Sappho was born on the prosperous Aegean island
of Lesbos, a seat of intellectual and cultural activity,
and spent most of her life in Mytilene, its
largest city. Her father, Skamandronymos, and her
mother, Kleïs, were of the aristocracy and also had
a son, Charaxos. Sappho married Kerkylas of Andros,
a prosperous businessman with whom she
had a daughter named Kleïs, after Sappho’s
mother. Near the end of her life, it is believed she
may have been exiled to Sicily.
On Lesbos, the poet established a school to instruct
the daughters of well-to-do families in the
arts of poetry and music. Sappho, with her
pupils—who had little contact with men until they
were betrothed—formed a cult devoted to
Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty and love. Based
on the scant evidence found in her poetry, it appears
Sappho taught her young students, not inappropriately,
to luxuriate in their loveliness and to
look forward to matrimony. In “Song of the Wedding
Bed,” for example, she espouses the emotional
and carnal pleasures of marriage:
Bride, warm with rosecolored
love, brightest
ornament of the Paphian,
come to the bedroom now,
enter the bed and play
tenderly with your man.
May the Evening Star
lead you eagerly
to that instant when you
will gaze in wonder
before the silver throne
of Hera, queen of marriage.
Sappho’s poems were originally collected in nine
books, of which only a few fragments and one complete
poem (“Prayer to Aphrodite”) still exist. The
last of her nine books comprised “Epithalamia,”
lyric nuptial odes sung at different phases of wedding
ceremonies. She wrote in the Lesbian-Aeolian
dialect, and her themes were primarily of personal
relationships (often with other women) and love.
It is tempting to believe the much-perpetrated
legend that the passionate poetess ended her life by
flinging herself from a cliff into the sea because her
love for a beautiful youth, Phaon, was unrequited.
However, this tale probably arose from a misinterpretation
or mistranslation of some ancient work,
for the facts of Sappho’s death simply are not known.
Critical Analysis
Sappho’s poetry arose from oral tradition, in which
poems were sung or recited, often to the accompaniment
of music (see ORAL LITERATURE/TRADITION).
Unlike her predecessors, however, Sappho experimented
with rhythm, meter, and monody, a technique
characterized by a single line of melody. She
invented, or at least perfected, the so-called Sapphic
strophe, a complex, rigorous, and challenging fourline
verse later adapted by Roman poets.
Sappho dedicated many of her poems to her
pupils, of whom she clearly had favorites. Her devotion
to them and her anguish when they left the
school, withdrew their love from her, or transferred
their affections to others, is obvious. In “To
Atthis,” she addresses this torment:
Love—bittersweet, irrepressible—
loosens my limbs and I tremble.
Yet, Atthis, you despise my being.
To chase Andromeda, you leave me.
And in “To Anaktoria,” she expresses her sorrow at
a loved one’s departure:
Some say cavalry and others claim
infantry or a fleet of long oars
is the supreme sight on the black earth.
I say it is
the one you love. And easily proved.
Didn’t Helen—who far surpassed all
mortals in beauty—desert the best
of men, her king,
and sail off to Troy and forget
her daughter and dear kinsmen? Merely
the Kyprian’s gaze made her bend and led
her from her path;
these things remind me now
of Anaktoria who is far,
and I
for one
would rather see her warm supple step
and the sparkle of her face—than watch all
the
dazzling chariots and armored
hoplites of Lydia.
In “Prayer to Aphrodite,” we see Sappho’s dedication
to and the manner of her dependence on the
goddess:
On your dazzling throne, Aphrodite
sly eternal daughter of Zeus,
I beg you: do not crush me with grief,
but come to me now . . . and free me
from fearful agony.
In other lines from the poem, we see an external
outpouring of Sappho’s thoughts and beliefs concerning
her loves, losses, and evidence of
Aphrodite’s aid. “. . . Come to me now,” Sappho
begs, “as once / you heard my far cry, and yielded.”
Aphrodite replies, “What does your mad heart desire?
/ Whom shall I make love you, Sappho, / who
is turning her back on you?” And upon agreeing
to make Sappho’s loved one love her in return,
Aphrodite warns, “She will love you, though unwillingly.”
Sappho has been censured throughout history
for her erotic expressions of affection for her
pupils, but it is entirely possible that what is translated
as “I” was originally written to denote “we.”
This means poems that appear to express the exquisite
longing of a single individual were actually
written to be performed in public by choruses
made up of Sappho’s young students. In addition,
modern readers must take into account that the affection
Sappho reveals in her poetry may have
been the norm in her time and culture.
In other poems, such as “Kleïs,”we see not only
Sappho’s simplicity of style and skillful use of
words, but also her love for her daughter:
I have a small daughter who is beautiful
like a gold flower. I would not trade
my darling Kleïs for all Lydia or even
for lovely Lesbos.
Critic Daniel Mendelsohn writes, “With a directness
seemingly unmediated by vast stretches of
time, Sappho seems to speak to us quite clearly
today . . .”Centuries after Sappho flourished, Plato
wrote, “Some say nine Muses—but count again. /
Behold the tenth: Sappho of Lesbos.”What comes
to us of Sappho’s simple yet evocative and
provocative verse—by turns witty, graceful, and
fraught with passion—has a radiant vitality that
still resonates with modern audiences.
English Versions of Works by
Sappho of Lesbos
If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho. Translated by
Anne Carson. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003.
Sappho’s Lyre: Archaic Lyric and Women Poets of Ancient
Greece. Translated by Diane Rayor. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1991.
Works about Sappho of Lesbos
Mendelsohn, Daniel. “In Search of Sappho.” The New
York Review of Books L, no. 13 (August 14, 2003):
26–29.
Reynolds, Margaret. The Sappho History. New York:
St.Martin’s Press, 2003.