Sappho and Catullus: Sexual Politics

Who is 'that man'? And who is the young woman, the 'you' addressed throughout?

For centuries, commentators have been troubled by the homoeroticism of the poem, which they saw as incompatible with its beauty and power. Edwardian scholars came up with the theory that Sappho was the 'headmistress' of a girls' academy on Lesbos dedicated to the cult of Aphrodite, goddess of love; this poem was a wedding-hymn for a favourite pupil, and 'that man' the pupil's bridegroom. Later twentieth century studies put the man even more centre-stage, as an envied rival for the affection of Sappho's lover and, perhaps swayed by her use of the colour term chloros or 'green' on in the fourth stanza, read the emotions she describes not as sexual passion but sexual jealousy. Obviously the way a translator chooses to interept the poem will influence the way in which they translate it. So Mary Barnard, who favours the headmistress theory, has her version describe a specific man and a single event, employing a rather restrained, polite language for her description of the poet's own emotions.

However in my version, as well as highlighting the dramatic, almost violent effect of her passion, I followed more recent readings which prefer to see the focal point of the poem not as the man or even the woman, the object of desire, but the generic emotions aroused by the physical presence of that object. Such readings emphasise the indefinite, illusory, quality of Sappho's desire; she is not describing any particular event, any particular man. The result is unspecific, timeless, which must surely account for the popularity of the poem through the ages.

You can post your own reading of the poem on the Discussion Boards.

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