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Sappho 31 is an archaic Greek lyric poem by the ancient Greek female poet Sappho of the island of Lesbos. The poem is also known as phainetai moi (φαίνεταί μοι) after the opening words of its first line. It is one of Sappho's most famous poems, describing her love for a young woman.
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Preservation
Fragment 31 was one of the few substantial fragments of Sappho to survive from ancient times, preserved in the first-century AD work On the Sublime. Four stanzas are well-preserved, followed by part of one more line; this, as well as Catullus' adaptation of the poem, suggests that there was originally one more stanza of the poem. A reconstruction of the poem by classicist Armand D'Angour suggests that the original poem may have had up to 8 stanzas.
Poem
Fragment 31 is composed in Sapphic stanzas, a metrical form named after Sappho and consisting of stanzas of three long followed by one short line. Four strophes of the poem survive, along with a few words of a fifth. The poem is written in the Aeolic dialect. The first stanza of the poem describes Sappho watching "that man" sitting by a woman, apparently Sappho's beloved. The next three stanzas describe the symptoms the narrator experiences "whenever I glance at you for a second". The final surviving line, 17, has been thought to be the beginning of a stanza describing Sappho reconciling herself to the situation in which she found herself; but a more accurate interpretation of the Greek words pan tolmaton - 'all can be ventured' - favours a defiant rather than a resigned continuation.
The context of the poem has been the subject of much scholarly debate. Wilamowitz suggested that the poem was a wedding song, and that the man mentioned in the initial stanza of the poem was the bridegroom. However, the poem contains nothing to indicate that it is about a wedding. A more recent interpretation suggests that the man is in fact a "contrast figure", designed to highlight Sappho's love for the girl by juxtaposing the strength of Sappho's emotional reaction with his own impassivity.
As far back as the eighteenth century, it has been proposed that the poem is about Sappho's jealousy of the man who sits with her beloved. Though this is still a popular interpretation of the poem, many critics deny that the fragment is about jealousy at all. Anne Carson argues that Sappho has no wish to take the man's place, nor is she concerned that he will usurp hers: thus, she is not jealous of him, but amazed at his ability to retain his composure so close to the object of her desire.
The opening words of the poem ("To me it seems that man...") are almost identical to a fragment of Sappho quoted by Apollonius Dyscolus: "To himself he seems". This might have been an alternative opening to Sappho 31.
Reception and influence
Fragment 31 is one of Sappho's most famous works, and it is one of her most frequently adapted and translated poems. In the ancient world, the Roman poet Catullus adapted it into his 51st poem, putting his muse Lesbia into the role of Sappho's beloved. Other ancient authors who adapted the poem include Theocritus, in his second Idyll, and Apollonius of Rhodes, in his description of the first meeting between Jason and Medea in the Argonautica. More recently, Tennyson's "Eleanore" and "Fatima" were both inspired by the poem.
Longinus's treatise On the Sublime selects the poem as an example of the sublime for the intensity of its passionate emotions. It was quoted in Plutarch's "Dialogue on Love" in his Moralia.