The blue of the Aegean is reflectedin the faces of the 50 rowers of the triremeas they chant and pull;the blue is reflected on the ship’s hulland the banks of oars.
The blue of the Aegean is reflected
in the faces of the 50 rowers of the trireme
as they chant and pull;
the blue is reflected on the ship’s hull
and the banks of oars.
Phaon and I were offshore in his rowboat, the small sail furled, the surf near by, doubling into smooth green, sunset brazing the horizon. We had been gay, drifting, oar dragging, taking chances with the surf. Upright at the stern, Phaon looked about idly: we had been talking about going for a swim. Suddenly, he faced me and shouted:“Over there...see them...pirate boats!”“What?”“Over there, the other way...those three boats...see the red shields at the bow...Turkish pirates...they’re attacking Mytilene. I’ll row for the beach. Hang on.”His oar splashed and the boat pitched; pulling with all his strength, he drove us toward the shore, the surf rising, the bow high. I thought we would capsize but before I could make out the pirate ships he beached us and we scrambled ashore, drenched and shoeless. Together, we raced for the square, shouting at everyone we met. Together, we dashed for Alcaeus’ house, and threw open his door.Men in gold, red and blue uniforms stormed our dock and invaded the town. I hung on, behind shutters, unable to tear myself away as the armed gang rushed past the house, forty or more, most of them yelling, one of them, in silver turban, whistling through his fingers, brandishing a scimitar. My mother had described such an attack...I could hear her and see her pained face...a terrible story I had never quite believed.Phaon yanked shields and spears off the wall and armed Thasos and another man I scarcely knew, a visitor. Women and children hollered and scuttled inside, making for the rear of the house. Something crashed against our street door and men bellowed wildly at us. I saw wood rip the door. Thasos moved in front of me, urging me to hide. Phaon, with shield and sword, his clothes still sopping, threw open the door and beat off a Turkish spear. Catching two men by surprise, he wounded one in the neck and both fled, the uninjured man, a youngster, helping the other one, his shoulder turning red, their short swords rapping their legs as they ran. The injured man lost his turban as they rounded a corner...“What happened...What’s going on?” bellowed Alcaeus, behind Thasos.“Turks,” Phaon shouted, checking the damage to the door, swinging it on its hinges, his hairy shield high on his arm.Long after dusk, men scouted the streets, all the Turkish boats at sea: the town buzzed with shouts and whistles: a drum throbbed: the raiders had killed two and injured several and plundered a winery and mill, removing flour and filling goat skins with fresh water at several fountains. I piloted Alcaeus about for a while, until my girls discovered me and begged me home, dreading a repetition, though by now armed soldiers had set up guards.Stars shone brilliantly.The bay, mirror-smooth, seemed utterly innocent of piracy and death. It accused us of our own folly.Alone in my room, I reviewed the raid, our floundering ashore, our dash to Alcaeus’ house, the brilliant uniforms, wild faces, wild cries, Phaon at the door, Thasos wanting me to hide, children whimpering.The drummers were signaling each other, the surf sullen, the wind rising.In a room near me, someone was sobbing. Peace would not return to my house or Mytilene for a while: how long, I wondered? Peace, how frail it is, how carefully it must be protected.I realized I should comfort my girls and not sit and watch the ocean. It was hard to go to them, harder still to listen to their fears and accusations. When they questioned me I felt that what I described had never happened or happened to someone else. Atthis, holding a puppy in her arms, said she wanted someone to protect her and burst into tears, realizing how unprotected she had been.Why hadn’t I come with Phaon? What if the Turks had climbed the hill?“You forgot all about us, you just left us here! Oh, Sappho!”PNext day, with my house quieted, I had time to write:Accomplishments require sacrifice of mind and body; for some, accomplishment will be slow as the sea eating sand. I prefer the swift attainment—it is most inspiring. Death, because it is an incessant threat, retards progress, inhibiting our will to succeed, seeping under us at unexpected moments.Surely, if we are to conspire against death, if we are to get the most of life, we must be clever, relying on intuition and knowledge, to reach any goal. Surely, the most important element in life is the humane, the kindly, the uncorrupted, tying together little things into something worth while, that will have significance now and later.PPoseidon641 B.C.Then, what is love? Isn’t it sharing a personality never encountered before? I think it is this kind of interchange and it is exploring someone’s thinking, with and without words. With Phaon, it is sharing the sea, the oarsman’s hands, the swimmer’s legs, yarns on the beach in the firelight. With Alcaeus, it has been our friends, our families, our town, our writing, our exile—years of knowing each other. The differences between Phaon and Alcaeus are so many it would be foolish to try to list them. Comparison gets me nowhere.I suspect that love is too subtle for any analysis: love is so subtle it escapes while we look. Being in love is rather like being someone else, laughing someone’s laughter, tasting someone’s wine, dreaming someone’s dreams. I feel that close to Phaon. Together, we share the fire, the fire that wakes us in the night, that flies into our eyes, the fire that makes my mouth tremble, that makes me laugh in my mirror, that makes me test my perfume bottles and sends my girls for new powder.I steal to him—with dignity. I crush him to me, dignity gone. I lose, I gain. I cringe, I lunge. Phaon, you are my body, in me, wanting you, wanting... We are the wanters, haters of nights that keep us apart, haters of time.Its roaring deafens me: I, I didn’t hear you. I, I was wrapped in thought. I was making love...I was reliving the sea, I was in the boat. I was planning our next meeting...I was singing... Darling, I was saying.PRiding donkeys, Phaon and I set out across the island, to visit his sister, riding all day in slow stages, to reach her hut and sleep there. I thought we would never find it, but that was my thinking. Phaon led us through a jumble of hillside rocks, through little valleys, right to her door, a hut of rocks and straw, her shepherd’s crook beside the door.Kleis is so unlike my Kleis.She seems able to speak without words, perhaps because words are not very useful to her since she lives alone. She nods and smiles, her smile serene. Small, dark, light-boned, she appears out of the past, no sister of Phaon, unrelated to our island. I had not expected her to be so unlike us. Using her particular mystery, she made us comfortable, made us feel at home, a gesture now and then, a word, some roasted seeds, another word, as we talked. Her delight in having us was obvious, coming from deep inside. She has wonderful wind-swept sight, from the rapture of lonely skies, her communions. She is priestess of self-contained youth. She shared her food and we shared things we had brought. Phaon talked of his sea trip, the Mytilene raid, his voice in accord with her quality.As our relationship deepens, I am more and more aware of his quality. It is best seen in his slow, slow gesture. Or in a spontaneous grin ending in a chuckle. It is in his carriage—his calculating look. His qualities are older than mine, seasoned by the primordial: his speech is older, in vocabulary, accent, intonation.Kleis and I sang after supper, the supper fire burning.Her sheep were near us, muffled, shuffling contentedly.Venus hung over us.How unlike my Kleis, in her singing and her songs: her songs are songs mother knew: they made me tremble and I wanted to clasp her to me: Phaon had forgotten most of them but joined us sometimes. We sang of lovers and wanderers.She, the daily wanderer, was less a wanderer than any of us: her natural resources were always at her spiritual command.Kissing me good night, she said:“I love you for coming.”Going back home, we poked along, talking and resting at likely places. We stopped in an orange grove to eat, water rippling by us in an irrigation ditch. Cross-legged we ate cheese and dates and drank wine Kleis had given us, the summer smells around us, flowers, so many kinds of flowers in this place. Lying beside me, Phaon told me more about his life:“...We met a storm off the Egyptian coast, the wind rushing us, tearing our sail. I was at the rudder when the sail split. I ordered my men to huddle in the lee and mend the sail. How we shipped water. The bow crashed. All of us thought we’d go down but they kept on with the mending, folding the fabric, squeezing out the water, wiping rain and spray from their faces. I’ve never heard a fiercer wind, raging off starboard...“When we had the sail mended I had someone take the rudder and helped hoist. A wave bowled us over. It was nearly dark and the rain slanted toward me. Out of the side of my eyes, I thought I saw something on the sea, a man, a tall man. I said nothing but worked hard: I couldn’t talk or yell in that sea. Part way up the mast, I looked down. Nothing. In spite of wind and rain, we hung our sail and swung out of the troughs. Back at the rudder, I saw him, saw him moving, white, tall, through the whipped tops of the rollers.”PVilla Poseidon641 B.C.My girls still carry on about the pirate raid.Gyrinno found a short sword and brought it to me.“Look, I showed it to Archidemus and he says it’s from the Turks. Those are rubies on the hilt, he says. Feel them. See...see...”Her fingers tremble with excitement.Her breath catches:“What if they’d broken into our house? It would have been awful. Aren’t you proud of Phaon?”The whole misadventure leaves me cold. I think of the burial of our dead. I see the blood rushing down the neck of the wounded man. There was blood on Phaon’s sword. He and Alcaeus had bellowed over their victory. Victory?I pushed away the pirate’s sword, and said: “It would be better if there were no pirates.”Gyrinno is disgusted.What is wrong with man? Is man’s piratical weakness an instinct? Women don’t go in for piracy. We know the value of living and appreciate life’s perilousness. We give birth to kindness...each baby is kindness itself.I have forbidden Gyrinno to keep the sword: she must get rid of it, give it away, throw it away, I don’t care.PRain, rain, rain.The girls appreciate my happiness since a sense of grace envelops me.We weave and the rain falls, so gently, our looms fronting the windows and sea. I am weaving a white scarf, quite blemishless.Weaving has always been the most delightful pastime: I sit and weave and the wool goes in and out: I can see nothing in front of me or I can see my whole past, or tomorrow, or Phaon, the ocean, my house, the faces of my girls...I work silently sometimes, planning, composing. The art of weaving thoughts must have begun with the loom. The rain falls, and weaves its sounds. Atthis and Anaktoria sit on either side of me, Anaktoria singing to herself. She is dressed in white and Atthis wears blue.Across the sea a wedge of rain scuds, slowly approaching our island. Shepherds are in their huts. Seamen are ashore. It is a time for all to rest.PAt the bridge in town where I had watched the migratory flight of herons, I met Alcaeus. He was perched on the rail, cane crossed over his legs, waiting for Thasos. Glad to see me, he pulled his beard, fragrant and carefully oiled. I found him cheerful. He talked about a Carthaginian ship, in harbor because of broken oars, after sideswiping another boat in a thick fog. As I listened his face altered: it was as if he were in pain or remembered something tragic. Interrupting my comment, he asked:“What’s he like? Is he tall, this Phaon?”I described him, touching his arm to lessen his resentment.“So...he’s not the soldier type!”“Must he be?”“No...a sailor, then!”“Alcaeus!”“I know...I know...the changes that have overcome me. I know them better than you.”“And I know my changes.”“Must our friendship end?”“Alcaeus, let’s not go on like this. We understand each other.”“Yes...yes...of course. I apologize... I should have scorned the war. Why was I bellicose?“I could have kept to my books. I understand it takes infinite time to probe, time to evaluate, time to mature. I have always wanted skill—like yours, working, as you work, through intuition and knowledge of the past. By probing I could have come closer to freedom.”“You have found your freedom,” I said.“Where?”“Attacking Pittakos, and his sort.”“That’s another kind.”“I realize that.”As we strolled home, Thasos with us, he kept thinking, elaborating. Something hurt in me. Wasn’t I deluding him? Was there freedom? When he stumbled, I stumbled.He had been my Phaon. I thought of his encouragement, years ago, when each of us was desperate. That encouragement, that will to help, buoyed me and, talking swiftly, I promised him help, promised closer friendship.Standing at his door, leaning on his cane, eyelids closed, he recited something heroic and it was my turn to change: my expression must have altered as quickly as his: his sincerity was an answer to mine: I knew he could not see and yet hid my face in my arm. Walking on, I felt he was still in his doorway, trying to see me, trying to understand.A boy, with a yo-yo, asked me to stop and watch him perform tricks:“Sappho...I can make it do things,” he cried, dangling his yo-yo over my sandal, climbing it up my robe.Sparkling eyes laughed and I bent and kissed him.PYesterday, Anaktoria and I walked to a vineyard above the bay, a yard of crumbling walls, twisted, neglected vines, where bees hummed and swallows flicked apricot bellies. It was unduly warm and we threw off our clothes and lay on old leaves, in the shadow of a wall, the waves grumbling behind the stones, coming up, as it were, through masonry and ground.I noticed her hand in the grass. I noticed my own. It seemed another’s hand. The grass altered its identity. I felt my naked knee, pressing a stone: it seemed another knee although I felt the stone. I thought: nature tries to claim us before we are aware, before we are willing to let her. Swift, she likes to confuse, preparatory to that eternal grasp of hers.Crickets piped under the wall, asking for cooler weather. Abruptly, they stopped, perhaps to listen to Anaktoria’s singing. She sang until I fell asleep, to wake and find her sleeping, hands cupped over her breasts, afraid the bees might sting them. The wall’s shadow had lengthened and birds were quarreling. Summer’s integrity stretched from vineyard to horizon.I thought about the two of us, our fragility, neither of us marred: sometimes, when someone is loving me, I am especially glad I have an unblemished body: I know my lover will have something to remember.The ring Libus gave her glistens on her little finger.PDeeper, deeper—our love goes deeper, taking us completely; the early lamps sputter out; the stars gleam in the windows; there is talk of leaving, another trip to sea. But we shake off impending loss with each other’s hunger; he says, your perfume stays on me; I say, the smell of you stays on me. He says, come closer, farther under. I say, I can’t, I’m stifled, I’m submerged. Oh, impetuous lips. The depth of having someone your own, the depth of being the heart for someone. Phaon...the name, the body, the breath on my neck, special ways, his weight underneath me, supporting me, the sea coming through the windows.There is nothing better than love.O Beauty, you know I love him because he is the way I want him to be, you know he is kind...care for him!P
P
P
haon and I were offshore in his rowboat, the small sail furled, the surf near by, doubling into smooth green, sunset brazing the horizon. We had been gay, drifting, oar dragging, taking chances with the surf. Upright at the stern, Phaon looked about idly: we had been talking about going for a swim. Suddenly, he faced me and shouted:
“Over there...see them...pirate boats!”
“What?”
“Over there, the other way...those three boats...see the red shields at the bow...Turkish pirates...they’re attacking Mytilene. I’ll row for the beach. Hang on.”
His oar splashed and the boat pitched; pulling with all his strength, he drove us toward the shore, the surf rising, the bow high. I thought we would capsize but before I could make out the pirate ships he beached us and we scrambled ashore, drenched and shoeless. Together, we raced for the square, shouting at everyone we met. Together, we dashed for Alcaeus’ house, and threw open his door.
Men in gold, red and blue uniforms stormed our dock and invaded the town. I hung on, behind shutters, unable to tear myself away as the armed gang rushed past the house, forty or more, most of them yelling, one of them, in silver turban, whistling through his fingers, brandishing a scimitar. My mother had described such an attack...I could hear her and see her pained face...a terrible story I had never quite believed.
Phaon yanked shields and spears off the wall and armed Thasos and another man I scarcely knew, a visitor. Women and children hollered and scuttled inside, making for the rear of the house. Something crashed against our street door and men bellowed wildly at us. I saw wood rip the door. Thasos moved in front of me, urging me to hide. Phaon, with shield and sword, his clothes still sopping, threw open the door and beat off a Turkish spear. Catching two men by surprise, he wounded one in the neck and both fled, the uninjured man, a youngster, helping the other one, his shoulder turning red, their short swords rapping their legs as they ran. The injured man lost his turban as they rounded a corner...
“What happened...What’s going on?” bellowed Alcaeus, behind Thasos.
“Turks,” Phaon shouted, checking the damage to the door, swinging it on its hinges, his hairy shield high on his arm.
Long after dusk, men scouted the streets, all the Turkish boats at sea: the town buzzed with shouts and whistles: a drum throbbed: the raiders had killed two and injured several and plundered a winery and mill, removing flour and filling goat skins with fresh water at several fountains. I piloted Alcaeus about for a while, until my girls discovered me and begged me home, dreading a repetition, though by now armed soldiers had set up guards.
Stars shone brilliantly.
The bay, mirror-smooth, seemed utterly innocent of piracy and death. It accused us of our own folly.
Alone in my room, I reviewed the raid, our floundering ashore, our dash to Alcaeus’ house, the brilliant uniforms, wild faces, wild cries, Phaon at the door, Thasos wanting me to hide, children whimpering.
The drummers were signaling each other, the surf sullen, the wind rising.
In a room near me, someone was sobbing. Peace would not return to my house or Mytilene for a while: how long, I wondered? Peace, how frail it is, how carefully it must be protected.
I realized I should comfort my girls and not sit and watch the ocean. It was hard to go to them, harder still to listen to their fears and accusations. When they questioned me I felt that what I described had never happened or happened to someone else. Atthis, holding a puppy in her arms, said she wanted someone to protect her and burst into tears, realizing how unprotected she had been.
Why hadn’t I come with Phaon? What if the Turks had climbed the hill?
“You forgot all about us, you just left us here! Oh, Sappho!”
P
Next day, with my house quieted, I had time to write:
Accomplishments require sacrifice of mind and body; for some, accomplishment will be slow as the sea eating sand. I prefer the swift attainment—it is most inspiring. Death, because it is an incessant threat, retards progress, inhibiting our will to succeed, seeping under us at unexpected moments.
Surely, if we are to conspire against death, if we are to get the most of life, we must be clever, relying on intuition and knowledge, to reach any goal. Surely, the most important element in life is the humane, the kindly, the uncorrupted, tying together little things into something worth while, that will have significance now and later.
P
Poseidon
641 B.C.
Then, what is love? Isn’t it sharing a personality never encountered before? I think it is this kind of interchange and it is exploring someone’s thinking, with and without words. With Phaon, it is sharing the sea, the oarsman’s hands, the swimmer’s legs, yarns on the beach in the firelight. With Alcaeus, it has been our friends, our families, our town, our writing, our exile—years of knowing each other. The differences between Phaon and Alcaeus are so many it would be foolish to try to list them. Comparison gets me nowhere.
I suspect that love is too subtle for any analysis: love is so subtle it escapes while we look. Being in love is rather like being someone else, laughing someone’s laughter, tasting someone’s wine, dreaming someone’s dreams. I feel that close to Phaon. Together, we share the fire, the fire that wakes us in the night, that flies into our eyes, the fire that makes my mouth tremble, that makes me laugh in my mirror, that makes me test my perfume bottles and sends my girls for new powder.
I steal to him—with dignity. I crush him to me, dignity gone. I lose, I gain. I cringe, I lunge. Phaon, you are my body, in me, wanting you, wanting... We are the wanters, haters of nights that keep us apart, haters of time.
Its roaring deafens me: I, I didn’t hear you. I, I was wrapped in thought. I was making love...I was reliving the sea, I was in the boat. I was planning our next meeting...I was singing... Darling, I was saying.
P
Riding donkeys, Phaon and I set out across the island, to visit his sister, riding all day in slow stages, to reach her hut and sleep there. I thought we would never find it, but that was my thinking. Phaon led us through a jumble of hillside rocks, through little valleys, right to her door, a hut of rocks and straw, her shepherd’s crook beside the door.
Kleis is so unlike my Kleis.
She seems able to speak without words, perhaps because words are not very useful to her since she lives alone. She nods and smiles, her smile serene. Small, dark, light-boned, she appears out of the past, no sister of Phaon, unrelated to our island. I had not expected her to be so unlike us. Using her particular mystery, she made us comfortable, made us feel at home, a gesture now and then, a word, some roasted seeds, another word, as we talked. Her delight in having us was obvious, coming from deep inside. She has wonderful wind-swept sight, from the rapture of lonely skies, her communions. She is priestess of self-contained youth. She shared her food and we shared things we had brought. Phaon talked of his sea trip, the Mytilene raid, his voice in accord with her quality.
As our relationship deepens, I am more and more aware of his quality. It is best seen in his slow, slow gesture. Or in a spontaneous grin ending in a chuckle. It is in his carriage—his calculating look. His qualities are older than mine, seasoned by the primordial: his speech is older, in vocabulary, accent, intonation.
Kleis and I sang after supper, the supper fire burning.
Her sheep were near us, muffled, shuffling contentedly.
Venus hung over us.
How unlike my Kleis, in her singing and her songs: her songs are songs mother knew: they made me tremble and I wanted to clasp her to me: Phaon had forgotten most of them but joined us sometimes. We sang of lovers and wanderers.
She, the daily wanderer, was less a wanderer than any of us: her natural resources were always at her spiritual command.
Kissing me good night, she said:
“I love you for coming.”
Going back home, we poked along, talking and resting at likely places. We stopped in an orange grove to eat, water rippling by us in an irrigation ditch. Cross-legged we ate cheese and dates and drank wine Kleis had given us, the summer smells around us, flowers, so many kinds of flowers in this place. Lying beside me, Phaon told me more about his life:
“...We met a storm off the Egyptian coast, the wind rushing us, tearing our sail. I was at the rudder when the sail split. I ordered my men to huddle in the lee and mend the sail. How we shipped water. The bow crashed. All of us thought we’d go down but they kept on with the mending, folding the fabric, squeezing out the water, wiping rain and spray from their faces. I’ve never heard a fiercer wind, raging off starboard...
“When we had the sail mended I had someone take the rudder and helped hoist. A wave bowled us over. It was nearly dark and the rain slanted toward me. Out of the side of my eyes, I thought I saw something on the sea, a man, a tall man. I said nothing but worked hard: I couldn’t talk or yell in that sea. Part way up the mast, I looked down. Nothing. In spite of wind and rain, we hung our sail and swung out of the troughs. Back at the rudder, I saw him, saw him moving, white, tall, through the whipped tops of the rollers.”
P
Villa Poseidon
641 B.C.
My girls still carry on about the pirate raid.
Gyrinno found a short sword and brought it to me.
“Look, I showed it to Archidemus and he says it’s from the Turks. Those are rubies on the hilt, he says. Feel them. See...see...”
Her fingers tremble with excitement.
Her breath catches:
“What if they’d broken into our house? It would have been awful. Aren’t you proud of Phaon?”
The whole misadventure leaves me cold. I think of the burial of our dead. I see the blood rushing down the neck of the wounded man. There was blood on Phaon’s sword. He and Alcaeus had bellowed over their victory. Victory?
I pushed away the pirate’s sword, and said: “It would be better if there were no pirates.”
Gyrinno is disgusted.
What is wrong with man? Is man’s piratical weakness an instinct? Women don’t go in for piracy. We know the value of living and appreciate life’s perilousness. We give birth to kindness...each baby is kindness itself.
I have forbidden Gyrinno to keep the sword: she must get rid of it, give it away, throw it away, I don’t care.
P
Rain, rain, rain.
The girls appreciate my happiness since a sense of grace envelops me.
We weave and the rain falls, so gently, our looms fronting the windows and sea. I am weaving a white scarf, quite blemishless.
Weaving has always been the most delightful pastime: I sit and weave and the wool goes in and out: I can see nothing in front of me or I can see my whole past, or tomorrow, or Phaon, the ocean, my house, the faces of my girls...
I work silently sometimes, planning, composing. The art of weaving thoughts must have begun with the loom. The rain falls, and weaves its sounds. Atthis and Anaktoria sit on either side of me, Anaktoria singing to herself. She is dressed in white and Atthis wears blue.
Across the sea a wedge of rain scuds, slowly approaching our island. Shepherds are in their huts. Seamen are ashore. It is a time for all to rest.
P
At the bridge in town where I had watched the migratory flight of herons, I met Alcaeus. He was perched on the rail, cane crossed over his legs, waiting for Thasos. Glad to see me, he pulled his beard, fragrant and carefully oiled. I found him cheerful. He talked about a Carthaginian ship, in harbor because of broken oars, after sideswiping another boat in a thick fog. As I listened his face altered: it was as if he were in pain or remembered something tragic. Interrupting my comment, he asked:
“What’s he like? Is he tall, this Phaon?”
I described him, touching his arm to lessen his resentment.
“So...he’s not the soldier type!”
“Must he be?”
“No...a sailor, then!”
“Alcaeus!”
“I know...I know...the changes that have overcome me. I know them better than you.”
“And I know my changes.”
“Must our friendship end?”
“Alcaeus, let’s not go on like this. We understand each other.”
“Yes...yes...of course. I apologize... I should have scorned the war. Why was I bellicose?
“I could have kept to my books. I understand it takes infinite time to probe, time to evaluate, time to mature. I have always wanted skill—like yours, working, as you work, through intuition and knowledge of the past. By probing I could have come closer to freedom.”
“You have found your freedom,” I said.
“Where?”
“Attacking Pittakos, and his sort.”
“That’s another kind.”
“I realize that.”
As we strolled home, Thasos with us, he kept thinking, elaborating. Something hurt in me. Wasn’t I deluding him? Was there freedom? When he stumbled, I stumbled.
He had been my Phaon. I thought of his encouragement, years ago, when each of us was desperate. That encouragement, that will to help, buoyed me and, talking swiftly, I promised him help, promised closer friendship.
Standing at his door, leaning on his cane, eyelids closed, he recited something heroic and it was my turn to change: my expression must have altered as quickly as his: his sincerity was an answer to mine: I knew he could not see and yet hid my face in my arm. Walking on, I felt he was still in his doorway, trying to see me, trying to understand.
A boy, with a yo-yo, asked me to stop and watch him perform tricks:
“Sappho...I can make it do things,” he cried, dangling his yo-yo over my sandal, climbing it up my robe.
Sparkling eyes laughed and I bent and kissed him.
P
Yesterday, Anaktoria and I walked to a vineyard above the bay, a yard of crumbling walls, twisted, neglected vines, where bees hummed and swallows flicked apricot bellies. It was unduly warm and we threw off our clothes and lay on old leaves, in the shadow of a wall, the waves grumbling behind the stones, coming up, as it were, through masonry and ground.
I noticed her hand in the grass. I noticed my own. It seemed another’s hand. The grass altered its identity. I felt my naked knee, pressing a stone: it seemed another knee although I felt the stone. I thought: nature tries to claim us before we are aware, before we are willing to let her. Swift, she likes to confuse, preparatory to that eternal grasp of hers.
Crickets piped under the wall, asking for cooler weather. Abruptly, they stopped, perhaps to listen to Anaktoria’s singing. She sang until I fell asleep, to wake and find her sleeping, hands cupped over her breasts, afraid the bees might sting them. The wall’s shadow had lengthened and birds were quarreling. Summer’s integrity stretched from vineyard to horizon.
I thought about the two of us, our fragility, neither of us marred: sometimes, when someone is loving me, I am especially glad I have an unblemished body: I know my lover will have something to remember.
The ring Libus gave her glistens on her little finger.
P
Deeper, deeper—our love goes deeper, taking us completely; the early lamps sputter out; the stars gleam in the windows; there is talk of leaving, another trip to sea. But we shake off impending loss with each other’s hunger; he says, your perfume stays on me; I say, the smell of you stays on me. He says, come closer, farther under. I say, I can’t, I’m stifled, I’m submerged. Oh, impetuous lips. The depth of having someone your own, the depth of being the heart for someone. Phaon...the name, the body, the breath on my neck, special ways, his weight underneath me, supporting me, the sea coming through the windows.
There is nothing better than love.
O Beauty, you know I love him because he is the way I want him to be, you know he is kind...care for him!
P
A man speaks before the Acropolis in the moonlight:“Stranger, you have come to the most beautiful place on earth,the land of swift horses, where the nightingale singsits melodies among the sacred foliage,sheltered from the sun’s fire and the winter’s cold.Here Bacchus wanders with his nymphs, his divine maidens;and under the heavenly dew forever flourishes the narcissus,the crown of great goddesses...”
A man speaks before the Acropolis in the moonlight:
“Stranger, you have come to the most beautiful place on earth,
the land of swift horses, where the nightingale sings
its melodies among the sacred foliage,
sheltered from the sun’s fire and the winter’s cold.
Here Bacchus wanders with his nymphs, his divine maidens;
and under the heavenly dew forever flourishes the narcissus,
the crown of great goddesses...”
MytileneIhave not seen Phaon for days and I feel eaten by rust, the rust that consumes bronze. I feel myself flake between my own fingers. Nothing distracts me. I tell myself I have no right to such feelings; it is wrong: be aware of the beauty around you, I say.I have always believed that those who live beside the ocean should know more about beauty than others. Their minds should be richer, their faces kinder, their stride freer. Rhythm should be their secret.I know this is false but I must evoke beauty. I must capture the magnificence of the sea and use its power. I must trap changes and repetitions, the storm’s core and summer’s laziness. There is superiority in these things, to help us through life.But, with Phaon away, few things come alive: I am seaweed after the gale. Husk, why trouble others? So, I sulk. Or, when my girls insist, I revive briefly.When will the atavistic fingers come and when will I smell the cabin’s wick and the nets? Oh, drown me, Egyptian lion, Etruscan charioteer, lunge and shield: yours is the tyranny.Surely feminine love is kinder, less responsible, graced with evasions. Masculine love is a beginning, an intensity that goes on. Masculine love pushes into the future, asking roots, a thread of continuity.. . .Last night, Phaon took me among terra-cotta lamps, their wicks flaming coldly. Perspiration glowed on our bodies. A cat jumped on our bed and Phaon pushed it away: wind rustled: leaves shook: flames swayed: this was the love I had wanted and I accepted it and made it live: no little girl’s love, mine was glorious, damning all loneliness, knowing he would be gone again.PA dried flying fish revolved on a string above Phaon’s cabin door. His boat rose on a gradual swell, seemed unwilling to glide down.“Let me sail with you when you sail next time,” I said.“How could I take care of you?”“Right in this cabin.”“Would you sleep on the floor?”“Why not?”“What about food? Food goes bad...our cheese spoils...our meat...our water. Sometimes we can’t land a fish.”A smile wrinkled his face, as he hulked against the cabin wall, his smile vaguely reassuring.“What about the heat and cold?” he went on.“I was hungry and cold in exile.”“That was...years ago.”The flying fish spun, and I thought about time. Had so many years lapsed? I said no more. He had silenced me effectively for I could not endure those prolonged trials and no doubt the sea voyage was impossible: luxury had softened me. The spinning fish would have horrified Atthis. And was I very different?But we sailed along our coast, hugging it, unloading fruit, getting away from the windless heat of Mytilene, selling dates, lemons and limes. As we sailed in a faint wind, the crew sang. Lolling under an awning, I heard stories of catches at the deeps just beyond us, deeps where the water shimmered flatly, as if of rock. One crewman, not much bigger than a monkey, dove for shells while we crept through shallows. Pink shell in hand, treading a wave nakedly, he offered me his prize, as I leaned over the side. Kelp floated around him and tiny blue fish darted in and out, under his legs and arms, angel fish lower down, perhaps frightened.While the monkey-man dove for shells, youngsters swam from small boats, hailing us, boarding us, some bringing fish as gifts. A blond, husky body, his shoulders thickly oiled, shared an orange with a girl who had his oval face and fair skin: twins, I thought, and went to the stern to talk to them, comparing their arms and legs, their features and hair. The flock of youngsters cluttering our desk found us amusing and laughed at us.The twins talked about a wrecked ship, “from a strange land...you can see her at dawn, when the water’s quiet...she has a sunken deck, a huge rudder turned by chains. A great red and gold beast is carved over the stern...”As we shared our oranges, juice trickled between her breasts.Someone shouted and there was more laughter, and, as if prearranged, the youngsters abandoned us, dove overboard and swam shoreward, splashing, calling, wishing us luck.I wish I were that young, I told myself.That night, heat lightning brushed the sky, forming kelp-shaped ropes of yellow. Huge clouds massed about a thin moon and Phaon prophesied rain.My head on his lap, we drifted, watching, listening to a singer, invisible man at the bow. His words made me uneasy as he sang of lovers lost at sea. Our sail had enough wind to fill it and yet we appeared immobile.I drew Phaon’s face to mine and his mouth tasted of oranges.Above us, behind us, his flying fish rocked.The lightning played among the stars and wet the sail and our helmsman bent sleepily over the rudder: it was a night for love and when the cabin had cooled, Phaon and I sought each other: he placed an orange in my hand, the singing went on, the sea sobbed, the orange fell.“Phaon?”“What is it?”Keep me, wait, go on, love me, don’t...I wanted to say so much.I caressed him, breathed him in, the sanctity, the favor, the graciousness, the ephemeral. I wandered through caves. I dove to the wreck of the red-gold ship. I...Later, we divided the orange and its sweet dribbled over us and he pressed his mouth there and we laughed, thinking with body.I woke to see the moon sink below the ocean, to see how beautiful he was, his ship and fish swaying as a fresh wind clattered the sail.Noon found us back in Mytilene.PPhaonHe is god in my eyes...my tongue is broken;a thin flame runs undermy skin; seeing nothing,hearing only my own earsdrumming, I drip with sweat;trembling shakes my bodyand I turn paler thandry grass. At such timesdeath isn’t far off.PAnaktoria’s flesh seems almost transparent—a sensuous softness coming from inside. When my girls are dancing on the terrace or in the garden, I wonder who is most beautiful.Kleis spins. Atthis bends, arms upflung. I see a grape-tinted breast, fragile ankles. Yellow hair flies over shoulders. Gyrinno’s throat is perfect. Malva’s thighs. Look, Atthis and Anaktoria are dancing together. For an instant, their lips meet.Tiles are blue underfoot.Our wonderful harpist, an old woman, watches with burning, lidless eyes, remembering her naked days, playing them back again.Cypress are drenched with sun.PWinter has come and Alcaeus has changed.Winter—Libus and Alcaeus sit in my cold room, waiting. They have been waiting a long time for me; they were here when I returned from my birthday trip.Alcaeus’ face is deeper lined: it has been lined for years but something has happened abruptly, pain has pinched the flesh into new, tiny, angry wrinkles.Friends have reported that he is drinking again and yet this is more than drink because I realize it is inner debauchery: the eyes cannot confess: instead, the voice tells.We huddle in our warm robes, the wind howling, and he says, in this new voice:“What has kept you? We’ve been waiting a long time.”Libus says:“We haven’t forgotten.”“Or isn’t this the day?” Alcaeus asks peevishly.“Of course it’s her day,” Libus says.Alcaeus chuckles.When was it, I kissed that face, admiring its masculinity? His hands never trembled.Wind shakes the house.Mind travels to other days when we struggled in exile, when Alcaeus, badly dressed, kept us in food, stealing, conniving. Often there seemed no way to get by. I sat, waiting, blind to life. That sort of blindness was weakness on my part, or acceptance or hope. Listening, while we drank, I asked what hope he had? He was deriving some satisfaction from his relationship with Libus. There seemed nothing else. Little by little, he forgot why he had come to see me: happy birthday became grimaces, guffawing, vituperations over battles. He and Libus grew excited, enacting scenes with their hands, shuffling their feet.“This is how I beat off his genitals...”Alcaeus roared, hand on his beard.“I beat open his helmet...”Yes, the war...And in my room, I found relief listening to the wind, remembering the boat’s passage to Limnos, my friends there, the festival in the vineyard, flute and drum, carom of bodies, laughter: Was it Felerian who laughed that low pitched melodious laugh? Was it Marcus who hurled his spear through the target? I erased Alcaeus: so much of life demands voluntary forgetfulness!My girls had clambered about me at the dock, detaining me. Why does their love soften me? So often there are petty squabbles but, at reunions, they dissolve: the moment becomes a moment of accord, making life worthier: Gyrinno insists on carrying my basket, another smooths my scarf, another offers flowers. Kisses. They buzz into a flurry of plans.“Tomorrow, we’ll go up the mountain...”“Tomorrow, we’ll...”Ah-hah-who, ah hah-who, the quails cry, as night comes.I light mama’s lamp, so smooth to the fingers after all these years, like alabaster. The wick struggles into flame, as if reluctant to leave the past.My Etruscan wall girl comes alive.“Ah-hah-who.”I take off my chain and pearl cluster and lay them in their scented box, pausing, sensing, dreaming.Perhaps Phaon will be back soon—unexpectedly. I could not remain longer in Limnos, thinking he might return—tonight. I long for his mouth, the jerk of his legs, hisobelisko’styranny.Hunger—let me sleep tonight, tired after the voyage.PNo sooner have I returned than I am upset. Life is constricted... I stand among Charaxos’ Egyptian treasures, confronting him: a twisted, gilded serpent god sneers at me: fragments of gold leaf blink: mellow gold is underfoot: I sway, as I talk, my parasol clenched across my belly.“Now, I know,” I say to him.“You know what?”“That you schemed with Pittakos, to have me exiled, with Alcaeus.”“What?”“After all these years I’ve found out. Stop lying. You tried to get our home, that’s why you wanted me exiled. What a brother you’ve been! What a fool I’ve been!”For once he shut his mouth.“During the war years you made many trips, to sell your wines...refusing to help me financially...yours is a debt you won’t pay...and you don’t care. I’ve dedicated my life to writing...I live no lie. I work to make life significant.“And now, why have I come? To quarrel? No, to tell you the truth. I’ve nothing more to say. I want you to know that I know. It’s a satisfaction...”I could have talked on, but I left, snapping open my parasol, clutching Ezekias’ arm, walking swiftly, curbing my pulse, hearing a seagull, the wind icy at the corners of the town, dogs sleeping in the sun, carts passing.I tried to believe something was settled, that life was worth more for having told the truth. Yet, I wanted to return to Charaxos, demand apologies and restitution, apologies for impertinent, biased criticisms, as if apology, like a brand, could stamp out wrong, as if there were restitution for my cheated years.Somehow, as I walked, as Ezekias chattered, Aesop commiserated: his hunchback shoulders squared my shoulders: his doll had the dignity of a scepter to prod my spirit.A tow-headed youth greeted us and I thought: I wish I could have a son. Yes, to give birth again. That glory cancels many defeats.In Libus’ house, I turned to him and said:“I told Charaxos what you told me weeks ago.”“But I shouldn’t have told you, Sappho.”“It was time I knew the truth.”“And now you have an enemy,” he said.“He has been my enemy all the time, Libus.”We sat on his veranda, an agnus-castus sheltering us from the wind. His boy brought us drinks.“Are we better friends?” he asked.“I trust you more.”Tree shadows moved across his mouth and chin.“Trust is not always friendship. I shouldn’t have informed. How shallow we are, the best of us. We bungle. Friendship, yours and mine, it’s hard to measure, perhaps we shouldn’t try: isn’t it better left alone? Friendship, that’s what we’ve had all these years...I overstepped propriety.”How pale Libus was, in his grey robe, shadows ridging the fabric, chalking his face, thickening his lips, greying his hair. His sandals moved nervously yet he never moved his hands: they remained weighted to his lap.I ate supper there, lingering with the ancientness of his rooms, dark mosaics, the crowning of a king behind him, Libus’ chair of white leather, the king in the mosaic studying his crown, his jewels flashing red, a hint of Corinth and a hint of Crete.PRemembering my shepherd visit, I wrote this:Evening StarHesperus, you bringHomeward all thatDawn’s light disperses,Bring home sheep,Bring home goats,Bring children homeTo their mothers.PWhat is it urges the mind to seek beauty? What is the challenge? Why go where there are no charts?Beauty says it is a kind of love.So, I make love, in my quiet room, the word symbolic of man, life’s continuity, my paper taken from reeds and trees. I write of birth, love, marriage and death, sensing that the unrecorded is vaster than the recorded. I sense the stumbling: the past could be a gigantic storm, fog obliterating at moment of revelation, fog fumbling from man to man, saying come, saying stop. The past is a wave through which no swimmer passes. As surf it inundates, then vanishes. On windy nights, it moans at my window, beautiful and hideous. I struggle on.PI quote from my journal kept in exile:For three days we have had little to eat, days of quarrels, bitterness and savagery.I gave myself to a merchant and he has returned the favor by feeding Alcaeus and me. We ate in the kitchen, glad to find considerate slaves. We can remain long enough to recover our strength, if not our hopes.How I long for home and my servants, fish as Exekias can prepare it, onions in Chian wine, olives from Patmos. It helps to list the good things. Surely they are not lost.How wretched to cheat myself to keep alive, to cheat the face, the mooning eyes, the stupid mouth, the odor of flagrancy, the disbelief...chattel, cringe, lie still, perform.Copying those lines I remembered things I have never recorded, our filthy clothes, windowless room, flies, thirst, sickness...Alcaeus in jail... I was fined...authorities jeered at us...no sympathy, no luck until Aesop, his fox, raven and rooster.I never thought him brilliant but he was always entertaining, agreeable about the smallest problem. Nuances come to me, as he told of a turtle that ferried a small turtle and then, at the end of the pleasant ride, said:“Little turtle, you must pay.”“How can I pay?” asked the little turtle.“By doing me a favor.”“Well, what can I do?”“Hump along the beach and snatch me a fly.”“I’ll do my best,” said the little turtle.After humping and snapping till almost noon, the little turtle brought a fly to the big turtle. Finding the big fellow asleep, the little one had to cuff him.“Here,” said the turtle, between closed lips.“Ah,” exclaimed the big turtle, swallowing the fly, tasting it with care. “Umm, that’s the first fly I ever ate! You see a little fellow like you can do things a big fellow can’t.”PDuring the night an earthquake woke me and I wandered through the bedrooms, to see about my girls. Atthis needed covering and as I arranged her covers she murmured, “Mama, mama.” Before I could slip away, she grasped my hand.“Are you homesick, darling?”When I kissed her, I found her face wet with tears. “Why don’t you go home for a few weeks?” I whispered. “You were calling your mama in your sleep. If you’re homesick, you must go home. Let’s talk about it tomorrow. Do you want me to sleep with you?”So we cuddled together and almost at once she relaxed and, after a few endearments, slept with her head on my shoulder, her violet fragrance around me. I held her fingers a long time. Drowsily, I asked: where do we go...why can’t we remain young...happy? The last thing I recalled was the sweetness of her perfume.The earthquake had been forgotten.PAlcaeus sat on his leather stool, his dog at his feet, sunlight behind him; elbows on his knees, he said:“...I prefer that hymn. There’s really no finer. In spite of time it’s full of force, spring’s arrival, the brevity of summer, the dying year. It has the shepherd’s power, the forest’s—passion tamed and sanctified. Another one I like is...The woods decay, the woods decay and fall...Libus, sitting near Alcaeus, quoted his favorite, huddling in his robe, his face averted:Alone, in sea-circled Delos, while round on beach and cove,before the piping sea wind the dark blue storm waves drove...“Why do you break off?” I asked.He did not answer but said:“They knew, those ancients, how to supplicate the lowliest...they preferred the virginal...snowy peaks...whispering groves...the hunting cry...”Warming my feet on a warming stone, I said I preferred the golden hymn and repeated fragments...Long are their ways of living, honey in their bread,and in their dances their footsteps twirl, twirling light...PFragment of talk:“We can’t marry, unless we have a child...you’ll be twenty-three soon...it must be like that...my house is a house of women...”I thought of those words as I passed Phaon’s house, beyond the wharf, isolated. As I passed, waves climbed its base, licking at boulders. Its walls are thicker than most, cracked and mottled. I used to be afraid of that house as a girl and as I passed these thoughts brought back some of that apprehension. I glanced at the seaward balcony, tottering on wasted beams, painted years ago. Seagulls squatted on the flat roof, as they have day in and day out. There are five rooms underneath those tiles and his mother and uncle lived and died there, a harsh struggle in rooms of simple furnishings, coils of rope, nets, brass fittings and bronze anchors.Phaon lives there with two men, their servants and a hanger-on. Kleis visits occasionally. A parrot, some say nearly two hundred years old, gabbles sayings and fills the sea-sopped silences.Yes, his house troubles me—its darkness, its evocation of poverty and my own exile.PWhile I was ill, Libus cared for me, the mastery of his hands relieving pain. By my bed, talking soothing talk, he brought gradual relief, just as two years ago. His hands are more than hands, it seems. Magical masseur, he explores yet never gropes: his fingers, padded at the tips, press, release, wait. Our friendship, with all its confidences, in spite of differences, weathers the years and is stronger at such a time, under his mastery. As he obliterates pain, he blinks absently or smiles his pale smile, withdrawn yet assuring. He learned his art from a young Alexandrian, a man he met while studying in Athens, who spoke many desert languages.“I’d like to see him again. I’ve learned something through my own experiments; we would share. Of course, he’s a great man.”And when I asked Libus about my illness, he said:“Too much work, too much rich food, too much concern. You haven’t been using common sense.”I didn’t care for this and said:“I know from what Alcaeus says, you help him more than anyone. You can help me.”“I’m not able to help him all the time.”“You mean his drinking?”He shrugged.“Let’s call it something else. He does nothing so much of the time. That’s where the trouble lies. He’s not thinking...doesn’t care.”“He wouldn’t let me in when I went last. Thasos had to turn me away.”“The great soldier...drunk.”“What can I do?”“Try again, Sappho. You and I know what he is—and was. You used to understand him better than anyone. Now, well, I do what I can. He’s growing worse...have you heard him bellow at me or Thasos, as if he were commanding officer? No doubt you have...and more...”Libus’ hands pushed and then, feather-weight, stroked upward, over and over, inducing me to breathe steadily: his hands brought warmth, my thinking became clearer. As he pressed, the weight on my heart lessened; as his fingers covered my stomach, rotating their tips, I felt bitter anguish might not come again.Lecturing me, he cautioned me about food and advised less exercise: rest, let the days flow by.So, I sail with my girls, lie in the sun, walk, poke along lazy trails, fuss in my garden. Winter is hard on me. Chills come, leaving my stomach knotted, my eyes afire.PPhaon has returned.P
Mytilene
I
I
have not seen Phaon for days and I feel eaten by rust, the rust that consumes bronze. I feel myself flake between my own fingers. Nothing distracts me. I tell myself I have no right to such feelings; it is wrong: be aware of the beauty around you, I say.
I have always believed that those who live beside the ocean should know more about beauty than others. Their minds should be richer, their faces kinder, their stride freer. Rhythm should be their secret.
I know this is false but I must evoke beauty. I must capture the magnificence of the sea and use its power. I must trap changes and repetitions, the storm’s core and summer’s laziness. There is superiority in these things, to help us through life.
But, with Phaon away, few things come alive: I am seaweed after the gale. Husk, why trouble others? So, I sulk. Or, when my girls insist, I revive briefly.
When will the atavistic fingers come and when will I smell the cabin’s wick and the nets? Oh, drown me, Egyptian lion, Etruscan charioteer, lunge and shield: yours is the tyranny.
Surely feminine love is kinder, less responsible, graced with evasions. Masculine love is a beginning, an intensity that goes on. Masculine love pushes into the future, asking roots, a thread of continuity.
. . .
Last night, Phaon took me among terra-cotta lamps, their wicks flaming coldly. Perspiration glowed on our bodies. A cat jumped on our bed and Phaon pushed it away: wind rustled: leaves shook: flames swayed: this was the love I had wanted and I accepted it and made it live: no little girl’s love, mine was glorious, damning all loneliness, knowing he would be gone again.
P
A dried flying fish revolved on a string above Phaon’s cabin door. His boat rose on a gradual swell, seemed unwilling to glide down.
“Let me sail with you when you sail next time,” I said.
“How could I take care of you?”
“Right in this cabin.”
“Would you sleep on the floor?”
“Why not?”
“What about food? Food goes bad...our cheese spoils...our meat...our water. Sometimes we can’t land a fish.”
A smile wrinkled his face, as he hulked against the cabin wall, his smile vaguely reassuring.
“What about the heat and cold?” he went on.
“I was hungry and cold in exile.”
“That was...years ago.”
The flying fish spun, and I thought about time. Had so many years lapsed? I said no more. He had silenced me effectively for I could not endure those prolonged trials and no doubt the sea voyage was impossible: luxury had softened me. The spinning fish would have horrified Atthis. And was I very different?
But we sailed along our coast, hugging it, unloading fruit, getting away from the windless heat of Mytilene, selling dates, lemons and limes. As we sailed in a faint wind, the crew sang. Lolling under an awning, I heard stories of catches at the deeps just beyond us, deeps where the water shimmered flatly, as if of rock. One crewman, not much bigger than a monkey, dove for shells while we crept through shallows. Pink shell in hand, treading a wave nakedly, he offered me his prize, as I leaned over the side. Kelp floated around him and tiny blue fish darted in and out, under his legs and arms, angel fish lower down, perhaps frightened.
While the monkey-man dove for shells, youngsters swam from small boats, hailing us, boarding us, some bringing fish as gifts. A blond, husky body, his shoulders thickly oiled, shared an orange with a girl who had his oval face and fair skin: twins, I thought, and went to the stern to talk to them, comparing their arms and legs, their features and hair. The flock of youngsters cluttering our desk found us amusing and laughed at us.
The twins talked about a wrecked ship, “from a strange land...you can see her at dawn, when the water’s quiet...she has a sunken deck, a huge rudder turned by chains. A great red and gold beast is carved over the stern...”
As we shared our oranges, juice trickled between her breasts.
Someone shouted and there was more laughter, and, as if prearranged, the youngsters abandoned us, dove overboard and swam shoreward, splashing, calling, wishing us luck.
I wish I were that young, I told myself.
That night, heat lightning brushed the sky, forming kelp-shaped ropes of yellow. Huge clouds massed about a thin moon and Phaon prophesied rain.
My head on his lap, we drifted, watching, listening to a singer, invisible man at the bow. His words made me uneasy as he sang of lovers lost at sea. Our sail had enough wind to fill it and yet we appeared immobile.
I drew Phaon’s face to mine and his mouth tasted of oranges.
Above us, behind us, his flying fish rocked.
The lightning played among the stars and wet the sail and our helmsman bent sleepily over the rudder: it was a night for love and when the cabin had cooled, Phaon and I sought each other: he placed an orange in my hand, the singing went on, the sea sobbed, the orange fell.
“Phaon?”
“What is it?”
Keep me, wait, go on, love me, don’t...I wanted to say so much.
I caressed him, breathed him in, the sanctity, the favor, the graciousness, the ephemeral. I wandered through caves. I dove to the wreck of the red-gold ship. I...
Later, we divided the orange and its sweet dribbled over us and he pressed his mouth there and we laughed, thinking with body.
I woke to see the moon sink below the ocean, to see how beautiful he was, his ship and fish swaying as a fresh wind clattered the sail.
Noon found us back in Mytilene.
P
Phaon
He is god in my eyes...
my tongue is broken;
a thin flame runs under
my skin; seeing nothing,
hearing only my own ears
drumming, I drip with sweat;
trembling shakes my body
and I turn paler than
dry grass. At such times
death isn’t far off.
P
Anaktoria’s flesh seems almost transparent—a sensuous softness coming from inside. When my girls are dancing on the terrace or in the garden, I wonder who is most beautiful.
Kleis spins. Atthis bends, arms upflung. I see a grape-tinted breast, fragile ankles. Yellow hair flies over shoulders. Gyrinno’s throat is perfect. Malva’s thighs. Look, Atthis and Anaktoria are dancing together. For an instant, their lips meet.
Tiles are blue underfoot.
Our wonderful harpist, an old woman, watches with burning, lidless eyes, remembering her naked days, playing them back again.
Cypress are drenched with sun.
P
Winter has come and Alcaeus has changed.
Winter—Libus and Alcaeus sit in my cold room, waiting. They have been waiting a long time for me; they were here when I returned from my birthday trip.
Alcaeus’ face is deeper lined: it has been lined for years but something has happened abruptly, pain has pinched the flesh into new, tiny, angry wrinkles.
Friends have reported that he is drinking again and yet this is more than drink because I realize it is inner debauchery: the eyes cannot confess: instead, the voice tells.
We huddle in our warm robes, the wind howling, and he says, in this new voice:
“What has kept you? We’ve been waiting a long time.”
Libus says:
“We haven’t forgotten.”
“Or isn’t this the day?” Alcaeus asks peevishly.
“Of course it’s her day,” Libus says.
Alcaeus chuckles.
When was it, I kissed that face, admiring its masculinity? His hands never trembled.
Wind shakes the house.
Mind travels to other days when we struggled in exile, when Alcaeus, badly dressed, kept us in food, stealing, conniving. Often there seemed no way to get by. I sat, waiting, blind to life. That sort of blindness was weakness on my part, or acceptance or hope. Listening, while we drank, I asked what hope he had? He was deriving some satisfaction from his relationship with Libus. There seemed nothing else. Little by little, he forgot why he had come to see me: happy birthday became grimaces, guffawing, vituperations over battles. He and Libus grew excited, enacting scenes with their hands, shuffling their feet.
“This is how I beat off his genitals...”
Alcaeus roared, hand on his beard.
“I beat open his helmet...”
Yes, the war...
And in my room, I found relief listening to the wind, remembering the boat’s passage to Limnos, my friends there, the festival in the vineyard, flute and drum, carom of bodies, laughter: Was it Felerian who laughed that low pitched melodious laugh? Was it Marcus who hurled his spear through the target? I erased Alcaeus: so much of life demands voluntary forgetfulness!
My girls had clambered about me at the dock, detaining me. Why does their love soften me? So often there are petty squabbles but, at reunions, they dissolve: the moment becomes a moment of accord, making life worthier: Gyrinno insists on carrying my basket, another smooths my scarf, another offers flowers. Kisses. They buzz into a flurry of plans.
“Tomorrow, we’ll go up the mountain...”
“Tomorrow, we’ll...”
Ah-hah-who, ah hah-who, the quails cry, as night comes.
I light mama’s lamp, so smooth to the fingers after all these years, like alabaster. The wick struggles into flame, as if reluctant to leave the past.
My Etruscan wall girl comes alive.
“Ah-hah-who.”
I take off my chain and pearl cluster and lay them in their scented box, pausing, sensing, dreaming.
Perhaps Phaon will be back soon—unexpectedly. I could not remain longer in Limnos, thinking he might return—tonight. I long for his mouth, the jerk of his legs, hisobelisko’styranny.
Hunger—let me sleep tonight, tired after the voyage.
P
No sooner have I returned than I am upset. Life is constricted... I stand among Charaxos’ Egyptian treasures, confronting him: a twisted, gilded serpent god sneers at me: fragments of gold leaf blink: mellow gold is underfoot: I sway, as I talk, my parasol clenched across my belly.
“Now, I know,” I say to him.
“You know what?”
“That you schemed with Pittakos, to have me exiled, with Alcaeus.”
“What?”
“After all these years I’ve found out. Stop lying. You tried to get our home, that’s why you wanted me exiled. What a brother you’ve been! What a fool I’ve been!”
For once he shut his mouth.
“During the war years you made many trips, to sell your wines...refusing to help me financially...yours is a debt you won’t pay...and you don’t care. I’ve dedicated my life to writing...I live no lie. I work to make life significant.
“And now, why have I come? To quarrel? No, to tell you the truth. I’ve nothing more to say. I want you to know that I know. It’s a satisfaction...”
I could have talked on, but I left, snapping open my parasol, clutching Ezekias’ arm, walking swiftly, curbing my pulse, hearing a seagull, the wind icy at the corners of the town, dogs sleeping in the sun, carts passing.
I tried to believe something was settled, that life was worth more for having told the truth. Yet, I wanted to return to Charaxos, demand apologies and restitution, apologies for impertinent, biased criticisms, as if apology, like a brand, could stamp out wrong, as if there were restitution for my cheated years.
Somehow, as I walked, as Ezekias chattered, Aesop commiserated: his hunchback shoulders squared my shoulders: his doll had the dignity of a scepter to prod my spirit.
A tow-headed youth greeted us and I thought: I wish I could have a son. Yes, to give birth again. That glory cancels many defeats.
In Libus’ house, I turned to him and said:
“I told Charaxos what you told me weeks ago.”
“But I shouldn’t have told you, Sappho.”
“It was time I knew the truth.”
“And now you have an enemy,” he said.
“He has been my enemy all the time, Libus.”
We sat on his veranda, an agnus-castus sheltering us from the wind. His boy brought us drinks.
“Are we better friends?” he asked.
“I trust you more.”
Tree shadows moved across his mouth and chin.
“Trust is not always friendship. I shouldn’t have informed. How shallow we are, the best of us. We bungle. Friendship, yours and mine, it’s hard to measure, perhaps we shouldn’t try: isn’t it better left alone? Friendship, that’s what we’ve had all these years...I overstepped propriety.”
How pale Libus was, in his grey robe, shadows ridging the fabric, chalking his face, thickening his lips, greying his hair. His sandals moved nervously yet he never moved his hands: they remained weighted to his lap.
I ate supper there, lingering with the ancientness of his rooms, dark mosaics, the crowning of a king behind him, Libus’ chair of white leather, the king in the mosaic studying his crown, his jewels flashing red, a hint of Corinth and a hint of Crete.
P
Remembering my shepherd visit, I wrote this:
Evening Star
Hesperus, you bring
Homeward all that
Dawn’s light disperses,
Bring home sheep,
Bring home goats,
Bring children home
To their mothers.
P
What is it urges the mind to seek beauty? What is the challenge? Why go where there are no charts?
Beauty says it is a kind of love.
So, I make love, in my quiet room, the word symbolic of man, life’s continuity, my paper taken from reeds and trees. I write of birth, love, marriage and death, sensing that the unrecorded is vaster than the recorded. I sense the stumbling: the past could be a gigantic storm, fog obliterating at moment of revelation, fog fumbling from man to man, saying come, saying stop. The past is a wave through which no swimmer passes. As surf it inundates, then vanishes. On windy nights, it moans at my window, beautiful and hideous. I struggle on.
P
I quote from my journal kept in exile:
For three days we have had little to eat, days of quarrels, bitterness and savagery.
I gave myself to a merchant and he has returned the favor by feeding Alcaeus and me. We ate in the kitchen, glad to find considerate slaves. We can remain long enough to recover our strength, if not our hopes.
How I long for home and my servants, fish as Exekias can prepare it, onions in Chian wine, olives from Patmos. It helps to list the good things. Surely they are not lost.
How wretched to cheat myself to keep alive, to cheat the face, the mooning eyes, the stupid mouth, the odor of flagrancy, the disbelief...chattel, cringe, lie still, perform.
Copying those lines I remembered things I have never recorded, our filthy clothes, windowless room, flies, thirst, sickness...Alcaeus in jail... I was fined...authorities jeered at us...no sympathy, no luck until Aesop, his fox, raven and rooster.
I never thought him brilliant but he was always entertaining, agreeable about the smallest problem. Nuances come to me, as he told of a turtle that ferried a small turtle and then, at the end of the pleasant ride, said:
“Little turtle, you must pay.”
“How can I pay?” asked the little turtle.
“By doing me a favor.”
“Well, what can I do?”
“Hump along the beach and snatch me a fly.”
“I’ll do my best,” said the little turtle.
After humping and snapping till almost noon, the little turtle brought a fly to the big turtle. Finding the big fellow asleep, the little one had to cuff him.
“Here,” said the turtle, between closed lips.
“Ah,” exclaimed the big turtle, swallowing the fly, tasting it with care. “Umm, that’s the first fly I ever ate! You see a little fellow like you can do things a big fellow can’t.”
P
During the night an earthquake woke me and I wandered through the bedrooms, to see about my girls. Atthis needed covering and as I arranged her covers she murmured, “Mama, mama.” Before I could slip away, she grasped my hand.
“Are you homesick, darling?”
When I kissed her, I found her face wet with tears. “Why don’t you go home for a few weeks?” I whispered. “You were calling your mama in your sleep. If you’re homesick, you must go home. Let’s talk about it tomorrow. Do you want me to sleep with you?”
So we cuddled together and almost at once she relaxed and, after a few endearments, slept with her head on my shoulder, her violet fragrance around me. I held her fingers a long time. Drowsily, I asked: where do we go...why can’t we remain young...happy? The last thing I recalled was the sweetness of her perfume.
The earthquake had been forgotten.
P
Alcaeus sat on his leather stool, his dog at his feet, sunlight behind him; elbows on his knees, he said:
“...I prefer that hymn. There’s really no finer. In spite of time it’s full of force, spring’s arrival, the brevity of summer, the dying year. It has the shepherd’s power, the forest’s—passion tamed and sanctified. Another one I like is...
The woods decay, the woods decay and fall...
Libus, sitting near Alcaeus, quoted his favorite, huddling in his robe, his face averted:
Alone, in sea-circled Delos, while round on beach and cove,
before the piping sea wind the dark blue storm waves drove...
“Why do you break off?” I asked.
He did not answer but said:
“They knew, those ancients, how to supplicate the lowliest...they preferred the virginal...snowy peaks...whispering groves...the hunting cry...”
Warming my feet on a warming stone, I said I preferred the golden hymn and repeated fragments...
Long are their ways of living, honey in their bread,
and in their dances their footsteps twirl, twirling light...
P
Fragment of talk:
“We can’t marry, unless we have a child...you’ll be twenty-three soon...it must be like that...my house is a house of women...”
I thought of those words as I passed Phaon’s house, beyond the wharf, isolated. As I passed, waves climbed its base, licking at boulders. Its walls are thicker than most, cracked and mottled. I used to be afraid of that house as a girl and as I passed these thoughts brought back some of that apprehension. I glanced at the seaward balcony, tottering on wasted beams, painted years ago. Seagulls squatted on the flat roof, as they have day in and day out. There are five rooms underneath those tiles and his mother and uncle lived and died there, a harsh struggle in rooms of simple furnishings, coils of rope, nets, brass fittings and bronze anchors.
Phaon lives there with two men, their servants and a hanger-on. Kleis visits occasionally. A parrot, some say nearly two hundred years old, gabbles sayings and fills the sea-sopped silences.
Yes, his house troubles me—its darkness, its evocation of poverty and my own exile.
P
While I was ill, Libus cared for me, the mastery of his hands relieving pain. By my bed, talking soothing talk, he brought gradual relief, just as two years ago. His hands are more than hands, it seems. Magical masseur, he explores yet never gropes: his fingers, padded at the tips, press, release, wait. Our friendship, with all its confidences, in spite of differences, weathers the years and is stronger at such a time, under his mastery. As he obliterates pain, he blinks absently or smiles his pale smile, withdrawn yet assuring. He learned his art from a young Alexandrian, a man he met while studying in Athens, who spoke many desert languages.
“I’d like to see him again. I’ve learned something through my own experiments; we would share. Of course, he’s a great man.”
And when I asked Libus about my illness, he said:
“Too much work, too much rich food, too much concern. You haven’t been using common sense.”
I didn’t care for this and said:
“I know from what Alcaeus says, you help him more than anyone. You can help me.”
“I’m not able to help him all the time.”
“You mean his drinking?”
He shrugged.
“Let’s call it something else. He does nothing so much of the time. That’s where the trouble lies. He’s not thinking...doesn’t care.”
“He wouldn’t let me in when I went last. Thasos had to turn me away.”
“The great soldier...drunk.”
“What can I do?”
“Try again, Sappho. You and I know what he is—and was. You used to understand him better than anyone. Now, well, I do what I can. He’s growing worse...have you heard him bellow at me or Thasos, as if he were commanding officer? No doubt you have...and more...”
Libus’ hands pushed and then, feather-weight, stroked upward, over and over, inducing me to breathe steadily: his hands brought warmth, my thinking became clearer. As he pressed, the weight on my heart lessened; as his fingers covered my stomach, rotating their tips, I felt bitter anguish might not come again.
Lecturing me, he cautioned me about food and advised less exercise: rest, let the days flow by.
So, I sail with my girls, lie in the sun, walk, poke along lazy trails, fuss in my garden. Winter is hard on me. Chills come, leaving my stomach knotted, my eyes afire.
P
Phaon has returned.
P
Phaon and Sappho kneel in a grove,a cithara beside them:age-old trees shade the lovers:the age of a ruined temple is part ofthe timelessness of the grove:bronze Phaon and white Sappho,dusk takes over their whispers,their motions, the wind in the olives.
Phaon and Sappho kneel in a grove,
a cithara beside them:
age-old trees shade the lovers:
the age of a ruined temple is part of
the timelessness of the grove:
bronze Phaon and white Sappho,
dusk takes over their whispers,
their motions, the wind in the olives.