From: Erminia Passannanti
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Moreover, she committed suicide, because of non reciprocated love for a
boat-man.
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The Phaon nonsense is a VERY late accretion to her 'biography'.
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In addition to this, she was a lesbian (see her famous poems to Lesbia).
EP.
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Aren't you confusing Sappho with Catullus, who, unlike Sappho [at least in
her surviving texts and fragments], DID address poems to Lesbia (a.k.a.
Claudia in real life)?
(As Sappho lived on the island of Lesbos, a poem of hers addressed to
Lesbia, if it happened to exist, would be an example of patriotic song
rather than an index of non-heterosexual tendencies.)
Robin Hamilton
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