by Sappho

Frankly I wish I were dead
When she left, she wept

a great deal; she said to me, “This parting must be
endured, Sappho. I go unwillingly.”

I said, “Go, and be happy
but remember (you know
well) whom you leave shackled by love

“If you forget me, think
of our gifts to Aphrodite
and all the loveliness that we shared

“all the violet tiaras,
braided rosebuds, dill and
crocus twined around your young neck

“myrrh poured on your head
and on soft mats girls with
all that they most wished for beside them

“while no voices chanted
choruses without ours,
no woodlot bloomed in spring without song…”

—Translated by Mary Barnard

    Sappho was a Greek lyrical poetry, an aristocrat born between 630 and 612 B.C.E. She married a rich merchant and had a daughter named Cleis. She spent most of her life pursueing the arts on the island of Lesbos, a seventh century B.C.E. Greek cultural center.

    Rich women from all over the Meditteranean sent their daughters to Lesbos to study under Sappho. Saphho wrote lyrical poetry (accompanied by lyre music that she also wrote) expressing her love for her female students.

    Sappho was one of the first poets to switch from writing from the view of the deities and muses to writing in first person, expressing her own feelings. She was so influential that the high Greek lyrical meter is now called sapphic meter.

    The city-state of Lesbos minted coins with her image. Plato, the famous Athenian philosopher, placed Saphho among the divine Muses. Solon, the famous Athenian lawyer, is said to have asked to be taught to play one of her songs “because I want to lern it and die.”

    She was briefly exiled to Sicily because of her family’s political activities. The people of Syracuse were so honored by her visit that they erected a statue of her.

    The modern words lesbian and sapphic to describe female homosexuality are derived from the influence of her work.

    Most 18th and 19th century lesbian poets cited Sappho as an important influence on their work.

    Unfortunately, only one complete poem has survived centuries of Christian and Muslim censorship. Of the original nine volumes, only fragments of a few poems remain.