Poem 9

My love invites

Welcome all not

Together we feast

In praise for Hera

Marriage she blossoms and dooms

But bless us she will, as long as

We dine to her glory

We drink to her beauty

We succumb to her power

 

Diagram takeaway:

After reading poem 31, I was able to separate the poem into three distinct categories that are all intertwined; love, power, and fear.

I was able to deduce that love has the godly power to do extraordinary things to a person. Like “put the heart in my chest on wings”, mute the tongue, blind the eyes, cause drumming in the ears, and make fire race under the skin. The breaking out in a cold sweat, and the feeling of death are also felt by the narrator who apparently fears the side effects of love. Love is a power wielded by people and causes great joy, but can also cause fear.

I was also able to imagine the ending of the poem as a book end to the beginning.  If the poem infers that man is equal to the gods when dealing in matters of love, then the end would justify the means of going through all these fluctuations in feelings and fear. We see this at the end of the poem; “but all is to be dared because even a person of poverty”, which I would then attempt to paraphrase what the ending could be if completed, ‘can wield the power of gods. All he needs to do is love and be loved.’

 

 

I found it incredibly difficult to truly understand the meaning behind any one poem fragment. What I did to alleviate the burden of rigorously breaking down the context of all fragments was to dissect ones that I thought could stand alone, but also look at the fragments as a whole.
Seeing the repetitive nature of the referencing of gods and goddesses, as well as nature and music, gives us an understanding of the beliefs and hobbies Sappho may have been interested in.

For example, in the first line her calling on Aphrodite the greek goddess of love, portrays that the rest of the poem would be about matters of love. I did this with some other fragments of Sappho’s writing as well to allow me to have some sort of direction while reading, but had most success with the first fragment.

In the first fragment, calling out to Aphrodite for help shows that Sappho believes in the power of gods and goddesses, and has “now again” reached out to Aphrodite before for her help. She shows her respect for Aphrodite by saying “o blessed one” and references the power and respect for Zeus when saying “left your fathers golden house and came”. She is obviously very respectful and believing in the gods and goddesses, something very common at the time, and the handing off of fate to the gods can be something that can be projected onto the remaining fragments.