The word sapphist is a less common word for lesbian. When talking about historical figures, one does not talk about the Sappho. She is known to be the lesbian lyricist born between 612 B.C.E and 620 B.C.E in the Island of Lesbos near modern day Turkey. Being a lyricist is the same as being a poet with a different style. Lyrical poetry is a song-like and narrative style of poetry. There are a lot of theories and opinions surrounding this lyricist due to opinions being based on religion and modern ideas. Her poetry was burned in the following centuries by those of the Catholic faith and a lot of her poetry has only survived in fragments.
The fragments of her lyrics were found in Europe but only one word to a couple stanzas of lyric poems had survived. There is a theory that suggests that she taught the girls of the island how to read and write in archaic Greek. It was also suggested that she would sometimes would have "relations" with the older girls. After the girls would have reached the amount of education they needed, they would be married off to other men on the island. She would write marriage lyrics for her students and sing them at the wedding.
With homosexuality among men having more examples than those of women, Sappho was truly a treasure for historians of the ancient Greek time. The lives of women were conducted with privacy that recordings of homosexual relations were limited as opposed to the males. There are visuals of homosexual relations in the ancient brothels among men and there are records that the higher class men would use the slave boys for relations. Since women typically did not have documented homosexual relations with each other, historians relished at Sappho's poetry.Her homosexuality was evident in her poems for example:
"I shall never see Atthis again, and I surely wish
I were dead. Yet she wept much when she left
me, and said this to me, “Woe is me, how terribly
we have suffered! Sappho, truly against my will
I leave thee.” And I answer her with these words,
Rejoicing go thy way, and remember me; for thou
knowest how I loved thee. But if it be not so, I am
fain to remind thee of what hast forgot those many
dear and beautiful experiences we had together.
For with many wreaths of violets and sweet roses
thou hast bound my tresses by my side,and many
woven chains entwined of a hundred flowers thou
hast put about my tender neck; and with many a
vase of cosly and royal myrrh hast thou anointed
my soft skin; and, reclining with me upon the couch,
hast taken all thy fill of dainty meats and sweet drinks…"
This is a classic example of her lyrics and it shows her passion towards women.
Plato, an ancient philosopher, referred to her as the goddess of poetry. From that perspective, there is a part of the population that refers to her as the goddess of lesbian love. Some of the ancient Greek playwrights dismissed and ridiculed her as an ugly woman who could never get a man. There is evidence that she was married to a man named Kerkylas. That name, translated in archaic Greek, means a male sexual organ.
Sappho's poetry was so influential that the word Lesbian with the original meaning of a resident of the Island of Lesbos, so the word became synonymous with female homosexuality. This shows that words can take on multiple meanings and can be viewed from multiple perspectives. From that point of view, it shows that the burning of her work was due to the perspective of the Catholic and Islamic Church.
