Sappho Fr. 16. 6–7L–P

Abstract

π⋯γχυ δ' εὔμαρες σ⋯νετον πóησαι | π⋯ντι το⋯το, sang Sappho (Fr. 16. 5–6 L–P); but, to judge from the controversies which have marked the scholarly discussion of her poem in the sixty-five years since its first publication, her confidence was at least premature. Some problems can indeed be considered to have been settled, either through new finds or through gradual consensus: thus the man of line 7 is Menelaus, not Paris, and few today would see in the poem merely an affirmation of exclusively feminine as opposed to masculine values. But to the twin questions of the function first of the story of Helen in the poem, and especially second of the words with which Helen is introduced — ⋯ γ⋯ρ πóλυ περσκ⋯θοισα | κ⋯λλος ⋯νθρώπων 'Eλ⋯να (6–7) — no satisfactory answer has yet been found. The strictures of Fränkel and of Page on this passage are well known; yet even where their judgements have not been simply taken over, the explanations that have been offered for these two distinct but closely connected problems fail to convince.

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