Sappho the ancient Greek poet.شاعر زن یونانی.

Sappho(c.600 BCE) 2600 years ago

Sappho (Attic Greek Σαπφώ Sapphô, Aeolic Greek Ψάπφα Psappha) was an Ancient Greek lyric poet said by some to have been born in Eressos on the island of Lesbos. In history and poetry texts, she is most often associated with Mytilene, (now the capital city of Lebos), which was a major city even in the 7th century BCE, when the island was a significant cultural centre. She was born sometime between 630 BC and 612 BC, and it is said that she died around 570 BC. The bulk of her poetry has been destroyed, but her reputation is immense.

Immensely famous in the ancient world, Sappho was a lyric poet loved throughout the ages for the beauty of her writing. Her poems were collected into nine volumes in ancient libraries, but today only one complete poem survives. Then we have one sixteen-line fragment and the rest are bits, known mostly from later writers who quoted her work. In spite of this tragic loss, the intensity and power of her poetry can still be felt.

Fragment 31 V

He seems to me to be like the gods-

-whatever man sits opposite you and close by hears

you talking sweetly and laughing charmingly,

which makes the heart within my breast take flight;

for the instant I look upon you, I can not any more speak one word,

But in silence my tongue is broken,

a finefire at once runs under my skin,

with my eyes I see not one thing, my ears buzz,

Cold sweat covers me, trembling seizes my whole body,

I am more moist than grass;

I seem to be little short of dying...

But all must be ventured....

Life

Sappho is believed to be the daughter of Scamander and Cleïs and had three brothers. She was married (Attic comedy says to a wealthy merchant, but that is apocryphal), the name of her husband being in dispute. Some translators have interpreted a poem about a girl named Cleïs as being evidence that she had a daughter by that name. It was a common practice of the time to name daughters after grandmothers, so there is some basis for this interpretation. But the actual Aeolic word pais, was more often used to indicate a slave or any young girl, rather than a daughter. In order to avoid misrepresenting the unknowable status of young Cleïs, translator Diane Rayor and others, such as David Campbell, chose to use the more neutral word "child" in their versions of the poem.

Sappho was born into an aristocratic family, which is reflected in the sophistication of her language and the sometimes rarified environments which her verses record. References to dances, festivals, religious rites, military fleets, parading armies, generals, and ladies of the ancient courts abound in her writings. She speaks of time spent in Lydia, one of the wealthiest and most powerful countries of that time. More specifically, Sappho speaks of her friends and happy times among the ladies of Sardis, capital of Lydia, once the home of Croesus and near the gold-rich lands of King Midas.

A violent coup on Lesbos, following a rebellion led by Pittacus, toppled the ruling families from power. For many years, Sappho and other members of the aristocracy, including fellow poet Alcaeus, were exiled. Her poetry speaks bitterly of the mistreatment she suffered during those years. Much of her exile was spent in Syracuse on the island of Sicily. Upon hearing that the famous Sappho would be coming to their city, the people of Syracuse built a statue of her as a form of welcome. Much later, in 581 BC, when Pittacus was no longer in power, she was able to return to her homeland.

Because some of her love poems were addressed to women, she has long been considered to have homosexual inclinations. 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). The narrators of many of her poems do in fact speak of infatuations and love (sometimes requited, sometimes not) for various women but descriptions of actual physical acts between women are few and subject to debate. Whether these poems are meant to be autobiographical is not known, although elements of other parts of Sappho's life do make appearances in her work, and it would be compatible with her style to have these intimate encounters expressed poetically, as well.

During the Victorian Era, it became the fashion to describe Sappho as the head-mistress of a girl's finishing school. As Page DuBois (among many other experts) points out, this attempt at making Sappho understandable and palatable to the genteel classes of Britain was based more on conservative sensibilities than evidence. In fact, there are no references to teaching, students, academies, or tutors in any of Sappho's admittedly scant collection of survivng works. Nonetheless, the notion that Sappho was in charge of some sort of academy persists.

Contributions to the lyric tradition

Sappho reading

Plato called Sappho The Tenth Muse, and the rest of the ancient critics agreed. She was one of the canonical nine lyric poets of archaic Greece, which meant that her works were studied by all those wishing to claim that they were properly educated. Older critics sometimes alleged that she led an aesthetic movement away from typical themes of gods 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.

During Sappho's life time, and in much of Greek poetry thereafter, rhythmic patterns of sound were designed by alternating stresses within and between lines. The stresses were the alternating sounds of long and short vowels but the definitions of "long" or "short" are different from the definitions taught in American schools. The pronunciation of Aeolic Greek, like the other Greek dialects, included a tonal quality, as well. This gave a natural melody to the verses. Sappho's poetry is impossible to be rendered with a sound analogous to the original in an English translation but many have tried.
Like all early lyric poetry, Sappho's works were composed to be either sung or recited to music, in particular to the accompaniment of the lyre. Her extant poetry is in the form of monody, which means that it was designed to be sung by a single voice rather than by a choir.
Sappho was credited by Plutarch with creating the Mixolydian mode of musical composition, which uses a descending scale of notes from b to B. She also developed what is now called the Sapphic stanza as a form of metrical poetry.

With less certainty, she may have invented the plectrum or pick which is used to strum the strings of the lyre. Prior to the development of the plectrum, the strings of the lyre were plucked by the fingers. The word which is generally understood to refer to the plectrum is olisbos, but its derivation is uncertain and other meanings have been proposed, thus the uncertainty of it being the specific invention of Sappho. It does appear, however, that she made great use of the plectrum at a time when others were content to pluck the strings.

Sappho was reported to have been married, but scholars became suspicious when they translated the name of her "husband" as something like "prick-boy". Apparently she had a daughter. She was also supposed to have hurled herself off a cliff into the sea (playing her poet's lyre all the while) out of unrequited love for some guy, but that's folklore.

Sappho's only surviving complete poem is this beautiful hymn beseeching Aphrodite
(the Greek goddess of beauty and love) to help her win a reluctant lady.

Fragment 1 V (Hymn to Aphrodite)

O immortal Aphrodite of the many-colored throne,child of Zeus, weaver of wiles,
I beseech you,do not overwhelm me in my heartwith anguish and pain, O Mistress,
But come hither, if ever at another timehearing my cries from afaryou heeded them, and leaving the home of your fathercame, yoking your golden
Chariot: beautiful,swift sparrowsdrew you above the black earthwhirling their wings thick and fast,from heaven's ether through mid-air.
Suddenly they had arrived; but you,
O Blessed Lady,with a smile upon your immortal face, asked what I had suffered this time andwhy I was calling this time
And what was I most wanting to happen for mein my frenzied heart:
"Whom again shall I persuadeto come back into friendship with you? Who,O Sappho, does you injustice?
"For if indeed she flees, soon will she pursue,and though she receives not your gifts, she will give them,and if she loves not now, soon she will love,even against her will."
Come to me now also, release me fromharsh cares; accomplish as many things as my heart desiresto accomplish; and you yourself be my fellow soldier.

Here are some translations of more fragments of Sappho's poems. These fragments were unearthed from the sands of Egypt or discovered as strips of paper wrapping mummifed animals, so the beginnings and ends of the lines are lost. Still you can tell a lot from what remains.

...For that girl, that beautiful girl; her dress'sclinging makes you shake when you see it,And I laugh for joy.

...slick with slime......Pollyana is satisfied......shoots out...Playing such music upon these strings Wearing a dildo of leather...Such a thing as this ... enviously...twirls quivering expertly...and has for a fragrance.

..hollow......mysteries, orgies......This randy madness I joyfully proclaim.
Is that great?

More of Sappho

Sappho, fragment 2 (Bergk), The Ode to Anactoria, or To a Woman from Wharton's Sappho, with versions by H. T. Wharton, Catullus, W. E. Gladstone, Burton, Ambrose Philips, Smollett, John Herman Merivale, J. A. Symonds, and Tennyson, plus context.

That man seems to me peer of gods, who sits in thy presence, and hears close to him thy sweet speech and lovely laughter; that indeed makes my heart flutter in my bosom. For when I see thee but a little, I have no utterance left, my tongue is broken down, and straightway a subtle fire has run under my skin, with my eyes I have no sight, my ears ring, sweat pours down, and a trembling seizes all my body; I am paler than grass, and seem in my madness little better than one dead. But I must dare all, since one so poor ...

H. T. Wharton

Him rival to the gods I place, Him loftier yet, if loftier be,Who, Lesbia, sits before thy face, Who listens and who looks on thee; Thee smiling soft. Yet this delight Doth all my sense consign to death;For when thou dawnest on my sight, Ah, wretched! flits my labouring breath.My tongue is palsied. Subtly hid Fire creeps me through from limb to limb:My loud ears tingle all unbid: Twin clouds of night mine eyes bedim.

by Mr. W. E. Gladstone:--

and recently by the late Sir R. F. Burton:--

Peer of a god meseemeth he,Nay, passing gods (an that can be!),Who all the while sits facing thee, Sees thee and hearsThy low sweet laughs which (ah me!) dazeMine every sense, and as I gazeUpon thee, Lesbia, o'er me strays . . . . .My tongue is dulled, my limbs adownFlows subtle flame; with sound its ownRings either ear, and o'er are strown Mine eyes with night.Burton
Blest as the immortal gods is he,The youth who fondly sits by thee,And hears and sees thee all the whileSoftly speak and sweetly smile. 'Twas this deprived my soul of rest,And raised such tumults in my breast;For while I gazed, in transport tost,My breath was gone, my voice was lost:My bosom glowed; the subtle flameRan quick through all my vital frame;O'er my dim eyes a darkness hung;My ears with hollow murmurs rung. In dewy damps my limbs were chilled;My blood with gentle horror thrilled;My feeble pulse forgot to play;I fainted, sank, and died away.

Ambrose Philips, 1711

Thy fatal shafts unerring move,I bow before thine altar, Love.I feel thy soft resistless flameGlide swift through all my vital frame.For while I gaze my bosom glows,My blood in tides impetuous flows;Hope, fear, and joy alternate roll,And floods of transports whelm my soul.My faltering tongue attempts in vainIn soothing murmurs to complain;My tongue some secret magic ties,My murmurs sink in broken sighs.Condemned to nurse eternal care,And ever drop the silent tear,Unheard I mourn, unknown I sigh,Unfriended live, unpitied die.

Smollett,In Roderick Random, 1748

Blest as the immortal gods is he,The youth whose eyes may look on thee,Whose ears thy tongue's sweet melody May still devour.Thou smilest too?--sweet smile, whose charmHas struck my soul with wild alarm,And, when I see thee, bids disarm Each vital power.Speechless I gaze: the flame withinRuns swift o'er all my quivering skin;My eyeballs swim; with dizzy din My brain reels round;And cold drops fall; and tremblings frailSeize every limb; and grassy paleI grow; and then--together fall

Both sight and sound.John Herman Merivale, 1833

Peer of gods he seemeth to me, the blissfulMan who sits and gazes at thee before him,Close beside thee sits, and in silence hears thee Silverly speaking,Laughing love's low laughter. Oh this, this onlyStirs the troubled heart in my breast to tremble!For should I but see thee a little moment, Straight is my voice hushed;Yea, my tongue is broken, and through and through me 'Neath the flesh impalpable fire runs tingling;Nothing see mine eyes, and a noise of roaring Waves in my ear sounds;Sweat runs down in rivers, a tremor seizesAll my limbs, and paler than grass in autumn,Caught by pains of menacing death, I falter, Lost in the love-

trance.J. Addington Symonds, 1833
Compare Lord Tennyson:--

I watch thy grace; and in its placeMy heart a charmed slumber keeps, While I muse upon thy face; And a languid fire creeps Through my veins to all my frame,Dissolvingly and slowly: soon From thy rose-red lips my nameFloweth; and then, as in a swoon, With dinning sound my ears are rife, My tremulous tongue faltereth, I lose my colour, I lose my breath, I drink the cup of a costly death Brimmed with delicious draughts of warmest life. I die with my delight, before I hear what I would hear from thee.

Eleänore, 1832.

And--
Last night, when some one spoke his name,From my swift blood that went and came A thousand little shafts of flame Were shiver'd in my narrow frame.

Fatima

14, Swinburne's--

Paler than grass in summer.Sapphics.
and--
Made like white summer-coloured grass.Aholibah.

SO

Get a book, go to the library, -- get to know the glorious poetry of Sappho!

or here are some External links

"Sappho: One Hundred Lyrics by Bliss Carman"
Oxford University jpeg collection of Sappho lyrics in original Greek from the Oxyrynchus Papyrus project
"The Poems of Sappho"
"The Divine Sappho"
Wiki Classical Dictionary
The sound of Sappho?
SAPPHO: The World of Lesbian Poetry
Sappho from Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1867)
John Ezard, The Guardian, June 24, 2005, "After 2,600 years, the world gains a fourth poem by Sappho"
Dinitia Smith, The New York Times (August 26, 2002) Books Of The Times; The Mystery of Sappho and Her Erotic Legacy (A review of Anne Carson's work, If Not, Winter