SAPPHO (612 B. C.-?) BY THOMAS DAVIDSON APPHO (more properly Psappha), the greatest of all poetesses, was born in 612 B. C., at Eressos in the island of Lesbos. Her father's name was Scamandronymus, her mother's Cleis. Few facts of her life are recorded. As a girl she doubtless learnt by heart her Homer and Hesiod, and sang the songs of her countrymen Terpander and Arion. While still young she paid a visit to Sicily, and possibly there made the acquaintance of the great Western poets, Stesichorus and Ibycus. When she returned home she settled at Mitylene, being perhaps disgusted with the conduct of her brother Charaxus, who had married the courtesan Rhodopis. To one of her satirical poems on him belongs perhaps the line "Wealth without worth is no harmless housemate.» She found some compensation in her youngest brother Larichus, who for his beauty had been chosen as cupbearer in the public banquet hall at Mitylene. In an extant fragment she says to him: "Stand kindly there before me, and unfold The beauty of thine eyes." As we may well believe, the beautiful, gifted Sappho had many admirers. Chief among these was the great Alcæus,- statesman, warrior, and lyric poet. There is still extant the opening of a poem which he addressed to her: « Violet-crowned, chaste, sweet-smiling Sappho, She replied in the spirited lines, showing her simplicity of character: "Had thy wish been pure and manly, And no evil on thy tongue, Shame had not possessed thine eyelids: XXII-802 |