On Beauty and Carnal Desire: Sappho’s Fragment 31

 

Fragment 31 of Sappho shows how beauty can be a source of suffering.
In this fragment, beauty does not generate desire but pain, dizziness, and palpitations.

A man of godlike beauty does not generate carnal desire because he represents perfection, and perfection generates fear, confusion, and the other states that Sappho describes in Fragment 31. Sappho does not speak of carnal desire or sexual excitement, but of physical and spiritual suffering.

The imperfect, the monstrous, the deformed, the uncommon, and the sinful — understood as the highest form of spiritual imperfection — generate the desire of the flesh.


Fragment 31.

He seems to me the equal of the gods,
that man who sits facing you,
and, close beside you,
listens and speaks sweetly,
and laughs with irresistible charm.

Indeed, that has set my heart trembling within my breast.
For whenever I look upon you, even for a moment,
my voice no longer comes to me;

my tongue is broken; at once
a subtle fire runs beneath my skin;
my eyes see nothing,
and my ears ring;

cold sweat pours over me;
trembling seizes my whole body;
I become greener than grass,
and I seem to myself little short of death.

Yet everything must be endured...