After Sappho, fragment 5, and fragment 15, and Ovid, Letters of the Heroines 15, lines 63-70 and 117-120
Nereids, you who bring the sailor safely home from sea,
and Cypris, my own patient goddess, hear a sister’s plea!
You’re angry with my brother, and your rage is justified.
I’ve begged him on my knees to mend his ways. How hard I’ve tried!
He doesn’t seem to care. He’s put his family to shame.
But please don’t punish him. I know the person who’s to blame:
he’s thrown his money at Doricha, that Egyptian whore.
He’s broke. He’s turned to piracy because he needs some more.
The fool! And yet I love him still. He’s not a wicked boy.
Please grant that soon, instead of heartache, he may bring us joy;
that friends he’s lost may speak his name with pride again one day;
but punish those (especially her) who’ve tempted him to stray.
Correct (but with a gentle hand!) the errings of his past
and set my dear Charaxus on a virtuous course at last.
I close with hope that, in your mercy, you will spare a thought
for Sappho, scanning the horizon, weeping at the port.