Women's History: Erinna the fourth-century poet

Erinna ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_language - Greek : Ἤριννα) was a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greece - Greek poet, a contemporary and friend of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sappho - Sappho , a native of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhodes - Rhodes or the adjacent island of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilos - Telos or even possibly http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinos - Tenos , who flourished about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/600_BC - 600 BC (according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eusebius - Eusebius , she was well known in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/352_BC - 352 BC ^{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erinna#_note-0 - [1]}). Her best-known poem was the Distaff ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_language - Greek Ἠλᾰκάτη), written in a mixture of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeolic_Greek - Aeolic and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doric_Greek - Doric Greek and consisting of 300 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexameter - hexameter lines, of which only four were extant until 1928. Three epigrams ascribed to her in the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Anthology - Palatine anthology probably belong to a later date, though some debate on the first epigram exists.

In 1928, a papyrus (PSI 1090) was found that contained 54 fragmentary lines by the poet in six pieces ^{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erinna#_note-1 - [2]} now located in the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurentian_Library - Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana . The poem is a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lament - lament (Greek θρῆνος) on the death of her friend, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baucis - Baucis (Greek Βαυκίς), a disciple of Sappho, shortly before her wedding.

Camillo Neri, in an http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_language - Italian work assessing the surviving fragments and testimonies to her, reconstructs the poet's original name as "Herinna" (Ἥριννα).^{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erinna#_note-2 - [3]} She is also sometimes named "Erina."