Aphrodite

Reading notes

• Fragments of Book One §33 gold-crowned Aphrodite

  Another of Sappho's invented epithets for her goddess — gold-crowned, as fr. 1 made her 'of the many-colored throne.' The prayer is for a πάλος, a lot drawn by chance: even luck is in Aphrodite's gift.

• The Brothers Poem and the Kypris Poem §26 Kypris

  Aphrodite under her Cyprus-name, addressed as δέσποινα, 'mistress' — the goddess as the power one serves, not the ally of fr. 1's playful pact. The torn prayer accuses her: whoever loves keeps getting hurt, and the shaking is her doing.

• The Major Poems §1 Aphrodite

  Goddess of love and desire, Sappho's particular divinity; the hymn follows the formal three-part shape of Greek prayer — invocation, reminder of past help, request.

• The Major Poems §2 Cypris

  Aphrodite as 'the lady of Cyprus,' from the island of her birth-myth and chief cult; the title Sappho uses when she summons the goddess to pour out like a hostess at a feast.

• Fragments of Uncertain Book, with the Epigrams and Dubia §102 Aphrodite

  Goddess of love and Sappho's presiding deity, here named as the cause of the longing that stops the loom; she returns in this work as the 'many-blessed' (fr. 133), the Cyprus-born of the dream (fr. 134), and Cytherea mourning Adonis (fr. 140).

• Fragments of Uncertain Book, with the Epigrams and Dubia §140 Cytherea

  Aphrodite under her cult-title from the island of Cythera — the mourning goddess herself, addressed by the girls of the rite.