Divine Happiness and Beauty in Wedding Songs

This chapter argues that songs performed at archaic and classical weddings conventionally present the happiness of the bridal couple as similar to divine bliss, and the beauty (mostly) of the bride as similar to divine splendour. A first section is dedicated to the history and traditions of wedding songs and the nature of the sources. Subsequent sections examine the various explicit and implicit means by which bridal couples are likened to the gods, particularly in Sappho and wedding songs in drama, but also in later testimonies. Special attention is given to hymnic register, which is pursued and compared in wedding songs for mortal and immortal couples. The results are contrasted with aspects of the wedding ceremony and wedding iconography, where bridal couples are exalted in similar ways. The approximation of the bridal couple to the gods emerges as a fundamental aspect of the Greek wedding itself.

Aesthetics · Art · Art history · Beauty · BLISS · Ceremony · Drama · Happiness · Iconography · Literature · Theology · Biblical Studies and Interpretation · Byzantine Studies and History · Classical Antiquity Studies · Philosophy · Psychology