Produced by Al Haines
FROM THE COVER OF SAPPHO’S JOURNAL:
In Sappho’s Journal, the author brings the famous Greek poet Sappho
back to life in a finely crafted novel that reveals her sense of
beauty, her loves, her reflections, her inner world. Based on a careful
study of ancient Greece and Sappho’s surviving fragments of poetry,
Bartlett recreates Sappho in a lyrical account of the life, passion,
fears, and faith of this remarkable woman whose intimate journal takes
us back to 642 B.C. The book includes a Foreword by the well-known
Sappho scholar and translator Willis Barnstone.
Bartlett’s writing has been praised by many leading authors,
reviewers, and critics, among them:
JAMES MICHENER, novelist: “I am much taken with Bartlett’s work and
commend it highly.”
CHARLES POORE in The New York Times: “...believable characters who
are stirred by intensely personal concerns.”
GRACE FLANDRAU, author and historian: “...Characters and scenes are
so right and living...it is so beautifully done, one finds
oneself feeling it is not fiction but actually experienced
fact.”
JAMES PURDY, novelist: “An important writer... I find great
pleasure in his work. Really beautiful and distinguished.”
ALICE S. MORRIS in Harper’s Bazaar: “He tells a haunting and
beautiful story and manages to telescope, in a brilliantly
leisurely way, a lifetime, a full and eventful lifetime.”
RUSSELL KIRK, novelist: “The scenes are drawn with power. Bartlett
is an accomplished writer.”
PAUL ENGLE in The Chicago Tribune: “...articulate, believable ...
charms with an expert knowledge of place and people.”
MICHAEL FRAENKEL, novelist and poet: “His is the authenticity of
the true and original creator. Bartlett is essentially a
writer of mood.”
WILLIS BARNSTONE, Sappho scholar and translator: “A mature artist,
Bartlett writes with ease and taste.”
J. DONALD ADAMS in The New York Times: “...the freshest, most
vital writing I have seen for some time.”
PEARL S. BUCK, Nobel Laureate in Literature: “He is an excellent
writer.”
HERBERT GORMAN, novelist and biographer: “He possesses a
sensitivity in description and an acuteness in the delineation
of character.”
FORD MADOX FORD, English novelist, about Bartlett: “...a writer of
very considerable merit.”
LON TINKLE in the Dallas Morning News: “Vivid, impressive, highly
pictorial.”
JOE KNOEFLER in the L.A. Times: “...an American writer gifted
with...perception and sensitivity.”
FRANK TANNENBAUM, historian: “...written with great sensibility”
Worchester Telegram: “Between realism and poetry...brilliant,
colorful.”
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SAPPHO’S JOURNAL
BOOKS BY
PAUL ALEXANDER BARTLETT
NOVELS
VOICES FROM THE PAST:
Sappho’s Journal Christ’s Journal Leonardo da Vinci’s Journal
Shakespeare’s Journal Lincoln’s Journal
When the Owl Cries
Adiós Mi México
Forward, Children!
POETRY
Wherehill
Spokes for Memory
NONFICTION
The Haciendas of Mexico: An Artist’s Record
SAPPHO’S JOURNAL
by
PAUL ALEXANDER BARTLETT
and
Illustrated by the Author
Edited by
STEVEN JAMES BARTLETT
with a FOREWORD by
WILLIS BARNSTONE
“Violet-haired, pure
honey-smiling Sappho”
– Alcaeus
AUTOGRAPH EDITIONS
Salem, Oregon
AUTOGRAPH EDITIONS
P. O. Box 6141 Salem, Oregon 97304
Established 1975
This book is protected by copyright. No part
may be reproduced in any manner without
written permission from the publisher.
Copyright © 2007 by Steven James Bartlett
First Edition
ISBN 978-0-6151-5646-0
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2006025662
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
Bartlett, Paul Alexander.
Sappho's journal / by Paul Alexander Bartlett and illustrated by
the author ;
edited by Steven James Bartlett ; with a foreword by Willis
Barnstone. -- 1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: "A historical novel that recounts the life, thought, and
times of the
Greek poet Sappho of Lesbos, based on a study of ancient Greece and
Sappho's surviving fragments of poetry"--Provided by publisher.
ISBN 978-0-6151-5646-0
1. Sappho--Fiction. I. Bartlett, Steven J. II. Title.
PS3602.A8396S27 2006
813'.6--dc22
2006025662
CONTENTS
FOREWORD by Willis Barnstone xi
PREFACE by Steven James Bartlett xiii
SAPPHO’S JOURNAL 1
ABOUT THE AUTHOR 151
COLOPHON 153
FOREWORD
Willis Barnstone
Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature
Indiana University
P
aul Alexander Bartlett’s journal of Sappho is a masterful work. I had
recently completed a translation of the extant lines of Sappho and am
familiar with his problems. He was faced with the almost impossible
task of reconstructing the personality of Sappho and her background in
ancient Lesbos. To my happy surprise he did so, in a work which is at
once poetic, dramatic and powerful. In Sappho’s Journal he does more
than create a vague illusion of the past. He conveys the character of
real people, their interior life and outer world. A mature artist, he
writes with ease and taste.
PREFACE
Steven James Bartlett
Senior Research Professor of Philosophy, Oregon State University
and
Visiting Scholar in Psychology & Philosophy, Willamette University
S
appho’s Journal is one of five independent works of fiction which
together make up Voices from the Past, a quintet of novels that de-
scribe the inner lives of five extraordinary people. Progressing
through time from the most distant to the most recent they are: Sappho
of Lesbos, the famous Greek poet; Jesus; Leonardo da Vinci; Shakes-
peare; and Abraham Lincoln. For the most part, little is known about
the inward realities of these people, about their personal thoughts,
reflections, and the quality and nature of their feelings. For this
reason they have become no more than voices from the past: The
contributions they have left us remain, but little remains of each
person, of his or her personality, of the loves, fears, pleasures,
hatreds, beliefs, and thoughts each had.
Voices from the Past was written by Paul Alexander Bartlett over a
period of several decades. After his death in an automobile accident in
1990, the manuscripts of the five novels were discovered among his as
yet unpublished papers. He had been at work adding the finishing
touches to the manuscripts. Now, more than a decade and a half after
his death, the publication of Voices from the Past is overdue.
Bartlett is known for his fiction, including When the Owl Cries and
Adiós Mi México, historical novels set during the Mexican Revolution of
1910 and descriptive of hacienda life, Forward, Children!, a powerful
antiwar novel, and numerous short stories. He was also the author of
books of poetry, including Spokes for Memory and Wherehill, the
nonfiction work, The Haciendas of Mexico: An Artist’s Record, the first
extensive artistic and photographic study of haciendas throughout
Mexico, and numerous articles about the Mexican haciendas. Bartlett was
also an artist whose paintings, illustrations, and drawings have been
exhibited in more than 40 one-man shows in leading museums in the U.S.
and Mexico. Archives of his work and literary correspondence have now
been established at the American Heritage Center of the University of
Wyoming, the Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection of the
University of Texas, and the Rare Books Collection of the University of
California, Los Angeles.
Paul Alexander Bartlett’s life was lived with a single value always
central: a sustained dedication to beauty, which he believed was the
most vital value of living and his reason for his life as a writer and
an artist. Voices from the Past reflects this commitment, for he
believed that these five voices, in their different ways, express a
passion for life, for the creative spirit, and ultimately for beauty in
a variety of its forms—poetic and natural (Sappho), spiritual (Jesus),
scientific and artistic (da Vinci), literary (Shakespeare), and
humanitarian (Lincoln). In this work, he has sought, as faithfully as
possible, to relay across time a renewed lyrical meaning of these
remarkable individuals, lending them his own voice, with a mood,
simplicity, depth of feeling, and love of beauty that were his, and, he
believed, also theirs.
The journal form has been used only rarely in works of fiction.
Bartlett believed that as a form of literature the journal offers the
most effective way to bring back to life the life-worlds of
significant, unique, highly individual, and important creators. In each
of the novels that make up Voices from the Past, his interest is to
portray the inner experience of exceptional and special people, about
whom there is scant knowledge on this level. During the many years of
research he devoted to a study of the lives and thoughts of Sappho,
Jesus, Leonardo, Shakespeare, and Lincoln, he sought to base the
journals on what is known and what can be surmised about the person
behind each voice, and he wove into each journal passages from their
writings and the substance of the testimony of others. Yet the five
novels are fiction: They re-express in an author’s creation lives now
buried by the passage of centuries.
I am deeply grateful to my wife, Karen Bartlett, for her faithful,
patient, and perceptive help with this long project.
✧
For my father,
Paul Alexander Bartlett,
whose kindness, love of beauty and of place
will always be greatly missed.
Sappho’s poetry, quoted throughout this novel, is included
with the translator’s permission. The poems appeared in
Sappho, Lyrics in the Original Greek, with translations by
Willis Barnstone, Anchor Books, Doubleday, 1965.
For clarity, the calendar used by Sappho has been
translated into our modern calendar.
SAPPHO’S JOURNAL
Sappho, walking on her island beach,
pauses by a broken amphora:
With one foot, she nudges the terra cotta and black jar,
its painted chariot, charioteer and horses:
The charioteer wears a laurel wreath.
Sappho, about 30 years old,
her hair braided around her head,
naked, sandaled, saunters along the Mediterranean,
gulls and pelicans flying, surf and gull sounds in early
morning yellow.
Villa Poseidon, Mytilene
642 B.C.
T
he great storm beats across the island, rattling the olive and the
cypress, piling the surf on the beach, hissing the rain across my roof.
It is cold and the light of my terra cotta lamp is cold. Some say that
a storm will wash away our island, but I do not believe it. Our island
will be here long after I have gone, and so will our town, my dear
Mytilene, so wrong, so right.
Alcaeus would revel in this gale and go out in it and let the rain
lash him and then he would come and take me in his arms.
The storm will rage all night and the gutters spew, and I will rage
at my solitude, a solitude that grows and grows.
Growl on, spew on, beat and tramp—tomorrow’s sun will return and the
sea’s eye will glitter and I will gaze across the bay—and Alcaeus will
not be here.
My feet are cold and the lamp is weak and the wax hard, and I must go
to bed.
Yesterday, the wine workers gathered at a nearby vineyard, old men
and girls, in tattered clothes, some lazy, some hard-working, pressing
the grapes, many of them my friends. Spade-bearded Niko directed the
pressing, sitting at the base of an oak, wearing a stained robe, his
voice low. Women carried hampers of grapes loaded with purple clusters,
the women’s skirts wet with dew, the grapes mottled with damp. Clouds
made the day cool. Someone toyed with a flute, the men treading,
emptying husks over sandy soil, now and then pausing to talk under the
oak, the circular press letting out its red, everyone tasting. Many
amphorae were broken, before they were finally filled and capped.
I wanted to help. How sweet the smell flooding my nose.
Atthis has been my girl-child today and we have strolled together up
the long, long path to the outcrop, beyond the temple. Atthis and tall
white marble columns, with their busy apricot-breasted swallows, have
assuaged my loneliness. How lonely we become, as we grow older, even
when there is someone to share. The key to self gets lost; self-
assurance diminishes. Once, it was only necessary to dash around the
garden or throw back one’s head and laugh...
Yellow-headed Atthis, lazy-eyed, sitting on the steps of the temple
ruin, wove a flower wreath for me and I wove one for her. Then,
returning home, we bathed at our fountain, splashing each other, the
sun on us and the slippery marble. Afterwards, we lay down and slept,
and I dreamed of a ship at sea, her mast broken, her tangled sail and
rigging dragging.
Will the war never end?
Fog, as grey as a shepherd’s cloak, ruffled the bay for a day and a
night. Then, stabbing us, came clarity, and inside that clarity,
centered in it, a brown intaglio, a small wooden carving, first one
ship and then another. Our fleet had sailed back to us! I watched from
the terrace, unable to speak. Atthis ran up to me. Anaktoria came.
Gyrinno came. Boys yelled. Old men rushed past the house. Dogs barked.
Someone banged a drum. Such clamoring!
But was it joyous news, I asked myself? Why were the women in a knot
at the corner? Why hadn’t fast rowers raced to tell us? Had the fog
tricked the fleet?
Changing my clothes, putting on new sandals, I walked to the pier and
the seagulls screamed and we waited and waited. People surged all
about, saying wild things, shrieking—then, ominously, fell silent.
Their shouts were better than their silence. The ocean seemed too calm,
as if it had been smothered by the fog or dreaded the arrival of our
fleet.
I had pictured the ships as fast moving, bright on bright water.
As the first one approached, I saw no happy faces, no lifted hands,
no raised shields, no plumed helmets at the rail, no flags.
I heard an oar drag and in that sound I heard the rasp of death. If
Alcaeus is dead, I will take poison—and I saw myself going to Xerxes,
our Persian chemist, and asking for the powder. We had agreed, years
back, during another crisis, that he would allow me this gift to free
myself, if I must. His yellow face vanished, as I watched an anchor
plunge slowly and saw the sail topple into the water and heard a man
cry some name.
Shouts went up.
A chorus began.
Voices caught our song, way out at sea, assuring us that these were
not phantoms.
Alcaeus?
Ten years ago, almost ten—ten years ago, he had left Mytilene, the
wars sweeping him away. Ten years we had lived with fear creeping about
our island. Ten years—how my fingers trembled. I saw those years, there
on the wharf, saw them in the gulls’ wings, in the distraught faces
about me, my girls’, my friends’, my neighbors’. We had all waited for
this homecoming. And now, now our fleet was gliding toward us, grey-
hulked, no flags raised, oars shuffling like sick crabs.
Was it defeat or half-victory? Who, among our men, was lost, dead, or
wounded? Gull on the masthead, apple at the end of the bough, what can
you tell us at such crucial times? For an infinitude, the oars paced, a
boat swung, another boat anchoring alongside, the armor on deck
flashing, the waves gulping at the gulls.
I turned away, moved back.
And then I saw someone helping Alcaeus ashore—wounded or ill—and old,
old, I thought.
Beauty said to me: This is only change.
And I said: But what is change?
And I slipped away, not daring to meet him, hoping someone would
shout a name and confirm that this was another, not Alcaeus. But no, I
knew. A woman knows a man she has loved, however battered he may be. I
turned to watch his blundering progress.
The chorus had dwindled—only those at sea, the far off crews, still
carried the hymn. I could not remain any longer. I hurried home, past
his house to mine, wondering what kind of haven it could be, wondering
what people would say at my flight. Yet this was not flight; it was
merely a postponement, waiting for a sign, a chance to prepare myself.
Alcaeus...must I send someone to him? What must I do? Go to his home?
Shall I be there for him when he arrives?
At my door I turned and retraced my steps to his house, the laces of
my sandals making a sound I had never heard before, the gulls wailing,
the sounds from the wharf intermingling and incomprehensible.
And I was there when he came with his servant, an ugly Parthian,
helping him. Yes, I was there and put out my hand to touch him, hearing
his troubled breathing, seeing his torn and disheveled clothes, his
rank beard, and knowing he was ill. I remembered the dream, the ship
with its broken sail. And I remembered our love and I said to him:
“Alcaeus...it is I, Sappho...”
He squared his shoulders, his cloak slipping away. His arms went out
to me, then dropped to his side.
His eyes had the marble core of nothingness in them.
Appalled, I could scarcely stand. O God, what is this that can happen
to a man? Why has it happened? His arms in bandages, his eyes forever
bandaged by the dark.
“Alcaeus...”
He heard my whisper and shuffled backwards, bumping his servant; he
moved forward then and gripped me hard, twisting my flesh, his great
muscles rising in his hands.
“Take me to my room... You haven’t forgotten the way, have you?”
I took his arm and the Parthian opened the door and servants bowed
about us; yes, I took his arm and silently we climbed the stairs to his
room, his clothes rough against me, his sea smell around me. We passed
his library that held the books he had loved. We passed his mother’s
room, where she had died. We passed where light fell around us, though
no light entered his eyes.
“You are in your room,” I said.
“Where?”
“Beside your Egyptian chair.”
“Can I sit down on it?”
“Yes, it’s ready for you.”
Grasping the heavy frame, he lowered himself and the taut leather
squeaked. I placed a pillow behind him and drew a fur across his knees,
then sat next to him. The door had shut itself and we were alone. We
listened to each other’s breathing and his hand sought mine and climbed
my robe to my face and the coarse fingers felt my cheek and I felt them
reach my heart, with the past roaring around me like the recent storm.
I couldn’t speak. I felt that the war was forever between us and I
hated those years, those battles, the lines on his face. My hate was
there, between us. Then, then, tears came to his eyes. Silently, he
wept. And I drew him to me.
I heard the wind cross over his house.
Voices shuffled below us in the courtyard, the excited voices of the
caretakers, the idle, the hangers-on. I could imagine their leers,
their whispers. I lifted his face toward mine and kissed him, his heavy
beard sticking my mouth.
There was a sob—a broken gasp. How ill he looked, how tired...
“You must lie down, Alcaeus. Come, I’ll help you.”
And when he was settled, I brought him water.
“Water...there hasn’t been much water these last few days at sea...”
So he had come home, “homeward from earth’s far end,” on the shield
of blindness. I saw him next day and the next, but he seemed strange,
withdrawn. I found two of his servants but he wasn’t interested.
I thought of him as old. But was he old? Age was in his scars, in his
streaked hair and beard, the hands lifting and settling awkwardly.
Warm under the stars, the daphne fragrant, his sea terrace tiles
smooth underneath our feet, we sat alone, some rooster vaguely saluting
the night, the movement of the surf faint, almost lost. I crushed some
daphne in my palm, remembering their four-pronged flowers, remembering—
remembering Alcaeus after his field games, his javelin and discus
throwing, his flushed face, his eyes lit, his mouth hungry for mine.
Remembering—was he remembering, too?
“There was no daphne where I was,” he said, his voice sullen. “It
would have been better to have died there, than come home like this.”
“It’s spring, Alcaeus, don’t talk like that,” I said, and wondered
what spring might signify to him.
He did not speak for a while, then quietly, as though to himself, or
from another world, he repeated lines we had loved:
“The gods held me in Egypt, longing to sail for home, for I had
failed to seek their blessing with an offering...”
His voice had not changed, I realized with a start. Surcharged with
new meaning, it entered my being, as he went on about the galleys and
the old men “deep in the sea’s abyss.”
The phrase haunted me because it was he who lived in an abyss.
As days passed, defeat was all that we heard in our town, not
outright defeat, but capitulation—retreat combined with truce, truce
necessitated by deception. Or was it confusion? The soldiers I met,
after their drunken reunions, spoke of the war with bitterness. Ten
years, they said. Ten years, for what? And how many of us came back?
Those who had been away longest considered themselves outcasts and
those who had returned during the war complained, unable to recognize
their families.
Standing on the wharf, I familiarized myself with the fleet, its
remnants, anchored forlornly in the bay, boys swimming around the
hulls, the decks bone dry, hawsers trailing, a door off its hinges, the
cordage so rotten a gull might topple a spar. Disgust in my mouth, I
tasted the waste of life, Alcaeus’, my own, my friends’.
What is life for, but love?
And love sent Atthis and me along the beach, stretching our legs,
running, dashing in and out of shallows, finding periwinkles, the day
even-tempered, goats nibbling at wild celery, their bells lazy, a
fisherman waving at us as he cast his net, clouds over the mountain. I
noticed Atthis against the luminous water, her fragile face trusting
life. Her yellow ringlets in my lap, she sang to me and then, eyes
shut, fingers in the sand, she seemed to steal away.
“What are you thinking about, darling?”
“You...”
“What about?”
“You and Alcaeus—you are so troubled for him.”
“Then you have seen him?”
“Yesterday. And I’m afraid.”
“Why?”
“Because what is there left for him—and you?”
“I can’t answer you, Atthis. Time answers such questions.”
I sense my old loneliness, a loneliness that was distorted like a
ship’s rib, tossed on the beach, warped because of bad luck.
“His arms have been injured, too,” Atthis said.
“They will get better, in time...” And I heard time in the receding
wave and felt it in her ringlets and in her hands.
“You’re so sweet,” she said and I saw myself mirrored in her eyes.
And it occurred to me that Alcaeus and I would never again be able to
exchange notes, those hasty, affectionate scribbles. Would he ever
again dictate his bawdy poems, lampoon dictators and brag about war?
Had pen and desk become his enemies?
Many things occurred to me, there on the sand, as Atthis and I talked
softly.
Sappho’s garden, terraces of roses, shrubbery and cypress,
has the ocean below: moonlit, she stands white-robed
close to marble statuary:
a nude Hermes, a bust of Aphrodite,
a niobe, an athlete from Delphi.
Sappho sits down on a bench and fingers a lyre.
Mytilene
T
onight, I have returned to my poetry, for the solace and sound of my
pen. Here in my library, time will be defeated for a moment, at least.
The sun’s last rays stream in, so yellow, they might be made of acacia.
The cooling light covers my desk and bookshelves and relinquishes its
hold of my vase. A fragment clings to the amphora Alcaeus gave me long
ago. Its dancing, singing men seem somehow out of focus; yet it seems I
hear the flute and lyre of the ceramic players.
I dreamed I talked with Cyprus-born...
No, that is a poor line.
Maybe this is a better theme for tonight:
But I, I love delicate living, and for me,
richness and beauty belong to the sun...
There was a symposium and Gyrinno danced for the guests and
afterwards brought me news about Alcaeus, how he left the party and
wandered to the beach. There he quarreled with Charaxos, both armed
with sticks and staggering drunk. At first, Gyrinno garbled the news,
mixing it with the symposium’s talk of war, the defeat, the hatreds of
many kinds, including punishment and forfeit. It must have been a sorry
meeting, this reunion of our warriors. Gyrinno reached me drenched with
wine the men hard thrown on her. Other girls had been treated the same.
Welcome home—men!
When I had soothed Gyrinno and bathed and perfumed and powdered her,
I went to the beach, thinking I might find them. Yes, they were there,
quarreling on the sand, my lover and my brother, kicking their naked
shins on driftwood, their servants standing by, only half interested
and half awake.
“Charaxos,” I began.
“Ah...I rather expected you.”
“Sappho?” called Alcaeus.
“Get up, both of you.” I moved past the servants indignantly.
“Just leave us alone,” growled Charaxos.
“Leave a blind man with you, when it is you who is really blind?”
“Let’s not resume our quarrel,” said Charaxos.
“When have we stopped?”
“Please go away,” said Alcaeus, “I can take care of him, myself.”
“I’ll not go! I intend to see you home!” And I ordered the servants
to separate them and leave me with Alcaeus.
Mumbling, he followed along the shore, walking uncertainly, but
keeping out of the way of the inrushing water. Where rocks littered the
beach, he allowed me to help him, and was soon apologizing.
“I haven’t been home a month and already I act the fool. What right
have I to criticize anybody? So he brought home a slave woman. Haven’t
I had my share?”
I did not interrupt, preoccupied as I was with guiding him. Besides,
my anger with Charaxos was too old, too deep-seated, too complex. It
was not a subject to pursue on the beach, with the wind carrying our
words and the breakers drowning them. This was, I preferred, a private
quarrel.
With Charaxos and his men following a distance apart, we made a
pretty picture, hiccoughing through Mytilene! Its silent streets were
topped by a new moon; Venus seemed swallowed by a single window. Why
were we in such contrast?
Laughter and outworn songs...swaying and shuffling...until the
shutting of my door.
Alone, I sit beside my lamp to consider its flame, the why and
wherefore of its integrity, fragility. Shadows are commonplace when we
ignite a lamp. Yet, without a light, there are profounder shadows.
I hear that Alcaeus goes out alone, forbidding his servants to
follow. Everyone has become uneasy.
Today, he dismissed his secretary. So poor Gogu has sought me out to
explain what happened.
“Someday he will do me in. He has threatened this often enough!” He
was trembling so hard, he could hardly speak. It is no wonder Alcaeus
calls him a “stick of driftwood.” He has an abandoned air that begs to
be found and picked up.
“The least word, the least word upsets him. And you know how Alcaeus
can rant!”
“Yes, well...”
“He says our great fight at Sigeum was lost through sheer
carelessness. Of course, he blames the other officers...”
But then, Gogu has never held anyone’s interest or respect for long.
Who but Alcaeus would have hired an epileptic, in the first place?
Almost everyone has rescued Gogu, at one time or another, from the
surf, the wine shop, the brothel or the forum. How does this knobby
skeleton manage to survive and endure?
“You will speak to Alcaeus? You promise?”
I promised. The dread of having Gogu permanently abandoned is worse
than imploring Alcaeus to take him back. Besides, his scholarship is
often surprising, and Alcaeus can use his help.
So later, I invited Alcaeus and some friends to supper. We sat around
the courtyard fountain and listened to the harpists playing under the
burning lamps. Libus, Nanno, Suidas—they are good company for Alcaeus.
He seemed more like himself again, joking and talking. Again he
lampooned Mimnermos and mimicked “that strange-smelling country poet
from Smyrna.” But I detected a morbid note, a self-hostility that cut
him more than it did those he scorned.
Will he ever write again?
He left early, insisting he would find his way home by himself. A
soldier, reduced to being treated like an irresponsible infant—of
course he resented it. But I know he did not return home. Instead, he
has rambled into the hills again.
Now the others are gone. And I wonder, looking towards the slope,
what it is that Alcaeus hopes to find, a new life?
I shall not be able to sleep indoors tonight. My bed will have to be
under the trees. Perhaps the wind can bring me some special message.
The banquet honoring the warriors was held last night.
Alcaeus had his collection of war shields displayed on his dining
room walls. Of hide and metal, in various shapes, they united the room
and its glazing lamps and candles. I felt myself the focal point of a
painted eye on a circular hide, as I sat by him. I could not recall
such an assembly in years: Scythian, Etruscan, Turkish, Negro. Bowls of
incense sent threads to the ceiling. Wisps floated in front of me where
a man in Egyptian clothes, headband studded with rubies, sat beside his
courtesan.
Alcaeus made his way to the dais, when everyone was seated, about
fifty of us. Hands resting on a table, arms healed and ringed with
copper bands, he leaned forward, waiting for silence. His hair had been
freshly curled, and his beard trimmed and brushed with oil. I was
troubled, thinking he might be impudent or truculent. Instead he spoke
gravely and it was difficult to believe he could not see us. I thought
he glanced straight at me.
“Tonight, friends, there will be no tirade, no poetry. I wish to pay
my respects, and offer my thanks for our return to our island. I know
how beautiful it is...”
There was a murmur of appreciation.
“Soldiers have a way of talking out of turn,” he went on, reminding
them of the gossip that had come to his ears, shameful talk that made
faces blush with guilt and anger.
“It’s time for me, as their commander, to speak. Very well, I will!”
And his voice thundered across the room, to make sure that none would
miss or mistake its message. Was this the Alcaeus who had joked and
sported and sung ribald songs, as the popular friend of young men who
were proud, rich, playful and naive? Here was someone speaking out of
experience...
“I assure you the truce was an honorable truce—and will be
respected.” An older, solemn Alcaeus...who reviewed the war with
wisdom.
“And now let us forget fear and enjoy life and see that our people
prosper.” It was an impressive speech, one they would long remember.
Our personal servants, assisted by the usual naked boys, waited on
us, pouring the Chian wine. Gradually, people began to move about, to
talk and drink together. Men long absent from such gatherings moved
nervously or waited glumly—alone or in knots of two or three, feeling
separate. How does one forget the battlefield? I heard the burr of
ancient Egyptian. Persian was spoken by men from Ablas. Women gathered
about the newly returned; some were excited, some were beautifully
dressed, their hair piled in curls, their shoulders bare, wearing gold
sandals.
As the evening wore on, the old familiar sense of freedom returned.
Restraint dropped away. Voices and laughter increased. Then applause
broke out as a Negro entertainer entered, carrying a smoking torch.
Under the edge of the portico, he freed a basket of birds and juggled
several wicker balls. I had never seen this gaunt, ribbed giant,
beautifully naked; some said he had come on a wine ship as a crewman.
He spun the cages higher and higher and as they whirled in the torch
light, he tore open first one and then anther, to liberate the birds. A
magnificent performance.
The suggestion worried Pittakos and he pushed through the crowd to
take the floor. Pittakos, with his rasping tongue and fish eyes—was
there a more dishonest ruler? How ironical that he should represent us!
As he kept folding and unfolding his robe, he spoke about our fleet,
how he would have the ships repaired and converted into fishing boats
for the use of the community...never mentioning that our fleet was
rotted!
Presently, the musicians and dancers wandered among us and the party
went on. After many songs and a lot of wine, Alcaeus slipped his arm
through mine and suggested we go upstairs. It was all very obvious, of
course—that he was drunk and I unwilling, that times had changed and
everything with it. When was it we had dashed, hand in hand, up his
staircase, giggling and pushing one another? How many years ago?
Ah, deception and illusion, do we dare recreate the past and its
former happiness? Only in memory is it done successfully. Yet, here we
were in his room.
Life is for love!
In the old days, when we had made love, we had closed our eyes, to
intensify sensations. Now he would not need to shut his eyes. And his
arms, hands, fingers—once young and sure—what could they remember?
I could not keep back tears, tears he would never know, as he
stumbled, laughed, then sprawled over the fur covering of his bed.
While the music filtered in to us, I cushioned him in my lap and wiped
the perspiration from his face, hating the war and the years behind us.
After mumbling a few words, he turned over and fell into profound
sleep.
So, that was the resumption of our love...and, as I leaned against a
hillside olive, the salt air fresh about me, I accepted defeat, aware
that my loneliness would appear again and again. There, on the hill,
gazing seaward, where fishing smacks moved, I rubbed the horny bark,
envying the tree’s longevity and its years ahead. Would I trade places,
to brood over Mytilene, for centuries?
Alone?
Then Atthis circled me in her arms, creeping up behind me and cupping
my eyes. I recognized her by her laughter and perfume.
“Atthis...”
Alcaeus’ home is much older than mine, with patina walls, Parian
marble floors, and a collection of rare Athenian busts. His library has
a Corinthian copy of Homer and a collection of Periander’s maxims,
while I have been contented with some papyri, of choral lyrics and
dithyrambs.
As I stretch out in a leather chair in his library and read to him,
the honeysuckle makes its fragrance outside, surely a woman’s flower,
so fecund. I try to keep my voice and thoughts within the room, beyond
the reach of its fragrance. The honeysuckle does not suit us or the
room. And Alcaeus knows this, too. His impassive features grow stern,
as though to reprimand me. Insatiable Sappho! Yet how can I help it? I
must love and be loved.
Laying down the book, I kneel and place my cheek against his knee.
His hands, gliding over my hair and neck, are dead. His voice, out of
its black, reproaches me.
I want to cry: but I didn’t blind you!
The other day in the library, he said:
“I wanted to write something great... During the war, I conceived of
a series of island poems, bucolic, legendary, praise of this life.” And
he motioned toward the ocean and our island.
“Dictate to me,” I said, hoping to rouse his impulse.
His silence, at first natural enough, went on, and I became
embarrassed by his stare at the bookshelves.
“I want to help you, Alcaeus.”
Again the silence. How was I to get through it?
Taking a volume of his poems, I read aloud several of his favorites.
Slowly, his face relaxed and he settled deeper in his chair. After a
while, he said:
“Read some of yours, Sappho.”
I opened a book, one of my earliest ones, and read several passages.
But I could not continue; I felt my mind wrapped in fog; my hands
became icy. I shut my eyes and said to myself: See, this is what it’s
like to be blind. You’re blind, blind to love and life...
As I kissed him good-bye, I longed for our youth, its freedom, its
daring, its quarrels and fun.
Walking home, I told myself I should never return to his house.
In looking back over the pages of my journal, I am alarmed by the
passage of time. When I was young, I thought time was a philanthropist.
I remember so well that day mama took me to the ocean, and the rain
fell unexpectedly, lashing and soaking us. We finally discovered a
shepherd’s hut, but I got colder and colder in its windowless gloom.
Lying on the floor, among stiff hides, with the rain sounding loud and
the hides smelling strong, I thought the storm would never end. Toward
dusk, a shepherd and his boy came, dripping with wet and shivering, and
my mother dried the boy and made him lie down with me under the hides.
Were we seven or eight? Together, our bodies grew warm and we lay
still, listening to the wind and the rain thud across the green roof,
while the shepherd went about building a fire and preparing supper. I
have forgotten the boy’s name, but not his face. Forever after, I
thought of him as my first lover. I doubt whether we spoke a word all
that delicious evening.
Now I find it hard to renew ties with the past. Not only
Alcaeus...but Dioscurides...Pylades...Milo...the very names make me
unhappy. All destroyed by war. What special stupidity do men possess
that they must involve themselves in such a gamble, with loss
inevitable, anyhow?
The columns of the temple of Zeus, in Athens,
stand white against the moonlit sky.
A woman walks among columnar cypress,
her sandals scraping sand and gravel.
A hawk wheels above.
T
he masks I have on my bedroom walls seem less clever than they appeared
years ago. Our theatre, too, has changed through the years, become more
mediocre.
Yesterday, at the play, I sat closer than usual and was delighted by
the comic faces, so new and frightful that children screamed and
squealed. Good, I thought. Perhaps the play may take on life.
...A man with a tambourine strutted about...an old beggar, pack on
back, pulled at his beard and mimicked words sung by the chorus. He
seemed to be one of us or a Chian, maybe. It was pleasant enough to
soak myself in comedy for a while, for right after the play, Charaxos
found me and suggested we stroll in private. Obviously, he had
something on his mind!
He began by offering me an exquisite scarab, saying he had purchased
it for me, from a sailor who had touched port.
“For me?” I became suspicious! I fingered the beetle-shaped oval,
unlike any I had seen. An amethyst was set in the center with
characters engraved around it.
“An Etruscan scarab should make a pretty keepsake,” he said.
“Then I think you should keep it.”
“Why? Are you afraid?” he asked.
“Of what?”
“That it might bring bad luck.”
He laughed ironically, as he flipped and caught the scarab, with a
flick of his wrist.
“What is it you want?” I asked, coming directly to the point.
“To be treated with respect, Rhodopis and I—not criticized.”
“Do I say too much?”
“I don’t like your tongue.” He was scowling now.
“Nor I your woman’s!”
“Leave her out! I warn you—she’s no longer a slave!”
“It wasn’t that she was a slave that bothered me.”
“A courtesan, then!”
“No, you should know better than that. Oh, no...it was your
assumption that our family funds could be lifted, without my consent
and without my knowledge. Taken to buy Rhodopis. You sold three or four
wine ships to pay her price, along with the money taken from me.”
“Can’t you forget...”
“Not conveniently. Nobody enjoys being robbed.”
“I have said I would repay you.”
“But that was nearly two years ago. And you go right on selling wine
and buying equipment. I have heard that you added a ship last month.
Wasn’t it convenient to pay me then?”
His fist tightened over the scarab, and he bowed and turned away,
rejoining his wife who was strolling behind us with her friends and
servants.
Theatre!
Villa Poseidon
Atthis, Gyrinno, Anaktoria and I went swimming in the bay by the
driftwood tree. It was late, the sun misty, its eye sleepy, pelicans
roosting, a dolphin or two frolicking close to shore. I had been unable
to forget my meeting with Charaxos, until Anaktoria, who is the best
swimmer among us, grabbed me by the heels as I floated by, and towed me
to the bottom. That ended my anger and irritation. I lit after her,
snatching for her long hair. Arms around her, I forced her to tow me
toward shore, making myself as heavy as possible.
As the four of us played on the beach, I thought: When will this
happen again? Something about the late afternoon—its hammered out sun,
its tempered air, its windlessness, its smell of spring—seemed unreal
even as it happened. We tossed our blankets on the sand, dashed back
and forth to the water’s edge, splashed each other, then arranged
ourselves in a circle and began combing each other’s hair. We sang and
laughed, comparing, whose was finest, whose was thickest.
Atthis, whose hair was shortest, bragged she could swim the farthest.
That started an argument.
“Who swam halfway round the island last year?” demanded Gyrinno.
“Who was born at sea?” said Anaktoria.
“You can tell the best swimmer by the shape of her buttocks,” said
Atthis. “Look at mine, how flat they are.” She jumped up, to show us.
“A boy’s buttocks,” laughed Gyrinno.
“Here. Measure. Mine are smaller,” said Anaktoria.
So we measured, laughing, fussing, pushing, our hair streaming around
us—a gull on the shore padding back and forth, scolding. Atthis won,
but Anaktoria had the loveliest breasts, so round, almost transparent
in that evening light. I have rarely seen a girl of such grace, not the
childish grace of some, but the accomplished grace of true femininity.
As the others became aware of my admiration, they became jealous and
peevish, and tried to shift the praise.
They talked about my smallness, my violet hair... “your deep blue
eyes”... “your melodious voice...”
But this was Anaktoria’s hour. She had been away, visiting in Samnos,
staying with her family, and I was eager to hear the news.
“I thought I was homesick... But it is Mytilene I love best... My
brother has a girl now. He goes to her house whenever he is not
working. I saw very little of him... Life there was very dull. Family
visits from door to door. The same cup of wine, the same paste of nuts
and fruit, the same questions, answers, family anecdotes and jokes...
How lonesome I was!”
Growing quiet, all of us responded to the evening, the lingering sea-
light, the arrival of the stars, the whispering shingle, the breeze,
carrying the scents and sounds from Mytilene.
Anaktoria and I walked home together, feeling our bond closer,
stronger than before. I had missed her more than I thought: I had
missed her a dozen times a day.
I have been sick today and to amuse myself I have made some jottings
about my girls:
Atthis—lover of yellow ribbons, scared of the dark. To avoid going
out, will invent a headache, a toothache or a stomachache. An orphan,
she gets homesick for the home she never had. Prefers women to men.
Tells amusing jokes and stories. Loves laughter. Mimics. Is made
jealous easily. Speaks slowly...ivory-skinned.
Gyrinno—the daughter of a wine merchant, can outdrink most men.
Worries about her figure, eats next to nothing. Uses violet perfume.
Our best dancer. Otherwise, is lazy, careless of dress and makeup.
Never reads. Wants to marry someone wealthy and entertain lavishly.
Snores.
Anaktoria—hair yellower than torchlight, soft-girl, dabbler in
poetry, dreamer, lovely singer. Plays lyre and flute equally well.
Adores games, trees, flowers, swimming, archery. Wants to travel, be a
priestess.
Then there are the new girls: Heptha, with copper hair... Myra, who
is Turkish... Helen, a scatterbrained darling... Ah, but each is
exquisite in her own way. No two are alike. I love them all.
And yet, I am grieved, since my own daughter is jealous of them.
Dear, foolish Kleis, who pretends she has never been a child and is yet
so far from being a woman.
I have spent weeks over a poem, revising, revising.
I do my best writing in the morning, when the sea light is sparking
my room. How important the harmony is to me: harmony in my house, on
the island, in my heart.
Sometimes, I call my girls to let them hear what I have written.
Sometimes, in the evenings, I recite my poems for friends. Sometimes, I
go days, unable to write a word. They are cold days.
Shall I use eleven syllables?
A poem does not grow like a leaf, but has to be shaped. I often think
of a lyric as an amphora; little by little I must mold its lines on the
wheel of my mind. It is the structure, containing the song. It must be
graceful, strong, so that the words and the music can flow...
The wings of the swans have drawn you toward the dark
ground,
with yoke chariot bearing down from heaven...
Come to me...free me from trouble...
Today I received a letter from Aesop, written at Adelphi. It is a joy
to hear from him. I thought he had forgotten me. What a good companion
he was, all those days in Corinth... Companion? He was more like a
father!
His handwriting is the most perfect I have ever seen. Each letter
formed so patiently, each thought expressed so beautifully. Does he
strive for perfection because be cannot forget his deformity?
I remember his eyes used to transfix me with their brown hypnosis.
He must be fifty, I think.
He had his beard trimmed and his hair curled, every morning. His
robes, so elegant, so clean, were always perfumed. I seldom saw him
without his doll, that bull-leaping doll of Cretan ivory, brightly
painted! But his apartment was simple, tastefully furnished, elegant as
his clothes. Each bath towel, I recall, bore a brilliant red octopus.
When he looked after Alcaeus and me, we ate with him every day at
least one meal. Through all the years of our exile, he remained our
most faithful friend. His friends were our friends. His house was ours.
His servants. He treated everyone with equal respect.
“I never forget that I was a slave,” he often said.
He was much sought after, not only for his humor, but for his wisdom.
His reddish whiskers and black brows gave him a comic look. But he
sensed his profundity, as he guided me about Corinth and sat beside me
at the temple of Apollo, watching the people and the boats and the sea
birds, and hearing the choral virgins sing.
Evenings, he would lay aside his doll and tell me fables. He had
learned many from his father, a Persian, and he was constantly visiting
orientals to pick up their stories and jokes. I hear his smooth,
somnolent voice...an effortless story- teller!
“I will certainly come and visit you,” he writes. “I am tired of
Adelphi. The people make me uncomfortable. I want to roam over Lesbos,
to be with you and Alcaeus. I want to see your home.”
Will he come? I hope he can. His letter has taken weeks to reach me.
I suppose he could be on his way, by this time.