Sappho was an archaic Greek poet from the island of Lesbos. She is known for her lyric poetry, much of which alludes to her sexuality. Little is known about her life, but she was a prolific poet, writing around 10,000 lines of verse during her lifetime. Read more of Sappho’s Biography.
The ‘Hymn to Aphrodite’ by Sappho is an ancient lyric in which Sappho begs for Aphrodite’s help in managing her turbulent love life.
Beautiful-throned, immortal Aphrodite,
Daughter of Zeus, beguiler, I implore thee,
Weigh me not down with weariness and anguish
O thou most holy!
‘He is more than a hero’ by Sappho describes a speaker’s turbulent emotions in regards to a woman she loves but she cannot have.
‘The Anactoria Poem’ is a widely read love poem in which Sappho uses the story of Helen of Troy to speak on the nature of beauty.
‘To an army wife, in Sardis’ by Sappho describes the power that the thing one loves has over the forward momentum of one’s life and the world at large.