The “gifts” that are mentioned could refer to offerings and sacrifices to the goddess, but one cannot help thinking that when the goddess of love is involved, surely the greatest gift that can be given is that of love itself love expressed in some manner would be the essential offering that one is expected to give to Aphrodite, goddess of love. In sadness, the persona tells the lover: “If you forget me, / think of all of our gifts to Aphrodite / and all the loveliness we shared.” Mary Barnard), Sappho’s persona seems to be pining away for a female lover who has left her. In the poem, “I have not had one word from her”, (trans. The Greek goddess of love and beauty, Aphrodite, for example, is sometimes referenced in her poems in order to elevate the same-sex relations Sappho writes about. One of the ways in which Sappho represents what appears to be same-sex love in her poetry, and also imparts some sanctity to such relationships, is by imbuing her poems with elements from her belief system. Much of Sappho’s poems remained unexamined for a long time, and they currently exist as various fragments that modern scholars have used, and are using, to give Sappho and her poetry the kind of study and recognition they deserve.

She was so skilled that she was sometimes referred to as the “Tenth Muse.” Presence and the worth and content of her poetry, then, become obvious when we think that the word used to describe women who love other women was born from the island where she lived.

Sappho’s Simeon Solomon’s artistic rendition of “Sappho and Erinna in a Garden at Mytilene”, 1863 Her home was on the island of Lesbos, from which the word “lesbian” is derived. SAPPHO was a Greek lyrical poet, who lived around 630 BC – 570 BC and who is predominantly known for her poems which focus on love for women and lesbian love.

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