Sappho (9 page)

“I can understand that prankster, that tippler, that idler Alkaios,” their mother said, “but you, Kharaxos, a responsible and renowned young man of highest station, and you, Sappho, a girl only, the daughter of a proud and honored father. It is unthinkable. In any times but these it could not have happened.”

“Nevertheless it has happened,” Sappho said.

Kleis stopped crying long enough to ask, “And how long is this indignity to last?”

“The sentence is indeterminate.” It was difficult for Sappho to be patient with the lamentations. There were no tears on her face, for it occurred to her that, though freemen might indeed laugh in the taverns and take sly pleasure in their disgrace, in the great houses of Mitylene there was bound to be anger. And anger could possibly accomplish their purpose.

Kleis and Tyro tore their hair and asked piteously which of the gods they had offended that the two eldest children of the house were publicly humiliated.

But there was no time for introspection or invective, and hardly any for good-byes. The guard at her side reminded her that Pittakos's schedule did not allow for delays.

“I will take Niobe with me,” Sappho decided. Turning to her favorite slave, a girl her own age, she asked for a warm cloak, “and whatever is necessary from my woman's chest. Also my flute.”

“Baskets of bread, smoked flesh, and fruits,” Tyro ordered the servants. “O my Sappho, you have been a daughter in this childless house.”

“Khar, Khar,” Kleis broke in. “Do not ask what will become of the laughter, the songs, the flute playing. And what will the boys, your brothers, think? What are we to tell them?”

“It will not be necessary to tell them anything. They will hear it all,” Kharaxos said, and to relieve his mother's mind promised, “do not worry. I will look after Sappho.”

A twist of a smile appeared on Sappho's lips.

Kleis clasped brother and sister in her arms. “Look after each other.” Tyro embraced them in her turn. Baskets of food and clothing were handed to Niobe.

“She cannot walk such a distance like a packhorse,” Sappho said. “We will divide the bundles.”

At this unseemliness, the women were again overcome. “It is the times,” Kleis moaned. “No man or woman has seen such times as these. Exile! May the gods help us!”

L
ETO

When the studded bronze doors of her home clanged behind them, Sappho's heart clanged with them on a doleful note. All things spoke good-bye: the harbors and piled rocks of the breakwater, the fishing boats and merchant fleets. Tyrian, Sicilian, Kypriot, from Egypt and Corinth, the ships rode at anchor, their painted eyes bobbing over the swells. “Eurynome,” she prayed, “daughter of the ever-encircling waters of Ocean, help me keep my courage.” For she was leaving everything she knew.

Even the rocks jutting into the sea she knew: the eagle, one wing spread, the other drooping as though hit by a stone from the slingshot of some god when he was young. And there was Hera's profile, severe, proud, cut into the rocks above the jetty. Was she looking for the last time at the arcade of the agora with its raucous, seething, colorful crowd and wares from exotic ports? Her glance lifted to the acropolis, from which Zeus watched over them. Maliciously? With amusement, compassion? She did not know. Perhaps they wanted her to drink a cup of bull's blood and be done with her life. But this she did not intend to do.

A fresh thought occurred to her. Perhaps the guards had orders, once away from Mitylene, to kill them? The possibility that she might be hacked to pieces by soldiers terrified her and she moved closer to Khar.

Mitylene's cascading gardens and terraced vineyards were left behind. The delicate swaying iris, the half-hidden crocus, the oleander dripping its clusters over the walls—she felt her parting from each. How many times she had joined her women at the washing stones, as they spread garments on mulberry bushes and rocks for Sun to dry. She fixed her eyes now on the thick tussock grass, on roots of scraggly olive trees. The orchards were already distant.

The piping of a solitary shepherd carried through the clear air—Iton, mother of sheep, give us help—for they were now walking in strange groves and she had never made offering to the nymphs that haunted them. When the sounds of the shepherd's pipe died away, civilization ceased.

Shadows were already long by the time the soldiers stopped for their evening meal. Sappho observed them with hidden glances. If they meant evil toward them, it might happen now. But they seemed intent on unwrapping cheese and swilling from goatskins.

The three prisoners sat a little apart and were served by Niobe. Khar ate with good appetite and whispered plans for escape. Sappho shook her head.

“How can we escape? Lesbos is an island.”

“Eat, Sappho,” Alkaios urged, for she had stretched out on her back to watch the clouds swim the sky.

“Some things will be with us in our exile,” she said. “All-Mother Earth will be under our feet. Sky and Sea, who were her first offspring and with whom she mated, will follow us, and the clouds I watch now will be before us over Pyrrha.”

“What is your meaning, Sappho?” Khar asked.

“We will be with strangers. But some things that we have known we will continue to know.”

“Me, now,” Alkaios said, “I like to travel. But I prefer to choose my destination.” He smiled at his comrades with cheering bravado, and put into song what he had just said. Sappho answered his music with her own:

Not though my heart within me …

The guards stopped masticating to listen.

The understanding gods evoke tears …

Although she sang them low, the words were painful as a sharp wind stinging the face. The soldiers, to cover their emotion, were unnecessarily rough in getting them to their feet. “We can travel a long way before night,” one of them said.

Already weary, Sappho had thought this was their camp. The desolate overhanging crags depressed her further, for there was no color or any tint that was soft. What was left to sing about? Could one carry the Muses, and the children they had fathered by the Moon, the lovely Graces, into such inhospitable surroundings? It was a drear land, steep and gray. They passed a pillar set over the tomb of someone who had gone this way before them and died of it.

As they turned a bend, a flock of daws startled and flew upward. It was a portent, if only she had the wit to unravel it. She pondered—the birds were small, she was small. They ascended; she, too, toiled up, up, up. What did it mean?

She turned her ankle but went on without saying anything. Sun had long ago slid behind the hills; all she could see was cast in a filtered blue light, eerie and unreal. She was thinking now, not of the Muses and their offspring, but of lions and wild boars. Instinctively the captives pressed closer to the armed men.

“Ida, mother of wild beasts, many a lay I have sung you. Do not let your creatures eat alive my songs. Think of the garlands I have left at your altar, fragrant and of many colors…”

Sappho stumbled. Alkaios took her hand. “It is growing too dark to see,” he called to the soldiers. They did not answer, but a torch was lit, and by the way they swung it around, it would seem they were looking for a place to stop.

Camp was made by a large slab of rock, against which they could lie with their backs protected. Moss and branches and pinecones heaped together started a small fire. It was the soldiers who performed this menial task, for their captives were nobles. Niobe laid her robes before the blaze. As she lay down to sleep, Sappho found Alkaios on one side of her and her brother on the other. “I am the one. I am responsible for this,” she whispered.

Each assured her it was he alone. She tried to wrap her small hands around their larger ones. It could not be done, so she squeezed them both. “Brother,” she said. “Friend.” And to cheer them repeated a verse she had told many times. It began:

Moon hung in a hollow night …

The Pleiades rose, and bold Orion. She watched the Bear turning in one place because an angry goddess decreed he could never rest.

If Pittakos had ordered death, it would come this night. The other two either had no such thoughts or left it to the gods, for they slept. Sappho remained wide-eyed, remembering Night's offspring were Sleep and Death. She recalled a verse sung at a happier time:

The night closed their eyes

and poured down black sleep

upon their lids

She wished for it, even if she never woke. “If it comes, Father Zeus, let the stroke be merciful.”

The Pleiades set; the Bear kept watch upon Orion.

Sappho opened her eyes. The fire had gone out. Night moved in ebb flows. She heard it move, saw places more shadowy than others that shifted with wind, with rustling leaves, with the spirits of this unknown place. At least she knew, looking at the sleeping forms of the soldiers, that there were no secret orders. They were to live.

*   *   *

Rosy-fingered Dawn scattered the forces of Night. Starlings twittered above her head. Yesterday each step that took her from Mitylene was agony. Today it was a journey. Her early journey as a child from Eresos she scarcely remembered. And this was but the second time in her life she had ventured into unknown regions. Yet her father had been a trader and a rover. Khar too, spoke of buying a ship to sail and, in his turn, finding markets for Lesbian wine. But, as a female, she seemed destined to stay at home. As poet and rebel, however, she was considered dangerous enough to banish. Why? Because she mocked Pittakos? Or was it because he found her ideas uncomfortable? She laughed silently.

Then as a woman traveling among men, she turned to the shelter of the bush she had used last night to let out the accumulation of her body. She made ablution in the cold stream, catching the spray in her fingers before it drained away. Splashing her face, she waded with numb ankles to a rock where she could sit and watch the water braid itself. The several sounds set up a murmuring as, passing over stone with a deeper gurgle, the stream formed a pool. Sappho picked a reed and blew through it, making a soft tune. Later she would put words to it. She thanked the Muses for making the journey with her, for not deserting her. Her lyre had been too heavy for the trip, but she would send for it. Meantime her flute was tucked in with the food Niobe carried. She brought the gift of music and poetry to high Pyrrha. If she did not at first find beauty there, she would seek it out. For nature fed art. And if beauty were totally lacking, she would look into her own young heart.

In her were banked fires that had never flared. She feared the time that would happen. But so contrary was her nature that she knew she would welcome the conflagration even if she perished in it. She desired greatly—but what? That the gods love her? But they loved only beauty, and she was ugly. Yet not always. She knew this, too. And not to some.

Tradition said her people, the Danaans, came over the northern mountains. There were great sanctuaries along the route, in Dodona, Olympus, and Olympia. The Danaans had been an untamed lot, blond and tall, with a history of conquest. They swept down in their strength upon the Aeolean coastal valleys and onto the island, overrunning the more civilized Aegeans, whose main culture was in Crete. In the agora of Mitylene she had seen painted pottery from that island. And the maidens they depicted might have been herself: black hair that did not need to be plaited at night for curls, and high-bridged noses giving them the same look of hauteur which was a part of her visage. And she guessed that in those early days a blond Danaan daughter had bedded with an Aegean in her father's fields, and when she found herself growing heavy, quickly married, having no peace until the birth, for fear the child would betray her by its swarthy countenance. But she had not exposed the infant, for it was as herself and her people, blond and beautiful. There was, however, a seed within that none knew of, until her own birth generations after. For no one resembled her, only maidens on a vase.

She was roused from reverie by a clear, sweet whistling. Alkaios threw himself down on the bank of the stream. “A night's sleep and the world looks different! At least in this ignominious exile, I have the honor to be the companion of lovely Sappho.”

“You will miss your pretty boys,” she teased.

He grinned impudently at her. “There are pretty boys everywhere.”

“You are incorrigible,” she laughed.

He laughed back. “Only because you will not take me in hand.”

“It is too large a job for me.”

“What were you piping so prettily into your reed?”

“I was thinking of our people of ancient times, and wondering who they were.”

“What a strange, unknowable girl you are. You should be thinking of breakfast, as I am. The brutes of soldiers are up, and cakes of barley cooking.”

He led her back and they poured to the gods, and again ate in separate groups, Niobe moving between them.

The party climbed briskly all morning. Sky looked benignly on them. Sky possessed secret knowledge and could give oracles even to Zeus. Sky would know Pyrrha, for his vastness spread over all alike. The pines they passed here were knobby and stunted, the soil sparse and light. Their midday meal of figs, cheese, and bread was eaten by an olive orchard, the first sign that they approached a village. The soldiers and Alkaios played at odd-even, Alkaios having the sense not to win from them.

The captain ordered Niobe back to pick the wild asparagus they had passed growing in a cluster. Sappho sat and blew softly on her flute. When she looked up, the captain was not there. Her heart beat fast. He had gone after Niobe. Why?

She glanced at the others absorbed in their game, then got to her feet. Keeping to the periphery of their vision, she sauntered until she rounded a boulder, then quickened her steps. In a few minutes she came on them.

The asparagus had fallen onto the rocks. Niobe with small, strangled, hiccupping cries, was attempting to beat the man off. She lay naked under her attacker, who had wound her chiton around her head and face so she would not be heard. His member was swollen to enormous size and he was attempting to thrust it into the crimson slash that heaved under him.