Sappho: A Writer Spotlight

"someone will remember us

I say

even in another time"

~ fragment 147

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Sappho is the Emily Dickinson, Greek-haiku-writing poet of antiquity. Hardly anything is known about Sappho’s life. She was a woman (?), who lived on the Greek island of Lesbos (?) a mother (?) of a daughter (?) and perhaps she had a sister (?). The portraits of her were made long after her death, and so aren’t necessarily accurate depictions.

I don’t care for this sculpture, because I fancy us kindred spirits and therefore she must be like me and chew on her pen.*

Her poems exist in fragmentary form, yet even the fragments we have are filled with beautiful details and thoughtful insights. The remnants of Sappho’s poems are like a quiet voice in the midst of silence. 

Her poems exist in fragmentary form, yet even the fragments we have are filled with beautiful details and thoughtful insights.  The remnants of Sappho’s poems are like a quiet voice in the midst of silence. 

Sometimes they are only a few lines. Sometimes a full paragraph. Always there are gaps leaving us to wonder what we’re missing. The ancient world is like that: even with our advanced technology we lack the ability to pull away the shroud and see what truly happened in the past.

 
I want to say something but shame

prevents me

 

yet if you had a desire for good or beautiful things

and your tongue were not concocting some evil to say,

shame would not hold down your eyes

but rather you would speak about what is just.

                     

                 ~ fragment 137

This is my favorite passage of Sappho. How many times have I kept quiet when someone has said something or done something wrong, for fear of being despised by my peers? The second stanza is what my conscience says: if I were really good, if I were really committed to doing what is right, I would not quail at the idea that others would disapprove of me. 
 

Recommended Reading Age: High School

Parental Notes: None. The only reason I recommend not reading them before High School is that a less mature reader might not appreciate them as well. 

Availability: There are lots of collections of Sappho’s fragments available, such as the free Kindle edition, Sappho: One Hundred Lyrics. One of the newer hard-copies is If Not, Then Winter translated by Anne Carson. This is the version I own, being as I am a sucker for bilingual versions that show not only the English translation, but also the original text, even if I can’t read the original.