Metzger has a doctorate in English Renaissance literature and teaches literature and drama at the University of New Mexico. She is also a professional writer and the author of several reference texts on literature. In this essay, Metzger discusses the problems of translating Sappho's work and the resulting differences in meaning that result.

During her lifetime, Sappho never wrote down a single poem. Her poetry was celebrated throughout the Greek world and often copied and passed around, but all of this occurred many years after her death. Her work was also the inspiration for other poets, so much so that Plato labeled her the "tenth muse." She was acknowledged to be as great a poetess as Homer had been a poet, and yet Sappho's songs and poems only survived by chance. After her death, the development of a Greek alphabet and writing materials allowed Sappho's admirers to...