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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

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.

References

  • Aloni, A. (1997). Saffo. Frammenti. Florence: Giunti Editore.
  • Caciagli, S. (2011). Poeti e società. Comunicazione poetica e formazioni sociali nella Lesbo del vii/vi secolo a.C. Amsterdam: Hakkert.
  • Campbell, D. (1982). Greek Lyric I: Sappho and Alcaeus. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
  • Campbell, D. (1988). Greek Lyric II: Anacreon, Anacreontea, Choral Lyric from Olympus to Alcman. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
  • D’Angour, A. (2005). Intimations of the Classical in Early Greek Mousikē. In J. I. Porter (Ed.), Classical Pasts: The Classical Traditions of Greece and Rome (pp. 89–105). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
  • Dover, K. J. 1989. Greek Homosexuality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
  • Ferrari, F. (2010). Sappho’s Gift: The Poet and Her Community. (Trans. B. Acosta-Hughes and L. Prauscello). Ann Arbor, Michigan: Michigan Classical Press.
  • Franklin, J. (2003). The Language of Musical Technique in Greek Epic Diction. Gaia: Revue interdisciplinaire sur la Grèce archaïque 7, 295–307.
  • Giangrande, G. (1980). Sappho and the ὄλισβος. Emerita 48, 249–250.
  • Gomme, A.W.G. (1957). Interpretations of some poems of Alkaios and Sappho. Journal of Hellenic Studies 77, 255–266.
  • Green, P. (1998). Classical Bearings: Interpreting Ancient History and Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press.
  • Halperin, D. M. (1990). One Hundred Years of Homosexuality: And Other Essays on Greek Love. New York: Routledge.
  • Hardie, A. (2005). Sappho, the Muses, and Life after Death. Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 154, 13–32.
  • Headlam, W. & Knox, A. D. (1922). Herodas: The Mimes and Fragments. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Hedreen, G. (2006). “I let go my force just touching her hair”: Male Sexuality in Athenian Vase-painting of Silens and Iambic Poetry. Classical Antiquity 25, 277–325.
  • Keuls, E. C. (1993). The Reign of the Phallus: Sexual Politics in Ancient Athens. 2nd ed. Berkeley: University of California Press.
  • Kugelmeier, C. (1996). Reflexe früher und zeitgenössicher Lyrik in der alten Attischen Komödie. Beiträge zur Altertumskunde 80. Stuttgart and Leipzig: De Gruyter.
  • Kurke, L. (1994). Crisis and Decorum in Sixth-Century Lesbos: Reading Alkaios Otherwise. Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica 47, 67–92.
  • Landels, J. G. (1999). Music in Ancient Greece and Rome. London & New York: Routledge.
  • Lobel, E. L. (1951). The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, XXI. London: The Egypt Exploration Society.
  • Martin, R. (2016). Sappho, Iambist: Abusing the Brother. In A. Bierl & A. Lardinois (Eds.), The Newest Sappho: P. Sapph. Obbink and P. GC inv. 105, frs. 1–4. Studies in Archaic and Classical Greek Song, Vol. 2 (pp. 110–126). Leiden & Boston: Brill.
  • Most, G. W. (1995). Reflecting Sappho. Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 40, 15–38.
  • Nagy, G. (2007). Did Sappho and Alcaeus ever meet? In A. Bierl, R. Lämmle, and K. Wesselmann (Eds.), Wege zu einer mythisch-rituellen Poetik bei der Griechischen (pp. 211–269). Berlin & New York: De Gruyter.
  • Nelson, M. (2000). A note on the ὄλισβος. Glotta 76, 75–82.
  • Neri, C. (2013). Olisboi e Polianattidi (Sapph. fr. 99 L.-P. = Alc. fr. 303A V.). Eikasmós 24, 11–28.
  • Olson, S. D. (2007). Broken Laughter. Selected Fragments of Greek Comedy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Page, D. (1955). Sappho and Alcaeus: An Introduction to the Study of Ancient Lesbian Poetry. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
  • Pöhlmann, E. (2011). Twelve Chordai and the Strobilos of Phrynis in the Chiron of Pherecrates (PCG fr. 155). Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica 128, 117–133.
  • Power, T. (2007). Ion of Chios and the Politics of Polychordia. In V. Jennings & A. Katsaros (Eds.), The World of Ion of Chios (pp. 179–205). Leiden: Brill.
  • Power, T. (2010). The Culture of Kitharôidia. Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies/Harvard University Press.
  • Restani, D. (1983). Il Chirone di Ferecrate e la ‘nuova’ musica greca. Rivista Italiana di Musicologia 18, 139–192.
  • Rodríguez Somolinos, H. (1994). Notas léxicas a Safo y Alceo. Emerita 62, 109–123.
  • Rosen, R. (1988). Old Comedy and the Iambographic Tradition. Atlanta: Scholars Press.
  • Rosenmeyer, P. A. (2006). Sappho’s Iambics. Letras clásicas 10, 11–36.
  • Snyder, J. M. (1997). Lesbian Desire in the Lyrics of Sappho. New York: Columbia University Press.
  • Spencer, N. (2001). Exchange and Stasis in Archaic Mytilene. In R. Brock and S. Hodkinson (Eds.), Alternatives to Athens: Varieties of Political Organization and Community in Ancient Greece (pp. 61–81). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Stern, J. (1979). Herodas’ Mimiamb 6. Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 20, 247–254.
  • West, M. L. (1970). Burning Sappho. Maia 22, 307–330.
  • West, M. L. (1990). Notes on Sappho and Alcaeus. Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 80, 1–8.
  • West, M. L. (1992). Ancient Greek Music. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
  • Williamson, M. (1995). Sappho’s Immortal Daughters. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
  • Wilson, P. (2004). Athenian Strings. In P. Murray & P. Wilson (Eds.), Music and the Muses: the Culture of Mousike in the Classical Athenian City (pp. 269–306). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Yatromanolakis, D. (2007). Sappho in the Making. Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies/Harvard University Press.

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

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

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.

References

  • Aloni, A. (1997). Saffo. Frammenti. Florence: Giunti Editore.
  • Caciagli, S. (2011). Poeti e società. Comunicazione poetica e formazioni sociali nella Lesbo del vii/vi secolo a.C. Amsterdam: Hakkert.
  • Campbell, D. (1982). Greek Lyric I: Sappho and Alcaeus. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
  • Campbell, D. (1988). Greek Lyric II: Anacreon, Anacreontea, Choral Lyric from Olympus to Alcman. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
  • D’Angour, A. (2005). Intimations of the Classical in Early Greek Mousikē. In J. I. Porter (Ed.), Classical Pasts: The Classical Traditions of Greece and Rome (pp. 89–105). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
  • Dover, K. J. 1989. Greek Homosexuality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
  • Ferrari, F. (2010). Sappho’s Gift: The Poet and Her Community. (Trans. B. Acosta-Hughes and L. Prauscello). Ann Arbor, Michigan: Michigan Classical Press.
  • Franklin, J. (2003). The Language of Musical Technique in Greek Epic Diction. Gaia: Revue interdisciplinaire sur la Grèce archaïque 7, 295–307.
  • Giangrande, G. (1980). Sappho and the ὄλισβος. Emerita 48, 249–250.
  • Gomme, A.W.G. (1957). Interpretations of some poems of Alkaios and Sappho. Journal of Hellenic Studies 77, 255–266.
  • Green, P. (1998). Classical Bearings: Interpreting Ancient History and Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press.
  • Halperin, D. M. (1990). One Hundred Years of Homosexuality: And Other Essays on Greek Love. New York: Routledge.
  • Hardie, A. (2005). Sappho, the Muses, and Life after Death. Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 154, 13–32.
  • Headlam, W. & Knox, A. D. (1922). Herodas: The Mimes and Fragments. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Hedreen, G. (2006). “I let go my force just touching her hair”: Male Sexuality in Athenian Vase-painting of Silens and Iambic Poetry. Classical Antiquity 25, 277–325.
  • Keuls, E. C. (1993). The Reign of the Phallus: Sexual Politics in Ancient Athens. 2nd ed. Berkeley: University of California Press.
  • Kugelmeier, C. (1996). Reflexe früher und zeitgenössicher Lyrik in der alten Attischen Komödie. Beiträge zur Altertumskunde 80. Stuttgart and Leipzig: De Gruyter.
  • Kurke, L. (1994). Crisis and Decorum in Sixth-Century Lesbos: Reading Alkaios Otherwise. Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica 47, 67–92.
  • Landels, J. G. (1999). Music in Ancient Greece and Rome. London & New York: Routledge.
  • Lobel, E. L. (1951). The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, XXI. London: The Egypt Exploration Society.
  • Martin, R. (2016). Sappho, Iambist: Abusing the Brother. In A. Bierl & A. Lardinois (Eds.), The Newest Sappho: P. Sapph. Obbink and P. GC inv. 105, frs. 1–4. Studies in Archaic and Classical Greek Song, Vol. 2 (pp. 110–126). Leiden & Boston: Brill.
  • Most, G. W. (1995). Reflecting Sappho. Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 40, 15–38.
  • Nagy, G. (2007). Did Sappho and Alcaeus ever meet? In A. Bierl, R. Lämmle, and K. Wesselmann (Eds.), Wege zu einer mythisch-rituellen Poetik bei der Griechischen (pp. 211–269). Berlin & New York: De Gruyter.
  • Nelson, M. (2000). A note on the ὄλισβος. Glotta 76, 75–82.
  • Neri, C. (2013). Olisboi e Polianattidi (Sapph. fr. 99 L.-P. = Alc. fr. 303A V.). Eikasmós 24, 11–28.
  • Olson, S. D. (2007). Broken Laughter. Selected Fragments of Greek Comedy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Page, D. (1955). Sappho and Alcaeus: An Introduction to the Study of Ancient Lesbian Poetry. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
  • Pöhlmann, E. (2011). Twelve Chordai and the Strobilos of Phrynis in the Chiron of Pherecrates (PCG fr. 155). Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica 128, 117–133.
  • Power, T. (2007). Ion of Chios and the Politics of Polychordia. In V. Jennings & A. Katsaros (Eds.), The World of Ion of Chios (pp. 179–205). Leiden: Brill.
  • Power, T. (2010). The Culture of Kitharôidia. Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies/Harvard University Press.
  • Restani, D. (1983). Il Chirone di Ferecrate e la ‘nuova’ musica greca. Rivista Italiana di Musicologia 18, 139–192.
  • Rodríguez Somolinos, H. (1994). Notas léxicas a Safo y Alceo. Emerita 62, 109–123.
  • Rosen, R. (1988). Old Comedy and the Iambographic Tradition. Atlanta: Scholars Press.
  • Rosenmeyer, P. A. (2006). Sappho’s Iambics. Letras clásicas 10, 11–36.
  • Snyder, J. M. (1997). Lesbian Desire in the Lyrics of Sappho. New York: Columbia University Press.
  • Spencer, N. (2001). Exchange and Stasis in Archaic Mytilene. In R. Brock and S. Hodkinson (Eds.), Alternatives to Athens: Varieties of Political Organization and Community in Ancient Greece (pp. 61–81). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Stern, J. (1979). Herodas’ Mimiamb 6. Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 20, 247–254.
  • West, M. L. (1970). Burning Sappho. Maia 22, 307–330.
  • West, M. L. (1990). Notes on Sappho and Alcaeus. Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 80, 1–8.
  • West, M. L. (1992). Ancient Greek Music. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
  • Williamson, M. (1995). Sappho’s Immortal Daughters. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
  • Wilson, P. (2004). Athenian Strings. In P. Murray & P. Wilson (Eds.), Music and the Muses: the Culture of Mousike in the Classical Athenian City (pp. 269–306). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Yatromanolakis, D. (2007). Sappho in the Making. Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies/Harvard University Press.
There are 43 citations in total.

Details

Primary Language English
Subjects Sociology
Journal Section Articles
Authors

Timothy Power This is me

Publication Date December 15, 2017
Published in Issue Year 2017 Volume: 37 Issue: 2

Cite

APA Power, T. (2017). Lyric Indecorum in Archaic Mytilene (and Beyond): Sappho F 99 c. I.1–9 L-P = Alcaeus F 303Aa V. İstanbul University Journal of Sociology, 37(2), 259-282.
AMA Power T. Lyric Indecorum in Archaic Mytilene (and Beyond): Sappho F 99 c. I.1–9 L-P = Alcaeus F 303Aa V. İstanbul University Journal of Sociology. December 2017;37(2):259-282.
Chicago Power, Timothy. “Lyric Indecorum in Archaic Mytilene (and Beyond): Sappho F 99 C. I.1–9 L-P = Alcaeus F 303Aa V”. İstanbul University Journal of Sociology 37, no. 2 (December 2017): 259-82.
EndNote Power T (December 1, 2017) Lyric Indecorum in Archaic Mytilene (and Beyond): Sappho F 99 c. I.1–9 L-P = Alcaeus F 303Aa V. İstanbul University Journal of Sociology 37 2 259–282.
IEEE T. Power, “Lyric Indecorum in Archaic Mytilene (and Beyond): Sappho F 99 c. I.1–9 L-P = Alcaeus F 303Aa V”, İstanbul University Journal of Sociology, vol. 37, no. 2, pp. 259–282, 2017.
ISNAD Power, Timothy. “Lyric Indecorum in Archaic Mytilene (and Beyond): Sappho F 99 C. I.1–9 L-P = Alcaeus F 303Aa V”. İstanbul University Journal of Sociology 37/2 (December 2017), 259-282.
JAMA Power T. Lyric Indecorum in Archaic Mytilene (and Beyond): Sappho F 99 c. I.1–9 L-P = Alcaeus F 303Aa V. İstanbul University Journal of Sociology. 2017;37:259–282.
MLA Power, Timothy. “Lyric Indecorum in Archaic Mytilene (and Beyond): Sappho F 99 C. I.1–9 L-P = Alcaeus F 303Aa V”. İstanbul University Journal of Sociology, vol. 37, no. 2, 2017, pp. 259-82.
Vancouver Power T. Lyric Indecorum in Archaic Mytilene (and Beyond): Sappho F 99 c. I.1–9 L-P = Alcaeus F 303Aa V. İstanbul University Journal of Sociology. 2017;37(2):259-82.