Cleis

SapphoSappho

1 min read · 12.5K reads

Sleep, darling
I have a small
daughter called
Cleis, who islike a golden
flower
I wouldn't
take all Croesus'
kingdom with love
thrown in, for her---Don't ask me what to wear
I have no embroidered
headband from Sardis to
give you, Cleis, such as
I wore
and my mother
always said that in her
day a purple ribbon
looped in the hair was thought
to be high style indeedbut we were dark:
a girl
whose hair is yellower than
torchlight should wear no
headdress but fresh flowers
Sappho
About the poet

Sappho

c. 600 BCE/GreekThe only contemporary source which refers to Sappho's life is her own body of poetry, and scholars are skeptical of biographical readings of it. Later biographical traditions, from which all more detailed accounts derive, have also been cast i…

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