Sappho 44

This paper explores what the most substantial remnant of Sappho’s poetry could have meant to its first audiences. Scholars often approach fr. 44 as a response to the Homeric Iliad , but for Sappho’s contemporaries the Iliad would not have constituted the sole horizon for intertextual engagement. I suggest that the description of the wedding of Hector and Andromache would have brought to mind the wedding of Paris and Helen, a parallel traditional episode that was well-known in Sappho’s day. Section 1 describes how our knowledge of mythical discourse on archaic Lesbos may guide the interpretation of fr. 44. Section 2 argues for the relevance of the wedding of Paris and Helen and sketches some interpretive implications.