The Couple and the Queer in Sappho's Tithonus Poem (Frag. 58)

This paper offers a new reading of the Tithonus/Dawn couple in Sappho's Tithonus poem. It identifies three elements lurking beside the Tithonus/Dawn couple: eros, chronos , and gêras . It suggests that eros, chronos , and gêras haunt this heterosexual couple, altering the power dynamics between them, just like the third element looming beside the couple in the queer couple theory of Lee Edelman (2004) and Brilmyer et al. (2019). In Sappho's representation of Tithonus and Dawn, these three elements entangle themselves with the couple at different stages through integration, destabilization, and conjunction, thus establishing alternative models to the heterosexual couple norm.