Stung with Love: Poems and Fragments

Sappho (c. 630–570 BCE) was born on the island of Lesbos and is among the earliest lyric poets of the Western tradition whose work survives, though only in fragments. Ancient sources credited her with nine books of poetry; the most complete surviving pieces are the Hymn to Aphrodite and the Tithonus poem, the latter reconstructed from a papyrus identified in 2004. Plato is said to have called her the Tenth Muse. The Sapphic stanza, a metrical form associated with her, was later adopted by Catullus and Horace. The word "lesbian" derives from the name of her birthplace.