Sappho (43 page)

Her walks led her into the streets of Mitylene. She found she was diverted by the many colors, the movement of people, the sounds of trade and barter. She made an occasional small purchase, something from the stall of the flower merchant, or an opal caught her fancy and she would have it. Shopkeepers bowed, mothers pointed her out to their children, men turned to stare, and girls put their heads together. Later they would say, “I saw Sappho with these eyes.”

She sought out the Street of Women and looked curiously at the immodest and ornate costumes. They make of themselves another commodity, she thought. This put her in mind of Doricha, so she left.

Upon her return a runner from Alkaios waited. She was invited to a small dinner party. At first she was inclined to go—there was no one left from her old life except Alkaios—but she knew before the evening was out her friend would be snoring on the floor. She sent the servant away, saying she could not manage it. But the incident evoked a trail of memory. She recalled his first poem to her:

Innocent Sappho

of the violet

hair

and sweet

smile

When Alkaios invited her a second time, she accepted. He had hired a ship for the occasion. Lighted with tapers and festooned with flowers, it glided out of the harbor. The captain, in special greeting and honor, bathed her feet and spread a lotion on them. He was a powerful young man, yet graceful. And as he knelt, she looked down on a crown of chestnut curls. How beautiful the young are, she thought.

The feast was in progress and Alkaios already quite drunk. She didn't mind, but enjoyed the Samian performers who with naked feet trod out the dances of their land. Mostly she enjoyed the fresh breeze stirred by Sea, and the slap of waves as they rocked the craft. It was pleasant upon the water, and the evening passed quickly.

Thereafter she was drawn to the harbor, she supposed because she felt closer to Khar there. One day she recognized the ship Alkaios had hired for their dinner party and looked to see if the captain who had removed her sandals was aboard.

She saw him in the bow speaking with a merchant. Was he arranging to fill his craft with water and wine for another such evening? She continued to enjoy his profile against the sea. It was strong, the forehead sloping to the nose with scarcely an indentation. And the mouth might have been drawn by a master artisan for an Apollo figure. The thickness of his upper arms and shoulders showed the sailor, used to handling rigging and rough work. The litheness about him she supposed was youth. She watched from dockside as he did business with the merchant.

In the days that followed, she went again and again seaward, to the harbor. Usually the ship rode at anchor, but there were times when it had slipped its mooring and was gone. When this happened she spent a restless night and hurried back in the morning to make sure the boat was there. It always was, for its journeys were short. When Sappho realized this she felt light as air.

She conceived a longing, a desire to engage the boat herself. A gala, a party even, was not what she had in mind. Rather it was to lean back against skins and cushions, and floating on dark waters call upon the Muses and make songs, for surely songs sung under such circumstances would be wonderful indeed. Why should she not gratify this wish? It was a simple one, to smell the salt, feel the faint breeze that hovers over water, and hymn her verses old and new.

Sappho sent a runner to make inquiry about the boat and to discover if the young man was indeed the owner. “Find out what you can about him,” she instructed, and turned her back, pretending an interest in material for a new shawl.

The slave returned. “His name is Phaon, Lady. He is master of the vessel, and it is for hire for galas, parties, picnics, and the like.”

“How does he live when his boat is not hired?” Sappho asked.

“Lady, he is a sponge diver.”

“I see.” She sent the slave back to Phaon to negotiate a price and designate an evening.

Shortly after this, her servants announced that a messenger approached with bay leaf in his hair. Sappho's heart raced—it is Khar! Khar has sent this man with a token that he loves me as before and will forget the woman.

When the man went on his knees before her, she said, “Speak—who sent you?”

“My master, O great Sappho, is the wise man and ruler of Athens, even noble Solon, whose fame has spread through all the cities of the Hellenes.”

Sappho was astounded. Solon was not a lover of women, although on previous occasions he had sent costly oils and more recently a gift of a silver chalice on which the nine sisters were incised. A very handsome present, but a personal message was of another magnitude. “Solon, ruler in Athens, has business with me?”

“He salutes great Sappho. And on learning that she is making books of her songs, he would obtain them for himself at any cost. He asks if a scribe of highest integrity might be quartered in your home and given access to the material, that it may be copied to bring pleasure to his leisure. For of all pleasures my master knows, listening to the immortal songs of Sappho brings him most joy.”

Sappho was much affected by such a message from this mighty ruler, who was one of the seven wise men in the world. In her reply she assured Solon that utmost hospitality would be given his scribe, that he would be lodged with her household until his task was done, adding proudly, “I have six books, which represent the songs I have sung from a girl until now.” And she thanked him for the honor he did her.

When a fresh messenger had been sped on his way, Sappho closeted herself in her chamber and took from her woman's chest her most highly polished and true-reflecting mirror. All my fame does not make me a year younger, she thought.

Into her mind came a vision sent by the gods of the beautiful young Phaon, diver after sponges. His was a body powerful as Pittakos's when he returned the hero of Lesbos from the ten-year war with Athens. “How madly my heart once beat for him.”

She laughed even now, thinking of the lampoons Alkaios had sung of him. But she recalled well what a hold he had over her, and how he himself had broken the spell, setting her free when he exiled her.

Her ruminations led her to conclude that she was not as averse to the male as she had told her hetaerae. She had grown up at a time when men were absent altogether from Mitylene.

She considered her husband. It had been a long time since she had thought of him wandering in the house of Hades. He had been, she realized now, too indolent for her taste, too foppish with his constant pursuit of new amusements. He had not known how to fan the fires in her. Many were the times he remonstrated with her for her lack of passion, never considering that his own brief thrust was not sufficient to call forth what blazed in Sappho.

If her husband had been inadequate as a lover, it was not necessarily an indictment of the entire sex, but one man only. Perhaps her womanhood had been cheated, perhaps her first instinct toward the might of Pittakos had been of the gods. Or it may be the other Sappho, her second self, who now desired.

Sappho put aside her mirror, in fact buried it at the bottom of her chest. But that night she thonged the door to her room and retrieved it. This time it was by the tapers that flared in the night-darkened chamber that she examined herself. It was quite amazing how softened the lines in her brow were and those wrinkles about her eyes that told of too many days of merriment and carefree laughter. As for the streak of white in her hair, it could be dyed with the juice of dark berries and the bark of trees well steeped in boiled water.

The time had definitely come to use the mastics her mother had employed. Such artifices worked very well for a number of hours. And Niobe knew of others: fomentation, sulfur over a low fire mixed with klanet, that rare plant, combined with litharge, a paste which remained on the face and neck three hours. Then the skin was bathed with laten, and the milk of a woman nursing a girl-child was brought to cleanse all. These were followed by oil of almonds, tincture of hydromel, and a decoction of honey and water. Ah, these small alabaster boxes of illusion. What were these cosmetics but fraud and lies? She did not care.

She might be young again, without the reality of youth. In such pretense there was the possibility of a final love. Once more, after these many years, she spilled to Aphrodite and, forgetting her quarrel with the goddess, urgently asked to feel the arms of a lover, to rouse another's body with her own.

The hetaerae had been her delight. But might there not be waiting for her a final untapped joy in the arms of a man who knew how to love? Not a man of her own class with his oboe player and string of boy lovers, but a rough sailor whose forearms were brawny and whose legs were as pillars. Phaon, who stepped with such surety in his rocking craft, whose shoulders were as a wrestler's, but whose waist was slender as a girl's. She smiled to herself, thinking he would have no way of knowing the tricks she was made of, that she was all illusion, even as her songs; a made thing, for the moment only, lasting while song lasted.

All depended on art and torches, for she would never hire his high-curved boat except by night. Light is joy, she thought ruefully, for all but me. Her patroness in this venture would be Selene, the Moon goddess. “And with Heaven's help…”

Her slave settled details with the young ship's captain for an evening three nights hence. During the intervening time, a constant train of laden beasts traveled between her villa and his boat, carrying woven rugs and pillows, pelts of tiger and panther. Stringed instruments came next, a harp with a carved Sphinx atop it, a zither, and a lyre. Also taken aboard were alabaster boxes, from which strange and exotic scents emerged.

On the day itself, jars of wine and baskets of delicate foods covered by fine linen with the fragrance of lavender were loaded on deck. Finally flowers arrived, the bark was flanked with them. They were braided to its sides and strung along the mast, they ran along the ropes and trailed the water. As though an afterthought, several torches were secured fore and aft. Slaves also laid at the feet of the speechless captain sandals of gold and a himation of purest cambric, white as Egyptian lyssus.

As night fell, a Nubian slave rowed a cloaked figure to the ship. Phaon leapt to hand in the single form, whose cloak parted, revealing a gossamer wrap. He was unsure whether he touched a statue or a woman of flesh and blood. He dared not raise his eyes to find out, but kept them on the planks of his ship.

“I have inquired and know that your name is Phaon.”

The voice held the sounds of lyre and cymbals. He had never heard his name said in that fashion.

“I know further that you are a freeman and have an honest reputation. Therefore does Sappho of Lesbos place herself in your stewardship and depend on your ability to deal with what Poseidon sends.”

Phaon bent before her. “Lady, I will do my best to please you.”

“I believe it.”

“And I thank you for the lending of this beautiful garment and for the sandals of gold.”

“They are not lent, but given.”

He murmured something, he knew not what. He still dared not look on her, except to observe how tiny her feet were, how perfect her toes, and that on the twinkling sandals were silver bells.

“Lead me, O Phaon, to the place my people have made ready for me that I may compose in the quiet of your ship.”

“Yes, Lady.” And from the diaphanous tarentine veil, a hand freed itself and clasped his … but such a hand. He had never seen a hand like it; his own swallowed it up as a hawk would a small wood dove. The daintiest fingers and smallest wrist he had ever felt lay inside his palm, trusting him as a guide. And when the lady moved at his side, it was the sliding of water, it was the swaying stalk of a narcissus. His own feet, even in sandals of gold, made the deck creak; hers made no sound except for the merry bells. Phaon led her to the piled luxury of skins and rugs and pillows.

“Will I be able to watch you from here as you ply your ship?”

“Assuredly.” Then, worried, he added, “Your servants set up this place for you, but if you would be more private…”

“No, no, I may need you. You see, I am quite alone.” She smiled through the filmy gauze into his face, directly into it. And it was as though great Zeus threw a thunderbolt and struck him full; his wits seemed addled and he himself befuddled as though from drink.

He again lowered his eyes, but Sappho had seen what she needed to know. Her magic was truer far than those love potions once sold by the witch Andromeda.

“The boat is so unsteady,” she said, and the next moment she was against him body to body. Instinctively his arms were about her and she felt the hardness she caused in him—he felt her softness, her up-tilted breasts. The next moment he was swallowed by a cloud of aroma and knew a goddess had been in his arms.

“Pardon, Lady.” He braced his legs and laid her back against the array of colors and textures skillfully blended. Though the full weight of her hung in his hands for only a second, he saw the aureole of rosy breasts, the fullness of thighs, yet a waist so slender he believed he could span it with his two hands and touch finger to finger. Phaon felt dizzy from the scents she seemed to radiate, but he managed to say, “I pray the Muses bless your efforts, Lady.” And he saluted her.

“I pray so too.” She picked up her lyre, which Phaon took as a dismissal, for he turned to his duties.

She strummed softly; her eyes, seeming closed, watched all he did.

Nimbly he cast off their mooring stone, made fast the oar thongs, and rowed past anchored craft whose silhouettes showed darkly. Once clear of the harbor he swung his body against the ropes that ran up the sail. The male form exuded an excitement in activity that was comparable to the female in dance. The virility of his person, his coordination, lightness, the harmony of movement that characterized his actions, all stirred her, so that her usual plea to the Muses, Add passion to my song, was not needed, although she recited the formula.