You May Forget   You may forget but let me tell you this: someone in some future time will think of us   Charles-August Mengin's romantic 19th-century view of Sappho is accurate in several symbolic senses. Like the Cretan priestesses before her she is bare-breasted. The lyre she holds signifies her relationship with the Muses; the sea in the background is the goddess' element, the black costume refers to the death-aspect of the goddess, and the birds are significant too. The symbolism might have been improved........gold was the Sun's metal and Sappho may have preferred the Moon's silver.  The bird could have been the crane, which was of great importance to the temple, but so too were sea-birds and the halcyon.