Though the poem is conventionally considered to be completely preserved, there are two places where the reading is uncertain. It is also partially preserved on Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 2288, a second-century papyrus discovered at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt. It was preserved in Dionysius of Halicarnassus' On Composition, quoted in its entirety as an example of 'smooth' or 'polished' writing, a style which Dionysius also identifies in the work of Hesiod, Anacreon, and Euripides. The Ode to Aphrodite survived from antiquity. The poem makes use of Homeric language, and alludes to episodes from the Iliad. The seriousness with which Sappho intended the poem is disputed, though at least parts of the work appear to be intentionally humorous. The poem ends with an appeal to Aphrodite to once again come to the speaker's aid. It begins with an invocation of the goddess Aphrodite, which is followed by a narrative section in which the speaker describes a previous occasion on which the goddess has helped her.

The Ode to Aphrodite comprises seven Sapphic stanzas. The poem survives in almost complete form, with only two places of uncertainty in the text, preserved through a quotation from Dionysius of Halicarnassus' treatise On Composition and in fragmentary form in a scrap of papyrus discovered at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt. The Ode to Aphrodite (or Sappho fragment 1 ) is a lyric poem by the archaic Greek poet Sappho, who wrote in the late seventh and early sixth centuries BCE, in which the speaker calls on the help of Aphrodite in the pursuit of a beloved. Sappho, depicted on an Attic kalpis, c.510 BC

Sappho poems and fragments