81

… may she find even you, Cypris, too severe

and, as for Doricha,† may she never boast

that she returned for a second time

to the love she had longed for

*****

† Doricha: according to the historian, Herodotus, Charaxus, Sappho’s brother, fell in love with and freed a courtesan of Naucratis, called Rhodopis. When he returned to Mytilene, Herodotus continued, his sister ridiculed him in verse. Several centuries later, another ancient writer, Strabo, wrote that Sappho called Rhodopis, Doricha, although yet another, Athenaeus, rejected this. Modern scholars usually accept Strabo’s comment and identify this fragment as Sappho’s poem against her brother. See also No.121 and ‘The New Fragments: Texts, Translations and Retranslations’.