2. The Instruction Given in Sappho's Group

In Sappho's group, there is no doubt about the didactic relationship between the poet and her companions. For instance, speaking of the famous fragment in which Sappho tells the recipient of the poem that she will disappear and leave no trace in the memory of men if she has not taken part in the "roses of Pieria," in other words in the musical activity of Sappho's circle, Plutarch says that the woman addressed was among those who were amousai and amatheis , strangers to music and ignorant. It is not only significant that it is Plutarch, with his great interest in pedagogy, who quotes this fragment and who sees that Sappho's circle offered a form of instruction and education by frequenting the Muses. But it has to be pointed out that inside Sappho's group, the memorial function of poetry, current in archaic Greece, takes on a specific role: it is only through poetry itself that the beauty acquired through musical activity will gain a kind of afterlife and that the educated girl will keep it, despite the destructions of time, in the memory of the persons performing the poem that praises her.^[17]

Other fragments by the Lesbian poet refer to this pedagogical aspect by characterizing young girls who were not in her circle but in a rival group or were about to join to her circle as ignorant and ungracious.^[18] As I mentioned already, the biographical section of the Suda itself names three mathetriai , three pupils of Sappho, and the khoregos who conducts the young gifts as they sing for Aphrodite is called didaskalos , the mistress. This relationship between master and pupil is identical to that between the khoregos and the khoreutai , according to the lexicographers. Finally a new fragment of commentary on Sappho's poems clearly describes the poet in her role as educator (paideuousa ); the commentator adds that this education was not only for gifts of good family (tas aristas ) in Lesbos, but also those who came from Ionia.^[19] But what was

[17] Sappho fr. 55 V.; see Plut. Mor . 646e-f and Stob. 3.4.12 (pros apaideuton gunaika ): on this subject see Snell, "Zur Soziologie des archaischen Griechentums" 54 ff. On the memorial function of Sappho's poems, see Burnett, Three Archaic Poets 277 ff., and Gentili, Poesia e pubblico 116 ff.

[18] Sappho frs. 49, 130.3 f., 57 V.

[19] Suda under Sappho (S 107 Adler) = Sappho test. 253 V.; see frs. 16, 15, 95.4 V.; Philostr. Imag . 2.11 = Sappho test. 217 V. See above, § 1; P. Colon. 5860 a, b = Sappho fr. S 261A P.; see Gronewald, "Fragmente" 114 ff.

the content of the education given by the poet as instructor to the young aristocratic gifts of her group?

If music seems to be the essence of the education Spartan gifts received in choruses led by poets such as Alcman, we must remember that neither music nor dance were ends in themselves in Greece; they are the means of communicating by performing and assimilating by mimesis a precise set of contents. By reciting the poems composed by their masters the poets , the khoreutai learn and internalize a series of myths and rules of behavior; moreover, archaic choral poetry has to be understood as a per-formative art, as a set of poems functioning as cult acts in precise ritual contexts. But examining the content of the musical instruction in a cultic context of performance leads to the question of its function, of its pragmatics: what was the aim of the instruction received in the chorus of young gifts? For what would this instruction prepare the chorus members?

As far as Sappho's group is concerned, we see with numerous interpreters of this poetry that most descriptions of the poet and her advice bear on the themes of feminine grace and beauty. The life of Sappho's companions unfolded almost completely under the sign of Aphrodite, in an atmosphere and in a setting represented on the mythical level by the famous gardens of the goddess.^[20] From a pedagogical point of view, Sappho's circle looks like a sort of school for femininity destined to make the young pupils into accomplished women: through the performance of song, music, and cult act, they had lessons in comportment and elegance, reflected in the many descriptions of feminine adornment and attitudes in the fragments that we have by Sappho.^[21]

So Atthis, according to the Suda one of Sappho's three dearest companions, was a very young and graceless child (smikra pals k'akharis ) before joining the group; two sources that cite the fragment specify that "graceless" in this context meant a girl not yet old enough to be married, not yet nubile.^[22] Physical grace thus became the mark of nubility; by being in Sappho's chorus the young girl acquires the grace that will make her a beautiful woman, which in turn clears the way for marriage. Consequently, possessing kharis signifies gaining the status of adult and the possibility of being a wife, in the same way

[20] Sappho fr. 2 V. See Schadewaldt, Sappho 25 ff.; Merkelbach, "Sappho und ihr Kreis" 25 ff.; Lanata, "Sul linguaggio amoroso" 68 ff.; Barilier, "La figure d'Aphrodite" 27 ff.; Burnett, Three Archaic Poets 217 ff.; Gentili, Poesia e pubblico 115 ff.; and, specifically for the signification of the gardens, Calame, I Greci 132 ff.

[21] Sappho frs. 22.9 ff., 81.4 f., 94.12 ff. V., etc.

[22] Sappho fr. 49 V. See Plut. Mor . 751d (ten oupo gamon echousan horan ) and scholia Pind. Pyth . 2.42 (II, p. 44 Drachmann).

as "beauty" made the young followers of the cult of Helen at Therapne into women ready for marriage.

And when Andromeda, Sappho's rival, tries to take away young Atthis, the poet attacks her cruelly by describing her dressed as a peasant, a rustic (agroïotis ).^[23] If "rustic" means simply an exterior lack of elegance, it nevertheless has an impact on the status of the woman described in this way. The status conferred on a girl by Sappho's education is therefore distinguished from the state of ignorance and uncouthness of the child without instruction or the protégée of one of Sappho's rivals, in the same way as "culture" differs from "nature." The education received in Sappho's circle moves the young gift from the uncouthness and lack of culture of early adolescence protected by Artemis to the condition of the educated woman capable of inspiring the love embodied by Aphrodite; it leads her from a state of savagery to civilization. If the companion of Atthis is described by Sappho when she returns to Lydia after her time in the group as shining among the women (gunaikessin : no longer among the gifts) of her region like the moon among the stars, it is because the education she has undergone on Lesbos has given her divine beauty, and that through the songs and dances (molpai ) performed by Atthis herself. The reference to Aphrodite, guessed at in the final mutilated verses of the poem, as well as the comparison with the moon with its connotations of bodily liquids and ripeness, suggests that the girl is now an accomplished woman, probably married.^[24]

The education of Sappho in her group prepared young girls to be adult, married women by teaching feminine charm and beauty. The poet's connections with marriage are confirmed by the numerous fragments of epithalamia transmitted by quotations, or by a poem such as the one describing the wed-dang of Hektor and Andromache, which some interpreters would like to be itself an hymenaion.^[25] This is apparent again in a passage by Himerius, who paraphrases a poem very certainly by Sappho and shows the poet herself preparing a nuptial chamber for the newly married couple;^[26] young gifts are arranged there—probably gifts from Sappho's circle who form a chorus to celebrate the couple—and a statue of Aphrodite is brought along together

[23] Sappho fr. 57 V.; see fr. 131 as well as fr. 81 V.

[24] Sappho fr. 96 V., to be compared with fr. 55 V., where the girl who has not had her part of the roses of Pieria, in other words Sappho's education, will die unknown and undistinguished (aphanes ); on the connotations of the moon in this poem, see Burnett, Three Archaic Poets 304 ff.

[25] Sappho frs. 104-17 V.; on the epithalamia of Sappho see Page, Sappho and Alcaeus 72 ff., 112 ff.; Galame, Les chœurs 1:161 n. 230; and Lasserre, Sappho 17 ff. See fr. 44 V., with the interpretations given a. o. by Rösler, "Ein Gedicht" 275 ff., and summarized by Lasserre, Sappho 83 ff.

[26] Himer. Or . 9.4 = Sappho test. 194 V. On this subject see Meerwaldt, "Epithalamia" 19 ff.

with figures representing the Graces and a chorus of Erotes . The preparation of the nuptial chamber was preceded in Himerius's description by a celebration of rites in honor of Aphrodite (Aphrodites orgia, agonas ) during which Sappho herself sang to the sound of the lyre. Even if we cannot know exactly what these rites were, constant reference to the goddess of love shows that the ritual was under the same sign as the values taught by the poet. Thus the acquisition of these same abilities by Sappho's pupils was vindicated in the context of marriage. The education they received aimed at developing in adolescents all the qualities required in women—specifically, young wives. It concerned those aspects of marriage under Aphrodite's protection, namely sensuality and sexuality rather than conjugal fidelity and wife's tasks, which were under the domain of Hera and Demeter. However, this education was not addressed to the same public as the Spartan system of education. Sappho's circle welcomed young adolescents from different parts of Ionia, particularly Lydia, so its character was not strictly Lesbian. The education the girls received, in competition with rival groups such as that of Andromeda, was probably not obligatory. Sappho and her khoreutai may have taken part in the official religious life of the island, but the instructional activity of the poet seems not to have been included in the educational system legally subject to the political community of Lesbos. It would be misleading to compare Sappho's group to a real school, not to speak of a "Mädchenpensionat" or a "finishing school." Sappho herself is certainly not to be considered as a "schoolmistress."^[27] If she gave through the performance of song and cult acts an education to the girls of her group, this education had an initiatic form and content: it was entirely ritualized. Moreover, Sappho made accomplished women out of her "pupils," but she did not have to make them perfect citizens. She had to initiate them, with the help of Aphrodite, to their gender role as wives of aristocratic families.