Etymology Question: Lesbian and Lesbos Island

[Taverner]

Is this just happenstance, or is there actual history between the island and the word "lesbian"?

[radfringe]

1. history and myth

Les·bos (lĕz'bŏs, -bōs) also Lés·vos (-vôs)

An island of eastern Greece in the Aegean Sea near the northwest coast of Turkey. An important Aeolian settlement, Lesbos was noted for its lyric poets, including Sappho, in the seventh century B.C. After occupation by various powers, the island was annexed by Greece in 1913.

According to Classical Greek mythology, Lesbos was the patron god of the island. Macar is reputed as being the first king whose many "daughters" bequeathed their names to some of the present larger towns. In Classical myth his "sister", Canace, was killed to have him made king. The place names with female origins are likely to be much earlier settlements named after local goddesses, who were replaced by gods. Homer refers to the island as "Macaros edos", the seat of Macar. Hittite records from the Late Bronze Age name the island Lazpas and must have considered its population significant enough to allow the residents to "borrow their gods" (presumably idols) to cure of their king when the local gods were not forthcoming. It is believed that emigrants from mainland Greece, mainly from Thessaly, entered the island in the Late Bronze Age and bequeathed it with the Aeolic dialect of the Greek language, whose written form survives in the poems of Sappho, amongst others.

[Taverner]

4. Hmmmm sounds as if there is no connection

[radfringe]

5. many of Sapphos poems

were interpreted as advocating women loving women

[Taverner]

6. Ahhhhh I didn't know that

Never been well schooled in Ancient Greece

[Lethe]

2. i'm not sure....i just clicked on this thread because it had lesbians in the title

:D
:spank:

[ZombieNixon]

3. Not just happenstance; that's where the word comes from.

"Lesbian" comes from Sappho (as in "Sapphic poetry"), who was referred to as "the Lesbian," being born on the island of Lesbos.

[WritingIsMyReligion]

7. Sort of history.

The island of Lesbos was the home of several classical poets, most notably Sappho, one of the classical world's only notable female authors. Sappho was rumored to be lesbian or to have had lesbian flings in the past.

[radfringe]

8. Sappho

Sappho
circa 630 B.C.
http://www.sappho.com/poetry/sappho.html

One of the great Greek lyrists and few known female poets of the ancient world, Sappho was born some time between 630 and 612 BC. She was an aristocrat who married a prosperous merchant, and she had a daughter named Cleis. Her wealth afforded her with the opportunity to live her life as she chose, and she chose to spend it studying the arts on the isle of Lesbos.

In the seventh century BC, Lesbos was a cultural center. Sappho spent most her time on the island, though she also traveled widely throughout Greece. She was exiled for a time because of political activities in her family, and she spent this time in Sicily. By this time she was known as a poet, and the residents of Syracuse were so honored by her visit that they erected a statue to her.

Her style was sensual and melodic; primarily songs of love, yearning, and reflection. Most commonly the target of her affections was female, often one of the many women sent to her for education in the arts. She nurtured these women, wrote poems of love and adoration to them, and when they eventually left the island to be married, she composed their wedding songs. That Sappho's poetry was not condemned in her time for its homoerotic content (though it was disparaged by scholars in later centuries) suggests that perhaps love between women was not persecuted then as it has been in more recent times. Especially in the last century, Sappho has become so synonymous with woman-love that two of the most popular words to describe female homosexuality--lesbian and sapphic have derived from her.

[XemaSab]

9. I have not had one word from her

I have not had one word from her

Frankly I wish I were dead
When she left, she wept

a great deal; she said to me, "This parting must be
endured, Sappho. I go unwillingly."

I said, "Go, and be happy
but remember (you know
well) whom you leave shackled by love

"If you forget me, think
of our gifts to Aphrodite
and all the loveliness that we shared

"all the violet tiaras,
braided rosebuds, dill and
crocus twined around your young neck

"myrrh poured on your head
and on soft mats girls with
all that they most wished for beside them

"while no voices chanted
choruses without ours,
no woodlot bloomed in spring without song..."