GETTING READY TO PRAY: SAPPHO'S NEW 'BROTHERS' SONG

With the recent publication of the new Sappho song by Dirk Obbink, we now have two largely preserved songs by Sappho apparently dealing with prayers for a brother away at sea. Both are examples of a type of song relating not to eros, marriage, or hymns to gods, but to bonds of love and duty between women and their male family; songs whose primary emotional focus is not other women, but male relatives absent from home. © 2016 The Classical Association.