サッポーの断片1における詩的技法について

Abstract

Sappho's fr. I is commonly thought to be constructed just like a traditional three-part Greek prayer-hymn, consisting of an invocation, an account of the goddess Aphrodite's previous favours and the request proper. This view is correct, of course, but it does not advance our appreciation of this carefully wrought masterpiece. When we take this poem to be of only a threefold structure, the middle part will seem inordinately long and efforts to explain why that should be so may easily lead to absurd interpretations : e. g. that the middle part is just a long flight of fancy, or that it is so long on purpose and that it serves to instruct Sappho's pupils in the ways of the goddess and put them directly in touch with her past epiphanies. We should avoid such a line of thinking and take a different approach, taking a hint from line 14 and from what Sappho implicitly inserted into the poem : from a metrical point of view, Sapphic stanza is originally made of three lines, not of four as in our text. Then the line 14, a portrayal of smiling Aphrodite, will occupy the central position of the poem. We should, I suggest, divide the whole at this line and the threefold structure of the hymn will then become satisfactorily realized in a chiastic four-part structure. This view provides a key to the problem of the difference in tone between the first prayer (the first part) and the second one (the fourth part), i. e. why the latter is more intense than the former. The answer should be sought in the middle parts (the second and third). When we compare the second with the third, the second part is more objective. In the third, there is a change from oratio obliqua to oratio recta which gradually makes it almost as vivid as a present event. This change takes place very fluently by the careful distribution of three δηυτε's. By this change we can feel that the recollection of a past event affects praying Sappho and makes the fourth part far more intense than the first. Importantly, as I also point out, the theme of this poem is hidden, probably intentionally, and left to the imagination of the audience. I also examine in detail a much-disputed word ποικιλοθρονος. My conclusion is that there is no criterion by which we can positively decide whether the second member of this compound is derived from θρονο or θρονα. To choose only one possibility and exclude the other would lead to diminishing the purposefully ambiguous sentiment of this poem.