have found, have met, have looked upon the one you desired. O. I am at your side. But wait quietly. E. Why must this be? O. Better to be silent, lest someone in the house should hear. E. No, by Artemis ever-virgin, I’ll never consent to be afraid of that redundant burden – women who always stay in the house. O. See how even in women Ares can dwell. You know it, having proved it so, I think. E. Oh, alas, alas, you have reminded me of something never to be hidden or undone, never to be forgotten: the source of my sorrow. O. I know it too. But when their presence tells us, then we must think of these deeds. E. All, all of time should rightly be at hand for me to tell these things with justice. For scarcely just now have my lips been set free. O. I am in accord with you. Then keep things safe. E. How shall I do so? O. Don’t wish to speak at length when it’s inopportune.

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Woman’s Songs in Ancient Greece H.

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tiv~ ajntaxivan sou` ge pefhnovto~ metabavloitÆ a]n w|de siga;n lovgwnÉ ejpeiv se nu`n ajfravstw~ ajevlptw~ tÆ ejsei`don. O. tovtÆ ei\de~, o{te qeoiv mÆ ejpwvtrunan molei`n . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . H. e[frasa~ uJpertevran ta`~ pavro~ e[ti cavrito~, ei[ se qeo;~ ejpovrisen aJmevtera pro;~ mevlaqra: daimovnion aujto; tivqhmÆ ejgwv. O. ta; mevn sÆ ojknw` caivrousan eijrgaqei`n, ta; de; devdoika livan hJdonh`/ nikwmevnhn. H.

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ijw; crovnw/ makrw`/ filtavtan oJdo;n ejpaxiwvsa~ w|dev moi fanh`nai, mhv tiv me, poluvponon w|dÆ ijdw;n – O. tiv mh; pohvswÉ H. mhv mÆ ajposterhvsh/~ tw`n sw`n proswvpwn hJdona;n meqevsqai. O. h\ kavrta ka]n a[lloisi qumoivmhn ijdwvn. H. xunainei`~É O. tiv mh;n ou[É H. w\ fivlÆ, e[kluon a}n ejgw; oujdÆ a]n h[lpisÆ aujdavn. ajllÆ o{mw~ ejpevscon ojrga;n a[naudon oujde; su;n boa/` kluvousÆ aJ tavlaina. nu`n dÆ e[cw se: proujfavnh~ de;

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E. Who could worthily acknowledge your appearing here by giving up words for silence? Now, beyond expectation or hope, I’ve looked on you. O. You looked on me when the gods prompted me to come. .................... E. You have spoken of yet another favour beyond the one before, if a god sent you to our home. Heaven-sent I call it. O. I hesitate to restrain your rejoicing, but I fear you’re too overcome by joy. E. Oh, time, so long a time before you showed me your precious coming hither. Do not, now you see me so moved – O. What is it I shall not do? E. Do not deprive me, do not take away my delight in your face. O. I would be most angry to see another doing so. E. Do you consent? O. How should I not? E. Oh, dear one, I have heard the voice I never hoped to hear. Still I kept my emotion silent, listening without a cry – poor me! Now I have you. You have shown me

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filtavtan e[cwn provsoyin, a|~ ejgw; oujdÆ a]n ejn kakoi`~ laqoivman.

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your dear face, which, in the midst of evils, I could not forget.

notes The selected passages uttered by Electra, in the same way as those sung by the chorus, are coloured by the Doric used for choral lyric (like the odes of Pindar. See p. 177, above). Electra 86–120 The metre of this passage is based on the anapaest, more freely treated here than in the “marching anapaests” associated with the entry of the chorus. Structurally, this thrēnos apo skēnēs (“lament from the stage”) is part of the prologos, the beginning of the play, before the chorus comes in. 92: pannychidōn kēdē, literally “mournings of night-long festivals.” Kēdē, pl. of kēdos, “care,” “loving concern,” is an emendation to supply a possibly missing noun; ēdē, “now,” is retained by some editors. The use of pannychis for a sleepless night is ironic. In my translation I have altered the order of the words in lines 92-3. 107: An allusion to the bloody story of Procne. She killed her child Itys for revenge on her husband Tereus, who had violated her sister Philomela. Procne was changed into a nightingale, Philomela into a swallow. The murdered child made into an obscene banquet parallels the horrors in Electra’s own family history. 112: The Erinyes punish unnatural crimes against kin: here, Clytemnestra’s murder of her husband Agamemnon and defilement of his bed with her lover, Aegisthus. In Aeschylus and Euripides the Erinyes pursue Orestes, but Sophocles makes no mention of that – perhaps because in the present play Orestes’ action is regarded as justified. See MacLeod, who adopts this position, though admitting that the vengeance of Orestes is problematic (Dolos and Dike 20). Scholars differ on this subject. Electra 145-232 Lines 125-250 form the parodos or “entry-song.” Usually this is sung by the chorus as they march in. Here, Electra and the chorus sing in alternation in a variety of metres, mainly lyric. There are three pairs of strophe plus antistrophe, followed, finally, by an epode. The

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selected passage begins in the middle of the first antistrophe and ends at the close of the third antistrophe. The dialogic character of the parodos here makes it also a kommos (exchange between chorus and actor). 147-9: Again, Electra thinks of herself as the nightingale mourning her child. Jebb suggests that the bird is the messenger of Zeus because it is the herald of spring (n. on line 149). 150: Niobe was turned to stone and her children killed, when she boasted that they were more numerous than Leto’s – Apollo and Artemis. 159: When Orestes was an infant, Electra arranged for him to be taken to Phocis and brought up in safety there. 169-72: Electra means that Orestes cannot really long to come to her because he does not come. 185-92: A poignant evocation of Electra’s lonely bitterness as a single woman, growing older, humiliated in what was once her family home. 194, 204: In Sophocles, Agamemnon is struck down at his table, as in Homer (Odyssey 11.411), not in his bath, as in Aeschylus (Agamemnon 1108-9; Choephori 491). 210: A line spitting venom – every word begins with p. 215: As in Jebb and Kells; Lloyd-Jones (OCT and Loeb) places a question mark after ta paronta in addition to the one at the end of line 216. 219-20: As in Jebb and Kells; Lloyd-Jones treats dunatois ouk erista as parenthetical, and adopts imperative tlathi, “endure (these things)” for ms. plathein, “approach.” Electra 1232-87 Another melos apo skēnēs (“song from the stage”). The metre is mainly iambic, cretic, and dochmiac, the last associated with intense, agitated feeling. Strophe, antistrophe, and epode – at lines 1232, 1253, and 1273, respectively – all begin with an exclamatory iambic monometer. 1232-3: Like many potent lines, these are almost impossible to translate. Gonai, “offsprings” (poetic pl.), is particularly poignant as the words of a childless woman. Sōmatōn, “bodies,” both stresses the corporality of Orestes’ presence and alludes to his dead father. 1235: An example, as Kells points out in his note on this line, of “the very effective rhetorical figure of the tricolon, – [like] Caesar’s veni, vidi, vici.”

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1240-2: Electra has contempt for women who stay meekly at home, as aristocratic Greek women were expected to do. In on aiei, “always being,” I follow Jebb and Kells; Lloyd-Jones (OCT and Loeb) prints ho naiei, “which stays.” 1243-4: Electra knows there is martial spirit in women because of Clytemnestra’s behaviour – and her own. 1246: anephelon, literally “unclouded.” Kells takes this as “all clouded over”; see note on lines 1245ff. 1257: sōizou tode, literally “preserve or save this.” The meaning is not altogether clear, but Orestes can hardly mean “Continue to speak out,” since he keeps urging Electra to be discreet. 1264: A line of the antistrophe has been lost here, corresponding to line 1252, in the strophe. 1265: Electra regards Orestes’ coming as a blessing. That he should have been sent by a god (in fact, by the oracle of Apollo) is a further blessing. 1275-9: Electra hesitantly asks to touch Orestes’ face. His reply is ambiguous. It could mean either, “I would be angry with anyone else if they were so forward,” or “I would be angry with anyone who tried to stop you.” 1287: Electra’s final words allude to her past suffering, but also suggest the possibility of evil to come.

7 euripides

Of the three tragedians, Euripides is the one who creates the widest range of women characters, and so, although he is the last of the trio in point of chronology, his contribution to the evolution of female-voice lyric is particularly significant. Euripides was born within a few years of 480 BCE , died in Macedonia in 406, and spent most of his life in Athens. Little is known about his background and his early days; his father was Mnesarchos or Mnesarchides, and, seeing that Euripides must have received “an extensive musical and poetic education” (Mastronarde 2), we can assume that his family belonged to the wealthy class. He composed around ninety plays, of which eighteen survive more or less intact. Written in a milieu full of intellectual energy and philosophical enquiry, Euripides’ plays raise profound questions about human beings’ relationships to the gods and to each other, about religion and morality, the kinds of questions being discussed by the philosophers of his time. Repeatedly in his dramas Euripides deals with the clash between culture and nature, social demands and more elemental claims, reason and impulse, conflicts to which no simple solution is possible. He has often been regarded as something of a radical and a religious sceptic, in contrast to the lofty and devout Aeschylus, a view consonant with Aristophanes’ spoof of both of them in the Frogs. This impression of Euripides in relation to his august predecessor is an over-simplification (see Battezzato, “Lyric” 161), but probably at least to some extent correct. Whereas modern critics tend to find Euripides particularly sympathetic to women, his contemporaries regarded him as a misogynist,

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or so we guess from the comments in Aristophanes (Frogs 1043, Thesmophoriazusae 181–2). In his most powerful dramas he depicts transgressive women, like Medea, probably his most famous female character, who kills both her innocent rival and her children, Phaedra, in Hippolytus, who falls hopelessly in love with her stepson and ultimately causes his death (both plays written fairly early in his career), and Agave, in the Bacchae (written at the end of his life), who unwittingly brings Dionysus’ dreadful punishment upon her own son, torn apart by her band of maenads. Driven to commit terrible crimes, all these women are nevertheless portrayed with considerable sympathetic insight. Our emotional engagement with them is to a significant extent conditioned by the choral odes. Hippolytus, the earlier of the two Euripidean dramas selected, was produced in 428, during the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta. Euripides had written an earlier version in which he portrayed Phaedra as a lascivious woman and the villainess of her story, a figure rather like Potifar’s wife, who unsuccessfully tried to seduce Joseph and then accused him of attempted rape (Genesis 39.7–20). The later Hippolytus has a different take on a traditional motif and a widespread tale. Phaedra desires her stepson to be sure, but strives desperately to overcome her obsession; it is not she, but her Nurse, who makes the approach to the young man. Far from being a wanton, Phaedra is a sensitive and refined young woman, and a dutiful wife. A mere pawn in Aphrodite’s plan to destroy the youth who refuses to pay her homage, Phaedra is driven to distraction by the fatal passion inflicted on her by the goddess. When Hippolytus spurns her, she writes a message denouncing him to his father Theseus and hangs herself in a desperate attempt to protect her and her children’s honour. Her actions and motives reflect the “shame culture” of fifth-century Athens, where, in Michael Halleran’s words, “excellence and its opposite were measured by external standards and one’s worth was not easily distinguished from one’s reputation” (Introduction to Hippolytus, 43). The two stasima selected here (for the term see p. 28) represent the chorus’ response to Phaedra’s hopeless predicament. They sing about the fearful power of the gods of love (First Stasimon), and voice a longing to

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escape from earthly cares to an abode where beauty transcends all mortal sorrows (Second Stasimon). The First Stasimon (lines 525–64) is sung when the Nurse has just left the stage. Immediately after the chorus finish singing we learn that she has revealed Phaedra’s passion to Hippolytus, a confession he receives with horror and contempt. This ode, then, is sung at the play’s crisis, the moment when Phaedra’s fate is sealed. She will be destroyed by the power of Eros – and so ultimately will Hippolytus be destroyed by Aphrodite, because, as a devotee of the virgin huntress Artemis, he has failed to honour the goddess of love. The Second Stasimon (lines 732–75) represents both a reaction to Phaedra’s imminent suicide and a transcending of it. The chorus wish they could fly away to the far west. That region, the place of the sun’s setting, is associated in many cultures with the passing from this world to the next, from the vicissitudes of mortal life to an unchanging paradise. Written shortly before Euripides’ death at the court of King Archelaus of Macedonia in 406, the Bacchae was produced posthumously in Athens. The play dramatizes the introduction of Dionysus worship into Greece, its rejection by the mythical King Pentheus of Thebes, and the terrible punishment Dionysus inflicts upon him. In his rational opposition to the wild rites of the god, Pentheus resembles thinkers of Euripides’ own time who were questioning traditional beliefs and seeking rational rather than mythical explanations. The plot is horrifying, but it is noteworthy that the maenads, wild as they are, do not wreak havoc until they are disturbed by a hostile intrusion. The play is our main source of information about maenadism and the ecstatic worship of Dionysus. Of course, the Bacchae is fiction, and the relationship of the practices described in it to the rites that took place in the real world is a very uncertain one. E.R. Dodds believed that maenads actually practised ōmophagia, eating raw flesh, as well as sparagmos, tearing animals apart, and, earlier, human sacrificial victims, as Dodds supposes (Bacchae xvixx). Eva Keuls sees this ecstatic behaviour as an outlet for pent-up hostilities on the part of a suppressed group: women (Reign of the Phallus 362). More recent scholars tend to play down the sensational aspects of Dionysus worship. Matthew Dillon doubts that maenads engaged in ōmophagia and sparagmos (similarly Blundell 165–9), as Plutarch says they

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did (Moralia 417c), though Dillon does accept the historical authenticity of oreibasia, roaming the mountains (Girls and Women in Classical Gk. Religion 139–53). And Barbara Goff argues that maenad rites involved organization and leadership rather than wildness (Citizen Bacchae 215). The Bacchae is particularly relevant to the evolving history of choral lyric because it was specifically in the context of Dionysus festivals that drama was created. So the connection of the drama and its lyrics with cult is especially evident in a play about Dionysus and his rites. In his edition, Richard Seaford stresses the ritual elements incorporated into the Bacchae, and finds that, although written late in the era of Athenian tragedy, it “may nevertheless be, as the only extant tragedy about Dionysus, in a sense the closest to the beginnings of the genre” as it evolved from the dithyramb (Seaford, Bacchae, 28). Pickard-Cambridge suggests that scenes depicted on ceramics reflect the performance of plays about Dionysus and Pentheus in Thespis’ day (Dithyramb 88). The choral songs of the play may well resemble the songs staged in Dionysus worship (see Seaford, Bacchae, 156, on the dithyrambic parodos). Vase paintings depict the performance of maenad rites in the presence of a statue of Dionysus, as if the celebrants were acting at the behest of the god, as the maenads do in the play (see Herington, Poetry into Drama, 89, and for reproductions of the paintings, Dillon 150-1, and p. xxii). Perhaps, too, there are reflections of the Dionysiac mysteries and the pattern of initiation, including consciousness-changing and symbolic death, in the experiences of Pentheus (Seaford, Bacchae, 42–3). Both of the odes from the Bacchae included here are drawn from the section of the play where the disguised Dionysus subdues Pentheus to his will and makes him his creature. The Third Stasimon (lines 862–911) is sung when Dionysus has just persuaded Pentheus to put on woman’s dress in order to look for the bacchants and spy on them. Pentheus leaves the stage, and Dionysus pronounces his punishment: he will find them and be killed; thus he will learn that Dionysus is a god most terrible, though he can be most gentle too (lines 847/8–61). Now the chorus, a maenad band Dionysus has brought with him from Lydia (modern Turkey), voice their longing to dance for the god. They liken themselves to a fawn escaping the hunter, a figure implicitly identified with

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Pentheus. The Fourth Stasimon (lines 977–1023) is sung after Pentheus has just emerged dressed as a woman and carrying the thyrsus, the ivytipped want held by bacchants. The god has mocked him in a burlesque scene: the deranged Pentheus sees double, thinks Dionysus has changed into a bull, and believes that he (Pentheus) has the strength to lift mountains. The chorus now proclaim the hunting down of their enemy by the women of Thebes. In both plays, the typical features of choral woman’s song persist. Just as Alcman’s parthenoi warned of the dangers of sexual excess and striving beyond a mortal’s lot (Alcman 1.16–20), the women of Troizen in Hippolytus warn of the dangers of unbridled passion, and the maenads in the Bacchae warn of the terrible consequences of impiety. Like Alcman’s, the Euripidean female choruses purvey a combination of gnomic wisdom, and morals drawn from the mythic past, with ecstatic flights of fancy. When Phaedra’s Nurse goes to Hippolytus with an unauthorized message of her mistress’ love, the chorus sing eloquently of the sweet but deadly power of Eros; when faced with Phaedra’s imminent suicide they sing of their yearning to escape human woes and fly away like a bird. After Dionysus has proclaimed Pentheus’s fate for rejecting his worship, the maenad band sing, likening themselves to a fawn running wildly in its joy at escaping the hunter, and warning that piety is preferable to cleverness, a theme they repeat later, in an even more exultantly ecstatic – and frightening – ode.

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ïIppovluto~ 525-64 525

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ÒErw~ ÒErw~, oJ katÆ ojmmavtwn stavzwn povqon, eijsavgwn glukei`an yuca`/ cavrin ou}~ ejpistrateuvsh/, mhv moiv pote su;n kakw`/ faneivh~ mhdÆ a[rruqmo~ e[lqoi~. ou[te ga;r puro;~ ou[tÆ a[strwn uJpevrteron bevlo~ oi|on to; ta`~ ÆAfrodivta~ i{hsin ejk cerw`n ÒErw~ oJ Dio;~ pai`~. a[llw~ a[llw~ parav tÆ ÆAlfew`/ Foivbou tÆ ejpi; Puqivoi~ teravmnoi~ bouvtan fovnon ïElla;~ ai[Æ ajevxei, ÒErwta dev, to;n tuvrannon ajndrw`n, to;n ta`~ ÆAfrodivta~ filtavtwn qalavmwn klh/dou`con, ouj sevbizomen, pevrqonta kai; dia; pavsa~ iJevnta sumfora`~ qnatou;~ o{tan e[lqh/. ta;n me;n Oijcaliva/ pw`lon a[zuga levktrwn, a[nandron to; pri;n kai; a[numfon, oi[kwn zeuvxasÆ ajpÆ Eujrutivwn dromavda nai?dÆ o{pw~ te bavkcan su;n ai{mati, su;n kapnw`/, fonivoisi numfeivoi~ ÆAlkmhvna~ tovkw/ Kuvpri~ ejxevdwken: w\ tlavmwn uJmenaivwn. w\ Qhvba~ iJero;n tei`co~, w\ stovma Divrka~, suneivpoitÆ a]n aJ Kuvpri~ oi|on e{rpei: bronta`/ ga;r ajmfipuvrw/

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Hippolytus 525-64 Eros, Eros, you who suffuse eyes with desire, and bring sweet delight to the souls of those whom you assail, may you never reveal yourself unkindly to me, nor come discordantly. For sharper than the flash of fire or stars is Aphrodite’s dart, shot from the hands of Eros, the son of Zeus.

525

In vain, in vain beside the river Alpheus and at the Delphic house of Phoebus Greece increases the ever-mounting sacrifice of cattle, unless we honour Eros, the tyrant of men, who holds the keys of the sweet chambers of Aphrodite; he sacks and drives to utter disaster mortals when he comes.

535

At Oichalia a young girl, a colt unyoked in marriage, thus far unmanned, unhusbanded, taken from the house of her father Eurytus, she was yoked, she who had run like a Naiad or a Bacchante. With blood and smoke in bloody bridals the Cyprian goddess gave her to Alcmena’s son. Unhappy in your dreadful wedding!

545

Oh holy wall of Thebes, oh spring of Dirce, you could help me tell how Cypris advances against us. With thunder and with lightning blazing

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tokavda ta;n digovnoio Bavkcou numfeusamevna povtmw/ fonivw/ kathuvnasen. deina; ga;r ta; pavntÆ ejpipnei`, mevlissa dÆ oi{a ti~ pepovtatai.

ïIppovluto~ 732–75 732

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hjlibavtoi~ uJpo; keuqmw`si genoivman, i{na me pterou`ssan o[rnin qeo;~ ejn potanai`~ ajgevlai~ qeivh: ajrqeivhn dÆ ejpi; povntion ku`ma ta`~ ÆAdrihna`~ ajkta`~ ÆHridanou` qÆ u{dwr, e[nqa porfuvreon stalavssousÆ ej~ oi\dma tavlainai kovrai Faevqonto~ oi[ktw/ dakruvwn ta;~ hjlektrofaei`~ aujgav~: ïEsperivdwn dÆ ejpi; mhlovsporon ajkta;n ajnuvsaimi ta`n ajoidw`n, i{nÆ oJ porfureva~ pontomevdwn livmna~ nauvtai~ oujkevqÆ oJdo;n nevmei, semno;n tevrmona kurw`n oujranou`, to;n ÒAtla~ e[cei, krh`naiv tÆ ajmbrovsiai cevontai Zhno;~ para; koivtai~, i{nÆ ojlbiovdwro~ au[xei zaqeva cqw;n eujdaimonivan qeoi`~. w\ leukovptere Krhsiva porqmiv~, a} dia; povntion ku`mÆ aJlivktupon a{lma~

EURIPIDES

she gave twice-born Bacchus’ mother in marriage and bedded her with a murderous fate. Terrible is her breath on everything; like a bee she darts everywhere.

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Hippolytus 732–75 If only I could be in the high mountain-clefts, where, as a feathered bird, flying with the winged flocks, god would set me. Or let me be carried to the Adriatic ocean wave, or the shore by the waters of Eridanus, where into the deep-blue swell unhappy maidens let fall piteously for Phaethon their shining, amber-gleaming tears. Or let me reach the apple-bearing shore of the singing Hesperides, where the Watcher of the blue water grants sailors no further path, as he guards the holy boundary of heaven, which Atlas holds up, and the immortal springs flow beside the bridal bed of Zeus, where the sacred earth, rich in gifts, multiplies blessings for the gods. Oh white-winged Cretan ship, which across the sea’s salt-heaving ocean wave

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ejpovreusa~ ejma;n a[nassan ojlbivwn ajpÆ oi[kwn kakonumfotavtan o[nasin: h\ ga;r ajpÆ ajmfotevrwn oiJ Krhsiva~ tÆ ejk ga`~ duvsorni~ e[ptato kleina;~ ÆAqhvna~ Mounivcou tÆ ajktai`sin ejkdhvsanto plekta;~ peismavtwn ajrcav~ ejpÆ ajpeivrou te ga`~ e[basan. ajnqÆ w|n oujc oJsivwn ejrwvtwn deina`/ frevna~ ÆAfrodivta~ novsw/ kateklavsqh: calepa`/ dÆ uJpevrantlo~ ou\\sa sumfora`/ teravmnwn a[po numfidivwn kremasto;n a{yetai ajmfi; brovcon leuka`/ kaqarmovzousa deira`/, daivmona stugno;n kataidesqei`sa tavn tÆ eu[doxon ajjnqairoumevna fhvman ajpallavssousav tÆ ajlgeino;n frenw`n e[rwta.

Bavkcai 862–911

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a\rÆ ejn pannucivoi~ coroi`~ qhvsw pote; leuko;n povdÆ ajnabakceuvousa, devran aijqevrÆ ej~ drosero;n rJivptousÆ, wJ~ nebro;~ cloerai`~ ejmpaivzousa leivmako~ hJdonai`~, aJnivkÆ a]n fobera;n fuvgh/ qhvran e[xw fulaka`~ eujplevktwn uJpe;r ajrkuvwn, qwu?sswn de; kunagevta~ sunteivnh// dravmhma kunw`n, movcqoi~ dÆ wjkudrovmoi~ tÆ ajella;~ qrwv/skh/ pedivon parapotavmion, hJdomevna brotw`n ejrhmivai~ skiarokovmoiov tÆ e[rnesin u{la~É

EURIPIDES

brought my lady from her happy home, a most unblissful wedded bliss. Ill-starred when she flew from the Cretan land, and when on the shores of glorious Athens and Mounichia they tied up the woven cable-ends, and walked onto the mainland. So, with unhallowed love, with Aphrodite’s dreadful sickness, she was afflicted in her mind, and, overwhelmed by her grievous plight, she’ll hang up in her bridal chamber the suspended noose, fitting it around her white neck; shrinking from a shameful fate, and choosing instead fair fame, she’ll free her heart from its tormenting passion.

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The Bacchae 862–911 (Third Stasimon) Shall I ever in the night-long dances tread with white foot, as I celebrate the Bacchanal, lifting my throat to the dewy air, like a fawn sporting delightfully in the green meadow, when it has escaped the fearful hunt, clear of the waiting huntsman and over the well-woven nets, as the shouting hunter urges on the running dogs? With strenuous speed it circles around, bounding over the plain by the river, rejoicing in the wild uninhabited places and the fresh growth of the shady wood.

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tiv to; sofovnÉ h] tiv to; kavllion para; qew`n gevra~ ejn brotoi`~É h\ cei`rÆ uJpe;r korufa`~ tw`n ejcqrw`n kreivssw katevceinÉ o{ti kalo;n fivlon aijeiv. oJrma`tai movli~, ajllÆ o{mw~ pistovn ti to; qei`on sqevno~: ajpeuquvnei de; brotw`n touv~ tÆ ajgnwmosuvnan timw`nta~ kai; mh; ta; qew`n au[xonta~ su;n mainomevna/ dovxa/. krupteuvousi de; poikivlw~ daro;n crovnou povda kai; qhrw`sin to;n a[septon. ouj ga;r krei`ssovn pote tw`n novmwn gignwvskein crh; kai; meleta`n. kouvfa ga;r dapavna nomivzein ijscu;n tovdÆ e[cein, o{ti potÆ a[ra to; daimovnion, tov tÆ ejn crovnw/ makrw`/ novmimon ajei; fuvsei te pefukov~. tiv to; sofovnÉ h] tiv to; kavllion para; qew`n gevra~ ejn brotoi`~É h\ cei`rÆ uJpe;r korufa`~ tw`n ejcqrw`n kreivssw katevceinÉ o{ti kalo;n fivlon aijeiv. eujdaivmwn me;n o}~ ejk qalavssa~ e[fuge cei`ma, limevna dÆ e[kicen: eujdaivmwn dÆ o}~ u{perqe movcqwn ejgevneqÆ: e{tera dÆ e{tero~ e{teron o[lbw/ kai; dunavmei parh`lqen. murivai dÆ e[ti murivoi~ eijsi;n ejlpivde~: aiJ me;n

EURIPIDES

What is it to be wise? Or what is the loveliest gift to mortals from the gods? Is it with a stronger hand over their heads to hold down your foes? What is lovely is always dear. Not hastening, but nonetheless sure is divine power. It brings those mortals into line who honour folly, those who with maddened minds fail to attend to the gods’ concerns. The gods subtly hide the slow foot of time and hunt down the impious. Nothing that is above the law should we ever learn and practise. It’s little cost to believe this is what has power: the divine – whatever that may be, which in the long run always will engender law, and has. What is it to be wise? Or what is the loveliest gift to mortals from the gods? Is it with stronger hand over their heads to hold down your foes? What is lovely is always dear. Blessed the one who on the sea escapes the storm and reaches harbour. Blessed the one who overcomes toils. One outstrips another in this way and in that, in fortune and in power. For a myriad lives

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teleutw`sin ejn o[lbw/, brotoi`~, aiJ dÆ ajpevbasan: to; de; katÆ h\mar o{tw/ bivoto~ eujdaivmwn, makarivzw.

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i[te qoai; Luvssa~ kuvne~, i[tÆ eij~ o[ro~, qivason e[nqÆ e[cousi Kavdmou kovrai: ajnoistrhvsatev nin ejpi; to;n ejn gunaikomivmw/ stola`/ lusswvdh katavskopon mainavdwn. mavthr prw`tav nin leura`~ ajpo; pevtra~ ÿh] skovlopo~ÿ o[yetai dokeuvonta, mainavsin dÆ ajpuvsei: Tiv~ o{dÆ ojreidrovmwn masth;r Kadmeia`n ej~ o[ro~ ej~ o[ro~ e[molÆ e[molen, w\ bavkcaiÉ tiv~ a[ra nin e[tekenÉ ouj ga;r ejx ai{mato~ gunaikw`n e[fu, leaivna~ dev tino~ o{dÆ h] Gorgovnwn Libussa`n gevno~. i[tw divka fanerov~, i[tw xifhfovro~ foneuvousa laimw`n diampa;x to;n a[qeon a[nomon a[dikon ÆEcivono~ govnon ghgenh`: o{~ ajdivkw/ gnwvma/ paranovmw/ tÆ ojrga`/ ÿperi;, BavkciÆ, o[rgia matrov~ te sa`~ÿ maneivsa/ prapivdi parakovpw/ te lhvmati stevlletai, tajnivkaton wJ~ krathvswn biva/: ÿgnwma`n swvfrona qavnato~ ajprofavsisto~ eij~ ta; qew`n e[fu

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there are a myriad hopes. Some will end in fortune for us mortals; others will pass away. To lead a life from day to day favoured by the gods, that I call blessed.

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The Bacchae 977-1023 (Fourth Stasimon) Go, swift hounds of Fury, go to the mountain, where the daughters of Cadmus hold their holy thiasos. Goad them to madness against the man in women’s clothing 980 furiously spying on the Maenads. First his mother will see him, from a sheer cliff or pinnacle peering, and she’ll cry out to her Maenads, “Who is this who has come, has come to the mountain, the mountain 985 seeking out the Cadmean mountain-dancers, Bacchae? Who bore him then? He is not sprung from women’s blood; he’s the kin of some lioness 990 or Libyan Gorgon.” Let Justice go openly, let her go sword-bearing, death-bringing, piercing in the throat the ungodly, unlawful, unjust one, Echion’s earthborn son. With unjust intent, with lawless rage at your rites, Bacchus, and your mother’s, raving in mind, frenzied in resolve he goes forth, to conquer by force the invincible one. Death is swift to teach discretion, regarding the gods’ concerns.

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broteivw t e[cein a[lupo~ bivo~. to; sofo;n ouj fqonw` caivrw qhreuvousa ta; dÆ e{tera megavla fanera; tw`n ajei; ejpi; ta; kala; bivon,ÿ h\mar ej~ nuvkta tÆ eu-j agou`ntÆ eujsebei`n, ta; dÆ e[xw novmima divka~ ejkbalovnta tima`n qeouv~. i[tw divka fanerov~, i[tw xifhfovro~ foneuvousa laimw`n diampa;x to;n a[qeon a[nomon a[dikon ÆEcivono~ govnon ghgenh`: favnhqi tau`ro~ h] poluvkrano~ ijdei`n dravkwn h] puriflevgwn oJra`sqai levwn. i[qÆ w\ Bavkce, qh;r ajgreuta`/ bakca`n proswvpw/ gelw`nti perivbale brovcon qanavsimon uJpÆ ajgevlan pesovnti ta;n mainavdwn.

EURIPIDES

For an untroubled life, act like a mortal. I do not envy wisdom. With joy I follow other great and shining things, always among those that draw our life towards the good: day and night to be pure, show reverence, and, rejecting law without justice, to honour the gods. Let Justice go openly, let her go sword-bearing, death-bringing, piercing in the throat the ungodly, unlawful, unjust one, Echion’s earthborn son. Appear as a bull or a many-headed snake or a fire-breathing lion to our sight. Go, Bacchus, as a beast against the man who hunts the Bacchae. With laughing face catch him in a fatal noose, as he falls under the feet of the Maenad troop.

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notes For Doric forms, see notes on Pindar.

Hippolytus 525-64 (first stasimon) Two pairs of strophe plus antistrophe; composed in aeolic metre, based on the choriamb. In the ode, Eros and Aphrodite are the source of sweet private love, but also of large-scale violence and devastation. The imagery Euripides uses envisages the besieging and sacking of cities: epistrateusēi, “sends an army against” (line 527); belos, “missile” (line 530), referring to the light of fire

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and stars, as well as the arrow that Aphrodite or Eros shoots; perthonta, “sacking” (line 541). 532: Eros is generally regarded as the son of Aphrodite but the identity of his father is undecided. Euripides is unusual – and may be the first – to call him the son of Zeus. 535-7: The Alpheus is the large river of the Peloponnese that flows near Olympia, site of the games. Olympia is mentioned in conjunction with Delphi, with its oracle of Apollo, both places being a focus for large-scale offerings. 545-54: The myth of Iole (not named here), in Oechalia, a city of unknown location, is summarized in these lines. In order to carry off Iole, daughter of Eurytus, King of Oechalia, Heracles killed her father and brothers and sacked her city. The image of a virgin as an unyoked filly (pōlon azyga, line 546) is a common one. Cf. Anacreon 417 PMG, addressed to a “Thracian filly.” 545-62: Semele, in Thebes, was burned by Zeus’s lightning when she insisted that he appear to her in all his glory. Zeus rescued the unborn Dionysus from her body, and brought the baby to term within his own. Thus Bacchus (Dionysus) is “twice born” (digonoio, line 560). Cypris is Aphrodite, named for her association with Cyprus; Dirce, a river in Thebes. 563-4: The image of a bee flitting from flower to flower, transforming what it touches, is easier to relate to the benign than to the destructive powers of Aphrodite. Yet, the image is strangely evocative of the goddess’s power, elusive and unconfineable – and with a sting. 732-75 (second stasimon) Composed in strophic pairs using the following metrical units: ionic, glyconic (the latter a metre associated with Dionysiac cult song), and iambic. 735-41: The myth of Phaethon, who lost control of the chariot of his father, the Sun, and crashed to his death. His weeping sisters were turned into poplar trees, their tears into beads of amber. Phaethon fell into the mythical river Eridanus, sometimes identified with the Po in northern Italy. The “swell” (oidma, line 739) into which the maidens’ tears fall might be the river or the sea; Euripides’ words let both images hang in the mind. 742-51: The myth of the Hesperides, the “maidens of the west,” whose Garden is situated near the Pillars of Heracles (Straits of Gibraltar) at the

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rim of the world, where Atlas holds up the sky and the Old Man of the Sea lets ships pass no further. In the Garden, Zeus lay with Hera after their wedding, and Ge (Earth) put forth golden apples for them. The apples were temporarily stolen by Heracles. 752-62: Crete was the home of Phaedra’s parents, Minos and Pasiphae, and Phaedra’s sister Ariadne. This allusion to Phaedra’s family subtly links her own obsession with her mother’s disastrous passion for a bull, and their monstrous offspring, the Minotaur. 764-75: The chorus foresee Phaedra’s fate. She will escape from her affliction – but only in death. The word deinai, “terrible” (line 765) in association with Aphrodite echoes its occurrence at line 563 in the First Stasimon.

The Bacchae 862-911 (third stasimon) Composed mainly in aeolic metre; two triads of stanza, refrain, and epode. 866: That maenads identified themselves with fawns is also suggested by their wearing of fawn skins, as depicted in vase paintings. 872: My translation diverges slightly from the Greek by placing a question mark here, rather than at the end of the strophe. 877-81, 897-901: The refrain refers to the traditional view that one should do good to one’s friends and harm to one’s enemies (cf. Sappho 5, and note), an opinion that, I think, the chorus does not necessarily endorse. They ask the question whether this is what is most desirable. 877-88 and 879-80 are here punctuated as two separate questions, with Seaford. The final line hoti kalon philon aiei, literally, “that which [is] beautiful/good [is] always dear,” is variously interpreted. Here, I understand kalon as something like “desirable,” in both an aesthetic and a moral sense. Others take kalon as merely pragmatic: “agreeable” or “advantageous.” But cf. Bacchae 1150-1, “to be self-restrained and to honour the things of the gods is finest” (to sōphronein de kai sebein ta tōn theōn kalliston). 910a-11: In view of the variety and chanciness of human ambitions, the chorus concludes, the best thing is to be content from day to day: eudaimōn, “fortunate,” “prosperous,” “happy,” with the implication that some god confers this state.

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977-1023 (fourth stasimon) Composed in dochmiacs, the most intense and agitated of the metres. 977: The dogs of Lyssa (“frenzy”) embody the madness of those cursed by the gods. Like the Erinyes in Aeschylus’ Eumenides, they are imagined as a pack of hounds that race baying after their prey. Of course, the Theban maenads on Mount Cithaeron themselves become virtually a pack of hounds thirsting for blood. 978: A thiasos was a band of worshippers, especially in the cult of Dionysus. Cadmus is grandfather of Pentheus and founder of Thebes. Though an old man in the play, he embraces the new religion of Dionysus. 991: The “Libyan Gorgon” refers to one of the three monstrous sisters, gorgō meaning “the grim one.” Medusa, with her snakes for hair and death-dealing gaze, is the best known of the three. The Gorgons were regarded as living in some remote region of the west, the far end of Libya, according to some writers. 992-6; 991-6 in some editions. In the refrain, Echion, “snake-man,” was one of the “sown men” who sprang from the dragon’s teeth sown by Cadmus. 997-1000: Pentheus, setting out to do violence on the maenads and their god, is crazed and driven, just as he had previously thought the Dionysus worshippers to be. 1016-23: At the close of the ode, the chorus ask Dionysus to appear in beast form. He was thought to assume the form of a bull. Cf. “The Hymn of the Women of Elis” (871 PMG) and also Pentheus’ earlier vision of his visitor.

8 nossis

Perhaps the most interesting woman author from the Hellenistic period is Nossis, who lived around 300 bce in Locri Epizephyrii, a Dorian settlement in the south of Italy, and wrote in Doric, with some elements of Aeolic, Sappho’s dialect. Women seem to have had a higher status in Dorian society, especially in Italian Locri, than in other places in Greece. According to legend, the colony was founded by women and their slave lovers; the story may have arisen to explain the tradition of deriving ancestral nobility from the female line – a tradition possibly reflected in Nossis’ referring to both herself and her mother by matronymics (Nossis 3 EG; see MacLachlan 205–6). Possibly, too, women had more sexual freedom. The anonymous “Locrian Song”, included here, may suggest a certain permissiveness that is also reflected in Nossis’ unembarrassed comments on a courtesan’s dedicating her statue to Aphrodite (cf. Skinner, “Nossis and Women’s Cult”). One might contrast this with Pindar’s coyness about the Corinthian temple prostitutes (122.12–15). Nossis’ preserved poems are all short epigrams, the form traditionally used for inscriptions. By this time the epigram had become a mainly literary genre; most of hers claim to be commemorative or dedicatory, that is, designed to accompany offerings to be set up in a temple. With some exceptions, her poems may well have arisen from real occasions; clearly Poem 11, an epitaph for herself, couldn’t have done so. Eleven, possibly twelve, Nossis epigrams are preserved scattered among others in the Anthologia Palatina or Greek Anthology, a tenth-century collection

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of earlier materials. The ten included here are in a woman’s voice; they suggest a female world and very possibly a female audience. As Marilyn Skinner notes, “ekphrastic epigrams afforded Hellenistic women writers a new way to express a gendered perspective” (“Ladies’ Day at the Art Institute” 211, and see p. 28, above). In his epigram celebrating the most famous women poets of Greece, also preserved in the Anthologia Palatina, Antipater of Thessalonica calls her thēlyglōsson, “femininetongued” (AP 9.26.7), an epithet which may be appropriate to her because she is such a female-centered poet, as Skinner has emphasized (“Nossis Thêlyglôssos” 122; see also Gosetti-Murrayjohn 39). Her epigrams make especially feminine pleas like the one for a successful delivery (Poem 12 EG – if this is indeed by Nossis), or reflect offerings peculiar to women: the delicate robe Nossis and her mother wove together (Poem 3), the hair snood evoking womanly beauty (Poem 5), the statue (nude?) of Aphrodite dedicated by a wealthy courtesan out of the profits of her profession (Poem 4), the portraits that bring women to life and remind Nossis of their domestic relationships, with parents (Poem 8) and pets (Poem 7). The celebration of love in Nossis 1 is reminiscent of archaic lyric. Mimnermus exclaims, “What is life, what is delightful, without golden Aphrodite?” (Tis de bios, ti de terpnon, ater chrysēs Aphroditēs? 1.1 West). Evidently, Nossis was inspired by Sappho in particular. In Poem 1, the roses of Aphrodite, which those whom she has not loved (or kissed) can never know, are reminiscent of the roses of Pieria, home of the Muses (Sappho 55), of which the uncultivated woman knows nothing. In Poem 11 Nossis asks the stranger who sees her grave if he or she – the masculine adjective enausomenos could be gender-neutral – goes to Mitylene (Sappho’s city) to catch inspiration, to remind the people there of me. She seems to wish to recreate the atmosphere of Sappho. Like her famous predecessor’s, her poetry is peopled with beautiful and accomplished women. Like Sappho, she seems particularly close to Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty as well as love. Also reminiscent of Sappho is the interest in beautiful clothing and beautifying objects. Aphrodite is pleased with the offering of an intricate, perfumed hairnet (Poem 5). One is

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reminded of Sappho’s perfumed purple napkins (Fr. 101), elaborate headbands (Fr. 98a and b), and garlands that please the Graces (Fr. 81), as well as the fine-wrought Lydian sandals (Fr. 39), and items of lovely apparel (Fr. 92). Again, Nossis’ dedicatory epigram to Hera, who often comes down from heaven to look upon her shrine fragrant with incense, recalls Sappho’s invocation to Aphrodite in Fragment 2. Whether or not Nossis looked to women rather than men as objects of desire, as believed by Skinner (“Aphrodite Garlanded” 72; “Nossis Thêlyglôssos” 127; contra, see Gutzwiller), her poetry certainly displays a strong interest in female sexuality. The nuances and the melodiousness of Sappho are not matched, but, as Nossis wishes in Poem 11, some of the “charm” (charis) is “kindled” (enauesthai) here.

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1 a{dion oujde;n e[rwto~: a} dÆ o[lbia, deuvtera pavnta ejstivn: ajpo; stovmato~ dÆ e[ptusa kai; to; mevli. tou`to levgei Nossiv~: tivna dÆ aJ Kuvpri~ oujk ejfivlasen, oujk oi\den thnva~ ta[nqea, poi`a rJovda.

3 ÓHra timavessa, Lakivnion a} to; quw`de~ pollavki~ oujranovqen nisomevna kaqorh`/~, devxai buvssinon ei|ma tov toi meta; paido;~ ajgaua`~ Nossivdo~ u{fanen Qeufili;~ aJ Kleovca~.

4 ejlqoi`sai poti; nao;n ijdwvmeqa ta`~ ÆAfrodivta~ to; brevta~ wJ~ crusw`/ daidaloven televqei. ei{satov min Poluarci;~ ejpauromevna mavla pollavn kth`sin ajpÆ oijkeivou swvmato~ ajglai?a~.

5 caivroisavn toi e[oike koma`n a[po ta;n ÆAfrodivtan a[nqema kekruvfalon tovnde labei`n Samuvqa~: daidavleov~ te gavr ejsti kai; aJduv ti nevktaro~ o[sdei: touvtw/ kai; thvna kalo;n ÒAdwna crivei.

6 to;n pivnaka xanqa`~ Kallw; dovmon eij~ ÆAfrodivta~ eijkovna grayamevna pavntÆ ajnevqhken i[san. wJ~ ajganw`~ e{staken: i[dÆ aJ cavri~ aJlivkon ajnqei`. cairevtw, ou[ tina ga;r mevmyin e[cei biota`~.

7 Qaumarevta~ morfa;n oJ pivnax e[cei: eu\ ge to; gau`ron teu`xe tov qÆ wJrai`on ta`~ ajganoblefavrou. saivnoi kevn sÆ ejsidoi`sa kai; oijkofuvlax skulavkaina, devspoinan melavqrwn oijomevna poqorh`n.

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1 Nothing is more delightful than love. All sweet things are second-rate. I spit them from my mouth, even honey! This is what Nossis says. Whom Cyprian Aphrodite has not loved knows not her flowers, how wonderful her roses.

3 Honoured Hera, you who often come from heaven to look down on your fragrant Lacinian shrine, receive this delicate linen robe, which with her noble daughter Nossis Cleocha the child of Theuphilis wove for you.

4 Coming to Aphrodite’s temple, let us see her image, how it is adorned with gold. Polyarchis placed it there, for she gained great wealth from her own radiant body.

5 Aphrodite surely rejoiced to receive this costly snood from Samytha’s hair. For it is finely made and breathes some sweet perfume, such as she smoothed on lovely Adonis.

6 Callo, in the house of fair-haired Aphrodite, dedicated this picture. She had it painted, a likeness resembling her in every way. How gently she stands there. See how her youthful grace blooms. Let her fare well, for there is no blame in her life.

7 The portrait keeps Thaumareta’s beauty. It has recreated well the spirited youth of this gentle-eyed girl. Looking at you, the little watch-dog would wag her tail, thinking to see the mistress of the house.

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8 Aujtomevlinna tevtuktai: i[dÆ wJ~ ajgano;n to; provswpon. aJme; potoptavzein meilicivw~ dokevei. wJ~ ejtuvmw~ qugavthr ta`/ matevri pavnta potwv/kei: h\ kalo;n o{kka pevlh/ tevkna goneu`sin i[sa.

9 gnwta; kai; thlw`qe Sabaiqivdo~ ei[detai e[mmen a{dÆ eijkw;n morfa`/ kai; megaleiosuvna/. qaveo: ta;n pinuta;n tov te meivlicon aujtovqi thvna~ e[lpomÆ oJrh`n. caivroi~ pollav, mavkaira guvnai.

11 w\ xei`nÆ, eij tuv ge plei`~ poti; kallivcoron Mitulhvnan ta`n Sapfou`~ carivtwn a[nqo~ ejnausovmeno~, eijpei`n wJ~ Mouvsaisi fivlan thvna/ te Lokri;~ ga` tivkte mÆ: i[sai~ dÆ o{ti moi tou[noma Nossiv~, i[qi.

12 ÒArtemi Da`lon e[coisa kai; ÆOrtugivan ejrovessan, tovxa me;n eij~ kovlpou~ a{gnÆ ajpovqou Carivtwn, lou`sai dÆ ÆInwpw`/ kaqaro;n crova, ba`qi dÆ ej~ oi[kou~ luvsousÆ wjdivnwn ÆAlkevtin ejk calepw`n.

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8 Melinna comes alive again. See how gentle her face is. She seems to look at us sweetly. How truly the daughter takes after her mother. Indeed, it’s a fine thing when children are like their parents!

9 It’s clear this is Sabaetha’s likeness, even from a distance, resembling her in stateliness and beauty. Look! Her good sense and her gentleness, right there, I believe I see them. Farewell, blessed woman.

11 Oh, stranger, if you sail to Mitylene with its lovely dancing-places to catch fire from the flower of Sappho’s graces, say that the land of Locri bore me, dear to the Muses and to her. Know that my name is Nossis. Go!

12 Artemis, you who hold Delos and lovely Ortygia, leave your sacred arrows on the laps of the Graces, wash your pure body in the water of Inopus, and come to the house, to release Alcetis from the sore pains of childbirth.

notes Nossis’ poems are composed in quatrains of two elegiac couplets. Doricisms include the following: (long) a (a) instead of Attic h (ē); h for ei (ei); ai (ai) for a; oi (oi) or w (ō) for ou (ou); sd (sd) for z (z); of these, ai, o/w, and sd forms are also Aeolic. 1 Ephilasen can mean “she loved” or “she kissed.” The last line is ambiguous; ms. kēna t’ has been variously emended and interpreted. Kēn-, or Doric tēn- as in Page EG tēnas, “(of) her,” could refer to Nossis, as suggested by Gow and Page. The roses would then be a

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symbol of Nossis’ sexuality, raising the intriguing possibility that she was a hetaira (courtesan). See Gow and Page 2: 435-6. 3 The “Lacinian shrine” refers to a temple in southern Italy not far from Nossis’ home. The adjective bussinos is applied to fabrics made of fine linen. Identifying a woman by a matronymic rather than a patronymic is unusual, and may reflect the higher status for women that some modern scholars have inferred for Locri Epizephyrii. 4 Polyarchis must be a courtesan who earns money by selling her beautiful body. 5 In the final line, tēna (Doric for ekeinē), “she,” is Aphrodite, who would have anointed Adonis’ wounded body with perfumed unguents to prevent decay. See Gow and Page 438, Bion’s “Epitaph for Adonis” 77, and on Adonis cults, p. 243, below. 6, 7, 8, 9 Epigrams on pictures offered as dedications by the subjects of the portraits. Nossis praises their beauty and likeness to life. 8.4: hokka, Doric for hote, “when.” 11 Here Nossis implicitly acknowledges her debt to Sappho and invites comparison with her. Isais, “knowing,” or “having learned” (line 4). 12 The manuscript heading hōs Nossidos, “like Nossis,” indicates that the ascription of this epigram is doubtful. The poem is not a dedicatory epigram but a prayer for a safe birth. Artemis is invited to set aside her role as huntress and take up her role as divine midwife. Artemis and her brother Apollo were born on the islands of Ortygia and Delos, respectively. Inopus is a stream on Delos.

9 theocritus and bion

These two retrospective versions of woman’s song are recreations, for a reading public, of oral, performative genres: epithalamion and cult song. Theocritus, the author of the earlier of the two, the “Epithalamion for Helen,” lived from about 300 to about 260 bce. Born in Syracuse, Sicily, he also seems to have resided on the island of Cos, in the southeastern Aegean, and in Alexandria. From antiquity on, Theocritus – like Bion and Moschus – has been known as a “bucolic,” that is, pastoral, poet. In fact, the majority of his surviving poems aren’t pastoral, even though he may have been the father of that very literary genre distantly related to the oral songs and festivities of shepherds and herdsmen. Like other Hellenistic poetry, Theocritus’ work is artificial in the sense that it makes conspicuous use of literary artifice. An ancient commentary on his poems calls them eidyllia, “idylls,” a term derived from eidos, “form,” “type,” and perhaps meaning a collection of poems in different styles, but not “pastoral” specifically (see Gow, Theocritus 1: lxxi–lxxii; Gk. Bucolic Poets xxii). In addition to the epithalamion included here, other poems by Theocritus imitate traditional oral genres performed by women or girls. Idyll 2, the Pharmaceutriae (“Sorceresses”) is a literary version of a spell: in order to win back her lover, the abandoned Simaetha intones a charm over a wryneck bird (ïynx) bound to a whirling wheel. The poem was cited by Theodor Frings as an ancient example of the popular “woman’s song” he saw as a substratum beneath the courtly lyric of the Middle Ages (Minnesinger und Troubadours 47), but really

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the Pharmaceutriae is at several removes from its popular models, presumably songs composed orally by their female performers. Idyll 15, “The Syracusans” or Adoniazusae (“Women at the Adonia”) is set in Alexandria. Through dialogue, it evokes the visit of two Syracusan women to the Adonis celebrations; the high point is a well-known performer singing the Adonis hymn, the text of which takes up a considerable part of the poem (lines 100–44). The occasion is animated, and a little reminiscent of the magistrate’s complaints in Aristophanes’ Lysistrata about women celebrating the Adonia by cavorting noisily on the roof (Lysistrata 387–98). Idyll 18, the “Epithalamion for Helen,” recreates the traditional maiden-song for a wedding, along with its conventional girlish simplicity and girlish affection. However, Theocritus’ version is consciously literary – and almost certainly not composed for actual performance by or to a particular group of women. Theocritus would have read epithalamia, including those of Sappho. He had probably read Alcman also, and here he imitates partheneia of the archaic period. Whereas Sappho’s epithalamia were composed for real weddings, Theocritus’ is a literary fiction that evokes the mythical past, skilfully combining the light-hearted optimism of the epithalamion genre with dark hints of the future. Here Helen is a young girl, and the Trojan War not yet dreamed of. Yet the audience (or readers) will know only too well of the disaster that looms in the future. In these ways, Idyll 18 is very reminiscent of Sappho 44, the “Wedding of Hector and Andromache,” and direct influence is definitely a possibility. A.S.F. Gow mentions this with caution; he finds the “general debt to Sappho” more significant than a possible reference to Stesichorus, whose “Palinode” followed an alternative legend in which the real Helen never went to Troy (see Theocritus 2: 348–9). The poem begins with the good-humoured teasing and sexual innuendo that seem to be a permanent feature of audience participation at weddings. The maidens take Menelaus to task for being sleepy (when such delights await him); he is a lucky fellow indeed, and someone must have sneezed auspiciously when he came to petition for Helen’s

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hand. Pleasantly comic, and even slightly absurd. But, of course, Menelaus is not lucky, and Helen was not destined to be “your own through all the years to come.” Helen’s playmates sing in praise of their idol much as Alcman’s chorus eulogize their beautiful leader(s). She is the leader of their group, surpassing everyone in beauty and talent, just like Agido and Hagesichora in Alcman 1, and Astymeloisa in Alcman 3, except that in Theocritus there seems to be nothing particularly personal in the chorus’s affection and admiration. It may be significant that whereas in Alcman the choral group speaks with a single voice like one representative member, here, in Theocritus’ idyll, the plural is consistently used and the audience or reader never loses sight of the chorus’s collectivity. One has no sense that the girls of the chorus are in love with Helen, even when they say they are pining for her like lambs for the teat, an image that suggests a maternal rather than an erotic relationship between the leader and her junior admirers. Like Theocritus, by whom he was influenced, Bion recreates in hexameters, for a literate public, a traditional oral genre. From allusions to him in other poets, we gather that Bion, who came from Smyrna (modern Izmir, on the west coast of Turkey), flourished sometime between 150 and 50 bce; the anonymous “Epitaph for Bion” attributed to Moschus says he died prematurely, poisoned (see Reed 1–3). The “Epitaph for Adonis” is by far his longest and best-known extant work. Since only the tiniest fragments of Greek cult song for Adonis survive, it is impossible to know the extent to which it imitated them. Bion’s poem does clearly arise from the Adonis festival. The Adonia came to Greece in the seventh century bce from the Middle East; our earliest evidence for its existence in Greece is the Sappho fragments. Adonis was just one of various beloveds dying young who were honoured in Middle Eastern cult songs, all featuring the same central elements: marriage of goddess and consort, ritual mourning, and laying out the body (see Reed 20–1). Possibly Bion’s poem was commissioned for (solo) delivery at a festival, like the Adonis hymn in Theocritus 15, but more probably the poem was created as an exclusively literary project.

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While the phrasing of the “Adonis” is simple and repetitive, the rhetorical devices are artful, and the modulations of the constantly reiterated refrains and apostrophes melodious and pathetic – if cloying in their sweetness. Vivid, intense, and tender, the poem is dramatic, and rich in imagery, piling on its effects. All nature weeps for Adonis (lines 31–5); the young hunter’s dogs howl and the nymphs of the mountains wail (18–19) – an unfortunate combination if one imagines the sound of the joint chorus. Flowers spring from the goddess’ tears and her lover’s blood (lines 65–6). At the same time, the portrayal is often voyeuristic, and, implicitly, gratifying to a male rather than a female audience, whether Bion is dwelling on the feminized body of the dead youth or empathizing with the love-sick goddess. Modern readers have tended to find the poem excessive, but for J.D. Reed, though repetitive and sensuous, it is actually quite simple and restrained (Bion 55–7), and for Casey Dué “it extends in a beautiful way an important constellation of traditional themes and [floral] imagery” (Captive Woman’s Lament 69). Similarly to the “Epithalamion for Helen,” the “Epitaph for Adonis” gestures towards the archaic choral odes, albeit with much less emphasis on the persona of the speaker. Presumably Bion’s poem is conceived as uttered by a female mourner, seeing that the Adonia was strictly a women’s rite. But the framing narrative is impersonal, and could as well be spoken by a man. The persona of Aphrodite is quite fully developed though, mainly in pictorial terms, but also in a long passage of her own words (lines 42–61). As Reed notes, Aphrodite’s lament “fuses the epic persona of the grieving wife ... to that of lovelorn female soliloquizers popular in Hellenistic literature” (Bion 221). In her wild grief, Aphrodite behaves like a mourning woman, marring her appearance, and even injuring herself (lines 19–24). The portrait of the beautiful, grieving goddess is striking; I would not call it “restrained” – certainly not when she expresses her longing to protractedly kiss Adonis, and suck up (“milk”!) all his dying breath (lines 46–9). As for the picture of the eroticized wounded body, with its startling contrasts of white and red (lines 25–7), whether this is the voluptuous youth lying nude or his divine mistress running half-draped through the woods and beating her breast to bleeding (the reference of these lines is disputed), the passage

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is extravagant, to say the least. Like Gow, who criticized the poem for “its shrill tones and heated erotic colour” (Gk. Bucolic Poets xxvi), I find Bion’s “Adonis” rather over the top.

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theocritus ïElevnh~ ÆEpiqalavmio~

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ÒEn pokÆ a[ra Spavrta/ xanqovtrici pa;r Menelavw/ parqenikai; qavllonta kovmai~ uJavkinqon e[coisai provsqe neogravptw qalavmw coro;n ejstavsanto, dwvdeka tai; pra`tai povlio~, mevga crh`ma Lakaina`n, aJnivka Tundarivda kateklav/xato ta;n ajgapatavn mnasteuvsa~ ïElevnan oJ newvtero~ ÆAtrevo~ uiJw`n. a[eidon dÆ a{ma pa`sai ej~ e}n mevlo~ ejgkrotevoisai possi; periplevktoi~, uJpo; dÆ i[ace dw`mÆ uJmenaivw/: Ou{tw dh; prwiza;; katevdraqe~, w\ fivle gambrevÉ h\ rJav ti~ ejssi; livan barugouvnato~É h\ rJa fivlupno~É h\ rJa poluvn tinÆ e[pine~, o{kÆ eij~ eujna;n katebavlleuÉ eu{dein ma;n speuvdonta kaqÆ w{ran aujto;n ejcrh`n tu, pai`da dÆ eja`n su;n paisi; filostovrgw/ para; matriv paivsdein ej~ baqu;n o[rqron, ejpei; kai; e[na~ kai; ej~ ajw` khj~ e[to~ ejx e[teo~, Menevlae, tea; nuo;~ a{de. o[lbie gavmbrÆ, ajgaqov~ ti~ ejpevptaren ejrcomevnw/ toi ej~ Spavrtan a{per w|lloi ajristeve~, wJ~ ajnuvsaio: mw`no~ ejn hJmiqevoi~ Kronivdan Diva penqero;n eJxei`~. Zanov~ toi qugavthr uJpo; ta;n mivan i{keto clai`nan, oi{a ÆAcaiiavdwn gai`an patei` oujdemivÆ a[lla: h\ mevga kav ti tevkoitÆ eij matevri tivktoi oJmoi`on. a[mme~ dÆ aiJ pa`sai sunomavlike~, ai|~ drovmo~ wuJtov~ crisamevnai~ ajndristi; parÆ Eujrwvtao loetroi`~, tetravki~ eJxhvkonta kovrai, qh`lu~ neolaiva, ta`n oujdÆ a{ti~ a{mwmo~ ejpeiv cÆ ïElevna/ pariswqh`/. ÆAw;~ ajntevlloisa kalo;n dievfane provswpon, povtnia Nuvx, tov te leuko;n e[ar ceimw`no~ ajnevnto~: w|de kai; aJ cruseva ïElevna diefaivnetÆ ejn aJmi`n. pieivra/ megavla a{tÆ ajnevdrame kovsmo~ ajrouvra/ kai; kavpw/ kupavrisso~, h] a{rmati Qessalo;~ i{ppo~, w|de kai; aJ rJodovcrw~ ïElevna Lakedaivmoni kovsmo~:

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theocritus idyll 18, the epithalamion for helen Once, at Sparta, in fair-haired Menelaus’s home, maidens, their locks adorned with purple flowers, sang in chorus by the new-frescoed chamber, the city’s leading twelve, a fine bevy of Laconian girls, when, after wooing beloved Helen, Tyndareus’ daughter, Atreus’ younger son secured her in the bridal room. They all danced together in unison, tripping the rhythm with weaving feet, while the house echoed to the wedding song.

5

Are you abed so early, dear bridegroom? Were you heavy-kneed and anxious for sleep? 10 Had you drunk rather well when you came to your bed? If early sleep was your desire, you should have slept alone! And left that young girl with her friends at her kind mother’s house to play, late toward morning, for until the next day’s dawn, and through all the years to come, this bride, Menelaus, will be your own. 15 Lucky bridegroom, some good soul must have sneezed success for you, when you came to Sparta with the other fine men. You alone of those heroes shall call Zeus son of Cronus your father-in-law. For Zeus’s daughter has come beneath the same coverlet as you. 20 No other like her treads the earth of Greece; Wondrous will her offspring be, if her child is like its mother. All we girls of the same age ran races together, oiling our bodies like men by the Eurotas where we bathed, four times sixty maidens, a band of young girls, but not one would be perfect compared to Helen. 25 The rising Dawn has shown her lovely face, Lady Night, like shining spring when winter passes away. Thus golden Helen showed herself among us. As thick grain standing high gives splendour to a fertile field, a cypress-tree to a garden, and a Thessalian horse to a chariot, 30 just so rose-soft Helen gives splendour to Lacedaemonian Sparta.

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oujdev ti~ ejk talavrw panivsdetai e[rga toiau`ta, oujdÆ ejni; daidalevw/ pukinwvteron a[trion iJstw`/ kerkivdi sumplevxaisa makrw`n e[tamÆ ejk keleovntwn. ouj ma;n oujde; luvran ti~ ejpivstatai w|de kroth`sai ÒArtemin ajeivdoisa kai; eujruvsternon ÆAqavnan wJ~ ïElevna, ta`~ pavnte~ ejpÆ o[mmasin i{meroi ejntiv. w\ kalav, w\ carivessa kovra, tu; me;n oijkevti~ h[dh. a[mme~ dÆ ej~ Drovmon h\ri kai; ej~ leimwvvnia fuvlla eJryeu`me~ stefavnw~ dreyeuvmenai aJdu; pnevonta~, polla; teou`~, ïElevna, memnamevnai wJ~ galaqhnaiv a[rne~ geinamevna~ o[io~ masto;n poqevoisai. pra`taiv toi stevfanon lwtw` camai; aujxomevnoio plevxaisai skiara;n kataqhvsomen ej~ platavniston: pra`tai dÆ ajrgureva~ ejx o[lpido~ uJgro;n a[leifar lazuvmenai staxeu`me~ uJpo; skiara;n platavniston: gravmmata dÆ ejn floiw`/ gegravyetai, wJ~ pariwvn ti~ ajnneivmh/ Dwristiv: «sevbeu mÆ: ïElevna~ futovn eijmi.» Caivroi~, w\ nuvmfa: caivroi~, eujpevnqere gambrev. Latw; me;n doivh, Latw; kourotrovfo~ u[mmin eujteknivan, Kuvpri~ dev, qea; Kuvpri~, i\son e[rasqai ajllavlwn, Zeu;~ dev, Kronivda~ Zeuv~, a[fqiton o[lbon, wJ~ ejx eujpatrida`n eij~ eujpatrivda~ pavlin e[nqh/. eu{detÆ ej~ ajllavlwn stevrnon filovtata pnevonte~ kai; povqon: ejgrevsqai de; pro;~ ajw` mh; Æpilavqhsqe. neuvmeqa ka[mme~ ej~ o[rqron, ejpeiv ka pra`to~ ajoidov~ ejx eujna`~ keladhvsh/ ajnascw;n eu[trica deiravn. ïUmh;n w\ ïUmevnaie, gavmw/ ejpi; tw`/de careivh~.

bion ÆEpitavfio~ ÆAdwvnido~ Aijavzw to;n ÒAdwnin, «ajpwvleto kalo;~ ÒAdwni~»: «w[leto kalo;~ ÒAdwni~,» ejpaiavzousin ÒErwte~.

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No woman draws out the thread from the basket as well-spun as she, nor at the cunning loom weaves a closer web, stamping it with the rod between the mighty beams. No one knows how to sound the lyre, 35 hymning Artemis and broad-breasted Athene, like Helen, in whose eyes all love-desires are born. Oh fair, oh grace-endowed maiden, you have your own household now. But we shall slip away early to the race-course and the flowery meadows, 40 to pluck garlands breathing sweet fragrance – thinking of you, Helen, just as the lambs long to draw milk from the teat of their mother ewe. We shall be the first to weave a garland of clover that spreads over the ground, and hang it on a shady plane-tree. We shall be the first to take moist oil in a silver flask 45 to drip under that shady plane-tree. And letters shall be written in the bark for the passer-by to read this message in Doric style: “Hold me sacred; I am Helen’s tree.” Farewell bride, farewell bridegroom and favoured son-in-law. May Leto, nurse of the young, grant to you fine children, and Aphrodite of Cyprus reciprocated love, and Zeus son of Cronus unfading prosperity that will pass from noble parents to noble children. Sleep on each other’s breast, breathing love and desire. But remember to wake at dawn. We too shall come at daybreak, when the first songster summons us from bed as he lifts his feathery neck to crow. Oh, Hymen, Wedding God, may you rejoice in this wedding.

bion epitaph for adonis I lament Adonis: “He is dead, comely Adonis.” “Comely Adonis is gone,” the Loves lament in return.

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mhkevti porfurevoi~ ejni; favresi, Kuvpri, kavqeude: e[greo, deilaiva, kuanovstola kai; platavghson sthvqea kai; levge pa`sin, «ajpwvleto kalo;~ ÒAdwni~.» aijavzw to;n ÒAdwnin: ejpaiavzousin ÒErwte~. kei`tai kalo;~ ÒAdwni~ ejn w[resi mhro;n ojdovnti, leukw`/ leuko;n ojdovnti tupeiv~, kai; Kuvprin ajnih`/ lepto;n ajpoyuvcwn: to; dev oiJ mevlan ei[betai ai|ma cioneva~ kata; sarkov~, uJpÆ ojfruvsi dÆ o[mmata narkh`/, kai; to; rJovdon feuvgei tw` ceivleo~: ajmfi; de; thvnw/ qnav/skei kai; to; fivlhma, to; mhvpote Kuvpri~ ajpoivsei. Kuvpridi me;n to; fivlhma kai; ouj zwvonto~ ajrevskei, ajllÆ oujk oi\den ÒAdwni~ o{ nin qnav/skonta fivlhsen. aijavzw to;n ÒAdwnin: ejpaiavzousin ÒErwte~. a[grion a[grion e{lko~ e[cei kata; mhro;n ÒAdwni~, mei`zon dÆ aJ Kuqevreia fevrei potikavrdion e{lko~. th`non me;n peri; pai`da fivloi kuvne~ wjruvontai kai; Nuvmfai klaivousin ÆOreiavde~: aJ dÆ ÆAfrodivta lusamevna plokami`da~ ajna; drumw;~ ajlavlhtai penqaleva nhvplekto~ ajsavndalo~, aiJ de; bavtoi nin ejrcomevnan keivronti kai; iJero;n ai|ma drevpontai: ojxu; de; kwkuvoisa diÆ a[gkea makra; forei`tai ÆAssuvrion boovwsa povsin, kai; pai`da kaleu`sa. ajmfi; dev nin mevlan ai|ma parÆ ojmfalo;n aj/wrei`to, sthvqea dÆ ejk mhrw`n foinivsseto, toi; dÆ uJpo; mazoiv ciovneoi to; pavroiqen ÆAdwvnidi porfuvronto. «aijai` ta;n Kuqevreian,» ejpaiavzousin ÒErwte~.

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w[lese to;n kalo;n a[ndra, su;n w[lesen iJero;n ei\do~. Kuvpridi me;n kalo;n ei\do~ o{te zwvesken ÒAdwni~, kavtqane djÆ aJ morfa; su;n ÆAdwvnidi. «ta;n Kuvprin aijai`” w[rea pavnta levgonti, kai; aiJ druve~ «ai] to;n ÒAdwnin»:

THEOCRITUS AND BION

No longer sleep in your rich-dyed sheets, Cypris. Awake, poor creature, and dark-robed beat your breast, and say to all, “He is dead, comely Adonis.” I lament Adonis. The Loves lament in return.

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Comely Adonis lies in the mountains, wounded by a tusk in the thigh, his white thigh by a white tusk; he gives grief to Cypris as he faintly breathes his last. The dark blood flowing 10 stains his snow-white body, under his brows his eyes grow dim, and the rose flees from his lips. With it dies the kiss that Cypris will never take back. For his kiss is pleasing to Cypris, even if he is no longer alive, but Adonis knows not that she kissed him as he was dying. I lament Adonis. The Loves lament in return. Brutal, brutal the wound Adonis has on his thigh, but greater the wound Cytherea bears in her heart. For this youth the dogs he loved howl and the mountain nymphs wail. But Aphrodite, loosening her hair, rushes about the oak-woods, mourning, with bare feet and unbraided locks. The brambles scratch her as she goes, and draw her sacred blood. With piercing cries she runs through the great glens, crying out for her Assyrian mate, calling her boy. But his dark blood has gushed to his navel, his trunk is red with blood from his thighs, and there is crimson beneath Adonis’ breasts, so white before.

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“Alas for Cytherea,” the loves lament in return. She has lost her comely husband, lost her sacred beauty too. Cypris was beautiful while Adonis lived; her looks have died with Adonis. “Alas for Cytherea.” All the mountains and trees say, “Alas for Adonis,”

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kai; potamoi; klaivonti ta; pevnqea ta`~ ÆAfrodivta~, kai; pagai; to;n ÒAdwnin ejn w[resi dakruvonti, a[nqea dÆ ejx ojduvna~ ejruqaivnetai, aJ de; Kuqhvra pavnta~ ajna; knamwv~, ajna; pa`n navpo~ oijktro;n ajeivdei, «aijai` ta;n Kuqevreian: ajpwvleto kalo;~ ÒAdwni~»: ÆAcw; dÆ ajntebovasen, «ajpwvleto kalo;~ ÒAdwni~.» Kuvprido~ aijno;n e[rwta tiv~ oujk e[klausen a]n aijai`É

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wJ~ i[den, wJ~ ejnovhsen ÆAdwvnido~ a[sceton e{lko~, wJ~ i[de foivnion ai|ma marainomevnw/ peri; mhrw`/, pavcea~ ajmpetavsasa kinuvreto, «mei`non ÒAdwni, duvspotme mei`non ÒAdwni, panuvstaton w{~ se kiceivw, w{~ se periptuvxw kai; ceivlea ceivlesi mivxw. e[greo tutqovn, ÒAdwni, to; dÆ au\ puvmatovn me fivlhson, tossou`tovn, me fivlhson o{son zwvei to; fivlhma, a[cri~ ajpoyuvch/~ ej~ ejmo;n stovma, keij~ ejmo;n h|par pneu`ma teo;n rJeuvsh/, to; dev seu gluku; fivltron ajmevlxw, ejk de; pivw to;n e[rwta: fivlhma de; tou`to fulavxw wJ~ aujto;n to;n ÒAdwnin, ejpei; suv me, duvsmore, feuvgei~. feuvgei~ makrovn, ÒAdwni, kai; e[rceai eij~ ÆAcevronta pa;r stugno;n basilh`a kai; a[grion: aJ de; tavlaina zwvw kai; qeov~ ejmmi kai; ouj duvnamaiv se diwvkein. lavmbane, Persefovna, to;n ejmo;n povsin: ejssi; ga;r aujtav pollo;n ejmeu` krevsswn, to; de; pa`n kalo;n ej~ se; katarrei`. ejmmi; dÆ ejgw; panavpotmo~, e[cw dÆ ajkovreston ajnivan, kai; klaivw to;n ÒAdwnin, o{ moi qavne, kaiv se fobeu`mai. qnav/skei~, w\ tripovqhte, povqo~ dev moi wJ~ o[nar e[pta, chvra dÆ aJ Kuqevreia, kenoi; dÆ ajna; dwvmatÆ ÒErwte~, soi; dÆ a{ma kesto;~ o[lwle. tiv ga;r, tolmhrev, kunavgei~É kalo;~ ejw;n tiv tosou`ton ejmhvnao qhri; palaiveinÉ» w|dÆ ojlofuvrato Kuvpri~: ejpaiavzousin ÒErwte~, «aijai` ta;n Kuqevreian: ajpwvleto kalo;~ ÒAdwni~.»

THEOCRITUS AND BION

the rivers bewail the grief of Aphrodite, the mountain streams weep for Adonis, and the flowers grow red for grief, as Cytherea along the mountain ridges, along all the vales, sings her woe.

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“Alas for Cytherea. He is dead, comely Adonis.” And Echo called out in reply, “He is dead, comely Adonis.” Who would not cry alas at Cypris’ terrible love? When she saw it, when she realized Adonis had a mortal wound, 40 when she saw the dark-red blood on his dying thigh, spreading out her arms she wailed, “Wait, wait, Adonis, ill-fated Adonis, so I can catch you for the last time, so I can embrace you and mingle lips with lips. Stay awake just a little, Adonis, and give me one final kiss. 45 Hold that kiss as long as it lives, while you breathe into my mouth and your breath flows into my vitals, and I draw in that sweet love-charm from you, and drink in desire. I will preserve that kiss like Adonis himself, when you flee away from me, you unfortunate one. 50 You are fleeing far away, Adonis, and coming to Acheron, to the home of a grim and savage king. But I, unhappy, am still alive and a goddess, and cannot follow you. Take my husband, Persephone, for you are 55 far mightier than I, and every lovely thing comes down to you. I am utterly unfortunate; my pain is limitless. I weep for Adonis, who has left me in death, and I fear you. You are dying, threefold beloved. Desire has flown from me like a dream. Cytherea is a widow; the Loves throughout the halls are bereaved. My magic has perished with you. Why, reckless one, were you hunting? 60 Why, being beautiful, were you so mad – to fight with a wild beast?” Thus Cypris lamented: the Loves lament in return: “Alas for Cytherea; he is dead, comely Adonis.”

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davkruon aJ Pafiva tovsson cevei o{sson ÒAdwni~ ai|ma cevei, ta; de; pavnta poti; cqoni; givnetai a[nqh: ai|ma rJovdon tivktei, ta; de; davkrua ta;n ajnemwvnan. aijavzw to;n ÒAdwnin, «ajpwvleto kalo;~ ÒAdwni~.» mhkevtÆ ejni; drumoi`si to;n ajnevra muvreo, Kuvpri: oujk ajgaqa; stibav~ ejstin ÆAdwvnidi fulla;~ ejrhvma. levktron e[coi, Kuqevreia, to; so;n nu`n nekro;~ ÒAdwni~: kai; nevku~ w]n kalov~ ejsti, kalo;~ nevku~, oi|a kaqeuvdwn. kavtqeov nin malakoi`~ ejni; favresiν oi|~ ejnivauen, wJ~ meta; teu`~ ajna; nuvkta to;n iJero;n u{pnon ejmovcqei: pagcrusevw/ klinth`ri provqe~ kai; stugno;n ÒAdwnin, bavlle dev nin stefavnoisi kai; a[nqesi: pavnta su;n aujtw`:/ wJ~ th`no~ tevqnake, kai; a[nqea pavntÆ ejmaravnqh. rJai`ne dev nin Surivoisin ajleivfasi, rJai`ne muvroisin: ojlluvsqw muvra pavnta: to; so;n muvron w[letÆ ÒAdwni~. kevklitai aJbro;~ ÒAdwni~ ejn ei{masi porfurevoisin, amfi; dev nin klaivonte~ ajnastenavcousin ÒErwte~ keiravmenoi caivta~ ejpÆ ÆAdwvnidi: cw] me;n ojistwv~, o}~ dÆ ejpi; tovxon e[ballen, o} de; pterovn, o}~ de; farevtran: cw] me;n e[luse pevdilon ÆAdwvnido~, oi} de; levbhti cruseivw/ forevoisin u{dwr, o}} de; mhriva louvei, o}~ dÆ o[piqen pteruvgessin ajnayuvcei to;n ÒAdwnin. «aijai` ta;n Kuqevreian,» ejpaiavzousin ÒErwte~: e[sbese lampavda pa`san ejpi; fliai`~ ïUmevnaio~ kai; stevfo~ ejxekevdasse gamhvlion: oujkevti dÆ «uJmhvn uJmhvn,» oujkevtÆ a[eiden eJo;n mevlo~, ajllÆ e[legÆ, «aijai` aijai`,» kai; “to;n ÒAdwnin” e[ti plevon h] «uJmevnaion.» aiJ Cavrite~ klaivonti to;n uiJeva tw` Kinuvrao, «w[leto kalo;~ ÒAdwni~» ejn ajllavlaisi levgoisai, “aijai`» dÆ ojxu; levgonti polu; plevon h] tuv, Diwvna. caij Moi`rai to;n ÒAdwnin ajnakleivoisin, ÒAdwnin, kaiv nin ejpaeivdousin, o} dev sfisin oujk ejpakouvei: ouj ma;n oujk ejqevlei, Kwvra dev nin oujk ajpoluvei.

THEOCRITUS AND BION

The Paphian goddess sheds tears as thick as Adonis sheds blood. Both turn to flowers on the ground: his blood brings forth roses, her tears anemones. I lament Adonis: “He is dead, comely Adonis.” No longer weep for your husband in the woods, Cypris. A lonely heap of leaves is a poor bed for Adonis. Adonis, now dead, should have your own bed, Cytherea. Even in death he is beautiful, a beautiful corpse, as if asleep. Lay him in the soft coverings he slept in when with you he laboured at night, all the time of holy slumber. Lay Adonis out on a golden couch, though his corpse is dreadful. Cast garlands and flowers upon him. With him, when he died, all flowers withered away. Anoint him with Syrian oils, anoint him with perfumes. Let all perfumes perish, as Adonis, your perfume, has perished.

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Graceful Adonis is reclining in purple sheets. Around him the lamenting Loves moan aloud; 80 they have cut off their hair for Adonis. One casts down arrows for him, another his bow; another a feather, another a quiver. One has unfastened Adonis’ sandal; others are bringing water in a golden vessel. One is washing his thighs; another, behind, is fanning Adonis with his wings. 85 “Alas for Cytherea,” the Loves lament in return. Hymen has extinguished all the torches at the door, and scattered the wedding garland to the winds. No longer did he sing his song, “Hymen, Hymen!” but said “Alas, Alas!” and “Poor Adonis!” rather than his wedding song. The Graces lament the son of Cinyras: “Comely Adonis is gone,” they say to each other, and shrilly call “Alas” more than you do, Dione. The Fates call on Adonis, Adonis, and sing incantation over him; he does not hearken. He is not unwilling, but the Maid will not release him.

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Cease your wailings today, Cytherea; break off your dirges. Once again you’ll lament, once again you must weep, next year.

notes Theocritus, Idyll 18 Though Idyll 18 is written in the dactylic hexameters characteristic of epic (the metre was sometimes used by Sappho for epithalamia), the language is coloured by Doric (sometimes also Aeolic) forms, especially the following: preservation of (long) a (a) instead of Attic h (ē); oi (oi) or w (ō) for ou (ou); sd (sd) for z (z); a[mme~ (ammes) for hJmei`~ (hēmeis), “we”; 2nd person sg. ejssiv (essi) for ei\ (ei), “are”; 1st person pl. in me~ (mes) instead of men (men); 3rd person pl. in ntiv (nti) instead of jsiv (si). To Theocritus and his public, Doric forms would impart an archaic, provincial flavour, as well as echoing the Doricisms associated with choral lyric and with Sparta, where this poem is set – and to some extent the Doric dialects of places he had frequented, Sicily and Cos. Gow notes that Theocritus uses a mixture of forms not found together in any spoken dialect (Theocritus 1: xxiii). The occasional Homeric form appears, e.g., gen. sg. in oio. 4: dōdeka tai pratai polios, “the twelve first [maidens] of the city,” i.e., the most aristocratic girls in Sparta. This mythical chorus is similar in size to the girl chorus of ten or eleven in Alcman 1.98–9. 16: epeptaren, “sneezed.” Sneezing could be an unfavourable omen, as in Odyssey 17.541, or a favourable one, as here and in Theocritus 7.96. Gow gives further citations of auspicious and inauspicious sneezing (Theocritus 2: 156). 22–4: Here the girls refer to themselves as part of a much larger group that exercises on the athletic grounds beside the river. Spartan girls and young women were regarded with a combination of admiration and horror for their athletic training, done naked, and their impressive physique. See Aristophanes, Lysistrata 78–84; Euripides, Andromache 599–602. Dromos, “running,” seems to mean the activity at this point rather than the place. Possibly the exercising girls are divided into groups (here, of sixty) corresponding to the agelai, “bands,” in which Spartan boys were communally trained.

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26–7: Dawn (Aōs) and Night (Nyx) are evidently contrasted, but their interrelationship within the sentence is unclear. Gow treats potnia Nyx, “Lady Night,” as a parenthetical vocative. 32–4: panisdetai = pēnizetai. On the technicalities of spinning and weaving, see Gow, Theocritus 2: 356–7, to which I refer. The pēnē is “the spool holding the thread of the woof which will be passed between the threads of the warp.” The keleontes are the lateral supports of the loom, which stood upright, unlike the later horizontal loom. The kerkis seems to mean “a pinbeater – an instrument used ... to secure the close-packing of the woof.” The epithet daidaleō, “cunningly made,” is transferred from the fabrics to the loom on which they are made. 38: oiketis, usually a female household servant; here, a housewife. As such, Helen will no longer be free to join in the sports of young girls. 39: Dromon. According to Pausanias, in his Tour of Greece, written in the second century CE , this was the name given to the open area where Spartan youth raced and exercised (3.14.6). leimōnia phylla, “flowers of the meadow,” rather than, as usually, “leaves.” 43ff.: Helen was venerated as a heroine (i.e., a semi-divine being, or a local deity) in Sparta, but there is no other evidence for a cult associated with a plane tree. 48: Dōristi. Since the whole poem is supposed to be “in Doric style,” this adverb is redundant, and “really represents a comment by the learned poet” (Gow, Theocritus 2: 360). 55–7: The scholia on this passage mention two kinds of epithalamia, one sung on the wedding night, the other the following morning, the latter kind called orthria, “dawn songs,” or diegertika, “wake-up songs.” See Gow, Theocritus 2: 360.

Bion, Epitaph for Adonis The “Epitaph for Adonis” is not attributed to Bion until the sixteenth century – on the basis of metre and dialect, and similarity to the directly attributed fragments. Like Theocritus’ “Epithalamion for Helen” it is written with a Doric colouring, and in hexameters. For the Doricisms, see notes on Theocritus above.

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2: Erōtes. “Personified love appears in Greek art in the form of winged boys ... from at least the fifth century” (Reed 196) as the companions or children of Aphrodite. See also Fantuzzi 29. 3: Cypris, i.e., Aphrodite. Cf Sappho 2.13, 5.1, 15.9. 4: kyanostola, “dark-robed.” Kyan(e)os, basically “dark blue,” often means virtually black, here used as the colour of mourning. The word is also applied to night, as in Simonides 543.12. 7: While hunting, Adonis was gored in the thigh by a boar, and bled to death. The location of the wound, as Reed points out (Bion 199), would be realistic for the attack of a boar. But there is also a sexual connotation. Adonis’ story is probably influenced by that of the goddess Cybele’s beloved, Attis, who died after castrating himself. 11–14: A rather strained conceit – the non-existent kiss that Adonis would have given in return has died. Reed takes the present participle thnaiskonta as “dead, not dying” (Bion 202). 17: Kythereia, Cytherea, a name of Aphrodite, from the island Cythera, associated with her. 18–19: The mourning animal friends are Hellenistically sentimental; the nymphs were represented as participating in mourning rites for mortals from Homer on (Iliad 6.419–20). 24: Reed places a comma after booōsa, and takes Assyrion as adverbial – “crying out in oriental fashion” (Bion 208). 25–7: I treat these lines as depicting the recumbent Adonis. Some scholars apply them to Aphrodite. The latter interpretation, endorsed by Reed, involves emending haima, “blood,” to heima, “garment,” and mērōn, “thighs,” to cheirōn, “hands.” The former interpretation keeps closer to the transmitted text, although translating aiōrein, “hang” or “swing,” as “gush” or “spout” is problematic. 32–5: The catalogue of mourning nature is indebted to Theocritus’ lament of Thyrsus for Daphnis (Idyll 1.64–137). The ritual cry “Woe for Adonis” is also found in Sappho (Fr. 168). Kythēra (line 35), i.e., Cytherea. The more usual form of this epithet for Aphrodite appears elsewhere in the poem. 38: Achō, “Echo,” is personified here. In Ovid she becomes a nymph (Metamorphoses 3.380–92).

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41: marainomenōi – a verb used for the wilting of flowers. See also line 76. 44: cheilea cheilesi mixō, “mingle lips with lips,” i.e., French-kiss the dying youth. The verb is frequently used of sexual union. 47: hēpar, “liver.” This innermost organ was regarded as the seat of the most intense emotions. 48: amelxō, literally, “milk,” i.e., suck out. 53, 56: emmi, an Aeolic form, for Attic eimi, “am.” 57: se, “you,” i.e., Persephone. 60: kestos, literally “embroidered.” This is Aphrodite’s magic girdle, with its seductive power. See Iliad 14.214. 64: Paphia. Aphrodite is called “Paphian” because she had a cult at Paphos on the island of Cyprus. 69: Editors add ouk, “not,” to give an appropriate sense. 73: emochthei. I take “labour” in a sexual sense, rather than, with Reed, as tossing and turning in sleep (Bion 236). “During sleep” then means “during the time (night) when most creatures are sleeping.” 74: prothes, “lay [Adonis] out.” I follow Reed here. Gow prints pothes, which would be a Doric form. Fantuzzi keeps pothei, “love” (imperative). 76: emaranthē, “wilted”; the same verb as in line 41. 77: Syria was known for its perfumes. 79: habros, “graceful.” The word also suggests voluptuousness. Reed translates “gorgeous”; see Bion 129 (translation), 240 (notes); also my note on Sappho 140. 81–5: Bion seems to have a picture of the scene in mind. Cutting off the hair and offering it was a traditional funerary tribute. The Loves make additional symbolic offerings. 87, 90: Hymenaios is in the second occurrence a wedding-song, from the name of the wedding god, Hymen; in the first, an alternative form of the god’s name. 91: Cinyras was a legendary ruler of Cyprus, and the father of Adonis in some versions of the myth. 93: ē tu, Diōna, “more than you (do), Dione.” Here another name for Aphrodite, Dione is found elsewhere as Aphrodite’s mother. I follow Reed’s text. Gow adopts the emendation ē Paiōna, “more than (they cry) ‘Paean!’” 96: Kōra, “the Maiden,” i.e., Persephone.

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– Iambi et elegi Graeci ante Alexandrum cantati. 2 vols. oct. Oxford: Clarendon, 1971–2. – “The New Sappho.” Zeistchrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 151 (2005): 1–9. Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Ulrich von. Sappho und Simonides: Untersuchungen über griechische Lyriker. Berlin: Weidmann, 1913. Winkler, John J. The Constraints of Desire. New York: Routledge, 1990. Wright, Matthew. “The Joy of Sophocles’ Electra.” Greece and Rome, ser. 2, 52 (2005): 172–94. Yonge, C.D., trans. The Deipnosophists of Athenaeus. 3 vols. London: Bohn, 1854. Zaidman, Louise Bruit. “Pandora’s Daughters and Rituals in Grecian Cities.” A History of Women in the West 1: From Ancient Goddesses to Christian Saints. Ed. Pauline Schmitt Pantel. Trans. Arthur Goldhammer, 338–76 and 522–3 (Notes).

Index

Greek words are transliterated according to the system described on p. xvi. Page numbers referring to the Greek texts are italicized; those referring to the Notes are marked n. Modern authors are not included in this index. Abanthis, 86 Acheron, 102, 112, 200, 252 Acraephen, 153, 156, 162n actors, male, in female roles, 25 Adonia, 22, 242, 243–4 Adonis, 19, 41, 124, 128, 132, 183, 191; and Aphrodite, 22, 236; in Bion’s “Adonis,” 243–4, 248–54, 256–9n adornment: in Alcman, 38–9, 46, 54; in Nossis, 234–5, 236; in Sappho, 66, 73, 94, 108, 110 Aegisthus, 196, 209n Aeolic dialect, 134, 233, 256 aeolic metre, 134, 177, 178, 229, 231 Aeschylus: Agamemnon, 193; Choephori,

192, 210n; Eumenides, 232n; and the evolution of drama 27; style of, 74, 182, 212 Agamemnon, 196, 200–2, 209n, 210n Agasicles, 166, 168, 172 Agave, 31, 213 Agido, 35–6, 44–6 aidqs (shame), 128, 149n Alcaeus: life of, 180; with Sappho, 128, 149n; topics in, 8, 23, 32, 180; woman’s song in, 31, 180–1, 184 Alcaic stanza, 180 Alcetis, 238 Alcman: compared with other authors, 11, 20–1, 24, 166, 243; interpretation of, 35–40; life of, 34;

276

Index

in old age, 52; partheneia (texts), 42–54 Alexandria, 29, 241, 242 Alpheus, 186, 191n, 218, 230n Ambrosian Life, of Pindar, 9, 167, 178 Anacreon, 8, 13–14, 16, 181, 184 Anactoria, 68–9, 82 anapaest, xvii, 209n Andromache, 73, 94, 96 Andromeda, 104, 126, 140n, 148n Anthologia Palatina, 62, 233 Antigone, 27, 192 antistrophe, 9, 210n, 229n Anyte, 28–9 Aphrodite: and Adonis, 21, 22; in Alcaeus, 184; in Alcman, 42; in Bion’s “Adonis,” 244, 248–54; as Cypris or from Cyprus, 78, 80, 86, 102, 126, 184, 248; as Cytherea, 106, 128, 250–4; destructive power of, 184, 213–14, 218–20, 229–30n; as Dione, 254; epiphany of, 67–8, 70, 76, 78; in Mimnermus and Nossis, 234; as Paphian, 252; in Sappho, 67–8, 70, 76, 78, 80, 90, 114; in Theocritus’ “Helen,” 248 Apollo, 162n, 166, 167, 168; as son of Leto, 156, 210n; as Loxias, 170, 178n; as Phoebus, 156, 218. See also paean Apollonius, 30 apostrophe, 147n, 244 apotropaic function, 67, 71 archaic period, in Greece, 5, 7, 25 Archilochus, 7, 8

Ares, 122, 196, 204 Argos, 182–3 Arignota, 112, 143n Aristophanes, 41, 213, 242, 250n Aristotle, 26–7, 27–8, 149n Artemis, 186, 191, 204, 210n, 214, 238, 240n, 248 Asopus, daughters of, 153, 154–8, 162n Astymeloisa, 37, 48–50 Athenaeus, 13–14, 16–17, 19–20, 22, 183 Athene, 248; as Itonia, 174, 178n Athens, 6, 15–16, 27, 212, 213, 215 Atthis, 69, 96, 114, 126 aulos (flute). See under musical instruments authors, female, 5; vs. male, 31–3, 65–6, 74 Bacchae, 214–16, 222–8 Bacchylides, 7, 8, 181 beauty, female: in Alcman, 38–9, 46; in Nossis, 234–5, 236; in Sappho, 32, 66, 73–4, 104, 126, 142n; male, in Sappho, 128, 149n. See also kalon, to (the beautiful/good) Bion, 29, 30, 244, 257n; “Epitaph for Adonis,” 248–54 Boeotia, 152, 162, 163, 165, 167 Boeotian dialect, 161–2, 163 bucolic poetry, 241 Calliope, 52, 124, 147n Callo, 236

Index

Calyce, 26 cantigas de amigo, 17, 20, 66 Cassandra, 27, 193 Castor, 35 Catullus, 74 Ceos, 6, 181 Cephisus, 158, 160, 163–4n chansons de femme, 17, 20 Charaxus, 135 charis (grace), 48, 50, 66, 128, 206, 218, 235, 236, 238 (pl. charites); charieis (graceful) 52, 78, 248 Charites. See Graces Choephori, 192, 210n choral poetry, 8, 9–11, 15; in Alcman and Pindar 169; in drama, 25–6; strophic structure of, 9, 209–10, 231 choriamb(ic), xvii, 134, 177, 229 choruses: and initiation, 24; of maidens, 166; moralizing in, 22, 38, 193, 200, 216, 222–6; statistics for male vs. female, 25; in tragedy, 25–6, 27–8 Chrysothemis, 192–3, 198 Cithaeron, Mount, 153, 154 classical period, in Greece, 5, 7, 25 Cleis, 31, 66, 116, 144n, 148n, 150n Cleitagora, 182 cletic function, 67, 70 clothing, 86, 94, 96, 108, 118, 234–5 Clytemnestra, 27, 35, 196, 209n contests: in Alcman, 35–6, 40, 57n; beauty, 23; “Contest of the Mountains,” in singing, 153; between female poets and Pindar,

277

152, 160; between the weak and the mighty, 202 Corinna, 25, 31–2, 152–3; dialect of, 161–2n; named, in her poetry, 160; texts, 154–60 Cos, 241 courtesans, 147n, 233, 240n Crete, 78, 220, 222, 231n cretic, xvii, 210 Critias, 13–15 Cronus, 154, 162n cults, 21, 23, 215, 243, 257n Curetes, 154, 162n cursing, 71, 196 Cyprus, 48, 102; in appellations of Aphrodite, see under Aphrodite Cytherea. See Aphrodite dactyl(ic), xvii, 8, 60n, 139n, 256n Danaë, 20, 30, 181–2, 190n dancing, 5, 9, 27, 38, 40, 98 daphnephoria, 166 daphnephorica, 25, 166, 178n daughters. See mothers and daughters Dawn, as goddess, 35–6, 57n, 58n, 98, 118, 120, 124, 132, 141n, 246. See also orthriai death: of Agamemnon, 200; compared to erotic attraction, 48: desire for, in Sappho, 90, 108, 110; of Adonis, 128, 248–54 Delphi, 163n, 230n desire (pothos), 48, 110, 142n, 218 dialect. See under Aeolic, Boeotian, and Doric dialect, resp.

278

Dica, 66, 73, 104 dikp (justice), 226, 228 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 134, 168, 190 Dionysus: as twice-born Bacchus whose mother was burned, 220, 230n; as a bull, 183, 188, 216, 232n; theatre of, 26–7; as son of Thyone (Semele), 136; worship of, in the Bacchae, 214–15 dithyramb(ic), 9, 26, 215 dochmiac, xvii, 210, 232 Doric dialect, 55n, 177n, 239n, 240n, 256n, 257n Dqricha, 135n drama, 25–7, 33 eidyllia (idylls), 241 ekphrasis (description), 234 Electra, in Sophocles, 27, 31, 192–3, 194, 196–8, 198–202, 202–8 elegiac couplets, 7, 29 Elis, 183, 188 Eqs. See Dawn. epic, 4, 12, 60n epigrams, 7, 29, 182, 233–4, 236–8 epinicians, 9, 165, 166, 169 epiphany, 68, 70, 72, 76, 78 Epistula Sapphus, 22 epitaphs: “Epitaph for Adonis,” 243–5, 248–54, 257–9; other, 182, 233 epithalamia, 8, 11, 20; by Alcman, 40, 41; kinds of, 257n; by Sappho, 65, 73, 74–5, 118–24, 145–6n

Index

“Epithalamion for Helen” (Theocritus, Idyll 18), 30, 242–3, 246–8, 256–7n epode, 9, 210n erastps (lover), 24 Erinna, 28–9 Erinyes, 196, 209n er qmenos (beloved), 24 Eros, as god: in Anacreon, 75; in Euripides’ Hippolytus, 214, 216, 218, 229–30n; power of, 75, 96, 126, 214, 216; in Sappho, 75, 96, 100, 126, 132, 140n, 147–8n; as son of Zeus, 218, 229–30n er qs (love), as passionate desire, 200, 222, 236, 252 (pl.) Er qtes (Loves, personified), 248–54, 257n erotic language, 21, 38–40, 48–50, 58n, 75, 244–5n Eumenides, 232n Euripides: Bacchae, 214–16, 222–8 (texts), 231–2n; Children of Heracles, 15; life of, 212; in relation to other poets, 192, 212; Electra, 192; Hippolytus, 22, 25, 213–14, 218–22 (texts), 229–31n; Ion, 22; Medea, 22; women characters in, 212–13 feasts, 46, 58n female group: and the performance of woman’s songs, 20, 33, 65; of Corinna, 152; of Sappho, 63 feminine markers, 40–1, 60n fighting, 42–4, 57–8n, 69

Index

flowers, 66, 104, 110, 114, 116, 126, 252–4. See also roses folksongs, 12, 145n Frauenlieder, 17, 19, 20 friends: and foes, 135n, 231n; of Sappho, 63, 132. See also under Sappho and under individual names gender, of actors vs. characters, 25; of authors vs. performers, 6; roles, in poetry, 182; roles in society, 15 genre theory, in ancient Greece, 24–5 genres of poetry, 7–9, 12, 19–20 girls. See maidens glyconic, xvii, 142, 230 gnome, in choral poetry, 35, 37 gods: and mortal maidens, 154–8, 162n; and piety, 222–6; and vengeance, 44, 196 Gongyla, 86, 112 Gorgo, 128, 140n, 150n Graces: in Alcman, 42; in anonymous song of women of Elis, 188; in Bion’s “Adonis,” 254; in Pindar, 176; in Sappho, 66, 96, 104, 118, 126, 142n Greek Anthology. See Anthologia Palatina gynaikeia melp, 13–16 gynaikeios (of women, adj.), 14–15, 18–19 Gyrinno, 104 habrosynp (sensuous charm), 66, 100, 128, 149n; habros (adj.), 94, 254, 259n

279

Hades, 42, 98, 196 Hagesichora, 35–6, 44–8 halcyons, 52, 60n Hector, 8, 73, 94, 96 Hedyla, 28 Helen of Troy: and her brothers, 35; as (semi-) divine, 257n; in Sappho, 68– 9, 80, 86, 136n, 137n; in Theocritus’ “Helen,” 242–3, 246–8, 257n Helicon, Mount, 153, 154 Hellenistic literature, 28–30 Hellenistic period, 5 Hephaestion, 148n, 178n Hera, 82, 136, 236 Heracles, 35, 218, 230n Hermes, 112, 128, 143n, 154, 156, 196 Hermione, 86, 137 Heroides 15 (Epistula Sapphus), 22 Hesiod, 7 Hesperides, 220, 230n Hesychius, 56 hetaira (female companion), 124, 128, 132, 147n, 240n hetairia (association, group), 63 hexameters, 60n, 243, 256n Hippocoon, and his sons, 34, 56n Hippolytus, 22, 213–14, 218–22, 229– 31n; earlier version of, 213 Hipponax, 8 Homer, 3–4, 12. See also Iliad, Odyssey homoeroticism: in Alcman, 20, 37– 40, 48–50; in Anacreon, 181; in the maiden chorus, 24; in Sappho, 20, 64, 65, 75 Horace, 74, 180

280

Index

hubris, 38, 56n humour, 146n, 153, 242, 246 Hymen, 124, 248, 254 hymena(i)os (wedding god or hymn), 122, 246, 254, 259n “Hymn to Aphrodite” (Sappho 1), 67–8, 76, 134n hymns, cletic, 9, 67, 179, 183 iambic, xvii, 8, 210, 230 iambic trimeter, 193, 194 Ibycus, 8 idylls. See eidyllia and under Theocritus Iliad, 8, 22, 210n, 258n imagery: battle, 36, 40, 57–8n, 76, 229–30n; birds, 40, 52, 60n; flowers, 74, 244; fruit, 75, 120; horses, 38–9; landscape, 68, 69–70, 112–14 initiation, of girls, 24, 35 iokolpos (lit., violet–bosomed), 84, 88, 98, 118, 145n ionic, xvii, 230 Iphianassa, 198 Irene, 108, 126 irony, 32, 153, 209n jealousy, 31, 75 justice, 226, 228 kalon, to (the beautiful/good): in the Bacchae, 231n; in Sappho, 96, 128 kestos (magic girdle), 252, 259n kissing, 239, 244, 250, 252, 258n kqma (deep sleep), 68, 78

kommos (antiphonal lament), 193, 194, 198–202, 210n Kqra. See Persephone Kypris, Kyprogenpa. See Aphrodite lament: of Aphrodite for Adonis, 244, 248–54; of Electra, 196–8, 198–202; for Hector, 8; by women, 15–16, 18–19, 182, 193 lesbian, 62, 63, 75 Lesbos, 62, 139n, 144n, 180 Leto, 128, 176, 210n, 248 Leucas, Rock of, 22 Linus song, 8, 20 literacy, 4, 8 Locri, 17, 191n, 233, 238 Locrian songs, 16–17, 183, 186–8, 191n, 233 Longinus, Pseudo-, 137 love. See er qs, love sickness love sickness: of Alcman’s chorus for Hagesichora, 36, 58n; of Aphrodite for Adonis, 244; of Phaedra for Hippolytus, 216, 222; of Sappho, 71, 90; in woman’s songs by Alcaeus, 180–1, 184, 189n; in woman’s songs, various, 22–3 Loxias. See Apollo lullabies, 20, 30, 182, 184–6 Lydia, 34, 46, 69, 82, 112, 126, 143, 215 lyric poetry: defined, 8–9; in drama, 25–8, 30–3; and folksong, 12; preservation of, 12–13. See also choral poetry, metre

Index

lysimelps (limb-loosening, of love), 48, 75, 126 maenads, 31, 214–16, 222–6, 226–8 magic, 68, 241, 252 (kestos), 259n maidens: in Alcman, 35–40, 44–8, 50–4; in choruses, 23–5; modesty of, 24, 39, 46, 167, 172 maidens’ songs. See partheneia marriage: age of young women at, 16, 23–4; of god or goddess and mortal, 154–8, 162n, 243; murderous, in Euripides’ Hippolytus, 218– 20; in Sappho, disputed, 143n matronymics, in Nossis, 236, 240n Maximus of Tyre, 140n Medea, 27, 30, 213 Medusa, 232n Megalostrata, 34, 54, 60n Megara, 104, 142n melic poetry, 9 Melinna, 238 Melinno, 28 melos apo skpnps (song from the stage), 193, 210n memory, in Sappho, 66–7, 70, 71, 82, 110, 130, 150n Menelaus, 242–3, 246 metre, xvii, 9–10; in Alcman, 56n, 59n, 60n; in Pindar, 177n; in Sappho and Alcaeus, 134n, 144n, 149n; in Sophocles’ Electra, 210n; sung vs. spoken, in drama, 193, 202–8. Mica, 104

281

Mimnermus, 7, 234 Mitylene, 62, 116, 188, 234, 238 Mnasidica, 104 modesty, of maidens, 24, 32, 39, 46, 167, 172 Moero, 29 monody, 9–11, 65, 180, 181 Mother, the (Great), 167, 176, 179n mothers and daughters, 31, 66, 148n, 233, 236 Muses: in Alcman, 37, 40, 50–4; in Corinna, 154, 160, 163n; in Nossis, 238; in Pindar, 167, 176; in Sappho, 118, 124, 126, 130, 140n music: Plato on, 9; Sappho as teacher of, 63. See also dancing, musical instruments, singing musical instruments: castanets, 94; flute, 27, 52, 94, 172; lyre and similar, 8, 38, 65, 98, 118, 132, 248 Mycenae, 193, 198 Myrtis, 23, 152, 160, 182 myth: in choral poetry, 8, 9, 15, 35, 37, 182; of the Hesperides, 230–1n; of Phaeton, 230n; of Procne, 149n; of Tithonus and the Dawn, 141n. See also under proper names nature: grieving for Adonis, in Bion, 250–2, 258n; scenes of, in Sappho, 68, 69–70, 112–14. See also under imagery Nereids, 78 nightingale, mourning, 19, 193, 196, 209n, 210n

282

Index

Niobe, 128, 193–4, 198, 210n Nossis: life of, 233; poetry of, 233–5, 236–8 (texts), 239–40n; and Sappho, 28, 234; and women, 20, 28, 29, 33, and see under Alcetis, Callo, Melinna, Sabaetha, Samytha, Thaumareta Nurse, in Euripides’ Hippolytus, 213–14, 216 odes, choral. See choral poetry, chorus Odyssey, 135n, 178n, 210n old age: in Alcman, 40, 52; in Sappho, 84, 98, 124, 147n olisbos (dildo), 116, 145n qmophagia (eating raw flesh), 214 orality, 3–7, 241–2 orchestra (dancing space), 28 oreibasia (roaming the mountains), 215 Orestes: in Corinna, 160, 163n; in Sophocles’ Electra, 193–4, 198, 200, 202–6, 209n Orion, and his fifty sons, 156, 158, 162n orthriai (at dawn, adj., or for Dawn, noun), 44, 57n Ovid, Pseudo-, and the Epistula Sapphus, 22 Oxyrhynchus, 12, 63 paean, hymn and epithet for Apollo, 8, 9, 96 Pan, 167, 176, 179n pannychis (night festival), 139n, 150n, 209n

papyri, 12–13, 63, 64, 141 paradise, 214 Parian Marble, 27, 62, 192 parodos (entry), 28, 209–10n partheneia, 9, 14, 20, 21, 23–5; of Alcman, 34–41, 42–54 (texts); of Alcman compared with Pindar, 166, 167–8 “Partheneion, Great or Louvre” (Alcman 1), 21, 35, 42–8 pastoral poetry, 241 patronage, 165, 168–9, 181 Pausanias, 166, 257n Peisistratus, 27 Peithq (Persuasion), 114, 144n pentameters, 7 Pentheus, 214–16 performance, of poetry and song, 3–7; of partheneia, 167–8; public vs. private 9–10, 20; of woman’s songs, 18 perfume, 48, 59n, 94, 110 Pericles, 15 Persephone, 196, 252; as Kqra (the Maiden), 254 Perseus, 20, 184, 190n Phaedra, 22, 27, 31, 213–14, 216, 222 Phaethon, 220, 230n Phaon, 22 pharos (robe or plough), 36, 44, 57n Phoebus. See Apollo Photius, 25, 166 Pieria, 71, 98, 118, 140n, 234 piety, 216, 224–6 Pindar: and Alcman, 166–8; career of, 7, 8, 9, 165; and choral vs. solo

Index

performance, 10; dialect of, 177; and Corinna, 152–3; language and style of, 166–9, 233; and Myrtis, 160; texts, 170–6 Pittacus, 32, 142n, 183, 188, 191n Plato, 3–4, 9, 25, 66–7 Plutarch, 16, 23, 31, 38, 140n, 153, 182–3, 191n, 214–15 politics: in Pindar, 168; in Sappho and Alcaeus, 32, 73, 144n, 180 Polyarchis, 236 Polydeuces (Pollux), 35, 43 popular vs. élite poetry, 11–12, 18, 241–2 portraits, in Nossis, 236–8 Poseidon, 156 pothos (desire), 48, 110, 142n, 218 Praxilla, 183, 186 prayer: of Agido and Hagesichora (Alcman 1), 46; to Aphrodite, 67– 8, 76, 78, 104, 106; to Artemis, 238, 240n; combined with other genres, 30; to Hera, 82 priamel, 72 private vs. public settings: for Sappho, 64; and woman’s songs, 9–10; and women’s festivals, 15–16; and women’s lives, 15 Proclus, 25, 166 Procne, 19, 149n, 209n prologos (beginning, opening), 209n races, run by Spartan girls, 35–6, 57n, 246, 256n reading, 5

283

recognition scene, between Electra and Orestes, 194, 202–8 refrain, 231n, 232n, 244 religion, 21, 22, 66, 222–6 Rhea, 154 Rhodopis, 135 ritual: in the Adonia, 243; in Alcman, 35–8, 58n; in the Bacchae, 215; and the origins of lyric, 21; in Sappho, 64–5, 68, 70 rivals: female, of Pindar, 152–3, 160; of Sappho, see under Sappho roses, 98, 110, 234, 236, 254 Sabaetha, 238 Samytha, 236 Sapphic stanza, 10, 134 Sappho: age of, 63–4; and Alcaeus, 32, 128, 149n; and Alcman, 11, 20–1, 24, 64, 65; and Anacreon, 16, 75: brother of, 78; daughter of, see Cleis; “double consciousness” of, 11; exile of, 62; and her friends, 63, 132, and see Abanthis, Anactoria, Arignota, Atthis, Dica, Gongyla, Gyrinno, Irene, Megara, Mica, Mnasidica; in Heroides, 22; homoeroticism in, 62, 63, 75; “Hymn to Aphrodite” (Sappho 1), 76; life of, 62; and male authors, 31–2, 74; mourning song in, 19; named, in her poems, 76, 102, 108, 126; new papyrus of, 64, 141n; poetry, as incantation, 67–8; poetry, performance of, 64; rivals of, 140n, 148n,

284

Index

150n, and see Andromeda, Gorgo; short stature of, 140; as singer, 4– 5, 150n; suicide of, 22; as teacher, 62, 150n; as “Tenth Muse,” 62; texts, 76–132; “Wedding of Hector and Andromache” (Sappho 44), 94–6 seclusion, of women, 15–16 Semele, 230n Semonides, 8, 39 “shame culture,” 213 shrines: for Aphrodite, 78; for Hera, 236; for the Mother goddess and Pan, 167 Simonides: on Danaë, 20, 184–6; epigrams of, 8; life of, 181; and the pathetic, 181–2; on Thermopylae, 182; woman’s song of, 30 singing: in Alcman, 35, 37, 48, 52; “Contest of the Mountains,” in Corinna, 154; and dancing, 5, 15; in a female group or chorus, 20, 172; in Homer, 8; of lyric poetry, 9; in Sappho, 86, 112; of the Sirens, 172; vs. speaking, in the drama, 25, 28, 33, 193, 202–8; vs. writing, 4, 7 Sirens, 36, 46, 166, 172, 178n sleep: and dream, 102, 130; as kqma, 68; with a tender companion, 124, 147n Smyrna, 181, 243 Solon, 4–5, 16 “song culture,” 4, 6 songs. See genres of poetry, singing, woman’s songs

Sophocles, 27, 192; Electra, 192–4, 196–208 (texts) sparagmos (dismembering), 214 Sparta: and Alcman, 16, 34, 35, 50– 2; 56n, 60n; in Simonides’ epitaph, 182; in Theocritus’ “Helen,” 246, 256n, 257n; women in, 16, 23 spinning songs, 20 stasimon (choral song from the dancing space), 28, 213–4, 215 Stesichorus, 22, 242 strophe, 9, 210n, 229n, 230n style: of Pindar, 168–9; of Sappho, 72–3, 139n Suda, 62, 141–2n, 152 suicide, 22–3, 222 symbolism. See imagery symposia, 15 Tanagra, 5, 25, 152 Telesilla, 182, 186 Teos, 181 Terpsichore, 158 Thaumareta, 236 Thebes: and Athens, 165; in the Bacchae, 214–16; and Pindar, 165, 166, 170, 174, 178; and Semele, in Hippolytus, 218 thelxis (spell-chanting), 68 thplyglqssos (feminine-tongued), 234 thplys (female), 14 Theocritus: and Alcman, 243; “Epithalamion for Helen” (Idyll 18), 242–3, 246–8 (text); 256–7n; idylls of, 22, 30, 241–2

Index

Theognis, 6, 7, 165 Thermopylae, 182 Theseus, 213 Thespis, 26–7 Theuphilis, 236 thiasos (cult group), 63, 226, 232 thrpnos (lament), 8, 130, 193, 196–8, 209 tragic women: in drama, 27, 192, 193; in various literary works, 31; in woman’s songs, 22–3 trochaic metre, xvii, 8 underworld, 197. See also Acheron, Hades vengeance, 19, 44, 193, 196 victory odes. See epinicians virginity, 75, 114, 120, 122, 146n voice, female, 5, 10, 13, 17 weaving, 257n wedding songs. See epithalamia wisdom: and piety, 224, 228; poetic skill as, 98, 140n woman’s songs, 13–23; in Athenaeus

285

quoting Critias, 19–20; defined, 18; and female groups, 20; and love, 20–1; in medieval Europe and later, 17, 19–20, 30; in Shakespeare, 20; tragic women in, 22–3. See also cantigas de amigo, chansons de femme, Frauenlieder, gynaikeia melp women, in ancient Greece: roles of, 15–16, 18; status of, 233. See also tragic women women poets: archaic, 5; Hellenistic, 28, 29 work songs, of women, 181, 190 writing: and individualism, 8; and orality, 5–7; and the preservation of poetry, 12 Zeus: in Alcman, 42, 52, 54; in Corinna, 154, 160; as son of Cronus, 118, 154; as father of Eros, in Euripides’ Hippolytus, 218; in Pindar, 172; in Sappho, 76, 96; as father of Perseus, in Simonides’ “Danaë,” 186; in Sophocles’ Electra, 198, 200; in Theocritus’ “Helen,” 246, 248