
The destruction of Sappho's works - lermontov
http://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2017/12/the-destruction-of-sapphos-works.html
======
xrd
Worth reading this one again about Sappho.

[http://clivethompson.net/2016/05/16/astronomers-crack-the-
se...](http://clivethompson.net/2016/05/16/astronomers-crack-the-secret-of-
this-gorgeous-poem-by-sappho/)

------
zipwitch
The line that has always stuck with me:

μνάσασθαί τινά φαιμι †καὶ ἕτερον† ἀμμέων

"I think men will remember us even hereafter."

There are other translations, but the core idea, that this woman writing ~2600
years ago grokked that she and her words we be known to humans across so many
years, really seems powerful to me.

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meddlepal
Interesting read, but rather sad that we've lost this poetic artwork.

Religion and emotion are the two most destructive forces on our planet.

~~~
HarryHirsch
You'd think it was indifference that was most destructive. Papyrus and
parchment last hundreds of years, so many works, including Sappho's became
lost because the public did not care any longer and did not maintain the
contents. Nowadays you'd call this "bit rot".

Incidentally, the Church would consider indifference or _acedia_ the worst of
sins, many pieces of spiritual literature are witness to that fact.

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adricnet
Thank you for sharing this. It was interesting and a bit sad.

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kurthr
Now that's some epic if accidental trolling, lost in time like tears on
scrolls.

Burning the greatest Greek poetry (including that of the 10th muse) and
replacing it with works by Gregory of Nazianzus. Then getting everyone to
believe it was a pope who ordered it... a different Gregory. Not all heals are
wounded, but knowledge is lost, if we believe the traced and misquoted
documentation.

~~~
acqq
Isn't it just an error in transmission about "who done it"? They had no Google
then. And we have it and still the original souces of today are so often
wrongly transmitted in a lot of texts, for various reasons.

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TazeTSchnitzel
One of the great things about the modern world is that it is very easy to
create copies of a work all over the world. But that doesn't mean it will
necessarily happen, it requires forethought and a willingness to hold onto
those copies. I fear the book-burnings to come.

~~~
acqq
Correct. And on the internet, the whole big sites with valuable content
disappear overnight. That is why I actively support the Internet Archive and
would like to motivate others to do the same:

[https://archive.org/donate/](https://archive.org/donate/)

Also:

"Right now, a generous supporter will match your donations 3-to-1—so you can
triple your impact. That means for every dollar you donate right now, the
Internet Archive will receive $4 in all."

I really believe what they are doing is very important even relatively short-
term, that is, even measured in years.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
…well, I just donated $50, thank you for reminding me I should.

------
woodruffw
Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus...

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YeGoblynQueenne
>> Did the Byzantine church leaders really burn Sappho's poetry?

Given that the outlook of the Greek Orthodox church has not changed much since
Byzantine times and from my experience of its members, having been brought up
Greek Orthodox myself, I would like to venture a guess that yeah, probably.

~~~
olavk
Does the Greek Orthodox church burn books? Do you have personal experience of
that?

------
acqq
> Was it the flames of Sappho’s burning love that ultimately put her own work
> on the bonfire?

No, but it was still simple and pure religious fundamentalism that preferred
her work disappearing (or at least not being saved), in charge once the
Christianity started to dominate the Empire.

~~~
dang
Haven't we had to ask you before to keep religious flames out of Hacker News?

Please keep religious flames out of Hacker News.

~~~
anigbrowl
The comment (copied below in case it has been edited away from some earlier
more inflammatory version) is not inflammatory, it is a factual assertion
supported by the content of the article. Hiding this subthread is
inappropriate, as the comment does not attack the beliefs or adherents of a
religion. Rather, it asserts that cultural change resulting from the spread of
one religious made the works of this historical writer institutionally
unwelcome.

Labeling this as a flame and shaming the poster for it is _extremely_
inappropriate.

 _No, but it was still simple and pure religious fundamentalism that preferred
her work disappearing (or at least not being saved), in charge once the
Christianity started to dominate the Empire._

~~~
PhasmaFelis
> The comment is not inflammatory, it is a factual assertion supported by the
> content of the article.

It can be both.

~~~
acqq
Read again exactly what I commented to, the last line of the article,
specifically: "Was it the flames of Sappho’s burning love that ultimately put
her own work on the bonfire?"

Could you believe that that line to me sounded just like "was it the beautiful
color of the skirt she wore that ultimately had her raped and killed"? Yes, I
do feel I belong to the "oppressed" group in this very case, being an atheist.
Try to consider this from my point of view.

Also note that here we talk about the poet whose place of birth gave the name
to the "lesbians" and who was highly acclaimed for the quality of her poems.
But the poems disappeared once a religion which gave us

[https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+1%3A26-2...](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+1%3A26-27)

started to spread. Note that the scholarly consensus is that Paul authored
that Epistle to the Romans, that is, it is considered one of the very earliest
Christian writings, predating all the gospels! Think about it: the lines
against the lesbians were written down before the accounts of the deeds of
"the savior."

Nevertheless, to that "maybe she deserved it" line I've just responded with
what is the common knowledge among those who are familiar with the history of
these periods, and even supported by the research of the article writer,
locating the source for the claim much more specific than what I've claimed.
There are also effectively no other causes that are presented as responsible
for disappearance of Sapho's work, or which wouldn't match my claim. You can
read my longer comment here for more details.

~~~
olavk
The use of "Lesbian" to refer to female homosexuality is a 19th century
construction. And lots of text from antiquity have been preserved even though
they represent values counter to Christian morals.

~~~
acqq
Oh, so you do agree with me now that her songs "represented values counter to
Christian morals"?

And that before Christians ruled, for centuries her works were copied and
known and weren't considered as problematic as later?

And that she was so widely known not only in antiquity but even 25 centuries
later as the most famous female homosexual ever, even to influence the much
more modern languages?

What's the dispute then? My claim that started this all is, in full:

"it was still simple and pure religious fundamentalism that preferred her work
disappearing (or at least not being saved), in charge once the Christianity
started to dominate the Empire."

Do you really claim the Christians were so "tolerant" then to not preferring
her work disappearing, or at least not being saved? I think you'd have to
provide some extraordinary evidence, as there are even less controversial
writings that haven't survived. Remember, for some work to survive, somebody
had to copy every letter by hand, or to take some other very special measures,
like hiding the scrolls in the cave or in the desert sand (and that it doesn't
deteriorate and that it eventually is found only by us moderns and not by
somebody before who'd use the old paper simply to start the fire or
something).

And as I've shown, the Christian writing against lesbians is older than the
Gospels writing about what Jesus did.

Moreover and once again, we also have the claim from the article about the
narration which is already certainly at least 5 centuries old:

"the 16th-century scholar Pietro Alcionio" (c. 1487 – 1527, op. accq)
describes "a Greek class by a Constantinople refugee, Demetrios Calkokondylas.
He remembers his teacher describing how the Greek Church authorities,
supported by the Byzantine emperors, burnt eminent classical Greek poetry,
including Sappho’s works, and replaced the burnt poems with those of Gregory
of Nazianzus."

It was obviously a long tradition, not something Calkokondylas would invent
after taking refuge from Constantinople. Note, until the "Fall of
Constantinople" in 1453 (
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_Constantinople](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_Constantinople)
) Constantinople was the capital of the Christian Roman empire (only in the
West called the Byzantine). The city was named after Constantine the Great,
the Emperor who enabled Christianity becoming official religion in the Empire.
So the people there had their stories about their own Emperors, and there was
surely some basis for these stories.

What's "not coherent" then (as you claim in
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15897264](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15897264)
)?

~~~
olavk
> Oh, so you do agree with me now...

Please lay off the strawmen and just argue your point. Thank you.

We don't know the content of the lost texts, but the few poems we have does
not indicate anything heretical or immoral to Christian sensibilities. Calling
her "a homosexual" is grossly anachronistic since this is 19th century
concept. On the other hand, many texts which clearly _are_ counter to
Christian morality _have_ been preserved. A _vast_ array of texts from
antiquity is lost, even something as highly valued as works by Aristotle. So
that texts are lost does _not_ in itself indicate a deliberate act of
destruction.

~~~
anigbrowl
You can't complain about things like that when your previous post was itself
fallacious (red herring).

~~~
olavk
What is the red herring?

------
djroomba
So book burning is something humans have always done.

Hopefully we don't pass on our primitive traits to refuse reality to our AI.

History shouldnt be written by the winners. History should be the truth.

~~~
sorokod
Doubt that these were "books" but yes, ideas often threaten people's beliefs
and consequently destroyed by those people.

------
surlyadopter
Bitrot, Byzantine style.

