Sappho, born to an aristocratic family on the island of Lesbos around 640 BCE, is the earliest known female author to date. Though most of her work has been lost, her few remaining poems are very telling of the ancient society in which she lived (lecture slides). Much of the famous stories before Sappho had the sole focus of war and heroism, which clearly characterizes the importance of such ideals in Ancient Greece. Sappho’s lyric poetry, however, presents one of the first accounts to describe the Greek perception of love.
One perspective shown through Sappho, is the evanescent nature of love. Her only fully recovered poem, known as “Prayer to Afroditi”, was written for a cult of young women formed by Sappho, and meant as a performance for the goddess Aphrodite (encyclopedia.com). Due to this, the anonymous speaker can be assumed female. She vocalizes for Aphrodite, saying the goddess would ask, “Whom shall I persuade again to take you into her love?” This suggests that within Greek society, love and passion are acceptably fleeting. The speaker recognizes that her “crazy heart” is frequently falling in love and she’s asked for many favors,
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understanding that the goddess would “again” be granting her wish. Still though, she begs Aphrodite to “stand by [her] and be [her] ally” in this battlefront that is love, even though she, as a mortal, continually gives up the loves she’s already won and chooses to fight for new lovers. The interesting thing about this poem is how it presents respect for the gods when regarding love rather than fate. The Greeks seemed to fear the gods in many prior works all regarding war and fate. They would ask once what their life would be and then accept the answer without debate. With love, though, we see a different kind of respect. These works acknowledge that the gods provide everything and, thus, are who one must constantly abide in. The familiarity that the speaker has with the goddess seems to be a relationship cultivated through consistent communication. It demonstrates that relationships with the gods are the sole responsibility of the mortal and dependant on the mortal’s effort to gain knowledge and aid. This suggests that Ancient Greece had the tendency to care more deeply about love than other aspects of their life, because they became more devoted when seeking guidance and counsel. As seen Sappho’s work, love in Greece also seems to be said with the same meaning as desire.
In the “Prayer to Afroditi”, begging “fill my heart with fire”, it would appear that love and lust are considered interchangeable. This concept can also be seen in her other poem, “Return, Gongyla”. Sappho writes that “again desire floats around you the beautiful. When you saw her dress it excited you. I’m happy. The Kypros-born once blamed me for praying this word: I want.” Here, lust fueled by the desire for a beautiful woman overtakes the author. She felt incriminated for praying for love, but recognized that love fulfilled her wanting. This gratification, interpreted as love during the time, wouldn’t qualify now. Love in Ancient Greece was the feeling you got when you wanted someone, rather than the committal bond we see
today. Love in this society appears to be very one-sided, experienced as sensations more often than emotions, proven further because it can be forced upon another person. Returning to her “Prayer to Afroditi”, Sappho suggests that the goddess would respond by saying “if she runs away, soon she will pursue… If she doesn’t love, soon she will love even unwillingly.” Love nowadays is a very unselfish emotion, depicted by wanting for someone else what they desire for themself. Love in Greece at this time, however, corresponds much more with our understanding of lust, a selfish sensation.
Men and women lived in completely dissimilar spheres, until the time of marriage. Even after marriage, they still retained strong ties to their own spheres by Achilles and Patrocleus. This is aspect of young life is depicted by Sappho in her poems. Apparently alternative lifestyles were commonly accepted in youth and continued throughout adulthood. This passive encouragement of homosexuality further strengthened ties between the separate genders and emphasizing the differences.
For the Greeks, Homer's Odyssey was much more than just an entertaining tale of gods, monsters, and men, it served as cultural paradigm from which every important role and relationship could be defined. This book, much more so than its counter part The Iliad, gives an eclectic view of the Achean's peacetime civilization. Through Odyssey, we gain an understanding of what is proper or improper in relationships between father and son, god and mortal, servant and master, guest and host, and--importantly--man and woman. Women play a vital role in the movement of this narrative. Unlike in The Iliad, where they are chiefly prizes to be won, bereft of identity, the women of Odyssey are unique in their personality, intentions, and relationship towards men. Yet, despite the fact that no two women in this epic are alike, each--through her vices or virtues-- helps to delineate the role of the ideal woman. Below, we will show the importance of Circe, Calypso, Nausicaa, Clytaemestra, and Penelope in terms of the movement of the narrative and in defining social roles for the Ancient Greeks.
In the Aeneid, love is depicted as an uncontrollable emotion. Venus and Juno promote the romance between Dido and Aeneas. Dido, the queen of Carthage, begins to fall in love with Aeneas, even though she has vowed to her late husband that she would set her “face against marriage” (Virgil 975). Aeneas falls in love with Dido and remains with her in Carthage, even though he knows that he must continue his travel to Rome. Love is a passion which consumes the soul in spite of its will. It is an “inward fire” (Virgil 976). Juno arranges it so that Dido and Aeneas consummate their love in a cave during a storm. Again, mortals have little or no control over their loves. The gods are the ones who cause people to fall in love.
Pausanias believed that there was two different goddesses of love; the more prevalent of the two being Pandemos, or Common Aphrodite. Pandemos, as described by Pausanias, is the young, and is associated with the love between men and women, so she is more inclined to be involved with vulgar love (Cohen, pg.327). Though there are both right ways, and wrong ways
Pausanias brings up an excellent way to think about Love. He explains that love can be broken down into two types, that of Common and Heavenly love. The common love is that when a man and a woman join merely to satisfy their sexual desires. On the other hand the heavenly love is the type that occurs when two people are attracted to each other with a strong force that goes past the physical appearance but comes from deep within as if from the soul. Although Plato presents examples of the two loves with having the common love as if only happening between a man and a woman and the heavenly love happening between a man and a man, there is not enough proof in the text to say that this if what the whole of Athens really believed.
Aristophanes thinks that a human’s love is clearly “a lack” – a lack of one’s other half- and having no meant to satisfy themselves they begin to die. Zeus, having failed to foresee this difficulty repairs the damage by inventing sexual reproduction (191 b-c). Any “embracements” of men with men or of women with women would of course be sterile – though the participants would at least “have some satiety of their union and a relief,” (191 c) and therefore would be able to carry on the work of the world. Sex, therefore, is at this stage a drive, and the object is defined only as human. Sexual preferences are to emerge only as the human gains experience, enabling them to discover what their “original form” had been.
Can a simple emotion such as love be regarded as one of the greatest weapons to create or attain power? It’s a renowned fact that human beings are by nature designed to need, crave, and even require love as part of their survival mechanisms. It comes to no surprise that one of the first accounts of antique poetry maintains love and the craving for it as its main theme; thereby, reinforcing the deep importance that it upholds in the lives of many individuals. Sappho’s “Deathless Aphrodite” clearly epitomizes the suffering and bitterness that arises from an unrequited love. In Sappho’s case, which portrays the case of many, she constantly finds herself in loneliness and despair for though she tries repeatedly, she is only let down recurrently as no one reciprocates the love she gives. It is only the Greek goddess Aphrodite, who holds
of the book. USA: Simon and Schuster, Inc. 2000. The.. Print. The.. Blundell, Sue. Women in Ancient Greece.
Greek women, as depicted as in their history and literature, endure many hardships and struggle to establish a meaningful status in their society. In the Odyssey, Penelope’s only role in the epic is to support Odysseus and remain loyal to him. She is at home and struggles to keep her family intact while Odysseus is away trying to return to his native land. The cultural role of women is depicted as being supportive of man and nothing more. Yet what women in ancient Greece did long ago was by far more impressive than what men did.
Love is often misconstrued as an overwhelming force that characters have very little control over, but only because it is often mistaken for the sum of infatuation and greed. Love and greed tread a blurred line, with grey areas such as lust. In simplest terms, love is selfless and greed is selfish. From the agglomeration of mythological tales, people deduce that love overpowers characters, even that it drives them mad. However, they would be wrong as they would not have analyzed the instances in depth to discern whether or not the said instance revolves around true love. Alone, true love help characters to act with sound reasoning and logic, as shown by the tales of Zeus with his lovers Io and Europa in Edith Hamilton’s Mythology.
The image that has been produced over time about the Goddess of Desire, the renowned Aphrodite, is one of a longhaired beauty, riding atop a scallop shell to bestow her beauteous wonders upon the mortal earth and Olympus. This is an icon of femininity and perfection, the most stunning of the already statuesque gods and goddesses. Doves and sparrows are her counterparts as is the sweet and playful Cupid in later Roman myths. However, this seemingly flawless picture of delicacy and sensual delights is far from perfect. In fact, when looked at a little more closely, the mien of Aphrodite becomes distorted, her beauty playing out to actually be her curse. In the next pages we will delve into the true nature of the Love Goddess, contemplate the source of her ‘deeds’ and then determine how high a pedestal she actually rests upon.
Ancient Greece produced a multitude of sophisticated poets. One such poet, Sappho, happens to be the only female Ancient Greek author, in the midst of a male-driven field, whose work has survived. Frequently referred to as the tenth muse, Sappho often wrote on the topic of homosexuality. Her poetry, combined with the name of the island she lived on, Lesbos, inspired the modern day term ‘lesbian’. Another influential Greek poet was Catullus. Catullus typically wrote using intense emotion; this periodically led to the use of vulgar language. Catullus was a blunt, bold anti-political writer whom consistently referenced Sappho throughout his poetry. Although there are a plethora of differences between the two poets, such as their writing style; with Sappho including an abundance of detail while Catullus opted for a more concise approach, there are also distinct similarities. Both poets discuss controversial topics; more importantly, neither were afraid to stand up for what they believed in.
Love, in classical Greek literature, is commonly considered a prominent theme. Love, in present days, always appears in the categories of books, movies, music, etc. Interpreted differently by different people, Love turns into a multi-faceted being. In Plato’s work Symposium, Phaedrus, Pausania, Eryximachus, Aristophane and Agathon, each of them presents a speech to either praise or definite Love. Phaedrus first points out that Love is the primordial god; Pausanias brings the theme of “virtue” into the discussion and categorizes Love into “good” one or “bad” one; Eryximachus introduces the thought of “moderation’ and thinks that Love governs such fields as medicine and music; Aristophanes draws attention to the origin and purposes of Love; Agathon enunciates that the correct way to present an eulogy is first to praise its nature and gifts.
Born from the remains of the castration of Uranus, Aphrodite arose from the foam in the sea and became known as the goddess of love to those who worshipped her, described by Hesoid. We see another version of her this goddess’s birth as well, from the gods Zeus and Dione, leaving a double tradition of Aphrodite’s birth and a basic duality in her character. Artemis, the Greek goddess of wild things, was born to Zeus and Leto, and remained a virgin goddess who roamed the forests with her female companions. These two goddesses disagreeing viewpoints on sexual relationships naturally set them up to have a conflicting relationship, yet their well-known trait of revenge in their myths bring a similarity to both the goddess of love and of hunting. Their personalities are compared through their primary functions in Greek mythology and physical characteristics, their behavior in myths that they are involved in, their portrayal in Greek art and literature, and if and how they are worshipped in Greek religion.
philosopher that he was, he had quite a different take on the issue. Socrates strove