Sappho
Sappho (Attic Greek Σαπφω, Aeolic Greek Ψαπφα, Sapphô) was an Ancient Greek poet, from the city of Mytilene on the island of Lesbos, which was a cultural centre in the 7th century BC. She was born sometime between 630 BC and 612 BC. It was said that she was small and dark.
Sappho, daughter of Scamander and Cleïs, was married (Attic comedy says to a wealthy merchant, but that is apocryphal) and had a daughter also named Cleïs. She became very famous in her day for her poetry—so much so that the city of Syracuse built a statue to honor her when she visited. Her family was politically active, which caused Sappho to travel a great deal. She was also noted during her life as the headmistress of a sort of Greek finishing school for girls. Most likely the objects of her poetry were her students.
She was a lyric poet who developed her own particular meter, known as sapphic meter, and she was credited for leading an aesthetic movement away from classical themes of gods, to the themes of individual human experience. An epigram in the Anthologia Palatina ascribed to Plato referred to her as the "tenth Muse".
Sappho wrote mainly love poems, of which only fragments survive, save a single complete poem, Fragment 1, "Hymn to Aphrodite". Given her reputation in the ancient world, since only fragments of her work remain, the world lost a valuable treasure in her work.
Some of her love poems were addressed to women, from which she developed a reputation for lesbianism. The word lesbian itself is derived from the name of the island of Lesbos from which she came. (She is also the origin of its much rarer synonym sapphic, derived from her name.)
Due to its homosexual content—and because of its explicit eroticism—her work was disapproved of by the Christian church, which is arguably the main reason why most of it has not survived, due to a combination of neglecting to copy it.
While in the modern period this content is well known, in ancient and medieval times she was more famous for (according to legend) throwing herself off a cliff due to unrequited love for a male sailor named Phaon. This legend dates to Ovid and Lucian in Ancient Rome and certainly is not a Christian overlay. It is not unusual for significant figures in Greek history to have conflicting accounts told about them. (Of particular note is that a purported consort of hers was named Cercglas of Andros, literally "Penis, from the town of Man"). In any case, as Michel Foucault and many others have argued, ancient Greek society did not conceive of either sex as being usually entirely opposite-sex or same-sex oriented.
Sappho in Literature
The philosopher Maximus from Tyrus (second half of 2nd c. AD), writes that Sappho was "small and dark" and that her relationships to her female friends were not homosexual relationships, but similar to the Teacher-Student relationships of Socrates.
Plato has called Sappho the Tenth Muse and the mortal Muse.
Aelianus Claudius wrote in Assorted History (Ποικίλη ιστορία) that Plato called Sappho wise.
The Greek poet Odysseas Elytis (20th century AD from Lesbos) admired her in one of his Mikra Epsilon: .. Such a being, both sensitive and courageous, is not often presented by life. A small-built deep-dark-skinned girl, that did prove to be equally capable of subjugating a rose-flower, interpreting a wave or a nightingale, and saying 'I love you', to fill the globe with emotion.
Horace writes in his Odes that Sappho's lyrics are worthy of sacred admiration.
Lord Byron wrote about her the following verses in Childe Harold: And onward viewed the mount, not yet forgot, The lover's refuge and the Lesbian's grave. Dark Sappho! could not verse immortal save That breast imbued with such immortal fire?
Charles Baudelaire writes about Sappho in his poem Lesbos (Les Fleurs du Mal).
External links
- Fragment one (http://classicpersuasion.org/pw/sappho/sape01.htm)
- Historical Lesbian Poetry (http://www.sappho.com/poetry/sappho.html)
- SAPPHO: The World of Lesbian Poetry (http://community.middlebury.edu/~harris/Translations/Sappho.html)
- Sappho in Unicode-encoded Greek and English translation (http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/usappho/index.htm)
- Sappho the Tenth Muse (http://www.sapphogr.net/sapphoeg.htm)
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