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,
working 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
Alcaeus 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 citizenry, 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 occupy 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, slipping 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?
The answers mean so little. Born of the sea, where is love more
beautiful than on the sea? Like water, light, warm, swaying, the
indispensable ingredient, the transformations, the necessities, the
luxury, with the whites of the waves whiter than salt, with gulls
flashing in the sun, with the bow of the boat swinging.
We swam, dove, played, laughed. There was bread soaked in honey and
nuts dipped in wine and fruit, whose peelings we tossed to the birds.
There was the creaking of the sail for our silences, the long brown
tiller arm reaching to the sun, his hands on my shoulders.