Ancient text
The Song of Songs and Sappho’s lyrics/fragments are both texts from the ancient world. Each works touches subjects like love, passion or even desire. There are couple of similarities between Sappho’s fragments and The Song of Songs yet there are also couple of disparities. Both expresses either love or desire towards someone. Although in Fragments 130 and 31, Sappho doesn’t directly tell the person who she’s admiring but instead keeps her feelings to herself. Meanwhile the Shulamite and her lover are both aware of each other feelings.
The Song of Songs is described as a poem that expresses the sexual awaken or even yearning between two lovers. However in ancient Jerusalem it could be considered as an illicit relationship since both lovers were not married. In Hebrew culture women were expected to be virgins before they got married. The women could even be penalized with death. Yet that did not stop the lovers from engaging in their love fest. Not too far away from Jerusalem there was an ancient poet who resided in ancient Greece during the Archaic Period, her name was Sappho. She was known for her lyric poetry and often wrote poems about love and desire between women. Similarly both works expresses a fervent desire towards someone.
In Sappho’s fragment 130 we see can see love and desire has took a hold on Sappho. A feeling that can be described as either pleasant or even painful yet she has a hard time fighting off the overcoming feeling. What’s interesting is