Doomed to Fail - Ep 207: Hey Ladies!!! - Sappho

Episode Date: June 18, 2025

To continue our look at LGBTQ+ history let's talk about Sappho! While we cannot put modern definitions onto ancient people, we do assume that Sappho had relationships with women based on her love poems to women. She ran a school for women on the isle of Lesbos (you get it) and we are still discovering fragments of her work! Join us as Taylor reads Farz a love poem, and he says 'Sorry, I zoned out. Join our Founders Club on Patreon to get ad-free episodes for life! patreon.com/DoomedtoFailPodWe would love to hear from you! Please follow along! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doomedtofailpod/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/doomedtofailpod  Youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/@doomedtofailpod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@doomed.to.fail.pod Email: [e-mail] 

It's a matter of the people of the state of California versus Orenthal James Simpson, case number B.A.019. And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country. All right, Taylor, we are back talking about how excited we are for this upcoming Halloween. I know that was so funny. Like, killing you for Halloween. I'm like, okay.

June, it's June. It'll happen. No, I'm looking at your weather. God, it's hot here. It's 100 degrees already today. Our tortoise is coming on Wednesday. He is not the old one that we thought we were going to get. He is a younger one.

He is three years old. What a cutie. We are naming him the BFG, which stands for Ben Franklin's ghost. Do you have a picture? I do not. The lady was like, do you want me to send you a picture? I was like, no, this is a big. Is it a big?

I actually said it's a size of a cantaloupe. Aw, that's so cute. And so we've been prepping to the backyard, and then we have to, like, just make sure that it's clean. And then he has to come inside at night because he's still so little. So I got him, we got him like a big bin to live in. And in the bin, we have a little fake burrow because he needs to practice burrowing. So we also bought him a flower pot to burrow in because they like to practice burrowing. That is the cutest thing.

I will have him until my death and my children will have him after my death. Your great, great grandchildren are going to have it. So you just like, this is your. generational inheritance to the family bloodline. I was like, when you go pet, you go hard. I know. I'm going to live forever. I know. It's like when people go and buy like

parrots and it's like you realize I think live 70 years. Like it's like... No, I know. And I'm definitely talked about how that's stupid and I'm here buying or not buying. I'm adopting. He lives at the zoo right now, so I think he'll really like living here. And I'm going to make him a little three point hat because he's Ben Franklin's ghost. and I can't wait

I think I'm going to start looking into the adoption procedures for a Greenland shark Oh yeah You keep it in your cowboy pool out in the back Yeah see see how it does when it's 400 plus years old Perfect perfect That is very cool I'm very excited I desperately actually legitimately totally need to see pictures

And like live streams and everything I think we're going to do TikToks together because I think that that's going to up our viewership if I do it with Ben Franklin's Ghost. So I made a little logo of it for him. He's just, I already love him so much and he's not even here yet. That's so cute.

I would do it with Luna. I would do live streams with Luna, but like she's not cute. Yeah, and I don't think he's going to make any noise. Like he doesn't make noise. The tortoises make noise. We'll find out.

We'll find out. Maybe it is. Over the rest of my life. I like how they eat like old people even when they're young. I know. I'm just going to leave. I got a stone to leave out for him and put his food on. Anyway, he's going to be very happy.

Wait, what, tomorrow you get it? Wednesday. I'm meeting a lady in a parking lot to get him. He's lucky. He's like going to get a good home. Yeah, thank you. That's sweet. Cool. Do you want to introduce us? Oh, yes. Hello. Welcome to June to fail.

I am Taylor joined by Fars. My eye is twitching. I'm going to murder someone. And we bring you history's most notorious disaster. an epic failure space a week and far as went earlier this week and now it is my turn and we're going to cover a tortoise themed episode i'm going to make him my entire personality i hope you do that's really cool it's going to be i'm going to be a tortoise mom i've always been between us i've always associated our differences here is like you're the human loving side of the spectrum and i'm the animal loving side of the spectrum and like you're showing tremendous growth

because I have not come to your side. I'm still on the animal side, but you have. You actually not even, I was going to say you seguated to the animal side, but you didn't segue. You went like off the deep end. You didn't even start with a gerbil.

No, we did have a, we had a beta fish for a little bit, but he died. So. Barely counts, but yes. Yeah. I mean, I cleaned his tank a lot and like took care of him.

I'm sorry. You're sorry, what? I'm sorry for your loss. Thank you. It was sad. I'm being serious. Thank you. So, yes, Ben Franklin's ghost comes on Wednesday.

I can't wait for him to be a big part of our social media strategy and the rest of my life. Like, we are going to get to an Airbnb leave to bring it with us. I hope so. I mean, that's thing. You could take it. I know we do. But, yeah, put him in a bin and take him. And then he'll be like, put him out in the sun, let him sun bathe for a little bit during the day.

It's been so cute when he's like 175 pounds. and you bring him on the flight with you and you get them like two, like a whole row. I know. I told you that I was like imagining myself when we had that fire, like evacuating, carrying this like 100 pound tortoise, be like, we have to go.

That's going to be tough. Do you know how big they actually do get, this version? No, big. Do you know what kind of, with the species of tortoises? It's a desert tortoise. Is that a species?

Does a desert tortoise get? that is a tortoises grow to be 9 to 15 inches long and between 4 to 6 inches high They can wait up to 8 to 15 pounds They're not going to be like a small cat Like a small cat, okay Yeah

Yeah They're so cute Look at that little Look at my God There's a picture of it coming out of its shell Oh my God Yeah it's going to be just I was a picture of one of them smiling

It's going to be wild You know we've been watching I'm sorry everyone And we've been watching, it's a great show on Netflix called Camp Cretaceous. And it's about kids who are in camp at Jurassic World, when Jurassic World goes down. It's wonderful. But in the last season, most recent season, they get a little ankyosaurus, like a baby. And this is kind of the same thing.

Because I was like, I would get a baby angliosaurus. Like, it's little and it kind of looks like a tortoise without a shell. And he's not going to grow up to be full-supplies anachosaurus because that's not a thing. Yeah, it's more manageable. you know what Taylor this is going to be a topic of discussion for the next like six years I think what bad Franklin's ghost

yeah me and you talking about this because I mean he will be here literally forever so I'll bring him to your funeral what do they I'm looking at up they legit live between 50 and 80 years I actually like literally have to

call my financial advisor and change I will yeah because I don't want to any bets in it. Anyway, that's not how we're talking about, but we will definitely be talking about it a lot. If you die, I would take him. Oh, thank you. Yeah. I already love him. Thanks. Um, very fun. Um, cool. Cool. Cute. Um, okay. Anyway, hello. I wrote, It's still Pride Month, despite the horrors outside. So I had another Pride Month story to tell you.

Okay. What do you got? I wanted to go back into ancient times and talk about the mother of all lesbians, Sappho. I have no idea who that is. Great. Well, we're going to go all the way back. This is ancient Greece. So I want you to picture ancient Greece.

Like, you are sitting outside and there are pillars everywhere. and someone, you're wearing a toga and someone is playing a liar, which I think is like a harp, and singing a poem to you. And you're wearing sandals. I say sandals. You have sandals on, you're eating grapes. Like, this is what we're picturing. I'm there. This is, this is it. You're there. There's wine in like jugs, lamb, probably, all the things. So Sappho is a, is a poet, a lyrical poet from about, she was born in 630 BC to well, well to do. you parents on the island of Lesbos, which is part of Greece.

So, have you been to Greece? No. No. It looks so pretty. It does. So the way that Greece is, it is like attached to Europe,

but also it is a ton of islands. And Lesbos is an island that is all the way east, almost in Turkey, which is like a wild place to be, because that is where conflict is, literally always. So Lesbos has been through some shit, considering where it's located.

So people have lived there since at least 3,000 BC. So there's evidence that people live there for a very long time. Shepherds and people who lived in caves in classical times, like in ancient Greece, it had five really big cities. One was destroyed by an earthquake. One was destroyed by the Romans. After Cyrus

the Great came through, it was owned and operated by the Persians. I don't know why I said it like that, but the Persians had it. then it went back to Greece, then the Romans came, and then it belonged to Rome, then in the Middle Ages, it belonged to the Byzantine Empire, then to the Ottoman Empire, because it's just like in the middle of all of these conflicts and all these wars. It's just like constantly changing. In 1912, there was a big battle there for the first Balkan War, which I didn't know, I don't know anything about the first Balkan War, but that was a battle there for that. After World War I, and the Turkish war, which is another war, the ownership came, the Ottoman Empire left and all of the Muslims left as well. So then it became mostly Greek Christians, like it was before the Ottoman Empire. Also, another thing that I did not know about is a lot of Greek people moved to Lesbos in the early 1900s because of the Greek genocide, which is when the Christian

Ottoman Greek population of Anatolia was systematically killed during World War I in its aftermath based on their religion, because they wanted them out of there. So I did not know that, but a lot of people left because of that. And then it was occupied by the Nazis until Greece was liberated in 1944. So it's always like something happening around this very strategic spot. Yeah, very colorful history. Yeah. So obviously Lesbos is the, the origin of the word lesbian as well because of Sappho and her having lived there. Also, the word sapphic is used to describe, like, women romantically together, and that comes from her name. Really? Is that where Sephardic comes from? Sephardic? Yeah, I guess. Is that a word? It's a type of Judaism, kind of like how they're Sunni and she.

8? No. Okay, it has something to do with that. Nothing to do with that. No, I don't think there's Jewish people in this story at all. So, because it's, no, it's Sappho. So, like, Sapphic, not Sephardic. Got it. Okay. Cut that out that. We thought it's stupid.

Thanks for saying we. We did. What's the best of it? So, we know very little about her truly. And again, this is, like, this is ancient history. She's, you know, being born in 600 BC. Like, there are, you know, this is ancient history. You have to believe it. kind of stuff like we don't know we know very very little about her in her life she may have had some

brothers she may have had a child but she definitely wrote poetry about women and loving women um possibly some men as well so there's a lot of like debate about her sexuality but like the answer is we can't put a modern label on her you know like who knows exactly what it was but we know that she really existed and really wrote these poems so what we know about her also comes from like fragments of her poetry literally it's on clay and like found on papyrus and stuff found like centuries after she lived so it's hard to like learn about a real person from their poetry like is it autobiographical i don't know like she never said if it was or it wasn't anywhere we just have it so i'm not sure but but her life in ancient greece she ran a school for girls like

girls and young women where she taught them music and dance and like etiquette probably they all came from rich families and what we can imagine is a place where women were allowed to like show love for each other in different ways so like there were you know there's stories of like intense attachments and jealousy from the girls just like you know having a little girlfriend and you know what it reminded me a lot of the school that eleanor roosevelt went to in england um i know we talked about that like years ago but like she went to a school for girls and like the head teacher was definitely a lesbian and a lot of the girls had crushes on her like one of the girls wrote a book about it there was definitely like little girlfriend things happening there just like a really intense

place to have relationships does that make sense reminds me more of the nunnery that woman who killed her husband and then oh yeah yeah killed an old nun and ran off with another one it's like a place for women like be together um so it's similar it's probably similar to what we know about like ancient greek men would have relationships where it was like a young man and an older man and it would be like a mentor relationship but also a sexual relationship yeah it's a little fraught yeah so it's a lot yeah so it's probably what was going on now um one example like that we don't know why her life that's like a debated thing is she might have had a child named cleese that might have been a girl

but in the poem that she wrote she calls this person and clays her beloved so that could mean a child it could also mean a girlfriend it could also mean a whatever like there's just no way to interpret it or figure out exactly what

it is and what it means right but that person existed some texts in history say that she was married to a man named Carculus of Andros which literally translates to penis from Man Island they were very literal

well I don't I think that that means that he's not real it's like saying like yeah my boyfriend lives in you know Broville and his name is strong strong face Max power

yeah exactly so that's like that's probably probably was a joke we do know that she wrote 10,000 lines of poetry but we only have 650 and we know that because she a lot of her work was written into anthologies and there were like books about her and like books that were um that were like of her of her poems but they got lost um kind of like in the beginning of um you know the beginning of the ce times there might have been some like in Alexandria things like that but it kind of went out of fashion like her the dialect of greek that she used wasn't popular anymore and people just kind of didn't want to

buy it anymore so they stop making it so it's like a business you know i think that might account for a lot of things that are missing because like if it's popular people are going to keep copying it you know and keep selling it and all of that but if it's not then it's going to get lost right you know it makes i think that makes a lot of sense so there's also rumors that in 1073 the pope destroyed a lot of her work because it was scandalous and then again in 1550 there's rumors that a lot of it was burned then as well, but we really don't know. Some of it is like literally just like a couple words and somehow we know that she wrote them. So like there's like one fragment that just, it's so interesting because they're like,

there's people who have just like little pieces of this and like that is their job to like analyze it. And so this is fragment 169A and it just says wedding gifts. Like what does that mean? I don't know. I mean, they probably know from like how it was written the style, what it was written. on where it was found like they could probably do some of that stuff totally and it's actually something

super interesting so there is a thing where I have never seen this with like ancient sites before but I've seen on like Instagram or on the internet people who get permission to search land in like England that used to be a Victorian

garbage dump and they find cool shit all the time like cool bottles and like buttons and like dollheads and just like It's so cool. I wish I had a Victorian landfill to rummage through. That was like the coolest part about when I was in Lisbon a few years ago. And you're just walking to the city and it's all normal buildings.

And then you're like inside, like on the side, like there's like ancient ruins buried like 50 feet below you. And they're like, yeah, we were like knocking over this building to build something you on it. And it's part of trying to dig out the foundation dirt. They found like this old like, I don't know what it was, an amphitheater or something. And, like, we're just sitting there. And now it's like preserved forever. It's like really fun. I love that.

Yeah. That's so cool. So in the end of the 19th century, people started to excavate an ancient rubbish dump in Greece that led to a lot of things. So like they got to go to like an ancient Greek garbage dump and find things. And they did find things. People have found some of her poetry as like recently as 2014. There was a poem. called the brothers that was not previously known

that can be attributed to Sappho. Isn't that cool? Yeah, it's wild. Yeah. So what am I supposed to? What is this? So one, a couple pieces and other fragments that I think are fun are one said, quote,

I grow old and my hair turns white. I often grown, but what can I do? Relatable. We all feel that. Yeah. Another one is quote, someone will remember us. I say, even in another time, which I think is cool.

My bones grown, which is probably not a good sign. I know. Plato called her the 10th muse, Maximus of Tyre compared her to Socrates for her teaching. So she was just like really popular in her day. And then we're continuing to learn stuff about her. So of course, I'm going to read you the one full poem that we have of hers. That I thought I had up and I do. It is called The Ode to Aphrodite.

You ready? Yes. Okay, I'm going to try to go slow. Everyone for my best. Ornate throned, immortal Aphrodite, while weaving daughter of Zeus, I entreat you. Do not overpower my heart, mistress, with ache and anguish. But come here, if ever in the past, you heard my voice from afar, and acquiesced and came, leaving your father's golden house, with chariot yoke.

beautiful swift sparrows whirring fast-beating wings brought you above the dark earth down from heaven through the mid-air and soon they arrived and you blessed one with a smile on your immortal face asked what was the matter with me this time and why i was calling this time and what in my maddened heart i most wish to happen for myself whom am i to persuade this time to lead you back to her love who wrongs you saffo if she runs away soon she shall pursue if she does not accept gifts why she shall give them instead and if she does not love soon she shall love even against her will come to me now again and deliver me from oppressive anxieties fulfill all that my heart longs to fulfill and you yourself be my fellow fighter you just took me back to years and years and years ago when you said your big hope for your children is that none of them will be a poet. I know. We talk about it all the time. It's like, like, sure, I heard everything you said. I'm sure it's beautiful and lovely. Exactly.

It's also just like, it's like, life isn't, like, there's something ego maniacal about poetry that just drives me nuts. It's like, it's like, if you just throw up enough, we all know the words. Like, you, like, chat you, chat should you do, you know what, I'm done. I'm done. well if you listen to it again when you're editing it I think it's also very relatable because she's like asking Aphrodite to help some

someone love her and everybody's like we've done this before who is it now you know like who's breaking your heart now why are you crying again let's get her just go drink something and like throw a rock at the ocean like it's fine sure that she did both those things actually living on an island and being great like this we weren't all of at a tree I don't know

so that's the only poem that we have I also in this wanted to tell you that one of the first probably the person who wrote down first the term it's all Greek to me

was Shakespeare I don't know if you do that seriously? Yeah because I actually learned that in the Who Was show that the kids show on Netflix but in the play Julius Caesar Cassia's

Cassius says, did Cicero say anything? And Casca says, I, he spoke Greek. And Cassius says, to what effect? And then Casca says a bunch of other stuff, but he says, for my own part, it was Greek to me. Like, I couldn't understand it because it was literally Greek. And then that just like became a thing. Oh, wow. Yeah, never knew that. Yeah. Yeah, I thought that was fun. So in the year 600, Saffa was exiled to Sicily for some reason. It's probably because something with like political upheaval and being in their families. Like another poet of the time, Alcayas, he was exiled as well during this period. And then she was able to later go back to Lesbos.

And then the rumor is that she died by jumping off a cliff because a man broke her heart. But that is probably not true. but the way the reason that that is famous is because in like the roman era after the greek era they wrote like comedy plays about her and some of them they would try to like you know make her seem like she wasn't in these like relationships that she was in these like heterosexual relationships they said that she was hopelessly in love with a beautiful fairy man and he didn't love her so she jumped off the lucidian cliffs but that's probably not too not true it's probably meant to mock um the passionate style of her poetry and to say like like you were saying like oh she's too emotional i mean is anybody wrong i mean we know what happened to like sylvia plath you know i don't she stuck her head in an oven and died of gas and she was a poet yes Like, okay, these people are so obnoxious.

They, they, I feel like they all would live in like Williamsburg right now. Oh, 100%. And, like, while they're having like avocado toast and like a $14 coffee, be like, low as me, whoa. It's just like, God, I hate you people. I have 100. I haven't too. There's like one person, I don't know her name who was like an aspiring singer and like someone's brother that I knew was like a manager of her or something. We went to her like exactly that.

like Williamsburg apartment and it was just like it was like a movie like the whole apartment was like you know there's sheets everywhere like tapestries everywhere and then like everybody was like jamming on like instruments together it's just like exactly that you know like you're so annoying it's so annoying because like they wouldn't be that way but for the privileges that life gave them yet they don't recognize that and see themselves as beleaguered whereas like regular people are like, oh, I have to go to work today, even though this person, or whatever, like, somebody in my family has cancer. Like, it's like, they have, like, hard to actually overcome.

And I think, I think that that is a really good point and exactly what Saffo was. She was rich, you know, and. Oh, yeah, I forgot that part. She had the time to do this. And I think a lot of the people that we talk about are rich, like Mary Shelley, you know, like they just, like, had the time to do this. The wallow. Yeah.

Yeah, which is interesting. Anyway, that's it. That's it. She just threw herself off a cliff. Maybe. She's definitely dead because she was born, you know, 2,000 years ago. I am going to, when we hang up,

ask Chachabit to pull a list of every, like, famous poet and that every famous poet who we know died by suicide. And I bet it's going to be a 50-50 list. Yeah. It's probably a lot. Probably author. too because a lot of them just drink themselves to death

that's true I wonder why that's a Dorothy Parker did um I don't know yeah weird all that passion maybe it's because we just know the most famous ones like Bukowski you know like or what was that one guy

the one that Johnny Depp's his best friends with or was and he threw his oh yeah the fear and loathing and loathing guy yeah yeah weird I don't know anyway that's a story

lessons are being learned um sweet okay get to the coconuts okay so you win coconut debates because well miles likes them Juan says is it kind of on the fence but then Justin emailed in and he likes them so you win I think it's like four to three I would have assumed it would be a bigger victory than that but I'll I'll take it anyone if anyone else wants to join you can always email us dupilpot at gmail.com are coconuts good raw eating them we'll talk about it forever we'll talk about that we'll talk about Ben Franklin's ghost it'll be it'll be amazing Taylor I just sent you a Facebook group for desert desert tortoise enthusiast while you were talking because I joined the group and they asked you why I want to join the group and I was like because my friend is

getting a desert tortoise I want to know everything about them that is perfect i will join i'll be like i'm the friend i'm sure that these are the two things from today i'm as soon to be enthusiast a lot of them um i'm getting do you currently keep i'm about you i'm about you fun this one's eating a little flower num num num num num oh my

they're so cute he doesn't look like an old man until he is an old an old man and then just be able oh no did one get hurt oh oh poor baby I'm gonna feed him

vegetables. It's going to be cute. I guess a dog can chew on him and kill them. Yeah, that happened to someone I know. Ugh, that's horrible. Yeah. Oh, wait, I hear someone who has a 100-pound one. I guess maybe he will get bigger.

I mean, it's all genetic, right? Yeah. Um. Oh, my gosh. so funny. I just, I cannot imagine me taking him like to the vet. It's going to be so much. Do you have a vet that'll

see him? I'm sure we do. Well, I think he's coming from the zoo and... The zoo's got to have vets for the zoo. I think I'll probably take him back. Okay. Okay. Yeah, anyway. Sweet. Well, thank you for sharing

all the things, all the stories. and yeah, I guess we don't have any more lists or mail. No, that's it. All right. That was a good one. I won. You did. Congratulations.

Oh, my God. These are... I'm just, okay, I'm just going to look at pictures of tortoises now. Okay, great. Thank you, everyone, for listening. Go Google tortoises. Happy Father's Day. Go adopt one if you have the ability to keep one for a very long time.

Don't be one of those people that gets it and gets rid of it? because that's mean. So, sweet. Well, thanks, Taylor. We'll go ahead and cut things off there. Cool.