Sappho (40 page)

Sappho began to tremble. A line of sweat broke against her hair and yet she felt cold. The old poem came back to her. With it she begged:

I loved you, Atthis,

with all my heart,

before you yet suspected it

“Or suspected what you would do about it,” the girl retorted.

Sappho took a faltering step toward her, but the stiffness with which Atthis drew herself up rebuffed her.

“I do not know what to do. My thoughts are double. You loved me well, Atthis.”

“I did not know you, Sappho.”

“But it means something! The times I braided your hair with fragrant blossoms, and remember … when love has you by the throat, you will do anything. Can you not believe the gods themselves put the plan into my mind?”

Darling Atthis, can you forget all

that happened in the

old days?

Atthis stood her ground. “I despise the person you are, Sappho, under your fine words. I go with Gorgo to Andromeda.”

“Not there, Atthis. Do you think to find honesty and gentle dealing there? O Atthis, your words disturb my soul. Yet I see you have decided to leave me.”

“Your power over me was built of lies. It is broken.”

Sappho's eyes raged with darkened lights, in one of those shifts of emotion she was capable of. “You have trampled on your oath! You swore by the dead waters of the River Styx to love me.”

“It was no true oath, since you never showed me your true self.”

Sappho did not know how she remained on her feet.

Daughter of Zeus and weaver of ruses

Now I address you:

Queen, do not hurt my heart, do not harry it,

but come as before when you heard and you hearkened

a long way away

Atthis was impatient with all this. “Farewell, Sappho.”

Sappho looked her in the eyes. “Atthis, I see you hate all thought of me. Well, hate and despise me if you must, but do not go to Andromeda. Go home to your family. I could not rest thinking of you with that foul woman.”

“I listened to you once, O Sappho of many tongues. It is Gorgo I trust.”

“I am not trying to hold you now. But let me protect you from that woman and from Gorgo. By the gods, by holy Zeus, I ask that you return to your parents.”

“I will go with Gorgo.”

When she was gone, Sappho stood a moment looking at the place where Atthis had been.

Then she ran after her, out of the compound, into the road. “Atthis!” she called, for the girl's figure was fast receding. “Have pity. I have not the strength to go through moments like this. Atthis!” She still ran but lurched from side to side. There was a tremor in her voice as she pleaded. “Terror hung over me all summer. Do not make me face the truth, which even Apollo cannot cure … that you have never loved me.

“Atthis,” she called again, for the distance between them was widening. “Will you leave me here on the road?—I had no choice, no choice, Atthis, but to do as I did.”

Her eyes glazed. She was beaten. She could not go on. She didn't want to go on. She pulled her cloak about her and laid herself full-length on All-Mother Earth.

*   *   *

When Niobe came upon her she was lying on the road with fever in her cheeks. Niobe ran for a litter and Sappho was carried home. She turned away from food and would have the barest sip of water. Day and night were the same to her, and then from nowhere her daughter appeared, released by the Dionysians to tend her.

It was a reversal of roles: she the daughter, Kleis the mother, who murmured soft words and administered herbal medicine, the knowledge of which had been taught her in the sacred caves. “You must be well, Mother. You still have many songs to sing.”

“For Dionysos?”

“Even so.”

“And what about you, my daughter?”

“I am no longer your daughter. I belong to the joy-god.”

“Can you not love me, Kleis?”

“Not as mortals love. But as a priestess, who loves all.”

Sappho turned her face to the wall. She did not want that kind of love. She embraced her illness as she had her poems and her loves; she wanted to be consumed by it.

When she looked up next, Kleis was gone and it was Atthis who tended her. Sappho spoke faintly. “You have done well. I longed for you.”

At another time she roused herself and pressed Atthis's hand. “I was longing for you. Bless you.”

Sappho fell again into sleep. When she woke Atthis was still there. “Sweet one,” she murmured, “dear Kleis,” and for a while she confused them.

“Drink some broth,” Atthis urged. Strengthening wine was also brought her.

Atthis sang the old songs. When, after some days, Sappho took up the lyre, Atthis knew that, though pale and weak, she would recover. “Anything must be forgiven love,” Atthis said, and kissed her.

Sappho had hungered for this kiss, but when she tasted it, it did not seem the same. “Bring me my mirror, Atthis. No, do not bring it. I will not question my good fortune or look too closely at it. You are here. I am content.” Propped against cushions she sang Atthis's praise:

The belovedest offspring of Earth and Heaven …

Thinking Sappho was tired, Atthis tried to take the instrument from her, but Sappho would not give it up. “It was ever our way to sing what we could not say.”

Nor ever did the gathering sounds

of early spring

fill any wood with the chorus of the nightingale

but you wandered there with me

“How pretty it is.”

“Yes, it is pretty. Anything written in pain is pretty, Atthis.”

Soon Sappho closed her eyes and seemed to sleep, but when Atthis attempted to steal out, she roused at once. “Do not leave me, Atthis. Sit closer to the window so that the light falls on you more fully.”

Atthis rose and positioned herself as Sappho wished.

“Do you forgive me, Atthis? Or are you here in pity?”

“I forgive you.”

“You do not mention love. Do you love me?”

“I love you well.”

Sappho smiled. “Are you nymph or maiden? You are my nymph of the braided tresses.”

*   *   *

Sappho slowly regained her strength and her hetaerae made thankful offerings. Saffron was sprinkled at the entrance to her door. The girls sang her praises in the forest and the courtyard, at work and at leisure. It seemed that the House of the Servants of the Muses was as before.

Sappho made her own gift at her recovery:

To thee I will burn

the rich fat of a white goat

These lines she sent to the priestesses of Dionysos. For she knew her daughter had saved her life, and that she could not have come without permission. Remembering Kleis's hands on her, she was happy. She loves me after all, Sappho thought, and did not feel so alone.

For with Atthis it was not as it had been. The girl found many missions in town. If thread were needed, or stuffs for dyeing, it was Atthis who offered to go.

“Send a servant,” Sappho would say, but Atthis preferred to go herself.

She finds it dull here, Sappho thought. And then she thought, Is there perhaps some attraction in the town of Mitylene? The chastising Erinyes put it into her mind to wonder, Is Atthis meeting someone? For certain it is that Aphrodite presides over the whispers, smiles, and deceits which girls employ.

Reinforcing Sappho's suspicion was Atthis's continual reiteration that she did not consider her well enough to indulge in the act of love. This had gone on too long. Atthis would sit by her and sing with her, but startled like a fawn if Sappho's hand so much as rested in her lap. Finally Sappho took up her barhitos lyre of the polished horns which she used at rare but important moments. With her eyes fixed on Atthis she began:

I want, darling, to hug you

Atthis laughed nervously. And Sappho plunged recklessly into what she wanted to ask:

Is there any man

anywhere among mankind

you love more than me?

She fixed a gaze on the girl that seemed to bore through to her soul. “Certain it is that you love another human being more than me.”

Atthis denied it and went away crying.

Sappho had her watched, sending a servant to follow her into Mitylene. There it was discovered that she met a young man.

“Describe him,” Sappho demanded of her servant in a voice without inflection.

She listened passively and without comment. She knew this young man, she knew his family, one of the first families of Lesbos. His grandfather had been killed in the long-ago war with Athens, and by closing her eyes she brought the face of the young man before her. No feature was awry—a straight nose without bend, fair hair, and eyes like the sea. His mouth? She could not recall his mouth—it must be full and ripe for kisses. His build she did remember—like a gladiator, powerful, with the slenderness of youth. It was reported that Atthis always flew straight to him, and they lost no time but fell at once into attitudes of love.

Now that she knew without doubt, she thought her love must die, but it grew in her. She could think of nothing else. If only she could dig out of herself what she felt, as one digs up vine roots, or even prune it back to something reasonable, something that could be lived with. She could not do it. Instead she sang her hopelessness and her jealousy:

He is a god to my eyes—

the man who is allowed

to sit beside you—he

who listens intimately

to the sweet murmur of

your voice, the enticing

laughter that makes my own

heart beat fast. If I meet

you suddenly, I can't

speak—my tongue is broken;

a thin flame runs under

my skin; seeing nothing,

hearing only my own ears

drumming, I drip with sweat;

trembling shakes my body

and I turn paler than

dry grass. At such times

death isn't far from me

Although some kind of love trance possessed her, she managed to appear calm. She did not show the ode to Atthis or mention the clandestine meetings in Mitylene. She was silent.

She knew she should pray to some god to help her. But how could she do this, when she felt they had stolen her mind? Finally she addressed those she decided must be responsible. “Dread Erinyes, mighty in power, release me! I do not know what to do: I say yes—and then no.”

A few days later Atthis went into town to bring back some geometrically adorned vases, the kind Sappho used indiscriminately about the house, in the kitchen and in the garden for woodbines and ivy. She returned without them.

Atthis said all in a rush, “My parents want me to leave you, Sappho. They have betrothed me to a young man. It is against my will, but when does a maid have a say in such matters?”

Sappho gazed not at her but out the window. It seemed she gazed on distant days. At last she said, “I was in love with you once, Atthis, long ago…”

Atthis began to cry. She fell to her knees and her tears washed Sappho's feet. Sappho watched this performance with indifference. Atthis no longer loved her. But then, she no longer loved herself. She seemed removed, distant from the weeping girl.

“I swear it is against my own wishes that I leave you.”

“So you said.”

“It is true. My family…”

“Yes, it is your family. Well, you are of an age to marry. But from me, no wedding songs, not one.”

“Do not be angry with me, Sappho. It is not through my fault. And we both suffer.”

“Where are the vases? Did you leave them outside?”

“What vases?”

“The ones you went to Mitylene for. But I see anguish overcame you and you forgot them.”

“Yes.”

“O Atthis, say no more. Go the way of your happiness.”

“But you must believe that I cannot bear to part from you.”

“No games, Atthis. It goes too deep. We have meant too much to each other for that. Go where your path takes you. In this life we shall not see each other again.”

Fresh weeping from Atthis. “How can you say that so calmly?”

“Because I cannot change it, and because I know of the young man you have been meeting.”

Atthis sprang up. “At least tell me how long you have hated me!”

“I? Hate Atthis? Never. You have brought me more joy than I have ever known. So it is perhaps a balance that the gods hold in their laps, that you bring me also the most pain.”

“I could not help it.”

“I know. I know.” She reached out as though to touch her, but her arms fell to her sides. “Go. There are hard words and soft in me, and I do not wish to use either against you.” She closed her eyes and her senses told her when the girl left. “I will never see Atthis again, and indeed I might as well be dead.”

*   *   *

Niobe found her sitting quietly in a room where the tapers had not been lit.

“Lady,” she remonstrated in great distress.

Sappho waved her away. Once she roused herself and murmured:

Whence never again will I come to thee,

never again will I come

At some hour she got out her stele and on it pressed out the last ode she would write Atthis:

With a great many tears she left me saying,

“What a terrible blow—what sadness!

Sappho, I swear I leave you

absolutely against my will.”

And I said in reply:

“Go, be happy, good-bye.