Sappho

Lesbos

In Mytilene, the capital: the word 'lesbian' is named after the island.

💡 Did you know? The word „lesbian“ is named after her home island of Lesbos.

lyric poetry

Her songs were sung to the lyre: whence our word 'lyric'.

💡 Did you know? Sappho is the first named female poet of the Western world: some 2,600 years ago.

tenth Muse

The nine Muses of mythology gained, in tradition, a mortal sister.

💡 Did you know? Alongside the nine mythological Muses, Sappho was honoured as the „tenth Muse.“

around 600 verses

Much was salvaged from papyrus scraps in the Egyptian desert: a new poem surfaced as recently as 2014.

💡 Did you know? The Library of Alexandria once collected her work in nine books.

Ode to Aphrodite

The poet asks the goddess for aid in love: artfully built like a prayer.

💡 Did you know? Almost all of Sappho's work is lost: only a single poem survives complete.

the symptoms of love

Racing heart, failing voice, fire under the skin: Catullus rendered it into Latin.

💡 Did you know? Fragment 31 describes the physical symptoms of love so precisely that it still inspires poets today.

Sapphic stanza

Horace adopted it into Roman poetry: it was imitated into modern times.

💡 Did you know? Roman poets like Horace and Catullus admiringly imitated the „Sapphic stanza.“

lesbian and sapphic

Because her love poems are often addressed to women: though we know little of her actual life.

💡 Did you know? Two words for love between women („lesbian“ and „sapphic“) derive from her.

young women

Educational circle, cult community or finishing school: scholars argue to this day.

💡 Did you know? New fragments of Sappho keep turning up on ancient papyri: most recently in 2014.

the leap from the cliff

An invention of later antiquity: nothing historical in it.

💡 Did you know? The legend of her leap from the Leucadian cliff over unrequited love is probably a later invention.

Catullus

'Ille mi par esse deo videtur': he even called his beloved 'Lesbia', after Sappho's island.

💡 Did you know? Catullus rendered Sappho's verses into Latin and called his beloved „Lesbia“: in her honour.

Sappho

Sappho (c. 600 BC) was a Greek lyric poet from the island of Lesbos and the first great female voice in world literature. Even in antiquity she was revered as the „tenth Muse.“

💡 Did you know? Of Sappho's once nine books of poems almost nothing survives: we know her mostly from torn scraps of papyrus.