Poetry of Sappho

Though it isn’t easy for us to rival
goddesses in the loveliness of their figures [
[LP 96.21–22]
] for my mother said
that when she was a girl if you
bound the locks of your hair in back,
gathered there in a circlet of plaited purple,
that was truly a fine adornment,
but for blondes with hair yellower
than a torch it is better to fasten it
with fresh garlands of flowers in bloom,
and more recently there were headbands
decorated in Sardis, elaborately
embroidered [
] Ionian cities [
the poetry of sappho 25
[ ]
But for you, dearest Kleïs, I
have no intricate headband and
nowhere that I can get one: the Mytilénean