Ode to Aphrodite
The speaker begs the immortal on her ornate throne not to break her with longing, and remembers an earlier time the goddess came down, sparrows whirring their wings over the dark earth, and asked with a smile what she was suffering now and who was to be persuaded. The goddess's reply is quoted in her own voice, a promise about pursuit and refusal reversing themselves, before the poem returns to the plea. The only poem of Sappho's to survive entire, and the point from which the European love lyric is usually dated.
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Lineage
- influenced by ↑ The Iliad
- ↓ The Poems of Catullus
- ↓ Odes
Attributes
Genre
Archetype (Jung / Campbell)
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Symbol / motif
Conflict
Culture / tradition
Closest analogues
- 57% · 9 shared
- 53% · 8 shared
- 53% · 8 shared
- 53% · 8 shared
- 53% · 7 shared
- 53% · 7 shared