詩論の変貌 : サッフォー断片31番とカトゥルス、及びエリティス訳との比較考察 <論文>

We could say Sappho's fr.31 is the most famous single poem from Greek antiquity. It is known to us through quotation of Longinus in De sublimitate 10.2. Among such regularly cited echoes as Theocritus Id. 2.106-108, Lucretius 3.154-156, and Horace, Odes 1.22.23-24, Catullus 51 must be included.

Sappho's exquisite portrayal of the torturing experience of love perhaps accounts for the poem's popularity during the Renaissance, which DeJean describes in her detailed study (Joan DeJean: Fictions of Sappho, 1546-1937, pp.33-37, the University of Chicago Press, 1989). Its popularity has not yet abated, judging from the variety and amount of modern scholarship. There are 131 articles on fr.31 between 1922 and 1992 according to the survey by D.E.Gerber ('Greek Lyric Poetry since 1920', Lustrum 35, 1993, pp.7-180 and 36, 1994, pp.7-188). Fr.31 is regarded to concern poetry as much as love, like Catullus' translation, or imitation, in 51.

This study considers the poetic-erotic refinement of two poets, focusing upon such memorable images as Sappho's 'broken tongue' (fr.31.9, 'γλῶσσά μ'ἔαγε') and Catullus' 'paralysed tongue' (51.9, 'lingua sed torpet'), the enigma of which the comparison with Modern Greek translation of fr.31 by Ο.Ελύτης will help to explicate (Ο.Ελύτης: ΣΑΠΦΩ, Ikaros, 1984, pp.78,81).