Sappho (21 page)

The audience clapped their appreciation, for as the man's living seed replenished the girl, his organ fell from her and dropped flaccid, wizened and dead as he was. The orgiastic female, trailing triumphant blood, carried the body to the surface and draped the lifeless form on the floor.

“The girl performed well,” Sappho the widow spoke without emotion. “Give her freedom in honor of my husband.”

“And the man has freedom of another sort,” cried an excited guest as they sprinkled the corpse with parsley and sweet herbs and dragged it to the funeral fire, which was rekindled.

*   *   *

Syracuse was enraptured by this small, restless miracle of a woman, who as widow of the prince Kerkolas entertained now in her own right. Gamori of their city and Kritias, Archon of Athens, dined at her table. The poet Arion and many others were her guests. None knew better than Sappho what to serve, what to sing, whom to invite and what tableau or mime to obtain as entertainment. In death, it might be said, Kerkolas was more famous than in life, for news of his funeral feast spread throughout Sicily and carried back to Mitylene. Sappho's genius had long been acknowledged, and herself acclaimed as the greatest living poet of the lyric style. Now her personal charisma was demonstrated.

She wasn't sleeping well. In fact she dreaded sleep, for a recurring dream lay ready to take possession of her. In it she thought the dread goddess Circe spoke to her, saying, “The Muses have often talked to you, and told your name will be remembered down echoing time. This is true.” Here the goddess bent close. “But only partly. Proud Sappho, I say you will be remembered for ill and not for good, your very name an abomination.”

The dream, like a chorus, repeated in her head. And she woke dripping sweat, her body arched in spasm. “It's a lying dream,” she said through clenched teeth, “for how can poetry and music bring evil?” This did not prevent the dream from recurring the next night.

She had taken a new fancy. She began breeding and racing horses. It seemed swift Boreas, from whom all great horses descended, had lent these his prowess. And Nestor, the first lord and tamer, had bestowed special favor, for Sappho's stables bred the finest animals. And though she was large with child, she rode to hunt like a second Artemis, bringing down a boar unaided.

Such actions caused an undercurrent of gossip. Kerkolas's relatives openly disapproved, saying that participating in such things as men do she might abort the child which was Kerkolas's immortality on Earth. What would these same wagging tongues say if they knew she had eaten the root of the cyclamen to achieve this very result, and that Eileithyia had punished her with the sharp pains she sends women? But the child clung to her womb and would not be dislodged.

Criticism of Sappho was mixed with the general praise, as one might add a dash of pepper and the dish be better for it. Nothing could dim her celebrity. Coins were minted in her likeness, busts of her sculptured, and her whole figure worked in Parian marble.

She did not take a lover and she did not marry. Kerkolas's family hinted that she choose another of their sons. But she let it be known that her husband was still vivid in her mind and heart. She caught Niobe's speculative glance and confided to her later that she was not glad he was dead, but relieved he was no longer present.

No longer present? About this she was wrong. He made his presence known one night after the last guest left, the last perfumed torch spluttered and went out. As Sappho lay alone upon her couch, Kerkolas found his way up from beneath the three rivers. He came to the edge of the bed and surveyed her with reproachful eyes.

“Why do you attempt to murder my child?”

She shrank from the dripping figure and dared not answer.

Kerkolas raised his hand over her and blood fell on her breast. She screamed herself awake. But none heard, so she got up and poured herself a goblet of Lesbian wine.

Gradually, as her time drew near, her attitude toward the life within her underwent a further change. She began to think of the child as an ally of her house and lineage. She gave up riding to the hunt and jumping horses; she even wrote Pittakos, asking if she might return to Lesbos.

His reply reached her in her eighth month: “The time is not yet auspicious.”

What did all her fame mean, if her child must be born in exile? Her swollen body was troubled by more than its persistent heaviness. She shivered with a torment she refused to understand. And the song she sang was this:

The moon is set and the Pleiades gone;

it is midnight, and the time is going fast,

but I lie alone

She remembered her still-vivid dream of Kerkolas and shuddered. She tried to sort out what her feelings for her husband had been. Though kind, he was too often befuddled with drink. One thing was certain, his carousing friends no longer had access to her house. Neither did his family. She did not like the way their eyes roamed her possessions, estimating and evaluating. It was her house now, and everything within it. And there was a good deal within it.

Many times in the night she got up and unlocked the treasure room, to wander for hours. She would sit and play the strange instruments and touch the fine raiment, unfolding and holding it against her, fragrant with rosemary. She lifted small gold votives, turning them so the light of the tapers revealed their craftsmanship. There were barrels of drachmas, ancient Attic coins, oisbrophoec from Asia Minor, obolos and the Babylonian milna, all the finest work, though in miniature. Jewels for the fingers, toes, nose, and ears; pendants for the throat; snake-twisted silver bracelets to enclose the upper arm and ankle—she tried them all.

I am wealthy, she thought, remembering her mother's fear that she would be a pensioner by a brother's fire. I and my child, she added thoughtfully. Through most of her pregnancy she had given it every opportunity to leave, yet it grew to enormous size within her body. And now she was glad. It had fought for its life and won. She knew her time was close, which was why she humbled herself to Pittakos. But the child would be born here, to know Lesbos only in stories.

She could not escape Kerkolas. The hour always came when she must go back to bed. This night he took the form of a black raven and used his beak to enter her. The pain was such she thought she would die of it. This time her women heard her screams.

On her knees was the way a woman brought out a child. No poems marshaled now in orderly array, but wildest cries, as her too-small, too-bloated body sought to pass its burden. She tried to call Llithyia, daughter of Hera, the special goddess of childbirth. She tried to tell her that her innards were being pulled out of her along with the child. Then she forgot it was a child. Torture! The ultimate torture—for her pride, for her neglect of the gods. Sweat fell into her eyes, tears fell out of them. She stuffed her whole hand into her mouth. But the screams kept coming as though from a door improperly closed.

“Push down,” Niobe commanded. “Harder.”

She obeyed. She obeyed her own slave. Her living flesh was torn apart. Poor Dionysos. Poor Sappho. One could not be sundered like this and live. “Mother!” She held out her arms. Her mother on the other side would help her.

“The head has been born,” Niobe said. “One final effort and the child will leave you.”

Sappho expelled the infant with all the strength remaining to her. It came in bloody trappings and the trailings of afterbirth. Before she looked at the squalling infant's face, she looked between its legs. A girl.

“Kleis.” A life had been given for the one taken. The agony was forgotten in unexpected joy. Memory, mother of the Muses, gave permission to bestow the name Kleis.

The child was carefully oiled, wrapped, and placed in her arms. A beautiful baby. Not like her at all, long and blonde with blue eyes shading to black. Did she look like her namesake? Like her brothers? As Sappho peered intently into her daughter's face, Kerkolas looked back at her.

“Take the child,” she said abruptly to Niobe.

E
RINNA

Periander, tyrant of Corinth, murdered his wife, and then, to prove his innocence to himself, had intercourse with the corpse. He owed her nearest male relations some pittance for her demise, as the offense under law was not against the woman, but the family.

When it was related to her, this episode caused Sappho to ruminate on her own situation. She was a woman alone, and eight-year-old Kleis a girl-child. If anything happened to them, Kerkolas's nearby kinsmen would inherit. The family had given up hope that she would marry someone from their house, and since that time were openly hostile.

There were other suitors as well, whom it took a great deal of tact to discourage. She knew she would not marry again and have a lord over her, a man to whom she was accountable, a man to run through the fortune that should go to Kleis. She had thought her renown protected her, and her position in society. But that had been no help to the wife of Periander.

To dispel the fears the evil news engendered, she watched the child on her swing, the ropes freshly woven with violets. Kleis was laughing and her blond hair flew out behind her. Sappho took up her lyre and sang softly:

I have a little daughter,

like a golden flower:

my darling Kleis,

for whom I would not take

all Lydia nor lovely Lesbos

“What are you singing, Mama?”

“Just a little song.”

“A pretty song? About armfuls of chrysanthemums and golden buds?”

“Yes, child, yes.”

“Tell me a story, Mama,” and leaving the swing she ran to nestle against her.

“What shall I tell you? How great Zeus and his brothers drew lots for their share of the world?”

“Yes, that one.”

Sappho teasingly handle-kissed the child, taking the little one by the ears. Kleis tried to grasp her ears in return, and they ended laughing helplessly.

Sappho picked up her lyre again and sang:

O beautiful, O lovely!

Yours it is

with the rosy-ankled Graces

and with Aphrodite

to play!

Remembering the terrors with which her own nurse filled her, Sappho was her daughter's only teacher. “Hercules had his home in Thebes. And Aphrodite was born of foam by the island of Cythera. And at night, galloping Pegasus, who skims the air all day, has his comfortable stall in Corinth. While Poseidon, that Earth-encircling lord, travels so swiftly in his chariot beneath Sea that he is never wet. He too has a home; golden and imperishable Aegae.” Sappho's luminous eyes smoldered with passion. “And we have a home, which is not in this place.”

“Lesbos!” piped the child. “On the main trade route between Attica and Lydia. The land to which the waves carried Orpheus's head and lyre.”

“Only Treasure, you will wiggle your toes in its sand, and taste fruit from its orchards, apple and fig, and stuff your pretty mouth with grapes of its slopes.”

“Why don't we go there, Mama?”

“Why? Why is a big question for a little girl. Someday we will. In the meantime, learn that the Lesbians were loyal allies of great Troy, as were the noble Pelasgians of Larissa, the proud Mysians, the Lycians, the Cardians, the Dardanian warriors…”

But Kleis's head drooped against her; she slept.

Sappho sighed. The child did not drink in knowledge as she had. Kleis could follow her mother as light-footedly in the dance, and her voice, though small, rang true. But she was not interested in accounts of Creation. She did not care that the gods were the grandchildren of the Titans. And the Phoenician alphabet came haltingly to her lips. She could not remember the name of the ever-flowing river which had streams that fell to Earth from Heaven, even the clear and wonderful Spercheius. Kleis was very like her father, a laughing daughter of laughing Aphrodite. She was bright and clever, but she did not care to know. And Sappho wanted to gobble up the world. Sometimes she thought if her eyes and heart could look into and really understand a flower, that all knowledge would open and everything in the lap of All-Mother Earth tumble out. This, she supposed, was fancy. For poetry is apart from reason and, she believed, above it. One can gather a bouquet of beauty, but not a bouquet of truth.

She thought often about Thales on his Isle of Thought, asking his strange questions: “What is man?” “What is the world?” Man of Nature, his students called him, Physis. She did not care for his verses, which were in a grand and lofty style. Not like mine, Sappho thought. The Muses breathed into me their divine voice. They sing to delight the soul, and so do I.

Sappho was to remember that lazy summer day, not for what happened, but because it was the last day in which nothing happened. For a week the wind had blown steadily from Sea, and her child's cheeks were pink with the flush of health. But all men know that the origin of disease is divine. From deepest recesses it is called to hang in the heat over a city, and there is no help in all of Apollo's healing shrines. Though it was hot past enduring, rain fell and tore and muddied the ground. And a mischief befell Kleis. Her throat was red and sore and the glands in her neck swollen. She tossed her head from side to side on her pillow, and her yellow curls were a tangle.

Sappho sent Niobe for an oracle, and kept vigil by the bed. Niobe returned to say that the hot water that came up from the vapor baths must be mixed with the blood of a white cock. Once swallowed, this concoction would weaken the sickness, and between times the child must ingest small amounts of snake blood and ashes purchased from the priestess and carried in a small bag.

All was done as prescribed. Sappho strewed the sickroom with laurel, sacred to Apollo, who taught men the healing arts. Kneeling, she pressed her lips against the child's burning face. Kleis slept fitfully and threw up both the cock's blood and the snake's. Fear ringed Sappho's eyes. She said endless prayers to all the gods she could think of, promising to set free her most beautiful slave on the day her daughter recovered. She asked Gello not to bend over her child too far, nor hold her too closely, or kiss the air from her. For Gello was a Lesbian maid who loved children but, dying before marriage, had none of her own; so when a child died, it was said Gello clasped too tightly until life was gone.