1 00:00:02,520 --> 00:00:06,440 Speaker 1: Happy Saturday. Today's Saturday Classic is on Greek poet Sappho. 2 00:00:07,240 --> 00:00:10,560 Speaker 1: We kick it off by talking about our then forthcoming 3 00:00:10,600 --> 00:00:14,240 Speaker 1: trip to Paris. That trip did happen and it was 4 00:00:14,280 --> 00:00:17,479 Speaker 1: a great success. We've taken other trip since then, and 5 00:00:17,560 --> 00:00:20,840 Speaker 1: our next one is coming up to Morocco November four 6 00:00:21,000 --> 00:00:23,680 Speaker 1: through fifteenth, twenty twenty five. If you would like to 7 00:00:23,760 --> 00:00:26,040 Speaker 1: join us, you can find out more about the trip 8 00:00:26,079 --> 00:00:30,120 Speaker 1: at Defined Destinations dot com. It is the trip called 9 00:00:30,240 --> 00:00:34,560 Speaker 1: a Taste of Morocco. Right now, single rooms are sold out, 10 00:00:34,560 --> 00:00:37,080 Speaker 1: but there's a wait list and there are still double 11 00:00:37,159 --> 00:00:40,360 Speaker 1: rooms available. If you would be traveling by yourself but 12 00:00:40,400 --> 00:00:43,479 Speaker 1: you're open to the idea of sharing a room with somebody, 13 00:00:43,520 --> 00:00:46,480 Speaker 1: you can get in touch with Defined Destinations to talk 14 00:00:46,520 --> 00:00:49,920 Speaker 1: about that possibility. That is not why we picked the 15 00:00:49,960 --> 00:00:53,640 Speaker 1: episode for Today's Saturday Classic, though. We have an upcoming 16 00:00:53,720 --> 00:00:56,960 Speaker 1: episode on someone who was described as the Sappho of 17 00:00:57,000 --> 00:01:00,520 Speaker 1: her time, so we wanted to rerun our episode on Sapo, 18 00:01:00,720 --> 00:01:04,679 Speaker 1: which gets into how the connotations around Sappho's name have 19 00:01:04,800 --> 00:01:08,720 Speaker 1: evolved over the centuries. One thing we do want to 20 00:01:08,760 --> 00:01:12,800 Speaker 1: note we talk in this episode about how various transcribers 21 00:01:12,840 --> 00:01:16,800 Speaker 1: and translators have tried to minimize the homoerotic themes in 22 00:01:16,840 --> 00:01:22,160 Speaker 1: Sappho's work. For licensing reasons, we needed to use translations 23 00:01:22,160 --> 00:01:25,040 Speaker 1: that are in the public domain today, which means older 24 00:01:25,120 --> 00:01:29,160 Speaker 1: translations were the ones that were available for us to read. So, 25 00:01:29,280 --> 00:01:33,640 Speaker 1: for example, we read from a translation of Ode to Aphrodite, 26 00:01:33,760 --> 00:01:37,480 Speaker 1: which reads as though Sapho is praying to Aphrodite about 27 00:01:37,520 --> 00:01:41,440 Speaker 1: a man that she loves, but in most of today's translations, 28 00:01:41,880 --> 00:01:46,759 Speaker 1: Sappho's unrequited love is for a woman. This episode came 29 00:01:46,760 --> 00:01:53,680 Speaker 1: out on March thirteenth, twenty nineteen. Enjoy Welcome to Stuff 30 00:01:53,720 --> 00:02:04,400 Speaker 1: You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey everyone. 31 00:02:04,480 --> 00:02:07,000 Speaker 1: Before we get started today, we wanted to let you 32 00:02:07,160 --> 00:02:09,560 Speaker 1: know that there are only a few spots left on 33 00:02:09,600 --> 00:02:13,920 Speaker 1: our upcoming trip to Paris. Yes, which startles and delights me. 34 00:02:14,040 --> 00:02:15,600 Speaker 1: I thought no one would want to come with us, 35 00:02:15,600 --> 00:02:20,120 Speaker 1: and it turns out everybody does. Yay. So Yes, we 36 00:02:20,200 --> 00:02:24,160 Speaker 1: are going to Paris June second through ninth, twenty nineteen. 37 00:02:24,520 --> 00:02:27,079 Speaker 1: If you come to our website, which is missed inhistory 38 00:02:27,200 --> 00:02:30,800 Speaker 1: dot com, you can click the link that says Paris 39 00:02:30,840 --> 00:02:34,040 Speaker 1: trip exclamation point in either the top menu bar or 40 00:02:34,120 --> 00:02:36,400 Speaker 1: under the little menu icon if you're on a mobile device, 41 00:02:36,560 --> 00:02:38,440 Speaker 1: that will take you to the Sitehere we can learn 42 00:02:38,480 --> 00:02:40,880 Speaker 1: all about the trip and sign up for it. Yes, 43 00:02:40,919 --> 00:02:42,520 Speaker 1: so we hope to see you in Paris. We are 44 00:02:42,520 --> 00:02:45,960 Speaker 1: going to have a splendid time. We're both extremely excited. 45 00:02:51,600 --> 00:02:55,079 Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy B. Wilson 46 00:02:55,240 --> 00:02:59,000 Speaker 1: and I'm Holly Frye. The poet Sappho is the first 47 00:02:59,240 --> 00:03:02,520 Speaker 1: known woman writer in the European literary tradition, and she 48 00:03:02,680 --> 00:03:06,560 Speaker 1: is described as the greatest female poet of ancient Greece, 49 00:03:07,000 --> 00:03:11,560 Speaker 1: or the greatest Greek lyric poet period, regardless of gender, 50 00:03:11,720 --> 00:03:15,360 Speaker 1: or even the greatest female poet of all time. There's 51 00:03:15,400 --> 00:03:18,680 Speaker 1: a nineteen twenty six addition to her work where C. R. Haines, 52 00:03:18,720 --> 00:03:21,600 Speaker 1: who edited that edition, put it this way quote, with 53 00:03:21,639 --> 00:03:25,560 Speaker 1: the possible exception of Shakespeare, Homer is still the supreme poet, 54 00:03:25,600 --> 00:03:30,639 Speaker 1: and Sappho, without any exception, the poetess par excellence. Except 55 00:03:30,639 --> 00:03:32,639 Speaker 1: those last two words were in Greek, so I got 56 00:03:32,680 --> 00:03:36,840 Speaker 1: to figure out how to translate them, which was a challenge. 57 00:03:37,280 --> 00:03:40,640 Speaker 1: Sappho's reputation as one of the world's finest poets has 58 00:03:40,680 --> 00:03:43,880 Speaker 1: persisted for more than twenty five hundred years, and that's 59 00:03:44,080 --> 00:03:48,040 Speaker 1: fascinating because the overwhelming majority of her work has not. 60 00:03:48,800 --> 00:03:52,920 Speaker 1: And then also fascinating is that the words sapphic and lesbian, 61 00:03:53,000 --> 00:03:56,320 Speaker 1: which is derived from the island of Lesbos, where Sappho lived, 62 00:03:56,760 --> 00:04:00,840 Speaker 1: they've become synonymous with same sex relationships among women. But 63 00:04:01,160 --> 00:04:04,120 Speaker 1: we actually know very very little about Sappho's life or 64 00:04:04,160 --> 00:04:08,080 Speaker 1: her relationships, and two thousand years ago those terms had 65 00:04:08,240 --> 00:04:10,880 Speaker 1: really different meanings from what they do now. So we 66 00:04:10,920 --> 00:04:13,720 Speaker 1: are going to get into all of this today. Sappho 67 00:04:13,880 --> 00:04:16,479 Speaker 1: is also a frequent listener request, and over the past 68 00:04:16,520 --> 00:04:19,960 Speaker 1: few years we've gotten requests from Helen Cillian, pat Esther, 69 00:04:20,120 --> 00:04:22,279 Speaker 1: and one person who didn't have a name on their emails. 70 00:04:22,839 --> 00:04:25,640 Speaker 1: And then as a heads up, we talk about people's 71 00:04:25,720 --> 00:04:29,720 Speaker 1: relationships often enough on the show, we don't usually need 72 00:04:29,760 --> 00:04:33,480 Speaker 1: to mention a specific sex act. That is not the 73 00:04:33,480 --> 00:04:37,240 Speaker 1: case today, so use discretion if it seems like that 74 00:04:37,360 --> 00:04:39,760 Speaker 1: sort of territory might be an issue for you or 75 00:04:39,880 --> 00:04:43,719 Speaker 1: people that you listen with. Now, I feel like we 76 00:04:43,800 --> 00:04:47,720 Speaker 1: need to do a show called Sexy History, a whole 77 00:04:47,760 --> 00:04:53,000 Speaker 1: other thing different, and we wouldn't need those warnings now so, 78 00:04:53,080 --> 00:04:56,560 Speaker 1: the most referenced source of information about Sappho's life is 79 00:04:56,600 --> 00:05:01,200 Speaker 1: a tenth century Byzantine compendium called the sh and the 80 00:05:01,200 --> 00:05:04,320 Speaker 1: Suda is sort of a lexicon or encyclopedia of the 81 00:05:04,320 --> 00:05:08,440 Speaker 1: ancient Mediterranean. It has two Sappho entries, and we'll get 82 00:05:08,480 --> 00:05:11,800 Speaker 1: into why that is a little bit later. Sapo's name 83 00:05:12,080 --> 00:05:14,680 Speaker 1: also comes up in lots of other entries in the Suda, 84 00:05:14,839 --> 00:05:19,120 Speaker 1: including ones for her relatives, places she lived, people she knew, 85 00:05:19,160 --> 00:05:23,520 Speaker 1: and definitions of various literary terms. She's also mentioned in 86 00:05:23,600 --> 00:05:26,800 Speaker 1: lots of other historical writing that has survived until today, 87 00:05:26,920 --> 00:05:31,040 Speaker 1: although usually those references are shorter and less detailed than 88 00:05:31,040 --> 00:05:33,480 Speaker 1: what's in the Suda. This all makes it very tricky 89 00:05:33,480 --> 00:05:37,360 Speaker 1: to piece together Sappho's biography. The Pseudo was compiled more 90 00:05:37,360 --> 00:05:40,960 Speaker 1: than a thousand years after Sappo actually lived, and then 91 00:05:41,000 --> 00:05:43,839 Speaker 1: on top of that, it's not exactly reliable all the time. 92 00:05:44,120 --> 00:05:47,120 Speaker 1: It's cobbled together from all kinds of different sources, and 93 00:05:47,200 --> 00:05:50,040 Speaker 1: some of its entries pick up information that is clearly 94 00:05:50,160 --> 00:05:53,719 Speaker 1: not factual. In terms of the entries on Sappho, it's 95 00:05:53,880 --> 00:05:56,560 Speaker 1: just not clear how much of the information came from 96 00:05:56,600 --> 00:06:00,160 Speaker 1: historical sources. How much from what people just knew who 97 00:06:00,279 --> 00:06:03,440 Speaker 1: in quotation marks about Sappho in the tenth century, and 98 00:06:03,520 --> 00:06:05,920 Speaker 1: how much of it was gleaned from things that are 99 00:06:05,960 --> 00:06:09,479 Speaker 1: mentioned in her poetry. It's always tricky to try to 100 00:06:09,560 --> 00:06:13,320 Speaker 1: use poems as a source for the poet's biographical details, 101 00:06:13,360 --> 00:06:15,840 Speaker 1: but it's even more of a challenge here because by 102 00:06:15,880 --> 00:06:18,360 Speaker 1: the tenth century a lot of Sappho's work had already 103 00:06:18,360 --> 00:06:21,279 Speaker 1: been lost, so we don't know the full context of 104 00:06:21,279 --> 00:06:25,120 Speaker 1: those lines that we have. According to the Suda, Sapho 105 00:06:25,320 --> 00:06:28,320 Speaker 1: was born in the forty second Olympiad, which was between 106 00:06:28,360 --> 00:06:32,400 Speaker 1: six twelve and six oh nine BCE, but the wording 107 00:06:32,440 --> 00:06:35,760 Speaker 1: of it could also be translated as flourished and not born, 108 00:06:35,800 --> 00:06:37,599 Speaker 1: which would mean that those years were the height of 109 00:06:37,640 --> 00:06:41,520 Speaker 1: her career and not her birth. The Pseudoist's eight different 110 00:06:41,600 --> 00:06:45,960 Speaker 1: men as Sepho's potential father, Herodotus, on the other hand, 111 00:06:46,000 --> 00:06:49,200 Speaker 1: lived about two hundred years after Sappho did, and he 112 00:06:49,240 --> 00:06:53,480 Speaker 1: wrote that her father was named scam Andronomus, and that's 113 00:06:53,480 --> 00:06:55,880 Speaker 1: one of the eight men that the pseudalistid as a possibility. 114 00:06:56,040 --> 00:06:59,359 Speaker 1: Hundreds of years later, Sepho's mother may have been named 115 00:06:59,400 --> 00:07:02,159 Speaker 1: Claus and we have to say may have been, because 116 00:07:02,440 --> 00:07:05,640 Speaker 1: a couple of Sappho's fragments mentioned a daughter named Claus, 117 00:07:06,000 --> 00:07:08,400 Speaker 1: and it was traditional for daughters to be named after 118 00:07:08,440 --> 00:07:12,120 Speaker 1: their grandmother. But even that is pretty murky because the 119 00:07:12,560 --> 00:07:15,280 Speaker 1: word that's used for daughter could also just mean child, 120 00:07:15,720 --> 00:07:18,800 Speaker 1: and in some cases it could actually be translated as slave. 121 00:07:19,720 --> 00:07:21,800 Speaker 1: So this Claus, who may or may not have been 122 00:07:21,880 --> 00:07:24,800 Speaker 1: named after Sappho's mother, may or may not have been 123 00:07:24,840 --> 00:07:28,000 Speaker 1: her child. This is like the most provisional discussion of 124 00:07:28,120 --> 00:07:32,320 Speaker 1: hyderia ever. I feel like if you've heard the words 125 00:07:32,360 --> 00:07:36,920 Speaker 1: possibly and may have been, you've heard most of Sappho's biography. 126 00:07:37,640 --> 00:07:40,080 Speaker 1: We do know she lived on the island of Lesbos 127 00:07:40,080 --> 00:07:42,760 Speaker 1: and the Aegean c and that's just across the water 128 00:07:42,840 --> 00:07:45,960 Speaker 1: from what's now Turkey. At the time that was Sartis, 129 00:07:45,960 --> 00:07:49,440 Speaker 1: which was the capital of Lydia. Sapho's place of birth 130 00:07:49,520 --> 00:07:52,840 Speaker 1: on the island was probably the town of Eiresis or 131 00:07:52,880 --> 00:07:56,920 Speaker 1: the capital of Middelini. She most likely lived most of 132 00:07:56,920 --> 00:07:59,680 Speaker 1: her life in Middelini, although it is possible that she 133 00:07:59,840 --> 00:08:03,040 Speaker 1: and her family either moved or fled to Sicily for 134 00:08:03,080 --> 00:08:07,360 Speaker 1: a time, either because of general political upheaval on Lesbos, 135 00:08:07,440 --> 00:08:11,160 Speaker 1: or because of their own political affiliations. She may have 136 00:08:11,200 --> 00:08:15,480 Speaker 1: had three brothers. The Suda names them as Laricos, Carasos, 137 00:08:15,600 --> 00:08:18,760 Speaker 1: and Eurygios, and two of those names appear in a 138 00:08:18,800 --> 00:08:21,560 Speaker 1: poem that was on Earthed in twenty fourteen, which we 139 00:08:21,600 --> 00:08:24,000 Speaker 1: talked about in one of our Unearthed episodes that year, 140 00:08:24,600 --> 00:08:27,600 Speaker 1: and that poem has been nicknamed the Brother's Poem because 141 00:08:27,600 --> 00:08:32,040 Speaker 1: it contains these two names. From here, the pseudo wanders 142 00:08:32,080 --> 00:08:36,840 Speaker 1: into some more questionable territory. It says that Sappho's husband 143 00:08:37,120 --> 00:08:41,360 Speaker 1: was Kirklius of Andros, but Kirklius is very close to 144 00:08:41,400 --> 00:08:44,319 Speaker 1: a slang term for the word Penis, and Andros was 145 00:08:44,360 --> 00:08:46,959 Speaker 1: a real place, but was also the word for man, 146 00:08:47,200 --> 00:08:50,840 Speaker 1: So the Suda's name for Sappho's husband is sort of 147 00:08:50,920 --> 00:08:54,480 Speaker 1: like saying he was Dick Johnson of Man Island. So 148 00:08:54,600 --> 00:08:57,120 Speaker 1: this is more likely to be a crude joke than 149 00:08:57,160 --> 00:09:00,439 Speaker 1: her husband's actual name. I want to make a sitcom 150 00:09:00,559 --> 00:09:04,840 Speaker 1: now about Dick Johnson on Man Island. Uh. And then 151 00:09:05,200 --> 00:09:10,439 Speaker 1: the Suda names three of Sappho's friends Athis, Tellisippa, and Magara, 152 00:09:10,559 --> 00:09:13,480 Speaker 1: using a word to describe them that could mean companion, 153 00:09:13,960 --> 00:09:17,080 Speaker 1: but it could also mean cortison, and the Suda says 154 00:09:17,160 --> 00:09:19,560 Speaker 1: her relationship with them led her to be accused of 155 00:09:19,600 --> 00:09:23,120 Speaker 1: a friendship or a love that was shameful. From there, 156 00:09:23,200 --> 00:09:26,400 Speaker 1: the Suda goes into some more mundane territory, naming a 157 00:09:26,440 --> 00:09:29,840 Speaker 1: few of Sappho's students, saying that she wrote nine volumes 158 00:09:29,880 --> 00:09:33,640 Speaker 1: of poetry and crediting her with inventing the plectrum, which 159 00:09:33,679 --> 00:09:36,400 Speaker 1: is like a pick for plucking the strings on a liar. 160 00:09:37,080 --> 00:09:41,839 Speaker 1: It also describes her poetry as including epigrams, elegaics, iambics, 161 00:09:41,880 --> 00:09:46,760 Speaker 1: and monodies. Her surviving work also includes a lot of epithalamia, 162 00:09:47,200 --> 00:09:49,880 Speaker 1: and these are poems that were celebrating a marriage, which 163 00:09:49,920 --> 00:09:53,160 Speaker 1: she was probably commissioned to write. In addition to the 164 00:09:53,200 --> 00:09:57,120 Speaker 1: Suda's mention of students, a number of classical sources describe 165 00:09:57,160 --> 00:10:00,640 Speaker 1: Sappho as a teacher, but none of these us mention 166 00:10:00,840 --> 00:10:04,040 Speaker 1: what or where she taught. In spite of that lack 167 00:10:04,080 --> 00:10:07,599 Speaker 1: of detail, a lot of articles that exist today definitively 168 00:10:07,679 --> 00:10:11,280 Speaker 1: say that Sappho ran a theosos, which is sometimes described 169 00:10:11,320 --> 00:10:14,160 Speaker 1: as a sort of finishing school for women waiting to 170 00:10:14,160 --> 00:10:17,160 Speaker 1: get married, and it's also sometimes described as a religious 171 00:10:17,200 --> 00:10:21,320 Speaker 1: community dedicated to Aphrodite, and sometimes as a group of 172 00:10:21,360 --> 00:10:25,560 Speaker 1: temple courtisons. But really there's no substantiation to any of 173 00:10:25,600 --> 00:10:28,560 Speaker 1: this or for the idea of a theosos as an 174 00:10:28,600 --> 00:10:33,400 Speaker 1: actual established school of some sort. None of Sappho's surviving 175 00:10:33,440 --> 00:10:36,600 Speaker 1: writing mentions a theosos at all. You will see a 176 00:10:36,600 --> 00:10:41,480 Speaker 1: lot of just incredibly definitive saying with one hundred percent confidence, 177 00:10:41,520 --> 00:10:45,319 Speaker 1: statements that are like, Cepho ran this theosos that taught 178 00:10:45,320 --> 00:10:48,760 Speaker 1: these young women how to be wives and mothers, and 179 00:10:49,160 --> 00:10:54,120 Speaker 1: maybe it's not no documentation of that. And then there 180 00:10:54,200 --> 00:10:57,600 Speaker 1: is the story of Sapho and Feon, and the basic 181 00:10:57,640 --> 00:11:00,200 Speaker 1: gist of this story is that Sappho fell in love 182 00:11:00,240 --> 00:11:03,320 Speaker 1: with a ferryman named Faon, and when he rejected her, 183 00:11:03,400 --> 00:11:07,040 Speaker 1: she threw herself off a cliff. That story makes up 184 00:11:07,080 --> 00:11:10,920 Speaker 1: the bulk of the Suda's second Sappho entry, which says 185 00:11:10,960 --> 00:11:16,000 Speaker 1: that this supposedly different Sapho was also from Middelini, also 186 00:11:16,040 --> 00:11:19,120 Speaker 1: played a harp and may have written lyric poetry as well. 187 00:11:19,760 --> 00:11:23,480 Speaker 1: This story about the ferryman is repeated over and over 188 00:11:23,559 --> 00:11:27,319 Speaker 1: and over. It's depicted in numerous works of art and literature, 189 00:11:27,600 --> 00:11:31,880 Speaker 1: including in Avid's herodies or epistles of the heroines. But 190 00:11:32,000 --> 00:11:35,040 Speaker 1: Faon was a mythical figure, and it seems like this 191 00:11:35,200 --> 00:11:38,320 Speaker 1: idea that the real Sapho threw herself over a cliff 192 00:11:38,360 --> 00:11:41,600 Speaker 1: for him dates back to a comedy by Menander written 193 00:11:41,600 --> 00:11:44,960 Speaker 1: about two hundred years after Sappho died, and in the 194 00:11:45,040 --> 00:11:47,680 Speaker 1: thousands of years since then, the fact that at least 195 00:11:47,800 --> 00:11:51,440 Speaker 1: one of Sappho's fragments mentions Faon has been used to 196 00:11:51,520 --> 00:11:54,880 Speaker 1: try to substantiate this fictional story as though it were fact. 197 00:11:55,240 --> 00:11:57,560 Speaker 1: So when it comes to Sappho's biography, we have a 198 00:11:57,600 --> 00:12:01,280 Speaker 1: whole lot of contradictions and questionable and in some cases 199 00:12:01,320 --> 00:12:04,440 Speaker 1: her poetry has been used to try to substantiate those claims. 200 00:12:05,040 --> 00:12:07,120 Speaker 1: So we are going to take a look at her 201 00:12:07,160 --> 00:12:09,880 Speaker 1: poems in some more detail after we take a quick 202 00:12:09,960 --> 00:12:23,120 Speaker 1: sponsor break. Sapo was a lyric poet, meaning that she 203 00:12:23,200 --> 00:12:26,120 Speaker 1: composed poems that were meant to be sung accompanied on 204 00:12:26,280 --> 00:12:30,360 Speaker 1: a liar. In Ancient Greece, lyric poetry tended to be 205 00:12:30,440 --> 00:12:34,120 Speaker 1: short and very personal, often sung from one person to 206 00:12:34,240 --> 00:12:38,400 Speaker 1: another or written in the voice of one person addressing another. 207 00:12:38,880 --> 00:12:42,360 Speaker 1: Many of Sappho's poems that have survived until today either 208 00:12:42,480 --> 00:12:45,400 Speaker 1: our or are believe to be love poems. It's hard 209 00:12:45,440 --> 00:12:49,640 Speaker 1: to tell sometimes because what survives can be incredibly short. Homer, 210 00:12:49,720 --> 00:12:52,240 Speaker 1: on the other hand, wrote epic poetry, and this was 211 00:12:52,320 --> 00:12:55,079 Speaker 1: much longer, with a narrative that told the story of 212 00:12:55,120 --> 00:12:58,000 Speaker 1: the heroic deeds of the characters in the poem. And 213 00:12:58,040 --> 00:13:00,600 Speaker 1: we should also note that it's very possis that the 214 00:13:00,640 --> 00:13:04,080 Speaker 1: work attributed to Homer was really written by several people 215 00:13:04,160 --> 00:13:07,640 Speaker 1: and not just one regardless, though in the ancient Western 216 00:13:07,679 --> 00:13:11,160 Speaker 1: world he was called just the poet and Sappho was 217 00:13:11,200 --> 00:13:15,560 Speaker 1: the poetess. Lyric poetry really flourished in ancient Greece between 218 00:13:15,640 --> 00:13:18,880 Speaker 1: about six hundred and four fifty BCE, so that was 219 00:13:18,920 --> 00:13:23,680 Speaker 1: when Sappho lived. It wasn't newly invented during that time. 220 00:13:23,800 --> 00:13:27,480 Speaker 1: This was more a revival of an earlier poetic form. 221 00:13:27,800 --> 00:13:30,240 Speaker 1: And then two people were considered to be the most 222 00:13:30,400 --> 00:13:34,600 Speaker 1: notable lyric poets of this period. They were Sappho and Alcius, 223 00:13:34,720 --> 00:13:37,280 Speaker 1: both of whom were from Lesbos and may have known 224 00:13:37,360 --> 00:13:40,720 Speaker 1: each other and even written to each other. Sappho wrote 225 00:13:40,720 --> 00:13:44,000 Speaker 1: her poems in Aolic Greek, which is sometimes also called 226 00:13:44,080 --> 00:13:47,400 Speaker 1: Lesbian Greek, and in that dialect her name was more 227 00:13:47,520 --> 00:13:50,400 Speaker 1: like Shappa than the Sappho that we know today. In 228 00:13:50,440 --> 00:13:55,000 Speaker 1: about the third century BCE, Sapho's poetry was compiled into 229 00:13:55,040 --> 00:13:59,280 Speaker 1: an eight or nine volume collection in Alexandria, Egypt. The 230 00:13:59,360 --> 00:14:02,439 Speaker 1: volumes were arranged by the meter used for each poem, 231 00:14:02,480 --> 00:14:05,760 Speaker 1: which set it apart for most other compilations, which tended 232 00:14:05,800 --> 00:14:09,480 Speaker 1: to be organized instead by subject or seam. There were 233 00:14:09,520 --> 00:14:12,800 Speaker 1: as many as ten thousand lines of poetry in this compilation, 234 00:14:13,520 --> 00:14:16,240 Speaker 1: but it's possible that Sappho wrote much more than that, 235 00:14:16,520 --> 00:14:19,680 Speaker 1: especially since many of her works were commissioned for special 236 00:14:19,680 --> 00:14:23,040 Speaker 1: occasions like weddings, and they might not have been preserved 237 00:14:23,120 --> 00:14:26,440 Speaker 1: after they were performed. Today, Sappho is known most for 238 00:14:26,560 --> 00:14:29,840 Speaker 1: one particular poetic form, and that's the Sapphic, which is 239 00:14:29,880 --> 00:14:33,960 Speaker 1: also called Sapphic meter or Sapphix stanzas. We don't really 240 00:14:34,000 --> 00:14:37,720 Speaker 1: know whether Sapho developed this form herself or refined a 241 00:14:37,760 --> 00:14:40,760 Speaker 1: form that already existed, but she was so skilled at 242 00:14:40,800 --> 00:14:43,560 Speaker 1: writing in this form that it ultimately carried her name. 243 00:14:44,200 --> 00:14:47,880 Speaker 1: The Sapphik used four line stanzas, with three longer lines 244 00:14:47,920 --> 00:14:50,960 Speaker 1: followed by one shorter line, and then within those lines. 245 00:14:51,000 --> 00:14:53,840 Speaker 1: The meter came from Lesbian Greek's pattern of long and 246 00:14:53,880 --> 00:14:58,480 Speaker 1: short syllables. When people are translating Sappho's work today, sometimes 247 00:14:58,480 --> 00:15:01,680 Speaker 1: they approximate the meter u using the characteristics of whatever 248 00:15:01,760 --> 00:15:05,000 Speaker 1: language they're working in. So, for example, in English, there's 249 00:15:05,040 --> 00:15:08,760 Speaker 1: a pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables, with the stressed 250 00:15:08,800 --> 00:15:11,960 Speaker 1: syllables standing in for the long syllables in Greek, and 251 00:15:12,040 --> 00:15:15,200 Speaker 1: the unstressed syllables taking the place of the short ones. 252 00:15:15,600 --> 00:15:19,640 Speaker 1: These tend to be very personal, passionate, and emotional poems, 253 00:15:19,960 --> 00:15:24,520 Speaker 1: and they're simultaneously very simple and elegant. During Sappho's lifetime, 254 00:15:24,600 --> 00:15:27,880 Speaker 1: poetry was also believed to be magical, so poetry was 255 00:15:27,920 --> 00:15:31,280 Speaker 1: thought to be able to influence or shape reality. So 256 00:15:31,320 --> 00:15:35,840 Speaker 1: Sappho's poetry was considered to be beautiful and melodic and powerful. 257 00:15:36,600 --> 00:15:40,080 Speaker 1: But we have unfortunately very little of this poetry today, 258 00:15:40,560 --> 00:15:43,320 Speaker 1: and even less of it in the form of complete poems. 259 00:15:44,000 --> 00:15:47,160 Speaker 1: The vast majority of what we have is just short fragments, 260 00:15:47,760 --> 00:15:50,080 Speaker 1: and some of these fragments are from damaged pieces of 261 00:15:50,080 --> 00:15:54,600 Speaker 1: writing material or pieces of clay pots. Others are quotations 262 00:15:54,600 --> 00:15:59,520 Speaker 1: from other people's surviving work. For example, Cassius Longinus quoted 263 00:15:59,560 --> 00:16:03,600 Speaker 1: forcedas by Sappho in On the Sublime, which was published 264 00:16:03,640 --> 00:16:07,320 Speaker 1: around one hundred CE today, out of those ten thousand 265 00:16:07,440 --> 00:16:10,000 Speaker 1: or so lines that we think that Sappho wrote, we 266 00:16:10,120 --> 00:16:14,160 Speaker 1: have roughly six hundred and fifty lines of poetry remaining. 267 00:16:14,520 --> 00:16:18,360 Speaker 1: That is spread out across about two hundred and fifty fragments. 268 00:16:18,760 --> 00:16:21,560 Speaker 1: And of those six hundred and fifty lines, fewer than 269 00:16:21,640 --> 00:16:24,320 Speaker 1: a third of them are even complete lines of poetry. 270 00:16:24,320 --> 00:16:27,120 Speaker 1: A lot of them are partial lines. Six of the 271 00:16:27,160 --> 00:16:31,720 Speaker 1: fragments are longer and more substantive, but still not entirely intact, 272 00:16:32,280 --> 00:16:34,840 Speaker 1: and one of those longer fragments is the Brother's poem 273 00:16:34,880 --> 00:16:37,680 Speaker 1: that we mentioned earlier, which is missing only its first 274 00:16:37,680 --> 00:16:41,920 Speaker 1: few stanzas only one of Sappho's poems is believed to 275 00:16:41,960 --> 00:16:44,840 Speaker 1: be complete today, and that is the Ode to Aphrodite. 276 00:16:45,560 --> 00:16:49,040 Speaker 1: Different collections of Sappho's poetry use different numbering systems to 277 00:16:49,120 --> 00:16:51,720 Speaker 1: keep up with all of these fragments, but most of 278 00:16:51,760 --> 00:16:56,040 Speaker 1: the time Ode to Aphrodite, sometimes translated as Him or 279 00:16:56,080 --> 00:16:59,560 Speaker 1: Prayer to Aphrodite, is number one. Here's the beginning of 280 00:16:59,600 --> 00:17:03,040 Speaker 1: Ode to Aphrodite, translated by T. W. Higginson in eighteen 281 00:17:03,080 --> 00:17:09,200 Speaker 1: seventy one quote beautiful throned immortal Aphrodite, daughter of Zeus beguiler, 282 00:17:09,320 --> 00:17:13,119 Speaker 1: I implore THEE weigh me not down with weariness and anguish. 283 00:17:13,160 --> 00:17:16,640 Speaker 1: Oh Thou most holy, come to me now, if ever thou, 284 00:17:16,640 --> 00:17:20,719 Speaker 1: in kindness hearkenest my words. And in the poem, Aphrodite 285 00:17:20,760 --> 00:17:24,520 Speaker 1: does come and says, who has harmed thee? Oh, my 286 00:17:24,640 --> 00:17:29,000 Speaker 1: poor Sappho. Though now he flies erelong, he shall pursue thee, 287 00:17:29,440 --> 00:17:33,440 Speaker 1: fearing thy gifts. He too, in turn, shall bring them loveless. 288 00:17:33,480 --> 00:17:37,760 Speaker 1: Today tomorrow he shall woo thee, though thou should spurn him. 289 00:17:38,200 --> 00:17:40,600 Speaker 1: Another of the longer fragments is the one that was 290 00:17:40,680 --> 00:17:44,000 Speaker 1: quoted in On the Sublime, which we mentioned earlier, and 291 00:17:44,080 --> 00:17:47,679 Speaker 1: it describes the speaker's response to sitting across from a 292 00:17:47,760 --> 00:17:50,879 Speaker 1: woman that the poem is addressing. This is usually interpreted 293 00:17:50,920 --> 00:17:53,960 Speaker 1: as Sappho herself describing her own response to the woman 294 00:17:54,359 --> 00:17:57,399 Speaker 1: that she's facing, but that's not really clear here. It 295 00:17:57,480 --> 00:18:02,879 Speaker 1: is as translated by John Addington's Simmons in eighteen eighty three, 296 00:18:03,080 --> 00:18:05,720 Speaker 1: Peer of the Gods, he seemeth to me the blissful 297 00:18:05,720 --> 00:18:09,399 Speaker 1: man who sits and gazes at THEE before him close 298 00:18:09,480 --> 00:18:13,840 Speaker 1: besides these sits, and in silence hears THEE silverly speaking, 299 00:18:14,359 --> 00:18:19,159 Speaker 1: laughing love's low laughter. Oh this, this only stirs the 300 00:18:19,200 --> 00:18:22,199 Speaker 1: troubled heart in my breast to tremble. For should I 301 00:18:22,320 --> 00:18:27,040 Speaker 1: but see thee a little moment? Straight? Is my voice hushed? Yeay, 302 00:18:27,160 --> 00:18:30,800 Speaker 1: my tongue is broken, and through and through me neath 303 00:18:30,920 --> 00:18:36,080 Speaker 1: the flesh impalpable, fire runs tingling nothing see mine eyes 304 00:18:36,359 --> 00:18:39,800 Speaker 1: and our noise of roaring waves in my ear sounds. 305 00:18:40,280 --> 00:18:44,440 Speaker 1: Sweat runs down in rivers. A tremor seizes all my limbs, 306 00:18:44,520 --> 00:18:47,960 Speaker 1: and paler than grass in autumn, caught by pains of 307 00:18:48,080 --> 00:18:52,320 Speaker 1: menacing death, eye falter lost in the love trance. But 308 00:18:52,400 --> 00:18:55,640 Speaker 1: almost all the fragments are not nearly so long as this. 309 00:18:56,320 --> 00:18:59,760 Speaker 1: Here is an example, Sweet mother, I cannot weave my 310 00:19:00,520 --> 00:19:03,480 Speaker 1: broken as I am by longing for a boy at 311 00:19:03,600 --> 00:19:07,119 Speaker 1: soft aphrodite's will. One that we think from a wedding 312 00:19:07,160 --> 00:19:11,720 Speaker 1: poem goes neither honey nor bee for me. I don't 313 00:19:11,720 --> 00:19:15,639 Speaker 1: know why I love that. I do too, neither of 314 00:19:15,640 --> 00:19:20,120 Speaker 1: the above. Another fragment just says shot with a thousand hues, 315 00:19:20,680 --> 00:19:23,840 Speaker 1: and one reads and I flutter like a child after 316 00:19:23,880 --> 00:19:27,720 Speaker 1: her mother, and one fragment is simply the words you 317 00:19:27,800 --> 00:19:32,520 Speaker 1: burn me. Sappho's fragments can be really evocative, and then 318 00:19:32,640 --> 00:19:36,720 Speaker 1: combined with her pretty mysterious biography, they can just be beguiling. 319 00:19:37,400 --> 00:19:40,480 Speaker 1: But the fact that they're so fragmented and scattered makes 320 00:19:40,560 --> 00:19:43,560 Speaker 1: her work really difficult to study. We have a sense 321 00:19:43,600 --> 00:19:45,800 Speaker 1: that she wrote lots of love poems, and that she 322 00:19:45,880 --> 00:19:49,480 Speaker 1: wrote lots of poems for people's weddings. Her work seems 323 00:19:49,520 --> 00:19:52,720 Speaker 1: to carry a lot of affection as well, including physical 324 00:19:52,760 --> 00:19:56,239 Speaker 1: affection for men and women, but we don't necessarily have 325 00:19:56,320 --> 00:19:59,240 Speaker 1: the greatest sense of what the whole body of her 326 00:19:59,320 --> 00:20:02,880 Speaker 1: work is like. There's some guesswork going on, especially since 327 00:20:02,920 --> 00:20:05,239 Speaker 1: some of the fragments are so short that were not 328 00:20:05,280 --> 00:20:08,600 Speaker 1: even one hundred percent short that Sappho really wrote them. 329 00:20:08,840 --> 00:20:11,560 Speaker 1: And we'll get into why there's so little of Sappho's 330 00:20:11,600 --> 00:20:14,959 Speaker 1: work left today to study after we have another sponsor break. 331 00:20:23,720 --> 00:20:26,119 Speaker 1: As far as we know, during her lifetime and at 332 00:20:26,160 --> 00:20:29,720 Speaker 1: least for a while afterwards, Sapo was deeply respected and 333 00:20:29,800 --> 00:20:33,160 Speaker 1: admired as a poet and a person. Plato, who lived 334 00:20:33,200 --> 00:20:35,920 Speaker 1: roughly two hundred years after she did, wrote quote some 335 00:20:36,040 --> 00:20:39,520 Speaker 1: say the muses are nine, but how carelessly look at 336 00:20:39,560 --> 00:20:44,280 Speaker 1: the tenth Sapho from Lesbus. It doesn't seem as though 337 00:20:44,320 --> 00:20:48,320 Speaker 1: her contemporaries really questioned her character in any way. I mean, 338 00:20:48,400 --> 00:20:50,639 Speaker 1: after all, she was getting a lot of commissions to 339 00:20:50,680 --> 00:20:54,760 Speaker 1: write poetry for people's weddings, and that doesn't seem like 340 00:20:54,800 --> 00:20:58,080 Speaker 1: it would be happening if she were socially reviled. But 341 00:20:58,160 --> 00:21:02,160 Speaker 1: in the century since then have interpreted Sappho in vastly 342 00:21:02,280 --> 00:21:06,159 Speaker 1: different ways. In the words of Holt and Parker quote, 343 00:21:06,240 --> 00:21:09,760 Speaker 1: every age creates its own Sappho, and many of these 344 00:21:09,800 --> 00:21:13,239 Speaker 1: creations have imagined Sapho as being, at least in the 345 00:21:13,280 --> 00:21:17,719 Speaker 1: morality of the time, deviant or depraved. Some of these 346 00:21:17,720 --> 00:21:20,520 Speaker 1: shifts are thanks to her being from the island of Lesbos. 347 00:21:21,280 --> 00:21:23,919 Speaker 1: While she was living, Lesbus was considered to be a 348 00:21:23,920 --> 00:21:28,000 Speaker 1: place full of passion and poetry and sensuality, although also 349 00:21:28,160 --> 00:21:31,639 Speaker 1: with a lot of political turmoil and infighting, which is 350 00:21:31,760 --> 00:21:34,679 Speaker 1: why Sappho and her family may have fled at some point. 351 00:21:35,240 --> 00:21:38,560 Speaker 1: Possibly see R. Haines, who we quoted at the top 352 00:21:38,560 --> 00:21:41,600 Speaker 1: of the show, described it this way quote. The Aeolians 353 00:21:41,640 --> 00:21:45,120 Speaker 1: of Lesbos were a vigorous and gifted race, brave in war, 354 00:21:45,440 --> 00:21:50,560 Speaker 1: enterprising and trade, vehement and politics, eminent in poetry and music. 355 00:21:50,800 --> 00:21:54,120 Speaker 1: But within a few centuries after her death, prevailing opinion 356 00:21:54,280 --> 00:21:58,040 Speaker 1: of the island of Lesbus had shifted. That tendency toward 357 00:21:58,160 --> 00:22:02,360 Speaker 1: passion and wealth moved more into perceived hedonism and excess. 358 00:22:03,200 --> 00:22:05,439 Speaker 1: Lesbus went from being thought of as a place of 359 00:22:05,480 --> 00:22:10,119 Speaker 1: beauty and refinement to one of licentiousness and corruption. The 360 00:22:10,200 --> 00:22:15,000 Speaker 1: Greek word lesbiasen, meaning acting like someone from Lesbus, became 361 00:22:15,040 --> 00:22:20,080 Speaker 1: associated with impurity and one specific sex act, that being fallatio. 362 00:22:20,600 --> 00:22:23,840 Speaker 1: It wasn't just about the island, though eventually this also 363 00:22:24,000 --> 00:22:28,560 Speaker 1: extended to Sappho herself. Greek comedy tended to be in 364 00:22:28,560 --> 00:22:31,840 Speaker 1: one way or another satirical, although the exact nature and 365 00:22:31,880 --> 00:22:35,920 Speaker 1: the primary targets of the satire shifted over time in 366 00:22:36,040 --> 00:22:39,800 Speaker 1: the sort of history of Greek comedy, and starting a 367 00:22:39,840 --> 00:22:43,120 Speaker 1: couple of centuries after she died, Sappho became the target 368 00:22:43,160 --> 00:22:46,639 Speaker 1: of this satire. Her name was used for characters in 369 00:22:46,800 --> 00:22:51,400 Speaker 1: several Greek comedies, and those characters were usually depicted as 370 00:22:51,520 --> 00:22:55,920 Speaker 1: wanton and lustful and just excessively sexual with young men. 371 00:22:56,359 --> 00:23:01,200 Speaker 1: Society's understanding of relationships and gender roles shifts over time, 372 00:23:01,359 --> 00:23:05,200 Speaker 1: so it's certain that romantic and physical relationships were viewed 373 00:23:05,320 --> 00:23:09,160 Speaker 1: very differently on Lesbis in the seventh century BCE than 374 00:23:09,160 --> 00:23:12,800 Speaker 1: they are in various cultures today. But we know virtually 375 00:23:12,880 --> 00:23:15,840 Speaker 1: nothing about the details, and many of the authors who 376 00:23:15,840 --> 00:23:19,399 Speaker 1: have speculated about it have tried to draw conclusions based 377 00:23:19,400 --> 00:23:23,399 Speaker 1: on ancient Sparta, But our understanding of Spartan society is 378 00:23:23,480 --> 00:23:27,639 Speaker 1: also limited, and it was a completely different society from Lesbus, 379 00:23:28,000 --> 00:23:31,040 Speaker 1: located in a different part of Greece, and it flourished 380 00:23:31,200 --> 00:23:35,000 Speaker 1: starting two hundred years or so after Sappho's death. However, 381 00:23:35,480 --> 00:23:39,960 Speaker 1: we do know that same sex relationships became increasingly taboo 382 00:23:40,000 --> 00:23:42,959 Speaker 1: in parts of Europe in the centuries after Sappho lived, 383 00:23:43,440 --> 00:23:45,560 Speaker 1: so we don't really know how they were regarded while 384 00:23:45,600 --> 00:23:48,199 Speaker 1: she was living and where she was living, but we 385 00:23:48,320 --> 00:23:50,880 Speaker 1: do know that it became more and more taboo afterward, 386 00:23:51,400 --> 00:23:55,280 Speaker 1: and as that happened, the idea that Sappho was deviant 387 00:23:55,359 --> 00:23:58,760 Speaker 1: because of her lust for young men morphed into the 388 00:23:58,800 --> 00:24:01,600 Speaker 1: idea that she was devs because of her lust for 389 00:24:01,720 --> 00:24:04,800 Speaker 1: young women. The first reference to this that we know 390 00:24:04,920 --> 00:24:07,679 Speaker 1: about was written in the second or third century CE. 391 00:24:08,280 --> 00:24:12,600 Speaker 1: In the sixteenth century, humanist scholars claimed that Christian Church 392 00:24:12,640 --> 00:24:17,000 Speaker 1: officials had burned Sappho's work for this reason at least twice. 393 00:24:17,760 --> 00:24:21,199 Speaker 1: That Bishop Gregory Nesienzin of Constantinople had done so in 394 00:24:21,240 --> 00:24:24,240 Speaker 1: three eighty, followed by Pope Gregory the Seventh in ten 395 00:24:24,359 --> 00:24:28,560 Speaker 1: seventy three, but it's not clear whether these burnings actually happened, 396 00:24:28,800 --> 00:24:33,760 Speaker 1: especially since Bishop Gregory himself was known to quote from Sappho. Yes, 397 00:24:33,960 --> 00:24:37,639 Speaker 1: there's some conjecture that over the centuries two different Gregory's 398 00:24:37,640 --> 00:24:41,520 Speaker 1: were conflated together into this one person who supposedly did 399 00:24:41,520 --> 00:24:45,439 Speaker 1: this burning. Even if her work was burned by the 400 00:24:45,520 --> 00:24:50,080 Speaker 1: Church because of perceptions about Sappho's morality, that would not 401 00:24:50,160 --> 00:24:52,720 Speaker 1: account for so much of its loss. There were also 402 00:24:52,840 --> 00:24:56,480 Speaker 1: floods and accidental fires, and the aging of the material 403 00:24:56,560 --> 00:25:00,080 Speaker 1: that the poetry was recorded on, and fewer and they 404 00:25:00,119 --> 00:25:03,840 Speaker 1: were people speaking Aeolian Greek, meaning that there was less 405 00:25:03,880 --> 00:25:06,399 Speaker 1: and less demand for new copies of her work to 406 00:25:06,440 --> 00:25:10,840 Speaker 1: be printed or written or copied. Sappho didn't fade into 407 00:25:10,920 --> 00:25:14,280 Speaker 1: total obscurity, though we mentioned in our Christine de Pisan 408 00:25:14,440 --> 00:25:16,560 Speaker 1: episode that she's named in the Book of the City 409 00:25:16,600 --> 00:25:19,640 Speaker 1: of Ladies, which was written in fourteen oh five. By 410 00:25:19,680 --> 00:25:23,600 Speaker 1: the sixteenth century, though, what most people knew about Sappho 411 00:25:23,760 --> 00:25:28,080 Speaker 1: really came from Avid's heroities rather than from anything about 412 00:25:28,080 --> 00:25:31,480 Speaker 1: her actual biography or her work. By the eighteenth century, 413 00:25:31,560 --> 00:25:34,359 Speaker 1: even less of Sappho's poetry was known to the world 414 00:25:34,640 --> 00:25:36,919 Speaker 1: than the six hundred and fifty lines we have today. 415 00:25:37,720 --> 00:25:41,000 Speaker 1: In the words sapphok and lesbian had taken on entirely 416 00:25:41,040 --> 00:25:44,600 Speaker 1: different meanings than what they'd initially meant, which was basically 417 00:25:44,640 --> 00:25:48,320 Speaker 1: related to Sapho or related to the island of Lesbis. 418 00:25:49,040 --> 00:25:52,000 Speaker 1: Lesbian was first used in writing to describe a woman 419 00:25:52,040 --> 00:25:55,320 Speaker 1: who is physically or romantically involved with another woman in 420 00:25:55,359 --> 00:25:59,520 Speaker 1: seventeen thirty two, and saffok was used in association with 421 00:25:59,560 --> 00:26:03,600 Speaker 1: same sex, desire and relationships among women a few years later. 422 00:26:04,480 --> 00:26:07,359 Speaker 1: The first appearance of the word sapphik in writing was 423 00:26:07,400 --> 00:26:11,000 Speaker 1: in a seventeen sixty one translation of Plato, which read quote, 424 00:26:11,160 --> 00:26:14,359 Speaker 1: their affections tend rather to their own sex, and of 425 00:26:14,400 --> 00:26:18,520 Speaker 1: this kind are the Sapphic lovers. So by the Romantic 426 00:26:18,680 --> 00:26:22,560 Speaker 1: era in Europe, both Sappho and the island of Lesbus 427 00:26:22,560 --> 00:26:27,520 Speaker 1: had become inextricably connected to the idea of homosexuality among women, 428 00:26:27,720 --> 00:26:32,159 Speaker 1: which was also culturally very taboo and in some cases outlawed. 429 00:26:32,640 --> 00:26:35,240 Speaker 1: But in spite of that, in the nineteenth century, Sappho's 430 00:26:35,240 --> 00:26:40,119 Speaker 1: poetry experienced a surge and popularity. The Romantics found the 431 00:26:40,200 --> 00:26:44,119 Speaker 1: emotional depth of her poems and the fragments really appealing. 432 00:26:44,720 --> 00:26:49,000 Speaker 1: She started appearing in poems by people like Byron and Bodelaire, 433 00:26:49,119 --> 00:26:53,399 Speaker 1: although not necessarily in what we would call a favorable light. Then, 434 00:26:53,440 --> 00:26:56,960 Speaker 1: in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a collection 435 00:26:57,119 --> 00:27:01,840 Speaker 1: of manuscripts was unearthed near the Egyptians city of Oxyrinchus, 436 00:27:02,000 --> 00:27:05,920 Speaker 1: drastically increasing the number of known Sappho fragments and giving 437 00:27:05,960 --> 00:27:09,520 Speaker 1: people way more of them to study and read. Running 438 00:27:09,560 --> 00:27:14,000 Speaker 1: alongside this increasing popularity was an attempt to reform Sappho's 439 00:27:14,040 --> 00:27:18,240 Speaker 1: image into something that wasn't contrary to nineteenth century morality. 440 00:27:18,600 --> 00:27:23,440 Speaker 1: In eighteen sixteen, Frederick Gottlin Welker published Sappho Freed from 441 00:27:23,480 --> 00:27:27,280 Speaker 1: a Prevailing Prejudice, which tried to reinterpret her poetry in 442 00:27:27,320 --> 00:27:30,439 Speaker 1: a way that minimized the homo eroticism of her work, 443 00:27:31,040 --> 00:27:33,800 Speaker 1: and this did start to shift people's opinions about Sappho. 444 00:27:33,920 --> 00:27:37,920 Speaker 1: But then in eighteen ninety five, Pierre Luis published Chansson 445 00:27:38,000 --> 00:27:42,000 Speaker 1: de Biltice, which was supposedly a collection of newly discovered 446 00:27:42,040 --> 00:27:45,639 Speaker 1: poems written by one of Sappho's female students, who was 447 00:27:45,720 --> 00:27:49,919 Speaker 1: named and the French pronunciation Bigtis. These were really a 448 00:27:49,960 --> 00:27:53,800 Speaker 1: work of poetic fiction. Though these poems were very erotic 449 00:27:53,880 --> 00:27:56,720 Speaker 1: and sensual, and although people really quickly figured out that 450 00:27:56,720 --> 00:27:59,359 Speaker 1: they were not really written by one of Sappho's students, 451 00:27:59,680 --> 00:28:03,960 Speaker 1: it it did reinforce the connection between Sapho and homosexual 452 00:28:04,000 --> 00:28:07,920 Speaker 1: relationships among women that Welker had been trying to minimize 453 00:28:07,920 --> 00:28:11,000 Speaker 1: in his earlier work, and that led to another effort 454 00:28:11,080 --> 00:28:15,040 Speaker 1: to try to reimagine Sappho's identity in nineteen thirteen, led 455 00:28:15,080 --> 00:28:19,359 Speaker 1: by Ulrich von Velamowitz. His Sapho and Somonodes drew from 456 00:28:19,400 --> 00:28:23,159 Speaker 1: Welker's eighteen sixteen work, and it depicted Sappho as a 457 00:28:23,200 --> 00:28:27,720 Speaker 1: spinsterish school marm. This work also really reinforced the idea 458 00:28:27,800 --> 00:28:30,480 Speaker 1: that Safo was a teacher at a formal school with 459 00:28:30,600 --> 00:28:34,040 Speaker 1: young women as her pupils, and this depiction is based 460 00:28:34,080 --> 00:28:39,240 Speaker 1: on his reinterpreting her poetry, not on historical research today 461 00:28:39,720 --> 00:28:44,240 Speaker 1: Sappho seems really intrinsically connected to the idea of lesbian, 462 00:28:44,400 --> 00:28:47,479 Speaker 1: which can describe a person's sexual orientation as well as 463 00:28:47,480 --> 00:28:51,320 Speaker 1: their political or social identity, and that connection was really 464 00:28:51,360 --> 00:28:54,240 Speaker 1: reinforced during the early years of the gay rights movement 465 00:28:54,280 --> 00:28:56,880 Speaker 1: in the United States, when it was still known as 466 00:28:56,920 --> 00:29:01,280 Speaker 1: the homophile movement. In nineteen fifty five, lesbian couples formed 467 00:29:01,320 --> 00:29:04,600 Speaker 1: the Daughters of Belitas that's spelled the same way as Billets, 468 00:29:04,720 --> 00:29:09,400 Speaker 1: which Tracy said earlier pronounced differently. They included activists Phyllis 469 00:29:09,520 --> 00:29:12,520 Speaker 1: Lyon and del Martin, who later became the first same 470 00:29:12,560 --> 00:29:14,840 Speaker 1: sex couple to get married in San Francisco, and it 471 00:29:14,920 --> 00:29:18,080 Speaker 1: began allowing same sex marriages in two thousand and four. 472 00:29:18,560 --> 00:29:22,040 Speaker 1: And this was part social club, part support group, part 473 00:29:22,200 --> 00:29:26,800 Speaker 1: education and advocacy organization. They named themselves the Daughters of 474 00:29:26,840 --> 00:29:30,920 Speaker 1: Belitus after that eighteen ninety five Chanson de Bilitice collection, 475 00:29:31,160 --> 00:29:34,320 Speaker 1: and by this point everyone knew in quotation marks that 476 00:29:34,400 --> 00:29:38,080 Speaker 1: the historic Sappho was a lesbian, So the name Belitus 477 00:29:38,280 --> 00:29:42,000 Speaker 1: let the organization connect itself to Sappho and signal to 478 00:29:42,080 --> 00:29:46,000 Speaker 1: potential members what the organization was for without needing to 479 00:29:46,160 --> 00:29:50,240 Speaker 1: publicly express who and what the organization was for. Because 480 00:29:50,240 --> 00:29:53,080 Speaker 1: of the social climate and in some cases the law, 481 00:29:53,600 --> 00:29:57,320 Speaker 1: just publicly declaring that this was an organization for lesbians 482 00:29:57,720 --> 00:30:01,080 Speaker 1: was not possible. In nineteen fifty five, the Daughters of 483 00:30:01,120 --> 00:30:04,440 Speaker 1: Belitas created a newsletter called The Latter, which developed a 484 00:30:04,560 --> 00:30:08,360 Speaker 1: national readership, and the organization itself became the first national 485 00:30:08,440 --> 00:30:12,240 Speaker 1: lesbian organization in the United States. And as time went on, 486 00:30:12,360 --> 00:30:15,720 Speaker 1: Sappho became increasingly present in the pages of The Latter, 487 00:30:16,040 --> 00:30:20,040 Speaker 1: which also had a poetry column called Saphistries. All of 488 00:30:20,080 --> 00:30:23,480 Speaker 1: this continued to reinforce that connection between Sappho and the 489 00:30:23,560 --> 00:30:28,200 Speaker 1: lesbian community. So that is Sappho. We know literally almost 490 00:30:28,200 --> 00:30:31,440 Speaker 1: nothing about her, And this whole story reminds me a 491 00:30:31,440 --> 00:30:34,000 Speaker 1: lot of Jenny Lynde, who was supposed to be just 492 00:30:34,040 --> 00:30:37,920 Speaker 1: the world's most incredible opera singer, but of whom we 493 00:30:37,960 --> 00:30:41,959 Speaker 1: have no recordings. Yeah, so take people we don't know. Yeah, 494 00:30:42,080 --> 00:30:44,560 Speaker 1: I think there's always that thing, right. We talked about 495 00:30:44,560 --> 00:30:49,600 Speaker 1: how there are many attempts to reinterpret and shift her 496 00:30:49,640 --> 00:30:52,840 Speaker 1: identity over time, and so it is like that trick 497 00:30:52,880 --> 00:30:55,520 Speaker 1: when you only have these tiny bits and fragments that 498 00:30:55,640 --> 00:30:58,120 Speaker 1: people can want a thing. So badly that they will 499 00:30:58,120 --> 00:31:01,760 Speaker 1: interpret it in whichever way mays them the most comfortable 500 00:31:01,760 --> 00:31:05,200 Speaker 1: with the material, or like aligns with their ideas of 501 00:31:05,240 --> 00:31:09,120 Speaker 1: this historical figure that we really have just the vaguest 502 00:31:09,160 --> 00:31:12,760 Speaker 1: smattering of information about. Yeah, well, and there's so many 503 00:31:12,800 --> 00:31:15,880 Speaker 1: of the things that we in theory know about her 504 00:31:16,600 --> 00:31:21,600 Speaker 1: are like, Okay, are these three brothers? Are those three 505 00:31:21,640 --> 00:31:24,880 Speaker 1: brothers her brothers and she mentioned them in her poetry? 506 00:31:25,160 --> 00:31:28,440 Speaker 1: Or have those names been picked to stand for her 507 00:31:28,440 --> 00:31:31,160 Speaker 1: brothers because those are names that appeared in her poetry. 508 00:31:31,160 --> 00:31:33,680 Speaker 1: It's sort of a chicken and egg situation where like 509 00:31:33,720 --> 00:31:36,400 Speaker 1: we don't really know which thing led to which, or 510 00:31:36,400 --> 00:31:39,960 Speaker 1: are they someone else's brothers? Right? Nothing to do with 511 00:31:40,000 --> 00:31:43,360 Speaker 1: her at all? Because it was a commission? Right? Was 512 00:31:43,440 --> 00:31:47,600 Speaker 1: this poem written in a someone else's voice, not Sappho's 513 00:31:47,880 --> 00:31:52,520 Speaker 1: personal expressions? Anyway, I love her and I think she's fascinating, 514 00:31:52,560 --> 00:31:56,840 Speaker 1: even though I know literally tiny amounts about any of it. 515 00:31:58,200 --> 00:32:06,080 Speaker 1: There you go. Thanks so much for joining us on 516 00:32:06,120 --> 00:32:08,560 Speaker 1: this Saturday. If you'd like to send us a note, 517 00:32:08,560 --> 00:32:13,320 Speaker 1: our email addresses History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com, and 518 00:32:13,520 --> 00:32:16,080 Speaker 1: you can subscribe to the show on the iHeartRadio app 519 00:32:16,200 --> 00:32:19,480 Speaker 1: Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.