Index SAPPHO


the voice of the woman





Sappho was born on Lesbos, possibly at Eressos, at the end of the 7th century BC, but spent the bigger part of her life at Mytilene. She was a scion of an aristocratic family and took an active part in public affairs, and was sent into exile on Sicily for a time by Pittakos. Sappho was married and had a daughter:

    'I have a beautiful child who looks like
    golden flowers: my darling Kleis, for whom
    I would not take all Lydia'.
       (Loeb edition)
Alcaeus, who knew her, described her as 'black-haired Sappho, pure, sweetly-smiling'. As happened later with Plato and the other great philosophers, a circle was formed around the poetess of girls who shared the same ideals and were bound by strong ties of love.

Sappho saw herself as 'mousopolos', dedicated to the service of the Muses, and seems to have been aware of the value of her poetry, which would keep her fame alive even after her death.

Sappho wrote monodies (solo songs), that were sung to the accompaniment of the Iyre, and also epithalamia, or wedding songs, which were highly popular in antiquity, epigrams and iambics. In the Hellenistic period her works were collected in nine books, of which only one complete ode and a few hundred fragments now survive, fully vindicating the admiration of the ancients, who gave her the title of 'the tenth Muse'.

In a simple, very direct language, devoid of rhetorical flourish, Sappho speaks of the emotions that shook her heart:

    'You came, and I was longing for you,
    You cooled my heart, which was burning with desire.'
       (Loeb edition)
Her descriptions of the world around her have the same immediacy. Tender images, full of the joy of young girls, the scent of flowers, the murmur of the waves, the silver light of the moon, alternate with moments of profound contemplation and penetrating self-observation. Sappho does not hesitate to speak in a completely personal tone of the agony of separation, the bitterness of loneliness, the pain of old age that comes, ineluctably, to drive away love; she is thus the first poetess in the modern sense of the word.

The strong emotions and sensuous atmosphere exuded by her poetry, provided fuel for the myth woven around Sappho and her personal life ever since antiquity, and still give rise to lively debate and strong disagreement. What is certain is that at the centre of the world of the poetess is to be found love, the motive force behind all things and the invincible monster that paralyses the limbs:

    'Once again limb-loosening Love makes me tremble,
    the bitter-sweet, irresistible creature.'
       (Loeb edition)

 

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© GREEK MINISTRY OF CULTURE - ICOM-NATIONAL HELLENIC COMMITTEE
From Medea to Sappho - Radical Women in Ancient Greece
Athens, National Archaeological Museum - 20 March - 30 June 1995