Sappho is the great lyric poet of antiquity. Plato called her the "tenth muse." Her poems were preserved until nearly A.D 1000, at least according to A Book of Woman Poets, "when a wrathful church destroyed whatever it could find. In 1073 her writings were publicly burned in Rome and Constantinople by order of Pope Gregory VIII." Almost all of Sappho's poems survive only in fragments found in pot shards, scraps of papyrus used to wrap mummies and quotations by grammarians and others, ruins of once magnificent structures. Sadly, unless we get a major find on the order of the Dead Sea Scrolls, these 100 fragments are all we have. Not knowing Greek, I can't really judge Mary Barnard's translation, but despite the fragmentary nature of what survived Sappho comes through as a personalities and amazing poet: : vernal, refined--but at times frank in speaking of desire. The Footnotes starting on page 95 are illuminating.
