Part 2
And love sent Atthis and me along the beach, stretching our legs, running, dashing in and out of shallows, finding periwinkles, the day even-tempered, goats nibbling at wild celery, their bells lazy, a fisherman waving at us as he cast his net, clouds over the mountain. I noticed Atthis against the luminous water, her fragile face trusting life. Her yellow ringlets in my lap, she sang to me and then, eyes shut, fingers in the sand, she seemed to steal away.
“What are you thinking about, darling?”
“You...”
“What about?”
“You and Alcaeus—you are so troubled for him.”
“Then you have seen him?”
“Yesterday. And I’m afraid.”
“Why?”
“Because what is there left for him—and you?”
“I can’t answer you, Atthis. Time answers such questions.”
I sense my old loneliness, a loneliness that was distorted like a ship’s rib, tossed on the beach, warped because of bad luck.
“His arms have been injured, too,” Atthis said.
“They will get better, in time...” And I heard time in the receding wave and felt it in her ringlets and in her hands.
“You’re so sweet,” she said and I saw myself mirrored in her eyes. And it occurred to me that Alcaeus and I would never again be able to exchange notes, those hasty, affectionate scribbles. Would he ever again dictate his bawdy poems, lampoon dictators and brag about war? Had pen and desk become his enemies?
Many things occurred to me, there on the sand, as Atthis and I talked softly.
Sappho’s garden, terraces of roses, shrubbery and cypress,
has the ocean below: moonlit, she stands white-robed
close to marble statuary:
a nude Hermes, a bust of Aphrodite,
a niobe, an athlete from Delphi.
Sappho sits down on a bench and fingers a lyre.
Mytilene
T
onight, I have returned to my poetry, for the solace and sound of my pen. Here in my library, time will be defeated for a moment, at least. The sun’s last rays stream in, so yellow, they might be made of acacia. The cooling light covers my desk and bookshelves and relinquishes its hold of my vase. A fragment clings to the amphora Alcaeus gave me long ago. Its dancing, singing men seem somehow out of focus; yet it seems I hear the flute and lyre of the ceramic players.
I dreamed I talked with Cyprus-born...
No, that is a poor line.
Maybe this is a better theme for tonight:
But I, I love delicate living, and for me,
richness and beauty belong to the sun...
There was a symposium and Gyrinno danced for the guests and afterwards brought me news about Alcaeus, how he left the party and wandered to the beach. There he quarreled with Charaxos, both armed with sticks and staggering drunk. At first, Gyrinno garbled the news, mixing it with the symposium’s talk of war, the defeat, the hatreds of many kinds, including punishment and forfeit. It must have been a sorry meeting, this reunion of our warriors. Gyrinno reached me drenched with wine the men hard thrown on her. Other girls had been treated the same.
Welcome home—men!
When I had soothed Gyrinno and bathed and perfumed and powdered her, I went to the beach, thinking I might find them. Yes, they were there, quarreling on the sand, my lover and my brother, kicking their naked shins on driftwood, their servants standing by, only half interested and half awake.
“Charaxos,” I began.
“Ah...I rather expected you.”
“Sappho?” called Alcaeus.
“Get up, both of you.” I moved past the servants indignantly.
“Just leave us alone,” growled Charaxos.
“Leave a blind man with you, when it is you who is really blind?”
“Let’s not resume our quarrel,” said Charaxos.
“When have we stopped?”
“Please go away,” said Alcaeus, “I can take care of him, myself.”
“I’ll not go! I intend to see you home!” And I ordered the servants to separate them and leave me with Alcaeus.
Mumbling, he followed along the shore, walking uncertainly, but keeping out of the way of the inrushing water. Where rocks littered the beach, he allowed me to help him, and was soon apologizing.
“I haven’t been home a month and already I act the fool. What right have I to criticize anybody? So he brought home a slave woman. Haven’t I had my share?”
I did not interrupt, preoccupied as I was with guiding him. Besides, my anger with Charaxos was too old, too deep-seated, too complex. It was not a subject to pursue on the beach, with the wind carrying our words and the breakers drowning them. This was, I preferred, a private quarrel.
With Charaxos and his men following a distance apart, we made a pretty picture, hiccoughing through Mytilene! Its silent streets were topped by a new moon; Venus seemed swallowed by a single window. Why were we in such contrast?
Laughter and outworn songs...swaying and shuffling...until the shutting of my door.
Alone, I sit beside my lamp to consider its flame, the why and wherefore of its integrity, fragility. Shadows are commonplace when we ignite a lamp. Yet, without a light, there are profounder shadows.
I hear that Alcaeus goes out alone, forbidding his servants to follow. Everyone has become uneasy.
Today, he dismissed his secretary. So poor Gogu has sought me out to explain what happened.
“Someday he will do me in. He has threatened this often enough!” He was trembling so hard, he could hardly speak. It is no wonder Alcaeus calls him a “stick of driftwood.” He has an abandoned air that begs to be found and picked up.
“The least word, the least word upsets him. And you know how Alcaeus can rant!”
“Yes, well...”
“He says our great fight at Sigeum was lost through sheer carelessness. Of course, he blames the other officers...”
But then, Gogu has never held anyone’s interest or respect for long. Who but Alcaeus would have hired an epileptic, in the first place? Almost everyone has rescued Gogu, at one time or another, from the surf, the wine shop, the brothel or the forum. How does this knobby skeleton manage to survive and endure?
“You will speak to Alcaeus? You promise?”
I promised. The dread of having Gogu permanently abandoned is worse than imploring Alcaeus to take him back. Besides, his scholarship is often surprising, and Alcaeus can use his help.
So later, I invited Alcaeus and some friends to supper. We sat around the courtyard fountain and listened to the harpists playing under the burning lamps. Libus, Nanno, Suidas—they are good company for Alcaeus. He seemed more like himself again, joking and talking. Again he lampooned Mimnermos and mimicked “that strange-smelling country poet from Smyrna.” But I detected a morbid note, a self-hostility that cut him more than it did those he scorned.
Will he ever write again?
He left early, insisting he would find his way home by himself. A soldier, reduced to being treated like an irresponsible infant—of course he resented it. But I know he did not return home. Instead, he has rambled into the hills again.
Now the others are gone. And I wonder, looking towards the slope, what it is that Alcaeus hopes to find, a new life?
I shall not be able to sleep indoors tonight. My bed will have to be under the trees. Perhaps the wind can bring me some special message.
The banquet honoring the warriors was held last night.
Alcaeus had his collection of war shields displayed on his dining room walls. Of hide and metal, in various shapes, they united the room and its glazing lamps and candles. I felt myself the focal point of a painted eye on a circular hide, as I sat by him. I could not recall such an assembly in years: Scythian, Etruscan, Turkish, Negro. Bowls of incense sent threads to the ceiling. Wisps floated in front of me where a man in Egyptian clothes, headband studded with rubies, sat beside his courtesan.
Alcaeus made his way to the dais, when everyone was seated, about fifty of us. Hands resting on a table, arms healed and ringed with copper bands, he leaned forward, waiting for silence. His hair had been freshly curled, and his beard trimmed and brushed with oil. I was troubled, thinking he might be impudent or truculent. Instead he spoke gravely and it was difficult to believe he could not see us. I thought he glanced straight at me.
“Tonight, friends, there will be no tirade, no poetry. I wish to pay my respects, and offer my thanks for our return to our island. I know how beautiful it is...”
There was a murmur of appreciation.
“Soldiers have a way of talking out of turn,” he went on, reminding them of the gossip that had come to his ears, shameful talk that made faces blush with guilt and anger.
“It’s time for me, as their commander, to speak. Very well, I will!” And his voice thundered across the room, to make sure that none would miss or mistake its message. Was this the Alcaeus who had joked and sported and sung ribald songs, as the popular friend of young men who were proud, rich, playful and naive? Here was someone speaking out of experience...
“I assure you the truce was an honorable truce—and will be respected.” An older, solemn Alcaeus...who reviewed the war with wisdom.
“And now let us forget fear and enjoy life and see that our people prosper.” It was an impressive speech, one they would long remember.
Our personal servants, assisted by the usual naked boys, waited on us, pouring the Chian wine. Gradually, people began to move about, to talk and drink together. Men long absent from such gatherings moved nervously or waited glumly—alone or in knots of two or three, feeling separate. How does one forget the battlefield? I heard the burr of ancient Egyptian. Persian was spoken by men from Ablas. Women gathered about the newly returned; some were excited, some were beautifully dressed, their hair piled in curls, their shoulders bare, wearing gold sandals.
As the evening wore on, the old familiar sense of freedom returned. Restraint dropped away. Voices and laughter increased. Then applause broke out as a Negro entertainer entered, carrying a smoking torch.
Under the edge of the portico, he freed a basket of birds and juggled several wicker balls. I had never seen this gaunt, ribbed giant, beautifully naked; some said he had come on a wine ship as a crewman. He spun the cages higher and higher and as they whirled in the torch light, he tore open first one and then anther, to liberate the birds. A magnificent performance.
The suggestion worried Pittakos and he pushed through the crowd to take the floor. Pittakos, with his rasping tongue and fish eyes—was there a more dishonest ruler? How ironical that he should represent us! As he kept folding and unfolding his robe, he spoke about our fleet, how he would have the ships repaired and converted into fishing boats for the use of the community...never mentioning that our fleet was rotted!
Presently, the musicians and dancers wandered among us and the party went on. After many songs and a lot of wine, Alcaeus slipped his arm through mine and suggested we go upstairs. It was all very obvious, of course—that he was drunk and I unwilling, that times had changed and everything with it. When was it we had dashed, hand in hand, up his staircase, giggling and pushing one another? How many years ago?
Ah, deception and illusion, do we dare recreate the past and its former happiness? Only in memory is it done successfully. Yet, here we were in his room.
Life is for love!
In the old days, when we had made love, we had closed our eyes, to intensify sensations. Now he would not need to shut his eyes. And his arms, hands, fingers—once young and sure—what could they remember?
I could not keep back tears, tears he would never know, as he stumbled, laughed, then sprawled over the fur covering of his bed. While the music filtered in to us, I cushioned him in my lap and wiped the perspiration from his face, hating the war and the years behind us. After mumbling a few words, he turned over and fell into profound sleep.
So, that was the resumption of our love...and, as I leaned against a hillside olive, the salt air fresh about me, I accepted defeat, aware that my loneliness would appear again and again. There, on the hill, gazing seaward, where fishing smacks moved, I rubbed the horny bark, envying the tree’s longevity and its years ahead. Would I trade places, to brood over Mytilene, for centuries?
Alone?
Then Atthis circled me in her arms, creeping up behind me and cupping my eyes. I recognized her by her laughter and perfume.
“Atthis...”
Alcaeus’ home is much older than mine, with patina walls, Parian marble floors, and a collection of rare Athenian busts. His library has a Corinthian copy of Homer and a collection of Periander’s maxims, while I have been contented with some papyri, of choral lyrics and dithyrambs.
As I stretch out in a leather chair in his library and read to him, the honeysuckle makes its fragrance outside, surely a woman’s flower, so fecund. I try to keep my voice and thoughts within the room, beyond the reach of its fragrance. The honeysuckle does not suit us or the room. And Alcaeus knows this, too. His impassive features grow stern, as though to reprimand me. Insatiable Sappho! Yet how can I help it? I must love and be loved.
Laying down the book, I kneel and place my cheek against his knee. His hands, gliding over my hair and neck, are dead. His voice, out of its black, reproaches me.
I want to cry: but I didn’t blind you!
The other day in the library, he said:
“I wanted to write something great... During the war, I conceived of a series of island poems, bucolic, legendary, praise of this life.” And he motioned toward the ocean and our island.
“Dictate to me,” I said, hoping to rouse his impulse.
His silence, at first natural enough, went on, and I became embarrassed by his stare at the bookshelves.
“I want to help you, Alcaeus.”
Again the silence. How was I to get through it?
Taking a volume of his poems, I read aloud several of his favorites. Slowly, his face relaxed and he settled deeper in his chair. After a while, he said:
“Read some of yours, Sappho.”
I opened a book, one of my earliest ones, and read several passages. But I could not continue; I felt my mind wrapped in fog; my hands became icy. I shut my eyes and said to myself: See, this is what it’s like to be blind. You’re blind, blind to love and life...
As I kissed him good-bye, I longed for our youth, its freedom, its daring, its quarrels and fun.
Walking home, I told myself I should never return to his house.
In looking back over the pages of my journal, I am alarmed by the passage of time. When I was young, I thought time was a philanthropist.
I remember so well that day mama took me to the ocean, and the rain fell unexpectedly, lashing and soaking us. We finally discovered a shepherd’s hut, but I got colder and colder in its windowless gloom. Lying on the floor, among stiff hides, with the rain sounding loud and the hides smelling strong, I thought the storm would never end. Toward dusk, a shepherd and his boy came, dripping with wet and shivering, and my mother dried the boy and made him lie down with me under the hides. Were we seven or eight? Together, our bodies grew warm and we lay still, listening to the wind and the rain thud across the green roof, while the shepherd went about building a fire and preparing supper. I have forgotten the boy’s name, but not his face. Forever after, I thought of him as my first lover. I doubt whether we spoke a word all that delicious evening.
Now I find it hard to renew ties with the past. Not only Alcaeus...but Dioscurides...Pylades...Milo...the very names make me unhappy. All destroyed by war. What special stupidity do men possess that they must involve themselves in such a gamble, with loss inevitable, anyhow?
The columns of the temple of Zeus, in Athens,
stand white against the moonlit sky.
A woman walks among columnar cypress,
her sandals scraping sand and gravel.
A hawk wheels above.
T
he masks I have on my bedroom walls seem less clever than they appeared years ago. Our theatre, too, has changed through the years, become more mediocre.
Yesterday, at the play, I sat closer than usual and was delighted by the comic faces, so new and frightful that children screamed and squealed. Good, I thought. Perhaps the play may take on life.
...A man with a tambourine strutted about...an old beggar, pack on back, pulled at his beard and mimicked words sung by the chorus. He seemed to be one of us or a Chian, maybe. It was pleasant enough to soak myself in comedy for a while, for right after the play, Charaxos found me and suggested we stroll in private. Obviously, he had something on his mind!
He began by offering me an exquisite scarab, saying he had purchased it for me, from a sailor who had touched port.
“For me?” I became suspicious! I fingered the beetle-shaped oval, unlike any I had seen. An amethyst was set in the center with characters engraved around it.
“An Etruscan scarab should make a pretty keepsake,” he said.
“Then I think you should keep it.”
“Why? Are you afraid?” he asked.
“Of what?”
“That it might bring bad luck.”
He laughed ironically, as he flipped and caught the scarab, with a flick of his wrist.
“What is it you want?” I asked, coming directly to the point.
“To be treated with respect, Rhodopis and I—not criticized.”
“Do I say too much?”
“I don’t like your tongue.” He was scowling now.
“Nor I your woman’s!”
“Leave her out! I warn you—she’s no longer a slave!”
“It wasn’t that she was a slave that bothered me.”
“A courtesan, then!”
“No, you should know better than that. Oh, no...it was your assumption that our family funds could be lifted, without my consent and without my knowledge. Taken to buy Rhodopis. You sold three or four wine ships to pay her price, along with the money taken from me.”
“Can’t you forget...”
“Not conveniently. Nobody enjoys being robbed.”
“I have said I would repay you.”
“But that was nearly two years ago. And you go right on selling wine and buying equipment. I have heard that you added a ship last month. Wasn’t it convenient to pay me then?”
His fist tightened over the scarab, and he bowed and turned away, rejoining his wife who was strolling behind us with her friends and servants.
Theatre!
Villa Poseidon
Atthis, Gyrinno, Anaktoria and I went swimming in the bay by the driftwood tree. It was late, the sun misty, its eye sleepy, pelicans roosting, a dolphin or two frolicking close to shore. I had been unable to forget my meeting with Charaxos, until Anaktoria, who is the best swimmer among us, grabbed me by the heels as I floated by, and towed me to the bottom. That ended my anger and irritation. I lit after her, snatching for her long hair. Arms around her, I forced her to tow me toward shore, making myself as heavy as possible.
As the four of us played on the beach, I thought: When will this happen again? Something about the late afternoon—its hammered out sun, its tempered air, its windlessness, its smell of spring—seemed unreal even as it happened. We tossed our blankets on the sand, dashed back and forth to the water’s edge, splashed each other, then arranged ourselves in a circle and began combing each other’s hair. We sang and laughed, comparing, whose was finest, whose was thickest.
Atthis, whose hair was shortest, bragged she could swim the farthest. That started an argument.
“Who swam halfway round the island last year?” demanded Gyrinno.
“Who was born at sea?” said Anaktoria.
“You can tell the best swimmer by the shape of her buttocks,” said Atthis. “Look at mine, how flat they are.” She jumped up, to show us.
“A boy’s buttocks,” laughed Gyrinno.
“Here. Measure. Mine are smaller,” said Anaktoria.
So we measured, laughing, fussing, pushing, our hair streaming around us—a gull on the shore padding back and forth, scolding. Atthis won, but Anaktoria had the loveliest breasts, so round, almost transparent in that evening light. I have rarely seen a girl of such grace, not the childish grace of some, but the accomplished grace of true femininity. As the others became aware of my admiration, they became jealous and peevish, and tried to shift the praise.
They talked about my smallness, my violet hair... “your deep blue eyes”... “your melodious voice...”
But this was Anaktoria’s hour. She had been away, visiting in Samnos, staying with her family, and I was eager to hear the news.
“I thought I was homesick... But it is Mytilene I love best... My brother has a girl now. He goes to her house whenever he is not working. I saw very little of him... Life there was very dull. Family visits from door to door. The same cup of wine, the same paste of nuts and fruit, the same questions, answers, family anecdotes and jokes... How lonesome I was!”
Growing quiet, all of us responded to the evening, the lingering sea- light, the arrival of the stars, the whispering shingle, the breeze, carrying the scents and sounds from Mytilene.
Anaktoria and I walked home together, feeling our bond closer, stronger than before. I had missed her more than I thought: I had missed her a dozen times a day.
I have been sick today and to amuse myself I have made some jottings about my girls:
Atthis—lover of yellow ribbons, scared of the dark. To avoid going out, will invent a headache, a toothache or a stomachache. An orphan, she gets homesick for the home she never had. Prefers women to men. Tells amusing jokes and stories. Loves laughter. Mimics. Is made jealous easily. Speaks slowly...ivory-skinned.
Gyrinno—the daughter of a wine merchant, can outdrink most men. Worries about her figure, eats next to nothing. Uses violet perfume. Our best dancer. Otherwise, is lazy, careless of dress and makeup. Never reads. Wants to marry someone wealthy and entertain lavishly. Snores.
Anaktoria—hair yellower than torchlight, soft-girl, dabbler in poetry, dreamer, lovely singer. Plays lyre and flute equally well. Adores games, trees, flowers, swimming, archery. Wants to travel, be a priestess.
Then there are the new girls: Heptha, with copper hair... Myra, who is Turkish... Helen, a scatterbrained darling... Ah, but each is exquisite in her own way. No two are alike. I love them all.
And yet, I am grieved, since my own daughter is jealous of them. Dear, foolish Kleis, who pretends she has never been a child and is yet so far from being a woman.
I have spent weeks over a poem, revising, revising.
I do my best writing in the morning, when the sea light is sparking my room. How important the harmony is to me: harmony in my house, on the island, in my heart.
Sometimes, I call my girls to let them hear what I have written. Sometimes, in the evenings, I recite my poems for friends. Sometimes, I go days, unable to write a word. They are cold days.
Shall I use eleven syllables?
A poem does not grow like a leaf, but has to be shaped. I often think of a lyric as an amphora; little by little I must mold its lines on the wheel of my mind. It is the structure, containing the song. It must be graceful, strong, so that the words and the music can flow...
The wings of the swans have drawn you toward the dark ground,
with yoke chariot bearing down from heaven...
Come to me...free me from trouble...
Today I received a letter from Aesop, written at Adelphi. It is a joy to hear from him. I thought he had forgotten me. What a good companion he was, all those days in Corinth... Companion? He was more like a father!
His handwriting is the most perfect I have ever seen. Each letter formed so patiently, each thought expressed so beautifully. Does he strive for perfection because be cannot forget his deformity?
I remember his eyes used to transfix me with their brown hypnosis.
He must be fifty, I think.
He had his beard trimmed and his hair curled, every morning. His robes, so elegant, so clean, were always perfumed. I seldom saw him without his doll, that bull-leaping doll of Cretan ivory, brightly painted! But his apartment was simple, tastefully furnished, elegant as his clothes. Each bath towel, I recall, bore a brilliant red octopus.