sappho - sex

• Loeb 2 - Come to me, leave Crete behind!


  Multi-sensory natural language evocative of sex - “cold water sings” “whole place covered with the shadows of roses”

  
  

  Asks Aph to “pour, gracefully” “nectar” into “golden wine cups”-> metaphor for seduction + her sexual needs she asks Aph to satisfy
• Sappho 24a - You will remember 


  “You will remember what we did when we were young”

  “Many beautiful things”

  Euphemistic + vague, certainty of “you” suggests the experience she discusses is instantly recognisable
• Loeb 30 - May the maidens sing


  “And of your bride, adorned with violets” - violets will be taken off, bride deflowered literally and metaphorically
• Loeb 94 - Honestly, I want to die!


  “Go, farewell and remember me / For you know that we both looked after you” - explicitly sexual, a selfish sexual relationship

  “No…/Or sacred space…/From which we stayed away.” - all consuming relationships, used every opportunity to see each other. Surpassing any religious concern.
• Loeb 94 - Honestly, I want to die 


  Asks the woman to "remember" a sexual memory -> “Remember all the wreaths you placed around your head, violets, roses, crocuses”, “You placed around your lovely neck”, “You anointed yourself as if you were a queen

  “And on a soft bed../You satisfy your desire “ - passionate, closest Sapoho gets to describing homoerotic sex. “Satisfy” from the Greek “let loose”
• Loeb 96 - Often she turned her thoughts here 


  Yonic imagery describing a sexual encounter - describes how “the beautiful dew falls” and the blooming of the “roses”, “chervil” and “melliot”.

  “She remembers gentle Atthis and the longing consumes her flighty soul” - an Athenian princess who died a virgin, perhaps desiring not to do the same and seek sex once more
• Loeb 104a - Hesperus!


  “You bring back the child to its mother” - yearning for her youth/virginity
• Loeb 105a - Just like the sweet apple


  Young girl compared to an “apple” which is meant to be consumed, sole purpose of this girl is sex
• Loeb 105c - Just like the hyacinth


  Aftermath of the taking of virginity. Women are “trodden” on - discarded after sex.

  Flower remains but decrepit
• Loeb 110 - the doorkeeper


  Smutty humour - skirts around the point (marital sex)

  “The doorkeeper has size twenty-seven feet” - mocking, he has big feet because he has heard the goings on and has become aroused
• Loeb 111 - Raise the roof 


  The groom is “like Ares, bigger by far than the biggest man” - hyperbolic, highlights the groom’s ability to get aroused (CRUDE JOKE)

  Sex seems an intimidating prospect for girls
• Loeb 114 - Virginity


  An apostrophe - a lament for their virginity, virginity almost like a lost lover. -> “Virginity, virginity, where have you gone? You left me behind”

  Speaker is worse now without their virginity, not a celebration of sex.
• Loeb 130 - Love which loosens the limbs


  Love “loosens the limbs” has a sexual connotation, freedom that comes within sex
• Loeb 137 


  Sexual shame - “I want to say something, but a sense of shame holds me back”, vagueness = taboo

  Shy to say, but reveals themselves in body language - “a look of shame would not be in your eyes” if they wanted to say something “noble or beautiful" -> Sappho is not interested in sexual behaviour that is not noble/beautiful.

  Sappho listening to body language - more concerned with physicality
• Loeb 168b - Gone are the moon and the Pleiades 


  Sappho is not having sex, yet craving it.

  “In the middle of the night, time passes, and I sleep alone”

  “Gone are the moon and the Pleiades” -> Moon is linked to female sexuality, Pleiades are a star cluster named after the seven nymphs who have a lot of sex