Sappho 96

The first twenty lines describe an imaginary scene in which an unnamed woman is struck by grief remembering an absent companion, Atthis; the remaining 17 lines, possibly originally a separate poem, reflects more generally on the foolishness of trying to compare human and divine beauty.

[3] It is part of the collection of the Egyptian Museum of Berlin, which acquired it in 1896,[5] a gift of a Dr Reinhardt, then the German vice-consul in Bushehr,[6] and was first published by Wilhelm Schubart in 1902.

[7] The extant text begins in the middle of a stanza, and it is uncertain how many lines preceded the surviving portion.

[16] The first seven stanzas of Sappho 96 describe an imaginary scene of a Lydian woman remembering Atthis[b] and being struck by grief.

[21] Much of the surviving text of the poem is occupied by an extended simile which compares the Lydian woman to the "rosy-fingered moon".