Sappho (or Sappho)

If love is a divine passion, stronger than the enthusiasm of the Delphic priestesses, bacchantes and priests of Cybella, then Sappho, or Sappho, is her best personification.

Passionate Sappho, as her contemporaries called her, was born on the island of Lesbos in the city of Eros in the Forty-Second Olympiad, 612 BC. e. Her father's name was Scamandronim, her mother's was Cleida. In addition to Sappho, they had three sons: Charax, Larich and Euryg.

When Sappho was six years old, she was left an orphan. In 595 B.C. e. unrest began, leading to the overthrow of the aristocracy. The young girl fled to Sicily with her brothers and only fifteen years later was able to return to Lesbos. She settled in Mytilene, which is why later they began to call her Sappho of Mytilene, in contrast to the other Sappho - Eresskaya, an ordinary courtesan who lived much later than the famous poetess.

Sappho, who was brought up in a hetaera school, early felt a vocation for poetry. Her passionate nature could not hide the feelings that agitated her. She wrote odes, hymns, elegies, epitaphs, festive and stagnant songs in a verse called "Sapphic" after her. With a lyre in her hands, she recited her hot stanzas. All her works are either appeals to love, or complaints about her, full of passionate prayers and ardent desires. She had a great influence on Horace and Catullus, a kindred spirit singer of tender feelings and passions. Strabo did not call her anything other than a "miracle", arguing that "it is in vain to look for a woman in the entire course of history who in poetry could withstand at least approximately comparison with Sappho." Socrates calls her his mentor in matters of love.

Alas, the gods, who gave her the noble and pure genius of poetry, did not take care of her appearance. According to contemporaries, Sappho was small in stature, very swarthy, but with lively shining eyes, and if Socrates called her “the most beautiful”, it was solely for the beauty of the verse. Here is what Ovid said through the mouth of Sappho: “If ruthless nature denied me beauty, I compensate for its damage with my mind. I am small in stature, but with my name I can fill all countries. I am not white-faced, but Perseus liked the daughter of Kefaya (Andromeda). However, one can believe that the face of the poetess in moments of supreme inspiration was transformed and became truly beautiful.

Upon Sappho's return from Sicily, between the "tenth muse" (in the words of Plato) and the "hater of tyrants", the poet Alkey, her companion in exile, an affair began, which, however, did not have serious consequences. Alkay, of course, could not help but be carried away by the graceful, richly gifted girl. The poet told her that he would like to confess his love to her, but did not dare: "I would say, but I am ashamed." To which Sappho replied: “Whenever what you want to say was decent, shame would hardly embarrass you.” Undoubtedly, they were close, but how much - remains a mystery.

Soon Sappho married, for whom - it is not known, and a year later she gave birth to a daughter named after her grandmother Cleida. But the ruthless fate did not allow her to enjoy family happiness for a long time. Husband and ardently beloved daughter soon descended one by one into the gloomy kingdom of Gales. Deprived of her family, Sappho devoted herself entirely to poetry and transferred all the passion of her nature to lesbian girls.

Women in those distant times were not satisfied with men alone and started relationships with each other. Lesbians, in addition to lovers, had mistresses, near whom they reclined at feasts, fell asleep at night in their arms and surrounded them with the most tender cares. Lucian wrote in the Dialogues: "The women of Lesbos were indeed subject to this passion, but Sappho found it already in the customs and customs of her country, and did not invent it herself at all." It is difficult to deny the existence of "lesbian love" when the "queen of poets" is a direct expression of it. Sappho was supposed to love, adore, worship everything that is truly beautiful. And what is more beautiful than a woman?

Sappho led a school of rhetoric in Mytilene, although some writers claim that she herself founded it, calling it the House of the Muses, where not only lesbians, but also foreigners aspired to get. Passion for friends aroused in Sappho an unusual ecstasy. “Love destroys my soul, like a whirlwind overturning mountain oaks,” said the poetess. “As for me, I will indulge in voluptuousness as long as I can see the brilliance of the radiant star and admire everything that is beautiful!”

Sappho adored both men and women who could give her pleasure and sweet intoxication of the senses.

At the height of the feast, when the wine called "Aphrodite's milk" was boiling in a goblet, Sappho reclined in a passionate pose near Attida, Iorgo or Telesippa, the "beautiful warrior", reveling in the sweetness of love relationships. However, she longed for the presence of men, to whom she was also not indifferent. And, of course, the muse intoxicated her and delighted her.

Some researchers suggest that Sappho's poem "To my mistress" is dedicated to the Rhodope, which the poetess was jealous of her brother Charax. From the story of Apuleius, it follows that Charax, who was engaged in wine trading, once saw a beauty in the city of Navcratis, with whom he fell deeply in love. He bought her out of slavery for a huge sum and brought her to Mytilene. Sappho, having met the girl, flared up with a burning passion for the courtesan, but she did not even think of answering her. This coldness drove the poetess crazy, burning with desire. Constant quarrels between brother and sister forced Charax to return Rhodope to Navkratis, where he hoped to be the sole owner of the beauty. But fate was against him: when Rhodope "plunged her heated body into the icy Nile waters", the eagle took away one of her sandals and, by an incredible accident, dropped it in front of Amasis, who stood on the threshold of the temple in anticipation of a sacrifice. The sandal turned out to be so small that the pharaoh ordered to find its owner, who no doubt had amazing legs. The courtiers went in search and, after long wanderings, found the beauty and brought it to their master. Enchanted by the Rhodopes, Amazis either married her or made her his mistress. In any case, she was lost to Charax. Undoubtedly, this legend served as the plot for Cinderella. In Greece, the Egyptian courtesan was glorified under the name of Dorika, and Sappho's poems immortalized her brother's mistress.

Sappho is believed to have died around 572 BC. e., committing suicide. Who inspired Sappho with such passionate feelings? Legends point to the young Greek Phaon, who carried passengers from Lesvos or Chios to the opposite Asian coast. Sappho fell passionately in love with him, but, not finding reciprocity, she threw herself from the Leucadian rock into the sea. According to legend, those who suffered from crazy love found oblivion on Leukada.

However, some writers, without even mentioning the circumstances under which Sappho died, attribute her adventures with Phaon to Sappho of Ephesus.

In honor of Sappho, the Mytilenians minted her image on coins. Can anything more be done even for the queen?

Her father Scamandronim was a "new" aristocrat, being a representative of a noble family, he was engaged in trade. Her mother's name was Cleida. In addition to Sappho, they had three sons. At the age of six, the girl was orphaned, and her relatives sent her to a getter school. A sense of the word and rhythm was discovered in Sappho at an early age, already at the school of heterosexuals she wrote odes, hymns, elegies, festive and drinking songs.

She settled in the city of Mitylene, which is why they later began to call her Sappho of Mytilene. According to legend, at that time Alkey became interested in her. And even fragments of their lyrics are combined into a poetic dialogue to prove it, but it was impossible [ specify] - Alkey and Sappho are representatives of different generations. There is another legend about the poetess - that she fell in love with the sailor Phaon, who despised women and was only interested in the sea. Every day he sailed away on a boat, and, according to legend, Sappho waited for his return on a rock. One day Phaon did not return, and she threw herself into the water. This legend is the interweaving of the myth of the sea deity of the island of Lesbos, Faone, who once transported Aphrodite, and she gave him a special drug, thanks to which all the women who saw him fell in love with him. This myth was beautifully intertwined with the image of the famous poetess Sappho, and therefore such a legend arose.

Sappho married a wealthy Andrian Kerkilas; she had a daughter (named after Sappho's mother, Kleis, or Cleida), to whom Sappho dedicated a cycle of poems. Both husband and child Sappho did not live long.

The social status of women on about. Lesbos (and in general in Aeolis) was more free than in other areas of the Greek world. Women in social activity here had almost no restrictions; part of the family property, for example, could be transferred through the female line; along with male heteria, fias (fias, Greek thiasos - “meeting, procession”), similar to the commonwealth of women, were preserved on the island. Sappho headed such a fias - a cult association dedicated to Aphrodite, one of whose tasks was to prepare noble girls for marriage. As part of the fias program, Sappho taught girls music, dance, and poetry.

Chronology

“The poetry of Sappho was devoted to love and beauty: the beauty of the body, girls and ephebes, solemnly competing with her at the temple of Hera in Lesbos; love, abstracted from the rudeness of the physiological impulse to the cult of feeling, built on issues of marriage and sex, tempering passion with the requirements of aesthetics, causing an analysis of affect and the virtuosity of its poetic, conditional expression. From Sappho exit to Socrates: it was not for nothing that he called her his mentor in matters of love ”(academician A. N. Veselovsky).

Sexuality and poetry circle

The center of Sappho's poetry is love and passion for different characters of both sexes. The word " lesbian" comes from the name of her native island of Lesbos, and in English the word "sapphic" formed from her name is also used; both of these words began to be used to refer to female homosexuality only in the 19th century. The lyrical heroines of many of her poems speak of passionate infatuation or love (sometimes mutual, sometimes not) for various women, but descriptions of bodily contact between women are rare and controversial. It is not known whether these poems were autobiographical, although references to other areas of Sappho's life are found in her works, and it would be appropriate for her style to express these intimate experiences poetically as well. Her homoeroticism should be understood in the context of the seventh century BC. The poems of Alcaeus, and later of Pindar, describe similar romantic ties between members of a circle.

Alcaeus, a contemporary of Sappho, spoke of her like this: “With violet curls, pure, gently smiling Sappho” (ἰόπλοκ᾽ ἄγνα μελλιχόμειδε Σάπφοι, fragment 384). The third-century philosopher Maximus of Tirsky wrote that Sappho was "dark and short" and that in her relationships with her friends she was like Socrates: "How else can you call the love of this lesbian woman, if not the art of love of Socrates? After all, it seems to me that they understood love in their own way: she loved women, he loved men. After all, they, as they say, loved many, and were passionate about everything beautiful. Who Alcibiades, Charmides and Phaedrus were for him, so were Girinna, Attida and Anactoria for her ... "

In the Victorian era, it was fashionable to describe Sappho as the headmistress of a boarding school for noble maidens. As Paige DuBois (and many other experts) point out, this attempt to make Sappho understandable and acceptable to British high society was based more on conservative sentiment than historical fact. Sappho's meager collection of surviving poetry makes no mention of teaching, students, schools, or teachers. Burnett, like other scholars including S. M. Bour, believe that Sappho's circle was somewhat similar to Spartan military camps for boys (agelai) or sacred religious groups (thiasos), but Burnett refines his argument by noting, that Sappho's circle differed from these contemporary examples in that "participation in it seems to have been voluntary, irregular, and to some extent multinational." However, the notion remains that Sappho ran some sort of school.

Texts

To Aphrodite

Glorious Aphrodite with a motley throne,
Zeus's daughter, skillful in cunning forges! ..
I beg you, don't crush me
Hearts, good!

But come to me, as often as before
You answered my distant call
And, having left her father's palace, she ascended
To the chariot

Golden. Drove you from the sky
Above the ground there are small flocks of sparrows;
The swift wings of the birds fluttered
In the distance of the ether

And, presenting with a smile on the eternal face,
You, blessed, asked me,
What is my sadness and why the goddess
I call

And what do I want for a troubled soul.
"In whom should Peyto, say, lovingly
Spirit to you ignite? neglected you
Who, my Sappho?

Runs away - starts chasing you.
He does not take gifts - he hurries with gifts,
There is no love for you - and love will flare up,
Wants, doesn't want."

Oh, come to me and now from the bitter
Deliver the spirit of sorrow and what is so passionate
I want to accomplish and faithful ally
Be me goddess.

Compiled in the Alexandrian period, the corpus of Sappho's works consisted of 9 books, partly arranged according to metric headings, partly according to the types of melos. Of the works of Sappho, about 170 fragments have survived to our time, including one entire poem. The following fragments deserve special attention (according to the 4th edition of Bergk):

Artworks

Alexandrian edition of Sappho's works

The Library of Alexandria collected Sappho's writings into nine books, dividing them mainly according to meter:

• The first book: poems written in sapphic stanza, 330 stanzas in total (fragments 1-42).
• Second book: poems written in glyconic meter with dactyl extension (fr. 43-52)
• Third book: couplets, consisting of large verses of Asclepiades (fr. 53-57)
• Fourth book: couplets or similar meter (fr. 58-91)
• Fifth book: probably consisted of various three lines (fr. 92-101)
• Book six: contents unknown
• Seventh book: only two lines of the same size have survived to this day (fr. 102)
• Eighth book (see fr. 103)
• Ninth book: epithalames (wedding songs) in various poetic meters, including dactylic hexameter (fr. 104-117).

Not all surviving fragments can be attributed to any of these books (fr. 118-213 could not be classified); they also contain other poetic meters.

Surviving verses

A small part of these nine books has survived to this day, but it is also of great cultural value. One poem survives in its entirety, "Hymn to Aphrodite" (first fragment), which Dionysius of Halicarnassus, who admired Sappho's skill, cited as an example of "polished and vivid" poetic style:

“Here the impression of euphony and elegance of poetic language is created by successive, smooth transitions. Words adjoin each other and weave together according to a certain similarity and natural attraction of sounds.

Other important fragments include three nearly complete surviving poems (in standard numbering, 16th, 31st, and the recently found 58th fragment).

Recent discoveries

The last of the found works of Sappho is an almost completely preserved poem about old age (58th fragment). Line ends taken from the Papyrus Oxyrhynchus (No. 1787, fragment 1) were first published in 1922, but little could be understood from them, since the endings of the poems were indicated at the beginning of the lines, and they were lost, and scholars could only guess, where one poem ends and another begins. Recently, the rest of the poem has been found almost in its entirety - in a papyrus of the 3rd century BC. BC e. from the collection of the University of Cologne (published in 2004). The latest reconstruction by M. L. West appeared in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 151 (2005), 1-9, and in The Times Literary Supplement (June 21, 2005). The poem tells about the engagement of Titon, with whom the goddess Eos fell in love and asked Zeus to make him immortal, forgetting to add that he must remain forever young. An ancient Greek text has been published on the Internet with notes for language learners.

Features of Sappho's poetry

David Campbell briefly outlined some of the most compelling qualities of Sappho's poetry:

“The simplicity of the language and the clarity of thought in all these fragments are evident; the jokes and pathos that are common in English love poems and often found in the works of Catulus are completely absent. Her images are clear - sparrows harnessed to Aphrodite's chariot, a full moon on a starry night, a single red apple on top of a tree - and sometimes she elaborates on them, developing them on their own. She uses direct speech, quoting real or fictional dialogues, and thereby achieves an impression of immediacy. When it comes to feelings boiling in her soul, she calmly chooses words to express them. In this, she relies primarily on the melody of speech: her ability to select the position of vowels and consonants, which Dionysius of Halicarnassus admired, is evident in almost any stanza; the music to which she sang her poems no longer sounds, but, read aloud, they still enchant.

Metrics

The legends of Sappho

In ancient times, there were many legends about the relationship of the poetess to her chosen ones and friends. The beginning of such legends was laid by representatives of Attic comedy (the names of seven comedians are known who chose episodes from the life of Sappho as the plot of their plays). They, not fully understanding the meaning of Sappho's poetry, and referring to the cultural development of the Aeolian woman of the beginning of the 6th century. BC e. from the point of view of contemporary Athenian reality, they misinterpreted some information about the life of Sappho.

Among such legends is the love for the young man Phaon, who refused the poetess reciprocity, which is why she allegedly threw herself into the sea from the Leucadian rock in Acarnania. (The expression "throw yourself off the Leucadian rock" has become a proverb meaning "commit suicide under the influence of despair"; in this sense, the Leucadian rock is mentioned, for example, in Anacreon.) Also, along with Phaon and Alcaeus, Anacreon, who lived on 60 years later than her, and Archilochus with Hipponactus, separated from each other by an interval of 150 years.

Regarding the relationship of Sappho to women - the addressees of her poems - already in antiquity there were many ambiguous opinions. The modern concept of “lesbian love” and the very word “lesbian”, meaning a homosexual woman, is associated in origin with Sappho and her circle. Girlfriends and students of Sappho exchanged poems, which were primarily associated with the ancient cults of femininity, etc.; on the basis of lesbian freedom of feeling and action, this “feminine” poetry (intended, all the more, for a certain circle of relatives) naturally acquired frank content.

It seems most probable that Sappho's poetry was largely lost under the same erratic forces of cultural change that have left us only a measly crumb of the works of all nine canonical lyric poets of Greece, of whom only Pindar (the only one whose poems have been preserved by scribes) and Bacchilidus (whose knowledge we owe to one dramatic discovery of papyrus).

Sources of the surviving fragments

Although Sappho's poems ceased to be copied, some of them have been found in fragments of Egyptian papyri of an earlier period, such as those found in the ancient rubbish heaps at Oxyrhynchus, where each important find revealed to researchers broken lines of previously unknown poems by Sappho, becoming their main source. One significant fragment was preserved on a clay shard. The rest of Sappho's verses that we know of have been found in the writings of other ancient authors, who often quoted her to illustrate grammar, word choice, or meter.

Modern English translations

Interest in Sappho's poetry has been on the rise since the European Renaissance, rising at times to fairly widespread fame as new generations of readers discover her writings. Since few people are familiar with ancient Greek, translations are popular, with Sappho translating in his own way every century. Ancient works written in metrical verse (based only on a fixed line length) are difficult to convey using English, which uses tonic versification and rhyme. As a result, many translators rhyme lines and translate Sappho's ideas into English poetic forms.

In the 1960s Mary Bernard rediscovered Sappho for the reading public with a new approach to translation that eliminated the use of rhymed verse and traditional forms. Many of the later translators worked in a similar style. In 2002, classical poetry scholar and poet Ann Carson created If Not, Winter, a comprehensive translation of passages from Sappho's poetry. In her line-by-line translations, with dots where the lines of ancient papyri break off, she seeks to convey both the original lyricism of Sappho's poems and their current fragmentary state. Translations have also been made by Willis Burnstone, Jim Powell and Stanley Lombardo.

Sappho in Russia

E. Sviyasov in his work on this points out that "not a single ancient and Western European author, even Byron, and possibly even a domestic one (with the exception of Pushkin) was dedicated in Russia to such a number of poems as Sappho" . In the same place: "The number of translations and imitations of the 2nd ode reaches 51 ... Not a single ancient or Western European poem has been translated into Russian so often."

The asteroid (80) Sappho, discovered in 1864, is named after Sappho.

Literature

• // Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron: In 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - St. Petersburg. , 1890-1907.
• Bowra C. M. Greek Lyric Poetry from Alcman to Simonides.
• Ivanov L. L. Sappho. Archived// Remarkable women. Volgograd, 1991.
• Sviyasov E. V. Sappho and Russian love poetry XVIII - early. XX centuries . Archived from the original on November 28, 2012.. - St. Petersburg: Dmitry Bulanin, 2003; with. 5-19, 317-331.
• Myakin T. G. Sappho. Language, worldview, life. - St. Petersburg: Aletheya, 2004.

Sources

Links

	Portal "Literature"
	Sappho at Wikiquote
	in Wikisource
	Sappho at Wikimedia Commons

• Poems. (unavailable link - story)
• Sappho in the Anthology "Women's Poetry". Archived from the original on November 28, 2012.
• Volkov A.

Biographical data of Sappho are scarce and contradictory. Sappho was born on the island of Lesvos. Her father Scamandronim was a "new" aristocrat, being a representative of a noble family, he was engaged in trade. Her mother's name was Cleida. In addition to Sappho, they had three sons. At the age of six, the girl was orphaned and her relatives sent her to a hetaera school. A sense of the word and rhythm was discovered in Sappho at an early age, already at the school of heterosexuals she wrote odes, hymns, elegies, festive and drinking songs.

In the middle of the 7th century BC e. in Mytilene, the abolition of royal power takes place, the place of which was taken by the oligarchy of the royal family of Penfilides. Soon the power of the Penfelids fell as a result of a conspiracy, and a struggle for primacy broke out between the leading aristocratic families. In 618 BC e. power in the city was seized by a certain Melanhr, whom the ancient authors call the first tyrant of Mytilene. Soon Melanhr, by the combined efforts of the poet Alcaeus, his brothers and the future tyrant of Mytilene Pittacus, was overthrown and killed. A certain Mirsil becomes the tyrant of Mytilene, whose policy was directed against certain representatives of the old Mytilene nobility, and many aristocrats, including the Sappho family, were forced to flee the city (between 612 and 618 BC). Sappho was in exile in Syracuse on the island of Sicily until Mirsil's death (between 595 and 579 BC), when she was able to return to her homeland.

She settled in the city of Mytilene, which is why she later became known as Sappho of Mytilene. According to legend, at that time Alkey became interested in her. And even fragments of their lyrics are combined into a poetic dialogue to prove it, but this was impossible - Alkey and Sappho are representatives of different generations. There is another legend about the poetess - that she fell in love with the sailor Phaon, who despised women and was only interested in the sea. Every day he sailed away on a boat, and according to legend, Sappho waited for his return on a rock. One day Phaon did not return, and she threw herself into the water. This legend is the interweaving of the myth of the sea deity of the island of Lesvos, Phaona, who once transported Aphrodite, and she gave him a special drug, thanks to which all the women who saw him fell in love. This myth was beautifully intertwined with the famous poetess Sappho, and therefore this legend arose.

Sappho married a wealthy Andrian Kerkilas; she had a daughter (named after Sappho's mother, Kleis, or Cleida), to whom Sappho dedicated a cycle of poems. Both husband and child Sappho did not live long.

The social status of women on about. Lesbos (and in general in Aeolis) was more free than in other areas of the Greek world. Women in social activity here had almost no restrictions; part of the family property, for example, could be transferred through the female line; along with male heteria, fias (fias, Greek thiasos - “meeting, procession”), similar to the commonwealth of women, were preserved on the island. Sappho headed such a fias - a cult association dedicated to Aphrodite, one of whose tasks was to prepare noble girls for marriage. As part of the fias program, Sappho taught girls music, dance, and poetry.

Chronology

Strabo reports that Sappho was a contemporary of Alcaeus of Mitylene (born about 620 BC) and Pittacus (about 645 - 570 BC); according to Athenaeus, she was a contemporary of King Alyattes (c. 610-560 B.C.) either that she was born at that time, or that these were the years of her activity. According to Eusebius of Caesarea, she was known by the first or second year of the 45th or 46th Olympiad (between 600 and 594 BC). Summarizing these sources, we can say that she was most likely born around 620. BC e., or a little earlier.

According to the Chronicle of Parian, she was exiled from Lesbos to Sicily between 604 and 594. BC e. If we consider the 98th fragment of her poems as biographical evidence and relate it to her own daughter (see below), this may mean that she already had a daughter by the time she was expelled. If we consider the 58th fragment as autobiographical, then she lived to old age. If we consider her acquaintance with the Rhodopes (see below) as historically reliable, then this means that she lived in the middle of the 6th century. BC e.

Family

The Oxyrhynchus Papyrus (c. 200 AD) and the Suda agree that Sappho's mother was called Clays and that she had a daughter who bore the same name. The papyrus line reads: "She [Sappho] had a daughter, Kleis, whom she named after her mother" (Duban 1983, p. 121). Kleis is mentioned in two surviving fragments of Sappho's poems. In Fragment 98, Sappho addresses Klais, saying that he can't get her a decorated hairband. Fragment 132 reads in full: "I have a beautiful child, like golden flowers, my dear Clays, whom I would not (give) for all Lydia or dear ..." These fragments are often interpreted as referring to Sappho's daughter or confirming, that Sappho had a daughter named Clays. But even if one accepts a biographical reading of the poem, this is not necessarily the case. In Fragment 132, Kleis is named by the Greek word pais ("child"), which can also mean a slave or any young girl as a child. It is possible that these lines, or others similar to them, were misunderstood by ancient writers, resulting in an erroneous biographical tradition that has survived to this day.

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In the 102nd fragment, the lyrical heroine refers to "dear mother", from which it is sometimes concluded that Sappho began writing poetry when her mother was still alive. According to most historical sources, Sappho's father was called Scamandronim; he is not mentioned in any of the surviving fragments. In Ovid's Heroides, Sappho mourns him with these words: "My six birthdays passed when the bones of my parent, collected from the funeral pyre, drank my tears ahead of time." Perhaps Ovid wrote these lines based on a poem by Sappho that has not survived to this day.

It was written about Sappho that she had three brothers: Erigius (or Eurygy), Laricus and Charax. The Oxyrhynchus papyrus says that Charax was the eldest, but Sappho liked the younger Laricus more. Athenaeus wrote that Sappho praised Laricus for pouring wine in the Mitylene administration building, an institution in which young men from the best families served. This evidence that Sappho was born into an aristocratic family is consistent with the sophisticated setting in which some of her poems are set.

Herodotus, and later Strabo, Athenaeus, Ovid and Suda, tell of the relationship between Charax and the Egyptian courtesan Rhodope. Herodotus, the oldest source that mentions this story, reports that Charax redeemed Rhodope from slavery for a large sum, and after he returned with her to Mytilene, Sappho criticized him in verse. Strabo, who lived 400 years later, adds that Charax traded in Lesbos wine, and Sappho called the Rhodope "Doricha". Athenaeus, after another 200 years, calls the courtesan Doric, and claims that Herodotus confused her with Rhodope, a completely different woman. He also cites an epigram by Poseidippus (3rd century BC) which refers to Doric and Sappho. Based on these accounts, scholars have suggested that Doricha may be mentioned in Sappho's poetry. None of the surviving fragments contains this name in full, but it is often believed that in fragments 7 and 15 there is a fragment of the word "Dorica". The modern scholar Joel Lidov has criticized this suggestion, arguing that the Dorich tradition does not help to reconstruct any fragments of Sappho's poetry and that it comes from the works of Cratinus or another comedian who lived at the same time as Herodotus.

Suda is the only source that says that Sappho was married to "a very rich merchant named Kerkilas, who lived in Andria" and that he was the father of Clays. This legend may have been a joke invented by comic poets, as the name of the intended husband literally means "a member from the region of men."

Exile

Sappho's life was a period of political unrest in Lesvos and the rise of Pittacus. According to the Parian Chronicle, Sappho was exiled to Sicily between 604 and 594; Cicero notes that her statue stood in the administration building of Syracuse. Unlike the poems of her friend Alcaeus, Sappho's surviving writings contain little allusion to political conditions. The main exception is Fragment 98, which mentions exile and shows that Sappho lacked some of her usual luxuries. Her political sympathies may have belonged to the party of Alcaeus. Although there is no clear evidence for this, it is generally assumed that Sappho returned from exile at some point and spent most of her life in Lesvos.

Legend of Phaona

Tradition, rooted at least in the work of Menander (fragment 258 K), suggests that Sappho committed suicide by throwing herself off the Leucadian cliffs out of unrequited love for the ferryman Phaon. Modern scholars consider this story unreliable, perhaps invented by comic poets or based on a misreading of a first-person narrative in a non-biographical poem. Part of the legend may have come from a desire to prove that Sappho was heterosexual.

Creation

Sappho's lyrics are based on traditional folklore elements; motifs of love and separation prevail here, the action takes place against the backdrop of a bright and joyful nature, the murmur of streams, the smoking of incense in the sacred grove of the goddess. Traditional forms of cult folklore are filled with personal experiences in Sappho; the main advantage of her poems is intense passion, naked feeling, expressed with extreme simplicity and brightness. Love in the perception of Sappho is a terrible elemental force, "a bittersweet monster, from which there is no protection." Sappho seeks to convey his understanding through the synthesis of inner sensation and concrete sensory perception (fire under the skin, ringing in the ears, etc.).

Naturally, such emotions could not originate only in tradition. In the life of Sappho, there are cases that may have had a direct impact on the emotional structure of her work. Eg. Apuleius relates the story of how Sappho's brother Charax, who was engaged in the wine trade, fell in love with the "beautiful courtesan" Rhodope on one of his trips to Egypt. When, for a huge sum, he bought her from her former owner and brought her to Lesbos, Sappho herself lost her head from feelings for the Rhodopes; brother, having discovered this, did not find anything better than to leave home with his “acquisition”.

Along with poems intended to be performed in fias, fragments intended for a wide audience have also been preserved from Sappho; e.g. epithalamics, traditional wedding songs depicting the bride's farewell to girlhood, intended to be performed by the choir of boys and girls before entering the bridal chamber. These poems were distinguished not so much by passion as by naivete and simplicity of tone. The "eternal" motifs of poetry of this kind - the nightingale, roses, Harita, Eros, Peyto, spring - are constantly present in the surviving fragments of Sappho's poems. Sappho attaches special importance to the rose; in the "Wreath of Meleager" this flower is dedicated to her.

The hymns of Sappho apparently had nothing to do with the cult and were of a subjective nature; they were called conscripts (κλητικοί), since each is addressed to some deity.

Finally, elegies and epigrams are attributed to Sappho.

“The poetry of Sappho was devoted to love and beauty: the beauty of the body, girls and ephebes, solemnly competing with her at the temple of Hera in Lesbos; love, abstracted from the rudeness of the physiological impulse to the cult of feeling, built on issues of marriage and sex, tempering passion with the requirements of aesthetics, causing an analysis of affect and the virtuosity of its poetic, conditional expression. From Sappho there is an exit to Socrates: it was not for nothing that he called her his mentor in matters of love ”(Academician A. N. Veselovsky).

Sexuality and poetry circle

The center of Sappho's poetry is love and passion for different characters of both sexes. The word "lesbian" comes from the name of her native island of Lesbos, and the English language also uses the word "sapphic" formed from her name; both of these words began to be used to refer to female homosexuality only in the 19th century. The lyrical heroines of many of her poems speak of passionate infatuation or love (sometimes mutual, sometimes not) for various women, but descriptions of bodily contact between women are rare and controversial. It is not known whether these poems were autobiographical, although references to other areas of Sappho's life are found in her works, and it would be appropriate for her style to express these intimate experiences poetically as well. Her homoeroticism should be understood in the context of the seventh century BC. The poems of Alcaeus, and later of Pindar, describe similar romantic ties between members of a circle.

Alcaeus, a contemporary of Sappho, spoke of her like this: “With violet curls, pure, gently smiling Sappho” (ἰόπλοκ᾽ ἄγνα μελλιχόμειδε Σάπφοι, fragment 384). The third-century philosopher Maximus of Tirsky wrote that Sappho was "dark and short" and that in her relationships with her friends she was like Socrates: "How else can you call the love of this lesbian woman, if not the art of love of Socrates? After all, it seems to me that they understood love in their own way: she loved women, he loved men. After all, they, as they say, loved many, and were carried away by everything beautiful. Who Alcibiades, Charmides and Phaedrus were for him, so were Girinna, Attida and Anactoria for her ... "

In the Victorian era, it was fashionable to describe Sappho as the headmistress of a boarding school for noble maidens. As Paige DuBois (and many other experts) point out, this attempt to make Sappho understandable and acceptable to British high society was based more on conservative sentiment than historical fact. Sappho's meager collection of surviving poetry makes no mention of teaching, students, schools, or teachers. Burnett, like other scholars, including S. M. Bour, believe that Sappho's circle was somewhat similar to Spartan military camps for boys (agelai) or sacred religious groups (thiasos), but Burnett refines his argument by noting, that Sappho's circle differed from these contemporary examples in that "participation in it seems to have been voluntary, irregular, and to some extent multinational." However, the notion remains that Sappho ran some sort of school.

Belonged to the tribal aristocracy. She also lived in exile for a long time (on the island of Sicily), but, according to her biography, at the end of her life she returned to her homeland, where she died, according to legend, throwing herself from a cliff into the sea because of unrequited love for the young man Phaon. This biographical legend reflects the nature of Sappho's lyrics, the main theme of which was love.

Most of the poems of Sappho, one of the brightest representatives of ancient Greek lyrics, are dedicated to girlfriends, many of whom, as we know, also wrote poetry. This would not have been possible if they lived, for example, in Athens, where the woman was a recluse and where her engagement in literature would only cause condemnation.

The political theme in the work of Sappho was not reflected, although it had a strong influence on her biography. The poetess rarely goes beyond her personal experiences. This feature of Sappho's work is manifested in one of the most famous poems, composed in the form of a hymn to the gods and containing the persistent epithets of the deity, calls, etc., characteristic of the anthem.

“Glorious Aphrodite with a motley throne,
Zeus's daughter, skillful in cunning forges!
I beg you - do not crush me with grief
Hearts, good!

But come to me, as often as before
You answered my distant call
And, having left her father's palace, she ascended
To the chariot

Golden. Drove you from the sky
Above the ground, lovely flocks of sparrows;
The swift wings of the birds fluttered
In the distance of the ether.

And, presenting with a smile on the eternal face.
You me, blessed, asked, -
What is my sadness, and why the goddess
I call

And what do I want for a troubled soul.
In whom should Peyto, indicate, with love
Spirit to you ignite? neglected you
Who is my Psappha?

Is he running away? - He will start chasing you.
Doesn't take gifts? - Hurry with gifts.
No love for you? - And love will flare up,
Wants not wants.

Oh come to me now! From bitter
Deliver the spirit of sorrow and why so passionately
I want to accomplish and faithful ally
Be me, goddess!”

(Sappho. Hymn to Aphrodite. Translation by V.V. Veresaev).

A wonderful poem where Sappho describes the experiences she experiences in the presence of a loved one. Although this cannot be called a psychological analysis of a feeling, but rather a description of its external manifestations (“... the tongue immediately becomes numb, a light heat quickly runs under the skin, eyes look without seeing anything ...”), nevertheless, this is a more expressive image feelings than in the extant fragments of other poets of this and later times.

Sappho and Alkey. Painting by L. Alma-Tadema, 1881

Flowers, spring, sun, gold, the colors of nature are the usual motifs of Sappho's poetry, which, like Alcaeus, is one of the first in Greek literature to describe the beauties of nature.

“Throwing down from above, the stream is cool
Sends its murmur through the branches of apple trees,
And from the trembling leaves all around, a deep Sleep flows down.

Sappho praises beauty in everything: in nature, in people, in clothes. She compares her little daughter to a "golden flower". But spiritual qualities are put by the poetess above beauty:

“Who is beautiful - only one thing pleases our eyesight,
Who is good - by itself and beautiful will seem "
(Sappho; translated by V. V. Veresaev).

Elsewhere Sappho says, "Beautiful is what we love."

Epithalames (wedding songs) and other songs close to ritual ones have come down to us in fragments, and this increases the value of Sappho's heritage, since we do not have Greek folklore "in its pure form" and can only judge it by the poems of those poets who freely or unwittingly imitated folk art. Sappho belonged to such poets with her tragic biography, in which love, as is most often the case in folk songs, is mournful: it is mostly a painful, unrequited feeling or poisoned by the bitterness of separation.

Sappho. Video project Encyclopedia

Sappho's poetry was very popular in the following centuries, both in Greece and in Rome. The Roman poets Catullus and Horace often used the "sapphic stanza", that is, one of the favorite stanzas of the poetess, which in Russian translation sounds like this:

“God equal seems to me fortunately
The person who is so close
Before you sits, your sounding gentle
Listening to the voice"
(Sappho; translated by V. V. Veresaev).

Calling only nine muses, we offend Sappho.
Shouldn't we honor the tenth muse in it?
Plato. to Sappho. (Translated by O. B. Rumer)
This woman poetess lived on the Greek island of Lesvos almost 26 centuries ago.

The so-called Sappho, fresco; Pompeii, Region VI, But even today she is known to everyone, although there is catastrophically little real information about her, even the name is not clear - either Sappho or Sappho.

Anselot Sappho.

However, she herself is better known to the world not as a poetess, but as a kind of symbol of that layer of ancient Greek culture that exalted same-sex love.

1877 Charles Mengin - Sappho, detail

Even the very definition of "lesbian love" has long envisaged passionate and passionate feelings between women.

Sappho and Alcay (Lawrence Alma-Tadema, 1881)

And the rumor says that this was precisely the tradition of love on the island of Lesbos, and it was from such love that the unfortunate poetess Sappho suffered. But it’s not clear why then she died of love for ... a beautiful young man?

Alcaeus and Sappho. red-figure amphora, 470 BC

Still, of course, it is not clear how the whole island was engulfed in “pink” love - where did the children and families come from then? Where does comfort-prosperity come from, because the noble women of that time did not work? Where did they get the money?

John William Godward, In the Time of Sappho, 1904

They were brought to the house by merchants who plied the sea, and shipbuilders who built reliable ships mined them with hard work. That is, on Lesvos there was an ordinary patriarchal life.

Antoine Jean Gros - "Sappho"

And the island was also famous throughout ancient Greece for an extraordinary school for girls, where they were taught manners and sciences (the basics of mathematics, astronomy, astrology, etc.), dancing and singing, versification and “sciences of tender passion”, that is, they were taught how to please, to entertain and keep men around.

Junge ruhende "Sappho"

Bliss is equal to the gods,
Who sits next to you, listening
Your charming words
And he sees how in languor melting.
From these lips to his lips
A young smile flies.
(Translated by V. V. Krestovsky)

Sappho jumps into the sea from the Leucadian cape, Theodore Chasserio

Only girls from free, wealthy and noble families were admitted to this famous school. And what is most striking, it was the school of getters - the most famous in Greece.

Theodore Chasserio, Sappho

Well, hetaerae in those days were by no means ladies of easy virtue. On the contrary, they were educated, respected women, achieving honor, nobility and wealth. In a word, the birthplace of Sappho is not at all a hotbed of “same-sex passion”, but “pink Lesbos” is just a myth that has developed in subsequent times.

Sappho by Eva Coomans

But what is known for certain about Sappho herself? They say that the wise philosopher Plato called her "the tenth muse", Ovid in "The Science of Love" recommended young men, especially lovers, to study the songs of Sappho, and the historian Strabo considered her a "miracle", writing: "... for all the time preserved in memory people, not a single woman appeared who could even remotely compare with her in the field of poetry.

Death of Sappho. Gustave Moreau

But all these great admirers lived centuries after the wonderful poetess. And her short and passionate life has remained shrouded in mystery.

Death of Sappho. Gustave Moreau

She was born around 630 BC. e., and maybe in 613 or 612 in the seaside town of Eres. The name itself spoke of Eros, the god of passion.

Lady Teresa Spence as Sappho

Yes, and Lesbos has always been considered a sacred island, because it was to him that the waves nailed the legendary lyre of the great singer and poet Orpheus. The wealth of the inhabitants of Lesvos allowed them to engage in "idle arts" - to compose poetry, organize song competitions and processions at dawn dedicated to the god Apollo. And the school of heterosexuals has always been at the center of all hobbies for the arts.

Sappho getting ready for bed (Gleyre, 1867)

In the local Aeolian dialect, the name Sappho sounds like Psappha, which means "bright, shining." That was the name of her loving parents - Scamandronim and Cleida, who came from a noble family.

Gustav Klimt. Sappho. Vienna Historical Museum, Vienna, Austria.

Subsequently, having become rich in trade, the family moved to the main city of Lesvos - Methylene. Sappho had three faithful brothers, but there was no sense of security in childhood: after the death of her parents, the 6-year-old girl was sent by her relatives to the famous hetaera school. Probably, since then, Sappho has known her deepest feeling - loneliness.

Raphael. Sappho. 1510-1511. Vatican.

Didn't it spur her to work? From the age of seven, she plunged into poetry. Odes, songs and elegies healed her wounds. But the feeling of acute loneliness and insecurity remained for life. Isn't that why she, already becoming an adult, will write so piercingly:
The moon has gone
And the Pleiades. Midnight.
Time passes,
And I fall asleep alone in bed.

When Sappho was 16 years old, an uprising of the demos broke out on Lesvos. All people of aristocratic origin had to flee into exile.

Soma Orlay Petrich, Sappho

Sappho ended up in Sicily. There she married a resident of Andria - a young, but already rich merchant named Kerkilas.

Illustration from the Nuremberg Chronicles

And it was a happy marriage. Sappho adored her golden-haired daughter, whom she named Cleida - in honor of her dead mother. But this part of the life of the great poetess is surrounded by secret darkness. Her husband and daughter are dead. How and why is not clear. But after their death, Sappho returned to Lesbos, where by that time it was already calm.

Pierre Narcisse Guérin - Sappho on the Leucadian Rock

Now she is very wealthy, independent and ... unhappy. To get rid of loneliness and something to do, Sappho opens a school for young girls, like the one in which she studied herself.

Jules Elie Delaunay

Only this is not a school of heterosexuals, but the "house of the Muses", where rich girls study the art of music, dance and poetry, not only from different parts of island Greece, but also from other countries.

Relief "Sappho" Rudolf von Weir

And Sappho is now a respected matron, a recognized head of the Methylene School of Art. She gives all her unspent love to her pupils. For them, she is not just a teacher, but also a close friend. Sappho writes about them in his poems, talking about joys and sorrows.

Sappho.Remy.Louvre

It is to this period that researchers attribute the flowering of Sappho's work. But now her poetry is dominated by motives of tender friendship, jealousy and adoration, and all these feelings, embodied in poetry, are directed at her students and friends. The fact is that, as in any closed community, bright passions seethe at Sappho's school.

Sappho " Massimo

Girls who do not see strangers for many months and “stew in their own juice”, naturally, begin to transfer their ardent young feelings to each other. That's where, and not at all because of the depravity of morals, all these passionate experiences, gasps and sighs.

Winnie Rem.Safo

Young girls in general often fall in love with their older friends, remember how in the pre-revolutionary institutes of noble maidens, the pupils of the lower classes adored the older ones.

Statue in the Main Building, Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

But after graduating from the walls of the institute, the girls got married safely, often completely forgetting about the hobbies of the “young time”. Is it because the "passions" were forgotten because they were somewhat deliberate and existed only in the closed little world of the school? And there is nothing surprising that, having “suffered” in verses about her tender friends, Sappho herself loved inseparably

Poet Sappho.Bjorn

Most likely, this romantic story is a legend. Of course, unrequited love brings suffering, but it is they - "experiences of the soul and heart" - that feed the creativity of such "gentle poets" as "violet-haired Sappho". Yes, after such suffering, she should have had a new, powerful burst of creativity.

Grave on Melos. Sappho and Alkais

Secrets, some secrets all around ... But the main thing remains - poetic lines, such as the pinnacle of Sappho's work - “Hymn to Aphrodite”, in which the poetess asks the goddess for only one thing - love.

Sappho.O.Roden

Not without reason, researchers note that this is the most touching and sincere prayer ever created by gentle female lips.

Safo. Museum of Archeology. Istanbul

Once Sappho said to one of her friends: "In time, someone will remember us, believe me." Indeed, she is constantly remembered. It's just different every time. It turns out that every time we create a new Sappho.

Sappho and Phaon by David

Of course, not a single woman who wrote can compare in literary glory with the “queen of poets” - Sappho.

Museum d "Orsay, Paris

Just as ancient culture gave rise to all modern areas of art, all philosophical currents, so Sappho seemed to mark the outline of the poet's soul for all subsequent times. Since then, everyone who composes rhyming lines is “a little Sappho”, albeit slightly, but repeating the twists and turns of her fate. No wonder Plato called the poetess "the tenth muse."

"Sappho" (Rheingau-Theatre Berlin)"

She had a huge influence on the Roman poets Horace and Catullus. Strabo called her nothing more than a miracle, arguing that "it is in vain to look for a woman in history who in poetry could withstand at least an approximate comparison with Sappho." Socrates called her his "mentor in matters of love", of course, referring to the "theoretical part" of knowledge.

Sappho. Place of discovery: Villa dei Papiri, Herculaneum, Naples.

“Sappho ignites my love for my friend! - exclaimed Ovid and advised: - Memorize Sappho - what could be more passionate than her! Well, Solon, having become acquainted with her poetry, realized that he "would not want to die without knowing her by heart."

Sappho on the rock (1859), Pierre Lawson (1816-1886). North facade of the Louvre Palace, Paris.

The main advantage of Sappho's poems was their intense passion and naked feeling, which, in fact, can only captivate the listener in poetry, regardless of all sorts of frills. Sappho set a record of divine ecstasy for many centuries ahead, raising the bar to an unattainable height.

Simeon Solomon "Sappho's Studies"

Bliss is equal to the gods, Who sits near you, listening
Your enchanting speeches, And sees how in languor melting,
From these lips to his lips a young smile flies.
And every time, as soon as I get together with you, from a tender meeting
Suddenly my soul trembles And speeches grow numb on my lips,
And a sharp feeling of love runs through the veins faster,
And ringing in the ears ... and a riot in the blood ... And cold sweat comes through ...
And the body, - the body is trembling ... The faded flower is paler
My passion-weary look... I'm breathless... and numb,
In my eyes, I feel the light is fading ... I look, not seeing ... I have no strength anymore ...
And I wait in unconsciousness ... and I know - Here, here I will die ... here I am dying.

Sappho, d "Ary Renan

The poetess is not embarrassed by the most feminine manifestations of her feelings and, like a woman, defames her rival “Really, Attida, she charmed your heart? .. A woman, badly dressed, not knowing the art of walking, in clothes with long folds? ..”
Love was the meaning of Sappho's life. “As for me, I will indulge in voluptuousness as long as I can see the brilliance of the radiant luminary and admire everything that is beautiful!”

Engraving illustration from the incunable Giovanni Boccaccio Decameron

Thanks to Apuleius, another dramatic fact from the biography of the great poetess has come down to us. During the reign of Pharaoh Amasis, the beautiful Rhodope lived in Egypt. Once she was seen by Sappho's brother, Charax, who, being engaged in the wine trade, often left home. The young man fell in love with a beautiful courtesan and, having redeemed her from her former owner for a huge sum, brought her to the island of Lesvos.

Sappho and Erina, Simeon Solomon

This is where quarrels between relatives began, as Sappho was inflamed with a burning passion for the Rhodope. The courtesan, apparently, was not seduced by female love, but the poetess was so persistent that the enraged brother was forced to leave home along with his charming "acquisition".

Smithsonian American Art Museum, "Sappho", 1870, marble, Winnie Tutu

The end of this story is more like a beautiful legend, as if an eagle once brought to Pharaoh Amasis such a miniature sandal that fell from the courtesan's feet, that the ruler admired and ordered to find the owner of the tiny foot at all costs.

Bourdelle Museum. Paris

After long wanderings, the courtiers found the Rhodope and took it to the halls of the pharaoh's palace. Charax was left with nothing. Isn't it true that the story is very similar to the famous fairy tale by Charles Perrault.

Sappho and Phaon, 1833,

Rumor connects Sappho's death with suicide and, oddly enough, with a man. Like all incidents among the Greeks, the last love of the poetess was not without the intervention of the gods.

Jean-Joseph Tailasson. Sappho on the rock

There lived on the island a young carrier Phaon, who once, under the guise of an old woman, ferried Aphrodite to the Asian coast. She, in gratitude for the service, gave the young man a miraculous ointment that turned him into a beautiful man. Sappho could not help falling in love with Phaon and, not meeting reciprocity, rushed down from the Leucadian rock.

Sappho rock Eressou, Lesbos

“I loved, I called many in despair to my lonely bed, but the gods sent down to me the highest interpretation of my sorrows ... I spoke the language of true passion with those whom the son of Cyprida wounded with his cruel arrows ...

Montauban - Sappho

Let me be dishonored for throwing my heart into the abyss of pleasure, but at least I have learned the divine secrets of life! My shadow, eternally thirsting for the ideal, descended into the halls of Hades, my eyes, blinded by the brilliant light, saw the dawning dawn of divine love!

Sappho.Emile-Antoine Bourdelle