(Σαπφώ, Ἕολική Ψάρη), a very celebrated Grecian poetess, was a native of the island of Lesbos, and was nearly contemporary with her countryman Alceus, with whom she divided the leadership of the Æolic school of lyric poetry. She must have been younger than that poet, as she was still alive in 568 B.C. It cannot now be ascertained whether she was a native of Eresos or of Mitylene; but the supposition of K. O. Müller (Hist. of Greek Lit., vol. i. p. 172), may perhaps bear some degree of plausibility, that at the time of her greatest celebrity she passed from the lesser city to the greater. Few circumstances relating to this illustrious woman can now be ascertained. About 596 B.C., while still in the bloom of youth, she sailed from her native island to take refuge in Sicily; and at a much later period she produced the ode alluded to by Herodotus (ii. 135), in which she reproached her brother Charaxus for purchasing Rhodopis or Doricha of Naucratis in Egypt,—a beautiful courtezan, with whom he had fallen desperately in love. The severity with which the censure is laid on has induced the majority of the later critics to treat as a libel the current charge of Sappho having herself occasionally sacrificed to the goddess of love. It was formerly a pretty common belief that Sappho took a violent leap into the sea from the Leucadian rock, because her love was not requited by a youth named Phonon, to whom it had been addressed. It is true a youth is frequently mentioned, but never by name, in her odes; and it is just possible she may have alluded in some of her verses to Adonis, the favourite of Aphrodite, who in some legends is called Phaén and Phaéthon. But the whole story is likely to have originated in some highly poetical expression used by the author. Besides, as Welcker and others have remarked, it is not told by any of the preservers of the legend whether Sappho survived the leap or perished by it. Sappho, like all the early lyric poets, sang the praises of Love and Marriage. She sang them with simplicity and directness, and with a warmth of poetic fire which emanated from uncommon poetic endowments. In the remains of her lyrics which survive, there is no line calculated to cloud her fame, as there is none to cloud her genius. They contain passages in which the poetess repels with dignity the least transgression of the bounds of social intercourse as understood by the Æolians; but it is precisely because the manners of that race are so little understood, that men have chosen freely to calumniate the name of this great poetess. Müller justly remarks, that at the time at which Sappho wrote, the line had not been drawn with any degree of exactness between sensual and sentimental love. The Attic comic poets could neither understand the simplicity of that simple time, nor could they indeed comprehend it at all. They accordingly made short work of it, by introducing Sappho into their licentious dramas as a common courtezan.

Those who wish to see the character of the poetess vindicated from the numerous charges which have been brought against it, may read the little work of Welcker, Sappho von einem herrschenden Vorurtheil befreyt, Göttingen, 1816; and the writings of K. O. Müller, Neue, Ulrici, Bode, &c. To form a true estimate of the erotic poetry of Sappho, one must have recourse to the few fragments of it which now remain. Of the nine books of erotic odes, epithalamia, hymns to the gods, and other poems which Sappho originally left, only one complete ode and a number of short fragments are now left. Judging from the very scanty material at our disposal, it is not difficult to justify the admiration of the ancients. In purity and fervour, in delicacy and sweetness, in grace of diction and in harmony of construction, Sappho may be fairly pronounced equal to the greatest lyric poet of any age or country. The editio princeps of the hymn to Aphrodite was published by H. Stephens in his edition of Anacreon, with whom Sappho's poems have been usually printed, in 1554. Since then there have been countless editions of her fragments, from the simple text up to the most copious elaboration of annotation. In the latter respect Volger, Leipzig, 1810, decidedly bears away the palm; while the edition of Neue is regarded as the first in point of excellence. It bears the name of Sapphonis Mytilenae Fragmenta, Specimen Operæ in omnibus Artis Graecorum Lyricæ Reliquiis, excepto Pindaro colloquande, propositum, C. F. Neue, Berlin, 1827. Sappho has been frequently translated into all the European languages. What is called the Sapphic measure is the most important of all the Sapphic metres. It corresponds very closely to the measure employed by Alceus. That used by Sappho, and which bears her name, has a short syllable at the end of the verse, while in the Alcaic measure the syllable begins the line. According to the improved scansion of Professor Key (Journal of Education, vol. iv.), the Sapphic measure is as follows:

\[ \text{Grandinis misit pater et rubentia.} \]

The Sapphic and Alcaic are most probably the favourite measures of Æolian lyric poetry. The near resemblance of the two verses, as well as their frequent employment by the poets of Lesbos, and in the odes of Horace and Catullus, afford good evidence of this proposition.