Sappho - Revision history

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'''Sappho''' ([[Greek language|Attic Greek]] Σαπφώ ''Sapphô'', [[Aeolic Greek]] Ψάπφα ''Psappha'') was an [[Ancient Greece|Ancient Greek]] lyric [[nine lyric poets|poet]] from the city of [[Eressos]] on the island of [[Lesbos]], which was a cultural centre in the [[7th century BC]]. She was born sometime between [[630 BC]] and [[612 BC]]. The bulk of her poetry is now lost, but her reputation in her time was immense, and she was reputedly considered by [[Plato]] as the tenth [[Muse]].

==Life==
Sappho was the daughter of Scamander and Cleïs and had three brothers. She was married ([[Attic comedy]] says to a wealthy merchant, but that is apocryphal) and had a daughter also named Cleïs. She became very famous in her day for her poetry – so much so that the city of Syracuse built a statue to honor her when she visited. Her family was politically active, which caused Sappho to travel a great deal. She was also noted during her life as the headmistress of a sort of Greek finishing school for girls. Most likely the objects of her poetry were her students. Sappho was exiled to Syracuse for political reasons, returned in [[581 BC]], and died of old age.

She was one of the canonical [[nine lyric poets]] of archaic Greece. Older critics sometimes alleged that she led an aesthetic movement away from typical themes of [[Greek mythology|god]]s, to the themes of individual human experiences and emotions, but it is now considered more likely that her work belongs in a long tradition of Lesbian poetry, and is simply among the first to have been recorded in writing.

Some of her love poems were addressed to women. The word ''lesbian'' itself is derived from the name of the island of Lesbos from which she came. (Her name is also the origin of its much rarer synonym ''sapphic'').

Because of its eroticism and of the difficulties posed by its dialect, her work was not included in the Byzantine school curriculum. The manuscript tradition therefore broke off, but copies of her work have been discovered in Egyptian papyri of an earlier period.

In ancient and mediaeval times she was famous for (according to legend) throwing herself off a cliff due to unrequited love for a male sailor named [[Phaon]]. This legend dates to Ovid and Lucian in Ancient Rome and certainly is not a Christian overlay.

A major new literary discovery, the Milan Papyrus, recovered from a dismantled mummy casing and published in 2001, has revealed the high esteem in which the poet [[Posidippus]] of Pella, an important composer of epigrams (3rd century BC), held Sappho's 'divine songs'.

An epigram in the [[Greek Anthology|Anthologia Palatina]] ascribed to [[Plato]] states:

:''Some say of nine [[Muse]]s, how neglected!''
:''Behold, Sappho, from Lesbos, is the tenth''

[[Aelianus Claudius]] wrote in ''Assorted History (Ποικίλη ιστορία)'' that [[Plato]] called Sappho wise.

Horace writes in his Odes that Sappho's lyrics are worthy of sacred admiration.

One of Sappho's poems was famously translated by the [[1st century BC]] Roman poet Catullus in his "''Ille mi par esse deo videtur''" (Catullus 51).

==Works==
We have a single complete poem, Fragment 1, ''Hymn to [[Aphrodite]]'', and three more virtually complete, besides many shorter fragments.

===Fragment 16===
:These — cavalry, others — infantry
:others yet, navies, upon the black earth
:hold most beautiful. But I, whatever
:you desire.
:To make this clear to anyone
:is most easy.
:[[Helen]], surpassing all men
:in beauty, forsaking
:the best of men
:left and sailed away to [[Troy]].
:not thinking of her child or her dear parents
:led away
:[three missing lines]
:now I think of Anaktoria, who is far away
:I desire to see her lovely gait
:the shining sparkle of her face
:more than the [[Lydian]] chariots, and [[hoplite|armoured]]
:foot soldiers.

===Tithonus===
A virtually complete poem about old age. The line-ends were first published in [[1922]] from an [[Oxyrhynchus]] papyrus, no. 1787. Most of the rest of the poem was published in [[2004]] from a [[3rd century BC]] papyrus in the Cologne University collection. The latest reconstruction, by M. L. West, appeared in the ''Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik'' 151 (2005), 1-9, and in the Times Literary Supplement on [[21 June]] [[2005]]

A full literary translation is available. {{ref|aristasia.co.uk.373}} The Greek text has been reproduced with helpful notes for students of the language, {{ref|www.aoidoi.org.374}} together with two more fragments of Sappho and other examples of Greek lyric poetry.

== References in modern literature ==
[[Lord Byron]] wrote the following lines about her in ''Childe Harold's Pilgrimage'', Stanza XXXIX:
:''And onward viewed the mount, not yet forgot,''
:''The lover's refuge and the Lesbian's grave.''
:''Dark Sappho! could not verse immortal save''
:''That breast imbued with such immortal fire?''

Charles Baudelaire writes about Sappho in ''Les Fleurs du Mal''.

The Greek poet [[Odysseas Elytis]] ([[20th century]] AD from Lesbos) admired her in one of his ''Mikra Epsilon'': ''Such a being, both sensitive and courageous, is not often presented by life. A small-built deep-dark-skinned girl, that did prove to be equally capable of subjugating a rose-flower, interpreting a wave or a nightingale, and saying 'I love you', to fill the globe with emotion.''

==References==
*''Poetarum Lesbiorum fragmenta'', E. Lobel, D. L. Page (eds.), Oxford, Clarendon Press, (1955).
*''Greek Lyric 1: Sappho and Alcaeus'', D. A. Campbell (ed.), Cambridge, Mass., (1982): complete Greek text and English translation, including the references to Sappho in ancient authors. The best starting-point for those new to this poetry.
# {{note|www.papyrology.ox.ac.uk.366}} An example from book 2 of the collected edition: {{Web reference | title=Virtual Exhibition | url=http://www.papyrology.ox.ac.uk/VExhibition/finds/sappho.html | date=October 30 | year=2005 }}
# {{note|cds.colleges.org.367}} Partial image: {{Web reference | title=http://cds.colleges.org//lecture_files/posidippuscols3-562.jpg | url=http://cds.colleges.org//lecture_files/posidippuscols3-562.jpg | date=October 30 | year=2005 }}
# {{note|www.stoa.org.368}} Translations and notes are available: {{Web reference | title=Diotima | url=http://www.stoa.org/diotima/anthology/epigrams.shtml | date=October 30 | year=2005 }}
# {{note|www.chs.harvard.edu.369}} The Greek text: {{Web reference | title=Center for Hellenic Studies - Epigrams | url=http://www.chs.harvard.edu/publications.sec/classics.ssp/issue_i_posidippus.pg/epigrams.pg | date=October 30 | year=2005 }}
# {{note|163.1.169.40.370}} {{Web reference | title=P.Oxy. | url=http://163.1.169.40/cgi-bin/library?site=localhost&a=p&p=about&c=POxy&ct=0&l=en&w=utf-8 | date=October 30 | year=2005 }}
# {{note|refbot.371}} {{Web reference | title=P.Köln Inv. Nr. 21351 | url=http://www.uni-koeln.de/phil-fak/ifa/NRWakademie/papyrologie/Verstreutepub/21351_ZPE147.html | date=October 30 | year=2005 }}
# {{note|refbot.372}} {{Web reference | title=Weekly book reviews and literary criticism from the Times Literary Supplement | url=http://www.the-tls.co.uk/this_week/story.aspx?story_id=2111206 | date=October 30 | year=2005 }}
# {{note|aristasia.co.uk.373}} {{Web reference | title=A New Poem by Sappho | url=http://aristasia.co.uk/Sappho1.html | date=October 30 | year=2005 }}
# {{note|www.aoidoi.org.374}} {{Web reference | title=AOIDOI.org: Epic, Archaic and Classical Greek Poetry | url=http://www.aoidoi.org/ | date=October 30 | year=2005 }}

== External links ==

*[http://bulfinch.englishatheist.org/b/Sappho100Lyrics.html "Sappho: One Hundred Lyrics by Bliss Carman"]

*[http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/sappho/index.htm "The Poems of Sappho"]
*[http://classicpersuasion.org/pw/sappho/ "The Divine Sappho"]
*[http://www.ancientlibrary.com/wcd/Sappho Wiki Classical Dictionary]
*[http://www.classicspage.com/sappho.htm/ The sound of Sappho?]
*[http://community.middlebury.edu/~harris/Translations/Sappho.html SAPPHO: The World of Lesbian Poetry]
*[http://www.ancientlibrary.com/smith-bio/3040.html Sappho] from Smith's ''Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology'' (1867)
*John Ezard, ''[[The Guardian]]'', [[June 24]], 2005, [http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,6109,1513491,00.html "After 2,600 years, the world gains a fourth poem by Sappho"]
*Martin West, ''[[Times Literary Supplement]]'', [[21 June]] 2005, [http://www.the-tls.co.uk/this_week/story.aspx?story_id=2111206 A new Sappho poem]

{{Credit wikipedia}}

[[Category:Ancient Greek poets|Sappho]]
[[Category:Ancient Greeks|Sappho]]
[[Category:Women poets|Sappho]]

@@ Line 45: / Line 45: @@
 :I desire to see her lovely gait
 :the shining sparkle of her face
-:more than the [[Lydian]] chariots, and [[hoplite|armoured]]
+:more than the Lydian chariots, and [[hoplite|armoured]]
 :foot soldiers.

@@ Line 77: / Line 77: @@
 *[http://community.middlebury.edu/~harris/Translations/Sappho.html SAPPHO: The World of Lesbian Poetry]
 *[http://www.ancientlibrary.com/smith-bio/3040.html Sappho] from Smith's ''Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology'' (1867)
-*John Ezard, ''[[The Guardian]]'', [[June 24]], 2005, [http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,6109,1513491,00.html "After 2,600 years, the world gains a fourth poem by Sappho"]
+*John Ezard, ''The Guardian'', [[June 24]], 2005, [http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,6109,1513491,00.html "After 2,600 years, the world gains a fourth poem by Sappho"]
-*Martin West, ''[[Times Literary Supplement]]'', [[21 June]] 2005, [http://www.the-tls.co.uk/this_week/story.aspx?story_id=2111206 A new Sappho poem]
+*Martin West, ''Times Literary Supplement'', [[21 June]] 2005, [http://www.the-tls.co.uk/this_week/story.aspx?story_id=2111206 A new Sappho poem]
 {{Credit wikipedia}}

@@ Line 66: / Line 66: @@
 *''Poetarum Lesbiorum fragmenta'', E. Lobel, D. L. Page (eds.), Oxford, Clarendon Press, (1955).
 *''Greek Lyric 1: Sappho and Alcaeus'', D. A. Campbell (ed.), Cambridge, Mass., (1982): complete Greek text and English translation, including the references to Sappho in ancient authors.  The best starting-point for those new to this poetry.
 == External links ==

@@ Line 49: / Line 49: @@
 ===Tithonus===
-A virtually complete poem about old age.  The line-ends were first published in [[1922]] from an [[Oxyrhynchus]] papyrus, no. 1787. Most of the rest of the poem was published in [[2004]] from a [[3rd century BC]] papyrus in the Cologne University collection.  The latest reconstruction, by M. L. West, appeared in the ''Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik'' 151 (2005), 1-9, and in the Times Literary Supplement on [[21 June]] [[2005]]
+A virtually complete poem about old age.  The line-ends were first published in [[1922]] from an [[Oxyrhynchus]] papyrus, no. 1787. Most of the rest of the poem was published in [[2004]] from a [[3rd century BC]] papyrus in the Cologne University collection.  The latest reconstruction, by M. L. West, appeared in the ''Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik'' 151 (2005), 1-9, and in the Times Literary Supplement on [[June 21]] [[2005]]
 == References in modern literature ==