Sappho Tee — Fragment 31 | Palimpsest

"φαίνεταί μοι κῆνος — He seems to me equal to the gods."

Sappho of Lesbos wrote this around 600 BCE, and 2,600 years later it's still the most exact poem ever written about desire. Watching someone she loves talk with another, the poet feels her tongue break, a thin fire run under her skin, her ears ring, her eyes go dark — love catalogued as it happens to the body. Catullus loved it so much he translated it into Latin; we've been reading it ever since.

The design: a lyre and Sappho's famous first line in the original Greek and English on the chest — and the complete poem on the back, her Greek beside a public-domain English translation. Printed on light shirts so the fine linework stays crisp.

The blank: Comfort Colors® 1717 — 100% ring-spun US cotton, garment-dyed for soft, broken-in colour, heavyweight 6.1 oz, relaxed unisex fit, sizes S–3XL.

Care: Machine wash cold (max 30°C). Do not bleach. Tumble dry low. Iron low. Do not dry clean.

EU representative: HONSON VENTURES LIMITED, gpsr@honsonventures.com, 3, Gnaftis House flat 102, Limassol, Mesa Geitonia, 4003, CY

Product information: Comfort Colors® 1717, 2 year warranty in EU and Northern Ireland as per Directive 1999/44/EC

Warnings, Hazard: Made in Honduras

Care instructions: Machine wash: cold (max 30C or 90F), Do not bleach, Tumble dry: low heat, Iron, steam or dry: low heat, Do not dryclean

Size guide — Comfort Colors® 1717

Garment measurements, not body measurements. Lay a favourite tee flat and compare its width and length. Width is measured across the chest, not around it.