Erica Redden

CLST/WGST 114

Special Issue Journal

Final Draft

Many scholars in the past, looking at Sappho through the eyes of male experience, have heaped lukewarm praise on Sappho’s "chaste" poems, have translated them with an unyielding heterosexual bent. However, when read through a woman's experience, when read through people who do not wish to hide Sappho's desire for other women or hetero-sexualize it, Sappho's writing takes on a new light, and we can begin to piece together her desire and its contexts.

In the work of Sappho, the goddess Aphrodite is frequently given homage, making her a kind of patron (a matron perhaps?) of lesbian desire. Sappho constructs her desire with three distinct components: a visual component, a physical component, and a repetition and renewal component. She also modified traditional mythological viewpoints to enhance the image of her view of desire. Through this woman-centered interpretation of Sappho, I want to place emphasis on Sappho's lesbian identity and reconstruct the desire that she felt towards other women.

Sappho frequently gives poetical space to Aphrodite, the goddess of Love and Desire. In fragment 2, Sappho creates this space by inviting Aphrodite in. "... to this sacred/temple, where you have a pretty grove/of apple trees, and alters smoking with incense/here icy water echoes through the apple/boughs, shadows of roses cover/the ground, from shimmering leaves/a heavy sleep descends." Author Jane Snyder, in her own translation of Sappho's works, remarks that "lesbian desire, as Sappho envisions it, blossoms in a nurturing space under the benevolent patronage of the Cyprian goddess [Aphrodite] herself." Snyder also states that "Sappho fragment 2 creates a private 'female' space in the description of the sanctuary to which Aphrodite is invited, so this song constructs a private world of intimate physical sensuality that can be recalled-again and again-through song."

Author Jane Snyder, in her interpretation of Sappho's work, focuses on what she calls the "active female gaze" that Sappho uses as a tool in her poetry. Snyder points out that Sappho is the first known woman in the world of Western literature to articulate on the female gaze. It is the female gaze that is the cornerstone to the the visual component of Sappho's lesbian experience.

In fragments 31 and 22, we see strong emphasis on the visual component of Sappho's desire. In fragment 22, Sappho describes a dancer (possibly named Gongula), and flowing texture of her airy dress, which seems to inspire a person, presumably the dancer's lover (Abanthis) to play the harp. "I bid you to sing/of Gongula, Abanthis, taking up.../ your harp, while once again desire/ flutters about you... / [As you gaze upon] the beautiful/ woman. For the/ drapery of her clothing set your heart/ aflutter as you/ looked, and I take delight." As Gongula flutters about her, Abanthis gazes on her object of desire and takes inspiration, which causes the viewer, presumably Sappho, states her approval.

Fragment 31 was of particular chagrin to those publishers who theorized that Sappho's poetry was "chaste," because the poem is so ripe with desire and the language of desire. In this fragment, a woman, presumably Sappho, gazes upon the object of her desire and feels longing and passionate physical feeling. "... your tempting laugh, which sets/ my heart a-flutter in my breast./ For when I see you even a moment, I can't/ speak any longer, but my tongue goes mute..., a sudden, slender/ flame invades my flesh, my eyes go dark, my ears/ are roaring/ cold sweat covers all my body, paler than grass/ am I, and little short of dead/ I seem to myself..." Sappho is an active subject of desire, for even as she gazes at her object of desire and blindness overcomes her, she is still very clearly aware of the nature of her own passion. Sappho is not simply a passive object of passionate male lust as women are usually portrayed in male-written lyric poetry.

As seen above, the passionate physical reaction to the visual object of her desire that is described in fragment 31 is a very strong physical reaction. This reaction we see is an example of the physical component of desire in Sappho's poetry. We see a lot of raw physicality in this fragment, with the fluttering heart, muted tongue, a burning of the skin, a sudden blindness, deafness, cold sweat, trembling, the feeling that she is short of dying. In Ancient Greek poetry, a fluttering heart is often used in conjunction with erotic desire because they believed that their emotions were tied into organs like the heart and liver. After listing her physical sensations, she states that she feels that she is "a little short of dead." Death and orgasm are often considered synonymous in Western literature in an erotic context such as this is. The strong language Sappho uses to describe her physical reaction to gazing upon her beloved leads us to believe that this strong physicality was a sign of heavy passion and this reaction is part of her construction of desire.

Another component of Sapphic desire is that of repetition and renewal. Over and over again in her poetry, we see Sappho use repetitious motifs, and heavy use of words indicating repetition of desire, sensation, or just love. "Whom shall I sweet talk this time, and lead back to your love" Aphrodite asks Sappho in fragment 1, indicating that this is not the first time Sappho has called upon her for help. In fragment 130, "Eros, the slackener of limbs, twirls me again." Desire again overcomes Sappho and disrupts her body by causing her to go limp with lust. The repetition and use of "again" indicates that desire, in Sappho’s construction, is not a inert force but one dynamic movement that regenerates itself.

Sappho adapted traditional mythological narratives and descriptions in order to enhance her descriptions of her female-oriented world of desire. We can see a clear example of this in fragment 16, where Sappho asserts that the "loveliest thing on the black earth... is what you desire." She says that "it's easy enough to get everyone to grasp this." She gives this example to her audience, depicting Helen of Troy leaving behind her husband and pursuing what she desired. Helen is not portrayed as the face that launched a thousand ships, nor she is not cast in the role of the powerless kidnapped victim or the wicked adulteress. In Sappho’s depiction, Helen, though influenced by Aphrodite, takes her own agency and acting as an active pursuer, leaves behind "the very best of husbands," (Menalaus, who is not named) and goes off, pursuing what she desires (Paris, also not named). Helen is a subject of desire in this depiction, and not merely an object of it as she is usually presented in traditional telling of her story.

Another way that Sappho adapts a traditional mythical depiction is through her portrayal of Eros as a love god. In fragments 130 and 47 she describes her perception of Eros. In fragment 130 she writes: "Eros, that slackener of limbs, twirls me again-- / bittersweet, untamable, crawling thing." In fragment 47 she says that "Eros shakes up my heart/ like a mountain wind smashing into oaks." Eros, as a god, is usually portrayed by Plato and male lyric poets as a lovely young man. However, Sappho describes him as an overwhelming force that resembles a wind with the force of a tornado, which completely overpowers the body.

Sappho's view of lesbian is very unique and unmatched, for indeed we have very little else that gives us the language of desire between two women in the ancient world. Under Aphrodite's homage, with components of visual, physical, and repetitious components, and with her unique view on traditional narratives, Sappho gives us her view of desire between two women. I hope that my woman-centered reading of Sappho helped reconstruct her lesbian identity and conceptualize her desire and passion for other women.

Works Cited

Bing, Peter and Rip Cohen. Games of Venus: An Anthology of Greek and Roman Erotic Verse from Sappho to Ovid. London: Routledge, 1991.

Snyder, Jane McIntosh. Lesbian Desire in the Lyrics of Sappho. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997.