ODE TO LOVE

When the ancient Greeks spoke of 'the poetess', they meant Sappho, in exactly the same way that they meant Homer when they spoke of 'the poet'. She was a truly dominating presence in ancient poetry, not so much because of the autobiographical character of her poems, but mainly because the songs she wrote reveal a sensitivity to the finest, an aspiration towards 'the best', and a definition of 'the most beautiful'. This eternal human yearning is transformed by Sappho into clear, direct questions, by which the object of human happiness is measured and defined.

In the poem that follows, the concept of the most beautiful is embodied in the figure of Helen, who is vindicated by the poetess, on the grounds that she was following the dictates of Aphrodite. The poem thus develops from an encomium of beauty to a confession of belief in love in its broadest and most free dimension, since whatever a person loves is defined as 'the most beautiful'.

   'Some think a gallant navy on the sea,
And some a host of foot or horse, to be
God's fairest thing; but I declare
the one we love more fair.


   Right easy is the proof, that all may know
How true my saying is, for Helen, though
Much mortal beauty she might scan
judged him the fairest man,


   Who in the dust Troy's majesty defiled
Nor rather of her parents dear and child
Had thought, but Cypris-led, astray
cherished an ill love's way;


   For nowise hard is woman's will to sway
If from home thoughts she lightly turn away.
So now far Anactoria be
in memory nigh to thee!


   Whose sweet foot-fall I would more gladly hear,
And the bright glory of her face see near,
Than Lydian chariots in the field
and foot with spear and shield.


   Full well we know that mortals may not fare
In all things well: albeit to crave a share
In what is well is not denied
if Heaven be on our side.'


   C.R. Haines, Sappho, Poems and Fragments, pp.89-90