The imagery in the second half of [fragment 94] is worthy of May Sarton: violets, roses, and, if the Greek is correctly restored in kro]kiōn (line 13), saffron (a type of crocus with purple flowers). The female associations of flowers in Sappho’s poetry are well established through references in other fragments to a woman who is like a mountain hyacinth trampled by shepherds (105c), the roses around Aphrodite’s temple (2), the many-flowered fields in Lydia where Atthis’ departed friend roams (96, line 11), the wreaths of flowers worn by the yellow-haired girl of fragment 98, and the golden flowers connected with Kleis (132). The predominance of such flower imagery in Sappho is all the more striking when we note its rarity in her compatriot, Alceus, whose favorite imagery involves the sea.
Jane McIntosh Snyder, “Public Occasion and Private Passion in the Lyrics of Sappho of Lesbos,” from Women’s History & Ancient History, ed. Sarah B. Pomeroy, 1991.
