id	author	title	date	pages	extension	mime	words	sentence	flesch	summary	cache	txt
grbs-16898	Nelson, Thomas J.	Sappho’s Rose-Fingered Moon and Traditional Referentiality	2024	15	.pdf	application/pdf	5504	255	65	Nelson ————— Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 64 (2024) 147–161 ISSN 2159-3159 Article copyright held by the author(s) and made available under the Creative Commons Attribution License CC-BY https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Sappho’s Rose-Fingered Moon and Traditional Referentiality Thomas J. Nelson APPHO in fr.96 Voigt compares a departed friend to a moon among stars (6–9a):1 νῦν δὲ Λύ̣δαισιν ἐµπρέπεται γυναί- κεσσιν ὤς ποτ’ ἀελίω δύν̣τος ἀ βροδοδάκτυλος σελάννα πάντα περ<ρ>έχοισ’ ἄστρα· Now she stands out among Lydian women like the rose-fingered moon after sunset, surpassing all the stars.2 Such astral similes are a common element in encomiastic literature, especially in choral song;3 and they recur elsewhere in 1 For the enumeration and presentation of Sappho fragments I follow C. Neri, Saffo, Testimonianze e frammenti (Berlin 2021); his text here follows the emendations of W. Schubart, “Neue Bruchstücke der Sappho und des Al- kaios,” SBBerl 24 (1902) 195–209, at 200: in particular, σελάννα restores the required meter for the papyrus’ µήνα. Sappho may have drawn on local traditions from Asia Minor in her treatment of the myth: D. L. Page, Sappho and Alcaeus (Oxford 1955) 273–274; E. Stehle, “Sappho’s Gaze: Fantasies of a Goddess and Young Man,” in E. Greene (ed.), Reading Sappho: Contemporary Approaches (Berkeley 1996)	cache/grbs-16898.pdf	txt/grbs-16898.txt