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Shifting Helen: An Interpretation of Sappho, Fragment 16 (Voigt)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer
Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer
Affiliation:
Leiden University
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Extract

Denys Page, discussing this poem in his classic Sappho and Alcaeus, seemed unimpressed by its aesthetic merits. In his note on line 7 he says: ‘The sequence of thought might have been clearer.... It seems then inelegant to begin this parable, the point of which is that Helen found O Krλλιστον in her lover, by stating that she herself surpassed all mortals in this very quality’ (p. 53). His interpretative essay phrases further objections. ‘In a phrase which rings dull in our doubtful ears, she proceeds to illustrate the truth of her preamble by calling Helen of Troy in evidence’ (p. 56). About the Helen exemplum itself he says: ‘the thought is simple as the style is artless’ and ‘the transition back to the principal subject was perhaps not very adroitly; managed’ (p. 56). Page's criticism centres on the function of the exemplum of Helen. A close reconsideration of this exemplum, with special attention to the way in which it is embedded in the preceding and following context, will result in a better understanding and appreciation of this poem.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 50 , Issue 1 , May 2000 , pp. 1 - 6
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2000

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References

1 The text printed here is based on Voigt's edition of P.Oxy. 1231 fr. 1, col. i, 13–32 (containing lines 1–20), 2166 (a) 2 (Ox.Pap. XXI, 122, containing lines 7–12), and A.D. Synt. 291b, 2.418.9ff. Uhlig(quoting lines 3–4). Some, including Voigt, believe that lines 33–4 of P.Oxy. 1231 fr. 1, col. i, belong to this same poem (printed by Voigt as lines 21–2), as well as the scanty fragments of P.Oxy. 1231 fr. 36 (printed by Voigt as lines 28–30, assuming a lacuna of five lines between P.Oxy. 1231 fr. 1, col. i, 34 and the beginning of P.Oxy. 1231 fr. 36) and PSI 123,1–2 (printed by Voigt as lines 31–2). The left-hand margin of P. Oxy. 1231 fr. 1, col. i, 32–4 is lost, so we cannot tell whether there was a coronis indicating the beginning of a new poem at 33 (i.e. after our line 20). Moreover, the general sense of 33–4 and of the other fragments is irrecoverable. Thus we only have the sense and compositional organization of lines 1–20 to go by. As I intend to demonstrate, the sense of the poem is complete at line 20; moreover, the echo in 19–20 of the opening stanza is a strong indication that the poem has come to a conclusion at line 20. see Kirkwood, G. M., Early Greek Monody (Ithaca and London, 1974), 105–6;Google ScholarPage, D., Sappho and Alcaeus. An Introduction to the Study of Ancient Lesbian Poetry (Oxford, 1955), 55;Google ScholarRissman, L., Love as War Homeric Allusion in the Poetry of Sappho (Konigstein, 1983), 55;Google ScholarSegal, Cf. C., Aglaia: The Poetry of Alcman, Sappho, Pindar, Bacchylides and Corinna (Lanham, MD, 1998), 72–3, 78.Google Scholar On the supplement in line 8 (not printed by Voigt) see n. 9 below.

2 Bundy, E. L., Studia Pindarica vol. 1 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1962), 5.Google Scholar

3 The noun κάλλος (7), applied to Helen, makes clear that the aesthetic connotations of κάλλος predominate. For a detailed analysis of the semantics of κάλλος in terms of aesthetic superiority, see Liebermann, W., ‘Ūberlegungen zu Sapphos “Höchstwert”’, A&A 26 (1980), 51–74.Google Scholar

4 Rissman (n. 1), 34–8, 48–54 (who argues that this poem is a recusatio of epic); Dubois, P., Sappho Is Burning (Chicago and London, 1995), 101Google Scholar (thus also in E. Greene [ed.], Reading Sappho: Contemporary Approaches [Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1996], 81).

5 Il. 2.699,15.715,17.416,20.494, Od. 11.365,587, 19.111. For γ â including the seas, cf. Pi. N. 3.26.

6 Rissman (n. 1, 34) observes that line 1 is reminiscent of Homeric πεζοί θ’ ἱππ⋯⋯ς τε (Il. 2.180, 8.59, Od 24.70) and ἱππ⋯⋯ς πεζοί τε (Il. 11.528). This would strengthen the effect.

7 παράγαγ’ (11) needs a subject. Since the exemplum is meant to illustrate the power of love, it is very likely indeed that the subject is either Aphrodite (‘Veneris latet mentio’, LP) or Eros, γάρ in 13 makes clear that a new main clause begins with the word preserved as ]αμπтον. So Aphrodite or Eros must have been referred to in line 12 (but the first syllable of line 12 has a gravis) or at the very beginning of line 13. Page (p. 54) suggests something like or (making use of the supplements proposed by Theander, Schubart, and Wilamowitz; for more details see Voigt's apparatus, p. 44). For an interpretation of this poem centring on Helen's relationship with Aphrodite, see Privitera, G. A., ‘Su una nuova interpretazione di S. fr. 16 LP’, QUCC 4 (1967), 182–7 (esp. 184–6 with n. 8).Google Scholar

8 Thus Page (n. 1), 53, 56; Segal (n. 1), 66; E. M. Stern, ‘Sappho fr. 16 LP. Zur strukturellen Einheit ihrer Lyrik’, Mnemosyne 23 (1970), 348–61, esp. 355–6, who compares Il. 15.662–3 and 21.587 (see also Rissman [n. 1], 44). Helen placed ἔρως above øιλία, as it has been put by Austin, N., Helen of Troy and Her Shameless Phantom (Ithaca, 1994), 65–8;Google ScholarBurnett, A. P., Three Archaic Poets: Archilochus, Alcaeus, Sappho (Cambridge, MA, 1983), 287Google Scholar; Segal (n. 1), 75.

9 (proposed by Page) is not attested in Sappho, Alcaeus, or Homer; it has the disadvantage that the emphatic characterization of Menelaus as ‘the very best of all’ seems inconsistent with the epic tradition and out of place in the present context. (proposed by Gallavotti) occurs seven times in the Iliad and twice in the Odyssey, but nowhere with the article. see Degani, E. and Burzacchini, G., Lirici Greci (Florence, 1977), 135.Google Scholar (more recently proposed by Marzullo) occurs four times in the Iliad and once in the Odyssey; what makes this supplement especially attractive is that the concessive force of the particle περ underscores that Helen's decision to leave him was contrary to what was to be expected, so as to highlight the power of her love for Paris.

10 Alcaeus (fr. 283.3–10 V.) qualifies their nuptial bed as (8) to similar effect (cf. Segal [n. 1], 71). For a comparison of both poems see Stern (n. 8, 360–1), who concludes (following W. Barner, Neue Alkaios-Papyri aus Oxyrhynchos [Hildesheim, 1967], 211ff.) that Alcaeus’ poem was a protest against Sappho's personal application of the story; but the evidence is inconclusive: see esp. Rissman (n. 1), 58, n. 26. See also W. H. Race, ‘Sappho, fr. 16 L.-P and Alkaios, fr. 42 L.-P: Romantic and Classical strains in Lesbian poetry’, CJ 85 (1989/90), 16–33; Segal (n. 1), 63–72.

11 Koniaris, G., ‘On Sappho fr. 16 (LP)’, Hermes 95 (1967), 267Google Scholar, specifies Page's objection by remarking that, according to the logic of the opening strophe, Paris should have been the one characterized as κάλλισтος On the alleged illogicality of the emphasis upon Helen's beauty, see further Austin (n. 8), 57ff.; Most, G., ‘Sappho fr. 16.6–7 L-P’, CQ 31 (1981), 11–17Google Scholar, esp. 11–13.

12 Saake, H., Zur Kunst Sapphos. Motiv-analytische und kompositionstechnische Interpretationen (München, Paderborn, and Wien, 1971), 132Google Scholar, thinks that Sappho, by not mentioning Paris, aims at excluding associations with the consequences of Helen's pursuit in love. Cf. Stern (n. 8), 354; Segal (n. 1), 72. For the (a priori unlikely and for this poem untenable) idea that Sappho, as a rule, picks out just one element of a myth in order to illustrate a point of personal relevance without being bothered by other elements of the myth, see esp. H. Eisenberger, Der Mythos in deräolischen Lyrik (Diss Frankfurt am Main, 1956).

13 Cf. Page (n. 1, 56): ‘We must not ask whether Sappho approved the consequences—the desertion of hearth and horne, the doom of Troy; the facts are not in dispute, their application to the present theme is manifestly appropriate; problems of praise and blame may be left to more reflective minds on graver occasions.’ There is a general consensus that Sappho avoids blaming Helen in the tradition of Alc. frr. 42 and 283 and Ibyc. fr. 282.5–19 (thus Burnett [n. 8], 287 with n. 27; Koniaris [n. 11], 264–5; Most [n. 11], 16 with n. 32; Stern [n. 8], 354–5; for a different opinion see Austin [n. 8], 65–8; Kirkwood [n. 1], 108; Rissman [n. 1], 38,42–5). The issue of praise and blame is in fact irrelevant to Sappho's aims.

14 Attempted reconstructions are as divergent as: (Milne, with Eros as the subject of the verbs); (Page exempli gratia); (Schubart, with Aphrodite as the subject of the verb); (Kamerbeek, with Aphrodite as the subject of the verb); (Theander). For more details see Voigt's apparatus (p. 44). For a critical discussion of the tendency of scholars to supply a gnomic statement here (so as to round off the mythic exemplum in Pindar's manner) see Stern (n. 8), 356–9.

15 Depending on whether they supply Aphrodite or Eros as the topic of the preceding lines, scholars have proposed the supplements ἅ]με (Fraccaroli and others) or ⋯ς] με (Milne, Kamerbeek, and others). If it was Eros who was referred to in 12–14 and not Aphrodite, ἄ] could perhaps refer to Helen (cf. Page [n. 1], 56, n. 3). Other supplements include κἄ]με (Lobel) and ⋯ς]με (Bigone and Wilamowitz); but the verb in 15–16 seems to need an explicitly expressed subject. One would wish for a neuter singular or plural pronoun referring back to the mythic exemplum as a whole (cf. тò in fr. 31.5), but none of the candidates goes with the metre.

16 Thus also DuBois in Greene (n. 4), 81–2; Segal (n. 1), 76,78.

17 Thus Page (n. 1), 56–7 (cf. Koniaris [n. 11], 260, n. 2; Privitera [n. 7], 187; Rissman [n. 1], 45–6; Wills, G., ‘The Sapphic “Umwertung aller Werte”’, AJPh 88 [1967], 434–42Google Scholar, esp. 439; for a different opinion see Stern [n. 8], 353).

18 Lanata (in Greene [n. 4], 22–3) analyses the conventionality of the ‘brightness’ motif in erotic poetry. The conventionality of a motif does not exclude a special relevance of its occurrence in a specific context.

19 Cf. frr. 39, 98a, and 132 V.; see Stern (n. 8), 352. Rissman (n. 1), 46, says: ‘in Sappho's time, Troy was part of the Lydian empire. Therefore… the Lydians were the contemporary equivalents of Homer's armies.’ Others have looked in vain for a biographical connection of Anactoria with Lydia; for a convenient overview of these hypotheses, see Galiano, M. F., Safo (Madrid, 1958), 128Google Scholar, n. 29.

20 The supplement by Agar (CR 28 [1914], 189) is generally accepted.

21 Thus also Merkelbach, R., ‘Sappho und ihr Kreis’, Philologus 101 (1957),1–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 15–16; Rissman (n. 1), 42. DuBois (in Greene [n. 4], 82) suggests that β⋯μα in 17 echoes ἔβα in 9 (thus also Williamson, ibid., 262); if this is in fact the case, the verbal repetition would be an additional signal for the association of Anactoria with Helen.

22 This type of ‘sequential polyinterpretability’ is not uncommon in Homeric similes. Cf. also Pi. N. 3.76–84 and B. 5.14.33 with my ‘The image of the eagle in Pindar and Bacchylides’, CPh 89 (1994), 305–17. The ambiguity of the image was recognized to some extent by Macleod, C. W., ‘Two comparisons in Sappho’, ZPE 15 (1974), 217–19Google Scholar, and Rissman (n. 1), 42; the shift of relevance is hinted at by Williamson in Greene (n. 4), 262. But all fail to recognize the precise procedure by which we are led to reassess the exemplum, as well as the consequences of this shift of relevance for the interpretation of the poem as a whole.

23 Privitera (n. 7), 182–7, emphasizes the equation of Sappho with Helen. Cf. Stern (n. 8), 356, n. 1,359; Segal (n. 1), 77.

24 The research for this article was made possible through a fellowship o f the Royal Dutch Academy (KNAW). I wish to thank Adriaan Rademakers and Chiara Robbiano for their valuable suggestions. This article is dedicated to my second-year undergraduate students of 1997/8 and those of 1998/9; their enthusiasm and acute criticism contributed much to my understanding of this poem.