Sappho [ca 650 BCE, Lesbos. For a c19 imaginary portrait, click here., then type Sappho in SEARCH box. To review the text discussed, click here]
           Poet's concern: others admire warriors, she prefers love:
                    she gives as a prime example to make clear what she means, an old story
            that is to say, a myth, the story of Helen, who left her home in Sparta & her
            husband (Menelaus) & daughters & parents to go with a lover, Paris, to Troy,
            under the influence of the goddess Aphrodite.
                    Part of the poem is missing (where the papyrus rotted away or was eaten)
            but Sappho concludes by expressing gentle longing for the absent object of her
            love, Anactoria, a girl (we infer from the ending of her name) who has gone
            (again we make an inference) to a place where there are warriors (cf. Sappho's
            own world, with which she began the poem), warriors on chariots & on foot with
            full gear ("panoply"), a place called Lydia, just across the sea on the mainland of
            Asia Minor (modern Turkey).
        Horizons of Sappho's world:  Who? Where? When? What? Why?
            Characters? Places named or implied? Time frame? Actions & Reasons?
            Who: Sappho, Helen (Menelaus), [Paris, Aphrodite], Anactoria
           Places: Actual: Sappho herself on Lesbos, large island in Aegean Sea, just off
                                   coast of Asia Minor (Turkey today).
                         Evoked: Helen traveled from Sparta (in southern peninsula of Greece
                                to Troy (northeast of Lesbos, near the Aegean coast of Asia,
                                again Turkey today).
                           Anactoria in Lydia (east of Lesbos & inland in what now is Turkey;
                                kingdom of Croesus, city of Sardis)
           Times:  ca 650 BCE,  Sappho herself & Anactoria, & war lovers.
                          ca 1200 BCE,  Helen to Troy, (mythical time of War at Troy).
           Actions & Reasons?