MDMD (10) Sappho 1

[Otto]

MDMD (10) Sappho 1

As usual when getting into it Pynchon makes us aware of a great artist we
may not have encountered yet. There's a lot of material on the web that
shows us the remaining fragments of her poetry and tells about her, as
usual, controversial life:

http://www.roanoke.infi.net/~ddisse/sappho.html
Sappho (c.600 BCE)
"SOMEONE IN ANOTHER TIME WILL REMEMBER US."
"Sappho was born in the late 700s BCE on Lesbos, one of the larger islands
in
the Aegean, near Lydia (now Turkey). Lesbos was important for trade between
mainland Greece and the kingdoms of Asia; it was also a cultural center.
Sappho was probably from an aristocratic family of the city of Mytiline; she
probably married and had at least one daughter. She may have spent some time
in exile in Sicily.

Her poetry suggests that she was the center of a closely-knit group of
women; we don't know if this was some kind of an academy or a chorus of
singers. We do know that Sappho composed epithalmia (marriage songs) for
performance by a group. But her preferred form seems to have been songs to
be sung or recited by an individual to the accompaniment of a lyre, some
perhaps for religious or civic festivals.

Over 200 fragments of Sappho's poetry are extant, but many of these are only
a few words long. One poem, usually called the "Hymn to Aphrodite" (see
online), may be complete, but we aren't sure. But even from fragments we can
tell that Sappho had the ability to look at herself and others
clearly---often ironically---and the ability to make us hear her voice."

http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/sappho/index.htm
The Poems of Sappho
Translated by Edwin Marion Cox [1925]
Transliterated by J.B. Hare [2000]
System of Greek Transliteration
Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Index of First Lines
With an introduction by Introduction by J.B Hare

This is really an extended one:

"Sappho's books were burned by Christians in the year 380 A.D. at the
instigation of Pope Gregory Nazianzen. Another book burning in the year 1073
A.D. by Pope Gregory VII may have wiped out any remaining trace of her
works. It should be remembered that in antiquity books were copied by hand
and comparatively rare. There may have only been a few copies of her
complete works. The bonfires of the Church destroyed many things, but among
the most tragic of their victims were the poems of Sappho.
The reason that the Church wanted Sappho's works eradicated is not certain,
but it probably had something to do with the subject matter of her poems.
>From the surviving fragments, we know Sappho wrote splendid hymns in praise
of the Pagan Goddesses, particularly Aphrodite, and love poetry of great
sophistication, passion and deep understanding of the human heart. This at
least is apparent even from the few fragments we have. Such subjects were
anathema to the bigots of the Dark Ages.
The matter of her sexual orientation did not become controversial until much
later, during the nineteenth and twentieth century. It was not an issue for
her contemporaries; it was not even an issue in the seventeenth or
eighteenth centuries, when her poetry started to emerge from obscurity.
It should be emphasised that we have few clues about her sexual orientation.
Moreover, we are still unclear what same-sex romantic or erotic love between
women may have implied in Sappho's culture. What we do know is that there
was not widespread fear and persecution of homosexuals in antiquity. Even
during the middle ages, same-sex unions occurred and were not disapproved of
by the Church. This is not why Sappho's poems were burned. If anything, it
was her (possibly exaggerated) reputation for promiscuity which brought her
reproach in the early Christian era."

Otto