TAP TO PLAY
Thus, satire, mockery, even invective were not at allforeign to Sappho. Such a poetess, compared in antiquity to Socrates for herverbal admonitions and irony, could very easily incur the enmity of Lesbianhigh society, just as Socrates gained the enmity of certain prominentAthenians.
And in many ways, Sappho follows the pattern for blame poetswe have already seen. She was the worst. She was reported to be very ugly, aswere Aesop and Hipponax: “In appearance she seems to have been contemptible[[eu]kataphronētos] and quite ugly [duseidestatē[n]], being dark in complexionand of very small stature.” Her homosexuality was reportedly also a cause forrecrimination.
She was also the best: she was judged to be the best ofwomen poets. “I know of no woman who even came close to rivalling her as a poet,”writes Strabo. She was sacred, and boasts that “the Muses had made her trulyblessed and enviable”; she describes herself as one who serves the Muses: “Forit is not right that there should be lamentation in the house of those whoserve the Muses. That would not be fitting for us.” She is frequentlyassociated with the Muses, and was in fact called the tenth Muse. As a writerof love poetry, she is, of course, strongly associated with Aphrodite; Alcaeusperhaps calls her “holy [agna].”
from “Chapter 8: Sappho, The Barbed Rose” in Victimof the Muses: Poet as Scapegoat, Warrior and Hero in Greco-Roman andIndo-European Myth and History by Todd M. Compton. (Hellenic Studies Series11, Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies). https://chs.harvard.edu/chapter/part-i-greece-8-sappho-the-barbed-rose/