Sappho (pronounced
/'sæfo?/ in English;
Attic Greek Sapf? IPA&_160;[sap????],
Aeolic Greek ??pf? [psap????]) was an
Ancient Greek poet, born on the island of
Lesbos. Later Greeks included her in the canonical list of
nine lyric poets. Her birth was sometime between 630 and 612 BC, and it is said that she died around 570 BC, but little is known for certain about her life. The bulk of her poetry, which was well-known and greatly admired throughout antiquity, has been lost, but her immense reputation has endured through surviving fragments. The adjectives deriving from her name and place of birth (Sapphic and Lesbian) came to be associated with female homosexuality.
The only contemporary source which refers to Sappho's life is her own body of poetry, and scholars are skeptical of biographical readings of it. Later biographical traditions, from which all more detailed accounts derive, have also been cast into doubt.[1]
Judging from the Parian Marble she was exiled from Lesbos to Sicily sometime between 604 and 594 BC. If fragment 98 of her poetry is accepted as biographical evidence and as a reference to her daughter (see below), it may indicate that she had already had a daughter by the time she was exiled. If fragment 58 is accepted as autobiographical it indicates that she lived into old age. If her connection to Rhodopis (see below) is accepted as historical it indicates that she lived into the mid-6th century BC.[2][3]
An Oxyrhynchus papyrus from around AD 200[4] and the Suda agree that Sappho had a mother called Cleïs and a daughter by the same name. Two preserved fragments of Sappho's poetry refer to a Cleïs. In fragment 98, Sappho addresses Cleïs, saying that she has no way of obtaining a decorated headband for her. Fragment 132 reads in full "I have a beautiful child [pais] who looks like golden flowers, my darling Cleis, for whom I would not (take) all Lydia or lovely..."[5] These fragments have often been interpreted as referring to Sappho's daughter or as confirming that Sappho had a daughter with this name. But even if a biographic reading of the verses is accepted, this is not certain. Cleïs is referred to in fragment 132 with the Greek word pais, which can as easily indicate a slave or any young person as an offspring. It is possible that these verses or others like them were misunderstood by ancient writers, leading to the biographical tradition which has come down to us.[6]
