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28<br />
more popular form of book. Sappho’s poetry was<br />
set aside and forgotten as time went on. About 150<br />
years after her death, her poetry was written down<br />
and put into papyrus scrolls for the private libraries<br />
of wealthier people in the 5 th century. Throughout<br />
her lifetime, Sappho had written around 10 000<br />
lines of poetry which were eventually collected into<br />
nine books, now simply referred to as Sappho’s Nine<br />
Books. These were all but lost in the ninth century<br />
as the materials used in book binding and making<br />
improved and it was not thought effort should be<br />
put in to transfer her translation onto the new medium.<br />
Out of the 10 000 lines she wrote, only 650 have<br />
survived into today and only one poem, ‘Ode to<br />
Aphrodite’, is complete. Sappho’s work saw a surge<br />
The <strong>Gateway</strong> <strong>Chronicle</strong><br />
Right: a<br />
depiction<br />
of Sappho<br />
from ‘World<br />
Noted Women’<br />
(Mary<br />
Cowden<br />
Clarke,<br />
1858) by<br />
artist Francis<br />
Holl (1815-<br />
1884)<br />
A surviving fragment of Sappho’s work<br />
in popularity following the beginning<br />
of the eighteenth century which resulted<br />
in new copies and translations<br />
of her poetry being published; ancient<br />
authors had their books scrutinised<br />
and thoroughly investigated for<br />
even the smallest quotation. Indeed,<br />
many fragments are simply single<br />
words: Fragment 169A means ‘wedding<br />
gifts’.<br />
Following the end of the nineteenth
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