Sappho's Leap (26 page)

Hands shot up all over the assembly. Maera and Leto might argue, but the majority wanted harmony and life.

“Well, then, if you will live and prosper, hear me well.”

Deep sighs were heard in the crowd. As darkness fell on the island, I outlined what the gods had decreed.

“Mothers and fathers will share the care of children equally. They will also share hunting, fishing, farming, and weaving.”

“Weaving!” cried a sailor. “Men can't weave! It's women's work!”

“You will learn to weave so as not to anger the gods. The gods decree that all labor will be shared as Demeter and Osiris share the world between them.”

“What about holidays and feasts?” Leto asked.

“There are four a year—the summer solstice, the autumn equinox, the winter solstice, the spring equinox. On all these turnings of the year, men and women may make love freely with all members of the tribe, but only as sacred homage to the gods and only to make the crops grow. The rest of the year the gods decree chastity.”

“Chastity!” Leto exclaimed. “Who wants a world of chastity?”

“A world of chastity is better than a world of chaos,” I said. “Eros brings chaos in his wake.” Clearly, I was thinking of my poor benighted brothers, but was I also thinking of myself?

“But the gods are not chaste,” Leto protested.

“That is why they are the gods,” I said. “People do not have enough discipline to make love like gods. Eros brings madness with his poisoned arrows. He must be restricted to the celebrations of the gods or his mischief will destroy the earth.”

“And what will happen if we break these commandments?” Maera asked.

“Something so terrible I cannot even describe it. I urge you to follow what the sacred papyrus decrees. I am only the messenger of the gods—not the author of the sacred papyrus. But I fear for your lives if you anger the gods.” The water still dripped from me. I shivered in the gathering darkness as though the breath of the gods were upon me.

“I say we try what Sappho says,” cried one of the Egyptian sailors.

“Aye! I agree!” cried another.

Before long, the commandments of the sacred papyrus had been adopted by proclamation and the tired assembly straggled back to their tents. I was glad to return to my tent, change to dry clothes, and get warm.

Later, I sat with Aesop and handed him the sacred papyrus. He carefully unrolled it. It was blank. He laughed and laughed.

He was full of admiration for my guile. “How clever you've become since your trip to the Land of the Dead,” he said. “But did you have to be so severe about men and women making love? Life is hard without the little anodyne of love. Love and wine are all most humans have to make their short and wretched lives bearable. Just because you are chaste, must everyone be chaste?”

“Nobody despises chastity more than I do, but I can only couple with those who set fire to my heart. My love is far away, so I am chaste.”

“So you would impose chastity on everyone?” Aesop asked.

“Why not? They will love love more when they have to wait for it. If they make love only to honor the gods, love will mean more to them than when they couple for lust alone.”

“So every sensualist is a sacred virgin at heart?” Aesop teased.

“Go make a fable of it,” I spat angrily.

“I think I will,” Aesop said. “What animal would you like to be?”

“Damn you, Aesop. What help were you to me when I was searching for the gods' commandments? You simply sat there grinning.”

“That is because I trust you utterly. You may think you made it all up like a song at a symposium, but I know the gods dictate to you. Someday you may know it too.”

I gathered my blanket around me and slept. Translating the will of the gods is nothing if not exhausting.

Sea rovers here take joy.

—H
OMER

W
HETHER MY ORDERS CAME
from gods or mortals, they worked. People are happy to have rules to live by, however arbitrary. The island became a buzzing hive of industry. Men learned to weave and women learned to hunt. Children depended on their fathers as much as on their mothers. Leto's brain-fogging symposia were no more. Eventually we found another use for her tent as a school for the growing flock of children on the isle, and she became their schoolmistress. She fulfilled that role quite as enthusiastically as she had played the siren. People are nothing if not adaptable. I also found another use for her magic mushrooms. Because I had interpreted the gods' commandments, I was forced into the role of priestess. People would come to me with disputes and I would resolve them. For this I needed some solemn ceremony. I confiscated Leto's store of mushrooms, toasted them in a golden bowl perched on a high tripod set over the fumes, and pronounced as if I were the Pythia herself. I had studied her in Delphi, and since I was a born performer, I could play her. People require drama from their emissaries of the gods and Aesop and I provided it. We had seen enough rituals in our travels to know that belief is enhanced by theatrical display. The mushrooms certainly helped. Aesop would sit through the rituals somewhat woozy from the smoke. I would go into a trance and rhyme whatever came into my head. The islanders had so great a need to believe that the gods were nearby and doted on them like fond parents that they had no problem accepting me as priestess and Aesop as my priest. We did our civic duty—with a little help from the mushrooms.

Months grew into years. The lowering volcano that had belched smoke and lava was silent. It seemed to have gone into hibernation. Our little island on the edge of Hades' realm prospered. But when our children reached the age of adolescent restlessness, would we be able to go on like this?

Our children had been carefully educated in Leto's tent. We wanted them to love learning, to eschew war, to understand that exploration of the unknown was the highest good. Aesop had taught them his fables about wise and foolish animals. I had sung them my songs of love. The Egyptians had given them their hymns to Osiris and the amazons had taught them the stories of great Pegasus and the glories of the moon goddess, the white goddess, who, they claimed, was merely another aspect of Demeter. We taught both boys and girls to be warriors and weavers. We did not make any distinction between the sexes. Girls slaughtered heifers for the sacrifice and boys cooked them. Boys shaped pots and bowls on the wheel and sewed garments of skin and of linen. Girls built houses and learned to sail ships. It was part of our faith that girls and boys could do everything equally.

We had allowed the children to explore each other's deltas and phalli when they were little. We told them that pleasure and knowledge were the greatest goods earth had to offer and that pursuing them would lead to happiness on earth. We even stole a motto from the Oracle of Delphi: “Know thyself.” The children were given utter freedom in sexual matters. Only the adults had to accept a life of near-chastity. Leto had devised didactic rhymes to teach the boys and girls:

The divine delta

Is Demeter's doorway.

And the precious phallus

The scepter of Osiris.

As a glowing torch lights up a dark cave,

The powerful phallus floods the divine delta

With sacred knowledge.

All this had worked wonderfully while the mountain was silent and the children were small.

But then the mountain began to make its presence known again. From time to time it would spew smoke and rain down pumice stones, and then it would grow quiet. At the same time, the children were growing older and some were beginning to itch to see the world. The island was too small for our burgeoning population; it was clear at least to Aesop and me that we couldn't stay here forever.

So I had the youngsters begin to build a boat. Using their elders' knowledge of the sea, they improvised a great galley with many sails and many oars and prepared to set out to sea.

The boat took longer to build than anyone could have foreseen. It was necessary to reinvent the art of shipbuilding there on that desolate isle. Just as the galley was nearing completion, just as the parents were starting to grow anxious about the imminent departure of their children, the conical mountain began to rumble and spew showers of stones at shorter and shorter intervals.

The sky would grow black, the waves boisterous—as if Poseidon were angry with our islanders. I was asked to pronounce on the future. So I dutifully roasted mushrooms in the golden bowl and pronounced. But it hardly took the gift of prophecy to see what was happening. The conical mountain that concealed Hades' realm was trying to tell us something. We would have to build our departure ship large enough and stout enough to carry us all away.

As I watched the great ship being built, I thought of Antiope's prophecy:
Their sons will overthrow them.
The boys on our island were gentle and kind and had been raised to consider fighting and feuding unmanly. But their temperaments had never been tested. They had not yet succumbed to Eros in his purple cloak with his tiny pointed arrows of bronze and his eyes the color of rain-drenched hyacinths. The girls had been taught to speak their ideas and opinions openly, not to defer to their brothers and cousins, and to solve all problems by rational discourse rather than flirting or fighting. We had created a society of peaceable children—but would they be as peaceable when they grew old enough to fall in love?

And how much time did we have? When the mountain threatened, it seemed to me its warnings were thunderous and the sky was often crimson with molten fire. Nobody wanted to think about this. The boat was under construction as if we had all the time in the world.

Maera had produced two boys, now ten and thirteen, and she had named them Hercules and Prometheus. Like most of the amazon mothers, she was besotted with her boys. She loved them more than life. Boys were a novelty among the amazon maidens who had mated with the Egyptian sailors, and as a result they were coddled. Girls, on the other hand, were given early responsibilities: taking care of younger siblings, organizing feasts and sacrifices, preparing for the quadrennial orgies—when the adults were allowed to mate. The girls' training for life had made them far more resilient than the boys.

But Hercules and Prometheus were born leaders. They rose to challenges other boys shrank from. Hercules had apprenticed himself to our aging captain to learn everything he could about sailing and he longed to see the world.

And the mountain was cooperating with his wishes. Its threats had become a daily occurrence. It had taken to spewing molten lava, which coursed down its sides. Aesop and I wanted to climb to the top to look into the volcano's aperture and predict when it would explode, but we never even got halfway up without having to turn back. The eruption was clearly imminent. There was nothing for us to do but to sail away.

It was not the best month for sailing. The
zephyroi
blew and the sea was full of whitecaps. The birds had gone south and the dolphins had followed. The rainy season was upon us, yet we had no choice but to set out to sea. As we embarked, the mountain was spewing lava. The sky was darkening and red fire gleamed against the storm clouds. The ship was much too small for us all. Men, women, and children crowded into the hold, sharing quarters with rams and ewes and chickens. There were boys and girls hanging over the decks and older folks hanging on to the masts for dear life. As priestess, I had to invoke Osiris and Demeter for their protection. Neither Aesop nor I was sure we would not be wrecked before we even started.

Our strongest girls and boys were at the oars, belowdecks. As we saw the mountain spew fire, they rowed. We watched the lava engulf our beloved farms and homes. We watched our mountain implode and sink into the sea, sending huge waves that nearly toppled us, that crashed on our decks, sweeping animals, food, and aged parents into the devouring waves. We could not turn back. Our mountain had become a seething pit surrounded by a rocky donut of land. The Land of the Dead had slipped beneath the sea and all the souls were drowning. I felt utterly desolate. I thought of my baby brother gone forever, of my father's bones scoured by the salt of the sea. I feared for Cleis. Hades' realm was a
place
! The vast sea bottom was
nowhere
. Or so I thought. But I could not show my fear. I was the priestess now. I had to be strong.

So I stood on deck and raised my arms in supplication to Demeter, Osiris, and finally great Poseidon. I pleaded. I begged. Despite the lurching deck we attempted to make a sacrifice, but the wind kept putting out the fire. Then I remembered what Alcaeus had said to me in Pyrrha when we were fleeing Pittacus' cohorts: “You are praying to the wrong goddess!”
Aphrodite!
In my enforced chastity, I had forgotten Aphrodite and her vast powers. That was why these disasters were befalling us! Without the life force Aphrodite embodies, there is only barrenness and despair. So I invoked my own goddess. I called on her for the first time in years.

Come to us from Crete, my lady,

We, your poor supplicants, call on you to be our ally.

Come in your chariot of flames

Drawn by your swift sparrows with whirling wings.

Leave Zeus and Ares and the other immortals

And come to us! Come to us! Come!

As I invoked my tutelary goddess, I imagined a great convocation on Mount Olympus. Demeter the great mother was arguing with Aphrodite about whose power was older and more indispensable. Poseidon was arguing with his brother Zeus, as usual, about everything. And Osiris, the ancient Egyptian god, was calling them all upstarts:

I am Osiris, oldest of old,

Savior from worms and corruption.

When I mate with my bride, my mother, great Isis,

Crops rise up under the bright light of day.

When I retreat from the earth, crops wither

And night covers all.