“Will Gogu be all right?” I asked, hearing his rapid breathing.
“He’ll be all right by evening,” Libus said.
So we examined the collection, Libus questioning their antiquity: I
pointed out the yellowing and flaking: he held an Amazon in the
doorway, dust cracks mottling her face and armor, the texture of his
hands obvious as well.
He seems to be holding me in his fingers, as small. I felt the flakes
of time—my life flaking, like Gogu’s, less lasting than the ivory.
The hours I spend with Libus and his sister are hours of talk and
wine, at his small house, in its garden of figs and olives, poppies in
bloom along the paths. Their place, nearer the bay than mine, absorbs
the bay’s placidity. The furniture stresses comfort. His mosaics
reflect his regard for ease...scenes of old days and old creatures.
I was glad when Libus gave up staying with Alcaeus; I had missed
those visits to his home where Helen has taught me designs for my loom
and reaffirmed what patience really is. She has read to me, acquainting
me with books I would never have found...
Libus talks and toys with a loop of beads, in a thoughtful mood, his
hands, as they move, remind me of their healing quality and his voice
has that same beneficence, distinctly personal, meanings having extra
meaning most of the time.
Helen’s face has none of his ephemerality but has, instead, a country
wholesomeness I love. She chats about flowers she has grown, seeds she
keeps in jars, promising me a selection.
Their poppies, grey-leafed, sea-bitten, have large centers and bees
loll on the petals and the sea lolls beyond them.
Why is it the hours loll here? I have seen whales from their garden,
sporting near beds of kelp, their blue backs like so many watery hills.
I think something lures them offshore...another something makes Libus’
servants sing more than my servants.
A gigantic sea-rock assumes the face of a crying woman when the fog
comes: some say she cries for our dead in the wars, some say it’s for
those lost at sea: I have often seen her, head bowed: she faces the
town, staring: the sea sound is her weeping; perhaps it is the weeping
of many women: if I walk by that deserted spot at night, with the fog
about me, I cling to Atthis or Exekias. No woman goes alone there, when
the fog is about.
The moon has set and
The Pleiades have gone;
The night is half gone
And life speeds by.
I lie in bed, alone.
Going to see Alcaeus, I met Kleis and she threw her arms around me
and kissed me, saying:
“Mama, dear, it’s good to see you! How I miss you!”
I tried to hide my pleasure but my heart sang and I held her close,
my body remembering hers, fingers slipping around the back of her neck,
staying in her hair.
Pushing me aside, she exclaimed:
“Mama, let’s go to your house and be together, like old times. Shall
we?”
How easy to consent—and we walked home, arms around each other, gulls
over us, shadows skimming roofs, dusty cobbles asking for rain: I
wanted to remember her chatter, each inflection...
I would see Alcaeus tomorrow. I needed time with my own...
Pittakos stoned...Aesop stoned...the mob’s disgrace...
Year after year, is there greater calumny than our own communal
perfidy? Is there greater stupidity? One man starts it, then five, then
ten, manacled together.
For our island’s sake, I’m glad I cheated death.
Like old times, we sat at our looms and Kleis showed me a periwinkle
design, whispering confidences, saying he was good, saying the house
was good, the sea...she put her faith on the loom, the thread of it
going beyond life. Mother must have heard me say such things,
reflecting the same hope. Finches gathered in the olive trees as we
worked. I asked time to stop and let us have the day last, at least
longer than evening and the shepherd’s bells.
Charaxos brought him to my house, a castaway, I thought, dreg of the
worst sea. Charaxos stood behind him in Cairo red, the sun blazing over
the town, as the castaway bowed, holding together his rags, eyes
wandering, skin and bones, nose snuffing at his hand, his mouth lower
on one side, a canine look on his face.
Muttering, he fished in a sack tied about his waist and offered me
something.
I hesitated to take it, feeling Charaxos’ curiosity—or was it
gloating? I grew afraid as the castaway insisted, wagging head and
hand, Charaxos silent; forcing myself, I bent and peered at his
hand...seeing a drachma.
I saw it had been pierced for a chain...taking it, I made out the
letters my mother had gouged...in the metal...yes, it was her drachma.
I wanted to run, throw down the coin, send Charaxos away, turn aside
the castaway. I wanted to crumble on the steps and bury my head in my
arms and deny existence.
“Come in,” I managed.
And the men entered.
Together, we sat down and I asked:
“Where did you get the coin?”
“At Cos...”
“You are from Cos?”
“Yes, I came from Cos.”
“He came on one of my ships,” Charaxos said.
I could not look at either man.
“He came from Cos,” I said.
“Phaon died on the island...he and others...thrown on the beach...we
have rocky shores...he was injured in the big storm...you see, we found
him, my wife and son and I. He gave us the coin and sent me to
you...he...”
So, he died after that storm, I told myself, and I got up, wondering
where I could go: I saw the castaway’s blazing eyes and torn clothing
and the greedy face of my brother:
“Stay at my house...as long as you like,” I said. “I will send
servants to look after you. I will...”
What will I do? I asked myself.
Will I take the coin and sleep with it? Will it burn my bed? Will I
place it on my desk or hurl it out my window? And I opened my fingers
to see if the bronze was on fire.
Now, you have seen me grief-stricken, I thought, as I gazed at
Charaxos. You may go and tell your friends. Tell them, Sappho is
beaten. Tell them...
I excused myself and retreated to my room.
Far at sea, I saw a dot: Phaon’s ship, and I opened my hand and laid
his drachma on the windowsill.
Beauty, is he dead?
What has been gained by taking him from me?
Shall I go to Xerxes, and hold him to his promise? Couldn’t there be
a mistake? Better to find Xerxes and say to him, “Remember your
promise,” and take his powder. This is my inheritance, from parents,
Cercolas, friends, this degree of misfortune, final degradation. Was
love a mirage, or this?
Libus sat beside my bed, his hands alleviating the pain that dragged
at every nerve: his hands warmed me, crossing my back and shoulders,
assuaging with their mirage the storm that seemed everywhere inside me,
bursting my throat, my brain, my chest, shattering my reason.
Yet, as he helped me, he reasoned:
“I hoped he would be back early enough for Kleis’ wedding...he said
something to me about getting back early... I hoped you two would go
on...you know all of us watched you...our hearts were yours...it was
like that.
“I’ve always thought your pride deserved love, Phaon’s kind, free of
politics. Yes, I know Alcaeus was sufficient, years ago; then our
island women adopted you; then Phaon. It was his luck to give you what
you needed...”
“My coin didn’t bring luck to him,” I said.
“A coin means what? Metal can’t tell us about life...only we can
tell...to one another...”
“What have I told you through the years?”
He paused a while, hands motionless.
“Beauty...”
“And now?”
“Another kind...in the making. I know your ancestral line...losses
become gain...I recognize bravery.”
His hands and thoughts continued their palliative, now the fingers,
now the voice, as servants replaced lamps and closed windows, moving as
slowly as if below the sea, finally to leave us alone again, the
ocean’s voice mixing with the crickets.
“Kleis will bring Phaon back to me,” I said.
“Theirs is a curious resemblance...I agree.”
“What will happen to his house?”
“It will be hers,” he said.
“But she’ll never live in town.”
“No...she won’t change her ways.”
“Have you ever liked his house? I haven’t.”
“No,” he said.
“Libus, why doesn’t Alcaeus come to me?”
“He’s not thinking of your problem.”
“He doesn’t know about Phaon?”
“He knows...but can’t come.”
“Shall I go to him?”
“Wait...for a while,” he said.
My girls seldom leave me: Atthis, Gyrinno, Anaktoria, each brings
flowers and gifts, bringing them surreptitiously or with a hint of
jollity—sometimes compassion. Old Exekias pats my hands, kisses my
skirt or turns away, tears unchecked.
Atthis, cheek against mine, murmurs her love. As we walk through our
garden she says:
“I miss him too... I loved him too... We placed a wreath for him...
We three have made a shrine in the woods...”
Gyrinno appears in the night, as I lie sleepless. Unable to mention
the tragedy, she whispers hoarsely that she loves me and wants to help:
Is there anything she can do for me?
Anaktoria has probed deeper:
“You must take care, Sappho. You must do nothing strange, that would
harm us. We can’t have you obsessed by melancholy. Let us look after
you.”
Eyes streaked with tears dim and I see him, imagine his body sprawled
between the rocks of Cos and I hear his voice speak my name: I see our
Leucadian cliff and know I could throw myself down, die as he died
among the rocks, far below.
Then, I find Kleis as I work at my loom, and her voice, revealing her
sorrow, eradicates the drama of self: the curse of death needs soft
hands and blonde hair and blue eyes and tender mouth... “Mama,
darling...”
Sometimes I try to brush aside feminine ties, but there they are,
tightening about me: snatches of song come to me: I see women with
babies at the fountain; vineyards creep over the hills, ascending
through fog, under the wings of gulls, moving toward me, closer and
closer: they are my father’s vineyards, the vineyards of Alcaeus,
Phaon’s vineyards, Libus’, Anaktoria’s; the bone flute, the whole
island is in them, in the spring leaves and autumn leaves, in the stark
vines of winter: the weeping rock moves through them, the defeated
fleet, the red rooftops of home, the bare hills, olive trees: I see a
woman, called Sappho, leading a child, named Kleis: I hear shepherd’s
bells, and the silence of dawn spills up from the ocean’s shore: a
porpoise and a whale, beyond a belt of kelp, churn points of light and
shadow: home, home is the red tiles and my mother’s lamps and the view
where the vineyards snuggle to sleep for the night: this is my in-
heritance, to keep as long as possible, that is what I tell myself,
compel myself to feel.
Kleis has the grape leaf woven in her loom and as she weaves she
faces me and smiles and I know how much love is in that smile.
Sappho stands by the seaward window in her library...
carved ivory racks hold books, ancient papyri,
Egyptian clay tablets, copies of hymns.
Blue from the bay inundates the library, her face,
obliterates the books.
Alcaeus, an old man,
holds a tattered manuscript.
Mytilene, Lesbos
S
uddenly, he stood in front of me, in my library, dressed in black,
beard soiled, deep wrinkles underneath his eyes.
“Alcaeus, I didn’t hear you and Thasos.”
“Exekias let us in. Are you working?”
“No...sit down.”
“Are you alone?”
“Yes.”
He leaned on Thasos: I felt that he hadn’t been sober very long; he
leaned forward, almost stumbling.
“Can I sit down?”
“Here, here,” said Thasos, helping him, laying aside a package.
Silence troubled us.
I watched Thasos go and then Alcaeus said:
“I understand your loss. I understand what has happened to you.
Phaon’s death has overpowered you. I put it badly...but we have
shared...be patient...I understand...Sappho; I have brought you my
Homer. Remember, when I got it years ago? Remember? I want to share. I
should have given you this before...What good is it to me?”
“Alcaeus.”
“Where is the book?”
“The package Thasos left?”
“Yes...take it...open it...”
I opened it, remembering how we had thrilled long ago, and, after a
while, reaching out to him, grateful, hoping I could make him sense my
gratitude, I kissed his forehead and his hands, his hands motionless,
the sightless eyes confusing me.
He went on slowly:
“I’ve come to share my strength...it’s a poor strength, drunk, blind,
but it does go on. You, my dear, are blinded by grief. Let me tell you
your grief can’t be as bad as mine. Or, if it is, let’s
share...share...we’ve shared before...I’ll take your dark away...hide
it in mine...lose some of your burden at least.
“Sappho, let me help.
“Accept the old book, find hope in it... I have kicked aside death on
the field...look at my eyes and then look at yours...you need no
mirror.
“He’s dead...dead by the sea...you have your love of beauty to uphold
you. Let it live! Give it new life! Soon enough death will claim both
of us, but, till then, let’s find comradeship...come to my house
tomorrow, read to me...
“Will you?”
I nodded, then remembered he could not see and remembered his gift
and his grace and knelt by him and put my head in his hands and pressed
between his knees, as he patted me, chuckling a little.
“I’ll come tomorrow, Alcaeus,” I promised.
“Good.”
“I know your lot is worse than mine... I must find courage.”
Beauty, I thought, beauty, what can I say to help this man?
“Yes, tomorrow; then I’ll tell you, Sappho... I’ll tell you what I’ve
learned, living in my black sea. How my ship drags anchor. What I’ve
heard. I’ve heard some strange things. I can sense someone moving,
almost before he moves, a shift of air, let’s say.
“Watch me play jacks with Libus, old soldiers at their fun. I could
cheat you...if you gave me half a chance.”
Again that chuckle.
The book lay open and his great arms lay across his lap, fingers up.
My father had owned that book. With age it had come unsewed and hung in
tatters: the smell of age was there: I rubbed my fingers over pages...
Quickly, he said:
“I like to feel those pages... I wanted to write a book as full of
life...give back the thunder of the storm...look how the bugs have
eaten the book...see that ripped page...well, where will you keep your
Homer?”
And he smiled.
“Shall I read something?”
“Yes...now!”
Turning the pages so he could hear them I searched for a favorite
passage.
I read as slowly and as distinctly as possible, allowing each word
time.
Cercolas, mother, Aesop, Phaon...gone. When shall I go?
I have been unable to write for days. I have nothing to say...there
is only emptiness.
Yesterday a nightingale sang, a song of tattered leaves, scraps of
Nile, bits of Euphrates, papyrus against night, against impending doom,
against depression. Tender notes whispered insanity. Other notes urged
self-pity. Others shattered—with sheerest delicacy—any hope of
contrition.
A feather drops...a pause. One could die during such a pause.
All of us wait—life waits!
A bubbling deceives the spirit, a trill alienates the heart.
Something summons the past, other songs on other nights, other songs of
other people, the bone flute, of course.
This was not a bird, not a beak, not a feather but sail and spar,
rigged to go at dawn, course along many shores.
“Beauty, you’re frail. Your bones are able to carry next to nothing
and yet your song travels, spreading as if a pebble had dropped on
water...”
I walked under olive trees along the coast, following grassy paths,
the breeze with me until I met Gogu, carrying a piece of kelp and a
shell. At first, he did not seem to recognize me. How thin, how sick he
is! Shadows of the olives shadowed him. When he spoke, I hardly
listened. Each of us is going the same way, I thought, and so we parted
and stillness put its loneliness about me. The words he had said mixed
me because I had not listened, mixed with my love-memories, adding
incoherence.
Why was Gogu carrying kelp and a shell? Why was I walking where I had
often walked?
In a hundred years, this path has changed little: the trees have
become more gnarled, the shadows darker, the air quieter.
The marble shrine at the end of the path crumbles year by year and
yet remains about the same: I can remember it when another brought me:
Phaon remembered it: and now, memories are re-dedicated and burned,
their ashes under my sandals, under my fingers and heart.
The best of life is illusion, I do not doubt. The best of Phaon may
have been illusion.
Ah, the nettles of desire, the sleeplessness, the gnawing of regrets
in my skull. These are emotions we can not share but must suffer alone
till dawn, the dipper proving we are children.
I believe that we, as human beings, prove nothing: there is really
nothing to prove except kindness and decency: all else is more
illusion.
I take my harp but there are no words to accompany the notes. I urge
Atthis to sing: play, darling, help me forget...let me see your face as
I love to see it. Move your head with that fragile alacrity. Stretch
your bare legs under your dress.
As I open the shutters in the morning, I miss him...the ocean has
grown much, much wider.
My favorite olive tree says nothing to me.
Alcaeus wrote me:
“I know I can help you. Come over for the day. Courage, friend.”
The note repulsed me. What could he know of Phaon, of man’s
cleanliness and beauty!
I did not answer. Instead, I climbed the hills with Atthis and
Anaktoria, to lay a wreath at an altar that has been our shrine for a
while.
The sea was rough and the wind was rough.
Tears overcame me at the altar and I made them leave me: I hoped to
die there: I wanted my bitterness to kill me: Why couldn’t it happen?
Why couldn’t there be this finality?
I pulled flowers from the wreath and wrote his name on the ground. A
thrush hopped close by. The wind, gusting from the bay, scattered
blossoms and I found Atthis beside me, kneeling to comfort me. We had
shared so much, the three of us, days and weeks, grief and joy. She and
Anaktoria got me to eat, under pines sheltered from the wind; she and
Anaktoria fixed my hair.
Their sad faces made me long for happiness for their sake, and I
tried to see beyond myself. There must be a trick that I can use to
deceive others.
The placid sea carries a few boats,
small clouds on the horizon,
a series of silver cat’s-paws;
and as though through a sheet
of green glass the faces of
Sappho, Atthis and Anaktoria:
a laurel wreath whirls above the Aegean:
herons fly, dolphins leap.
K
leis left her shepherd’s hut and came here and we have talked far into
the night:
“He liked a gold cup...he liked the mountains...he liked the
cove...yes, he went farther out to sea than anyone...his sailors liked
him...he...”
Kleis stayed several days and each day was a mirror of his
personality. Her beauty brought out his quality, imaging it in various
ways, her nature shaken from its customary silence to talk of him. I
recognized the effort and appreciated the communication. I wanted to
write her notes but she could not read. I wanted to thank her in some
special way but it was she who thanked me, before slipping away.
Afterward I counted other friends: Alcaeus, Libus, Helen, Exekias,
Atthis, Anaktoria, Gyrinno, Heptha, Gogu... I also counted those who
have died. Dreaming, I counted our island, our town, our trees,
mountains and sea. I added my home. However childish to enumerate like
this, I went to sleep easily.
Perhaps, as I grow older, I may find an idea, a seed. Perhaps it can
grow in someone’s mind: compassion, courage, grace, love—it could
become one of these.
I shall continue to put down my thoughts, the handprint of my days.
Could it be that the greatest thing in life is perseverance?
Somebody, I tell you,
Someone in future time
Will remember us.
We are oppressed by
oblivion, by the idea
Of nothing at all,
Yet are saved by the
Judgment of good men.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
P
aul Alexander Bartlett (1909-1990) was a writer and artist, born in
Moberly, Missouri, and educated at Oberlin College, the University of
Arizona, the Academia de San Carlos in Mexico City, and the Instituto de
Bellas Artes in Guadalajara. His work can be divided into three
categories: He is the author of many novels, short stories, and poems;
second, as a fine artist, his drawings, illustrations, and paintings
have been exhibited in more than forty one-man shows in leading
galleries, including the Los Angeles County Museum, the Atlanta Art
Museum, the Bancroft Library, the Richmond Art Institute, the Brooks
Museum, the Instituto-Mexicano-Norteamericano in Mexico City, and many
other galleries; and, third, he devoted much of his life to the most
comprehensive study of the haciendas of Mexico that has been undertaken.
More than 350 of his pen-and-ink illustrations of the haciendas and more
than one thousand hacienda photographs make up the Paul Alexander
Bartlett Collection held by the Nettie Lee Benson Latin American
Collection of the University of Texas, and form part of a second
diversified collection held by the American Heritage Center of the
University of Wyoming, which also includes an archive of Bartlett’s
literary work, fine art, and letters.
Paul Alexander Bartlett’s fiction has been commended by many authors,
among them Pearl Buck, Ford Madox Ford, John Dos Passos, James Michener,
Upton Sinclair, Evelyn Eaton, and many others. He was the recipient of
many grants, awards, and fellowships, from such organizations as the
Leopold Schepp Foundation, the Edward MacDowell Association, the New
School for Social Research, the Huntington Hartford Foundation, the
Montalvo Foundation, and the Carnegie Foundation.
His wife, Elizabeth Bartlett, a widely published poet, is the author
of seventeen published books of poetry, numerous poems, short stories,
and essays published in leading literary quarterlies and anthologies,
and, as the founder of Literary Olympics, Inc., is the editor of a
series of multi-language volumes of international poetry that honor the
work of outstanding contemporary poets.
Paul and Elizabeth’s son, Steven, edited and designed this volume.
Sappho’s Journal
was set in Garamond type by Autograph Editions. The typeface is named
after Claude Garamond (c. 1480-1561), a French type designer and
publisher and the world’s first commercial typefounder. Garamond’s
contribution to the history of typesetting was substantial. He
perfected the design of Roman type: The fonts that he cut beginning in
1531 were recognized as possessing a superior grace and clarity, so
much so that Garamond’s fonts influenced European printing for the next
century and a half.
It is interesting to note that Garamond type is the evolutionary
ancestor of the type used to print the first official copies of the
Declaration of Independence. In the 1730s, Englishman William Caslon
refined Garamond’s version of Aldine roman, the well-balanced typeface
became popular, and was introduced to the American colonies by Benjamin
Franklin.
Despite his considerable contribution to the evolution of typography,
Garamond was not a successful businessman and he died in poverty.
During the past five centuries, so many variations of Garamond’s type
designs have been created that the phrase ‘Garamond type’ has come to
be used loosely, with little memory remaining of its history.
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End of Project Gutenberg's Sappho's Journal, by Paul Alexander Bartlett