Overview

This only complete Sappho poem, "Hymn to Aphrodite," expresses the very human plea for help with a broken heart. The speaker, who is identified in stanza 5 as the poet Sappho, calls upon the goddess of love, Aphrodite, to come to her aid. The goddess has helped the speaker in the past and will leave her golden palace to come to Earth to help her faithful believer. The center of the poem recalls past visits in which the goddess has brought a reluctant lover back. The goddess promises that the lover will soon know love as intense as that suffered by the poet, and so the poem ends on a more hopeful recognition of the goddess's power to resolve the pain of love.

Stanza 1

In the first stanza, the speaker calls upon the goddess Aphrodite to come to her aid. The speaker begins by acknowledging the power of...