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Magna Leah V. Alcantara III-BSBT

I Have not Had One Word from Her

Love is a form of sacrifice. Even if letting go is the hardest thing to face, it is the highest form of love that you can give. That is what the persona of the poem talks about. Sappho is the person in the poem who speaks in words of solitude, grieving for love that was lost. Sappho narrates her love story throughout the poem. It is proven throughout the entire of the poem. Sappho started with a line expressing her situation at the present, that she have not had one word from her love since the time that her love had left her. She made an introduction of the poem imposing that the love she had lost had already forgotten her and no news from her lover was heard since their separation. At the second stanza, Sappho reminisces the time when her love had left her. At the first line of the second stanza, Sappho describes the pain of losing someone you love. A pain that you think you can no longer bear so you would rather choose to die than bear the pain of losing someone who means life it self to you. At the second line of the second stanza, Sappho informs us of what her lover feels toward their separation, she tells us that her lover also feels pain in facing their severance. The third stanza of the poem also tells us of the hurting of Sapphos' lover. But more importantly, the third stanza of the poem proves that Sappho

is really the one narrating the poem. For in the third stanza, Sapphos' lover is advising her to endure their parting and that she is unwilling to leave Sappho. On the other hand, in the fourth stanza of the poem, Sappho responded her lover telling her to remember all the love that they had, and how that love affected the both of them. On the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eight stanza of the poem, Sappho offers all the line of the poem for her lover. The fourth stanza shows what true love can do, that letting go is giving your love the chance to find its real happiness. But Sappho honestly states that she is already imprisoned by the love that she feels for her lover. On the fifth stanza, Sappho is as if begging her lover that if ever her lover forgets her, it must remember all the hard works that they have done just to keep their love alive. All the sacrifices and gifts to Aphrodite so that the goddess of love would be in favor of their relationship and guide them throughout the time of their affair. The third line of the fifth stanza reveals how Sappho and her lover complement each other and made each other complete by filling the gap of difference through shared loveliness and yes, all the loveliness they have shared. And they are seen as one. The sixth stanza pertains to how Sappho exalted her lover giving her lovely tiaras in her head, how she respects her lover giving her rosebuds and crocus around her neck, how Sappho admires her love. The seventh stanza tells how Sappho took care of her lover, giving her all that she needs, and all that she wishes for.

While in the eight stanza, Sappho whole heartedly declares how she could not live without her love. That if ever her love would be gone, the two of them and all that they have shared would also be gone. And Sappho would remain to be a meaningless plot of soil, without life, without fruit, she would be nothing without her love. All in all, the poem tells us how temporary things in life are, things just come and go, if one thing will come to you, whether you like it or not, it would eventually be gone or end without you even noticing it. But those things and the experiences that you have learned from it would greatly affect your whole personality, your whole being and you end up guilty of longing for things that can not be returned. The pain of losing someone is just as painful of losing your own life, because you have already shared a part of your life with that person. Even the thought of forever is not that sure within a relationship, still you take the risk of falling in love and sharing your life to someone, with all of your heart and almost everything you own. In return, when the story comes to an end, you feel your missing a part of your life, because the part you have shared with that someone you love was already owned by the one you have shared it with. And letting go is not an easy task, it is like giving something you have never owned or forgetting something you have never remembered. And sometimes you feel as if you never had the ability to let go because you are imprisoned by the love that you feel and you have forgotten how to live alone without the love and company you feel you have always had. And even harder when the memories of everything you have been through and everything you have shared and learned from each other would increase the pain and struggle of letting go. You would even feel that as if all the things you have

built together are all wasted and are never appreciated. All the dreams that the both of you had built will be gone forever. And you would never be whole again. But in the end, if love does not work out, you must sacrifice and give up the love you feel for someone, so that, that someone would find the love where it really belongs and have the happiness it cannot have in your arms. We have to accept that not all story’s end in happy endings. And the one you have believed to be your pair was not really for you, but just a person who helped you to be the right being for the one who is really meant for you. Even though enduring the pain of losing someone is like a challenge that everyone must face, by experiencing pain, we become much stronger, and from losing, we gain so much more. We learn to understand, to forgive and to love life with all its imperfections. But even with all the pain a separation brings, still we have to move on, live another life and forget the past, and just as they say, “past is past” and in deed, past really passes while we keep on moving and living. I think Sappho is a person who loves wholeheartedly, and gives everything for the one she loves. That losing that love means losing her life as well. But because Sappho loves deeply, and she gives everything, she gave her love the freedom that it needs. This is a characteristic of a true love. For in love, you would want the best for that someone you love. For love was never selfish, because in the first place, in love, you have almost shared everything just to please the person you love and keep the relationship alive. Even if I have never fallen in love, except for my family and friends, I never had an intimate relationship with someone or romantic feelings to the opposite sex, or with the same sex, like in this poem. That is why I could not

relate that much to the poem. However, Sapphos' ability of bringing life to every line in her poem made me felt every joy and every pain of having someone you love but then eventually losing it. Every word really digs inside my heart; it is as if I know how it feels like to really fall for someone that could mean the whole world to you. It made me realize important things in life and wisdom spring out from my heart like fresh spring that was never discovered before. By reading the poem I learned that love is really a powerful feeling, that it could drive you to doing everything just to feed the love that you feel inside. I have also learned that love could really hurt that much, the more I gave love the more it would hurt. And even if a lover could not last forever, love itself could still go on. The feeling of love is an eternal feeling that lives with every breath that I take, yet never loses its life until I no longer have the breath for it.