Sappho's Leap (37 page)

“Elpenor,” I said, “your boy is a prodigy. He knows poetry and song and story. Someday he will do you proud at the symposium.”

“And on the battlefield!” said Elpenor.

He scooped the child up in his arms and ruffled his golden curls. “And what a beauty he is too! Golden like his mother! Ah, he will make a fine cupbearer to Pittacus the Great!”

Hector wriggled out of his hamlike arms and ran away to his nurse in the women's quarters.

“A fine boy!” said Elpenor. “Now all we need is a girl to take care of us when we are old! Will you excuse us, honored mother-in-law? Of course you will. You know the heat of the blood! All your songs prove it! Though only serving maids and common folk sing 'em, they still have
something
to 'em. Why, I used to use your songs myself to sing maidens into bed! Don't tell Pittacus I said so! Come, my girl, to bed!”

Cleis winked at me conspiratorially. This was a change! Someday we would laugh about this! And about Elpenor who could not tell my songs from Andromeda's—but then neither could my daughter!

I sat down at the loom and thought and thought. Suddenly a line took me and I ran for papyrus and reeds.
No matter what Aphrodite promised me / There is no road to Olympus / For mortals
…I scrawled.

I paused, then began again:

When I think of my love

Far across the seas…

No good, too banal.

Let us sacrifice to Aphrodite,

Inconstant, constant goddess,

Let us bind our locks with dill

And all sweet-smelling herbs

And praise the power of Aphrodite

And her sparrows with whirling wings

Who bless us with fruitfulness and love!

Holy mother Cyprian

And the nereids,

Awake with varied notes

The down-rushing wind of desire

And send Eros as your messenger

To fill our hearts with love,

Our loins with lust,

And shower us

With…

At that very moment, Rhodopis, my sister-in-law, rushed in.

“Sappho! Do you know that two of your students are with child? And that Phaon is the father?”

I can't say I was surprised. There are certain things you know without knowing them. And I knew from the start who Phaon was. It was only a question of time.

“A fox in the chicken coop!” said Rhodopis, as if she were a virgin herself. “Oh, the shame of it! The scandal! Now your school is ruined and I am afraid you are too!”

I stayed calm—if only not to give Rhodopis the satisfaction of seeing me shaken.

“I'm sure we can deal with this,” I said. “Who are the girls? And who knows about it?”

This latter was a foolish question, since, if Rhodopis knew, the entire isle of Lesbos knew!

“Dica and Anactoria. But Atthis may be pregnant too!”

“The whole henhouse! My, what a sneaky fox he is!”

“And they say Artemisia
too
is his lover—but not with child, since she is well past it! Like you!” Rhodopis smirked at me—though in truth she was older than I, claiming to be younger. She and Charaxus had gotten a son somewhere—but I doubt it sprang from those sullied loins!

Rhodopis was not happy with my unruffled demeanor. She'd expected me to be more upset. She'd expected that I would be distraught.

“Calm yourself, sister-in-law,” I said (it was the first time I had acknowledged her as such). “I'm sure we'll figure out what to do with the girls. Artemisia has potions to bring on abortion and she'll have no choice but to help us if she herself has been poaching on Phaon's staff.”

“And a very lively one it is too.”

“Have you tried it
also
, dear sister?”

“How dare you insinuate that I would be false to your brother! I am an honest woman! What slander!”

“Oh, forgive me, Rhodopis, I forgot that you were a virgin when we met!”

Rhodopis grimaced. She had rewritten her history here in Lesbos, but she could not fool me and she knew it. She had lost her looks and now was puffy and fat, with treble chins—so of course people believed her to be virtuous. But I had known the
old
Rhodopis. In Naucratis she was no virgin, and she was already over thirty then! Ancient! The gods alone knew how old she was now!

“I will go back to Eresus and see about my maidens, and then we'll see what we shall see.”

“Sappho, I cannot believe how calm you are!”

“What use will it be to become frantic? Will it end their pregnancies? Or will it keep Phaon from poaching in my coop? I doubt it.”

“Don't you care? I thought he was your lover. I thought you'd throw yourself off a cliff if he deceived you!”

“Hardly. He was the plaything of a month, a week, a day. Come, Rhodopis, you don't think that I would throw my whole life away for a lively prick! Once, when I was young. But now? Other things are far too important. And life goes on. It is not long, but it is long enough to see through the follies of men. Pleasure is good, but it is not all of life. Lovers like Phaon are rare but not extinct. If not him, another. A girl's first love is the only one she'd die for! And I am no longer a girl, as you pointed out!”

“But what about your girls? And what about the parents of your girls? Their fathers will call for your head!”

“Or so you pray. Rhodopis, spare me your false concern. I can deal with all this. After my travels—not to mention my return home—these are very minor troubles. If necessary, I'll raise the babes myself. I always wanted more children. Go—tell Charaxus I need his help and send him to me in Eresus. You can stay here and tell the whole of Mytilene about my troubles.”

“I would never do that!”

“You probably already have!”

“Never, Sappho, I am true to you.”

“Rhodopis, I know who you are and you know who I am. Let us not delude ourselves with lies.”

“I don't know what you're talking about!”

“You know perfectly well. Go—go to your silly husband and tell him I am ready for him to repay my generosity to him in Naucratis. He will know what I mean. Go!”

Rhodopis scurried away like a rat surprised in the granary.

Crazy girl, do not boast about a ring!

—S
APPHO OR
A
LCAEUS

I
WAS ON MY
way back to Eresus in the frigid wind to see about my students and my poacher in the henhouse. What to do with Phaon? Kick him out summarily? Pretend I didn't know and let him stew for a while? My revenge would be all the sweeter for my delaying it. The boy had gone too far. Seducing Artemisia was one thing. (She had probably seduced him!) Anyway, that could be handled discreetly—though Rhodopis had by now trumpeted it all over Lesbos. But seducing green girls who could get pregnant? What a reckless cock of the walk Phaon was! I had been right to be suspicious of him. He was a trickster and a lowlife. He had never really fooled me—except in bed. No wonder the wisest philosophers considered love a sort of derangement. When the loins grew hot, the brain grew fuzzy, and when the delta yearned, the intellect took a leave.

Phaon had, of course, told me the whole incredible and absurd story of having met Aphrodite and having had her gift of irresistibility bestowed upon him.

“Sappho,” he had said, “I met someone who appeared to be a wizened old crone and I ferried her to the mainland and refused to charge her. After we stopped on the coast of Lydia—she was bound for Ephesus, I think—she gave me a magic
alabastron
full of magic salve. Ever since then, women young and old have looked with favor upon me. But I never wanted any of them till you.”

“A likely story,” I had said.

“It's true,” he had protested. “She was Aphrodite in an old woman's disguise. I know it. Her eyes were young and beautiful—like yours.”

I faced him down. “A boy like you! Why, you've been taking women and boys since you were twelve. And getting paid for it too, I'll wager.”

“Not true! You hurt my heart by saying that. I always saved myself for you. I knew someday I'd meet the love of my life.”

I should have known then what a liar he was!
I
was the idiot for taking him into my bed. And yet. And yet. He was a sweet distraction after my mother died. And he was a good ferryman. Where was he now when I needed him? Or had I sent him back to Eresus to further raid the henhouse? Idiot! We
both
were idiots! Aphrodite had maddened us—both of us. Love is a sort of madness, as all singers know. It is a bitter madness that inspires sweet song!

Back to Eresus. There was work to do.

The wind was fierce. The boat I had hired had a far less skillful helmsman than Phaon. I half expected to be blown away. That would be too easy. Odd how much more precious life grows when you are old. In youth we'd throw it all away for a pretty boy or ripe girl. In old age, we long to live if only to see how it all turns out.

Circles are completed. The innocent are rewarded and the guilty are punished. Sometimes the innocent are punished and the guilty rewarded. It's all up to the gods. But you want to be there to
see
it all. And laugh!

No, having survived so many shipwrecks in my youth, I did not want to die now in the waters of my native isle. I would confront this wind—and Phaon! I would confront Rhodopis and Artemisia and all of them. I knew who mattered to me. My daughter. My grandson. Alcaeus. Praxinoa. Aesop. My students. Aphrodite. All the rest could fall into the sea, as far as I was concerned. Phaon could jump off a cliff! Let him kill himself when I unmasked him. Yes—that would be a just revenge. But maybe there was one more service he could do me before he died. I would pray to Aphrodite and offer up a fine white heifer when I returned to my grandparents' house in Eresus.

And that is what I did. Before I even bade hello to my students or unmasked the tricky Phaon, I went to the apple grove outside. In the little temple to Aphrodite I myself had built, I sacrificed a fine white heifer—the very best and fattest on my property.

My farm slaves helped me with the sacrifice. I sprinkled barley over the heifer's lovely head while she lowed mournfully and bowed her head as if she knew her fate. Then my farmhand, Cleon, swiftly slit her throat so the bright blood pulsed below the altar. We caught it in a golden bowl. Cleon and another farm slave, Castor, butchered the beautiful heifer, then built a blazing fire on the altar. We reserved the fat thighbones for Aphrodite. We burned them heavenward with this prayer:

Hither to me from Crete

To this holy shrine,

In this encircling grove of apple trees,

Bare now, but soon to bloom again

Despite this whipping wind,

Come, Cypris, daughter of Zeus,

Born of the waves,

Of the soft sea foam

Gods secrete in their sacred loins.

Descend from heaven,

Beloved Aphrodite

To help me and all those I love!

APHRODITE
:
She calls!

ZEUS:
Let her call again!

APHRODITE:
She needs me!

ZEUS:
Silly girl! Are you really my daughter, or are you the daughter of Uranus? You are Jar too attentive to the mortals! Gods should be above all that. Let the mortals stumble on their stupid way while we delight ourselves above! They are the creatures of an hour, a day, a week! Their lives hardly matter! We are the ones who matter!

APHRODITE:
Sappho's life matters! She is not just another mortal. Her body may be dust. But her voice is divine. Someday she will be called the “tenth muse” by a great philosopher, not yet born, named Plato.

ZEUS:
Plato, schmato! These mortals are no more than dust!

APHRODITE:
I tell you, it is her voice that is divine!

ZEUS
:
Because it is your voice, my girl, but it issues through her mouth! And you love the sound of your own voice!

The sweet smells of the sacrifice brought two of the students to the altar.

Atthis and Dica arrived, knelt down, and blessed Aphrodite as I had taught them to.

“Sappho! Thank the gods you are back!” said Dica.

“Shhhhhh!” said Atthis. “Sappho is sacrificing!”

I repeated my prayer. Now the two girls joined in.

Come, Cypris, born of the soft sea foam!
sang Dica.

Come, Cypris!
sang Atthis.
Daughter of Zeus!

I repeated my prayer as the aroma of meat curled skyward with the soul of my beautiful heifer.

The pungent aroma filled the sky and drifted into the apple grove, where I now saw Phaon working, collecting fallen applewood branches for our fires.

Now Phaon joined us, carrying an apple log, which he added to the fire. The fire sputtered and hissed from the dew on the log. In a few minutes, the lovely smell of applewood was released into the brisk air.

I glared at Phaon. Dica stared at him with big eyes as if she had never seen a man before! Then it was true that he had bedded her and stolen her virginity! But Atthis was wholly indifferent to him. She was concentrating. on the sacrifice. He had not yet poached on her. Was it only a matter of time?

I saw that Dica wore a new gold ring on her finger. It had a central stone that was blue as the skies.

We continued to sacrifice to Aphrodite. Now Phaon sang a song of Mimnermus, which I'm sure he wanted Dica to think was his own composition:

What life, what pleasure is there

Without golden Aphrodite?