Chrysti the Wordsmith > Radio Scripts

The Greek poet Sappho dedicated her life to music and poetry. Born around 610 BC in Asia Minor, Sappho is regarded as one of the finest poets of any age. The Greeks have called her "the tenth muse," or "the mortal muse." Her verses, preserved on papyrus and in the citations of other writers, are simple, powerful and passionate.

Sappho was married to a wealthy and aristocratic man, and spent most of her life on the island of Lesbos in the Aegean Sea. It was common in Sappho's time for women of elite families to assemble in informal societies for the composition and recitation of poetry. Sappho was a celebrity in her coterie of poets, attracting admirers on her home island and in many other parts of Greece.

It appears that Sappho clearly enjoyed the society of women; her verses are ripe with declarations of affection and devotion toward her female friends. Many Sapphic scholars have assumed that the Greek poet was homosexual, though nothing in her verses connects her specifically with same-sex passion.

Nevertheless, Sappho's home, the island of Lesbos, inspired the term lesbian to denote female homosexuality. The word was first recorded in 1870, in a diary entry by a writer named A.J. Munby.

Radio Script > Lesbian