Introduction
This essay is the third part of a tripartite project. The first part, âGenre and Occasion,â was published in Mètis (1994â1995), and the second part, âTransmission of Archaic Greek Sympotic Songs: From Lesbos to Alexandria,â was published ten years later in Critical Inquiry (2004). Eleven years still later, I delivered the present essay, âGenre, Occasion, and Choral Mimesis Revisited,â as a keynote lecture at the University of California, Berkeley, on the occasion of the conference on which this volume is based.
The subtitle of my essay refers to the ânewest Sappho,â by which I mean the new fragments of Sappho as published in a 2016 book edited by Anton Bierl and André Lardinois, The Newest Sappho (P. Obbink and P. GC Inv. 105, frs. 1â5). This book contains not only the new fragments of Sappho as edited by Dirk Obbink but also a set of chapters that comment extensively on those fragments. I focus here on two of those chapters in that book: (1) chapter 11 by Leslie Kurke, âGendered Spheres and Mythic Models in Sapphoâs Brothers Poem,â and (2) chapter 21 by myself, âA Poetics of Sisterly Affect in the Brothers Song and in Other Songs of Sappho.â
My essay here, just like my keynote lecture as indicated above, is dedicated to two people named Leslie/Lesley. I start with the first of the two, my friend Leslie Kurke. I focus on her interpretation of a song that is part of the new set of Sappho fragments that I already mentioned. In this Sappho fragment, containing a large part of a text now known as the Brothers Song, we read near the beginning that a female speaker, evidently the character of Sappho, is in the process of speaking to someone. In chapter 11 of the book that I also already mentioned, The Newest Sappho, Kurke argues that this someone to whom Sappho is speaking is Sapphoâs mother. This reading meshes with that of Dirk Obbink in chapter 2 of the same book.1 I am quite persuaded by Kurkeâs argument, though my own argument here will be slightly different from hers.
Let me draw attention to a detail. I started speaking above about the character of Sappho. One reason for my referring to Sappho this way is that, as I argue in chapter 21 of the book The Newest Sappho, the name of Sappho actually means âsister.â2 Linguists call this kind of name a nomen loquens or âspeaking name,â which is a form of identification where a given person is named after a primary characteristic of that person. In various regions of the United States, for example, women are given the name Sissy or even Sister. But there is also a deeper reason for my speaking about the character of Sappho, not simply about Sappho. It is because the speaking persona of Sappho is a mimetic speaker.
The word mimetic comes from the ancient Greek concept of mimesis, which I define as meaning primarily âreenactmentâ and secondarily âimitation.â We may also translate this word as ârepresentation,â in the sense that any imitation of an original something or someone can be seen as a representation of that something or someone. I argue, then, that the speaking done by Sappho in her songs is achieved by way of a process that I call mimesis in the title of this chapter. In terms of my argumentâand I cannot emphasize this enoughâthe name of Sappho meant âsisterâ not necessarily because (1) she was a historical person who was simply named that way or because (2) she was a fictitious sisterâa character of âfictionâ who was created by her own songs. Rather, Sappho meant âsisterâ primarily because her identity was reenacted and kept on being reenacted by way of the singing and the dancing performed on festive occasions by the girls and the women of the island of Lesbos.
I just said girls and women, not just girls, and we will see later on why I said it this way. These girls and these women, as we will also see, are bonded together on festive occasions by way of a system of social grouping that is known in ancient Greek as the choros. This word is usually translated as âchorus,â but such a translation can be misleading, since the modern word âchorusâ is ordinarily understood to mean simply a group that sings. By contrast, the Greek term refers to a group that dances as well as sings. That is why, when I say choral mimesis in the title of this chapter, I mean a reenactment by way of a group that sings and dances. In the case of Sappho, as I have been arguing since 1990, her songs reveal her to be a choral personality, that is, someone who performs in a dancing as well as singing group known as a choros âchorus.â3
In another work on choral mimesis, centering on the Delian Maidens in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, I emphasized the mimetic power of the chorus in performance.4 And, as I also emphasized in that work, there is an astounding variety to be found in this power of the chorus to reenact, to imitate, to represent different kinds of persons or places or things.5 In my present work, however, I limit my scope of interest to the choral character of Sappho herself in the songs that are attributed to her. Even in this limited sphere, as we will see, there is a remarkable variety of roles that are played out in the words spoken by Sappho as a prima donna who leads the choral singing and dancing.
Genre and Occasion
Now that I have contextualized the term choral mimesis in the title of this essay, I need to elaborate on my relevant use of the terms genre and occasion. In an essay I mentioned at the beginning, âGenre and Occasionâ (1994â1995), I outlined the essentials of what I will now summarize here.
Of the two terms genre and occasion, the first is more problematic than the second. It would be more useful, I argued, to confront a more fundamental challenge, which is, to arrive at a definition of poetry itself in an archaic social context where the technology of writing was involved in neither the composition nor the performance of any given poem or song. Within such a context, definitions of genre have to be correlated with questions of occasion.6 And the occasion is captured, longterm, in a process that I have already described as mimesis.7
What I just said applies to both poetry and song. I should add that, as in my earlier work, I treat poetry here as a subcategory of song and of songmaking in general. That is why, for example, I prefer to say âthe Brothers Songâ instead of âthe Brothers Poemâ in referring to what I am about to quote and to translate. And I should also add that, as I argued already in a book published in 1990, Pindarâs Homer, the term âlyricâ is too broad a category to qualify as a âgenreâ in ancient Greek verbal art; as for âepic,â this term is too imprecise and can likewise be disqualified as a âgenreââat least, with reference to the earliest attested phases of Greek songmaking.8
Correlating Genre and Occasion with Composition and Performance
In order to achieve a more accurate taxonomy of Greek songmaking in its earliest phases, two factors must be consistently kept in mind: composition and performance. Only in this way, I think, can we arrive at a basis for considering the utility of a concept such as genreâand of the related concept, occasion.9
For the moment, I define occasion as the context of performing something that is composed or precomposed. And I define genre as a set of rules that generate such a performance.10
A genre, as a set of rules that generate a given performance of a given composition, can equate itself with the occasion of performance.11 To this extent, the occasion is the genre.12 For example, a song of lamentâthat is, a song that follows the generic rules for composing and performing a lamentâcan equate itself with the occasion of ritually grieving for the dead.13 Moreover, if the occasion is destabilized or even lost, the genre can compensate for it, even recreate it.14
I referred above to the act of lamentation for the dead as a ritual. I justify my use of this term here because, as is most evident in the earliest attestations of ancient Greek songmaking, the occasions for the performances of songs such as laments are in fact occasions of ritual. And here I understand ritual in the broadest possible sense of the term. I now offer a working definition: ritual in any given traditional society is doing things and saying things in a way that fits the cosmic order as viewed by that society. Correspondingly, I must add, myth in any given traditional society is saying things that ultimately connect with the ritual world of that society. In terms of these general working definitions of ritual and myth, ritual frames myth in traditional societies: myth is performed, and the performance is ritual. To put it another way, performance frames the composition of myth, and we cannot fully grasp the essence of such composition without knowing about its performative frame.15
These broad definitions are meant to address the worries of experts in literature who are unfamiliar with anthropological approaches to customary events in traditional societies. Such unfamiliarity leads to a narrow understanding of ritual. It is as if ritual were confined to events that involve making direct contact with something that is overtly sacred, as in the case of sacrificing to superhuman powers. But ritual can in fact include a wide variety of events that are framed by such acts as sacrifice. The trouble is, many of these events would no longer seem to have anything to do with ritual in the narrow sense of the word as understood by the modern mind.
One such event would be the singing of a song about unrequited love in the traditional world of songmaking. To the modern mind, the act of singing such a song may seem nothing more than a form of artistic self-expression. In a traditional society, on the other hand, the singing may be framed in the context of, say, a celebration that is inaugurated by a sacrifice. Such celebrations, as we will see in the case of songs attributed to Sappho, include events like the singing of songs about unrequited love.
But what happens if the frame is lost? That is, what happens if the occasion for performing a given genre of songâlike a love songâbecomes obsolete? Such obsolescence seems in fact inevitable when we consider the eventual breakdown of older conventions in the history of ancient Greek song culture. So, if we face up to the historical realities, the question is most justifiable: to repeat, what happens if the occasion for performing a given genre of song becomes obsolete? My answer, as I work it out in this essay, is that there are two possible outcomes:
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If the occasion becomes obsolete, then the corresponding genre may become obsolete as well.
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Even if the occasion becomes obsolete, the corresponding genre may remain current by way of compensating for the obsolescence of the occasion. And the compensation may take place by way of some alternative occasion of performance.16
In this essay, I concentrate on a historical example where both outcomes are attested, and this example involves the songmaking of Sappho.
Genre and Occasion in the Songmaking of Sappho
On the island of Lesbos around 600â¯BCE, which is the historical situation that leads ultimately to the texts recording the songs attributed to Sappho, the primary genre that mediated the relevant songmaking can be described as choral lyric song, and the kind of occasion that called for such song can best be described as festive performances by groups of girls and, as we will soon see, of women as well. At this point, I must emphasize again that the original Greek word for such a group was ÏοÏá½¹Ï.
But there is more to it. In the case of Sappho, we can detect alternative kinds of occasion for performing her songs. Here I summarize briefly my relevant findings as presented in two lengthy pieces of research, published in 2007 and 2016. The 2007 piece is entitled âDid Sappho and Alcaeus ever meet?â17 As for the 2016 piece, which is chapter 21 in the Newest Sappho book, I have already referred to it at the beginning and will now refer to its title only in an abbreviated form: âA Poetics of Sisterly Affect.â18
Besides the primary kind of occasion for the performing of Sapphoâs songs, which was the singing and dancing of female choroi âchoruses,â there were also secondary kinds of occasion. Already in the same era, around 600â¯BCE on Lesbos, the songs of Sappho could also be sung and danced by male performers in a kind of informal singing and dancing group known as the komos, which can be translated roughly as âa gathering of revelers.â Further, these songs could even be sung monodicallyâthat is, soloâby male performers at occasions that could be either public or private. In the case of public occasions, the monodic performers would be professional singers who competed with each other at festivals.19 Timothy Power has done important research on this kind of public occasion.20 As for private occasions, the word for this kind of venue was sumposion or âsymposiumâ: here I single out the arguments of Ewen Bowie in chapter 6 of the 2016 Newest Sappho book, âHow did Sapphoâs Songs get into the Male Sympotic Repertoire?â21 So we see here a variety of different occasions for performing the songs of Sappho, and all these occasions could have coexisted with each other at the same time and in the same place, that is, around 600â¯BCE on the island of Lesbos.22
Of all the possible occasions for singing the songs of Sappho, however, I think only two survived beyond the original setting as dated at around 600â¯BCE. These two kinds of occasion were the public concert and the private symposium, since the songs of Sappho kept on being performed for centuries beyond 600â¯BCE in places like Samos and Athens by professional solo singers at public festivals and by amateur solo singers at private symposia.23 And the textual recording of Sapphoâs songs seems to derive from this ongoing phase of performing the songs. But the actual wording of the songs themselves, as I argue, goes back all the way to the choral lyric phase of the tradition, dating back roughly to 600â¯BCE.
Diachronic Sappho
I used the term âoriginal settingâ above in referring to the performances of female choruses on the island of Lesbos at around 600â¯BCE. But this term is for me inadequate, since my own reconstruction of such performances depends on a diachronic perspective, which I combine with a synchronic perspective in analyzing the texts reflecting the songmaking attributed to Sappho. The terms synchronic and diachronic, as I use them here, come from linguistics.24 When linguists use the word synchronic, they are thinking of a given system or structure as it exists in a given time and space; when they use diachronic, they are thinking of that system as it evolves through time. I must add that a historical perspective is not the same thing as a diachronic perspective:
Both synchronic and diachronic perspectives are a matter of model building. We can build synchronic models to describe and explain the workings of a structure as we see it attested in a given historical context. We can likewise build diachronic models to describe and explain how that given structure may have evolved from one of its phases into other phases. What we have built, however, is a set of models to be tested on historical realities. The models are not the same thing as the realities themselves. And the realities of history as a process are not dependent on such models. History may either confirm or upset any or all aspects of our models, since the contingencies of history do not need to follow the rules of existing structures.25
From a diachronic perspective, the system that we know as Sapphoâs poetics can be viewed, I argue, as an evolving medium. So, when I say âdiachronic Sapphoâ in the title of this section, I am referring to a model of a poetic system as I reconstruct it through time. By contrast, when we speak of a âhistorical Sappho,â we are imagining the existence of a person who lived in a historically identifiable era. I say âimaginingâ because for me the existence of such a historical person is not at all proven to be a fact if we rely simply on the words that are attributed to Sappho in the texts ascribed to her. What she says about herself and about anyone and anything else in her songs is a function of her songmaking: it is not some kind of reportage about her historical circumstances. In terms of my argument, the words of Sappho can be used as evidence for understanding the history of the songmaking attributed to her, but I insist that whatever the persona of Sappho says about herself cannot be used as factual evidence about the life and times of Sappho.
A Diachronic View of Sapphoâs Occasions
From a diachronic point of view, the earliest transmission of Sapphoâs songmaking depended on an ongoing tradition of performing her songs in a setting that corresponded to a primary occasion, which was the choral lyric singing and dancing of girls and even of women at festive events. In the two lengthy pieces of mine that I mentioned above, âDid Sappho and Alcaeus ever meetâ and âA Poetics of Sisterly Affect,â I explored in some detail the historical evidence for identifying a location for such a primary occasion, which was a sacred precinct located in the middle of the island of Lesbos. The ancient Greek name for this precinct was Messon, meaning âmiddle place,â and this name survives in Modern Greek as Mesa, referring to the very same place that had once been a venue, as I see it, for the songs of Sapphoâand even of Alcaeus.
Festive choral lyric performance, as the primary genre for Sapphoâs songs, was also the primary occasion for these songs. Further, this occasion is captured, longterm, in the process of mimesis.
An Occasion for a Song of Sappho
Here I return to the work of Leslie Kurke on the Brothers Song of Sappho in chapter 11 of the 2016 Newest Sappho book. As I noted from the start, Kurke thinks that the woman who is being addressed by the speaking persona of Sappho in this song is the mother of Sappho. She points to the fact that Martin West, in his reconstruction of Song 9 of Sappho by way of a new papyrus fragment, thinks that this other song, which features the speaker addressing someone as âmother,â immediately preceded the Brothers Song in the textual tradition of Sapphoâs collected songs.26 I quote here only the relevant wording of the new Sappho fragment:27
Ïάμ]Ïαν οá½Îº á¼Ïη[ϲθα Ïόθεν Î´Ï Î½Î±á½·Î¼Î±Î½,μ]ᾶÏεÏ, á¼á½¹ÏÏανÏαιδί]μαν ὤÏαι Ïέλε[ϲαι; Ïὸ δâ á¼Ï²Ïá½·Ïá½±Ïμâ á¼]Ị̈αμέÏÏν
⦠Donât you have the resources for me to be able, Mother, to celebrate [teleîn] at the right season [ÅrÄ] the festival [eortÄ], which is a delight [charma] for [us] mortals, creatures of the day that we are?
Sappho fr. 9. 2â5
In terms of Kurkeâs argument, Sappho here is speaking to her mother on the occasion of a festival that she desires to celebrate. As I infer from the wording of this fragment, the occasion for any given song of Sappho may at times be a festival, and the genre of such a festive song is normally choral singing and dancing. In what follows, I will try to link the terms choral and mimesis as featured in the title of my essay.
Kurke thinks that Sappho is speaking to her mother not only here in Song 9 but also in the Brothers Song. Let me now quote for you the surviving part of the Brothers Song:
5 á¼Î»Î»â á¼Ï θÏύληϲθα ΧάÏαξον á¼Î»Î¸Î·Î½Î½á¾¶Ï ϲὺν Ïλήαι. Ïá½° μέν̣ οἴο̣μα̣ι Îεῦϲοἶδε ϲύμÏανÏέϲ Ïε θέοιΠϲὲ δ̣â οὠÏÏá¿ÏαῦÏα νόηϲθαι,á¼Î»Î»á½° καὶ ÏέμÏην á¼Î¼Îµ καὶ κέλεϲθαι10 Ïόλλα λί̣ϲϲεϲθαι βαϲί̣λ̣η̣αν Ἤ̣Ïανá¼Î¾á½·ÎºÎµÏ²Î¸Î±Î¹ ÏÏ á½·Î´Îµ ϲάαν á¼Î³Î¿Î½Ïανᾶα ΧάÏαξονκá¼Î¼Î¼â á¼ÏεύÏην á¼ÏỊ̈έ̣μεαϲ. Ïá½° δâ á¼Î»Î»Î±ÏάνÏα δαιμόνεϲϲ̣ιν á¼Ïι̣ÏÌ£Ïá½¹ÏÏμενÎ15 εá½Î´Î¹Î±Î¹Ì£ γ̣ὰÏÌ£ á¼Îº μεγάλαν á¼á½µÏα̣ν̣αἶÏα Ïέ̣λ̣ο̣νÏαι.Ïῶν κε βόλληÏαι Î²Î±Ï²á½·Î»ÎµÏ Ï² á½Î»á½»Î¼ÏÏδαίμονâ á¼Îº ÏόνÏν á¼Ïá½±ÏÏγον ἤδηÏεÏÏÏá½¹Ïην, κá¿Î½Î¿Î¹ μ̣άκαÏεϲ ÏέλονÏαι20 καὶ ÏολύολβοιÎκ̣á¼Î¼Î¼ÎµÏ², αἴ κε Ïὰν κεÏάλα̣ν á¼á½³ÏỊ̈ηÎá½±Ïι̣ÏÎ¿Ï ÎºÎ±á½¶ δή ÏοÏâ á¼Î½Î·Ì£Ï γένηÏαι,καὶ μάλâ á¼Îº Ïόλλαν βαÏÌ£Ï Î¸Ï Ì£Î¼á½·Î±Î½Ì£ κεναἶÏα λύθειμεν.
Sappho, Brothers SongBut you are always saying, in a chattering way [thruleîn], that Charaxos will comein a ship full of goods. These things I think Zeusknows, and so also do all the gods. But you shouldnât havethese things on your mind.Instead, send [pempein] me off and instruct [kelesthai] meto implore [lissesthai] Queen Hera over and over again [polla]that he should come back here [tuide] bringing back [agein] safelyhis ship, I mean Charaxos,and that he should find us unharmed. As for everything else,let us leave it to the superhuman powers [daimones],since bright skies after great stormscan happen quickly.Those mortals, whoever they are, whom the king of Olympus wishesto rescue from their pains [ponoi] by sending as a long-awaited helper a superhuman force [daimÅn]to steer them away from such painsâthose mortals are blessed [makares]and have great bliss [olbos].We too, if he ever gets to lift his head up high,I mean, Larichos, and finally mans up,will get past the many cares that weigh heavily on our heart,breaking free from them just as quickly.
In this song, as in the fragment from the other song I quoted, Sappho Song 9, we read about a festival. As we saw also in Sappho Song 9, the word for such a festival is eorta. As for the Brothers Song, there is a corresponding reference to a festival, expressed by way of the word pempein âsend,â which is a terminus technicus, as Kurke calls it, for the idea of organizing a sacred procession that culminates in a festival that is celebrated at the precinct of a divinity. In this case, the festival is sacred to Hera, and Sappho is pictured as readying herself to lead a procession that will be heading off for the festival. Kurke refers to my chapter in the same volume, where I make the argument about the word pempein as such a terminus technicus.28 Comparing a passage from the Electra of Euripides with reference to the festival of Hera at Argos (vv. 167â174), I argue that the Brothers Song features the speaking persona of Sappho as a choral leader who wishes to be sent in a procession to the sacred precinct at Messon, where a festival of the goddess Hera will be celebrated, just as the same speaking persona of Sappho in Song 9 had wished that her mother should find the means for her to celebrate this festival.29 We see here a validation of a formula proposed by Anton Bierl concerning processions as represented in Greek theater: he argues that any procession that leads into a choral performance will thereby become part of the choral performance.30
The choral essence of the performance that is represented in the Brothers Song is likewise evident in another song of Sappho that has now been supplemented by the newly-found fragments:
Ïλάϲιον δη μ̣[. . . . .]. . .οιϲâ α̣[. . . .]ÏÏá½¹Ïνιâ á¼®Ïα, ϲὰ Ï[αÏίε]ϲ̣ϲâ.á¼á½¹ÏÏ[α]Ïὰν á¼Ïá½±Ïαν á¼ÏÏá½³Ïδαι̣ Ị̈ό̣ηϲανÏόι βαϲίληεϲ,5 á¼ÎºÏελέϲϲανÏεϲ μ[εγά]λ̣οιϲ á¼á½³Î¸Î»Î¿Î¹Ï²Ì£ÏÏῶÏα μὲν Ïá½²Ï Ị̂ἴ̣[λιον]Î á¼ÏεÏον δέ̣ÏÏ á½·Î´â á¼ÏοÏμάθεν[Ïεϲ, á½]δ̣ο̣ν γὰÏÌ£ εá½Ïη̣[ν]οá½Îº á¼Î´[ύνανÏο,]ÏÏὶν ϲὲ καὶ Îá½·â á¼Î½Ï[ίαον] Ị̈εδέλθην̣10 καὶ ÎÏ á½½Î½Î±Ï² ἰμε̣[ÏόενÏα] Ị̈αá¿Î´Î±Îνῦν δὲ κ[αί. . . . . . . . . .] ]. . .Ïá½¹Î·Î¼ÎµÎ½Îºá½°Ï Ïὸ Ïάλ̣[αιονá¼Î³Î½Î± καὶ κα̣[. . . . . . . . . . á½]ÏλοϲÏαÏθέ[νÏν. . . . . . . . . . . . γ]Ï Î½Î±á½·ÎºÏν15 á¼Î¼Ïιϲ̣ .[μέÏÏâ á½Ì£Î»Ì£[ολύγαϲ].31
Sappho fr. 17.1â16Close by, â¦,O Queen [potnia] Hera, ⦠your ⦠festival [eortÄ],which, vowed-in-prayer [arâsthai], the Sons of Atreus did arrange [poieîn]for you,32 kings that they were,5 after first having completed [ekteleîn] great labors [aethloi],around Troy, and, next [apseron],after having set forth to come here [tuide], since finding the waywas not possible for themuntil they would approach you (Hera) and Zeus lord of suppliants [antiaos]10 and (Dionysus) the lovely son of Thyone.And now [nun de] we are arranging [poieîn] [the festival],in accordance with the ancient way â¦holy [agna] and ⦠a throng [okhlos]of girls [parthenoi] ⦠and women [gunaikes]15 on either side â¦the measured sound of ululation [ololÅ«gÄ].
Here it is made explicit that the festival in progress, while the speaker is represented as speaking, is in honor of the goddess Hera. Here is the way I describe it in chapter 21 of the Newest Sappho book, âA Poetics of Sisterly Affectâ:
Although the first line of Song 17 here is too fragmentary to be understood for sure, the next line makes it clear that the persona of Sappho is praying to Hera herself, speaking to her about the eortÄ âfestivalâ (2: á¼á½¹ÏÏ[α]) that is being arranged in honor of the goddess. The speaking Sappho goes on to say that the festival that âweâ in the present are arranging (11: Ïόημεν), as âweâ offer supplications to Hera, is being arranged âin accordance with the ancient wayâ (12: Îºá½°Ï Ïὸ Ïάλ̣[αιον]) of arranging the festival, just as the heroes of the past had arranged it (3: Ị̈ό̣ηϲαν). In these contexts, I am translating the word poieîn âmakeâ in the specific sense of âarrange,â with reference to the observance of a ritual. I find in Thucydides (2.15.2) a striking parallel in wording: âand the Athenians, continuing what he [= Theseus] started, even now arrange [poieîn] for the goddess [= Athena], at public expense, the festival [heortÄ] named the Sunoikiaâ (καὶ Î¾Ï Î½Î¿á½·ÎºÎ¹Î± á¼Î¾ á¼ÎºÎµá½·Î½Î¿Ï á¼Î¸Î·Î½Î±á¿Î¿Î¹ á¼Ïι καὶ νῦν Ïῠθεῷ á¼Î¿ÏÏὴν δημοÏελῠÏοιοῦϲιν).
Comparing these three songs, I now highlight the significance of the word ora (hora) in Sappho Song 9. As I have argued in another project, hora in the sense of âseason, seasonal recurrenceâ is linguistically and even thematically related to Hera, which is the name for the goddess of seasons.33 So, the use of the word ora (hora) in Song 9 points to Hera as the honorand of the eorta (heorte).
Now I return to the relevant wording in the Brothers Song (5â7): ÏέμÏην á¼Î¼Îµ καὶ κέλεϲθαι / Ïόλλα λί̣ϲϲεϲθαι βαϲί̣λ̣η̣αν Ἤ̣Ïαν, âsend [pempein] me off and instruct [kelesthai] me / to implore [lissesthai] Queen Hera over and over again [polla].â I understand such an act of instructing someone to do something as a choral act, and I interpret the relation between the instructor and the instructee as a choral relationship between the mother as a woman and the daughter as a girl. The woman chorally authorizes the girl. And such a choral relationship is formalized in the distinction between gunaikes âwomenâ and parthenoi âgirlsâ at the end of Song 17 of Sappho. This song refers explicitly to a choral performance at the sacred precinct of the goddess Hera on the occasion of her festival, which is called an eorta. As I argued in âA Poetics of Sisterly Affect,â the occasion of Song 17 marks the performance of Sappho herself as the prima donna who leads the choral singing and dancing at the festival of Hera. As the prima donna, she is the main celebrant, as marked by the programmatic use of the verb poiein at line 11 of this song in the sense of âcelebrate a festival.â
In the Brothers Song, then, if Kurke is right, there is a mother involved. And then there are the brothers. In this Brothers Song, the brother called Charaxos is mentioned by name, and so too is another brother called Larichos. And then there is also another song where one of the two brothers is mentioned without being named, and it must be Charaxos. Here is the relevant part of the song:
Î á½¹Ïνιαι ÎηÏήιδεϲ á¼Î²Î»á½±Î²Î·[ν μοι]Ïὸν καϲίγνηÏον δ[á½¹]Ïε ÏÏ á½·Î´â ἴκεϲθα[ι]κὤÏÏι Ïῶ̣ι̣ θύμÏι κε θέληι γένεϲθαικá¿Î½Î¿ Ïελέϲθην,5 á½Ï²Ï²Î± δὲ ÏÏόϲθâ á¼Î¼Î²ÏοÏε ÏάνÏα λῦϲα[ι]καὶ Ïίλοιϲι Ïοá¿Ï²Î¹ Ïá½±Ïαν γένεϲθαικὠνίαν á¼ÏθÏοιϲι, γένοιÏο δâ á¼Î¼Î¼Î¹Î¼Î·Î´á½±Î¼Î± μηδâ εἶϲÎÏὰν καϲιγνήÏαν δὲ θέλοι Ïόηϲθα̣ι10 [μέ]ϲδονοϲ Ïίμαϲ, [á½Î½]ίαν δὲ λύγÏαν[. . . .] . [. . . .]οÏοιϲι Ï[á½±]Ïοιθâ á¼ÏεύÏν
Sappho fr. 5.1â1134O Queen Nereids, unharmed [ablabÄs]may my brother, please grant it, arrive to me here [tuide],and whatever thing he wants in his heart [thÅ«mos] to happen,let that thing be fulfilled [telesthÄn].5 And however many mistakes he made in the past, undo them all.Let him become a joy [kharÄ] to those who are near-and-dear [philoi] to him,and let him be a pain [oniÄ] to those who are enemies [ekhthroi]. As for us,may we have no enemies, not a single one.But may he wish to make his sister [kasignÄtÄ]10 worthy of more honor [tÄ«mÄ]. The catastrophic [lugrÄ] pain [oniÄ]⦠in the past, he was feeling sorrow [akheuÅn] â¦
Here I recapitulate what I said in chapter 21 of the Newest Sappho book.35 I start with the fact that the loving sister in Song 5 is expressing a wish that her errant brother should become a Ïá½±Ïα or âjoyâ to her loved ones (6), not an á½Î½á½·Î± or âpainâ (7)âa pain that is then described as Î»Ï Î³Ïá½± âcatastrophicâ (10).36 It should be the other way around, she is saying, so that the family will have the joyâwhile the enemies will have the pain.
Later on in Song 5, the speaking persona of Sappho turns to Aphrodite, addressing her as Kupris and describing her with the epithet ϲέμνα âholyâ (ϲὺ [δ]ὲ̣ Îá½»ÏÌ£[Ï]ι̣ ϲ̣[έμ]να, 18). Although the fragmentary state of the papyrus here prevents us from seeing the full context, it is clear that the sister is praying to the goddess to prevent further misfortune from happening to her brother, who âin the past was feeling sorrowâ (Ï[á½±]Ïοιθâ á¼ÏεύÏν, 11).
But the pain that torments the family because of the brotherâs misfortunes is not the only kind of torment we find in the poetics of Sappho. The same word á½Î½á½·Î± âpainâ that refers to the torment experienced by the family of Sappho refers also to the torment of erotic love experienced by Sappho herself. In Song 1 of Sappho, her speaking persona prays to Aphrodite to release her from such torment:
μή μâ á¼Ï²Î±Î¹Ï²Î¹ μηδâ á½Î½á½·Î±Î¹Ï²Î¹ δάμνα,Ïá½¹Ïνια, θῦμον
Sappho fr. 1.3â4Do not dominate with hurts [asai] and pains [oniai],O Queen [potnia], my heart [thÅ«mos].
Similarly in the first six lines of the Kupris Song the speaking persona of Sappho once again turns to Aphrodite, that is, to Kupris, and she prays yet again that the goddess may release her from the torment of an erotic love that is quite unrequited:
Ïῶϲ κε δή Ïιϲ οὠθαμέỊ̈ϲ̣ á¼Ï²Î±Î¹Ị̈ο,Îá½»ÏÏι, δέϲ̣Ị̈ο̣ι̣ν̣â, á½ÏÏινα [δ]á½´Ì£ Ïι̣λ̣[ηÏι,][κÏá½] θέλοι μάλιϲÏα Ïάθα̣ν̣ Ị̈άλ̣[αϲϲαι;][Ïοá¿]ον á¼Ïηϲθα5 [νῶν] ϲ̣άλοιϲί μâ á¼Î»ÎµÎ¼á½±Ì£ÏÌ£Ị̈ϲ̣ δ̣αá¿Ì£Ï²Ì£Î´Ì£[ην][ἰμέ]ÏÏâ¨Î¹â© λύ{ι̣}ϲανÏι γ̣όνâ Ïμε̣-[
Sappho, Kupris Song 1â6How can someone not be hurt [asasthai, verb of the noun asa âhurtâ] over and over again,O Queen Kupris [Aphrodite], whenever one loves [phileîn] whatever personand wishes very much not to let go of the passion?[What kind of purpose] do you have5 [in mind], uncaringly rending me apartin my [desire] as my knees buckle?
The ending of this song was already known before the discovery of the new supplements for the beginning as I just quoted it. At this ending, we find the persona of Sappho declaring the poetics of her own self-awareness:
â¦á¼Î³Ï δâ á¼Î¼â αá½ÏαιÏοῦÏο Ï²Ï Î½Î¿á½·Î´Î±
Sappho fr. 26.11â12And Iâaware of my own selfâI know this.
We have just seen, then, some powerful examples of singing about unrequited love. To the modern mind, as I said at the beginning of this essay, the act of singing such songs may seem nothing more than a form of artistic self-expression. But we can see from comparing these texts with each other that the medium for expressing the emotions in such songs is in fact choral.
Rethinking Mimesis
As I have already argued, mimesis involved primarily reenactment and secondarily imitation.37 But now I rethink the formulation:
If you re-enact an archetypal action in ritual, it only stands to reason that you have to imitate those who re-enacted before you and who served as your immediate models. But the ultimate model is still the archetypal action or figure that you are re-enacting in ritual, which is coextensive with the whole line of imitators who re-enact the way in which their ultimate model acted, each imitating each oneâs predecessor.38
When it is your turn, your moment to reenact something in this forward movement of mimesis, you become the ultimate model in that very moment. As a way of understanding occasion, then, I propose to equate it with the moment of mimesis.39
Things started changing, however, by the middle of the fifth century BCE. By now the primary meaning of mimesis as âreenactmentâ was becoming lost or at least destabilized, and the secondary meaning was encroaching on the primary meaning.40
My interpretation of mimesis as an authoritative âreenactment, impersonationâ is supported by the celebrated description of mimesis in the Poetics of Aristotle as the mental process of identifying the representing âthis,â as in the ritual of acting a drama, with the represented âthat,â as in the myth that is being acted out by a drama: in Greek this mental process can be expressed by way of the equation οá½ÏÎ¿Ï á¼ÎºÎµá¿Î½Î¿Ï âso this is that!â41 The same equation, restated as ÏοῦÏο á¼ÎºÎµá¿Î½Î¿ âthis thing is that thingâ in Aristotleâs Rhetoric,42 makes it clear that the media of representation that Aristotle has in mind are not just the visual arts but also the verbal arts, primarily the art of songmaking and poetry as performed in drama.43 So long as the represented âthatâ remains absoluteâthat is, absolutized by the mythâthe representing âthisâ remains a reenacting âthis.â44 So long as âthisâ imitates an absolute âthat,â it reenacts as it imitates; the reenactment remains primary, and the imitation remains secondary.45 Once you start imitating something that is no longer absolute, however, you can no longer reenact the absolute: then you can only make a copy, and your model may be also just a copy. I have just described here the general mentality induced by the destabilization of the conceptual world of mimesis.46
Earlier, I made the claim that genre can compensate for the occasion. But now, applying the semantics of mimesis, I extend the argument by claiming that genre can even absolutize the occasion. A striking example is the âepinician momentâ as dramatized in the epinician songs (âvictory odesâ) of Pindar.47 Seth Schein has analyzed Pindarâs Pythian 6 as an illustration of that moment,48 and he quotes in this context the remarks of Hans-Georg Gadamer, who has this to say about the element of the occasional in the epinician songs of Pindar:
The occasional in such works has acquired so permanent a form that, even without being realised or understood, it is still part of the total meaning. Someone might explain to us the particular historical context, but this would be only secondary for the poem as a whole. He would only be filling out the meaning that exists in the poem itself.49
With this formulation in mind, I tried to rethink the essentials of Pindaric songmaking in my 1994 essay âGenre and Occasion.â I argued that any given Pindaric composition defies the realization of all the signs of occasionality that it gives out about itself. This defiance is not the result of any failure to adhere to the given occasion of real performance. Rather, it is a mark of success in retaining aspects of occasionality that extend through time. If we think of occasion as a performative frame, even a ritual frame, then what we see in a Pindaric composition is an absolutized occasion. Moreover, this occasion is absolutized by deriving from the diachrony of countless previous occasions. In other words, a Pindaric composition refers to itself as an absolute occasion that cannot be duplicated by any single actual occasion. Only an open-ended series of actual occasions, occurring in a continuum of time, could provide all the features of an absolutized occasion.50
Occasions for the Songs of Sappho
I now turn from the occasions for the songmaking of Pindar, as sketched in my essay âGenre and Occasion,â to occasions for the songmaking of Sappho. As the title for my current essay indicates, where I speak of choral mimesis, I am concentrating here on choral occasions for Sapphoâs songmaking, not on monodic occasions, which would be appropriate for concerts featuring professional male singers or for symposia featuring amateur male singers. And the primary occasion for a choral performance would be a festival, the word for which is á¼Î¿ÏÏá½± (the Aeolic equivalent of Attic á¼Î¿ÏÏá½µ) in the diction of Sapphoâs songmaking. We see the word in line 3 of Song 9 and in line 2 of Song 17.
In the discursive framework of a chorus, what Sappho says when she speaks by way of choral song is not simply some kind of reportage about her historical life and times. What she says, rather, is a mimesis of situations as sung and danced by a chorus led by a prima donna. Such situations are exemplified, as we have seen, by choral songs about unrequited love. And the choral mimesis is not only the act of talking about persons in the third person, thus representing those persons, such as the two brothers named Charaxos and Larichos in the Brothers Song. Nor is it only the act of addressing persons in the second person, thus also representing those persons, such as the mother in Song 9. It is also the act of representing a person even in the first person, and this represented person does not have to be the same person as the representing performers who say âIâ or âweâ when they perform in the chorus.
Choral performance at a festival is not some ad hoc event. It is a seasonally recurring event, celebrated in honor of the god or goddess whose sacred precinct is the venue for the celebration. But this is not to say that the chorus sings and dances only about the festival. True, the chorus can sing and dance about its own context by referring to the festival, as we see in Song 17, for example, but it can also sing about anything and everything that can happen to any persons in the third person or to the addressees in the second person or even to the self, who can be pictured as the main speaker, that is, as the prima donna of the singing and the dancing of the chorus. The things that happen, however, do not have to be things that are being experienced then and there in the context of the performance. The things that happen do not even have to be things experienced in the past by the choral persons who are speaking in the first person as they sing and dance their song. The experiences may belong primarily to the persons who figure in the mimetic world of the song that is being sung and danced and only secondarily to the persons who perform the song in the here and now of the festival.
This formulation, I argue, can apply to choral performance not only on the occasion of seasonally recurring festivals but also on the occasion of ad hoc events like laments performed at funerals or love songs performed at weddings. On such occasions as well, choral mimesis can allow for the modeling of identities on preexisting identities. In this essay, however, I concentrated on the seasonally recurring event of a festival held at the sacred precinct of Messon, as described by the words of Sappho in Song 17.
In terms of my overall argument, moreover, the Brothers Song likewise has as its occasion the sacred precinct of Messon. Here we see the persona of a sister who is singing about her experiencing Ïόνοι âpainsâ (line 18) caused by two brothers named Charaxos and Larichos. In the case of the second brother to be mentioned, Larichos (line 22), the sister is upset that the brother cannot seem to achieve adulthood: he fails to âman upâ (line 22). That is the pain. In the case of the first brother to be mentioned, Charaxos (lines 5, 12), the pain that he causes can be reconstructed by combining the references here in the Brothers Song with references in other songs of Sappho, and I am convinced that these references add up to a story about a disastrous love affair that depletes the wealth of the whole family. As we reconstruct the story, Charaxos has fallen in love with a courtesan from Naucratis whose name in the songs of Sappho is Doricha.
These three names, Doricha and Larichos and Charaxos, can all be explained in terms of generic namings, much as the name of Sappho herself can be explained as generically meaning âsister.â In chapter 4 of the Newest Sappho book, âSappho, Iambist: Abusing the Brother,â Richard P. Martin argues persuasively that Doricha means something like âtiny little gift,â derived from doron âgift.â Such a meaning, combined with a diminutive suffix like -icha, would produce a fitting name for a courtesan or prostitute. Similarly, I would argue that Larichos is a diminutive name derived from the adjective laros, which in Odyssey 2.350 is associated with the delicious taste of wine.51 It is as if the name of this brother meant something like âtiny little delicacy.â52 Such an interpretation can supplement, I think, the argumentation of André Lardinois in chapter 7 of the Newest Sappho book. He highlights the testimony of Athenaeus, who says: ϹαÏÏá½½ Ïε ἡ καλὴ ÏολλαÏοῦ Îá½±ÏιÏον Ïὸν á¼Î´ÎµÎ»Ïὸν á¼Ïαινεῠὡϲ οἰνοÏοοῦνÏα á¼Î½ Ïá¿· ÏÏÏ Ïανείῳ Ïοá¿Ï² ÎÏ Ïιληναίοιϲ: âThe beautiful Sappho in many contexts praises her brother Larichos, because he poured the wine for the Mytilenaeans in their presidential hall.â53 In the Scholia T for Iliad 20.234, we read further: á¼Î¸Î¿Ï² Î³á½°Ï á¼¦Î½, ὡϲ καὶ ϹαÏÏá½½ Ïηϲι, Î½á½³Î¿Ï Ï² εá½Î³ÎµÎ½Îµá¿Ï² εá½ÏÏεÏεá¿Ï² οἰνοÏοεá¿Î½: âFor it was the custom, as even Sappho says, for good-looking young aristocrats to serve as wine-pourers.â And then there is Charaxos, which I think is a diminutive name derived from the noun ÏαÏá½± âdelight, joy.â We have seen this word ÏαÏá½± in line 6 of Song 5, where the voice of Sappho wishes that Charaxos become a âjoyâ to her and to the whole family. It is as if the name of Charaxos were a wish-fulfillment for the sister who has experienced so much pain in worrying about her errant brother. And here we may consider also the festive context of ÏαÏá½± âdelightâ in Song 9. So, Charaxos is the would-be âtiny little joyâ or âtiny little delightâ for the family. This theme seems to be picked up by the poet Posidippus when he describes Charaxos as ÏαÏá½·ÎµÎ¹Ï âcharmingâ (ÏαÏίενÏα ⦠ΧάÏαξον).54
To talk this way about your brothers is a sisterly thing to do. And the intimacy of such talk, replete with diminutives, can be imitated in choral song. Such talk can sound like baby talk, and I think that the verb θÏÏ Î»Îµá¿Î½, which is conventionally translated as âchatter,â can refer to such baby talk. As I argued in âA Poetics of Sisterly Affect,â even the name of Sappho conveys the impression of such baby-talk as imitated in the mimetic performances of female choruses.55 I find it significant that Electra in the Euripidean drama that is named after her uses this word θÏÏ Î»Îµá¿Î½ at line 910 when she tells her brother Orestes about her strong desire to âchatterâ on and on to him about all the things she has experienced since the separation of these two siblings. And such talk is not just sisterly talk: it can also be motherly talk, as imitated in choral song. That is the sense of θÏÏ Î»Îµá¿Î½ at line 5 of the Brothers Song. Such baby-talk points to the intimate conversations that can take place between mothers and daughters, between women and girls, in choral performance.
Such relationshipsâbetween mother and daughter, between sister and brothersâare not âfictionalâ in the songs of Sappho. But they are not âhistorical,â either. Rather, such relationships are simply mimetic. To speak of a âfictionalâ or a âbiographicalâ relationship, either way, is to set up a false dichotomy. And the same goes for the idea of a âfictionalâ or a âbiographicalâ Sappho. All these personae are primarily mimetic, and their occasion is what happens by way of choral performance. The crisis of worrying over an errant brotherâor of suffering from an unrequited loveâis not the occasion for choral performance. The occasion is the mimesis of such emotional crises. And such occasions can happen at festivals, even if such festivals take place only once every year.
A Second Lesley
Here I finally arrive at a point where I can introduce the second Lesley to whom I dedicate this essay. She is Lesley Gore, who recorded in 1963 a song that became wildly popular and stayed that way for a long time. The title of the song is âItâs My Party.â Gore is pictured on the album cover, a girl wearing a mischievous half-smile. Her looks in this picture do not match the feelings that she is singing about in her song, which is all about cryingâcrying about unrequited love.
Itâs my party and Iâll cry if I want toCry if I want toCry if I want toYou would cry too, if it happened to youNobody knows where my Johnny has goneBut Judy left the same timeWhy was he holding her handWhen heâs supposed to be mine?Itâs my party and Iâll cry if I want toCry if I want toCry if I want toYou would cry too, if it happened to youPlay all my records, keep dancing all nightBut leave me alone for awhileTill Johnnyâs dancing with meIâve got no reason to smileItâs my party and Iâll cry if I want toCry if I want toCry if I want toYou would cry too, if it happened to youJudy and Johnny just walked through the doorLike a queen with her kingOh, what a birthday surpriseJudyâs wearing his ringItâs my party and Iâll cry if I want toCry if I want toCry if I want toYou would cry too, if it happened to youOh, itâs my party and Iâll cry if I want to
I like to compare this song about an emotional crisis with some songs attributed to Sappho, who dates all the way back to 600â¯BCE or thereabouts. My favorite part of the song sung by Lesley Gore is where the singer tells her listeners that she doesnât mind if they play all her records all night, dancing all the while to the music of the song, but she wants to be left alone for a while, because she has no reason to smile. Back then in 1963, records would be played at occasions like birthday parties, and young people could indeed dance all night long to the songs that were sung on the records. But the occasion for the singing recorded on records is not the sadness of a lonely speaker who sings about unrequited love. Rather, the occasion is the performance of her song as a recorded double-track for a vinyl disk that makes 45 revolutions per minute every time the song is played on the record-player. And, as the record gets played and replayed over and over again, the sadness of the girl who is pictured in the song recurs over and over again. So also the singer in the songs of Sappho implores Aphrodite over and over again to free her from the sadness of unrequited love, or she prays to Hera over and over again to make things all better for her family and thus ease her anxieties. Each time a chorus sings and dances her songs, the sadness and the worries recur. And the occasion is the mimesis of these emotions by way of song and dance. The emotions themselves are not the occasion.
For all we know, the occasion for such singing could be a yearly festival, where the song could get performed and reperformed every year, over and over again, just as the sadness of the girl who is pictured in the song recurs over and over again. But that will not stop the singer from wearing a mischievous half-smile.
As the blues singer Rubin Lacy once said, you donât have to have the blues to sing the blues:
Iâve sung âem on many a day and never thought I had âem. What did I want to have the blues for, when I had everything I wanted, all the liquor, all the money I needed, and more gals than I needed? What did I need with the blues? I was playinâ âem because everybody loved to hear me play âem and I loved to play âem. I could play âem, yeah.56
This essay was preliminarily published online in Classical Inquiries (October 1, 2015),
See also Obbink 2014: 41.
See also §§â¯156â162 of the online version, available at
Nagy 2016: 456. I first used this expression choral personality in Nagy 1990: 370, with reference to Calame 1977: 367â377 (also 126â127). See also Lardinois 1996 and the remarks of Calame 2009c: 5; also Ferrari 2014: 17.
Nagy 2013b.
In Nagy 2013b: 245â246, I give examples from the songmaking of Pindar.
In Nagy 1994â1995: 12, I draw attention to the perceptive use of the term occasion in Calame 1974: 116, 120, 121. In the same article, he provides a particularly useful critique of various concepts of genre in both the pre-Alexandrian and the Alexandrian eras. Important also is his assessment of Rossi 1971. To my mind, any argumentation that cites Rossi 1971 without citing Calame 1974 is incomplete.
Nagy 1996: 59â103.
Nagy 1990: 17â115.
Nagy 1994â1995: 12.
This formulation is a compressed version of what I said in Nagy 1994â1995: 13, where I also introduced the notion of performance as a speech act, as analyzed in Nagy 1990: 31. In my compressed presentation here, I force myself to make do without using the term speech act.
Nagy 1994â1995: 13. There but not here, I consider the factor of performance in the context of a speech act.
Nagy 1994â1995: 13, following Nagy 1990: 362.
Nagy 1994â1995: 13, following Nagy 1979: 79â93 on the Homeric use of á¼ÏÎ¿Ï and ÏένθοÏ, both meaning âgrief,â as programmatic indicators of ritual songs of lament.
Nagy 1990: 9, 362 n. 127.
Nagy 1994â1995: 14, following Nagy 1990: 8â9, 31â33.
Nagy 1994â1995: 13â14, following Nagy 1990: 9, 362.
Nagy 2007.
Nagy 2016.
I make the argument in both Nagy 2007 and Nagy 2016.
On singing to the accompaniment of the kithara in monodically performing the songs of Sappho, see Power 2010: 258â263, followed by Nagy 2011c: 155â158.
In chapter 17 of the same book, Renate Schlesier argues that the performers of Sapphoâs songs at symposia could be courtesans (Schlesier 2016).
Again, Nagy 2007, 2015.
Nagy 2007.
See Nagy 2011b §â¯11, with reference to Saussure 1972: 117.
Nagy 2011b §â¯16.
West 2014: 7.
I follow here the text as restored by West 2014. But the translation is my own.
Nagy 2016: 459.
Nagy 2016: 460â461.
Bierl 2009: 57 n. 152, 107, 272â273, 284, 294â295, 318â319. See also Bierl 2011.
On the restoration of this line, I follow Ferrari 2014: 18. Otherwise I mostly follow Obbink 2016a.
West 2014: 4 suggests that we read Ị̈ό̣ηϲάν Ïοι, not Ị̈ό̣ηϲαν Ïοί. But I defend the accentuation preserved in the new papyrus, Ïόι. This reading Ïόι (in the new P.GC inv. 105 fr. 2) differs from the reading Ïοι (PSI 123 and POxy. 1231). As I argue, we see here an emphatic use of the pronoun, âfor you,â not an enclitic use.
Nagy 2013a 1§§â¯26â28, 15§â¯44.
For the text here, I generally follow what is printed in Obbink 2016a, though I occasionally commit to one of two possible readings considered by the editor, as at line 11.
Nagy 2016: 450â452.
It is possible, of course, that [á½Î½]ίαν ⦠λύγÏαν is a genitive plural, not an accusative singular.
See further Nagy 1994â1995: 14; also already 1990: 42â44, 373â375, especially 42 n. 125.
Nagy 1996: 56.
Nagy 1994â1995: 15.
Nagy 1990: 339â381, taking into account the acute observations of Nehamas 1982.
Arist. Poet. 1448b17. Nagy 1990: 44.
Arist. Rh. 1371b9.
Nagy 1994â1995: 15â16.
Nagy 1990: 42â44.
Nagy 1994â1995: 16, following Nagy 1990: 42â44. See also Nagy 1996: 55â56.
Cf. Nehamas 1982.
Nagy 1990: 381.
Schein 1987: 246â247.
Gadamer 1975: 129.
Nagy 1994â1995: 18â19.
I think that the long a of laros in Homeric diction results from a kind of innovative poetic lengthening: see Nagy 2008: 34â35.
In chapter 14 of the 2016 New Sappho book, ââ¯âAll you Need is Loveâ: Some Thoughts on the Structure, Texture, and Meaning of the Brothers Song as well as on Its Relation to the Kypris Song (P. Sapph. Obbink),â Anton Bierl has already drawn attention to the association of Larichos with the adjective laros.
Ath. 10.425a.
Posidippus 122 AB, line 2, quoted in Ath. 13.596c. On this association of Charaxos and ÏαÏá½·ÎµÎ¹Ï âcharming,â see also Burris, Fish, and Obbink 2014: 24.
Nagy 2016: 489â491.
Quoted in Evans 1982: 112. Thanks to Adam Holland. See also Nagy 2004: 48.