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Sappho and Aphrodite Again

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 August 2011

A. Cameron
Affiliation:
University of Aberdeen

Extract

Professor Page's interpretation of Sappho, Fr. I, in Sappho and Alcaeus has been approved by numerous writers and reviewers, but it raises serious difficulties and my purpose in this paper is to examine them. In doing so I shall have occasion to refer to an article published many years ago in this journal which was concerned with the epiphany description in particular and which drew the conclusion that the poem was not to be taken quite so seriously as was the fashion at that time. Page is in agreement on this point, and I do not propose to discuss it further. In addition, however, a suggestion based on the form and style was made in regard to the sixth stanza, which is the key to what is novel in his interpretation. This suggestion has been tacitly rejected, and I now propose to reiterate it and, if possible, reinforce the argument which was then put forward.

Type
Notes and Observations
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1964

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References

page 237 note 1 JHS 78 (1958), 84, n. 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page 237 note 2 HTR 32 (1939), 117CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page 237 note 3 See Professor Beattie in JHS 77 (1957), 321Google Scholar and n. 4.

page 238 note 4 Powell, Coll. Alex., p. 227.

page 238 note 5 This simple antithesis recalls Petronius 63: quod sursum est deorsum faciunt, and Horace (C.1,34): valet ima summis mutare, but the continuation in Horace seems to echo Hesiod.

page 239 note 6 C. Fauriel, Chants Populaires, Vol. II, p. 272.

page 239 note 7 See the late Professor Gomme in JHS 77 (1957), 261ffGoogle Scholar. In C.Q. LI (1957), 183, Professor Beattie, who is also dissatisfied with the sense, has suggested κὢς σὢ θέλoισα to be construed with the following stanza. This gives a neat use for θέλoισα, but the transition by κὢς is less natural here than the ὧς νῦν in Iliad X, 291, which follows on a preceding ὡς ὅτε. With regard to Aphrodite and homosexual love one may refer to Pindar, Fr. 123, where Aphrodite, Peitho and Charis are all involved.