A meaningful reading of the epiphany, and so the poem as a whole, must realize that both elements are fundamental not only to the language of prayer but also to prayer’s constituent parts. The epiphany is the heart of the poem. It occupies the central position and introduces the alternative to μὴ δάμνα—it is the aid Sappho wants, the positive expression of her desire. An analysis ignores at its own peril the crucial role the incident plays in the prayer. My study, in its information with the tension of the ritual and the persuasive, will expose a dimension of the epiphany which has gone unnoticed: the {38|39} descent of Aphrodite to Sappho’s aid enacts the difference between the ritual and the different and thus works through it the actual success of the prayer.

The repetition inherent in πότα κἀτέρωτα ἔλθες looks to the same unchanging conception of prayer as a pure performative utterance. The conflation of the indefinite πότα (“once”) and the definite yet undefined ἐτέρωτα (“at another time”) indicate an incessant habituality about the epiphanies Sappho describes. Πότα refers to an indefinable “once upon a time” event, which happens only once, κἀτέρωτα to a definite time when a previous epiphany happened. The interaction of the two temporal words forces the πότα to define itself, but since it must remain essentially indefinite the combination implies a timeless series. The combination of those two terms ensures that the present description refers not to one or two, but to an infinity of occasions when Aphrodite came down from heaven to aid Sappho. As I noted in Chapter II, just such an unending series provides the authority behind ritual.

At the same time the words carry the force of the beginning of a story. Compare again our familiar “once upon a time.” The statement carries two main forces. The first is to invoke the tradition of a fairy tale and to bring the authority inherent in that tradition to bear on the listener. The second force actually begins the story. In the same way αἴ πότα κἀτέρωτα begins the narrative of the “fairy tale” of Aphrodite’s appearance. This narrative, descriptive force we can clearly identify with the different element of prayer, in {39|40} this case the speech act of persuasion: it represents the traditional attempt to win divine favor by use of past aid.

The deceptive effect of the temporal words which locate the epiphany in time leads me to explore also the incident’s location in the language of the poem. It is obvious from the shift in verb mood from imperative to indicative (ἔλθε to ἦλθε) that the epiphany is a narrative, albeit one dependent on the imperative ἔλθε. As a narrative of what Sappho has seen in the past and hopes to see again, the story takes place in the descriptive, {40|41} different mode of discourse, removed from the structure of the speech act λίσσομαι. In considering what takes place in the narrative, then, we must suspend the ritual structure of the poem and see what the story tells us about it. To continue noting the difference of each part of the narrative from λίσσομαι would serve no purpose, for the distance is constant and pre-determined by the epiphany’s all taking place at the level of the different narrative. Consider again my formulation of the different as the element which creates difference between Sappho’s prayer and the prayers which have gone before (Chapter III). The narrative of the epiphany, because it belongs to Sappho alone (except for its function as a hypomnesia) takes shape in the mode of that different element.

The descriptive, different force continues in the picture we receive of the goddess listening to Sappho and leaving Zeus’ house. For the sake of clarity I refer to this stanza as the Olympus Section. The emphasis in the scene is on Aphrodite’s distance and separation from Sappho. The distance is primarily expressed in the physical terms we see in πηλοί, a word which implies a great remove. More importantly the focus on Aphrodite’s response to Sappho of the verbs αἴοισα, ἔκλυες, λίποισα, and ἦλθες strongly reinforces the separation of the goddess from the praying Sappho. These verbs all rely on the supposition of vast separation between the two, and this effect is carried out by πήλοι on the level of spatial distance rather than the other way around. The twice repeated concepts of hearing and departure demand that the we visualize the two characters as distinct and far apart.

As I noted above, the epiphany takes place in the mode of different descriptive narrative, and from within that framework refers to the ritual in description like that of Aphrodite in the house of Zeus, whereas the invocation took shape in the mode of the ritual and refers to the different. There is no specific ritual marking like λίσσομαι in the epiphany, but the view of Aphrodite in the Olympus Section (πάτρος δὲ δόμον λίποισα / χρύσιον) assumes that function, the identification with ritual tradition, though at the remove of the different. Aphrodite is distant, on Olympus; she is the object of ritual prayer, unchanging as ritual, in its own view, should be. The epiphany thus captures in {42|43} its different moment the ritual conception of the goddess; by also referring to its own different persuasion later on in the words of Aphrodite (τίνα πείθω, which I discuss more fully below) the narrative of the goddess’ descent to earth and aid to Sappho encompasses both the ritual and the different speech acts. Placed side by side in the narrative of the epiphany the two speech acts enact the tension and difference between the two sides of the poem: they enact what happens to the ritual element in contact with the different, in the different mode. As I detailed in Chapter II, the difference between the two sides produces the true constative element of language, which conveys poetic meaning. The different persuasion of the narrative of the epiphany serves to bring about the success of the prayer because it moves the ritual from its unchanging conception to a re-made, “persuaded” conception, which Sappho herself defines in bringing it there. In the process, the constative difference arises. To anticipate, Sappho takes Aphrodite from Olympus, where she can only listen, to earth, where she can speak, and ask τίνα πείθω. Aphrodite goes from the absolute, persuaded other to the different, persuasive other in the movement of the narrative. The exploration below should clarify this effect much further.

The rest of the Sparrow Section, where the chariot descends to earth, furthers this relationship in a spatial movement. Aphrodite travels ἀπ᾽ ὠράνω ἴθερος διὰ μέσσω, a graphic representation of the mediation of the ritual and the different. The middle has no designation as anything but an abstract—there is no noun attached—so we may read in it a huge variety of constative differences, one of which, I submit, should be the space between the ritual and the different, since this is the principal opposition of the poem. Aphrodite thus travels through that space on her way to Sappho, enacting the difference of the poem in response to Sappho’s prayer (ἔλθε). {44|45}

The question of response is fundamental to the epiphany, for the very travel of Aphrodite indicates within the frame of the narrative that the goddess has answered Sappho’s prayer and has decided to come. The enactment, therefore, is the result of the success of the prayer. If such be the result, we must also see in the epiphany the condition for success, for clearly the conditions which prevail in the response of Aphrodite are also the conditions which brought her in the first place: Aphrodite must cross the boundary from ritual into different, joining the two sides in her action. Such reasoning seems on the surface circular, but considering the dialogic relation of the two sides of the poem and the repetition inherent both in the tradition of ritual and in the epiphany as Sappho describes it, it is not difficult to see that such a doubling back represents a perfectly natural reflex of Sappho’s prayer.

Doubling back, in fact, is exactly the function of the epiphany. As the next section, which I call the Question Section, shows, the appearance of Aphrodite serves as the confirmation of the favor of the goddess in that it uses the recounting of her words to enact in the goddess her own persuasion. The first and only glimpse Sappho gives us of the goddess herself is the enigmatic smile which precedes her words. Aphrodite is μειδιαίσαισ᾽ ἀθανάτῳ προσώπῳ, a gesture which represents a definite separation from the faceless, unchanging Other of the ritual tradition. A smile necessarily means a change from a neutral expression, a difference from a frown or a grimace. Aphrodite could not always smile in her eternal tradition, or the smile would cease to have any meaning. Once again, the different, re-making element makes the goddess differ from herself. As she begins to speak, though, we see in her questions to Sappho the goddess’ own invocation of the tradition of prayer, especially Sappho’s prayer. The most noticeable element of Aphrodite’s speech is the triple use of δηὖτε with ὄττι, “What now?” In this phrase we see in a microcosm the enactment which pervades the epiphany: as Aphrodite emphasizes the repetitive nature of Sappho’s prayer, she repeats herself. Together the two repetitions create the feeling of the repetitive ritual tradition which Sappho invokes, both {45|46} through Sappho’s repetition of Aphrodite’s words in the poem and through the repetition of the words themselves which within the prayer enacts its own ritual. Aphrodite’s words also carry the weight of the goddess’ traditional, ritual persona in their repetitive ritual nature. More importantly, the questions embody the different element of the poem in that they themselves are different persuasion, a speech act in tension with λίσσομαι. They represent both Aphrodite’s persuasion of Sappho and, since Sappho herself speaks the whole prayer, Sappho’s persuasion of Aphrodite. Since Aphrodite is the explicit audience of the prayer, she in hearing the prayer will hear herself speaking the words which indicate that the prayer is successful, since she has come down to Sappho. This is the sort of reflexive action of the epiphany which I began to detail above. Once Aphrodite has descended to earth, she is, as Burnett might say, caught in a snare. Her actions are endlessly reflective upon themselves in a complex of the ritual and the persuasive, which time after time lead back to each other: the ritual repetition of δηὖτε leads to the persuasion which Aphrodite manifests in her questions (τίνα πείθω) and thence to the ritual of the prayer itself, which uses Aphrodite’s persuasive words to invoke its own success, through which Aphrodite will come down and persuade the lover to return to Sappho.

The play of different persuasion and ritual in the words Sappho puts into Aphrodite’s mouth presents us with a fascinating view of what happens when the two forces come into contact. Each time we proceed another step to the endless chain of ritual and persuasive (from ὄττι δηὖτε to τίνα πείθω to λίσσομαι to a repeat of the entire epiphany in the different mode and on into eternity) we notice that the other element has receded before us, so that we must pursue it again in our attempt to fix its place and end the chain in certainty. We are a long way from the easily grasped ritual element of λίσσομαι with which the poem began and from which Aphrodite descended to come to Sappho. The distance emerges markedly in Aphrodite’s words, where the goddess progresses from the second person to the first, her words first related by Sappho then spoken directly by the goddess. It is as if the further she gets from the ritual, the freer she {46|47} is to admit difference within herself in the necessarily differential nature of speech. The goddess’ first utterances are direct questions, too, oriented most towards their effect, more explicitly performative than descriptive, “poetic,” persuasive speech. The goddess becomes a speaker in her performative’s difference from that of Sappho, which represents the motion of the different: Sappho’s voice branches into Aphrodite’s and persuades through a different voice, putting the questions at that distance from herself. As Sappho’s own voice rises in the difference of the ritual from the different persuasion in the way I detailed in Chapter III (the re-making of the tradition through difference, especially clear in my comparison to epic), the presence of another voice representing the speech act of another character opens a difference within Sappho’s voice, allowing that voice to take a position of its own. To take such a position Aphrodite must descend to earth and assume a stance directly opposite to Sappho, thus already assuring her servant of her aid. Simply by asking the questions the goddess enacts not only her appearance but her earthly position through her presence in Sappho’s poem, and thus necessarily her aid. The last of these questions is, of course, τίνα πείθω; “Whom shall I persuade?” the question which at a basic level informs the entire poem. Aphrodite has reached a point where different persuasion has become possible, not just for her but for Sappho; she has been caught.