Lesbian Day of Visibility Special

Happy Lesbian Day of Visibility!

Today we have a very special episode covering  stories of Lesbian desire. There is a spell found in the Greek Magical Papyri which was intended to bind Serapias to Herais, two women whose desire to be together transcended even death. The other stories of Lesbian desire are drawn from the incomparable poetry of Sappho. Sappho calls upon Aphrodite, Goddess of Love, to aid in her courting. Later she describes Anactoria  as the best sight in the world, and describes the visceral full-body reaction to seeing her girlfriend. 

Wherever you are and whatever is going on in your life, take a few minutes to think about the Lesbians. Think about what it means to be a Lesbian, or else what it means to support Lesbians. Rejoice that we do still live in a world where Lesbian voices are visible and can help us shape our concepts of love and how love can be represented. 

Have a good Lesbian Visibility Day!

Transcript

Speaker 0:29

Hello, everybody, and welcome to a very special episode of Lambda, the LGBT and Antiquity Podcast, the show about all things LGBT and the ancient world. I'm your host, Dominica Raven, Lesbian Visibility Day Special. Today is a special episode of the show dedicated to lesbian visibility in the ancient world. We are not going to go through a traditional Lambda deep dive. This is actually two smaller dives into the poems and records where lesbian lives are visible. There is enough to discuss today, but either one of these would make an excellent future standalone episode. For today it's all about showing visibility. Greek magical papyri number thirty two. One of the best representations of female homoeraticism from antiquity comes from the second century AD in Greek speaking Egypt. A small piece of papyrus was found in an Egyptian cemetery in eighteen eighty nine. The text reads as follows I adjure you, Yoangelos, Anubis and Hermes, and all the rest down below, attract and bind Sarapias, daughter of Helen, to Heris, daughter of Thomotharian, quickly, by her soul and heart attract Sarapias, whom Helen bore from her own womb My Ote Elbosato alaubeto in This papyrus is a magical spell used to court a woman. The romantic formulas are fairly common when mortals bequeath a god for help. Those last few words are magical passwords whose meaning, if they ever had any, is long forgotten. The text repeats several times on the papyrus fragment with minor subtle variations, which is also pretty common in these magical spells. But what is special about this passage is that it leaves no doubt as to its intention. This is a spell used by a woman named Herais to attract Sarapias, with the end goal of binding the two women together even in death. That the papyrus was found on a cemetery and calls out to Anubis, an Egyptian underworld god appropriated by Greek speakers in the region, and to Hermes Tracemagistus, a fusion of Hermes the guide who directs souls to the afterlife and the native Egyptian god Thoth. These indicate that we're not looking at a temporary fling, but rather an eternal bond between these two women, deliberately formulated for them to carry into the afterlife. In antiquity magic was not about rebellion against the gods, but rather an attempt to use the power of the gods. Adherents could call upon deities and natural embodiments and rally this divine and preternatural support behind one's objectives. In many of the magical papyri this meant romance. In this magical papyri, it indicates homoeratic romance. Taken together this implies these women were using the means available to them, including magic to take charge and exert personal influence on their lives. Often in antiquity we get a sense that many people are stoically following their heteronormative rules at the expense of their own desires. Women often had even less agency and autonomy in their romantic pursuits than men. However, this papyrus clearly shows a different story. Herais is making her own plans, expressing her own agency, and following through on her own desires. She may have been legally married, in fact it would have been stranger for her not to have been married in this time and place. Maybe Serapis is also married. This did not prevent either of them from following their own desires and using the powers at their disposal to bind themselves together. This is remarkable in its own way. These women may not have had any more say in their life trajectory, but they could use magic to pursue their desires anyway. Beyond this the papyrus was clearly intended to be taken to the grave, which would strongly imply that the women were intending to be bound for all eternity. As such we could take this magical spell to be something of a common law wedding, though in all likelihood both of these women were legally married, this is the wedding they wanted to last forever. It is for this reason they called upon Anubis and Hermes to guide their souls together in the afterworld. So even as they had limited sway over their social roles, they still found a way to be together, bound to one another despite all social conventions. Herais and Satapis were bound for all time. Even the grave could not end it. Now it's time to read the original lesbian herself. Sappho lived around six hundred BC, placing her among the very first of all the Greek poets. The exact dates are unclear from surviving documentation. Sappho wrote a tremendous volume of poetry, most of which was choruses for young women. Some poems were designed to be sung at civic rituals and events and weddings, while others were personal reflections where she sang about her own desires. She is among the greatest examples of female homoeroticism in history. But you already know the basics. Let's get to the poetry. Perhaps the most famous poem in all of Sappho is her hymn to Aphrodite, the Roman goddess Venus. Sappho is feeling heart sickness and calls upon Aphrodite to comfort her. Sappho then recounts another time she was in a similar situation and the goddess helped her. That first time Aphrodite arrived in a chariot pulled by sparrows and manifested herself before Sappho. The goddess asked, Who do you desire this time, Sappho? Who must I coax into loving you? Though she ran away, soon she will be returning to you. Though she doesn't love you now, soon she will. Sappho calls upon the deity again to help her with another girl she desires. The text of this hymn leaves absolutely no room for ambiguity. Sappho is in love with a girl and calls upon Aphrodite for help. This is significant as the goddess whose purview is the whole romantic sphere makes no distinction between hetero and homosexual desire. The summit of beauty and love herself guides, watches over, facilitates and protects all lovers, but has a special proclivity for the homosexual desires of Sappho. Though we can't be certain which girl Sappho was courting in the hymn to Aphrodite, we do have other poems that add names. One such poem begins some think that a fleet or troop of mounted cavalry or an army is the best sight in the world, but I say what one loves there's a bit of a Cesura here. That reminds me of Anactoria. I'd sooner see her lovely walk and that glistening on her face than all the hosts of Lydia. Another poem tells of the melancholic separation between Sappho and one of her girlfriends. She is crying as she leaves, and the two will never see one another again. The woman says I solemnly swear I don't want to leave you, Sappho, and Sappho replies Be happy when you remember this time we had together. Remember that time we made the flower garlands, remember when we anointed ourselves in perfume and myrrh. Remember when we reclined on soft couches and satisfied our longing. Sappho is never going to see this girl again. Though there are other ways of reading the text, I interpret this as the girl going off to be married. Remember, marriage is a deal where the patafamilius of one family made a business deal with the patafamilius of another, and the bride and groom may have never even met one another before. The daughter certainly had no say in what her father did to manage his household, so if a woman were told to marry, she was married. Thus this poem reflects something which might have been otherwise invisible to us. The woman who prefers the company of other women and may have had no interest in men at all, yet is compelled into mandatory heteronormativity. Once the bride reached her new home she would have been occupied with all sorts of domestic tasks, not least of which was having in rearing children. For the woman to even return to her birth family on vacation would have been pretty rare during her life. There is a tragedy here which will have occurred thousands of times in antiquity. A lesbian relationship is broken up for the convenience of the family. I wanted to end our discussion of Sappho with my personal favourite poem from the whole lyric corpus. Sappho describes a yearning for a girl who is unnamed in this fragment. Sappho gazes at her and hears her voice and laughter. This makes Sappho's heart leap and she is totally speechless. There is a fire running through her veins and her eyes fail. Sappho starts to sweat and shake with an overwhelming desire. In the end she is feeling like she is dying with desire. Of all the poems in antiquity this is the most visceral representation of feminine desire for other women. Sappho's whole body reacts to seeing the woman. The sight of the girl and the sound of her voice creates an overpowering longing she feels down to her bones. I remember the first time I read this poem. As a kid there really wasn't anything actually written by lesbians that I had access to. Any and all references were either written by a heteronormative man or by a heteronormative woman who was projecting a fantasy onto female homoeroticism. So when I was in school and the lyric poetry was set in front of me, I remember having to stop at this poem. I read it over and over again, pacing the library trying to process what I was reading and experiencing. When a man loves a woman, it's different from when a woman loves a woman in ways I'm not remotely equipped to describe. Hearing somebody talk that language and express what I had already experienced was overwhelming for me. That voice from two and a half thousand years ago said what I could not, and I am grateful it may still be heard. So we can very clearly see lesbian visibility in these stories. Sappho said beautifully some ideas which I don't know I've ever heard said any better. There from the dawn of Greek civilization is a lesbian voice which continues to speak to us. So we can see very clearly lesbian visibility in these stories. Sappho said beautifully some ideas I don't know anyone else has ever said better. From the dawn of Greek civilization is a lesbian voice which continues to speak to us. Both of these lesbian voices were not resigned to their societally acceptable roles. Rather, they were able to follow their desires, pursue their interests, and express what they wanted using whatever methods were at their disposal. Wherever you are in whatever is going on in your life, take a few minutes today and think about the lesbians. Think about what it means to be a lesbian, or else what it means to support lesbians. Rejoice that we do live in a world where lesbians are visible and that their voices can help shape our concepts of love and romance. Have a good lesbian visibility day. Notes and comments I wanted to apologize for the change in audio quality in this episode. My day job is actually Contracts Archaeology, and since the ground is no longer fully frozen, I'm on the road. This broadcast is actually coming from a hotel room between shifts. I have tried my best to keep its audio quality better, but I can hear that it is definitely slightly less quality than a normal episode. Greek magical papyrus number thirty two is the one we were referencing today. The translation was done by Edward O'Neill in The Greek Magical Papyri in translation including the demonic spells, edited by Hans Bates nineteen eighty six from the University of Chicago Press. It's found on page two hundred and sixty six. There are more examples of homoeraticism in the magical papyri, which we will return to in future episodes. The hymn to Aphrodite is found in Sappho's poem number one. Sappho longs for Anactoria in poem number sixteen, and Sappho Fragment number ninety four contains the poem about the girl going away and their relationship ending forever. Sappho Fragment number thirty one contains that visceral description of lesbian desire. If you're interested in learning about Sappho, an excellent source is the digital sappho. It contains all of the fragments and poems that have come down to us, though it is predicated on knowing the basics of the Greek language to use. If you're interested in reading these sources in translation, type in queer desire from Sappho to Serapiacos. You will be directed to the University of Oxford website which has a translation of these invaluable sources from antiquity. That's all for this special episode, folks. We'll see you next Monday for our regularly scheduled program. We will finish our deep dive into Atis by exploring the relationship between the trans woman Attis and the female coded intersex deity Rea Kaibale, another excellent example of a different type of lesbian desire in antiquity. See on Monday