Sappho: Poem #1

Sappho is desperately asking the Greek goddess Aphrodite yet again to grant her wish to find love and partnership, as well as mend her repeatedly broken heart; and Aphrodite is so fed up with Sappho asking for this wish constantly that she directly grants this wish without much care or accuracy. One key piece of evidence of this is, "O blessed one, smiled in your deathless face and asked what (now again) I have suffered and why (now again) I am calling out" (15,16). Here, Sappho is asking what and why she is suffering yet again, which shows that this is not the first time she has made a similar plea. Another key piece of evidence is "Whom should I persuade (now again)" (18). In this line, Aphrodite seems to be sarcastically and nonchalantly answering Sappho's plea. Further evidence comes in the second to last stanza, "If she does not love, soon she will love even unwilling" (23,24). Aphrodite does not give a pronoun in her answer, offering a wide variety of questions. Whom will she find love with? This lack of pronoun offers evidence that maybe Aphrodite was fed up with Sappho and granted the wish to the one she was pursuing, rather than Sappho herself.