Sappho was an ancient Greek poet who lived on the island of Lesbos. She is thought to have written about 10,000 lines of poetry, but most of her work has been lost over time. Only one poem is known to be complete, and in some cases, only a single word remains.
In the ancient world, scholars in Alexandria collected and organized Sappho's poetry into eight or nine books, likely grouping poems that used the same type of rhythm. Manuscripts of her poetry were copied until the seventh century AD, but by the ninth century, her work was no longer available in its original form. Instead, people only knew about her poems through quotes in other writings.
Modern editions of Sappho's poetry were created over many years by scholars. They first gathered quotes from ancient texts and later discovered more of her work on pieces of ancient paper and parchment from the late 1800s. Some of the surviving fragments written in her Aeolic dialect may be by Sappho or by her contemporary, Alcaeus. Modern editions also include ancient writings that describe Sappho's life and her poetry.
Textual history
Sappho likely wrote about 10,000 lines of poetry. Today, only 650 of these lines remain. Her poems were originally meant to be performed, and it is not known exactly when they were first written down. Some scholars believe that books of her poetry were created during or shortly after her lifetime. Others think that if they were written down then, it was only to help with performances, not as a literary work itself.
In the third or second century BC, scholars in Alexandria created a special version of Sappho’s poems. This version may have been based on a text from Athens or from Sappho’s home island of Lesbos. It is not clear which scholar was responsible for this edition. Both Aristophanes of Byzantium and Aristarchus of Samothrace are known to have created editions of Alcaeus’s work, and one or both may have been involved in Sappho’s edition. Alexander Dale suggests that Aristophanes was more likely the one who did this.
The Alexandrian edition of Sappho’s poetry was divided into eight or nine books. The exact number is not certain. Ancient sources mention an eighth book of this edition, and an epigram by Tullius Laurea mentions nine books, though it is unclear if this refers to the Alexandrian edition. These books were likely organized by the type of meter used in the poems. Ancient sources say the first three books each contained poems in a single specific meter. Information about the later books is less certain: the fourth book seems to have many poems in a specific type of meter, and possibly others; the fifth book had a mix of different meters, including Phaelecian hendecasyllables and lesser asclepiads; nothing is known about the sixth book; only one couplet from the seventh book survives, but it is unclear if this was part of a longer stanza. Fragment 103 includes 10 openings of Sappho’s poems, possibly from book 8, with the first in a different meter than the rest. A ninth book may have included poems called epithalamia in various meters, though some scholars doubt this.
In addition to the Alexandrian edition, some of Sappho’s poetry was included in other collections in the ancient world. The Cologne papyrus, which contains the Tithonus poem, was part of a Hellenistic anthology and was made before the Alexandrian edition. Two fragments list the openings of Sappho’s poems: Fragment 103 lists openings for ten of her poems, and Fragment 213C Campbell quotes openings for poems by Sappho, Alcaeus, and Anacreon. These might be from anthologies.
Today, most of Sappho’s poetry is lost. The two main sources of surviving fragments are quotations in other ancient works and papyrus fragments, many of which were found at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt. A few fragments also survive on parchment and potsherds. The oldest known surviving fragment is the Cologne papyrus, which contains the Tithonus poem and dates to the third century BC.
Sappho’s poetry lasted longer than that of other Greek lyric poets, surviving until the seventh century. Unlike less popular works, her Alexandrian edition was copied from papyrus scrolls to the codex. Her work seems to have disappeared around the ninth century, with no evidence it was copied into the smaller handwriting style used at that time. Until printed editions of Greek texts appeared during the Renaissance, Sappho’s poetry was only accessible in manuscript form in monastic libraries. In 1508, a collection of Greek rhetorical works edited by Demetrios Doukas and published by Aldus Manutius included a poem by Sappho (the Ode to Aphrodite) in print for the first time. In 1554, Henri Estienne printed the Ode to Aphrodite and the Midnight poem, following a collection of fragments of Anacreon. The first modern edition focused only on Sappho’s work was published in 1733 by Johann Christian Wolf, including 14 previously uncollected fragments. Theodor Bergk’s edition of Greek lyric poets, in its second version, included 120 fragments of Sappho and 50 testimonia.
The last part of the 1800s marked a new period in rediscovering Sappho’s poetry, starting with a parchment fragment found at Crocodilopolis (modern Faiyum) and published by Friedrich Blass in 1880. Until the publication of the “newest Sappho” in 2014, 24 papyri preserving Sappho’s texts and eight preserving related materials, such as commentaries on her work, were published. The most recent major editions of Sappho’s work, by Edgar Lobel and Denys Page in 1955 and Eva-Maria Voigt in 1971, along with Lobel and Page’s Supplementa Lyra Graeca, collected all published material up to 1974. Despite further papyrus fragments published in 1997, 2004, 2005, and 2014, Voigt’s edition remains the standard modern version.
Poems
The pieces of Sappho's poems are organized in the versions by Lobel and Page, and Voigt, based on a book from the Alexandrian edition of her works, which is believed to be the source. Fragments 1–42 come from Book 1, 43–52 from Book 2, 53–57 from Book 3, 58–91 from Book 4, 92–101 from Book 5, 102 from Book 7, 103 from Book 8, and 104–117B from the Epithalamia. Fragments 118–168 are not assigned to any specific book by Lobel and Page and are listed in alphabetical order. Numbers with capital letters (like 16A) were added later by other editors to match Lobel and Page's numbering system. Lowercase letters show different sections of the same fragment.
Testimonia
The testimonia are ancient records about Sappho, her life, and her poetry. These records are usually included in important editions of her work. The number of records included in these editions can be different. In addition to the seventy found in Voigt's edition, those from Campbell's Loeb edition are also listed here.
Uncertain authorship
Some parts of the text have uncertain authorship. This is often because the language used is known as Aeolic, but it is not clear whether the poem was written by Sappho or Alcaeus of Mytilene.
Spurious epigrams
According to the Suda, Sappho wrote short poems called epigrams and sad poems called elegies. Three epigrams in the Greek Anthology are said to be written by Sappho, but experts believe these poems are not genuine works of hers. Despite this, these poems are still included in some books by Campbell and Neri.