Ancient Fragments

Lost poetry of Sappho (3rd century)
"My heart's grown heavy, my knees will not support me /.... This state I oft bemoan; but what's to do? / Not to grow old, being human, there's no way."—Sappho, Book IV

Famous for her ability to capture human emotion, Greek lyric poetess Sappho published nine volumes of poetry in her lifetime, all of which were lost until excavators discovered a few fragments among the Oxyrhynchus papyri. Until the find, Sappho's influential works were known only through brief quotations used by later authors.

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