Greek Women

by Mitchell Carroll

VI

SAPPHO

Toward the close of the seventh century before Christ, a singular phenomenon presented itself in the history of Greek womanhood. Heretofore Greek women have been beautiful; they have been fascinating; they have exerted great influence on the course of events; but it cannot be said that they have been intellectual. At the time mentioned, there occurred an unusual movement in the intellectual realm. This remarkable movement centres about the name of the first great historical woman of Greece--Lesbian Sappho, "the Tenth Muse." In the history of universal woman, Sappho holds a position altogether unique; for she is not only regarded as the greatest of lyric poets, but she was also the founder of the first woman's club of which we have any record. Sappho consecrated herself heart and soul to the elevation of her sex. As poetry and art constitute the natural channels for the aesthetic cultivation of woman, she trained her pupils to be poets like herself. The result of her lifelong devotion to the service of Aphrodite and the Muses was that she herself not only achieved an immortal reputation as a poet, but through her inspiring influence her pupils carried the love of poetry and of intellectual and artistic pursuits back to their distant homes. Hence, it is not surprising to learn that from this time there were to be found here and there in the Greek world women who in intellectual pursuits were the peers of their male compeers, and that there should be found among women the nine terrestrial Muses, so called as a counterpart to the celestial Nine.

Sappho's unique greatness is best appreciated when we consider how she has been regarded by the great men of antiquity and of modern times.

Among the Greeks, she possessed the unique renown of being called "The Poetess," just as Homer was "The Poet." Solon, hearing one of her poems, prayed that he might not see death until he had learned it. Plato numbered her among the wise. Aristotle quotes without reservation a judgment that placed her in the same rank as Homer and Archilochus. Plutarch likens her "to the heart of a volcano," and says that the grace of her poems acted on her listeners like an enchantment, and that when he read them he set aside the drinking cup in very shame. Strabo called her "a wonderful something," and says that "at no period within memory has any woman been known who, in any way, even the least degree, could be compared to her for poetry." Demetrius of Phaleron adds his word of praise: "Wherefore Sappho is eloquent and sweet when she sings of beauty and of love and spring, and of the kingfisher; and every beautiful expression is woven into her poetry besides what she herself invented."

Writers in the Greek Anthology continually sing her praises, calling her "the Tenth Muse," "pride of Hellas," "comrade of Apollo," "child of Aphrodite and Eros," "nursling of the Graces and Persuasion." Nor have modern critics been less restrained in their praises, notwithstanding the fact that they possess merely a handful of fragments by which to judge "The Poetess." Addison, for example, says: "Among the mutilated poets of antiquity there is none whose fragments are so beautiful as those of Sappho." John Addington Symonds is even more enthusiastic. "The world has suffered no greater literary loss," says he, "than the loss of Sappho's poems. So perfect are the smallest fragments preserved, that we muse in a sad rapture of astonishment to think what the complete poems must have been." And Swinburne, her best modern interpreter, calls Sappho "the unapproachable poetess," and says: "Her remaining verses are the supreme success, the final achievement, of the poetic art."

Sappho was at the zenith of her fame about the beginning of the sixth century before the Christian era. Her home was at Mytilene, on the island of Lesbos. The lapse of twenty-five centuries has left us few authentic records of her life. There is a tradition that she was born at Eresus, on the island of Lesbos, and later established herself in the capital city, Mytilene. She was of a wealthy and aristocratic family. Herodotus says that she was the daughter of Scamandronymus, and Suidas states that her mother's name was Cleis, that she was the wife of a rich citizen of Andros, Cercylas or Cercolas by name, and that she had a daughter named after her grandmother, Cleis. Sappho refers to a daughter by this name in one of the extant fragments, but none of these other statements are corroborated. She had two brothers, Larichus, a public cupbearer at Mytilene,--an office reserved for noble youths,--and Charaxus, a wine merchant, of whom we shall speak more fully later. From one source we learn that she went into exile to Sicily along with other aristocrats of Lesbos, but the date is a matter of conjecture. Pittacus was tyrant of Mytilene at this time, and Sappho probably returned to Lesbos at the time when he granted amnesty to political exiles. How long she lived we cannot tell, while how and when she died are also unknown. Judging from the allusions of the writers in the Anthology, her tomb, erected in the city of her adoption, was for centuries afterward regularly visited by her votaries.

These are the few facts we can positively state regarding the life of Sappho; but myth and legend have supplied what was lacking, and those scandalmongers, the Greek comic poets, have woven all sorts of stories about her manner of life. These stories centre chiefly about the names of three men,--Alcæus and Anacreon, the poets, and Phaon, the mythical boatman of Mytilene, endowed by Aphrodite with extraordinary and irresistible beauty.

Alcæus, the poet of love and wine and war, was a native of Mytilene, and a contemporary of Sappho, and the two poets no doubt knew each other well. The comic poets made them lovers. There is still extant the opening of a poem which Alcæus addressed to Sappho: