Sappho (b. c.615-600 BC – d. c. 530 BC)
Life
- Early Life
o Lived on Lesbos during the age of tyrants (autocrats).
Women from Lesbos were infamous across the ancient world for both their beauty and
sexual behaviour. In Athenian comedy, the Greek verb ‘lesbiazein’ refers to a woman
giving oral sex to a man.
This period fostered a rich aristocratic leisure class to which Sappho and her family on Lesbos
seem to have belonged.
Her family ran a shipping business that we know she took responsibility of once.
She had a father, two brothers, and a mother and a daughter called Cleis.
o A source which suggests she was married to Cercylas (close to Greek slang for penis)
from Andros is very unlikely to be correct. (Similarly, Ovid recounts a story of
Sappho throwing herself from a cliff over her love for a ferryman.)
Sappho appears to have been prominent in the society activities which the tyrannies of the
Archaic Age fostered. (Lavish festivals for gods, symposia, big public events/weddings)
Lesbos = near Turkey (and so Lesbos feels as much part of Asia as it does Europe)
Sappho mentions Lesbos a lot in her work – lures Aphrodite to Lesbos with the promise of its
natural beauty.
In her work she does not explicitly talk about the political situation on the island, although we
know that there were plenty of changes in her lifetime.
Sappho, along with her family, was probably exiled to Sicily at the start of the 6 th Century
BC after a change of government on Lesbos.
o Loeb 98b – Sappho appears to regret not being able to provide a fancy headband for
her daughter (this may be due to exile or because of laws passed on Lesbos limiting
luxury).
- Poetry
o Sappho likely composed over 10,000 lines of poetry performed at religious ritual functions (like
weddings or possibly funerals) and symposium.
Symposium culture of Lyric Age of Greece
Symposium essential to whole social organisation, the social hierarchy, and the way that
people make relationships – not just with lovers, but with different people in their own
class, and between different families
o “crucial for creating networks across households” – Edith Hall
o Symposiums were an import from Lydia.
o These poems tell us how “young women are trained for adulthood in society through
having parties with other women” – Edith Hall
Edith Hall sees Sappho’s poems being performed at female-only symposia where
young unmarried women were trained in flirtation, socialisation, public
behaviour and sexual experience.
Sappho therefore is “as much about manners as about sex” – Edith Hall
o There is a great variety in her work, “united by her personal voice” – Edith Hall
From love to complaining about the shipping business.
o She may have performed her poems as a monody (solo performance) or as part of a chorus.
Scholars have described the girls in her work variously as her students, fellow poets, members of
a religious cult, lovers and friends.
Ideas have developed of Sappho as a mentor for a group of young girls or as head of a
thiasos (religious group which would perform at rituals).
o Key recognisable qualities:
She is credited with the invention of the plectrum and must therefore have had a unique playing
style, crafted to fit the metre, stress and tone of her poetry.
Meter – indigenous to the island of Lesbos
Sapphic Stanza – used in the two complete poems we have – Hymn to Aphrodite and Brother’s
Poem
Dialect – Aeolic
Long “ah” sound (open-mouth) suitable for singing, also features many barbarian words
from Lydia and Phrygia.
Striking images – very good at simile
“A uniquely subjective, personal voice, which is like no other ancient poet” – Edith Hall
, Repeatedly tells us her name
Honest voice talking about age – she feels older, tireder, wiser than some around her.
Personal voice onto old myths, often considering the women’s perspective
o Topos (= a recurrent feature in literature)
Loeb 1 begins with the topos of a hymn to a goddess but then creates a dramatic image of her
approach.
Sappho also uses the literary topos of a shift of narrator during the poems.
- Legacy
o Largely inaccurate as men were uncomfortable with a female poet and ancient men presented her as a
prostitute or manic depressive when left by a man.
o However, even in antiquity she was respected – Plato described her as the “10th Muse”
o Issue of fragmentary material
Some of Sappho’s poems survived because they were quoted in other ancient sources while
others were found among papyri in a rubbish dumb near the ancient Egyptian town of
Oxyrhynchus.
Love
- Pain of love
o “Do not overpower my heart with anguish” – Loeb 1
o Loeb 16 shows how love can hurt others because Helen abandons her husband, “the most excellent of
all men”, “her daughter”, and “her dear parents”.
o Loeb 31
“your charming laughter […] strikes terror into the heart in my breast” – Loeb 31
Sappho shows desire to be as scary as an enemy warrior.
She uses “kardia” for heart – medical not emotional – emphasises Sappho’s physical
reaction.
Uncomfortable physical symptoms – first time in surviving Greek literature that catalogues
physical effects of love.
“I can no longer speak” – paradoxical; Sappho is writing at great length about her.
“My tongue breaks”
o Sappho uses a hiatus between the words for “tongue” and “breaks” (they would
normally contract) which creates a ragged sound – reflecting Sappho’s inability to
talk.
“And I think that I am on the point of death.”
o “Honestly, I want to die” – Loeb 94
o “I take no pleasure from living!” – Loeb 95
o “I cannot weave my web, I am smitten by a boy because of slender Aphrodite” – Loeb 102
Love is all-consuming; the poet recognises her social obligation as a woman (weaving) but
cannot fulfil it.
Love overwhelms these societal obligations.
o About love: “Bitter-sweet invincible creature that he is.” (Word coined by Sappho – sweet then sour).
o The feelings Sappho describes are uncomfortable and, occasionally, so painful that she yearns for
death.
The topos of comparing love with death is familiar in lyric poetry.
o “the fragments evoking the Eros [...] refer to a real love that was physically consummated” – Calame
- Power of love/Aphrodite
o “a minority of Sappho’s songs are erotic” – Poochigan
o “the perfect example of writing about desire” – Longlinus
o Aphrodite: “she will love you soon even if she does not want to.” – Loeb 1
o Loeb 16 describes how Helen “abandoned her husband […] and sailed to Troy” for love.
o In Loeb 22 Sappho believes Abanthis singing about desire can placate Aphrodite.
o Love is strong and shakes “like a wind buffeting oak trees on a mountain.”
o Love is a part of life from a young age – even when Sappho was young and living with her mother
(“Sweet mother!”) she was “smitten”.
o “Love which loosens the limbs once again shakes me!”
o “one of the purposes of Sappho’s work is to sexually educate women” – Hallett
- Pleasure of (requited) love
o “Sappho also focuses on the double-sided nature of love” – Ann Carson
