The Trouble with a Wooing Poem

Performative Ambiguity in Sappho’s Fragment 137

Abstract

This study examines Sappho’s fragment 137 through the lens of lyrical performativity, with a focus on the rhetorical function of shame and silence. Rather than reconstructing the original performance context—which remains unknown—the analysis draws on the poem’s linguistic features. The two speakers’ utterances can also be read ironically, i.e. their illocutionary forces can be self-contradictory, and the invocation of shame appears not only as an obstacle to speech but also as a paradoxical vehicle for desire and erotic communication. The article argues that the performative declaration of silence itself generates meaning, serving as a literary mode of articulating what is socially inexpressible or deemed shameful. This interpretive approach also reveals how poetic language destabilizes conventional gender roles and engages in a play of erotic ambiguity. Ultimately, the fragment offers a complex rhetorical enactment of unspoken longing, demonstrating how silence can function both as concealment and as expression.