SOURCE: Lardinois, André. “Subject and Circumstance in Sappho's Poetry.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 124 (1994): 57-84.

[In the following essay, Lardinois questions modern historical reconstructions of Sappho as either a school-mistress or a symposiast, claiming instead that the historical evidence is most consistent with her occupation as an “instructor of young women's choruses.”]

Holt Parker, in a provocative article in [Transactions of the American Philological Association] 123 (1993) 309-51, has questioned one hundred eighty years of classical scholarship on the relationship of Sappho to her addressees, if we take Friedrich Welcker's little monograph Sappho von einem herrschenden Vorurteil befreyt as the beginning of modern scholarship on the subject.¹ Parker argues that there is no credible evidence that Sappho's audience consisted of young, unmarried girls (316), and instead proposes that she sang at banquets about her love for other adult women (324, 346).² The positive aspect of Parker's paper is that it forces us to reexamine the evidence and question some of the scholarly traditions about Sappho, which, as Parker rightly points out (312), were often born in ignorance, sometimes coupled with sexism and homophobia.³ It is my conclusion, after a review of the evidence, that Parker is correct in rejecting the ‘Sappho school-mistress’ paradigm as a plausible reconstruction of the performance circumstances of her poetry, but that the subject of her poetry is, nevertheless, young women or girls,⁴ and its occasion has to be sought in public performances rather than private banquets. Like Parker, I will first discuss the testimonia, then the fragments and the external evidence. I will finally measure this evidence against Parker's reconstruction of Sappho as a symposiast and against the other modern images of Sappho: teacher at a school, leader of a thiasos, and instructor of a chorus.

1. THE TESTIMONIA

Parker, to his credit, inserts a whole section on “the evidence” (316-25). By his own account there are seven testimonia that “present some sort of picture of Sappho consorting with ‘girls’” (321),⁵ but he forgets four: the Suda Σ 107 (=test. 2) and Themistius Or. 13.170d-171a (=test. 52) speak respectively about Sappho's “pupils” (μαθήτριαι) and her paidika, while Philostratus Im. 2.1.1-3 (=test. 120 Gallavotti) is reminded of Sappho when he sees a picture of a female chorister (διδάσκαλοs) leading a band of girls (κόραι) and Himerius Or. 9.4 (=fr. 194), similarly, portrays her as heading a group of young women (παρθένουs) in what appears to be a musical procession. What can we do with this information? It has been a long time since scholars uncritically accepted what the ancients report about the archaic Greek poets. Welcker's treatise on the modern prejudices about Sappho was actually one of the first to contain a critical examination of the testimonia of an archaic Greek poet. He argued that Athenian comedy was responsible for most of our information about Sappho's life, including her alleged homosexuality.⁶ More recently, Lefkowitz has concluded that “virtually all the material in all the lives is fiction” and “the ancient biographers took most of their information about poets from the poets themselves” (1981: viii). They, as Parker puts it, were “turning poetry into biography” (321). Does this mean that “[a]s evidence the testimonia are valueless” (idem)?

The Greeks or Romans in subsequent ages probably knew little more than we do about events on Lesbos in the sixth century b.c. They had, however, one distinct advantage over us: they still possessed Sappho's poetry in fairly complete form.⁷ Therefore, whenever they mention a fact which could stem from her poetry, it has to be treated as at least possibly valuable information. A case in point is their frequent portrayal of Sappho consorting with young women. This is something they could have gathered from her poetry. Christopher Brown has recently concluded on the basis of the diction in fr. 16.18 that Anactoria, who is the subject of this poem, must have been a young woman, and when Ovid (test. 19) and Maximus of Tyre (test. 20) come to the same conclusion, they may have done so on similar grounds.⁸

Parker argues, however, that the composers of our testimonia misread Sappho's poetry and practiced “something quite familiar to feminists: the wholesale restructuring of female sexuality and society on the model of male sexuality and society” (321). More specifically, they would have changed any reference to same-aged and power-free lesbian relationships in Sappho's poetry into a pederastic relationship between an older woman and a young girl (322). We have become much more aware than, for example, Welcker that all our testimonia are written by men who could have easily misunderstood, or deliberately distorted, expressions of female desire.⁹ The question is whether this is also the case with their interpretation of the age of the women in Sappho's poetry.

Parker adduces as parallels for the way in which the ancient commentators would have misread Sappho's lesbianism the virile portrayal of tribades in Roman literature (Hallett 1989, cited by Parker 321 n.24) and Lucian's similar representation of a homosexual woman from Lesbos in Dialogues of the Courtesans 5 (referred to by Parker top, p. 322). These portrayals of lesbian women are actually our best evidence against the supposition that the ancient commentators misconstrued the age of the subjects in Sappho's poetry. If Sappho indeed spoke about adult women in her poetry, as Parker assumes, there is no reason why Roman or Hellenistic poets and scholars had to change them into girls: as Lucian shows, they were perfectly well capable of imagining a woman from Lesbos in hot pursuit of other adult women.

If our sources collectively invented the notion that Sappho spoke about young women, it was not based “on the model of male sexuality” in their own society, where pederasty had become less acceptable than in the archaic Greek period,¹⁰ but by comparison with the male poets from that same period, who often sing about their love for boys in language very similar to Sappho's.¹¹ One testimonium explicitly states that Sappho praises her “paidika” the same way Anacreon did, and there may be something to this comparison.¹² As Parker points out (340), the ancients likened in particular Sappho's love poetry to that of the male (pederastic) poets.

There remains the problem that these commentators may be turning a poetic fiction into a biographical fact. Anactoria, who in fr. “16” is cited as an example of something the “I”-person loves (fr. 16.4), is turned by Ovid into one of the girls whom Sappho loved (Her. 15.18-19=test. 19). We do not know if the sentiments which Sappho in fr. 16 expresses for Anactoria are genuine.¹³ We do not even know if Sappho herself is the speaker. The ancient commentators were notorious in trying to identify every speaker with the poet/composer himself, which, as Karl Ottfried Müller already observed, is also the most likely origin of the story about Sappho's love for Phaon.¹⁴ There are several impersonations of characters in Sappho's poetry,¹⁵ and in some of the fragments now attributed to Sappho they may be speaking rather than the poetess herself.

In the case of Sappho we are faced with the additional problem that we know that she composed choral poetry as well as what appear to be monodic songs.¹⁶ Page had argued that the two sets of songs were easily distinguishable and that “[t]here is nothing to contradict the natural supposition that, with this one small exception [i.e. marriage songs], all or almost all of her poems were recited by herself” (119), but his most important argument, the linguistic evidence, has in the mean time been questioned.¹⁷ There is no clear, metrical division between Sappho's choral and monodic poetry either, since we possess wedding songs (frs. “27” and “30”) as well as supposedly monodic songs (fr. “1”) in the same Sapphic stanza.¹⁸ This means that of most fragments it is impossible to say whether the speaker is a chorus or a soloist, who may or may not be Sappho.¹⁹ In all these cases the testimonia would contend that Sappho is the speaker.²⁰ In some fragments Sappho is mentioned by name (frs. “1,” “65,” “94,” “133”), in which case we can at least identify her as the speaker (not necessarily the performer), but such clarity is exceptional. I hope to argue elsewhere that most of Sappho's poetry was choral, i.e. sung and danced to by a chorus (cp. Philostratus Im. 2.1.1-3=test. 120 Gallavotti) or performed by a soloist who accompanies a dancing chorus (cp. Anth. Pal. 9.189=test. 59).²¹ In both cases Sappho can still be the narrator in the poem, but she need not be.

In fact, we do not even know for certain if Sappho as a person ever existed. An increasing number of archaic Greek poets (Homer, Hesiod, Archilochus, Theognis) are believed by some to have been poetic personae, who may at some time have lived but soon became stock characters in the poetic tradition they were supposed to represent.²² Herodotus is the first author to declare that Sappho and her brother Charaxus lived in Mytilene at one time (Hdt. 2.135.6), but he historicized many mythical figures, including Heracles (Hdt. 2.44), Europa (1.2), the heroes of the Trojan War (1.3, 2.112f.), as well as Homer and Hesiod (2.53),²³ and the fact that Alcaeus addressed Sappho in his poetry and spelled her name differently from the way it is spelled in the poetry preserved in her name, could possibly be an indication that she was a poetic construct rather than a real life figure in sixth-century Lesbos.²⁴ But even if we accept that Sappho really existed and composed all the poetry preserved in her name, we do not know if she was the speaker and/or performer in, for example, fr. “16” or if she meant it when she said that she would rather see Anactoria's lovely walk and the bright sparkle of her face than the Lydians' chariots and armed infantry.²⁵ One thing we can, however, be reasonably certain of, as a result of Brown's analysis and the plausible assessment of Ovid and Maximus of Tyre: Anactoria was a young woman. I will from here on concentrate on the subject and possible audience of Sappho's poetry, while assuming that, outside of the wedding songs, she is in most cases the speaker, although not necessarily the performer.²⁶

Besides objecting that the testimonia about Sappho's involvement with young women are male-biased and turn poetry into biography, Parker adds that they are chronologically late (“the earliest witness, Horace, is 600 years after Sappho”).²⁷ The lateness of these testimonia is indeed problematic and should prepare us for possible anachronisms in their portrayal of Sappho's relationship with her subjects and addressees. A case in point are the testimonia that refer to Sappho as a teacher of young women (test. 2, 20, 21, 49, fr. “214B” fr. “1”). As far as we know, there existed no schools for women in archaic Greece, and it is dangerous to assume on the basis of these testimonia alone that Sappho's Lesbos was somehow an exception.²⁸ The only “education” girls received outside of the house in archaic Greece was in choruses where they were taught songs and dances and, at least in Sparta, some gymnastics (Marrou: 57, Calame 1977: 1.385-420). From the fifth century onwards, we find representations of women who teach girls how to dance or to play an instrument, and there are some indications of girls being instructed in reading and writing (Beck 155-62 with plates 78-88). Women teachers are attested for Roman Egypt (Cribiore).

One can easily imagine that ancient commentators, anxious to explain Sappho's familiarity with a number of girls in her poetry, took as their model the women teachers they found in their own society. (Welcker and Wilamowitz basically did the same.) The long-time association of pederasty with the education of young boys must have helped connect Sappho's homoerotic poetry with her supposed rôle as a teacher, as e.g. Maximus of Tyre shows (=test. 20).²⁹ At the same time, it is possible that in all these references to Sappho as a teacher there is a memory preserved of Sappho's involvement with the setting up of young women's choirs. This is certainly suggested by Philostratus VA. 1.30 (=test. 21), who claims that a certain Damophyla, “like Sappho, had gathered around her young women disciples and composed love-poems and hymns” (τòν Σαπφου̑s τρόπον παρθένουs θ' ὁμιλητρίαs κτήσασθαι ποιήματά τε ξυνθει̑ναι τὰ μὲν ἐρωτικά, τὰ δ' ὕμνουs). The only problematic, because anachronistic, term in this description is ὁμιλητρίαs.

We may conclude that there is much distortion and misinformation in the testimonia, but that we do not have to reject them entirely. They are based on Sappho's poetry, so that any plausible information they provide, which may have come from Sappho's poems, must be taken seriously. One such piece of plausible information is their identification of the subject of Sappho's poetry as young, adolescent women.³⁰ With regard to their assessment of the speaker of Sappho's poems we have to be much more careful. Not only is there a tendency in all the ancient testimonia to attribute every sentence to the poet/composer himself, but they also tend to read them as personal revelations. Finally, the repeated portrayal of Sappho as a teacher in the testimonia could be an anachronistic interpretation of her involvement with young women's choruses.

2. THE FRAGMENTS

The most important evidence about Sappho is of course the poetry itself. All attempts to reconstruct a life of Sappho and a performance situation are ultimately intended to understand this poetry, and the best reconstruction is the one that takes account of most of the fragments and explains them consistently. In the following paragraphs I will ask again two questions: who are the subjects of Sappho's poetry, and what possibly was Sappho's relationship to these subjects? Parker (323) lists six references to the age of the women to whom or about whom she is singing, outside the wedding songs, biographical or mythological fragments.³¹ First there is fr. “140a:” κατθνάσκει, Κυθέρη', ἄβροs '′Αδωνιs· τί κε θει̑μεν; / καττύπτεσθε, κόραι, καὶ κατερείκεσθε κίθωναs (“Delicate Adonis is dying, Cythera, what are we to do?”; “Beat your breasts, girls, and tear your clothes”). Parker rejects the idea that κόραι in this fragment means “girls,” because “the Adonia was everywhere that we know of a festival of adult women” (323). This statement is incorrect, and Winkler, to whom Parker refers (323 n. 26), does not support Parker's claim. Winkler remarks (about the Athenian Adonis-festival) that “[t]he celebrants, it seems, were not organized according to any city-wide rule but simply consisted of neighbors and friends …” (1990: 189). Winkler does not say that girls were excluded from these festivities because he knew better: on p. 191, he cites the opening of Menander's Samia, in which a young man tells how he got a young girl pregnant while she was present at the celebration of the Adonis festival in her neighbor's house.³² Parker (323 n. 26) further mentions “the same use” of the word κόραι in Telesilla fr. 717 Page/Campbell (an address to the goddess Artemis), but the context here does not specify what is meant by the term any more than in Sappho. However, given the universal use of the term for young women in archaic and classical Greek (and the close connection of Sappho and Artemis with young, adolescent women), Campbell's translation of the term with “girls,” both in Sappho and the Telesilla fragment, seems reasonably secure (1982: 155; 1992: 79).

The next question is: to whom does this word refer? Parker says that “[i]t would, in any case, presumably apply to the poet as well” (323 n.26). This is actually highly unlikely. As Page remarks (119 n.1), the dialogue form of the fragment “could be used as evidence for choral recitation” (cp. fr. 114: a wedding song), and, as in Sappho's wedding songs, the I-person (actually a “we”—person) does not include the poetess but consists precisely of young women.³³ If Sappho participated at all in the performance of this song, she may have played the part of Aphrodite, telling her chorus (the κόραι) to beat their breasts and tear their clothes.³⁴ This fragment confirms Sappho's composition of songs for girls' choruses outside the wedding songs. The composition of such a song would have entailed the training of the girls and probably the participation in the performance as a singer and/or the accompanist (see below).

In some of the other fragments Sappho speaks about young women. In fr. “17.”14 (a hymn to Hera), “the reference is not necessarily to the celebrants” (Parker 323), but given the fact that Sappho's maiden choruses were involved in the performance of other hymns to the gods (fr. “140a”), it certainly could be.³⁵ In fr. 49, Atthis is mentioned as one of Sappho's beloved (“49.”1) and perhaps she is identified as being a pais at that moment (“49.”2),³⁶ while in fr. “96” this same Atthis is described as having performed a song-dance (μόλπαι, line 5) in which a woman who is now in Lydia took much delight.³⁷ These are two very important fragments because they explicitly connect one of Sappho's beloved with musical activity. Of course, we do not know for certain that Atthis performed her “song-dance” in one of Sappho's choirs, but it is a distinct possibility.³⁸ Frs. “153” and “56” speak, respectively, about a “sweet-voiced girl” (πάρθενον ἀδύφωνον) and a girl (πάρθενον) with much skill (σοφίαν), “probably poetic” (Campbell 1982: 91 n.1). Parker is right that the context of these poems is unknown, but given Sappho's involvement with the setting up of choruses of, precisely, parthenoi, it is not too far-fetched to assume that these two fragments somehow relate to the girls whom she dealt with in her choruses. Finally, Parker mentions that the pais who is described in fr. “122,” “may well be mythological” (323), but according to Athenaeus, who preserved the fragment, Sappho (read: the speaker in the fragment) had said that she saw the child herself (καὶ Σαπφώ φησιν ἰδει̑ν· ἄνθε' ἀμέργοισαν παι̑δ' †ἄγαν† ἀπάλαν, Athen. 12.554b).

There are two more fragments (frs. “58” and “93” Voigt) that mention parthenoi and paides, outside the wedding songs, biographical or mythological fragments. Of these two fragments, fr. “58” looks most promising.³⁹ Line 11 mentions paides with beautiful gifts, either of the deep or violet-bosomed Muses.⁴⁰ The speaker (a woman) says that she is overcome by old age and no longer able to do like the young fawns (probably to dance⁴¹). A similar-looking poem is preserved among Alcman's fragments. Here the speaker (according to Antigonus, who preserved the fragment, Alcman himself) addresses a group of “honey-tongued, holy-voiced girls,” telling them that “his limbs no longer can carry” him.⁴² I submit that Sappho in this fragment invokes the same image and that the paides of line 11 make up the chorus which is dancing while she is singing.⁴³ There thus seems to be ample proof in the fragments that Sappho not only composed songs for young women's choruses, both in and outside of her wedding songs, but also spoke about girls and sometimes addressed them directly.⁴⁴

Parker opposes to this evidence five fragments which, he argues, show “Sappho surrounded by age-mates” (323). The first one is fr. “49.”1, ἠράμαν μὲν ἔγω σέθεν, '′Ατθι, πάλαι ποτά (“I loved you once, Atthis, long ago”), which he interprets as pertaining to Sappho's love for Atthis while both of them were still young. Parker bases this interpretation on a remark by Terentianus Maurus, who recast this fragment as: cordi quando fuisse sibi canit Atthida / parvam, florea virginitas sua cum floret (“when she sang that she loved little Atthis when her virginity was in flower”).⁴⁵ Parker concludes that “the virginitas sua is Sappho's” (323), but I am not so certain about this. The possessive pronoun suus can refer to other persons besides the subject of a sentence, particularly in late Latin and in subordinate clauses.⁴⁶ This could well be the case here, since “parvam” (qualifying Atthida) announces the content of the subordinate clause and by enjambment draws Atthis, the last mentioned topic, into the same line.⁴⁷

Of two of the other four fragments (frs. “23” and “24a”), Parker says: “The speaker may not be Sappho, though I am assuming that she probably is, and it is not impossible that these two, like “27” and “30,” are epithalamia” (324 n.28). If, however, these fragments are wedding songs, like “27” and “30,” they were probably not spoken by Sappho but by age-mates of the bride, as Parker himself admits on p. 332. He assigns fr. “23” to a same-age addressee because one of the two comparandae is Helen (the other is Hermione), and “[n]o male lyric poet compares his pais with the adult male gods or heroes” (324). For the same reason Atthis and the woman in Lydia would be adults in fr. “96” (because they are compared to goddesses) and Leto and Niobe, who are called dear companions (φίλαι … ἔταιραι) in fr. “142,” the comparandae of two same-aged friends. Parker wisely adds “lyric” to poet, because otherwise he would have had to admit that Phoenix already compares his pupil Achilles to the married hero Meleager in Book Nine of the Iliad. His statement is not even true for lyric poetry, however, since the boy victory in Pindar Ol. 10, to whom Parker refers in note 29, is not only compared to Ganymede but also to Patroclus (Ol. 10.19). This passage, which compares Patroclus and Achilles to, respectively, the boy victor and his trainer, demonstrates that age plays no determining rôle in mythological comparanda, while Alcman's partheneia show that girls can be compared to adult gods and goddesses (fr. “1.”41, “71,” “96f.”).⁴⁸ Of all five fragments Parker adduces, not one is proof that Sappho in her poetry spoke about same-age women. Contrast this with the eight fragments about κόραι, παρθένοι or παι̑δεs (frs. “17.”14, “49.”2, “56,” “58,” “93,” “122,” “140a,” “153;” outside the wedding songs, the biographical or mythological allusions), and the different poems addressed to women whom the testimonia identify as girls (Anactoria, fr. 16, cp. test. 2?, 19, 20; Gongyla, frs. 22, 95, cp. test. 2, fr. 213; Megara, fr. 68a, cp. test. 2; Atthis, frs. 49.1, 96.17, 131, cp. test. 2, 19 and 20), and the verdict is clear: young women are in all likelihood the subject of most of Sappho's poetry.⁴⁹

The question next becomes: what relationship(s) did Sappho have with these young women? The minimum we can say is that she composed songs for them to perform, like the wedding songs, the Adonis hymn, and fr. “58.” From fragments like fr. “1,” as well as the testimonia, we can further deduce that Sappho expressed desire for some of them in her poetry, although we do not know for sure if her young lovers were also part of her choruses: the only tenuous piece of evidence are the fragments that speak about Atthis as both her lover (fr. “49.”1) and a performer (“96.”5). The crucial fragment is, in my opinion, fragment “94.” In this fragment Sappho inserts her own name (Pάπφ', 5), so the persona of the narrator is beyond doubt. Sappho speaks to a woman who is leaving her (ἄ με … κατελίμπανεν, 2) and reminds her of all the pleasant things they did together: stringing flower-wreaths (12f.), putting on garlands (15f.), wearing perfumes (18f.), going to holy places (25, 27) and possibly performing there.⁵⁰ Parker is right in resisting any attempt to read “a course description” (315) into these words, but the activities are compatible with those of a chorus and one can even read a linear progression into them, starting with the preparations and leading up to musical performances at temples and in other places. Sappho would be reminding a girl of previous performances perhaps at the very moment that she and her choir, of which the girl no longer was part, were performing again a song-dance.⁵¹ In the middle of all this (between the perfume and the holy shrine) we read the words: “and on soft beds, tender … you would satisfy your longing …”⁵² If these words indeed refer to sexual longing, which Sappho had satisfied,⁵³ they would show that the girl was not only once a member of Sappho's chorus, but that she at the same time had a homoerotic relationship with Sappho.

.....

CONCLUSION

We may conclude that there is no reason to doubt that Sappho talked about young, adolescent women in her poetry. This is confirmed by eleven testimonia which, although late, could have easily inferred this from her poetry. Parker's hypothesis that our classical sources misread Sappho's poetry in this respect, changing adult women into girls, lacks positive proof and is actually contradicted by other representations of homosexual women in the Roman period. The fragments also speak overwhelmingly about paides and parthenoi and, in one or two cases, address them directly (frs. “58” and “140a”). There are, furthermore, among her poetry at least two types of songs, the wedding songs and the hymns, which must have involved her in the setting up of young women's choruses.

Reviewing the different modern reconstructions of Sappho, one has to reject both the schoolmistress' model as basically anachronistic and Parker's reconstruction of Sappho as a singer at banquets because it lacks proof and is contradicted by too many fragments and testimonia. The reading of Sappho as a leader of a thiasos is either too vague or unhistorical. The model which can best be reconciled with the fragments, the historical period and the testimonia, is that of Sappho as an instructor of young women's choruses. I would therefore suggest that we continue speaking of Sappho's “circle” (which is at least reminiscent of the Greek terminology of choruses: Calame 1977: 1.77-79) or, indeed, of her choruses, which probably included her young lovers.⁵⁴

Notes

1. Göttingen 1816, reprinted with a “Nachtrag” in Kleine Schriften, Vol. II: Zur griechischen Litteraturgeschichte, Bonn 1845, 80-144. Also referred to by Parker (310 n.4, 313). For even earlier representations of Sappho, see DeJean.

2. Parker's article brings to its logical conclusion a trend in modern Sappho studies to refer to the subjects of her poetry as “women,” without specifying that they were probably young, adolescent women: Winkler 1981/1990, Stehle 1990, Snyder 1991. These studies, however, unlike Parker's, do not explicitly deny that these women were adolescent (cp. Stigers [Stehle] 1981: 45).

3. Calder and DeJean (207-09, 217-19) had already made this argument where Welcker's and Wilamowitz's interpretation of Sappho as a chaste schoolmistress is concerned.

4. By young women or girls, I mean women who in our sources, including Sappho's poetry, are referred to as κόραι, παρθένοι and sometimes παι̑δεs. They denote the age-group between puberty and marriage (roughly twelve to eighteen year olds): see Calame 1977: 1.63-64.

5. Horace Carm. 2.13.24-25 (=test. 18), Ovid Her. 15.15-20 (=test. 19), Tr. 2.365 (=test. 49), Maximus of Tyre 18.9 (=test. 20), Philostratus VA 1.30 (=test. 21), Himerius Or. 28.2 (=test. 50), SLG 261A (=fr. 214B fr.1). All fragments and testimonia of Sappho are cited from D. A. Campbell's edition in the Loeb Classical Library, Cambridge MA 1982, unless noted otherwise.

6. Welcker 1816/1845: 105-14; cp. Calder: 141-42. There were in Welcker's time two explicit testimonia about Sappho's love for (young) women: Ovid Her. 15.15-20 and 201-202 (=test. 19) and the Suda (=test. 2). In the beginning of the twentieth century, a papyrus was found which refers to rumors about Sappho being a “woman-lover” (γυναικεράστρια, test. 1). The weakness of Welcker's argument was that, as far as we know, Sappho was not portrayed as a lesbian on the Athenian stage, but, on the contrary, as an extreme heterosexual: test. 8; cp. Lardinois 1989: 22-25.

7. The Alexandrians had made a collection of Sappho's poems in nine books, which, as the many papyrus fragments show, survived through most of the Hellenistic and Roman period. Parts of her poetry were still directly known in Byzantium in the twelfth century: see Garzya 1971, cited by Campbell 1982: 51 n.1, and more recently Garzya 1991.

8. The name Anagora, who is mentioned as one of Sappho's pupils (μαθήτριαι) in the Suda (test. 2), is probably also derived from references to Anactoria in Sappho's poetry (Lefkowitz 1981: 64).

9. Anne Le Fèvre Dacier in her famous “Vie de Sapho,” first published in Paris in 1681, already suggested that jealousy for a woman, “who not only surpassed all other women … but soared far and above the very best male poets,” produced “the calumnies with which they attempted to blacken her” (1681/1716: 235; cp. DeJean: 57). She used the male bias of our sources to discredit any reports that Sappho was a lesbian, while Parker uses it to strengthen them.

10. Flacelière 1960/1962: 197, Foucault 189-232. The Romans explicitly forbade pederasty with free boys in the so-called lex Sca(n)tinia, a law dating from before Cicero's time: see Bremmer (1980: 288 with notes) and Cantarella (1988/1992: 106-19) for the evidence.

11. See Lanata, Lasserre 1974, Giacomelli [Carson], Cavallini 1986: 17-67.

12. Themistius Or. 13.170d (=test. 52). Parker dismisses this testimonium as another example of Sappho “being assimilated as much as possible to the male, in order to neutralize her” (322), but otherwise he encourages a direct comparison of Sappho to the male poets, arguing that she was a woman who “shares concerns and subject matter with Alcaeus and the other lyric poets” (346). Parker 318 himself compares Anacreon fr. 357 (about a boy who does not love him back) and Theognis 250-54 or 1299-1304 (about Cyrnus) to Sappho fr. 1, when arguing that the woman she sings about was not necessarily part of a circle.

13. Here, as Parker puts it, “[t]he question of ‘sincerity’ raises its pointless head” (333 n. 59). This is not a pointless question, but a very important one, which arises precisely when one starts questioning the move from poetic to biographical fact. Parker's objection that “no one has ever claimed that Alcaeus or Theognis was forced into writing homosexual poetry by convention” (334 n.59) is incorrect. Welcker (1826: Introd. 77-78) already suggested that Cyrnus, Theognis' addressee, is not a real person but a foil for the audience, to which Nagy (1985: 33-34) has added that the figure of Theognis himself is probably a persona. All this does not bode well for the sincerity of Theognis' expressions of affection. In his review of Schneidewin's edition of Ibycus in 1834, Welcker further suggested that Ibycus' love lyrics should be read as public praise rather than private longing (cited by Kurke: 86, who herself points to the conventionality of Pindar's expression of love for Thrasyboulus in Pythian 6). See also Von der Mühll, and Lasserre 1974.

14. Müller 1858: 231, cp. Bowra: 212-14, Nagy 1973/1990: 228-29, Lardinois 1989: 23. Phaon was a mythological figure who, just like Adonis, ranked among Aphrodite's lovers. We know that Sappho composed songs about the love of Aphrodite for Phaon and Adonis (fr. 211) and in one of the songs about Adonis (fr. 140a) the goddess is made to speak. It is very well possible that Sappho put into the mouth of the goddess a similar profession of love for Phaon, which was later misread as being her own.

15. E.g. frs. 1.18-24, 140a.2 (Aphrodite), fr. 102 (a girl speaking to her mother), fr. 137 (a dialogue between a man and a woman). For more examples, see Tsagarakis 77-81.

16. The only explicit reference to Sappho's monodic songs is in the Suda (test. 2), which places her μονῳδίαι, however, outside of her nine books of lyric songs. There are, on the other hand, many references to her choral compositions: e.g. Anth. Pal. 9.189 (=test. 59), Demetrius Eloc. 132 (=test. 111 Gallavotti), Himerius Or. 9.4 (=test. 194), Philostratus Im. 2.1.1-3 (=test 120 Gallavotti). It is further worth noting that when the third century b.c. poet Nossis wants to send a message to Sappho, she sends it to “Mitylene with the beautiful choruses” (καλλίχορον Μιτυλήναν, A.P. 7.718.1=Nossis, Epigram 11.1 Gow & Page).

17. Page followed Lobel in his assessment that Sappho wrote in her Lesbian vernacular, “uncontaminated by alien or artificial forms and features,” with the exception of some “abnormal” poems, to which most of the wedding songs (though not all: frs. 27 and 30) belonged (327). This distinction has been successfully challenged by Hooker, and Bowie 1981. It appears that all of Sappho's poetry is a complicated mix of old Aeolic, epic, and her local dialect, not unlike Alcman's (choral) poetry (on which see Calame 1983: xxiv-xxxiv).

18. Not all of Sappho's wedding songs were assigned to Book Nine in the Alexandrine collection of her poems. Most of the other eight books were arranged by meter, and if the wedding songs fitted the meter of one of the other eight books, they were apparently assigned a place there. Such is the case with frs. 27 and 30, which, together with other poems in the Sapphic stanza, were included in Book One (Page 125). Sappho also used the dactylic hexameter for wedding songs (frs. 105, 106, 143) and for such a song as fragment 142, believed to be the opening line of one of her amorous songs (Campbell 1982: 157).

19. The speaker in Sappho's poetry alludes a couple of times to songs which other women, whom the testimonia identify as her young companions, sing about each other (frs. 21, 22; in fr. 96.4 the person in Lydia is said to have compared Atthis once to a goddess and it is not unlikely that she did so in a song). Were these their own compositions or did Sappho compose these songs for them, the same way she composed the marriage songs?

20. E.g. Demetrius Eloc. 167 (=fr. 110b) on Sappho fr. 110a (a wedding song); Servius in Verg. G. 1.31 on Sappho fr. 116: Sappho, quae in libro qui inscribitur 'Επιθαλάμια ait χαι̑ρε, νύμφα, χαι̑ρε, τίμιε γάμβρε, κτλ …

21. Lardinois 1995. Hermann Fränkel already noted that “among the Lesbians too, then, there were songs fairly close to choral lyric” (1962/1975: 186 n.45), like Sappho fragment 16, “which meditates and argues like choral poetry” (172). More recently, Claude Calame (1977: 1.127, 368-69) has suggested that Sappho's circle was organized as a young women's choir which sang or danced to songs composed by Sappho, and Judith Hallett declared that “many of Sappho's fragments thought to be personal, autobiographical statements might in fact be part of public, if not marriage, hymns sung by other females” (1979: 463).

22. See in particular Nagy 1979: 296-300 (on Homer and Hesiod), 1982/1990: 47-48, 71 (on Hesiod), 1985: 33-34 (on Theognis), 1990: 79, 363-65 (on Archilochus), but, for example, also Lamberton: 23 (on Hesiod), who draws a parallel with the relationship of Anacreon to the Anacreonta. Orpheus is a good example of a legendary figure whose name was attached to a particular kind of poetry in the archaic Greek period, and who was historicized by the end of the fifth century B.C. (fr. 1A5 D.-K.)

23. Hdt. 2.134 (=test. 9) places Sappho and Charaxus together with the courtesan Rhodopis, whom Charaxus was supposed to have courted (=Sappho's Doricha?: frs. 7.1?, 15.12; Strabo 17.1.33 = fr. 202b), in the time of the Egyptian pharaoh Amasis (568-526 b.c.), which is actually later than the Parian Marble (test. 5) or most scholars want to date her: e.g. Lesky 1971: 167, Campbell 1982: xi, 1985/1989: 162 (floruit around 600 b.c.).

24. Σάπφοι, Alc. fr. 384, cp. Pάπφοι, Sappho fr. 65.5, 133b; Pάπφ', Sappho fr. 1.20, 94.5. The meter prohibits emending Alcaeus' Σάπφοι to Pάπφοι. The existence of such metrical variants is typical of names which belong to an oral poetic tradition: cp. 'Αχιλλεύs/ 'Αχιλεύs, 'Οδυσσεύs / 'Οδυσεύs.

25. Fr. 16.17-20. Sappho's preference for the personal (what she loves) over cavalry and ships is matched by the composer of the Apatouria song, which in the Vita Herodotea is ascribed to Homer (lines 426-27 Allen p. 211=Ep. 12 Markwald): ἵπποι δ' ἐν πέδιῳ κόσμοs, νη̑εs δὲ θαλάσσηs, / χρήματα δ' αὔξει οέκον.

26. On fr. 16 as possibly performed by a chorus, see Fränkel 1962/1975: 172, 186, Hallett 1979: 463 and Lardinois 1995. Stern's objection that the priamel is voiced too personally for choral poetry is answered by Bundy 6 n.19, if Pindar's epinikia are choral (on which see most recently, and sensibly, Morgan 1993).

27. Parker 321. One of the readers pointed out to me that the reference to Sappho, “teaching the noblest women not only from the local families but also from families in Ionia” (παιδεύουσα τὰs ἀρίσταs οὐ μόνον τω̑ν ἐγχωρίων ἀλλὰ καὶ τω̑ν ἀπ' 'Ιωνίαs), preserved in a fragment of a second century a.d. Sappho commentary (SLG 261A=fr. 214B), may actually be older, since its author cites the Hellenistic scholar Callias of Mytilene (lines 14-15), although not necessarily for the part about Sappho's teaching: cp. Gronewald 114.

28. This is basically the position that Marrou (71) adopts. Parker correctly notes that “nowhere in any poem does Sappho teach, or speak about teaching, anything to anyone” (314), in the sense of any formal education. Sappho does sometimes provide gnomic advice to her internal addressees (frs. 81, 150), but not very often and not more than, for example, Archilochus or Alcaeus.

29. Maximus compares Sappho's amorous relationship with Gyrinna, Atthis, and Anactoria to those of Socrates with Alcibiades, Charmides, and Phaedrus. About all three women, whom I believe to be girls, some erotic-sounding fragments are preserved: Gyrinna (=Gyrinno?): fr. 82a; Atthis: 49.1, 96, 131, cp. test. 2 and 19; Anactoria: frs. 16, cp. test. 19.

30. Although Parker rejects the testimonia as late, male distortions of female relationships, he still feels the need to question our understanding of them. He notes that Ovid (Tr. 2.365=test. 49, Her. 15.15=test. 19) and Horace (Carm. 2.13.24f.=test. 18) speak of Sappho as in love with puellae but that, “puella, of course, is used equally of girls, mature women, and goddesses, especially as objects of love” (321). This is true, but the context in Ovid Tr. 2.365 (=test. 49), where we are told that Sappho “taught” (docuit) her puellas to love, as well as the other testimonia, strongly suggest that in this case puellae does refer to young girls.

31. These are frs. 17, 49.2, 56, 122, 140a and 153. Add frs. 58 and 93 Voigt. Parker further mentions frs. 27, 30, 105, 107, 113, 114 and 194, “where the youth and the virginity of the bride are mentioned” (add fr. 112.2: bride is a παρθένοs). In fr. 132 παι̑s refers to Sappho's daughter, Cleïs (see Hallett 1982, Lardinois 1989: 22), in fr. 104a.2 to an unspecified child of a mother, in fr. 155 to “the daughter of the house of Polyanax” (Gorgo or Andromeda: her “rivals”), in frs. 1.2, 16.10, 103.3 Voigt, and 164 (“perhaps Eros,” Campbell [1982] ad loc.) to mythological figures.

32. The girl is referred to as κόρη, 36 and παι̑s, 49 Sandbach. Winkler, in his footnote 2, mentions Pausanias' report about the women of Argos not as evidence that the Adonia were celebrated by adult women, as Parker suggests, but to show that “in other times and places” the festival may have had a more public character. This may have been the case on Lesbos as well, and fr. 140a was probably performed in public (Page 119, Campbell 1982: xiii, 1985/1989: 162).

33. Compare fr. 30.9 “let us see” ([ἴ]δωμεν) to which the word πάρθενοι in the nominative in line 1 is probably related, and 27.8: σ]τείχομεν γὰρ ἐs γάμον. On the performance of Sappho's wedding songs by age-mates of the bride, see Page 120, Calame 1977: 1.161 n.230 and Contiades-Tsitsoni 40-41, 100. Parker agrees: 331-32.

34. Bowra 212, otherwise, suggested that the part of Aphrodite was played by a priestess.

35. Compare fr. 30.1 (a wedding song) for a similar self-reference: πάρθενοι. Fränkel 1962/1975: 181 already suggested that this poem, which has been variously interpreted as an unspecified hymn to Hera (Page 61-62) or a propemptikon (Merkelbach 23-25), may have been sung by a chorus.

36. I agree with Parker 323 that these two lines do not necessarily belong together.

37. The “you” of line 4 and 5 probably has to be identified with Atthis, whose name is mentioned in line 16: Page 92, Saake 1971: 172. Atthis is also identified as one of Sappho's “companions or girlfriends” in test. 2, 19 and 20.

38. The Suda (test. 2) in fact distinguishes between Sappho's pupils (μαθήτριαι) and her “three companions and friends [including Atthis], through whom she got a bad name for impure friendship” (έται̑ραι δὲ αὐτη̑s καὶ φίλαι γεγόνασι τρει̑s, 'Ατθίs, Τελεσίππα, Μεγάρα, πρòs as καὶ διαβολὴν ἔσχεν αἰσχρα̑s φιλίαs), but this probably represents an attempt by the Suda or its source to account for the two Hellenistic traditions about Sappho: Sappho as teacher and Sappho as tribade. One may compare Aelian V.H. 12.19 (=test. 4), who claims that there were two Sapphos of Lesbos: one a poet and the other a prostitute.

39. Fr. 93 Voigt (not included in Campbell 1982) preserves a first person singular verb in line 4 (ἔχω) and the word parthenoi, seemingly in the genitive plural, in line 5 (παρθένωω): no further details.

40. Di Benedetto 147-48. It is not unlikely that this line constitutes the actual beginning of the poem (idem: 147, Gallavotti 1962: 113). Page (129) also begins the poem in this line.

41. ὄρχ]ησση': Edmonds' conjecture in line 16, cited by Voigt and Campbell ad loc.

42. οὔ μ' ἔτι, παρσενικαὶ μελιγάρυεs ἱαρόφωνοι, / γυι̑α φέρην δύναται, Alcm. fr. 26.1-2a Page/Davies. Compare Sappho fr. 58.15: γόνα δ' [ο]ὐ φέροισι. Antigonus (cited by Davies [1991] ad loc.) further specifies that Alcman speaks this poem, “being weak from old age and unable to whirl about with the choirs and the girls' dancing” (φησὶν γὰρ ἀσθενὴs oν διὰ τò γη̑ραs καὶ τοι̑s χοροι̑s οὐ δυνάμενοs συμπεριφέρεσθαι οὐδὲ τη̑ι τω̑ν παρθένων ὀρχήσει). Calame 1983: 474 already noted the similarity between this poem and Sappho fr. 58.

43. Sappho fr. 21 describes a similar situation (χρόα γη̑ραs ἤδη, 21.6b=58.13b), and here it is clear that we are dealing with some kind of an exchange, for in line 11-12 the speaker calls on another woman (λάβοισα, line 11, cp. Fr. 22.9-11) to “sing about the violet-robed one” (according to Campbell 1982: 73 n.3 Aphrodite, otherwise perhaps a bride: cp. fr. 30.5). According to Di Benedetto (148-49), line fr. 58.11 opened with an invitation to the chorus to sing (e.g. γεραίρετε) and line 12 contained the instruction to “take up the song-loving, clear-sounding lyre (… λάβοισαι] φιλάοιδον λιγύραν χελύνναν). Calame 1977: 1.127, 369, citing Anth. Pal. 9.189 (=test. 59), already suggested that Sappho may have sung some of her poetry in public while her chorus danced. One may compare for this type of musical performance Demodocus' song about Ares and Aphrodite, which is sung by Demodocus and danced to by a group of young Phaeacian men (Od. 8.262-64), the wedding song in Od. 4.17-19, or the execution of the Linos song in Il. 18.569f. For some applications of this type of performance to other archaic Greek poetry, see Davies 1988: 62-63.

44. One should add the many names of persons whom the testimonia identify as girls: Anactoria (fr. 16, cp. test. 2?, 19, 20), Gongyla (fr. 22, 95, cp. test. 2, fr. 213), Megara (fr. 68a, cp. test. 2), Atthis (frs. 49.1, 96.17, 131, cp. test. 2, 19 and 20).

45. Ter. Maur. 2154-55 = 6.390.4-5 Klein, quoted by Parker 323.

46. Leuman, Hofmann & Szantyr: 2. 175; Klenin 115: “Despite occasional claims to the contrary, there is no subject condition on Latin reflexivization, although antecedents are often also subjects; apparently the basis of their eligibility to trigger reflexivization involves empathy relations as described by Kuno and Kaburaki [“Empathy and Syntax,” Linguistic Inquiry 8.4, 1977, 627-72].” I owe this reference to Brent Vine.

47. Of course, even if Terentianus Maurus meant Sappho's virginity with “sua virginitas,” we cannot be certain that he understood the poem correctly and, for example, did not confuse the speaker, who may not have been Sappho but one or more of Atthis' companions (cp. frs. 21, 22). It is interesting in this respect that we are told in fr. 96.4 that Atthis once was praised, probably in a song, by a woman who now dances in Lydia (one of her former companions?).

48. σιειδήs in Alcman fr. 1.71 closely resembles θέαι σ' ἰκέλαν in Sappho fr. 96.4 and the comparison of the woman in Lydia with Selanna (Sappho fr. 96.8) matches that of Agido and the sun (Alcman fr. 1.41). Even if fr. 142 (about Leto and Niobe) refers to two same-aged companions, we would still not know whether they were pictured as two adult or two young women at the time. Athenaeus (13.571d) adduces the fragment in order to show that “free women as well as girls call their intimate and dear friends companions” (καλου̑έι γου̑ν καὶ αἱ ἐλεύθεραι γυναι̑κεs ἔτι καὶ νυ̑ν καὶ αἱ παρθένοι τὰs συνήθειs καὶ φίλαs έταίραs, ὡs ἡ Σαπφώ …). Parker's suggestion that the commentary preserved as fr. 90.10a (=90d Voigt) would somehow reveal that Sappho compared herself and Atthis to these two mythological figures (339 n.78), is highly speculative at best. The fragment does not mention the names of Sappho or Niobe. It preserves Atthis' name in line 15 and the letters]λατωσ in line 3 without there being even the slightest suggestion that the two are somehow connected. Fr. 23 not only compares the addressee to Helen but also to Hermione, Helen's daughter. The comparison is cumulative (you are as beautiful as Hermione, no as Helen herself) and, I would argue, suits a young woman just as well, if not better, than an adult. It may be that this fragment is derived from a wedding song (cp. Parker 324 n.28), in which case it would probably refer to the bride: Lucian (Symp. 41) in a wedding song also compares the bride to Helen. It is, furthermore, not unlikely that Helen in fr. 16 is the comparanda both for the speaker and Anactoria (Macleod 217-19, Carey 368-69, Dane 192 contra Parker 324 n. 28), who has been positively identified as a young woman (Brown; cp. test. 19 and 20).

49. There are, of course, other types of songs as well: marriage songs, hymns, satires about “rivals” and girls who threatened to leave her, songs about her daughter Cleïs and her brothers Charaxus and Larichus, and mythological tales: see Lardinois 1989: 16-17.

50. At the end of line 28 the word ψόφοs (“sound”) is preserved and Theander proposed reading κροτάλων] ψόφοs here (cp. fr. 44.25: see Voigt ad loc.). The end of line 27 may contain the word χόροs, but this is uncertain (Voigt ad loc.). The “we” in “we took care of you” (πεδήπομεν, 8) could indicate that Sappho and the woman were not alone; Page (78): “If the plural is strictly interpreted, the implication will be that Sappho is speaking on behalf of her companions,” or at least others besides herself (cp. Burnett 312 on the first person plural in fr. 96.21). The “we” in “we were absent (from no shrine)” (ἄμ]μεs ἀπέσκομεν, 26) may also include these “others,” who with Sappho and the addressee could have been the chorus of line 27.

51. We find a similar situation in fr. 96 where the speaker also reminds the addressee of her previous performances (5, 26f.?) and of a dance which it imagines to go on right now in Lydia (on ἐμπρέπεται in line 6 as suggestive of dancing, see Calame 1977: 1.91). Fragment 94 has been identified as a “farewell song,” which invokes memories of previously shared experiences: most recently, Rauk 1989.

52. καὶ στρώμν[αν ἐ]πὶ μολθάκαν / ἀπάλαν πα.[] … ων / ἐξίηs πόθο[ν].νίδων, fr. 94.21-23. From the structure of the preceding strophes we can determine that these words belong together. Every strophe seems to contain one pleasant thing Sappho and the girl did together.

53. See Burnett (298 n.56) for some other suggestions. To her examples of πόθοs expressing sexual desire in Sappho (frs. 36 and 48), add frs. 22.11 and 102. ἀπάλαν (either a feminine genitive plural or singular accusative) could refer to a person (cp. frs. 82a, 122, 126); fr. 126 is particularly relevant in this regard: δαύοιs ἀπάλαs ἐτά‹ι›ραs ἐν στήθεσιν. On the other hand, one can already in Homer experience desire (ἔροs) or longing (πόθοs) for other things besides sex. Since the expression ἐξίημι πόθον means “to get rid of a longing by indulging in it” (Page 79) and the woman lies in a bed (στρωμνή), the best alternative seems to be that the girl is taking a nap: cp. Il. 13.636f.: ὕπνου κτλ … τω̑ν πέρ τιs καὶ μα̑λλον ἐέλδεται ἐξ ἔρον εέναι / e πολέμου. (This was also the reading of Wilamowitz: 50.) Lasserre's recent suggestion (1989: 136-37, 140) that the girl is playing with dolls (reading παρ[ὰ πλ]αγ[γ]όνων in line 22), has to be rejected: see Liberman 234-35, Rösler 1990: 197-98. Even if this fragment is inconclusive, there is in my opinion enough other evidence (particularly fr. 1) to suggest that Sappho presented herself as having homoerotic relationships with some of the young women she sang about in her poetry.

54. The term circle, although not original by him (cp. Schadewaldt 1950: 11), was first made popular by Merkelbach's 1957 article: “Sappho und ihre Kreis.”

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