Sappho 6
He seems to me to be equal to the gods,
that man who sits across from you
and listens close at hand
to your sweet voice
and lovely laughter. Truly it sets
my hear to pounding in my breast,
for the moment I glance at you, I can
no longer speak;
my tongue grows numb; at once a subtle
fire runs stealthily beneath my skin;
my eyes see nothing, my ears
ring and buzz,
the sweat pours down, a trembling
seizes the whole of me, I turn paler
than grass, and I seem to myself
not far from dying.
But everything can be endured, because...
In this fragment, Sappho is describing a situation where she is
watching a woman she is interested in with a very attractive man.
She describes him as “equal to the gods” and he seems to be quite
interested in the woman, since he listens closely to her. As a
result, she sees him as heavy competition for the love of the other
woman. According to Carson, the competition from the man makes the
woman more attractive because it is more of a challenge to obtain her
love. Carson says that we generally want what we can't have and
everything that we can have easily is less attractive to us. Even if
this woman was extremely attractive physically and had a good
personality, Sappho would only be mildly interested in her if she was
easy to get, since that would make her boring.
Anacreon 13
Once again Love has beaten me like a blacksmith
with a great hammer and dipped me into a wintry torrent.
In this fragment, Anacreon is talking about the cycles of love.
In the beginning, you are beaten around like a piece of raw metal by
a blacksmith. Love and passion mess with your emotions and who you
are. They change you constantly, molding you into a new person, the
product of a volatile environment of pure emotion. You have little
control over what happens, since the blacksmith of emotion is in
control. After the relationship is over, you feel cold inside. The
flame of love has been extinguished and you are thrown into a wintry
torrent. It is shockingly cold because of the sudden change, a lack
of love and passion. Before, you were consumed by your love for the
other person, but now you feel empty inside. This shows the concept
of “sweetbitter” from Carson. Initially, the relationship is
going well and you enjoy the sweetness of love. Even though the
relationship is sweet when you are gripped with passion for your
lover, the sweetness always is accompanied with bitterness after the
relationship is over and you no longer have any love.
I like how you're expanding on these images here, and I think you do that to great effect in your reading of Anacreon. With Sappho, I felt that you were a bit speculative - is this just saying that women are more attractive when they are unavailable? Turn back to Carson's reading, as here especially she's on point. Think about the man as a *figure* of the impediment of desire, and what literary function that plays.
ReplyDelete