Dialogue 04 Handout

[[Please read, on the Heroes website: two essays by Nagy -

"Lyric and Greek Myth" and "Homer and Greek Myth"]]

Key word for this dialogue: phainetai 'he / she appears' OR 'he / she appears in an epiphany'; a derivative of this word is phantasia, which in later Greek literature means 'fantasy', that is, 'imagined vision' or 'imagination'. The English word fantasy, derived from phantasia, implies a vision that is unreal. In earlier Greek literature, as we are about to see, there is no 'fantasy' about an epiphany. It is a vision that is felt as real, not unreal. An epiphany is the appearance of something divine, something that is understood to be absolutely real.

Passage (A) Song 31 of Sappho (translation by Nagy; for a more poetic rendition, see the version of Julia Dubnoff in Sourcebook):

phainetai moi kēnos īsos theoisin	He appears to me, that one, equal to the gods,
emmen' ōnēr ottis enantios toi	the man who, facing you,
isdanei kai plāsion ādu phōnei-	is seated and, up close, that sweet voice of yours
sās upakouei	he listens to
kai gelaisās īmeroen to m' ē mān	and how you laugh your charming laugh. Why, it
kardian en stēthesin eptoaisen	makes my heart flutter within my breast,
ōs gar es s' idō brokhe' ōs me phōnai-	since, the moment I look at you, right then, for me
s' oud' en et' eikei	to make any sound at all won't work any more.
alla kam men glōssa eāge lepton	My tongue has broken down and a delicate
d' autika khrōi pūr upadedromāken	- all of a sudden - fire rushes under my skin.
oppatessi d' oud' en orēmm' epirrom-	With my eyes I see not a thing, and there is a roar
beisi d' akouai	that my ears make.
kad de m' idrōs kakkheetai tromos de	Sweat pours down me and a trembling
paīsan agrei khlōrotera de poias	seizes all of me; paler than grass
emmi tethnakēn d' oligō 'pideuēs	am I, and a little short of death
phainom' em' aut[āi	do I appear to me.

We see here in Song 31 of Sappho the ritual world of a wedding. The "he" refers to the bridegroom, who is figured as a god at the moment of the singing of this song. It is as if a god has appeared at a wedding. In ritual terms, we see here an epiphany. The word kēnos 'that one', as we will see more clearly when we read Philostratus (in a later dialogue), actually signals the epiphany. The "you" who is being addressed by the speaker is female: she is the bride, who is figured as a goddess in her own right at the moment of singing this song. She is a "diva," to borrow a term used in the world of opera. The "I" who is speaking, also female, is the "diva" who sings the song, and she is "Sappho." The singer speaks for the whole group who is attending the wedding. And this singer, this female speaker, experiences an attraction to both the bridegroom and the bride. Or, we might say that she experiences an attraction to the attraction between the two. The attraction is both esthetic and erotic. It is a totalizing attraction, creating feelings of total connectedness. And this totalizing connectedness activates all the senses of the speaker, who experiences an "erotic meltdown." The feelings come to a climax described as just one moment away from death. That is the way the speaker 'seems' to herself. What is 'seeming' on one level is an epiphany on another level. She has an epiphany to herself. The speaker experiences fusion with divinity, and this fusion is not only esthetic but also erotic. I think it is too simple to say that this is an auto‑erotic moment: it is an auto‑epiphany.

Such a moment, when the bridegroom is the god and the bride is the goddess, is signaled by the epithet (ornamental adjective) isos theoisin 'equal to the gods' in line 1 of the song.

In the previous dialogue, we have seen a similar epithet in Song 44 of Sappho, featuring Andromache and Hector as bride and bridegroom; they are described by the epithet theoeikeloi 'equal to the gods' at their wedding. This song is an example of "epic" as refracted in women's songmaking traditions: further discussion by G. Nagy, Homeric Questions (UTexas Press 1996) p. 57 [not required reading for the course].

Passage (B) = repeating Passage G of Dialogue 03: Song 44 of Sappho ("The Wedding of Hector and Andromache"):

Compare the kleos aphthiton 'unwilting glory' of the bride and the bridegroom here with the kleos aphthiton 'unwilting glory' of Achilles in Iliad IX 413:

Passage (C) = repeating Passage A of Dialogue 02, Iliad IX 410-416:

My mother Thetis tells me that there are two ways in which I may meet my end [telos]. If I stay here and fight, I shall lose my safe homecoming [nostos] but I will have a glory [kleos] that is unwilting: whereas if I go home my glory [kleos] will die, but it will be a long time before the outcome [telos] of death shall take me.

Here the main hero of the Iliad leaves as his signature the kleos of his own epic, which turns out to be the Iliad. The kleos aphthiton 'unwilting glory' of Achilles here in Iliad IX is matched by the kleos aphthiton 'unwilting glory' of Hector and Andromache in Song 44 of Sappho. In one case, the context is a wedding. In the other case, the context is war. At the climax of the wedding, the bride and groom are transformed into gods - for the moment of that climax. At the climactic moment of war, the warrior is transformed into a god - for the moment of that climax.

There are other matches between Achilles on one side and Hector and Andromache on the other. Here I return to the epithet theoeikeloi 'like to the gods', applied to Hector and Andromache in Song 44 of Sappho, is an epithet reserved for Achilles in the Iliad. So the doomed couple and the doomed Achilles are all part of one song, one kleos. That is the kleos that Sappho's song is recreating.

Here I return to a topic that came up in the previous dialogue.

It has to do with Passage E = Iliad VI 404-432 in Dialogue 03É

When Andromache laments the death of her father, whose name is E‘tion, we begin to understand the deep irony of the reference to the lyre of Achilles in Passage C of Dialogue 02, Iliad IX 186-191. There we see Achilles playing on the lyre that once belonged to E‘tion, the father of Andromache. In a way, he is playing on the pain of Andromache. What a metonymy! And what is he playing, what is he performing? He is performing klea andr™n, the 'glories of heroes of the past' (Iliad IX 189). And there is a vitally important parallel. When Phoenix tells Achilles the micro-narrative about the hero Meleager and his wife Cleopatra, the old man is likewise performing klea andr™n, the 'glories of heroes of the past' (Iliad IX 524). And what is the point of that micro-narrative? Here is one way to answer that question: the point is the meaning of Cleopatra herself, of her name, which has to do with the 'glories of the ancestors', the 'glories of heroes of the past'.

Since Song 44 of Sappho is about a wedding, it is important to consider the traditional wording that was used about brides in weddings. That word is numphē, which means both 'bride' (as in Iliad XVIII 492) and 'goddess', that is, 'nymph' (as in Iliad XXIV 616). By implication, the ritual occasion of a wedding, as formalized in a bridal song, collapses the distinction between 'bride' and 'goddess'. The same can be said about the distinction between 'bridegroom' and 'god'.

The ideal bridegroom of Sappho's songs is parallel to the ideal warrior of the Homeric Iliad. As I argue in my essay "Lyric and Greek Myth," as posted on the Heroes website, Achilles can be imagined as the ideal bridegroom / warrior in *both* traditions.

Passage (D) Further relevant extracts from Sappho:

fr. 105b. "Sappho compared the girl to an apple....she compared the bridegroom to Achilles, and likened the young man's deeds to the hero's." - Himerius Orations 1.16.

fr. 115. To what shall I compare you, dear bridegroom? | To a slender shoot, I most liken you.

Let us return to the subject of the idealized bridegroom - or let us say male lover - and the idealized warrior. As we can see in Song 1 of Sappho, love and war can be estheticized - and eroticized - together. The female speaker of Song 1 of Sappho becomes identified with Aphrodite and becomes her 'ally in war'.

Passage (E) Song 1 of Sappho = Prayer to Aphrodite:

You with pattern-woven flowers, immortal Aphrodite, | child of Zeus, weaver of wiles, I implore you,| do not devastate with aches and sorrows,| Mistress, my heart! | But come here, if ever at any other time | hearing my voice from afar, | you heeded me, and leaving the palace of your father, | golden, you came, | having harnessed the chariot; and you were carried along by beautiful | swift sparrows over the dark earth | swirling with their dense plumage from the sky through the | midst of the aether, | and straightaway they arrived. But you, O holy one, | smiling with your immortal looks, | kept asking what is it once again this time [dēute] that has happened to me and for what reason | once again this time [dēute] do I invoke you, | and what is it that I want more than anything to happen | to my frenzied heart? "Whom am I once again this time [dēute] to persuade, | setting out to bring her to your love? Who is doing you, | Sappho, wrong? | For if she is fleeing now, soon she will give chase. | If she is not taking gifts, soon she will be giving them. | If she does not love, soon she will love | even against her will." | Come to me even now, and free me from harsh | anxieties, and however many things | my heart yearns to get done, you do for me. You | become my ally in war.

Here is a celebrated case of a song as a speech-act (in this case, a prayer). The main themes of this song are sorrow and love, both at the same time.

For those who are interested in coincidental parallels in American popular culture, here is an example:

Now, back to Sappho...

Essential for understanding Song 1 of Sappho is the concept of repetition, as expressed by the adverb dēute 'once again'. I repeat the words of Kierkegaard (Repetition, 1843): "The dialectic of repetition is easy, for that which is repeated has been - otherwise it could not be repeated - but the very fact that it has been makes the repetition into something new."

Note the identification of the speaker with the goddess. It happens within the quotation marks, starting with "Whom am I once again this timeÉ" and ending with "É soon she will love | even against her will." At that point, the "I" of Sappho becomes the "I" of Aphrodite, while the "you" of Aphrodite becomes the "you" of Sappho.

Similarly, the epithet theoeikeloi 'like to the gods' is applied to the bride and the bridegroom in Sappho's Song 44 about the wedding of Hector and Andromache; and the epithet isos theoisin 'equal to the gods' is applied to the bridegroom in Sappho's Song 31.

What happens at a climactic moment in a wedding, that is, the equation of the mortal with the immortal, can happen at a climactic moment in war. The ritual occasion of war collapses the distinction between 'warrior' and 'war god' (god of martial fury) - but only at the precise moment when the warrior comes face-to-face with his own martial death. Epic records that moment with the expression "equal to a daimōn". We will see examples in the dialogue that follows.

Here I introduce an important concept for which there is no single word in English. The concept is captured by the Greek word mimesis, which refers to the process of re‑enactment in sacred space.

What you re-enact is myth, how you re-enact is ritual. I have more to say on myth and ritual in my article "The Epic Hero."

For now it is enough for me to say this much: myth (including epic, which is myth in the anthropological sense of the word "myth") is framed by ritual - the ritual of performance.

You can re-enact not just by acting but also by telling. In epic, you are telling the narrative. In lyric, you are (ordinarily) acting it - or, better, re-enacting it.

But there is a great deal of overlap in the ancient Greek song culture. Telling an epic is also acting, in a positive sense. Solo acting. Acting a lyric is also implicitly telling a narrative, again in a positive sense.

Here is an example of the ritual practice of equating the prima donna / prima ballerina with a goddess. It is in the Partheneion or 'Maidens' Song' of Alcman. I already quoted a small part of this song in Passage D of Dialogue 03. Here I quote a larger part from the same song.

Passage (F) From the Partheneion 'Maidens' Song' of Alcman:

And I sing the radiance of Agido, as I look upon her like the sun, which Agido summons to shine as witness. But for me to praise her or blame her is not possible, as the illustrious khorēgos [Hagesikhora] does not allow me. For that one [Hagesikhora] appears radiantly outstanding, as when someone sets among grazing beasts a horse, well-built, a prize-winner, with thundering hooves, from out of those dreams underneath the rock.

Note the equation of the prima donna / prima ballerina with the sun.

Here I add as a "coda" the first stanza of Song 16 of Sappho

Passage (G) Song 16 of Sappho, stanza 1

oi men ippēōn stroton oi de pesdōn

oi de nāōn phais' epi gān melainan

emmenai kalliston egō de kēn' ot-

tō tis erātai

Some say an army of horsemen,

some of footsoldiers, some of ships,

is the fairest thing on earth,

but I say it is what one loves.