That naughty old Sappho of Greece
Said: "What I prefer to a piece
Is to have my pudenda
Rubbed hard by the enda
The little pink nose of my niece."
Norman Douglas:
"These lines being unintelligible to me, I sent them to my lady-specialist for comment and elucidation. Her reply, I confess, leaves me where I was – in complete ignorance of what the poem is about. She writes: 'I learnt no Greek at school, but have of course heard of Sappho's poems. They must be fifth-rate stuff, if she knew no more about poetry than she did about other things. The nose: what next? Be sure, dear Sir, there is some mistake here. The suggestion is too absurd. No woman is ever so much of a fool, not even under the influence of drink.'
"I will leave it there, and wait for enlightenment from some other quarter, merely noting that Sappho was not born in Greece (though a good many other people were) and that tradition fails to record whether she had a niece or not."