Posted for Emma Barton

Sappho Figurative Language Paper

“And as for me, listen to this:
I love luxury!
The bright love, the bright sun
and
beauty are all one!”

This paper will analyze the motif of blindness in Sappho’s second fragment. Since it is a
fragment and context is missing it will not attempt to come to a clear conclusion about what the
overall theme is, rather this is an examination of the tools present and what they seem to point
to in this limited context. The motif of blindness is established through various examples paired
with ideas of excess. First, through the concept of luxury, next through the word “bright,” and
lastly through the connections of “love,” “sun,” and “beauty.”

The introduction to blindness and excess is made through the lines “and as for me, listen
to this: I love luxury!” Sappho claims to love luxury as if it is a unique position, this is ironic
because it is inherent to the concept of luxury that people love it. Luxury means an excess of
something pleasurable, most people would not refer to an excess of something unpleasant,
such as pain, as a luxury. Through this ironic statement of uniqueness, Sappho actually
establishes the universality of the ideas to come.

The word “bright” illuminates the motif of this passage through the specific word choice
and through the repetition of it. First, the choice of the word “bright” as opposed to other words
that represent intensity brings to light the idea of vision. Paired with the theme of excess, this
brings to mind a brightness so excessive that it is blinding. Further, on the concept of word
choice, “bright” does not necessarily imply good or something positive, nor does it necessarily
imply negativity. This ambivalence is a precursor to the ambivalent, if not cautious tone the
passage has in regard to theoretically positive things such as love.

The word “bright” is repeated in “the bright love, the bright sun.” This repetition links sun
and love, implying a similar dimension tied through their similar brightness. This begs the
question, what aspect of their brightness makes them similar? They can be blinding. Bright sun
is literally blinding. Bright love is figuratively blinding in that intense passion can render a person
irrational and ‘blind’ to things such as flaws in their beloved. A similarity in the particular brand of
blindness these two share is that they are not always blinding, they are only made blinding by
significant excess. This contributes to the tone of caution towards pleasant things and their
tendency towards excess.

The next mechanism through which Sappho evokes the idea of blindness is the
connection of “love,” “sun,” and “beauty.” She says they “are all one,” implying at least one
dimension in which they are all similar. This connection is that all three are basic human
pleasures that can be blinding in excess. Love if you’re irrationally into someone, sun literally
and beauty because a person can be so physically beautiful as to figuratively blind another to
their other traits. All three “are one” in their potential to be blinding in excess.