Sappho

Sappho, or PSAPHO, was born in the AEolic island of Lesbos probably towards the end of the 7th century B.C. She was certainly a contemporary of Alcaeus, for fragments of an ode of his addressed to her and of her reply are still extant. Little is known for certain of her personal history, and the legend of her leap from the Leucadian promontory owing to her hopeless love for Phaon may be dismissed as untrustworthy. Her productions, all lyrical, were arranged in nine books, and they ranked in the estimation of antiquity next to the immortal works of Homer. The disjointed scraps that have come down to us seem to justify this praise. She has given her name to the Sapphic metre.