Sappho (34 page)

“Now their strength and vigor were great. Also their pride, so that they attacked even the gods. Father Zeus debated what was to be done, for he could not allow a race of god-fighters, nor could he bring himself to kill them as he had the giants. At last Zeus thought of a solution: he would cut them in two. ‘And if they continue so arrogant, I will bisect them again and let them hop upon one leg.'

“So saying, he cut the members of the human race in halves. Apollo healed the wounds and gathered together the skin like a purse so that we have bellies.

“Now it happened that each severed half yearned to find its other self. Those who were Sun-born desired other men. And women who were halves of a female gave their affection to women. While the parts of the hermaphrodites sought the opposite sex. Not only are we possessed of these physical demands, but the soul has a longing to complete itself which it can express in no other manner.”

There was a pause when she finished. “This is indeed the way of it,” Alkaios said, and then perceiving Khar's stern countenance, stopped.

“I understand your parable, Sappho,” her brother said. “And it is certainly usual that men and women copulate and men with boys. Many such lovers have I seen march into battle together. Yet I did not realize that women were capable of an equal passion for each other. However, I find no evil in such a practice, except that it leaves fewer women for me.”

His lips relaxed into a smile. Alkaios was delighted to laugh with him.

Her brother continued, “And you, Sappho, as a poet of great stature, perhaps require a more dominant role in sex than the female is generally granted. Tell me, for I have seen lovely girls here in your home, are they all inclined toward their own sex?”

“Only a few have girl lovers. Most leave to marry.”

“It seems to me,” Khar said, “a paradise has been created in this house where I hear only laughter and music. And certainly I can think of no reason why the pleasure of your own sex should be denied you. As long as all are here by their own will and not carried off from the town…”

“No, no, only about a third of my hetaerae are Lesbians. The others come from islands close and far, from Athens and Lydia.”

“And our brothers are against your pleasure?”

“They find it unseemly in a woman to find such fulfillment. They say of my life that it is licentious, and that I bring disgrace on them as though I were a common whore. They do not come to my house, nor am I invited to theirs.”

“They set themselves up as second Solons, then. Even the gods have body parts and must satisfy them. It is reasonable that you have needs beyond other women. One must feed art even as the gods subsist on hekatombs.”

Sappho clasped her brother's knees and laid her head upon them.

Alkaios, much moved by the scene, took care they should not know it. In a loud and jovial voice he proclaimed, “This Kharaxos, this captain who commands both Sea and squadrons, who urges men with whips and blows, is soft, unfired clay in the hands of this sister.”

Sappho exclaimed, “Let me send to the flower merchants in thanks for your support. Recently I have endured such conflict of passions. Like a great cauldron of soup I am stirred one way and then another. Sometimes I thought myself a perverse and evil person in whom all the storms of the human heart gathered.”

“That can happen when wave chases wave and the sea breaks on a lonely headland.”

Sappho smiled tenderly on her brother. “Your mind and my heart are not strangers, Khar.”

Alkaios, never one to be outdone, said, “Let me tell how night after night Khar guided us over the pathless Sea by the Pleiades and the Bear, who turns ever in one place. Your brother does not lie at anchor nights as others do, but continues with Orion ever on his left. Consequently, his ships are filled with prizes, both earned and won. Your house has trebled its fortune.”

“The gods grant, Brother, that now you will rest at home in Mitylene, and find yourself a wife.”

Khar shook his head. “The sea is in my blood, as it was in our father's.”

“Then you will pursue your quest like the mighty Odysseus?”

“I have scheduled a return trip to Naukratis. There will be time later when there are white threads in my beard to think of wife and fireside. And you, Sister, perhaps you will be making a water journey of your own.”

“I? Oh no, I am done with travel. Twice noble Poseidon protected and spared me. One must not trespass too often on the domain of gods.”

“But I am bearer of a special message. It comes from Iadmon, Prince of Samos. He is owner of the slave Aesop, whose parables you have often related. Iadmon is holding a great ceremony at which your presence is most urgently sought, as the occasion is the setting free of this man of genius, the storyteller Aesop.”

Sappho clapped her hands at the news. “How fitting! For no prince, no matter how powerful, should own art. Art must be free; I have always believed it and believe that only in Lesbos could I have sung. Perhaps you are right, Brother, perhaps I should travel to Samos. Would I be Iadmon's guest-friend?”

“He will have it no other way.”

*   *   *

Sappho did not wish to make the trip to Samos. The reason was hidden in the words of one of her old songs:

For whom curl my hair

for whom perfume my hands?

Since I go not to …

One saffron-robed morning a name had come unbidden to her mind—Atthis.

The stars had gone forward many times since then and always the girl was at Anaktoria's side. Yet even at the gate of her dreams the nymph of the braided tresses stood. In her dreams Atthis walked alone; there was no Anaktoria. “Her soul has passed into me.” Sappho cried nights into her pillow, for she would almost rather die than love again. “I will hang my wreath on Aphrodite's sacred tree and remove the ribbons from my legs!”

But the disorder of her pulse did not steady. She asked as she had in the past:

Which of the gods

set this wild love

in my heart?

And she sang bitterly a truth she had learned:

Aphrodite's

daughter, you

cheat mortals

But she didn't care, and many times she put herself in Atthis's way. The girl always smiled at her, but kept her arm around Anaktoria's waist. To Atthis she was a revered teacher, nothing more. While for her Atthis became the focus of her thoughts.

The sight of Atthis and Anaktoria, playful as two colts, throwing a ball to each other, combing each other's hair, whispering, their heads close, tormented Sappho. Atthis's voice was particularly sweet, and she liked to sing softly into Anaktoria's ear. Pictures of the two came between Sappho and sleep. She had a desire that grew day by day so great that she wrote:

I would commit follies for that woman …

When Atthis merely passed by she felt she had drunk nectar subtly mixed with fire. The air itself seemed to scorch her as she saw Anaktoria take Atthis by the hand or the ends of her peplos.

To Aphrodite she breathed:

Many's the time

I've wished I,

O gold-crowned Aphrodite,

had luck like that

She sang a new song:

Love coming from Heaven

throws off

his purple mantle

Unruly desire let her think of nothing but the girl, and she devised lawless plans for being rid of Anaktoria. Then Atthis would turn to her. Sappho persuaded herself that she had always loved the girl. Had she not sung of her even before her first exile?

She wrote in the night:

Is it possible

for any maid on earth

to be apart

from the woman she loves?

When the queenly Dawn again showed Atthis hand in hand with Anaktoria, Sappho decided it was better for her, better for Atthis, better for Anaktoria, that she make the journey to the island of Samos.

It was not as a woman but as a poet she was valued. She knew the trip would enhance her reputation, give fresh impetus to the stories told of her. It was legend-building to depart on such a journey to do honor to art and the Muses she served. Besides, the auguries repeatedly fell out well, they promised seas as smooth as a mirror.

When Khar promised he himself would pilot the ship, she put by her reluctance and agreed. Her girls were delighted at this venturing and danced all in unison for her, her brother, and her friend Alkaios. The men leaned back against cushions and watched. The sacred figures of the dance, the heavy movements of the loins caused them to breathe more quickly. “The crowned Muses have descended,” her brother whispered in appreciation, “even golden-haired Harmony.”

Glancing sideways at him, Sappho said slyly, “If a maid in my house pleases you, Brother, and you would give up your roving ways…”

Khar only laughed. “I am a sailor, too rough for the arts of love they hint at.”

Sappho smiled, for her hetaerae had indeed been well and delicately taught. However, she knew Khar would not choose a maiden trained by her. He was of her house and would train his own woman.

Alkaios leaned close to her. “Your poems are a breaking through and throwing off of restraint. It is as though you remove all pins, both of ivory and bone, from your hair and allow it to fall free.”

“Hesiod taught, ‘The holy gift of the Muses to man—is song.'”

“He also said, ‘He is happy whom the Muses love.' Yet I see melancholy too often on your face.”

Alkaios had always been penetrating, yet she denied his words with her old fire. “Why should you say this thing?” But this was Alkaios who knew her.

“What you speak is true,” she admitted. “Do you know, I thought myself responsible for your death? Yes, I prayed Zeus to spare my child and take another whom I loved in her place. Directly after this I received news that you were murdered at sea. By this barter with the gods, you can see there is not one Sappho within me, but another who brings calamity by her folly. Is it she who sings? She who makes immortal words? I have never known.

“I know who I want to be, but only sometimes am. There is a willful, frightening spirit who at times inhabits me, inconstant in love, seeking always what she has not. I do not like this person. And I have never spoken of her before.” She realized her brother was listening also. “I ask you, Khar, and you, Alkaios, is there a way to expel her by prayer or magic? Is it some curse the gods have laid on me along with being double-sexed?”

Khar shook his head. He was a simple man and his solution was simple: “A trip by sea will be good for you.”

Sappho laughed until tears stood in her eyes.

But Alkaios said, “Your hurt is in comparing yourself with others. You must not do this. As for me, you did me no harm. As for your art, it lives by love. That you love easily is not an evil. You have an eager heart. Therefore your words fly up in flame. Do not mourn that you are Sappho, but send up hekatombs.”

“Yes?” she asked tentatively, wanting to be reassured.

“It is as I say, you are a gem unmatched by any other. Sun, Moon, cloud-shrouded Day, the tapers of Night, each show a different aspect, reflecting some part of Sappho. The whole … none can know, not even you. But I agree with Khar. Perhaps the voyage will ease your heart and mind. As I see it, it is an act symbolic for all time, that Sappho of Lesbos be present when the fetters are struck and Aesop made free.”

“And you will join me, Alkaios?”

“That I will not. I have had my fill of wandering. I will find a pretty boy to bring me comfort here in Lesbos. I shall not be missed from the Samian festivities. Besides, though it be a small matter, Iadmon forgot to include me in his guest list.”

“He is the loser! And you, Brother?”

“My ships are even now being provisioned. I will take you to Iadmon's grand festival and then leave with a cargo of wine and olives once more for Egypt. I must return a final time with fine metals, hides, and matchless linens such as I brought this trip.”

“And will it be a venture of so many years?” Sappho asked sadly.

“You quest in the mind, Sappho, I in strange lands and upon unharvested seas that produced Nereus, who never lies and is always true.”

“May you find another such upon the Earth, call her wife, and settle down.”

“Why do you want a settled life for me, Sister, when my blood courses hot as yours?”

“I fear for you, Khar. You are all I have left.”

“What about my niece, your pretty Kleis?” He realized he had not seen her this visit.

“She is well. But mothers and daughters have difficulty understanding one another. She takes her uncles' part and stays here only reluctantly.”

“I am grieved to hear this.”

Sappho shrugged. “It is all one. She will soon be married, I suppose. She is coming to that age and is a well-grown girl.”

*   *   *

During the next days Sappho helped Alkaios in the selection of a site where he planned to erect a villa, and left him immersed in plans and quarreling with his architect. With her brother she went to the quay and watched skins of wine and water loaded onto the ships. “When you return this time, Khar, you will be a member of the governing assembly.”

But he did not hear. He lay on his belly to inspect the work of slaves, and kicked the fresh planks to test their soundness.

His sister smiled. He is like me, she thought, when I am seized by a poem sent of the gods.

At home she supervised her servants as they packed her woman's chest. Her finest garments were folded between scent, and there were gifts of much worth for her host and for Aesop. One would think her busy, but during this preparation she watched Atthis covertly.

The immortals know no care;