III

With this framework in mind we may now turn to phainetai moi (3, L.-R). The first lines of fragment 31 set the stage for the power of eros. The adverbial in line 5 sounds the first explicitly erotic note: the effect of the girl's voice and laughter is to awaken "desire," . The strong verb in the next line (6) denotes the violence of this "desire." At this point the rhythmic-ritualizing effects become especially marked. ("Rhythm" as used here is a function not just of the meter but of the interaction of meter with sound patterns, sentence structure, and meaning.) Sappho repeats (7). Then she introduces a rapid succession of short clauses, artfully varied through word order, chiasmus, and enjambment. The recurrence of the conjunction , seven times in eight lines, contributes to the ritualizing, incantatory effect.

The carefully built up patterns of alliteration and assonance reinforce these effects. Unfortunately the state of the text does not allow of equal certainty in all places. I shall confine my remarks to the third and fourth strophes, where these devices s eem especially prominent:

Fortunate as the gods he seems to me, that man who sits opposite to you, and
     listens nearby to your sweet voice
And your desirable laughter; that, I vow, has affrighted my heart within my breast.
For when I look at you a moment, then I have no longer power to speak,
But my tongue keeps silence, straightway a subtle flame has run beneath my flesh,
     with my eyes I see nothing, my ears are humming,
A cold sweat covers me, and a trembling seizes me all over, I am paler than grass, I
     seem to be not far short of death.... But all can be endured, since......
          (Page's translation, modified)

A strong alliteration of k and g in line 9 seems fairly probable (the emendations and would both conduce to the same effect). It is strengthened by the k alliteration of in the next line. The d sound at the beginning of that line (d ') continues in the impressive drumming d 's of , which follows up the chiasmic pu/up pattern in . A similar but more complex pattern recurs in the next line (11) in the or-m-/rom- sequence of . The drumming d beat of line 10 is taken up again in line 13, reading Page's emendation: . Here, as also in line 10, the alliteration of k sounds accompanies the d 's. Vowel patterns also reinforce the repetitive effect, especially the strongly marked sequence of open o sounds in line 11

and the a sounds of line 14: . In all these verses the beat of the meter and the recurrent sound patterns work closely together to produce a rhythmico-ritual or ritual-mimetic equivalent to love's "thelctic" power.

Every verse beginning with line 7 contains at least one conjunction: ,. This polysyndeton enhances the effect of accumulating intensity; but it also creates a rhythmical tempo of excitement and mounting tension analogous to the ritualizing effects of dance or drum beat. The one line that has no conjunction, namely line 16, follows directly after the climactic point of "death" (; 15). Now the rhythm slows down, and the poem turns to what seems to have been a more contemplative, quieter mood: ......(17).^[13] Indeed, line 16 opens upon a new dimension of the experience presented in the poem, a shift away from external, physical actions to something internal and mental: . The slowing down of the alliterative and repetitive tempo in 15-16 corresponds to the movement to another plane of experience. Now the closing cadence of the adonic, for the first time in the poem, marks a full stop in sense. Now too for the first time in ten lines a connective is absent.

Catullus was aware of this incantatory effect of Sappho's poem; and he attempted to reproduce it, albeit in a more regular, self-consciously formalized way, through alliteration and repeated sound patterns. His third stanza provides the clearest illustration (51.9-12):

lingua sed torpet, tenuis sub artus
flamma demanat, sonitu suopte
tintinnant aures, gemina teguntur
lumina nocte.

But my tongue falters, a thin flame flows through my limbs. My ears ring with their own humming, my eyes are covered in twofold night.

Here we should note the complex pattern of t and s and is/us sounds in the first line; the m, a, n, u/o , and t patterns in the second line; the verb tintinnant , whose onomatopoeia imitates Sappho's as well as her . Catullus has also exploited rhythmic and assonantal echoes between gemina and lumina in the last two lines and the sequence of t, g , and c in gemina teguntur /nocte . Sappho's patterns are subtler and less

obvious. Closer to a situation of oral and musical performance, she could count on a finer perception of subtle effects. In the case of her poetry, too, the recurrent beat of the musical accompaniment provided in itself a certain measure of incantatory regularity, thus permitting her greater freedom and variation in her sound patterns.

The kind of rhythmical and repetitive pattern noted above is not uncommon in Sappho's verse, despite its fragmentary condition. The fullest parallel occurs in a poem whose chief subject is the peitho of eros, namely 1 L.-P.

This poem in fact uses the ritual form of the hymn, albeit for personal and possibly humorous purposes. As Page observes, "This is not a cult-song, an appeal for epiphany recited with ritual accompaniment on a formal occasion in honor of Aphrodite: yet it is constructed in accordance with the principles of cult-song."^[14] Page sees humor in the triple recurrence of in lines 15, 16, 18.^[15] Yet this repetition is also a prelude (perhaps in a light vein and certainly on a purely private, moral level) to the more solemn, more markedly ritual effect of the love-goddess's own words in the next strophe (21-24):

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For if she runs away, soon will she pursue. If she receives
not girls, soon will she receive them, and if she does
not love, soon will she love, even unwilling.

Aphrodite, appropriately, speaks in language which itself imitates the incantatory, hypnotic effect of love's thelxis . That effect depends on the repetition of the simple sentence structure ("If she flees, soon will she pursue; if she doesn't receive gifts, she will give them; if she doesn't love, soon will she love"). The rhythmical echo between the first and third lines, , almost seems to assure the success of this spell-like promise.^[16]

Other repetitions and alliterations contribute to this effect of incantation: the threefold repetition of , the double repetition of and of ; the analogous repetition (with an etymological play) of (22); the alliteration and rhyme of (at the end of two successive lines, 22-23); the strong d alliteration in

; the triple rhyme of in the first three lines and the brilliant variation upon that in the assonance between the last two lines (23-24). Sappho then follows up this ritualizing mimesis of the magic of desire with an actual ritual form, the hymnic invocation to the goddess, (come to me now also; 25). The ceremonial effect of this latter phrase is especially prominent because it echoes, in a kind of ring composition, the invocation at the beginning of the poem (5): (but come here).

As the enchantment takes effect, Aphrodite herself becomes gentler. The opening prayer, "Subdue me not with pain and anguish" (3), becomes at the end, "Release me from harsh cares" (25-26). The goddess's power to "conquer" (), which is actually exemplified, later, in her promise to make the unwilling girl fall in love (21-24), now shows its benign side, "release" (; 25). The goddess who inflicts the anguish of love can also remove it.

These ceremonial effects of rhythm, repetition, and alliteration are more striking, naturalize in poems that are closer to public statement and to social situations. Hence one finds a noticeably high proportion of such effects in the epithalamia. These poems, even apart from repetition and alliteration, have strongly ritualistic qualities, as a paper by Marcovich has emphasized.^[17] I list the following examples:

 
(104a)^[18]

Evening star who brings all that the bright dawn scattered.
You bring the sheep, you bring the goat, you bring the child to her mother.

 
(105a)

As the honey-apple reddens in the topmost bough,
on the top of the topmost bough, and the apple pickers have forgotten it,
No, not forgotten it: they could not reach it.

 
(114)

Maidenhood, Maidenhood, where have you gone and left me?
I'll never come back to you, never come back to you.

 
(115)

To what shall I well compare you, bridegroom?
To a slender sapling do I most compare you.

 
(117)

Hail to the bride, to the groom hail.

Fragment 112 exhibits not only verbal repetition in consecutive lines (more marked if we read Fick's attractive in the second line), but also a rapid accumulation of the groom's attractions listed in polysyndeton and with a run-on effect analogous to fragment 31 L.-P.:^[19]

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Happy groom, the marriage, as you prayed, is accomplished,
You hold the girl whom (?) you prayed for ...
Graceful your figure, sweet your eyes, eros
is poured over your face. Aphrodite holds you in honor.

One other fragment deserves citation in this connection, 140a L.-P.:

"Ripe Adonis, Cytherea, dies. What should we do?"
"Beat your breasts, maidens, your garments rend."

This ritual lament for Adonis, the earliest known in European literature, utilizes a heavy alliteration of k and t sounds and the repetition of

in compound verbs at three of the four main rhythmic pauses in the two lines.^[20]