11/28/23, 8:32 AM Sappho DQ 10:30AM: Prescilla Pascua

from Sappho DQ 10:30AM Sep 20, 2023 4:57PM

1. Sappho's prayer to Aphrodite demonstrates high respect and admiration for her. She
highlights Aphrodite's strengths and divinity by saying she's, "Deathless... of the
spangled mind" and referring to her as, "O blessed one." (Carson 2002, 3). Sappho
speaks to Aphrodite in this manner to ask for something in return as we can infer when she
says, "I have suffered and why (now again) I am calling out and what I want to happen most of
all in my crazy heart." (Carson 2002, 3). We see this similar praise of a god in
Enheduanna's The Exaltation of Inana. When she's praying to Inana, she refers to her as a,
"Lady of all the divine powers, resplendent light, righteous woman clothed in radiance."
(Enheduanna 2006, 1). Enheduanna further praises Inana for her acts of bravery to protect her
people in hopes for Inana to help her get revenge on Lugal-Ane.
3. Sappho invokes the different senses by describing the biological responses to certain
emotions. In one instance she describes a man and her biological responses to how this man
makes her feel: "...cold sweat holds me and shaking grips me all, greener than grass I am
dead - or almost." (Carson 2002, 63). She goes into great detail about these senses to
describe how intense these situations are for her and to hopefully have her audience
experience those same emotions.
4. Sappho responds to suffering through written expression rather than resulting to violence.
For example, she describes feelings of jealousy when she writes, "I am broken with longing for
a boy by slender Aphrodite." (Carson 2002, 203). She seems to be in touch with her emotions
and effectively expresses them through song and poetry unlike other characters we've read
about, such as Enheduanna and Gilgamesh, in which they respond with violence on those who
did them wrong. The suffering that Sappho goes through involves love rather than the other
characters in which their suffering revolves around selfishness and societal status. Gilgamesh,
for example, went on to be a tyrant to his community in which he, "...lets no son go free to his
father" and "lets no [daughter go free to her] mother." (George 2003, 3). Suffering in
Gilgamesh's case would involve direct stabs toward his ego. For Sappho, she describes love
as, "...the most beautiful thing on the black earth." (Carson 2002, 27). Suffering for her would
be attacks against love.

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