kalai | intro |

PLAYER'S NOTE

I'm not an expert in Ancient Greece, I can't read the language (except fragmentarily, which is maybe fitting) and I have no academic knowledge out in the historical period aside from the piles of Sappho commentaries I've read in various languages, some books on general Ancient Greek culture and similar. I compile my portrayal of Sappho primarily on the fragments available, mixed with some folklore that's survived throughout history, for example that she should be married to Kerikles of Andros (the name is most likely a pun meaning Dick of Man), that she should have run a school for young girls (Victorian way of explaining away all the love poetry aimed at other women) and that she had a daughter called Kleïs (most likely she did, but the word for daughter/child can also mean slave). We cannot be sure of these details and some of them are quite obviously false, but I use them to create a character. What we do know about Sappho was that she was a lyric poet in the 6th century BC, she was famed even in her lifetime and exiled at some point to Sicily, but eventually returned to Lesbos. That is what we know. I use that for Sappho's character as well. I have compiled some general historical commentary on her time and world, here and a timeline that I work with as canon, here.

BACKGROUND

Sappho was born in the Great Age of Tyranny, when the aristocracy was suffering under leaders who took power for themselves, and therefore rights away from the aristocrats, at least certain groups of them with whom they took offense or issue. This happened in Mytilene as well.

Sappho came from Eresos, a city on the other side of Lesbos, where her father, Skamandrios, led a wine harvesting and trading business with some success. She had two older brothers, Charaxos and Eriguios, one who would take over the wine trade when her father died, which he did when Sappho was ten. Another who would stay behind in Eresos and tend to the fields as the rest of the family relocated to Mytilene in the aftermath, the main city on the island, and from where her family's trade would grow under the leadership of Charaxos. Her younger brother, Larichos, was still not at an age to truly help the family out in any notable way, but after their exile from the city for nine years, he too had grown into a man who tried to live up to the family expectations.

Sappho, although a woman who couldn't contribute as a citizen, had already made a name for herself as a singer and poet before the family's exile, and continued to compose songs and poems while they were away. Upon their return, she soon took up the trade again and started teaching young girls to play the lyre and perform, as well as she made choral performances at weddings and other festivities.

Although she openly recited and sang of her love for other women, Sappho had been married to the merchant, Simonides of Andros, since she was twenty years old, an unusually old age to get married for a girl, but her family's situation and the political climate had made a match difficult. With Kerikles, which is her nickname for Simonides, it means Big Dick, she has the daughter, Kleïs, named after Sappho's mother as is customary. Now, that they have returned to Mytilene, Kleïs is - at 13 - nearing a marrying age, and despite Sappho's reservations, Kerikles is making preparations to have her marry into the Kleanaktides family, which was the ruling family of Mytilene at the time, a family that also counted Pittacus and the tyrant, Myrsilus, who originally had them exiled.

While her brother has his affair with the courtesan, Doricha, on which she will comment scathingly and publicly in her songs, Sappho remembers many old loves she has had with her girls, all who have had to marry later and leave her behind, by same call not their own. Upon her return, she reunites with Atthis, her old pupil who is now married to another poet, Meleager, associating with her rival, Alcaeus, and the two - Atthis and Sappho - initiate an affair once more, despite both of them bound to honour their families' choices for them.

From the sideline, Sappho can only watch (and sing about) the continued need to say farewell to the women she loves, be they her lover or her daughter.