to beauty: this was one of those times. Everything, at
this moment, assumed perfection. And because we recognize
its illusory quality it is the more precious.
Out of the night comes the word someone has tried to
communicate, that we are plural, not single...not
forgotten. Here, in this comparison, are strength and
courage.
Yes, there are times when our hearts open.
There is more to life than wandering over an island.
There is more to life than happiness. There is more to
life than work. There is more to life than hope. What is
it?
Under a cypress, above the sea, facing the sea, I asked
myself this question and found this answer:
Certainly, the living is all: there is no life after
death: and since there is no other chance than this
chance, it must be enough to have beauty and kindness and
time to enjoy them.
Here, on this slope, earth’s form assures me this is
true. And at home, among my girls, I can find it so, each
girl an affirmation.
Why is Kleis involved in spats with Gyrinno, Helen,
Myra? Why are the girls put out with her? Why can’t they
agree to do the same thing at the same time?
Why is there so much unrest and dissatisfaction
everywhere? Corinth, Sparta, Argos, Sicyon...the news
reaches us by boat.
Why is Phaon far at sea, headed for Byzantium?
It seems to be a world of questions.
When I think how many gods exist, I am shocked by man’s
confusion and gullibility.
“Man is like a cricket. He sees the cricket’s
limitations but not his own. The cricket can’t read or
write or think scientifically. He can’t sail a boat or
build a house. He potters away in his clod or field. What
can a cricket know about god?”
That’s what man says, unable to see beyond his own
clod. He scoffs and sneers but what is he but a two-
legged cricket, brown, yellow or black? I’m sure the
cricket has his illusions, some of them as pat as ours.
Charaxos has returned to Mytilene.
Our meeting was unavoidable, of course. He had on the
commonplace mask of the man in the street and talked
about his trip, the grinding poverty in Egypt, the bad
state of our mercenaries there...
No mention of settling his debts! Not a word about
Rhodopis! Evidently Kleis does not exist.
“All of us are well, thank you,” I said. “Nothing has
changed for us here.”
What is there between us? It is something deeper than
ourselves. When I walked away, my eyes burned and my
cheeks felt hot.
Here is a passage from my first journal, written in
childish hand:
Today is my birthday and mother gave me earrings and
papa gave me a brooch with a carnelian stone. We had a
party on the beach and papa burnt his fingers in the fire
as we cooked the mutton meat. I don’t like mutton meat. I
don’t like smoky fires. Papa sings badly. My dog got
sick.
I suppose all that was very important to me.
Is our life important to anyone else?
No word from Aesop.
Sometimes I have to get away from everything and
everyone, myself as well.
I went to a nearby fishing village. Necessity can be
ingenious. The fishermen have managed to build good boats
out of the battered wrecks that littered our shores. They
tell me that the exporting of sponges has become
extensive.
I wish I could sail with a sponge crew. I went with a
crew once. Glued inside my decorum, I can’t believe I was
free...wild...bold...headstrong...long ago.
Yes, I would like to cruise into deep blue water and
stare down, then to the sponge shallows and swim down,
down.
My new book is ready.
It was interesting to visit the Kamen house and check
the copies.
I stopped for a moment in the alley to gaze at the sun
symbol painted over the house door. More and more,
geometric designs are giving way to more plastic ideas in
decorating. Polychrome painting seems to grow more
imaginative. Our ceramics are becoming more forceful. I
thought of these things as I looked at the sun symbol,
done in blue and gold.
The Kamen brothers were, as always, mysterious, stiff,
like Egyptian clay long dried by the sun. It is too bad
they can’t apply some of their art to themselves. They
are such emaciated creatures, I wonder what they eat?
Each waits for the other to speak; each scrapes, bows,
tries to efface himself. Tall, nut brown, with hair tied
behind their necks, deer skin aprons over faded clothes,
they make me feel like an intruder.
As for my book, it is excellently made. The brothers
are perfectionists in their craft. To them, poetry is
nothing. Do they read it at all? However, the libraries
will be pleased to receive these copies.
I am sure this is my best work.
Thousands of white herons flew over our island this
morning, making the sky a sky of motion. They flew almost
all morning, flying toward the mainland. I watched them
from a bridge in town, leaning against the cool stone
rail, Anaktoria watching with me, perplexed. Not a bird
faltered. What directed them? Not a sound, as they flew.
Some of the townsmen gathered to stare, dead silent. In
tens and twenties, they flew over and onward, apparently
at the same speed. Twice the flocks covered the sun and
our town darkened, tiled roofs turning grey.
There were murmurs...
I remembered the herons as I tried to rest, wings and
more wings, bearing me away.
Sometimes, we troop to our old theatre, lost in its
bowl of cypress and overgrown with grass and weeds, seats
and benches crumbled. Laying aside our clothes, we toss
rover reeds, have a try at archery, play catch. Or we
race or go in for leap-frog or tug-of-war.
Little boys like to pester us and poke fun. Little
boys—how delightful they can be.
If the day is sultry, we loll. Usually, the complaint
is “too much sun.” I used to think we needed lots of sun
and exercise but now I’m not sure.
Lying on a moss-topped stone, time seemed to pause: I
think there is trouble brewing. I don’t put it past
Rhodopis to concoct something. Even Kleis has been too
alarmed to return to Charaxos’ house. Mallia has told her
to wait.
There has been a to-do because the “right” people did
not attend the homecoming party for Charaxos. What a
pity! I know of no changes in the life of Mytilene that
required a unanimous celebration.
“Why must there be bad feelings between their house and
ours?” Kleis has asked. “Of course I hate him for what he
did to me.”
My knees trembled.
How explain life to one who has not lived it!
“You could help me, if you wanted to,” she said.
Just like that!
I believe we only know what life gives us: can sound be
described to the deaf?
“After all, Charaxos is your brother,” she reminded me.
I wanted to say: He was, before all, not after all.
I can barely check my anger, angers, one on top the
other, too many for me to consider and come through sane.
As I went home, I saw a man beating his slave. The
slave, who has had everything taken from him, is being
punished publicly for an insignificant theft!
The situation is becoming impossible: Why has Charaxos
dragged Alcaeus into our quarrel?
I found them hurling insults at one another, Alcaeus’
house and servants in an uproar. I hurried into the
library and had to pound on the door.
“I can thank you for this!” shouted Charaxos, the
moment he saw me.
“Leave, Sappho. I asked him to come and now I’ll have
him thrown out,” Alcaeus bawled, lunging across the
table.
“Our hero!” snorted Charaxos.
“Enough. Get out!”
“Suppose you and I have a private word elsewhere,” said
Charaxos to me, bitterly. “As for you, old battle ax,
I’ll settle with you another time. I’m sick of your
trouble-making. Maybe one exile was not enough...”
Quick as a flash, I slapped him. He eyed me grimly,
then turned and left.
Naturally, Alcaeus refused to tell me what the visit
was about.
All this is contemptible.
I can not forget the scene of the angry men, the
threat.
Perhaps the next move had better be mine? Before my
opponent makes it a “check” from which I can’t
escape...as they say in the new Persian game.
My girls sense that I am troubled and try to distract
me.
“No work today!” cries Gyrinno.
“Let’s hunt flowers in the woods.”
Heptha bothers the cook to prepare me special delights.
Anaktoria dresses up a song, Helen and Gyrinno dance,
Atthis tries a musty joke.
It is a healing tempo...I am grateful...
These are lazy, summer days, the hammocks full, doves
cooing in the olives. I send my thoughts on a long trip:
may they find Phaon and bring him back to me.
This is theatre season and the talk is of actors and
acting. I like to familiarize myself with a play before
attending its performance because I can appreciate it
much more. I never miss a play if I can help it, whether
comedy or tragedy, though I prefer comedy. But I think
the “offstage” is interesting, too—that is, if one can
remain a spectator there. It is when we become involved
that we lose our theatre perspective.
Neglates, who used to be a leading actor in Athens,
likes to sit with me. He is our best critic. He is always
urging me to write a play, “something about us,” he says.
“The theatre needs you. Why don’t you try? We need new
blood.”
I suppose he is right. If we rely on the old writers
altogether, the stage will become stale. Perhaps I can
think of something for the religious festivals next year.
Theatre means meeting people I seldom see anywhere
else. I like the contacts.
People feel sorry for Scandia because he is the father
of such a charming, marriageable daughter. White-faced,
pinch-eyed, his neck twisted by a boyhood accident, one
arm dangling—would they feel less sorry for him, if his
daughter were ugly?
Andros is the next thing to a dwarf in size. He has the
face of a twenty-year-old, although he must be well over
fifty. He needs no one’s pity—only some money! He is the
best mask-maker our theatre has ever had.
Moonlight: Hand in hand,
Sappho and her daughter, Kleis,
walk along a path through hillside
olive groves, the ocean white below,
the murmur of waves part of their leisure and
sad conversation about Aesop.
Mytilene
642 B.C.
M
y heart is heavy... Aesop, my friend, is dead.
He could have had a kinder messenger—it was Pittakos
who brought me the news.
“The mob killed him for causing trouble in Adelphi,” he
said, his eyes cruelly cold. He had met me on the street,
after a performance of “The Martyrs.”
Did he think this the right time to let me know? Was it
a warning?
I stared at him, as he shambled beside me. Then, before
my face could reveal too much, I lowered my veil and
walked away, trembling, my eyes unseeing.
I did not go home for a long time. I walked by the
shore until the ball of fire sank wearily into the dark
water. The hills had a beaten look, the sea an oppressive
flatness. A gull’s cry wept in me. Alone...alone... I was
much more alone.
Alone in my library, I opened the box Aesop had given
me and removed his fox, lion, donkey, raven and frog. He
had moulded them for me. Two were made of light-colored
clay, others of dark. They were as highly glazed as
scarabs. I arranged them on a shelf above my desk and
could feel my friend’s presence, as though he were beside
me.
But there would be no more letters.
No visit!
Lighting my lamp, I began my ode to “The Friend of
Man.”
I knew Alcaeus would be as disturbed as I.
I expected him to roar, “The mob!” Instead, he bowed
his head, his hands on his lap, and remained silent.
Slowly, he clenched his fists and gouged them into his
thighs. Muscles corded his arms and swelled as he stood.
“He should have come here, to us!”
“He was sick, Alcaeus.”
“Then I should have gone to him! Why was I doubly
blind? I knew he was under attack for opposing the
aristocrats.”
Round and round, back and forth, we talked: what might
have been, what should have been:
“If he had gone to Athens, he would have been safe with
Solon.”
“If only he could have stayed in Corinth...”
And remembering what a friend Aesop had been to us, he
said:
“He knew I liked bread from that oven of Stexos... He
was always bringing me my favorite wine.”
“He couldn’t do enough, that time I got so sick. The
best doctors, he...”
“Wild boar, to help you get strong.”
We recounted the fables, their Persian origin, the
circumstances of their telling. How he loved travelers,
especially from the East.
I see Aesop on his balcony, the wind making him blink
his eyes; he has on dark blue trousers, yellow sash and
gold blouse and carries his doll and is smiling and
nodding.
Was it his profound understanding of life that made
such a difference? He showed breadth of mind at all
times. Revealing human character through animal traits,
he taught us the comedy of our faults and aspirations.
Alcaeus has begun writing letters, to protest against
this outrage in Adelphi, to alert friends, to cry out.
High on a hill, I sit and stare at my bare feet and try
to guess how many steps they have taken.
I peer at my legs and consider the color and texture of
my skin. I rub my hands over my knees and ankles.
What of Phaon’s feet, the rigging they have climbed and
the decks they have walked?
Storms have crashed over him. He has held his ship to
sun and stars, legs spread wide, feet on the planking.
Does the sea mean so much to him? Is it his woman?
As I watch the arrival of boats in the bay, the
unloading at the dock, I keep remembering his brown face.
The rains have begun.
They flood across the mosaic floor of the courtyard, draining noisily.
I am weaving a scarf, very white, light in weight, my seat a strip of rawhide on
four pegs.
Around me the girls sit and chatter. Heptha and Myra weave together, work-
ing at one loom, whispering. The rain and wind come together over the house.
Laughing secretly, Atthis and Gyrinno dash off, padding through the rain, across
the court.
Kleis unwinds my ball of thread and keeps paying it out slowly, rhythmically,
her hands in time to a song she is humming to herself.
The white wool is restful. I can weave nothingness or I can weave in my
whole past, the sea, my house, the cliffs, the trees.
My fingers are Phaon’s.
(
I have not changed my mother’s house since she died because change is no
friend of mine. Occasionally, I have had to repair or refinish a table, and a chair
or picture, but were mama to return tomorrow she would feel at home.
I often think that I will meet her, as I go from one room to another, mama
gliding softly, smiling, holding out her warm hands to me...we would sit and
weave by the window, the sea beyond, our voices low. With our terra-cotta
lamps gleaming, we would talk until late, too sleepy to chat any longer.
I can’t remember my father, he died so young. His lineage, extending to
Agamemnon, frightens me: That inheritance must carry into these thick walls
and the glazed tiles—a strong house.
Mama gave me his royal flute, said to be carved from a bull’s leg, but it has
been years since I have taken it from its silk-lined box. Its sickly color never
pleased me.
Its music comes to me sometimes: mountain vagaries, war music, sea songs,
fragments of a day I can never know.
A bat coasts through my open windows.
Is there a better hour than dusk?
I feel that life is infinitely precious at such an hour, that sordidness and decay
are lies. It is the hour when we cross the threshold of starlight.
Sometimes, before dropping asleep, I long to see Olympus, as part of this
general dream:
Never is it swept by the winds nor touched by snow,
a purer air surrounds it, a white clarity envelops it,
and the gods there taste of happiness that lasts forever...
(
It has been a dreadful ordeal. I can hardly describe the events of this past
fortnight.
I had barely recovered from the shock of Aesop’s death, when word came
that Alcaeus had been attacked.
I had gone to a friend’s home and we had been chatting on the sea-terrace,
when children burst in with the alarming news. I hurried with them to Alcaeus,
the boys distressing me with their fantasies.
I found Alcaeus in bed, severely bruised and cut, with Thasos in attendance.
“It was Charaxos,” Thasos said, quietly.
I must have gasped. I could not speak.
“I was alone...wandering,” Alcaeus explained, then turned his face to the wall.
And I dared to hope that Charaxos would come to his senses! I pressed my
lips to Alcaeus’ hand.
“I’ll get Libus,” I said.
“Someone has already gone for him,” said Thasos.
Libus, too, was shocked: he ordered the servants to bring Theodorus, another
doctor.
As the news spread through town, people gathered in the street in front of
Alcaeus’ house, angry townsmen, yelling about Charaxos, calling on Pittakos for
justice.
During the night, a mob threatened Charaxos’ home, and in the morning,
they stoned the place, battering shutters, screaming and demanding justice.
Pittakos sent soldiers to maintain order but the soldiers sided with the mob,
forcing the doors, smashing furniture and chasing away the servants.
Sometime during the day, Charaxos and Rhodopis fled in one of their wine
boats, heading for the mainland. I understand there was a fracas in the square,
some wanting to overtake the ship.
For two days, I did not leave Alcaeus’ home, taking turns at his side. In that
circle of close friends, death pushed us hard, trying to break through.
Finally, Libus, more lean-faced and pallid than usual, from his sleepless nights
and responsibility, drew me aside:
“He’s going to pull through. You can go home and rest. Trust me...”
I slept and dreamed and came back and the days went like that before Al-
caeus was out of danger, and we cheered him on the road to recovery.
Pittakos and some of his officials visited him, expressing their regrets, saying
a committee had called, demanding Charaxos’ punishment. I kept out of the
room, leaving Alcaeus and Libus to handle the situation.
“Our tyrant sides with me!” Alcaeus chortled after they had gone. “I’ve
won!”
It is a poor victory: we have not won back our years of exile. But, for the citi-
zenry, this is something on the side of justice and worth talking about.
For my part, I suspect that Charaxos will return presently, unmolested. He is
too important to our local welfare, employing too many, to be brushed aside.
When his boat anchors, Pittakos will fine him lightly. By then, sentiment will
have cooled.
Justice is rightly placed among the stars.
(
On my next visit to Alcaeus, I took my clay animals and placed them in his
hands, describing each, one by one. He felt them carefully—too slowly—a sad
expression on his face.
“So Aesop made them?” he said. “It’s good you have them...proof that his
world is still here. I wish I could remember his...his faith...”
Taking the figures from Alcaeus, I put them on a table between us: we three
had sat at a table like this, in exile, planning, planning: those worries swept back
again, distorted. Confused, I could feel myself trapped. I knew that in those eyes
opposite me, death sat there, at least a part of death, the same death that was in
those clay animals.
Our hands met across the table.
(
Villa Poseidon
It is useless to cross-examine Alcaeus. He will not discuss Charaxos.
“Here, do me a favor, read me something from Hesiod,” he says, and hands
me the poet’s advice to his brother.
How history repeats itself! Family problems haven’t changed: this is an earlier
Charaxos, who bribed judges to deprive Hesiod of his inheritance.
If I did not know better, I could almost believe Charaxos had used this story
for his model.
As time goes on, I feel the stigma of our relationship more and more. How
can I be his sister?
Despite the liberality of our views, I am astonished that Alcaeus respects and
trusts me. I can’t shake my guilt: the fact that Charaxos has cheated and betrayed
me does not exonerate me of blame. I am tired of all this. It is a confusion I
can’t accept indefinitely.
(
Phaon’s ship has anchored in the harbor.
I have remained in my room throughout the day.
I have enjoyed the detail from my fresco—Etruscan girl strewing flowers,
hair streaming over her shoulders, face filled with joy, arms outspread.
I am like that girl.
(
I took Exekias. As oldest member of my household, I feel she is the best
chaperone. In her crumpled face there is more than Assyrian placidity: she has
known me longest and is sympathetic and discreet: she says things the way my
mother said them, so warmly I can’t forget.
We left the house early, our scarves about our heads, women sweeping
doorways and steps, sprinkling the dusty street, cleaning where horses and cattle
had passed. Birds sickled from the eaves, dogs and horses drank at a watering
trough, nuzzling moss, rubbing gnats, their hairy comradeship obvious in roll of
eyes.
We had not been in the market long when I saw him, alongside a stall with a
sailor, both drinking coconuts, shaking them, holding them up, tipping them,
draining the juice, laughing. They had on shorts and were brown, incredible
ocean brown.
Then Phaon saw me. Hurriedly, he set down the coconut and left the stall
and came toward me, smiling, wiping his fingers on his shorts. In the way he
spoke, in the way he stood, I sensed how he had missed me, other tell-tales in his
voice and hands. And I knew, as we talked, that he sensed my longing as well: it
brought us closer that we made no secret of our feelings.
A parrot jabbered atop its cage and a monkey squealed and battered at its
bronze ring, until its owner brought bananas. People crowded us, elbowing with
baskets of fruit and shrimp. Phaon and I walked under palm-ceilinged aisles, dust
sifting around us, light finning through stalls, over herbs, nuts, wines and
cheeses...the smells made me hungry. Together we ate Cappian cheese, tangy to
tongue and nose.
“It never tasted better out at sea,” he said.
“I hope everything tastes better now.”
“It does...yes, I’m home again!”
Exekias ghosted behind me, face alert, her hands pushing me along; so we
moved, past the pottery lads, one of them glazing a bowl between his calloused
knees, the color as bright as the sliced oranges beside him ready for eating.
“Do you suppose you and I can sail again?” he asked, as we watched, seeing
ourselves instead of the pottery boys. “There should be time...soon...when I’m
unloaded.”
I caught his half question, half statement.
“If I were invited, I’d consider.”
My teasing brought a flash from him and laughter and he moved back a little,
nodding agreeably.
As I walked home, I felt that my mind had been invaded by everything
around me. I tried to hurry, thinking I’d remember all, the prices of the traders,
the baskets of starfish, the white parrot; I’ll remember his voice, his feet in the
dust, his smiles.
Exekias babbled dully about food and flagrant cheating, her basket bumping
my hip. I wondered how I could wait, through the days ahead, how could I oc-
cupy myself, until Phaon and I sailed? It was a question for water clocks and
gulls, spindrift and wind, thought unfolding in my room, scudding across the
floor to the window, stopping there, leaping out, to other lands, other times,
backlashing with the net that contains yesterday...flames in a cruse...Atthis, slip-
ping her perfumed hands over my eyes...
(
My lips burn, my hands are moist, I feel faint... Is that my voice, the sound of
my laughter? Am I walking over these tiles?
Did I have supper last night? Drink? Rehearse a song?
My girls realize I am lost—wandering. I can’t look into their eyes for long.
When I see Kleis cross the room a trickle of ice slips down my back.
What if he finds me too old, what if my love doesn’t please him...if he mocks
me, or stands in awe, or wants to amuse himself?
Phaon...
I see you against every wall, against the sky, in the dark, in the sun under the
trees. My flesh aches, my arms melt. Never has passion fermented so strongly in
me.
Yet no messenger comes.
I can’t bear the nights, to lie alone, to feel my breath on my pillow, feel the
cool sheet.
In the morning, I ask Exekias questions, just to hear her voice, not listening,
for how can she know whether he has forgotten me or is afraid or sick?
He is busy with his boat and port affairs. He has gone to visit his sister, with
no thought of returning soon. He has sailed. He talks with his men—coarse
talks. He eats, drinks, works, sleeps, snores.
No—he is fixing our boat for our trip.
No, he has many sweethearts, dark, tall, frivolous, lusty, daring—all young.
Why do I punish myself?
I hurt with weariness and desire. I will simply face the bedroom wall and shut
out the light. No, I will concentrate on my work. What shall I write about?
(
Where is the sea that we sailed?
Was it a long trip?
Was our sail grey or brown?
Was the water rough?