I am reading about Sappho, the ancient Greek poetess. We don’t know much of women’s ideas in ancient Greece, but we know Sappho who has taken up her stylus and spoken out.
“Come now, luxuriant Graces, and beautiful-haired Muses”
Does this remind anyone else of "Come, Muse, tell me of the man of many wiles"? Sappho knows about Greek conventions and invoking the Muses. It is a pity that all we have our fragments of her writing...
“Now, I shall sing these songs
Beautifully
For my companions”
“I desire
And I crave”
She, too, had ideas and feelings, and even though she may have been forced to hide in her home, she still produced work and literature and had something to say. I see in her traces of Sylvia Plath; I see in her traces of Angela Davis.
“Sweet mother, I can’t do my weaving –
Aphrodite has crushed me with desire
For a tender youth.”
(Translations by Julia Dubnoff)
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