SOURCE: Sider, David. “Sappho 168B Voight: Δέbχε μεν α Σελαννα.” Eranos 84 (1986): 57-68.

In the following essay, Sider discusses multiple poetic meanings of the term “ôra” in the Sapphic fragment designated as 168B Voight.

Δέδυχε μὲν ἀ Σελάννα χαὶ Πληiαδεs· μέσαι δὲ νύχτεs, παϱ
F70x; δ' ἔϱχετ' Ὤϱα, ἔγω δὲ μόνα χατεύδω.(1) 

Recent discussion of this poem has concentrated on the meaning of ôra, scholars as usual arguing for only one of the possible meanings the word may have: (i) hour of the night, i.e., the night itself (“nottata”);² (ii) fixed time (for meeting one's lover);³ (iii) indefinite period of time, i.e., “time passes;”⁴ (iv) ἥβη, flos aetatis, referring to Sappho's own life;⁵ (v) φυλαaή, a watch in the night.⁶ Rather surprisingly, nobody has argued for the word's basic meaning, season of the year (hôra is cognate with year/Jahr), although, as I shall show, two learned poets have so interpreted the poem (see below, n. 13). The approach to the problem...