Ho for the wedding!
(Edmonds 148)
Then follows a kind of lyrical marriage drama, the bridesmaids representing the tribe of the bride, the youths the clan of the bridegroom, in this respect foreshadowing Catullus’ double choir. The maidens answer the young men’s praise by chiding Hesperus, the evening star, whose coming heralds the union. The young men in turn reply with the famous words already quoted, to which the sequel probably was “even so bring home the bride to the bridegroom.” We think of Edmund Spenser’s Prothalamion and Epithalamion which have many of the motives of the Greek epithalamium, with their reference to Hesper, with their beautiful descriptions of bride and bridegroom. I quote the lines about Hymen, which is Sappho’s Greek refrain, rendered by the word “wedding” in Edmonds’ version:
Hymen, iö Hymen, they do shout;
That even to the heavens theyr shouting shrill
Doth reach, and all the firmament doth fill.
The men praise marriage bliss; the maidens, virginity (E. 152, “I shall be ever-maiden,” E. 159, “Can it be that I still long for my virginity?”). The bride says, “Maidenhead, maidenhead, whither away?” and the reply is, “Where I must stay, bride, where I must stay” (E. 164)[100]; a wonderful example of the way in which Sappho treats abstractions and inanimate things (cf. also E. 80, “Up, my lute divine and make thyself a thing of speech”). Sappho is the first to use such a personification[101] and it recalls Théophile Gautier in his reverse application in Mademoiselle de Maupin. At least it is difficult to think of the young Gautier independently conceiving the striking figure that is so characteristic of the genius of the Lesbian poetess. This is the Frenchman’s passage. It describes the fair heroine going out into the world dressed in masculine habiliments to test men’s fidelity in love:
“And, as I rode away down the alley of chestnut trees, all the puerilities of my girlhood ran along by the roadside, blowing me farewell kisses from the tips of their tapering fingers. And one little spirit in white, in a clear, silvery voice, cried: ‘Madeleine, where are you going? I am your virginity, dear, but you look so fierce in your boots and hose, with your plumed hat and long sword, that I am not sure whether I should go with you.’
“I replied: ‘Go home, sweet thing, if you are afraid. Water my flowers and care for my doves. But in sooth you are wrong. You would be safer with me in these garments of stout cloth than in airy gauze. My boots prevent it being seen that I have a little tempting foot; this sword is my defense against dishonor; and the feather waving in my hat is to frighten away all the nightingales who would come and sing false love into my ear.’”
In amoebean or antiphonic hexameter verses (E. 150 and 151), as exquisite as Heine’s Du bist wie eine Blume, the maidens liken the virgin state to the unplucked pippin, the married woman to the hyacinth or columbine, with which Aphrodite is also adorned in the passage from Himerius. As Tucker says: “a band of girls mock the men with failure to win some dainty maiden, and the men reply with a taunt at the neglected bloom of the unprofitable virgin. Say the maids ([Pl. 9]):