Personal Choice Volume 2 No.11

Sappho, (Fragments) 104–117 (Wedding Songs) 104.

                                                            Hesperus, star most beautiful,

                                                            you bring back what the light-giving Dawn scattered:

                                                            you bring the sheep, you bring the lamb;

                                                            but the bride does not return to her mother.

Sappho mentions lamb or sheep in several fragments, including 104, in which she describes the preparations for a wedding. Wine and dates are celebratory flavours, though the crimson colour of the wine and the tender meat of the lamb lend a sacrificial feel, which felt tonally appropriate for Sappho’s mixed feelings of happiness for the wedding.

Sappho (c. 630 – c. 570 BC) was an Archaic Greek poet from Eresos or Mytilene on the island of Lesbos. Sappho is known for her lyric poetry, written to be sung while accompanied by music. In ancient times, Sappho was widely regarded as one of the greatest lyric poets and was given names such as the ‘Tenth Muse’ and ‘The Poetess.’ Most of Sappho's poetry is now lost, and what is extant has mostly survived in fragmentary form; only the Ode to Aphrodite is certainly complete. As well as lyric poetry, ancient commentators claimed that Sappho wrote elegiac and iambic poetry. Three epigrams formerly attributed to Sappho are extant, but these are actually Hellenistic imitations of Sappho's style.