Sappho
Ancient Greek poet from Lesbos (c. 630-c. 570 BC) · Writers · Lived 650 BC to 570 BC · aged 80
Sappho is read about 2,212 times a day, in 113 languages.
A typical day, 30 days to 22 October 2026
The middle day of the days counted, so one week of news cannot move it. The line under it is the last 397 days, one point a day.
Something wrong?An ancient Greek poet whose fragments - mostly lost, mostly broken - shaped the language itself: "sapphic" and "lesbian" both trace back to her and the island where she wrote love poems so precise they were called divine.
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Photos 5
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In their own words 10
, Immortal Aphrodite of the shimmering throne, daughter of Zeus, weaver of wiles, I pray thee crush not my spirit with anguish and distress, O Queen.
Come hither from Crete to this holy temple, where is your graceful grove of apple-trees, and altars smoking with frankincense.
Some say cavalry and others claim / infantry or a fleet of long oars / is the supreme sight on the black earth. / I say it isthe one you love. And easily proved.
In their orbit
About this person
Sappho came from wealth on Lesbos around 630 BC and wrote lyric poetry meant to be sung with music. Ancient readers named her the "Tenth Muse" and "The Poetess," and she likely composed some 10,000 lines - nearly all of it now gone. Only the Ode to Aphrodite survives intact; the rest exists in fragments, including the Brothers Poem, discovered in 2014, which names two of her three brothers, Charaxos and Larichos. She had a daughter, referenced in two fragments, and was exiled to Sicily around 600 BC. Her work - personal, immediate, clear - centered on love, family, and religion, and was esteemed by Hellenistic scholars as among the finest lyric poetry ever written. Legend says she leaped from the Leucadian cliffs over unrequited love for a ferryman, though the truth of her later years remains uncertain.
Writers born in the 650s BC 3
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