Sappho (33 page)

And Hermes had been kind, for without special reason, so it seemed, a Persian dress was already woven, glinting with beads of gold, and a strap of fair Lydian work was in readiness to cover her feet. In the midst of these preparations, Sappho stopped short. Would Khar go first to Eurygyos and Larichos? What tales would they tell of her? Would he hear that his sister had become a whore? All her body seemed to knot in one great spasm. She took a cult bath and prayed the gods to tell her what to do. And as she prayed, it came to her mind to go herself to the quay, be the first to speak, and afterward let slanderers say of her what they would. If the battle was to be one of words, Eurygyos and Larichos were already defeated.

Joyfully she sang:

In my prayers

I looked into the

vaults of Heaven

She went by chariot with many servants and slaves to the mole. Her two brothers were also there. She had not seen them in three years. They bowed toward their sister for the sake of public opinion. How stiff they were, like puppets! She inclined her head, but no word passed between them.

Dark-prowed ships hewed of sturdy poplar, oak, and pine rode outside the breakwater. At a signal, all sails were furled and laid on the decks; the forestays and masts were also lowered into place. The boats themselves seemed to grasp the intent of the captain. The oars on each ship were lifted from leather loops and raised in salute.

A great cry rose from the mole, answered deep in the throats of the sailors, as they set the curved ships to the shore's breeze and rowed into harbor. Kharaxos held the rudder of the lead ship. There was born wave after rolling wave that helped them beach and drag the boats high.

Alkaios, a portly Alkaios with a potbelly, managed to reach her first. Looking into the porcelain blue of his eyes she saw they still danced with mischief. He grabbed her upper arm in salute. She was too moved by the sight of him to say anything but, turning over his hands, kissed the palm of each.

“Sappho of the glancing eyes. How little you have changed.”

“It is a seeming only, Alkaios. I am a woman who has known much. But you, I see, are still attractive to both sexes alike.”

“It is your fault, tantalizing Sappho of the inward gaze. You never would take me in hand.”

She laughed ruefully. “I have enough trouble with myself.” And then, “O Alkaios, I have grieved for you, burnt incense, said prayers, for these many years I thought you dead.”

“Sappho, your words have a way of reaching the gods. For after all the adventures and misadventures I have undergone, I would surely not have survived without them.”

Kharaxos was striding toward them. His upper lip was shaved and his beard neatly trimmed to a point. He clasped Sappho to him, and she kissed his head and hands. To hold and be held by her brother again so confused her senses that she cried instead of laughing. “Is it you, brother, or some god?”

“Poseidon guarded me from the two winds that spring in fury from Thrace, north and northwest. It was a miracle, for the seas were roaring and the timbers of the ship are rotted. But we are here and in the holds of my boat are great prizes, clinquant copper, many slaves, furs, exotic perfumes, and innumerable spices. The whole world, it seems, wants our Lesbian wine.”

“I prayed every day of your voyage to the beautiful Nereids, the fifty daughters of Nereus, eldest son of Sea, and to Doris the Oceanid, who is their mother.”

“They are indeed a group of gracious influences that helped see us safe, although many times we were in danger of falling into Poseidon's palace.… But here are our brothers come in greeting!” And he embraced them warmly.

Only Alkaios noticed that Sappho stood to the side. When the welcoming was over and Kharaxos had seen to the laying of the rollers on which his ships were mounted, Sappho spoke in a voice at once innocent and happy. “Come, my brothers, and Alkaios, to the House of the Servants of the Muses, for everything is in readiness. There you will rest and bathe and make offering to great Zeus and his brother of the blue hair, after which I have ordered up refreshment, the best my house can provide.”

Kharaxos's tanned face was smiling with the pleasure of his homecoming, but Larichos said stiltedly, like a man unused to speech, “It has been three years since we set foot in the establishment of Sappho.”

Kharaxos looked at them, startled. “Why? What is this?”

“You have been away a long time,” Eurygyos began.

“And he does not wish,” Sappho put in quickly, “to hear on his first day tales of pettiness. Put aside all that, brothers, I beseech you, and in honor of our eldest brother, who has returned to us, let us gather for prayer and feast.”

But the two kept their eyes fastened on the ground. Kharaxos looked in puzzlement from them to Sappho. “What is this estrangement between brothers and a sister? Lay it by, for I am home and we will joy together.”

Eurygyos said with unpleasant innuendo, “Surely you know there is excess in greatness? And too aptly does Sappho demonstrate this.”

Kharaxos, commander of men, waved an angry arm. “I go to the house of my sister who bids me welcome. Come all others who would.”

By prior agreement, it seemed, the two brothers held back.

“I return to a family divided? What churlishness is this? Do you not know the duty a brother owes a sister?”

“Or the duty a sister owes the reputation and good name of her house.”

“Do you not take pride, as I do, in the fame Sappho's songs have brought our land? I understand you not.”

“You have been away too long.”

“Enough. I want no talebearing, nor do I wish to stand squabbling on the docks. What I do want is my family around me, to celebrate my safe return after my life among the Egyptians and my many trials.”

Eurygyos and Larichos conferred.

“If you come in joy and gladness, you are welcome,” Sappho said.

Larichos grew angry. “Do not try to make our brother's return an occasion for forgiveness and the condoning of your licentious deeds.” He shrank back, for Khar was about to strike him.

Alkaios from the chariot called, “Why are you dawdling? I am parched, hungry, filthy, and in need of the hospitality of peerless Sappho.”

Sappho cast him a grateful glance and, taking Khar by the arm, left the other two arguing and guided him to the waiting chariot. The horses tossed their flower-braided manes and stepped proudly.

Bystanders and sailors alike cheered Kharaxos as he passed. Like a god he was come with much treasure, bringing the renowned Alkaios with him. The city of Mitylene gave thanks and offered hekatombs for the return of its sons.

Sappho, distressed that she had not been able to persuade Eurygyos and Larichos to come, said with bitterness, “As you see, my brother, fame is not peace.”

“Am I to know what those black looks and ill words were about?” Khar asked.

“They do not approve my life. To them I am not Sappho, the Lesbian poet, but a sister they feel free to criticize.”

“Well, well, let it wait. I have not crossed the trackless wastes for a family quarrel. Wherever I set foot I was asked by all, ‘Know you fair Sappho, the Lesbian songstress?' And when I answered with the truth, they would fall on their knees to me simply because the gods willed we share the same parents. How long I have looked forward to this day and to being your guest.”

Sappho sighed with relief. “Your words coincide with my wish, Brother, that we will have time together to learn the people we have become. Very dear you were to me in days past. We shared a childhood and an exile when we were young. Tell me, do you find me much changed?”

“The years have given you dignity. And there is magic about you, so that one would suppose one was in the company of a goddess.”

“And the wrinkles, Khar?”

“I see none. You are as when I left.”

“I fear age, Khar, more than death. You see, I dwell with youth and beauty. I am an example to my hetaerae. But were I to grow old, they would leave me or, if they did not, I would send them away.”

“Why?”

“Why? Because the joy I teach them is all of beauty, and I could not bear to be other than lovely in their eyes.”

Khar laughed. Renowned though she was, his sister had her share of woman's foolishness. “Your fame sets you beyond such thoughts.”

She shook her head, but smiling now. “Let us talk of you, Khar, and all you have experienced.”

“I have experienced heat and battle, luxurious living and rough-running tides.”

“In my home slaves have drawn a scented bath. You shall be anointed, and you shall sleep. Then we will close the years with good talk and confidences.”

The taut face of her brother relaxed.

At the villa Sappho took Khar and Alkaios along the flower-strewn purple cloth to an anteroom and herself removed their sandals and, bending over them, washed their feet. “I had word of your death, Alkaios, while I was yet in Syracuse. Khar it was who wrote me.” She did not speak of the bargain she had made.

“I did not know myself he lived, until just before sailing from Naukratis. My joy at finding him was muted by the anguish I caused you to live with these many years,” Khar said.

Alkaios turned it off as a matter of no consequence. “I was on a ship that was, in fact, boarded by thieves. They wanted my gold. I offered my latest songs instead. They settled for both.”

“I thank great Zeus for your life. And for the life of my brother who braves the changing seas.”

*   *   *

“And you say it is called the Fort of the Jew's Daughter?” They breakfasted on wine poured into water, on honeyed cakes and eggs in a rich batter.

“Yes.” Alkaios took up the story. “Egypt, with thirty thousand Hellenic mercenaries, marched into Palestine. And Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon made an alliance with the Medes, slaying all the princes of Judah at Rublah. When his army broke down the walls of Jerusalem, they say four thousand six hundred souls were carried into Babylon. The Jews mourned as their palaces and strongholds were destroyed, even the gates of their city sunk to the ground.

“Among those to survive was a madman whom none dared kill and a nobleman of the house of Judah, together with his daughter. They made their way to Daphnae, where they were given asylum at the fort. This Jewish daughter was beautiful beyond women, and the place where she stayed was renamed for her.”

“How greatly the Jews must have sinned against the gods to be so chastised,” Sappho said.

“They believe otherwise,” Alkaios replied. “Their belief is not in Father Zeus and his offspring, but in one god only.”

“What? Only one?”

“And they say it was for the sin of forsaking Him that their temple was destroyed and they brought low.”

“How know you this?” Sappho asked, for she dearly loved a story, even a preposterous one about a single god.

“I spoke to the mad prophet himself, one Jeremiah, who thought the Lord walked with him and scourged him. For he had been a laughingstock when he prophesied doom, and his own people stoned him. He foretold that Mount Zion would lie desolate and jackals prowl over it.”

Sappho said pensively, “The madness of a priest is very near that of a poet.”

“I heard in Daphnae, on the Pelusiac branch of the Nile, a most beautiful and sad song,” Alkaios continued. “It drifted down from the fortress carried by a woman's voice. I believe it was the Jewish Princess herself, for the song originated, as you will hear, in Babylon.” Alkaios picked up his lyre and sang in his moving voice:

By the waters of Babylon

there we sat down, yea,

we wept when we remembered

Zion.

We hanged our harps in the midst

thereof.

For they that carried us away

captive

required of us a song,

and they that wasted us,

required of us mirth,

saying sing us one of the songs of

Zion.

How shall we sing the Lord's

song

in a strange land?

“There was more to it, but I have forgotten.”

“As you say, it is both lovely and sad.” Sappho took the lyre from him, repeating the verses Alkaios had remembered. “One god only. What a strange people. It is no wonder that all the other gods visit vengeance upon them.”

Wine was once more poured. Her guests feasted and reclined to the sound of dulcet music, watching the scent curling musk. It was then Khar spoke. “It is time, I think, to tell me, Sister, of the quarrel with our brothers. Why did they refuse to come? Tell me, for the gods know all.”

“Amatheia of the lovely locks, dark-eyed Halie, and fair Galatea, daughters all of Nereus, those sea-nymphs who dwell at the bottom of deepest waters, brought you safe to me that you may hear and judge.”

“Judge! I do not sit in judgment on Sappho!”

“I swear by those of our family beneath and above the earth, Brother, that I am not deserving of the ill treatment I receive from Eurygyos and Larichos. Since I am a weaver of fictions, let me begin with an old story. It is about Love, which is the author of all human happiness and enables us to live in harmony.

“We humans in our physical bodies have undergone many changes since time stood at its beginning. Originally there were three sexes, male, female, and another, which took of the nature of both the others, the hermaphrodite. Now all three types were completely rounded, having a double back, which formed a disc, four arms, four legs, and two identical faces upon a common head, which looked in opposite directions. These creatures had two organs of generation as they had all else. The male was born of Sun, the female of Earth, and the sex that was both male and female came from Moon.