Imaginary interview with Sappho
by Charactorium · Sappho (650 av. J.-C. — 569 av. J.-C.) · Literature · 6 min read
It is under the portico of a house in Mytilene, in the warm shade of a spring afternoon, that Solon of Athens meets Sappho. The lyre rests against a column, its strings still vibrating from an interrupted tune, and the scent of wine mixed with water drifts between the seats. The two poets know each other by the reputation of their verses as much as by the affairs of the cities, and Solon, a traveler attentive to the customs of the Greeks, has come to listen to the one whose songs all the Aegean sings. He comes as a man of law who also knows how to rhyme, curious to understand how, under a woman's fingers, words that men memorize are born.
—Sappho, I found you with lyre in hand, like me who set my laws in verse. Tell me: where does your song come from?
You who rhyme your decrees so that they better enter the memory of men, Solon, you already know half of my answer. Song does not come from the wax tablet where I scribble my drafts: it comes first from the voice and the string. I tune the lyre, I let one note call the next, and the words adjust to the meter like companions to a dance. I shape rhythms that no one had tried before me, stanzas that always fall back in the same step. Only afterwards, sometimes, do I entrust the poem to papyrus. But papyrus is only a cage; the bird is the voice that held it.
Papyrus is only a cage; the bird is the voice that held it.
—They say that around you gather young girls whom you instruct. In Athens, I know of no such school. What do you teach, and why?
They come from the great houses of the island, and I train them in what brings honor to a cultivated woman: poetry, the lyre, dance, and the service of Aphrodite. We form what is called a thiasos, a community around the goddess. I teach them to carry their voice, to measure a step, to adorn a wedding feast with a worthy epithalamium. In the afternoon, we sing together; some will leave to marry and will take these songs home with them. It is a knowledge that does not build walls like your laws, Solon, but erects something else: taste, grace, the memory of having been loved and taught. One does not govern only cities; one also governs the hearts one raises.
One does not govern only cities; one also governs the hearts one raises.
—Your verses speak of love with a frankness that astonishes. You who sing Aphrodite, is it not bold to put desire at the forefront?
Bold? Others sing of armies of horsemen, fleets drawn up, and they think they name the most beautiful sight. I say that the most beautiful is what one loves. That is all my art, and I am not ashamed of it. When I see the one my heart prefers speaking softly and laughing, I feel my chest flutter, my tongue break, a fire run under my skin. Why hide that? The gods made us sensitive before they made us wise. I call on Aphrodite as one calls an ally in battle, for desire IS a battle. My songs speak of friendship between women, feasts, separations. They are not shameful confessions: they are offerings.
The gods made us sensitive before they made us wise.
—You often invoke the goddess as a companion in combat. When you beseeched her long ago, did she truly answer you?
I prayed to her, Solon, not to overwhelm my heart with pains and torments, to come to me as before, when from afar she heard my voice. And in song, yes, she comes: on a chariot drawn by sparrows, she asks me smiling who, this time, has made me suffer, and whom I want to bring back to my love. Is it the goddess in person or the goddess that my words bring forth? I cannot tell, and I do not wish to. The poet calls, and something answers. You must have felt it too, when a perfect verse delivered you from a worry that no advice could soothe. Sung prayer consoles better than silent prayer.
The poet calls, and something answers.
—You have not always lived in peace on your island. I have heard of an exile from Lesbos. What happened?
You touch on wounds I prefer to speeches. My family holds its rank among the great houses of the island, and whoever holds a rank finds themselves entangled in factional quarrels. When rivalries turned sour, it was necessary to leave: I went to Sicily, near Syracuse, and remained there until the political winds shifted. You who reformed Athens by walking between the powerful and the people, you know that a city does not easily forgive those who chose the wrong side. They think me entirely occupied with love and feasts; but a poetess of a good family also experiences the upheavals of her city. Exile taught me the value of return.
A poetess of a good family also experiences the upheavals of her city.
—You who have known exile and return, do you think a poet should meddle in the affairs of the city, as I do?
We do not have the same tool, Solon, but perhaps the same task. You calm factions with weighed laws; I have only song. And yet song also brings together: at weddings, at festivals of Aphrodite, at funerals, it is song that tells a community what it feels together. I do not sit on the council, I do not bear arms, but my voice travels from house to house faster than a decree. A poet who remains silent when their city suffers betrays their gift. I do not make laws; I make last what laws cannot hold: the memory of a face, the sweetness of an evening, the pain of a departure. The city needs both.
My voice travels from house to house faster than a decree.
—When you receive those young girls in the afternoon, do you share wine and table, as we do among men at our banquets?
We have our gatherings, less noisy than your men's symposia, but no less precious. We share barley bread, figs, cheese, the fish that the nearby sea gives us in abundance, and wine mixed with water according to custom. Above all, we share songs. It is there that I compose aloud, that a girl picks up a refrain, that another learns to measure her dance. We honor Aphrodite and Artemis, goddesses dear to Lesbos. These hours are not like your citizen debates: no drinking contests or political speeches. But when a young bride leaves, it is those afternoons she will weep for, and it is my song she will hum in turn.
When a young bride leaves, it is my song she will hum in turn.
—Your stanzas have a cadence I find nowhere else. How did you invent forms that no one before you dared?
By listening, Solon, simply by listening. A language has its natural step, its longs and shorts, and the lyre has its strings: it is a matter of marrying them without forcing. I sought stanzas that always fall back on the same rhythm, like a returning wave, so that the ear retains them without effort. It is not science that guides my hand, it is the memory of the body: what sings well is retained well, and what is retained is transmitted. A girl who cannot write will still carry my verses whole, because the meter has engraved them in her. That is my true craft: to shape speech so that it survives the voice that spoke it.
To shape speech so that it survives the voice that spoke it.
—You compose much, but papyrus is fragile and memory fallible. Do you not fear that your songs will be lost after you?
I think about it, how could I not? Papyrus yellows, burns, tears; wax erases as soon as it is heated. A part of what I compose will surely die with those who knew it by heart. But that is precisely why I trust song more than writing: a memorized poem travels from mouth to mouth, it crosses the sea where a scroll rots in a chest. If I am copied and recited even in distant cities, then something of me will endure, even fragmentary. I prefer to survive in pieces in a thousand memories than whole in a single forgotten chest. The rest, Solon, I leave to the gods and the chance of the ages.
I prefer to survive in pieces in a thousand memories than whole in a single forgotten chest.
—It is whispered even in Athens that you surpass many men in your art. How do you bear such rare renown for a woman?
Renown is a strange thing, Solon: it precedes me in cities where I have never set foot. I did not seek the glory of men; I sang what I loved, and it turned out that others wanted to sing it after me. That a woman holds this rank is surprising, I know — but on Lesbos, where the daughters of great houses learn the lyre from childhood, it shocks less than elsewhere. I do not think myself wiser than the wise; I only believe I said aloud what many keep silent. If I am read tomorrow in schools I will not see, it will not be my pride that has traveled, but the desire of others to recognize themselves in my verses.
I sang what I loved, and it turned out that others wanted to sing it after me.
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This imaginary interview was generated by artificial intelligence from sources documented in Sappho's profile. It dramatises what the figure might have said based on what we know about them, but does not constitute attested historical testimony. For primary sources and factual documentation, refer to the full profile.