4. Some Major Fragments: Fragments 1, 2, 5, 16, 17, 31, 58, and 95
So far I have provided positive arguments why certain fragments of Sappho probably were composed for choral presentations. In the following paragraphs, dealing with some of the other major fragments, I will allow myself more latitude. I will reverse Page's "natural supposition" and consider if there is any evidence or indication that these songs may have been performed with the help of choruses.
Fragment 1 was most probably sung by Sappho herself or by someone impersonating her: her name is mentioned in line 20. It is possible, however, that she was accompanied by a group of dancers, just as in fragment 94. West has argued that Sappho deliberately left the name of her beloved unmentioned so the song could be performed on different occasions.[72] This certainly would depersonalize the song. It would also lend special significance to the idea of the repetition of her love feelings in the poem (with every new performance there is the pretense of a new love).[73]
[71] Fr. 94 has been identified as a "farewell song," which involves memories of previously shared experiences: see most recently Rauk, "Erinna's Distaff ."
[72] West, "Burning Sappho" 310.
Fragment 2 is an obvious candidate for a choral performance either by the chorus itself or by Sappho and her chorus. If 
(hither ... to this temple) is the correct reading in line 1, and there seems to be no better alternative,[74] we are probably present at a real shrine, however dreamlike this shrine is subsequently represented.[75] Athenaeus quotes the final lines of our fragment: "Come, Cypris, pouring gracefully into golden cups nectar that is mingled with our festivities,"[76] and adds what appears to be an adaptation of Sappho's subsequent line: "for these my companions and yours" (
). If this was still part of Sappho's poem, the hetairai associated with the speaker were probably present at the scene as well.[77] We might add that lines 13f., about Aphrodite pouring nectar for the participants in the festivities, is reminiscent of fragment 96.26f., where the speaker, whom I identified as a chorus, remembers how Aphrodite poured nectar for them and for Atthis.[78] On the basis of some broad similarities I would argue for a similar interpretation of fragment 17 (the so-called "Hymn to Hera"). Here the singers may be mentioned in line 14 (
).[79] These two fragments together with fragment 140a (the Adonis hymn) suggest that at least some of Sappho's (choral) poetry was composed for ritual occasions, not unlike Alcman's partheneia.
In fragment 5, a poem about her brother Charaxus, Sappho uses, after an initial 
(? l. 1), the first-person plural (
; 7), probably to include
[74] See Page, Sappho and Alcaeus 36; see ad loc. Voigt, Sappho et Alcaeus , and Campbell, Creek Lyric vol. 1.
[75] Page, Sappho and Alcaeus 42, and Merkelbach, "Sappho und ihr Kreis" 28: contra West, "Burning Sappho" 317; McEvilley, "Sappho Fragment Two"; and Burnett, Three Archaic Poets 261 f.
the other members of her family and/or her friends.[80] If the poem is a propemptikon or "send-off" poem, as several scholars have suggested,[81] it is almost certainly performed in public.[82] I believe that this song was sung by Sappho (or someone impersonating her) in public, while her chorus danced. The philoi included in 
in line 7 may refer to these dancers or to members of Sappho's family in the audience.[83]
Fränkel already identified fragment 16 as possibly a choral song.[84] Its opening priamel, followed by a mythical example and praise of the "laudanda," resembles the structure of Pindar's epinikia .[85] Hallett added that the isolation of a few distinctive features (Anactoria's step and face in ll. 17, 18) resembles the individual compliments paid to the chorus members in Alcman's first partheneion.[86] Segal, finally, observed that the desire of the
[81] Merkelbach, "Sappho und ihr Kreis" 24 n. 1; Bowra, Greek Lyric Poetry 210; and Snyder, The Woman and the Lyre 17-18. Governi, "Su alcuni elementi propemptici," has adduced parallels from greetings and farewell scenes both in Homer (Od . 6.180, 184-85; 8.461; 15-111-12, 128) and in other Greek poetry (Theog. 691-92) for several lines in the poem (3-4, 6-7).
[83] Ft. 2o appears to derive from a similar song. In fr. 15, Sappho strikes a more critical note about her brother. If this is meant as a satirical poem, as I assume, its delivery is again best pictured in public where it would have effect. The same holds true for those poems in which she vilifies her rivals or girls who went to them: frs. 57, 68a, 71, 131, 133a, 144, 155, 178 (?), 213. I do not exclude the possibility that some of the figures mentioned in this poetry are poetic personae, similar to the stock characters presented in Archilochus's iambics (on which see West, Studies 25-28, and Nagy, Pindar's Homer 430-31.
[84] Fränkel, Early Greek Poetry 172.
[85] For a detailed comparison, see Howie, "Sappho Fr. 16," esp. 209-14. The sirnilarity was already noted by Fränkel, "Eine Stileigenheit" 90 f., and Early Greek Poetry 186; and Bundy, Studia Pindarica 5-6. Stern's objection ("Sappho Fr. 16" 349), that the priamel is voiced too personally for choral poetry, is answered by Bundy (6 n. 19), if Pindars epinikia are choral (see n. 1 above).
speaker in this fragment to make her observations "known to every one" (
Fragment 31 can go either way. The poem certainly contains a great number of first-person singular statements, but these could refer to a chorus as well as a soloist. The emotions described can be summarized by what Alcman's chorus says about its chorus leader: 
(she wears me out; fr. 1.77).[88]
Just as in this partheneion or in Sappho fragment 96, a triangle is set up between the speaker, the girl she is in love with, and a third person with whom the girl is involved (in this case a man). Note, for example, the structural opposition between that man, who "appears to be the equal of the gods" (
1-2a), and the speaker, who in lines 15-16 "appears to be little short of dying" (
). This echo, already noted by Wilamowitz, contradicts Winkler's assertion that the man is "not an actor in the imagined scene."[89] Better Snyder: "[the man is] a foil for the exposition of the speaker's feelings; he is calmly 'godlike' in response to the woman's sweet talk and charming laugh, whereas the speaker, in the same situation, is instantly struck dumb."[90] Both in Alcman fragment 1 and in Sappho fragment 31 the rivals for the affection of the beloved are compared to gods (Alcman fr. 1.41, Sappho fr. 31.1) and they are together with the beloved (Alcman fr. 1.78-79, Sappho fr. 31.3-4), while the speakers are unable to be in her presence. In both poems the speakers are also resigned to this fact. (Sappho fr. 31 continues in l. 17 with the words "but all can be endured," 
.)
As for the occasion on which this song was performed, I would not want to exclude the possibility that it was sung at a wedding, as Wilamowitz
[87] Segal, "Eros and Incantation" 64. Burnett, Three Archaic Poets 285 n. 19, adduces two parallels for the expression, one from a Pindaric hyporchema (fr. 105a.1 Maehler) and one from an epinikion of Bacchylides (ft. 3.85).
[89] Winkler, "Double Consciousness" 179. See Wilamowitz, Sappho grid Simonides 57 (cf. Robbins, "Every Time I Look At You" 259).
declared.[91] The opening line is certainly reminiscent of the traditional makarismos of the groom.[92] Most modern interpreters, starting with Page, have discredited this view. Page's main objection is that it would be inappropriate for Sappho (or, presumably, any other speaker) to speak about the intensity of her passions for a bride on her wedding day, but this could be our modern sensitivity.[93] In fragment 112 of Sappho a chorus describes a bride in very glowing terms, and when it says that "eros streams over her desirable face" (
) it is by no means clear that this is supposed to have an effect on her husband only.[94] Snyder objects that "a wedding song must have chiefly to do with the bride and the groom, not with the speaker's passion for one of them," but as Most remarks: "It is in fact the beauty of the unnamed girl that is the burden of the poem and the justification for its composition and performance: every detail Sappho provides is designed to testify, not to the poet's susceptibility, but to the girl's seductiveness."[95] In
[91] Wilamowitz, Sappho und Simonides 58. He was followed by Snell, "Sapphos Gedicht" 82; Schadewaldt, Sappho 98; Merkelbach, "Sappho und ihr Kreis" 6; Fränkel Early Greek Poetry 176; and Lasserre, "Ornements érotiques" 22. Welcker, "Oden" 89-90, already suggested that this poem "veranlasst ist durch die Heirath einer geliebten Schülerin," and "es mag auch eine Huldigung, Preis der Schönheit in dem hohen Ausdruck dieses Entzückens versteckt sehn" ("[this poem] is occasioned by the marriage of a favorite pupil," and "there may also be a celebration, praise of beauty hidden behind the intense expression of her enchantment"). Winkler, "Double Consciousness" 178-80, compares Sappho fr. 31 to Od . 6.158-61 (Odysseus's praise of Nausicaa), which in turn has been compared to a wedding song (Hague, "Ancient Greek Wedding Songs" 136-38).
[93] Page, Sappho and Alcatus 30ff. This was also noted by Merkelbach, "Sappho und ihr Kreis" 9, and Segal "Eros and Incantation" 69 n. 19: "we know too little of what conventions on archaic Lesbos would or would not have permitted." There is some evidence to suggest that a bride might be expected to be the object of widespread erotic admiration at ancient Greek weddings: see Seaford, Reciprocity and Ritual 36 n. 25.
[94] Segal, "Eros and Incantation" 69, already drew the parallel between fr. 112 and fr. 31.
Alcman's partheneia and in Sappho fragment 112 the women are similarly praised through a declaration of the effect their beauty has on the speaker. Fragment 31, whether performed at a wedding or not, is really an enkomion .[96]
Fragment 58 is generally not considered one of the major fragments, but it is significant because, like fragments 21 and 22, it is suggestive of exchanges between Sappho (or another soloist) and the chorus. Line 11 mentions paides with beautiful gifts, either of the deep- or violet-bosomed Muses.[97] The speaker (a woman) says that she is overcome by old age and no longer able to do like the young fawns (probably to dance).[98] A similar-looking poem is preserved among Alcman's fragments. Here the speaker (Alcman himself, according to Antigonus, who preserved the fragment) addresses a group of "honey-tongued, holy-voiced girls," telling them that "his limbs no longer can carry" him.[99] I believe that Sappho in this fragment conjures up the same image and that the paides of line 11 make up the chorus that is dancing while she (or another performer) is singing.[100]
[96] Lasserre, "Ornements érotiques" 23, who argues that frs. 47 and 130 were part of similar enkomia , and further notes that the "I" person in these poems has more in common with the speaker in choral than in monodic poetry (7 n. 6, 21; cf. Nagy, Pindar's Homer 371). Burnett, Three Archaic Poets 235, and Race, " 'That Man' in Sappho fr. 31" 98-101, compare fr. 31 to Pindar's encomium for Theoxenus (fr. 123 Maehler), where there is also a third person who "meets the liquid glance that gleams from Theoxenus's eye and fails to swell with passion," whereas the speaker, I, "like wax in sun's high heat melt" (Burnett's translation). Compare also Odysseus's words to Nausicaa in Od . 6.160-61, which, just as Pindar's, are not intended as a declaration of love but as praise.
[97] See Di Benedetto, "Il tema della vecchiaia" 147-48, and Voigt, Sappho et Alcaeus ad loc. It is not unlikely that this line constitutes the actual beginning of the poem: Di Benedetto 147; Gallavotti, Saffo e Alceo 1:113. Page, Sappho and Alcaeus 129, also starts the poem on this line.
Fragment 95 portrays a conversation Sappho (or another woman) had with a woman in the past (probably Gongyla, whose name is mentioned in l. 4). This situation is reminiscent of fragment 94 and it may have been performed under similar circumstances.[101]
Most of these reconstructions are only suggestions. Ultimately it is impossible to prove that a particular song was sung by a chorus or by Sappho herself, with or without the help of choral dancers, but I hope to have shown that a choral performance of these songs is at least a serious possibility.