Sappho was born in ancient Greece, in the 7th century BC. She was the daughter of an aristocrat residing on the island of Lesbos, and ran a school that trained young women to be priestesses, educating them in the arts of song and dance. The young poetess often became enamoured with her students; her love affairs were as passionate as they were fleeting, and when her disciples came of age to be married she sought refuge in her poems.
When I see you, for a moment,
My voice falters,
My tongue freezes. Fire,
Delicate fire, in the flesh.
She wrote at night and by torchlight, her cheeks wet with tears. Yet she did not regret these frustrated passions, nor the ecstatic turmoil of love that soared and fell. She lived only for love, and could not conceive of a poetry absent of such grand sentiments. Through her romantic devotion the poetess became a muse in her own right, and inspired many others in turn. Her memory was conjured in the ink pots of many great writers of the future, from Baudelaire to the red-gold salons of the Belle Époque. We know little about the life of Sappho, except that she was exiled to Sicily around 600 B.C. and likely continued working for another thirty years or so. In Antiquity, literary critics praised her “sublime” style, while playwrights parodied her supposedly frolicsome ways. Legend has it that the early Church burned her works, with one theologian describing her as “a sex-crazed whore who sings of her own indulgence.” According to legend, her life ended in a dramatic suicide, when Sappho threw herself from the top of the Leucadian cliffs due to her unrequited love for the ferryman Phaon.
Today was a day for the celebration of same-sex love, and women had rallied together in defence of their rights. The conversation was in flow, and the march advanced gaily along the main avenue. Love was a right, and today no-one could judge them. History was regressive; here they were in the 20th century, decried and marginalised, while Sappho had been respected even thousands of years ago. In classical mythology there were believed to be nine divine guardians of the arts, yet Plato himself had seen fit to describe Sappho as the “tenth muse.”
“Dignity and equal rights!” cried one woman.
“Women rule!” Love rules!” said another.
On the sidewalks, people looked on with disgust. These women were unnatural, scandalising polite society and upsetting the order of things. Yet their courage forced a certain begrudging respect. They were not afraid to be photographed, their timeless images captured in the smudgy ink of a press that afforded them a modicum of respect. Time moved slowly when there was so much as stake, and the years ticked by without social progress or recognition, but the heirs of Sappho would not live in hiding, much less in shame. The women linked arms to face off against intolerance. Their families had shown them the door, their neighbours no longer spoke to them, and their friends had turned their backs once they knew the truth. It was a hard life, full of disappointment and endless struggle. If Sappho could have looked down on this world from atop her cliff, what might she have said?
Girl, my girl, where have you gone?
leaving me behind?
Never again shall I see you, never again.
Alan Alfredo Geday
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