The poet considered to be the foundation of love between women commits suicide for love of a man. How much truth and how much legend are in the life of the famous poetess Sappho
The poet considered to be the foundation of love between women commits suicide for love of a man. How much truth and how much legend are in the life of the famous poetess Sappho.
There are many legends in Ancient Greece. Both the Legends of Olympus and the legends of the biographies of the great creators and artists of the legendary Hellas.
Poet Sappho – the literary creation of Lesbos Island
The island of Lesbos is still today one of the most spectacular places in Greece. The island of olives, whose main city Mytilene attracts tourists and exports the precious fruit of the tree of the goddess Athena.
But in ancient times the Island of Lesbos was the Island of the Goddess Aphrodite, like Cyprus. Here, there was a school where young girls were prepared for life. Here it seems that Sappho, a teacher and poet, who lived somewhere in the 7th-6th centuries BC. he would have been the main tutor at such a school.
The girls also learned to be housewives but also to maintain the atmosphere with poems, cythera songs, a kind of harp and other instruments. The possible years of life of the poetess Sappho were 63o-57o BC.
He did not always live on the island of Lesbos
Sappho did not always live on the island of Lesbos. In those times, in most Greek cities there were oligarchs, even tyrants, political factions were at war and often intellectuals either fell victim or fled to other parts. A chronicle from Paros claims that Sappho arrived in Syracuse between 604 BC and 594 BC.
His poetry is said to have contained over 10,000 lines, of which only 650 have survived. The style of his love poems is unique, in versification, meter, declamation technique, rhythm. His verses were declaimed, obviously accompanied by musical accompaniment on the harp, lyre or cythera.
Was Sappho the first lesbian in history or not?
The poetess Sappho was a priestess of Aphrodite. In the era, homosexual relationships were not in principle prohibited, but they had to end for both women and men when the obviously heterosexual marriage took place. There are many legends about Sappho. It was said that the exile was due when she was caught in the too intimate company of one of the students and that her father applied a physical correction to her.
However, his lyrics contradict the acceptance of her lesbianism (the name lesbian comes from the name of the island as a symbol of the female community). The poem Aphrodite contains reference to heterosexual marriage:
“Happy bridegroom, the marriage has been fulfilled as you liked, you have the maiden you wanted; your appearance, bride, is only grace, your look is unspeakably sweet, love is spread over your beautiful face. Aphrodite honored you in a special way…”
Legend has it that Sappho loved a handsome young man, a seafarer named Phaon. Greek author Menandros claims that she prayed to Aphrodite for her love by worshiping her with pairs of white doves. Disappointed that he did not love her, she would have thrown herself off the Leucadian Rocks, ending her days. It is most likely a legend, because if we were to take for granted the period in which she lived, Sappho would have been about 60 years old when death took her to the Hell of Hades….
