quoted by other authors and survived in the pre-
served texts of later writers. Others of Sappho’s
original papyrus texts survive only as papyrus frag-
ments recovered from Egyptian rubbish heaps.
Prior to the twentieth century, only a few lines
from ‘‘Fragment 2’’ were known to exist. These
few lines had been quoted by the early fourth-
century philosopher Hermogenes in his treatise
Kinds of Style. Additional lines from ‘‘Fragment
2’’ were found by Medea Norsa, an Italian papyrol-
ogist, who found a broken piece of terra-cotta
pottery dating from the third centuryBCEwith
four stanzas from Sappho’s poem inscribed on it.
The poem found on this pottery shard was identi-
fied as ‘‘Fragment 2’’ through the lines from Her-
mogenes, which were also present on the shard. In
the past, ‘‘Fragment 2’’ was initially titled ‘‘You
Know the Place, Then,’’ which was thought to be
the first line of the poem; it is now thought that this
line is, instead, the last line of another poem, the
body of which is now lost, and that this previous
title has nothing to do with the Sappho poem
now most commonly known as ‘‘Fragment 2.’’ A
translation of ‘‘Fragment 2’’ is included in Margaret
Reynolds’s study of Sappho’s poetry,The Sappho
Companion(2001). Another translation is included
inSappho: Poems and Fragments(1992), by Jose-
phine Balmer. That translation, titled simply ‘‘79,’’
hasbeenusedforthisentry.
Author Biography
There are few known facts about the Greek poet
Sappho, but there has been much speculation in
efforts to provide a biography of her life. What is
known is that Sappho was one of the great Greek
lyrists and one of the few female poets of the
ancient Greek world. Sappho was born between
630 BCEand 612BCE, lived on the island of Lesbos
(sometimes spelled Lesvos), and likely died some-
time between 550BCEand 580BCE, but that is
almost all that is known of her life. Much of what
is thought to be known about Sappho has been
taken from her poems, most of which exist only in
fragments. In looking to the poem fragments for
autobiographical information, what is read is little
more than conjecture taken from a few shreds of
papyrus. For instance, the fragments suggest that
either Sappho committed suicide, jumping off a
cliff after being rejected by a lover, or that she lived
until a very old age and died in bed, her beauty
passed into thousands of wrinkles. The first possi-
ble death is much more romantic than the second
andsoisrepeatedmostoften.Infact,thereisno
information about when or how Sappho died.
Some additional autobiographical clues are taken
from other texts of the early Greek period that
are believed to be referring to Sappho, but some
of these sources are generally considered unreli-
able. Aside from those scholars who would read
her poems as autobiography, the other remaining
source of information about Sappho’s life is found
in the tenth-century Byzantine encyclopedia called
theSuda, whose entry on Sappho is filled with
information that cannot be verified and much of
which is thought to be speculation.
Traditionally, the limited biographical infor-
mation suggests that Sappho was an aristocrat
who married a prosperous merchant, with whom
she had a daughter, Cleis. It is thought that Sap-
pho made her primary residence on Lesbos but
also traveled widely throughout Greece. Suppos-
edly, Sappho was exiled from Greece on at least
two occasions because of the political activities in
her family. During her time of exile she lived in
Sicily, although there is no information about her
life there. Since it is thought that her husband
was wealthy, Sappho is presumed to have had the
opportunity to live a life devoted to studying the
arts. The isle of Lesbos was a cultural center in
the Greek world of the seventh centuryBCEand
would have provided an ideal setting for such
study. Although she is best known as a lyrical
poet, Sappho is also credited with efforts toSappho(Library of Congress)
Fragment 2