Sappho (45 page)

“And to you, good.”

They drank, watching each other as they did.

“I have thought these many days on the wonderful stories that you told. It must be like entering another world to be inside your head.”

“There are many conflicts there. Sometimes disturbing … as you are disturbing to my peace.”

“I? How can that be?”

Sappho jumped to her feet. “Stand up. Look me in the face as friend to friend, lover to lover.”

Like one in a trance he obeyed. And she managed that when he was on his feet, she was almost in the same place. His eyes traveled the transparency of her peplos, feather-woven by Amathusians, and viewed the marvels of her exquisite body, which seemed to palpate toward him. Sappho met the glance of his deep-fringed eyes. “Touch me—for I am consumed by you.”

She whispered the words rapidly at him, but he stood still, uncertain. A lady of high station, the songstress of Lesbos—had he heard correctly?

Was it a lurch of the ship, had either moved? She was in his arms, pressed against him in a way that revealed the differences of their two sexes.

“You are as fire, driven over me by wind,” she whispered and did not close her eyes when he kissed her. He closed his. “Ah, Phaon…” She undid his garment and her fingers glided his nakedness.

He was rigid and upstanding as a column, and ashamed that it was so. Sappho dropped to her knees to worship.

He groaned aloud with the pleasure of what she made him feel and, with urgency, carried her to the piled cushions, where he crushed her with his weight.

But she would not be still to allow him his way. Her delicately oiled body ever indicated new possibilities of love. Before he could pin her, she evaded, to expose herself in yet another position. She lay upon him head to head, then head to feet. She presented her rounded buttocks and as he reached for her, turned and hovered above him.

Quick as a panther, he had her, nor could she escape to tease in a new way. Now it was she who moaned. A volcano erupted in her, hot lava coursed over her, and she strained for every last sweet drop with which he filled her.

“You are my shepherd boy,” she whispered and licked him clean of his own sperm, then massaged gently with unguents which combined the pith of the pomegranate, eggs, honey, the soft part of crabs, the undersides of snails, mussels, and a trace of nettle-seed—all secret restoratives, for she meant to have him again this night. For this reason she wore the right testicle of an ass in a broad silver bracelet on her left wrist. She left nothing undone that would excite his liver again to desire and sexual prowess. Unobtrusively she slipped a piece of southernwood beneath their cushions, for that also strengthened the male for frequent copulations.

“You are not woman,” he gasped, when he had his breath, “but goddess.”

“It is true, the gods are very close to me in that I am sister to the Muses. But I am mortal woman, and all my nature turns to you.”

“I have never felt … never known…”

“Of course not. I did not say I was an ordinary woman. I am Sappho. And all that I do is with passion.”

“I would die for you,” he said, and then, “I think I almost did die.”

“I also. Your flesh scorches me. Your mouth burns like a wound. Athene must have sent a heron to our right hand.”

Phaon laughed. “No heron that, but a seagull.”

“Then they are lucky, too.”

“It must be so, for you are here—unless I dream.”

“I am here.” She twined hyacinths in his curls and murmured soft words that did not make sense, or need to.

She told him that the Nine were born in Pieria. He did not know even simple things like that. “Hesiod says they are all of one mind, their hearts set upon song, as mine is set upon love.”

“For me?” he asked in wonder.

“For who but you? Am I here or elsewhere? Answer and tell me.”

“You … are here. Although I cannot believe it. Nor do I understand.”

“Seek not to understand. It is a gift the gods have given us.” And her insatiable mouth was open to his. He responded lazily, letting her play with him as she would.

Her famished mouth at last moved the sailor to lose himself once more on the tide of passion.

When it was possible to lie quietly, Phaon spoke. “I do not know anymore if I am you or myself,” he said hoarsely.

“You are always Phaon, which is why my eyes adore you and my heart is toward you.”

“Yet I have heard…” He had begun impulsively, unthinkingly, and checked himself.

A chill descended on her. “No, no, you must tell me what you heard. In all things we must be open with each other, nor keep anything back.”

“It is because the gods visit you that tongues wag. It is envy. It is nothing.”

“I would know this nothing.” And she poured down his throat the strong red wine of Lesbos.

“It is of the girls they speak, that for so many years stayed on your estate.”

“Yes, my hetaerae, my fair companions. What of them?”

He shook his head. “It is but the talk of taverns and unworthy of being repeated.”

She said lightly, “All this is not new to me. I have many enemies. Fame starts tongues clacking. They say I had lovers among them.” She laughed. “Which were mentioned by name?”

Phaon hung his head, unwilling to answer. “They did mention an Anaktoria, and beautiful Kydro, and a girl called Atthis.”

Sappho enjoyed the inaccuracy. Atthis, of course they had guessed Atthis. She picked up her lyre and, gazing out over the water, sang as though to it:

Neither in the girls of Pyrrha or Metyma nor

in any of Lesbos do I take any more delight

Did he notice the past tense?

She put aside the lyre. “We lived together in innocence, singing lessons from the wonderful Isle of Thought, studying Sky by night. By day we danced ritual steps in the sand, anointing one another with cenanthium from the mountains of Kypros. Many times my Muses would carry me from my friends, and I would sing poems to those fair spirits. It was a small repayment, for happy is she whom the Muses love.”

“You are half divine, O matchless Sappho. I cannot believe your love could turn toward a common sailor, a man of no distinction, when all Lesbos, the entire Hellenic world court you.”

“There is no reason in love—do not look for reason. It is a holy gift.” And she told him the story of Dionysos, who each spring goes crowned with blossoms and ivy to the valleys of Lydia, to the far mountains sacred to him. And of Prometheus she told how he concealed the sacred fire in a hollow reed.

Some of the things Phaon wanted to hear about were very strange. He was interested in the mechanics of her bath. He had never heard of pipes buried in the ground that carried water from the spring to the fire pit in the kitchen, from whence they passed into the satyr's head, which slaves turned to fill her marble bath.

“That is from the gods.” He spoke in a reverent voice.

“No god at all,” she laughed, “but one of my slaves designed it. In Syracuse all the great houses have such arrangements.”

“And the wastes,” he asked, “could they not be carried from the house through the same kind of pipe and deposited in a pit some distance from it?”

Sappho laughed with delight that such topics as “waste” intrigued him as he lay upon the couch of love, but decided it was for these mysterious reasons she loved him.

*   *   *

They met every night. They could not be away from each other. She sent him trinkets of gold or hid them on his ship, so he need not risk his life for sponges.

Once, winds swept down from Heaven and waves pounded their boat and broke over the deck. Phaon laughed. But Sappho, terrified that her well-painted face and juiced hair had become blotched, turned from him and asked him to erect a temporary tent.

He thought it was modesty, as her wet chiton clung to her, and was well pleased to do as she wished. Behind the improvised screen she hastily repaired the damage and threw a kerchief over her hair. And so the charade went on.

Phaon was the center of her world. She loved and ravished him and could not have enough of him. But the magic was always spun. There were stories to entertain him and poems sung for his enjoyment.

“Your songs would charm even the wild beasts, could they hear you,” he declared.

“If they charm you, lord of my heart, I am content.”

One night she came and saw as he lifted her in his arms that his eyes were haunted and sad. When she questioned him, he put his head in her lap and wept. “I have lost a dear friend, Pelagon, son of Meniskos, who, like me, was a fisherman and diver after sponges.”

“What happened?”

“So many things can go wrong in the dark of Poseidon's kingdom. One sees a catch a bit farther down, another kick of the feet and you will have it. Instead blood pours from your eyes. This happened to my friend.”

Sappho soothed him with kisses, but he lay listless and despondent against her.

After some time Sappho spoke. “Yet your dear companion will not die unnoticed, for listen, Sappho has made an ode to his poor shade.” She sang:

In memory of Pelagon, a fisherman,

his father Meniskos placed

here a fishbasket and oar:

tokens of an unlucky life

Phaon kissed her hands. “He will not be forgotten—great Sappho gives him life!” And he remembered his manhood.

Returning late to her home, she found a messenger outside the gate. He dared not enter, for his tidings were ill. There were no leaves of bay in his hair.

Quickly, under her breath she intoned, “Father Zeus, let it not be Khar!” Then to the messenger: “Say what you must.”

“In Athens, O incomparable Sappho, the wise and noble Solon lies dying. He wishes not to die until he has heard your last songs.”

“Poor man. I have already heard of one death tonight. Like an accursed hound it is ever at our heels. Enter in the gates. I shall not sleep until I've gathered the smell of meadows, the brightness of flowers, the sound of water falling onto stones. I will send all this to Solon and ease his going forth.”

She went over her work but could find little that was new. The Muses, jealous of Phaon, stayed away. She didn't care. The passion she brought to her verse, she now brought her lover.

She collected any writings that might have been overlooked at the time Solon's scribe had copied so diligently.

She stopped to read:

…
nor ever did the gathering sounds of

early spring

fill any wood with the chorus of

the nightingale

but you wandered there with me

“Atthis, Atthis, you held so much of my life. Sometimes I wish for death.” She was amazed to hear herself say such a thing. Had she said it? Was it true?

It would be true when the moment came that Phaon looked at her and saw that she was old. For then she would be. And life finished.

Every time those deeply blue eyes of her young sailor looked into hers, she trembled that she would be found out, that the white lead on her face would crack at a wrinkle, or along a laugh line … and he would perceive her as old. If that should happen, and it must happen, Sappho was no more.

In the morning she sped the messenger on his way, sending with him a sheaf of poems in one of her slim vessels to Athens.

*   *   *

There was news of Khar in the agora. His fleet had been sighted making for Lesbos. Sappho could not disentangle the emotions this set up in her.

Did he come alone?

With
her?

As slave or wife?

She was so nervous that she sent word to Phaon she was unwell and could not visit him. Then, changing her mind, went after all, to find him absent from his ship. Where was he? Carousing in some tavern? Perhaps courting a girl his own age, or playing lover-lad to some wealthy judge or prince? She knew nothing of his life. His life was there on the boat with her. That he had any other existence had not concerned her. Suddenly she was mad with jealousy. Where was he this night when he should have been with her?

Was there a girl? How old? Fifteen? Sixteen? O uncaring gods, what tortures you reserve for me! In her room she scrubbed the paint from her face and looked at herself with revulsion, crying at the disfigurement of wrinkles, which only caused new and uglier lines to appear. Her body sagged. The gift of herself that she presented to Phaon was worn, used up. “O Aphrodite, I was wrong. I had forgotten. Cannot these fires in me be quenched? Can you not see how tormented I am? I long and I yearn … and it may not be. There is nothing before me but humiliation.” She sobbed, as broken in her being as a dropped pot.

She sent servants to the dock to await Khar's arrival and bid him come to her. Bordering on physical collapse, she must still see to everything herself. Each detail of the welcoming of her brother was discussed with Niobe. Leaving nothing to chance, she hurried to the kitchen, selected capons, made changes in the menu. In the garden she directed which buds be tied so they would not open until presented to Khar. She inspected the cleaning and polishing, and hesitated a dozen times over the wardrobe she had selected.

She kept a runner at the twin harbors so when the curved ships were sighted she would have sufficient warning. Khar had gone away angry. But now surely he must realize that his sister's words came from love and concern for him and his welfare.

But she was Sappho, and knew that passion could dissolve the stoutest heart and dissipate the sturdiest resolutions. She must prepare herself for the presence of Doricha Rhodopis. Sappho worried that if Khar kept her as a slave, out of spite the Thracian might reveal she had slept between her legs in an orgy that culminated when the great bird, with outspread dazzling tail and frantically flapping wings, debauched her. Sappho had only to close her eyes to see the creature hopping about, the girl's white body hanging from his feathered one.