Erinna (Ἤριννα) was an ancient Hellenicpoet. Biographical details about her life are uncertain. She is generally thought to have lived in the first half of the fourth century BC, though some ancient traditions have her as a contemporary of Sappho; Telos is generally considered to be her most likely birthplace, but Tenos, Teos, Rhodes, and Lesbos are all also mentioned by ancient sources as her home. Erinna is best known for her long poem, the Distaff, a three-hundred line hexameter lament for her childhood friend Baucis, who had died shortly after marriage. A large fragment of this poem was discovered in 1928 at Behnasa in Egypt. Along with the Distaff, three epigrams ascribed to Erinna are known, preserved in the Greek Anthology. I'll shre a part fo the Distaff today.

Stele and my sirens and mournful urn,
you who enclose the little ash of Hades,
say farewell to those passing my grave,
whether local townsmen or from other cities;
say also that the tomb holds me, a bride; and say this too:
that my father called me Baukis and by race
I was from Tenos, so they may know, and that my friend
Erinna caused this writing to be engraved on the tomb.

I belong to Baukis the bride. As you pass through the much-lamented
stele, say this to the subterranean Hades:
"You are spiteful, Hades." To the viewer, these beautiful letters
will announce the most cruel fate of Baukis:
that with the torches to which the Hymen song was sung,
her father-in-law cremated the girl on this pyre.
For your part, Hymenaeus, you changed the tuneful marriage song
to the anguished wail of lament.