Poem 18 Revision  

Pan

to tell [ you the truth my,

tongue [ has been blessed by the gods

to tell tales [ of your epic odyssey

and for a man

greater [ than a god you will be described as.

Diagram Takeaway

I feel that someone she is in love with does not even notice her presence and she is very heartbroken. She has a friend she is talking to possibly trying to get advice on when or will the person notice her. I think this because she states “cold sweat holds me and shaking grips me all” this sounds to me like she melts when thinking of him. I diagrammed it in flow chart  to represent her feelings from beginning to end. After drawing this diagram I was able to better understand her deep emotion for her partner that she expressed.

I have two strategies for reading fragments of Sappho poems. The first one is to know her background so you can better interpret her poems though her frame of reference. I tried to understand her frame of reference from orator Libanius saying she is a lesbian. Even though that’s pretty general it helps me understand her poems that are written about her affection towards women, When she refers about women she does not mean it in a friendship, but as lovers. Doing further research about Sappho’s life she is recognized as a symbol of love and desire between woman. My second strategies was looking for patterns in the text. I was looking for words that have more then one meaning or in common or repeating, for example; On page 29 there is also a pattern with the words step and motion because both is the first actions of war, chariot and footsoldiers are a part of a war. Also page 43 I see the pattern of Hermione , Helen, women all have the same thing in common feminine words and then the word you is repeated to talk about a woman. The words Desire and all night long are used in the lines that gives me a clear indication of her love for women in a sexual manner. To make sense of the fragments i would combine the lines that contained the patterned words to form a more descriptive sentence than if read alone. I combined the lines for when I look at you /such a Hermione/ and to yellowhaired Helen I liken you. By combining these lines the word “you” can be defined as a female who looks like Hermione or a yellowhaired Helen.