Sappho

1. Sappho Of Lesbos

2. Lesbian, a. and n. Of or pertaining to the island of Lesbos, in the northern part of the Grecian archipelago. Lesbian rule: a mason's rule made of lead, which could be bent to fit the curves of a moulding (Aristotle Eth. Nic. V. x. 7); hence fig., a principle of judgment that is pliant and accommodating. (Very common in 17th c., but app. not always correctly understood.) Freq. with lower-case initial.) [After the alleged practice of Sappho, the poetess of Lesbos; cf. SAPPHIC a. and n., SAPPHISM.] Of a woman: homosexual, characterized by a sexual interest in other women. Also, of or pertaining to homosexual relations between women.

3. No Absolute Information • Her work is some of the earliest poetry written by a woman poet. They include some poems about love of women for women. "Lesbian" comes from the island, Lesbos, where Sappho lived. • However, while on one hand the Greeks had little prohibiting same sex relations (Socrates was also a homosexual) the narratives are also easily described in other ways as well. And none of them contain strong sexual descriptions. Most of her lesbian reputation is hearsay. • Notable that in Greek culture same sex relationships were to be outgrown, and mockery was given to those who failed to outgrow this.

4. Sappho's contemporary Alcaeus described her thus: "Violet-haired, pure, honey-smiling Sappho" (ἰόπλοκ᾽ ἄγνα μελλιχόμειδε Σάπφοι, fr. 384). The 3rd century philosopher Maximus of Tyre wrote that Sappho was "small and dark" and that her relationships to her female friends were similar to those of Socrates: • The only contemporary source which refers to Sappho's life is her own body of poetry, and scholars are skeptical of biographical readings of it. Later biographical traditions, from which all more detailed accounts derive, have also been cast into doubt.

5. Greatness Recognized and Lost • Ten books of verse cataloged and published by the library in Alexandria in the third and second centuries--the first containing more than 1000 lines. • A pitiful remnant passed on to us. By the middle ages, after the fire in Alexandria, all the volumes were lost. • Today only three major sources give her poetry. One or two complete poems and a collection of quotes made by other poets.

6. In antiquity, Sappho was commonly regarded as the greatest, or one of the greatest, of lyric poets. An epigram in the Anthologia Palatina (9.506) ascribed to Plato states: Some say the Muses are nine: how careless! Look, there's Sappho too, from Lesbos, the tenth. Sappho and Alcaeus who was included in the canonical list of nine lyric poets by the scholars of Hellenistic Alexandria. He was an older contemporary and an alleged lover of Sappho, with whom he may have exchanged poems.

7. Strabo says that Sappho was the contemporary of Alcaeus of Mytilene (born ca. 620 BC) and Pittacus (ca. 645 - 570) and according to Athenaeus she was the contemporary of Alyattes of Lydia (ca. 610 - 560). • The Suda, a 10th century Byzantine encyclopædia, dates her to the 42nd Olympiad (612/608), meaning either that she was born then or that this was her floruit. The versions of Eusebius state that she was famous by the first or second year of the 45th or 46th Olympiad (between 600 and 594).

8. Judging from the Parian Marble she was exiled from Lesbos to Sicily sometime between 604 and 594. • If fragment 98 of her poetry is accepted as biographical evidence and as a reference to her daughter it may indicate that she had already had a daughter by the time she was exiled. • If fragment 58 is accepted as autobiographical it indicates that she lived into old age. If her connection to Rhodopis is accepted as historical it indicates that she lived into the mid-6th century. A story recorded by Herodotus, and later by Strabo, Athenaeus, Ovid and the Suda, tells of a relation between Charaxus and the Egyptian courtesan Rhodopis. Herodotus, the oldest source of the story, reports that Charaxus ransomed Rhodopis for a large sum and that after he returned to Mitylene, Sappho scolded him in verse

9. Sites Cited • “Homosexuality in ancient Greece” Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_in_ancient_Greece • “Library of Alexandria” Wikipedia The Free Encyclopediahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Alexandria

10. “Sappho” Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sappho • “Sappho of Lesbos: Woman Poet of Ancient Greece.” About.com: Women’s History. http://womenshistory.about.com/od/sappho/a/sappho.htm Bust inscribed Sappho of Eressos, Roman copy of a Greek original of the 5th century BC