Sappho
Sappho
Sapphowas a Greek lyric poet from the island of Lesbos. She was born sometime between 630 and 612 BCE, and it is said that she died around 570 BCE, but little is known for certain about her life. Sappho's poetry was well-known and greatly admired through much of antiquity, and she was considered one of the canon of nine lyric poets. However, most of her poetry is now lost, and survives only in fragmentary form...
NationalityGreek
ProfessionPoet
stars moon light
Stars veil their beauty soon / Beside the glorious moon, / When her full silver light / Doth make the whole earth bright.
beautiful long today
Beauty endures only for as long as it can be seen; goodness, beautiful today, will remain so tomorrow.
done bittersweet limbs
Once again love drives me on, that loosener of limbs, bittersweet creature against which nothing can be done.
mind divided knows
I know not what to do, my mind is divided
beautiful one-love
Whatever one loves most is beautiful.
thinking may forget
You may forget but let me tell you this: someone in some future time will think of us
said
What cannot be said will be wept.
love crush fall
When I look on you a moment, then I can speak no more, but my tongue falls silent, and at once a delicate flame courses beneath my skin, and with my eyes I see nothing, and my ears hum, and a wet sweat bathes me and a trembling seizes me all over.
immortal command breaths
Although only breath, words which I command are immortal.
writing stronger nerves
May I write words more naked than flesh, stronger than bone, more resilient than sinew, sensitive than nerve.