Part 4
My pretty Gyrinno is sick with too much sun and too much swimming so I go about pampering her and nothing pleases her more.
It has been some time since I brought her a tray, one I fixed especially for her. I combed her hair tonight, cooled her skin with ointment, and teased her till she made me promise a gift, a silver mirror from Serfo’s shop, one with suitably naughty figures on the back and handle: “the convivialists,” Serfo has named it.
To help pamper Gyrinno, we had musicians in the courtyard. The air was so warm, so languid, nobody wished to go to sleep. These were wandering musicians, from neighboring islands, and their songs were mostly new to us. They repeated the ones we liked best, tender mountain airs.
Kleis, who has a phenomenal memory, was able to join them the second or third time, harpist and flutist accompany. It was an intimate evening, ending with a tale by one of the wanderers, of Pegasus winging over the ocean on an errand of mercy for a lost lover.
Toward dawn, I woke to find Atthis with me, her cheek against mine. More aware of my inner needs than others, she had come to comfort me, alleviate my longing. Her perfume, kisses and caresses were not the crude, male love I wanted. However, I was half in my dreams and I remembered the music and the tale and the moonlight, our songs and voices, and everything blended into a pattern of peace and goodness.
There are times when our hearts are particularly open to beauty: this was one of those times. Everything, at this moment, assumed perfection. And because we recognize its illusory quality it is the more precious.
Out of the night comes the word someone has tried to communicate, that we are plural, not single...not forgotten. Here, in this comparison, are strength and courage.
Yes, there are times when our hearts open.
There is more to life than wandering over an island. There is more to life than happiness. There is more to life than work. There is more to life than hope. What is it?
Under a cypress, above the sea, facing the sea, I asked myself this question and found this answer:
Certainly, the living is all: there is no life after death: and since there is no other chance than this chance, it must be enough to have beauty and kindness and time to enjoy them.
Here, on this slope, earth’s form assures me this is true. And at home, among my girls, I can find it so, each girl an affirmation.
Why is Kleis involved in spats with Gyrinno, Helen, Myra? Why are the girls put out with her? Why can’t they agree to do the same thing at the same time?
Why is there so much unrest and dissatisfaction everywhere? Corinth, Sparta, Argos, Sicyon...the news reaches us by boat.
Why is Phaon far at sea, headed for Byzantium?
It seems to be a world of questions.
When I think how many gods exist, I am shocked by man’s confusion and gullibility.
“Man is like a cricket. He sees the cricket’s limitations but not his own. The cricket can’t read or write or think scientifically. He can’t sail a boat or build a house. He potters away in his clod or field. What can a cricket know about god?”
That’s what man says, unable to see beyond his own clod. He scoffs and sneers but what is he but a two-legged cricket, brown, yellow or black? I’m sure the cricket has his illusions, some of them as pat as ours.
Charaxos has returned to Mytilene.
Our meeting was unavoidable, of course. He had on the commonplace mask of the man in the street and talked about his trip, the grinding poverty in Egypt, the bad state of our mercenaries there...
No mention of settling his debts! Not a word about Rhodopis! Evidently Kleis does not exist.
“All of us are well, thank you,” I said. “Nothing has changed for us here.”
What is there between us? It is something deeper than ourselves. When I walked away, my eyes burned and my cheeks felt hot.
Here is a passage from my first journal, written in childish hand:
Today is my birthday and mother gave me earrings and papa gave me a brooch with a carnelian stone. We had a party on the beach and papa burnt his fingers in the fire as we cooked the mutton meat. I don’t like mutton meat. I don’t like smoky fires. Papa sings badly. My dog got sick.
I suppose all that was very important to me.
Is our life important to anyone else?
No word from Aesop.
Sometimes I have to get away from everything and everyone, myself as well.
I went to a nearby fishing village. Necessity can be ingenious. The fishermen have managed to build good boats out of the battered wrecks that littered our shores. They tell me that the exporting of sponges has become extensive.
I wish I could sail with a sponge crew. I went with a crew once. Glued inside my decorum, I can’t believe I was free...wild...bold...headstrong...long ago.
Yes, I would like to cruise into deep blue water and stare down, then to the sponge shallows and swim down, down.
My new book is ready.
It was interesting to visit the Kamen house and check the copies.
I stopped for a moment in the alley to gaze at the sun symbol painted over the house door. More and more, geometric designs are giving way to more plastic ideas in decorating. Polychrome painting seems to grow more imaginative. Our ceramics are becoming more forceful. I thought of these things as I looked at the sun symbol, done in blue and gold.
The Kamen brothers were, as always, mysterious, stiff, like Egyptian clay long dried by the sun. It is too bad they can’t apply some of their art to themselves. They are such emaciated creatures, I wonder what they eat?
Each waits for the other to speak; each scrapes, bows, tries to efface himself. Tall, nut brown, with hair tied behind their necks, deer skin aprons over faded clothes, they make me feel like an intruder.
As for my book, it is excellently made. The brothers are perfectionists in their craft. To them, poetry is nothing. Do they read it at all? However, the libraries will be pleased to receive these copies.
I am sure this is my best work.
Thousands of white herons flew over our island this morning, making the sky a sky of motion. They flew almost all morning, flying toward the mainland. I watched them from a bridge in town, leaning against the cool stone rail, Anaktoria watching with me, perplexed. Not a bird faltered. What directed them? Not a sound, as they flew. Some of the townsmen gathered to stare, dead silent. In tens and twenties, they flew over and onward, apparently at the same speed. Twice the flocks covered the sun and our town darkened, tiled roofs turning grey.
There were murmurs...
I remembered the herons as I tried to rest, wings and more wings, bearing me away.
Sometimes, we troop to our old theatre, lost in its bowl of cypress and overgrown with grass and weeds, seats and benches crumbled. Laying aside our clothes, we toss rover reeds, have a try at archery, play catch. Or we race or go in for leap-frog or tug-of-war.
Little boys like to pester us and poke fun. Little boys—how delightful they can be.
If the day is sultry, we loll. Usually, the complaint is “too much sun.” I used to think we needed lots of sun and exercise but now I’m not sure.
Lying on a moss-topped stone, time seemed to pause: I think there is trouble brewing. I don’t put it past Rhodopis to concoct something. Even Kleis has been too alarmed to return to Charaxos’ house. Mallia has told her to wait.
There has been a to-do because the “right” people did not attend the homecoming party for Charaxos. What a pity! I know of no changes in the life of Mytilene that required a unanimous celebration.
“Why must there be bad feelings between their house and ours?” Kleis has asked. “Of course I hate him for what he did to me.”
My knees trembled.
How explain life to one who has not lived it!
“You could help me, if you wanted to,” she said.
Just like that!
I believe we only know what life gives us: can sound be described to the deaf?
“After all, Charaxos is your brother,” she reminded me.
I wanted to say: He was, before all, not after all.
I can barely check my anger, angers, one on top the other, too many for me to consider and come through sane.
As I went home, I saw a man beating his slave. The slave, who has had everything taken from him, is being punished publicly for an insignificant theft!
The situation is becoming impossible: Why has Charaxos dragged Alcaeus into our quarrel?
I found them hurling insults at one another, Alcaeus’ house and servants in an uproar. I hurried into the library and had to pound on the door.
“I can thank you for this!” shouted Charaxos, the moment he saw me.
“Leave, Sappho. I asked him to come and now I’ll have him thrown out,” Alcaeus bawled, lunging across the table.
“Our hero!” snorted Charaxos.
“Enough. Get out!”
“Suppose you and I have a private word elsewhere,” said Charaxos to me, bitterly. “As for you, old battle ax, I’ll settle with you another time. I’m sick of your trouble-making. Maybe one exile was not enough...”
Quick as a flash, I slapped him. He eyed me grimly, then turned and left.
Naturally, Alcaeus refused to tell me what the visit was about.
All this is contemptible.
I can not forget the scene of the angry men, the threat.
Perhaps the next move had better be mine? Before my opponent makes it a “check” from which I can’t escape...as they say in the new Persian game.
My girls sense that I am troubled and try to distract me.
“No work today!” cries Gyrinno.
“Let’s hunt flowers in the woods.”
Heptha bothers the cook to prepare me special delights.
Anaktoria dresses up a song, Helen and Gyrinno dance, Atthis tries a musty joke.
It is a healing tempo...I am grateful...
These are lazy, summer days, the hammocks full, doves cooing in the olives. I send my thoughts on a long trip: may they find Phaon and bring him back to me.
This is theatre season and the talk is of actors and acting. I like to familiarize myself with a play before attending its performance because I can appreciate it much more. I never miss a play if I can help it, whether comedy or tragedy, though I prefer comedy. But I think the “offstage” is interesting, too—that is, if one can remain a spectator there. It is when we become involved that we lose our theatre perspective.
Neglates, who used to be a leading actor in Athens, likes to sit with me. He is our best critic. He is always urging me to write a play, “something about us,” he says.
“The theatre needs you. Why don’t you try? We need new blood.”
I suppose he is right. If we rely on the old writers altogether, the stage will become stale. Perhaps I can think of something for the religious festivals next year.
Theatre means meeting people I seldom see anywhere else. I like the contacts.
People feel sorry for Scandia because he is the father of such a charming, marriageable daughter. White-faced, pinch-eyed, his neck twisted by a boyhood accident, one arm dangling—would they feel less sorry for him, if his daughter were ugly?
Andros is the next thing to a dwarf in size. He has the face of a twenty-year-old, although he must be well over fifty. He needs no one’s pity—only some money! He is the best mask-maker our theatre has ever had.
Moonlight: Hand in hand,
Sappho and her daughter, Kleis,
walk along a path through hillside
olive groves, the ocean white below,
the murmur of waves part of their leisure and
sad conversation about Aesop.
Mytilene
642 B.C.
M
y heart is heavy...Aesop, my friend, is dead.
He could have had a kinder messenger—it was Pittakos who brought me the news.
“The mob killed him for causing trouble in Adelphi,” he said, his eyes cruelly cold. He had met me on the street, after a performance of “The Martyrs.”
Did he think this the right time to let me know? Was it a warning?
I stared at him, as he shambled beside me. Then, before my face could reveal too much, I lowered my veil and walked away, trembling, my eyes unseeing.
I did not go home for a long time. I walked by the shore until the ball of fire sank wearily into the dark water. The hills had a beaten look, the sea an oppressive flatness. A gull’s cry wept in me. Alone...alone... I was much more alone.
Alone in my library, I opened the box Aesop had given me and removed his fox, lion, donkey, raven and frog. He had moulded them for me. Two were made of light-colored clay, others of dark. They were as highly glazed as scarabs. I arranged them on a shelf above my desk and could feel my friend’s presence, as though he were beside me.
But there would be no more letters.
No visit!
Lighting my lamp, I began my ode to “The Friend of Man.”
I knew Alcaeus would be as disturbed as I.
I expected him to roar, “The mob!” Instead, he bowed his head, his hands on his lap, and remained silent. Slowly, he clenched his fists and gouged them into his thighs. Muscles corded his arms and swelled as he stood.
“He should have come here, to us!”
“He was sick, Alcaeus.”
“Then I should have gone to him! Why was I doubly blind? I knew he was under attack for opposing the aristocrats.”
Round and round, back and forth, we talked: what might have been, what should have been:
“If he had gone to Athens, he would have been safe with Solon.”
“If only he could have stayed in Corinth...”
And remembering what a friend Aesop had been to us, he said:
“He knew I liked bread from that oven of Stexos... He was always bringing me my favorite wine.”
“He couldn’t do enough, that time I got so sick. The best doctors, he...”
“Wild boar, to help you get strong.”
We recounted the fables, their Persian origin, the circumstances of their telling. How he loved travelers, especially from the East.
I see Aesop on his balcony, the wind making him blink his eyes; he has on dark blue trousers, yellow sash and gold blouse and carries his doll and is smiling and nodding.
Was it his profound understanding of life that made such a difference? He showed breadth of mind at all times. Revealing human character through animal traits, he taught us the comedy of our faults and aspirations.
Alcaeus has begun writing letters, to protest against this outrage in Adelphi, to alert friends, to cry out.
High on a hill, I sit and stare at my bare feet and try to guess how many steps they have taken.
I peer at my legs and consider the color and texture of my skin. I rub my hands over my knees and ankles.
What of Phaon’s feet, the rigging they have climbed and the decks they have walked?
Storms have crashed over him. He has held his ship to sun and stars, legs spread wide, feet on the planking.
Does the sea mean so much to him? Is it his woman?
As I watch the arrival of boats in the bay, the unloading at the dock, I keep remembering his brown face.
The rains have begun.
They flood across the mosaic floor of the courtyard, draining noisily.
I am weaving a scarf, very white, light in weight, my seat a strip of rawhide on four pegs.
Around me the girls sit and chatter. Heptha and Myra weave together, working at one loom, whispering. The rain and wind come together over the house. Laughing secretly, Atthis and Gyrinno dash off, padding through the rain, across the court.
Kleis unwinds my ball of thread and keeps paying it out slowly, rhythmically, her hands in time to a song she is humming to herself.
The white wool is restful. I can weave nothingness or I can weave in my whole past, the sea, my house, the cliffs, the trees.
My fingers are Phaon’s.
I have not changed my mother’s house since she died because change is no friend of mine. Occasionally, I have had to repair or refinish a table, and a chair or picture, but were mama to return tomorrow she would feel at home.
I often think that I will meet her, as I go from one room to another, mama gliding softly, smiling, holding out her warm hands to me...we would sit and weave by the window, the sea beyond, our voices low. With our terra-cotta lamps gleaming, we would talk until late, too sleepy to chat any longer.
I can’t remember my father, he died so young. His lineage, extending to Agamemnon, frightens me: That inheritance must carry into these thick walls and the glazed tiles—a strong house.
Mama gave me his royal flute, said to be carved from a bull’s leg, but it has been years since I have taken it from its silk-lined box. Its sickly color never pleased me.
Its music comes to me sometimes: mountain vagaries, war music, sea songs, fragments of a day I can never know.
A bat coasts through my open windows.
Is there a better hour than dusk?
I feel that life is infinitely precious at such an hour, that sordidness and decay are lies. It is the hour when we cross the threshold of starlight.
Sometimes, before dropping asleep, I long to see Olympus, as part of this general dream:
Never is it swept by the winds nor touched by snow,
a purer air surrounds it, a white clarity envelops it,
and the gods there taste of happiness that lasts forever...
It has been a dreadful ordeal. I can hardly describe the events of this past fortnight.
I had barely recovered from the shock of Aesop’s death, when word came that Alcaeus had been attacked.
I had gone to a friend’s home and we had been chatting on the sea- terrace, when children burst in with the alarming news. I hurried with them to Alcaeus, the boys distressing me with their fantasies.
I found Alcaeus in bed, severely bruised and cut, with Thasos in attendance.
“It was Charaxos,” Thasos said, quietly.
I must have gasped. I could not speak.
“I was alone...wandering,” Alcaeus explained, then turned his face to the wall.
And I dared to hope that Charaxos would come to his senses! I pressed my lips to Alcaeus’ hand.
“I’ll get Libus,” I said.
“Someone has already gone for him,” said Thasos.
Libus, too, was shocked: he ordered the servants to bring Theodorus, another doctor.
As the news spread through town, people gathered in the street in front of Alcaeus’ house, angry townsmen, yelling about Charaxos, calling on Pittakos for justice.
During the night, a mob threatened Charaxos’ home, and in the morning, they stoned the place, battering shutters, screaming and demanding justice.
Pittakos sent soldiers to maintain order but the soldiers sided with the mob, forcing the doors, smashing furniture and chasing away the servants.
Sometime during the day, Charaxos and Rhodopis fled in one of their wine boats, heading for the mainland. I understand there was a fracas in the square, some wanting to overtake the ship.
For two days, I did not leave Alcaeus’ home, taking turns at his side. In that circle of close friends, death pushed us hard, trying to break through.
Finally, Libus, more lean-faced and pallid than usual, from his sleepless nights and responsibility, drew me aside:
“He’s going to pull through. You can go home and rest. Trust me...”
I slept and dreamed and came back and the days went like that before Alcaeus was out of danger, and we cheered him on the road to recovery.
Pittakos and some of his officials visited him, expressing their regrets, saying a committee had called, demanding Charaxos’ punishment. I kept out of the room, leaving Alcaeus and Libus to handle the situation.
“Our tyrant sides with me!” Alcaeus chortled after they had gone. “I’ve won!”
It is a poor victory: we have not won back our years of exile. But, for the citizenry, this is something on the side of justice and worth talking about.
For my part, I suspect that Charaxos will return presently, unmolested. He is too important to our local welfare, employing too many, to be brushed aside. When his boat anchors, Pittakos will fine him lightly. By then, sentiment will have cooled.
Justice is rightly placed among the stars.
On my next visit to Alcaeus, I took my clay animals and placed them in his hands, describing each, one by one. He felt them carefully—too slowly—a sad expression on his face.
“So Aesop made them?” he said. “It’s good you have them...proof that his world is still here. I wish I could remember his...his faith...”
Taking the figures from Alcaeus, I put them on a table between us: we three had sat at a table like this, in exile, planning, planning: those worries swept back again, distorted. Confused, I could feel myself trapped. I knew that in those eyes opposite me, death sat there, at least a part of death, the same death that was in those clay animals.
Our hands met across the table.
Villa Poseidon
It is useless to cross-examine Alcaeus. He will not discuss Charaxos.
“Here, do me a favor, read me something from Hesiod,” he says, and hands me the poet’s advice to his brother.
How history repeats itself! Family problems haven’t changed: this is an earlier Charaxos, who bribed judges to deprive Hesiod of his inheritance.
If I did not know better, I could almost believe Charaxos had used this story for his model.
As time goes on, I feel the stigma of our relationship more and more. How can I be his sister?
Despite the liberality of our views, I am astonished that Alcaeus respects and trusts me. I can’t shake my guilt: the fact that Charaxos has cheated and betrayed me does not exonerate me of blame. I am tired of all this. It is a confusion I can’t accept indefinitely.
Phaon’s ship has anchored in the harbor.
I have remained in my room throughout the day.
I have enjoyed the detail from my fresco—Etruscan girl strewing flowers, hair streaming over her shoulders, face filled with joy, arms outspread.
I am like that girl.
I took Exekias. As oldest member of my household, I feel she is the best chaperone. In her crumpled face there is more than Assyrian placidity: she has known me longest and is sympathetic and discreet: she says things the way my mother said them, so warmly I can’t forget.
We left the house early, our scarves about our heads, women sweeping doorways and steps, sprinkling the dusty street, cleaning where horses and cattle had passed. Birds sickled from the eaves, dogs and horses drank at a watering trough, nuzzling moss, rubbing gnats, their hairy comradeship obvious in roll of eyes.
We had not been in the market long when I saw him, alongside a stall with a sailor, both drinking coconuts, shaking them, holding them up, tipping them, draining the juice, laughing. They had on shorts and were brown, incredible ocean brown.
Then Phaon saw me. Hurriedly, he set down the coconut and left the stall and came toward me, smiling, wiping his fingers on his shorts. In the way he spoke, in the way he stood, I sensed how he had missed me, other tell-tales in his voice and hands. And I knew, as we talked, that he sensed my longing as well: it brought us closer that we made no secret of our feelings.
A parrot jabbered atop its cage and a monkey squealed and battered at its bronze ring, until its owner brought bananas. People crowded us, elbowing with baskets of fruit and shrimp. Phaon and I walked under palm-ceilinged aisles, dust sifting around us, light finning through stalls, over herbs, nuts, wines and cheeses...the smells made me hungry. Together we ate Cappian cheese, tangy to tongue and nose.
“It never tasted better out at sea,” he said.
“I hope everything tastes better now.”
“It does...yes, I’m home again!”
Exekias ghosted behind me, face alert, her hands pushing me along; so we moved, past the pottery lads, one of them glazing a bowl between his calloused knees, the color as bright as the sliced oranges beside him ready for eating.
“Do you suppose you and I can sail again?” he asked, as we watched, seeing ourselves instead of the pottery boys. “There should be time...soon...when I’m unloaded.”
I caught his half question, half statement.
“If I were invited, I’d consider.”
My teasing brought a flash from him and laughter and he moved back a little, nodding agreeably.