Arkaik Mytilene’de (ve Başka Yerlerde) Lirik Şiire Konu Olan Yakışıksızlık: Sappho F 99 c. I.1–9 L-P = Alcaeus F 303Aa V

Year 2017, Volume: 37 Issue: 2, 259 - 282, 15.12.2017

Timothy Power

Abstract

Bu makale Arkaik Lesbos şiir geleneğine ait, kimi uzmanların Sappho’ya, kimilerinin Alkaios’a atfettiği (Sappho F 99 L-P = Alkaios F 303A V), metni hayli noksan bir fragmandaki ilgi çekici bir yakıştırmayla ilgilidir. ‘Yapay fallus alan’ anlamına geldiği neredeyse kesin olan olisbodokos yakıştırması lirin ya da barbitos gibi lir benzeri bir çalgının tellerini (khordai) nitelemektedir. Büyük olasılıkla, Polyanaktidai adıyla fragmanda da geçen, Lesbos Adası’nın Mytilene şehrindeki aristokrat aileden biri ya da birilerini hedef alan bu yakıştırmanın amacı hiç şüphesiz, sövgüyle kötülemektir. Olisbodokos terimini hem müzik hem cinsellikle ilgili boyutunu göz önüne alarak, Arkaik Mytilene ve daha geniş çerçevede Arkaik ve Klasik Dönem Yunan kültürünün sosyo-müzikal bağlamı içinde değerlendiren çalışmamız bu şiirsel sövgü için müzikoloji ve sosyoloji perspektifinden yeni bir yorum önerisi sunmaktadır. ‘Yapay fallus alan teller” yakıştırmasının amacını ve bıraktığı etkiyi tam olarak anlamak istiyorsak Arkaik Dönem Mytilene’sinde, Sappho, Alkaios ve muhtemelen Polyanaktidai ailesinin de önemsediği müzik kültürünün saygınlığı meselesini göz önüne almamız gerektiği kanısındayız. Söz konusu toplumda müzikle ilgili, cinsellik bağlamına oturtulmuş sövgüler, müziğin de cinselliğin de ötesine geçen politik ve toplumsal çağrışımlarıyla büyük etki yaratıyor olmalıdır. Makalenin son kısmında, mızrabı (plēktron) Sappho’nun icad ettiğiyle ilgili Suda sözlüğünde kaydedilmiş aktarımın kaynağına ilişkin bir hipotez ileri sürülmüştür.

Keywords

Antik Yunan müziği, Arkaik Yunan şiiri, Arkaik Dönemde Lesbos Adası, Müzik sosyolojisi, Müzik toplumsal cinsiyet ve cinsellik

Lyric Indecorum in Archaic Mytilene (and Beyond): Sappho F 99 c. I.1–9 L-P = Alcaeus F 303Aa V

Abstract

This paper considers a remarkable epithet in a lacunose fragment of Archaic Lesbian poetry that some have assigned to Sappho, others to Alcaeus (Sappho F 99 L-P = Alcaeus F 303A V). The epithet, olisbodokos, which a majority of scholars understand to mean ‘dildo receiving’, is applied by the poet to the chordai ‘strings’ of a lyre (or a lyre-like instrument). It is no doubt intended as invective abuse, presumably directed against a member or members of the Polyanaktidai, an aristocratic family of Lesbian Mytilene, who are also mentioned in the fragment. This paper offers a new appraisal of the invective poetics of olisbodokos by taking a musicological and sociological approach, that is, by attending to the musical as well as the sexual dimensions of the epithet, and by reading it within the socio-musical context of Archaic Mytilene and Archaic and Classical Greece more widely. It is argued that the motivation and impact of the “dildo-receiving strings” evoked in the fragment are best appreciated in terms of the prestige of musical culture in Archaic Mytilene, a prestige in which both Sappho and Alcaeus, and presumably also the Polyanaktidai, were invested. In this society, sexually framed musical invective would have had a powerful effect, with political, social, and moral implications that went beyond the musical and the sexual. The paper concludes with a hypothesis about the origin of the tradition, reported in the Suda, that Sappho invented the plectrum.

Keywords

Ancient Greek music, Archaic Greek poetry, Archaic Lesbos, Sociology of music, Music gender and sexuality

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