8 Sappho of Lesbos
Nahir I. Otaño Gracia and Averie Basch
Ancient Greek
Born c. 630 BC Eleventh Century
Sappho of Lesbos was one of the earliest recorded female poets of the ancient world. While there were doubtless other poetesses around and before her time, much of the evidence has been lost. For Sappho, historians have unearthed a number of fragments of her poetry, with the most recent piece discovered as recently as 2004. Plato, another noteworthy Greek writer, hailed Sappho as “Tenth Muse” out of respect and admiration for her artistry. Though Victorian tradition attempted to rewrite her as a tame heteronormative woman, Sappho has been and is today celebrated as a queer icon for her devotion to exploring themes of erotic female love.
Born into an aristocratic family on the island of Lesbos, Sappho was able to devote her time to the arts thanks to her wealthy status. Little is certain about her family, but most scholars recognize that her mother was named Cleïs and that later, Sappho named her own daughter in honor of her mother. The family lived in the city of Mytilene but spent a short time in Sicily while in temporary exile. Later, Sappho married a man called Cercylas, with whom she had her only child, Cleïs. Though she was in a heterosexual marriage, Sappho’s poetry often depicts love between women. In fact, the terms “sapphic” and “lesbian” which are derived from Sappho’s name and the name of her home island are used to describe homosexual female love.
At a time when most poetry was written in epic form and modeled as if they were spoken by the gods, Sappho was revolutionary in her poetic style, which was written in the first person and focused on human emotions, mainly on love. Her poems followed what was later called the “sapphic meter,” was performed orally, and was accompanied by lyre music. In addition to composing her own art, Sappho ran a poetry school for young women. Her work was so influential to her own students and to later writers such as Ovid that her likeness was even printed into currency. Most of Sappho’s works were lost to time, though historians argue that Pope Gregory VII purposely burned her surviving art in the eleventh century on account of the legend that she was lesbian; most scholars would agree that her work reveals her romantic love for other women.
Sappho’s poetry explores ancient Greek attitudes towards love. It is worth noting that the Greeks recognized many different types of love, including familial love (storge), affectionate love (philia), sexual love (eros), selfless love (agape), and enduring love (pragma). Sappho does not just write on romance but also expresses motherly love for her daughter. In addition to celebrating humanity, Sappho honors the gods in her art, particularly in her famous “Ode to Aphrodite.” Aphrodite is the goddess of love and sexuality in Greek myth; she and her son Eros can be seen as deities or personifications of love. It is no surprise that these names appear in romance poetry, but they are not the patrons of just heterosexual love. Homosexual love both between men and between women was hardly unheard of in ancient Greece, evidenced not only by Sappho’s poetry but also in other poetry and myths of the time.
Sappho of Lesbos
Read Sapho’s poems here:
https://www.uh.edu/~cldue/texts/sappho.html
EXERCISE:
Mad Lib: One student acts as the “reader” and asks the other student to come up with words to fill in the blanks with adjectives, adverbs, and nouns. These words are inserted into the blanks and then the new poem is read aloud. Switch places and do the new poem. Remember that a noun names something such as a person, place, thing, or idea; an adjective describes or modifies the noun; and an adverb modifies or describes a verb, an adjective, or even another adverbs.
Example:
The fluffy cat ran quickly.
article adjective noun verb adverb
Sappho 31
That _______________ to me seems equal to the gods,
noun
the ________________who sits opposite you
synonym to first noun
and close by listens
to your __________ __________
adjective noun
5 and your enticing ____________—
noun
that indeed has stirred up the ____________in my __________.
Noun (feeling) noun
For whenever I look at you even __________
adverb
I can no longer say a single thing,
but my ______________is frozen in silence;
noun
10 instantly a _______________runs beneath my skin;
noun
with my eyes I see nothing;
my ears make a _______noise.
noun (sound)
A cold sweat covers me,
trembling seizes my body,
15 and I am ______________than ____________.
comparative adjective noun
Lacking but little of _________ do I seem.
noun
Sapho 16
Some say an army of ________,
noun
some of ___________, some of __________,
noun noun
is the ___________thing on the _______earth,
Superlative adjective color
but I say it is what one loves.
5 It’s very easy to make this clear
to everyone, for Helen,
by far surpassing _______in ______________,
Noun (group of people) Noun (Physical or character trait)
left the best of all husbands
and sailed to Troy,
10 mindful of neither her child
nor her dear parents, but
with one _______she was seduced by
Noun (action)
Aphrodite. For easily bent…
and nimbly..._______…
action verb
15 has reminded me now
of ___________who is not here;
Noun (woman’s name)
I would much prefer to see the lovely
way she ______and the radiant glance of her face
Verb (present tense)
than the ______ of the _____________or
noun noun (group of people)
20 their ________ in _______.
Noun noun (type of bond)
FURTHER READINGS
For a reading of Sapho’s poetry by theatre artist and award-winning audiobook narrator, Kate Reading (translated by Diane J. Rayor) see:
See a coin with Sappho’s likeness here: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/C_BNK-G-510
For a general overview of the terms Lesbian and Saphic see:
https://rcsgd.sa.ucsb.edu/resources/lgbtqia-informational-resources/lesbiansapphic
FOR INSTRUCTORS
See Caroline Rothschild’s Teaching with Sapho for a lesson plan that includes a poem and a power point:
https://queeryinghistory.wordpress.com/2020/06/29/sapphos-imagery-lgbt-lessons-1/
