“Ode to Aphrodite” describes a scene of divine intervention, as the titular goddess, Aphrodite, abandons her throne on Mount Olympus and gracefully descends to her earth. Garbed in “iridescence” and carried by an otherworldly chariot, the goddess arrives in response to the pleas of the mortal speaker, whom readers soon learn is Sappho herself. Sappho’s impassioned plea intertwines with Aphrodite’s empathetic response to reveal the anguish of unrequited love and the goddess’s willingness to insert herself into human events to cease such suffering.

Written in a metrical style that would later be known as “Sapphics” or “the Sapphic stanza,” the poem unfolds over seven four-line stanzas featuring three long lines of identical meter and a fourth, shorter line. Similar to most other Greek poets of the time, the poem’s meter is quantitative, meaning that the pattern of long and short syllables is determined by the amount of time it takes to dictate each line. Greek poetry, especially lyric poetry such as this, was often sung to musical accompaniment, and the poetry’s meter reflects this lineage. 

The object of Sappho’s affections is an unnamed woman characterized as callous for her disinterest; Aphrodite vows to sway Sappho's cruel beloved, even, she explains, against her will. “Ode to Aphrodite” meditates on longing through a veil of divinity and sorrow. Sappho, though lovestruck, reveals little about the nature and source of her love, focusing instead on the pains she suffers for her love. Rather than accepting reality, she turns to a deity to manipulate the scenario, and her desperate yearning takes on an insidious note.

It is interesting, too, that Sappho characterizes her beloved as an abuser of sorts, someone who causes her pain and treats her coldly. The speaker’s word choice paints the woman as a tormentor who causes only anguish. In reality, it seems the only thing this woman is guilty of is not returning the poet’s misplaced feelings of love. Though overtly romantic, the poem—and the type of love it discusses—is far more complex than initially meets the eye.

Unrequited feelings, the poet writes, are a "bitter" kind of "torment." Due to this characterization and Sappho's description of love as a "battle" in which Aphrodite must "fight" alongside her as a "comrade" in arms, love becomes synonymous with war and conflict. Rather than a shared experience of adoration, love, according to Sappho, is a fight for power and influence. Readers are not met with images of Sappho pining away, wishing for the return of her romantic feelings. Instead, they receive an ominous visual of an effulgent Aphrodite riding her "shining car" to the speaker's aid in battle.

There is no concern or thought given to the autonomy of the woman the speaker loves, and it compels one to wonder if it is indeed love that she feels. Instead, Sappho’s pained musings seem to be something else entirely, more akin to lust or anger than genuine love and affection. The poem seems to evoke power rather than love, stemming from the speaker’s burning desire to overpower the object of her affections who dares resist her courtship.