Aphrodite is promising, it is generally held, an ideal erotic revenge in the form of a mutual reversal of the roles of lover and beloved. And if she does not love, soon she will love, even if she does not want to."Īlthough interpreters have differed about the tone of these words of Aphrodite, they have universally agreed about the situation being described. And if she is rejecting gifts, instead she will give them. Aphrodite says: "For in fact if she is fleeing, soon she will pursue. Aphrodite therefore makes three promises or predictions to Sappho concerning the fate which lies in store for the unresponsive girl. The girl with whom Sappho is in love has apparently fled from Sappho's advances, rejected her gifts, and refused her love. Sappho has suffered an injustice at the hands of her beloved, and has called upon Aphrodite to alleviate the pain of this injustice. Lines 21-24 present the words of Aphrodite to Sappho. I think that this assumption is untrustworthy, and that debate about the tone of the stanza could be eliminated, or at least radically simplified, if we were to clarify our notion of what is going on in these verses. It is assumed that the events are obvious. There has been no debate about the actual events to which the stanza alludes. Recent scholarship provides us with several decades of debate about this stanza- particularly about its tone. Much of the controversy has focused upon the penultimate stanza, lines 21-24.
Since that time the poetic quality of the poem has not, I think, been doubted but controversy has arisen about the meaning of the poem.
The Justice of Aphrodite in Sappho Anne Carsonĭionysius of Halicarnassus, the earliest recorded critic of Sappho's first poem, praised it for its cohesion and smoothness of construction.
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