Sappho's Leap (36 page)

“Mother! You are interrupting the spell!” Cleis hissed. “Hush!”

Artemisia repeated the spell, twice. I knew we would have to pay for it thrice.

When the spell was done, Cleis took the nest and eggs and secreted them under her chiton. She was to sleep with them under her pillow for seven nights.

Artemisia took me aside. “Would you have news of Alcaeus?” she asked.

“Gladly!”

“Then come back to me alone!”

“When?”

“As soon as you can!”

“Let me escort my daughter home and I will return!”

Artemisia winked at me. She really did look like Herpetia the snake goddess. My blood froze. Had she transformed my dear Alcaeus into a serpent? I wanted him back in any form at all!

Some say a line of ships

Is the most beautiful thing

On the dark earth—

But I say it is what you love!

—S
APPHO

O
H, TO HEAR NEWS
of Alcaeus! I wanted to return to see Artemisia immediately, but first I was pressed into grandmotherly duties. Cleis was upset and needed me to take care of Hector. Of course I complied. It was my joy to take my darling five-year-old grandson out walking in Mytilene.

We went to the harbor to see the boats from all over the world. Boats from Egypt and Phoenicia, boats from Lydia, Samos, Chios, Crete. We stared at the sailors working in the whipping winds and I thought about my seaborne adventures. I missed my old soul and sea mates Alcaeus, Praxinoa, and Aesop, but I also knew I was lucky to have had such a variegated life. I thought of my travels and I smiled to myself. A singer must have something to sing about and the gods had given me a cornucopia of loves and adventures. Ah, if only I could have kept Alcaeus! The more time elapsed, the more I missed him. Phaon was a callow boy. He was skillful in bed but lacked the cleverness to keep me. He was no Alcaeus. Alcaeus was a philosopher and singer as well as a lover. Phaon was just an ambitious youth. When the lovemaking was over, he bored me.

APHRODITE:
You see, a woman like Sappho needs more than a stiff phallus!

ZEUS:
She needs a touch of my thunderbolt. That's all she needs. I'd take the daughter, but the mother's too old for me now!

APHRODITE:
You old goat! What makes you think the daughter would want you? Besides, Sappho loves Alcaeus; she'll never play him false again. I'll see to that!

ZEUS:
Both Hephaestus and I know how much you value loyalty!

APHRODITE:
Like father, like daughter!

Wasn't it possible Alcaeus and I would meet again somewhere, somehow? This
could
not be the end of so great a love! Great loves have legs and wings. They are substantial. They do not dissipate so easily. Great loves do not end because of a callow boy or a callow girl. Great loves have staying power. Or so I told myself.

We wandered around the quay in the whipping wind. Hector could not take his eyes off the boats.

“When I am big, I will sail the seas!” he said, less in baby prattle than big-boy speech. “I can say a poem about the sea. Want to hear it?”

“Yes, my darling boy.”

Hector stood tall in the furious wind of the harbor and recited:

This wave repeats the one before!

It will take much time

To bale it out!

Let us strengthen the ship's sides

And race into a safe harbor!

Let not soft fear

Seize our strong hearts!

Let every man be steadfast!

Our noble fathers

Who lie beneath the earth,

The earth, the earth, the earth…

Here he faltered and spoke baby prattle again. “Grandmother, I can't remember!”

“Splendid! You take my breath away! And do you know the way the song ends?”

He shook his curls.

So I sang out:

Let us not disgrace our noble fathers

Who lie beneath the earth.

They built our city and our spirits!

Let us not bow down to tyranny!

“And do you know who wrote that song of valor and the sea?”

Hector shook his head. His baby cheeks wobbled.

“It was…” Here I stopped, suddenly afraid. Should I tell the child it was his own grandfather, Alcaeus—or might that get the boy in trouble? I decided to wait till Hector was older to tell the whole tale. Perhaps by then Pittacus would no longer be in power. Oh, Pittacus had said he pardoned Alcaeus, but Alcaeus had still not returned. Did he know something ominous I did not?

“It was a great singer of Aeolic Greek—but his name I cannot remember! Where did you learn that song, my beautiful boy?”

“From my nurse! She taught it to me when we first sailed to Pyrrha.”

So it was true that the people still sang the songs of Alcaeus! Thank the gods!

Already my darling boy was getting ready to be a man. Next year, he would leave the women's quarters and start his education as an aristocrat of Mytilene. He would be a cupbearer like my brothers and go on to study statecraft and war, how to be eloquent at a symposium and in the agora, how to defend the
polis
and subjugate women! Impossible that this sweet little boy should grow up into a tyrant.

“Hector—do you know how much I love you?” I asked.

“How much?” he asked.

“More than sunlight and honey!”

“More than fish?”

“Much more than
fish
!”

“More even than eels from over the seas?”

“
Much
more than eels!” I picked him up in my arms and hugged him. What a dear little boy!

At that moment, I saw Phaon coming out of Artemisia's house on the harbor. He ducked his head and tried to avoid me, but I boldly ran up to him with the child in my arms.

“What are you doing here? I thought you were to look after the students!”

“I had come to deliver the
oboloi.
I will return to Eresus right away.”

I looked at him skeptically. “How could you get to Eresus and back again in this wind?”

“On the wings of love and duty, my lady,” Phaon said.

“More love? Or more duty?” I said cynically.

“Equal measures of both.”

“Fine, let us return to Artemisia's house and see if what you say is true.”

Was I jealous? I asked myself. How could I be jealous when Phaon actually meant so little to me? He had hurt my pride with his lying. It was clear that he thought he could romance my students and Artemisia without my knowing. I suppose I was angry to be taken for a fool.

We entered her house, where I demanded to see Artemisia at once. At first her slaves demurred, but then, realizing it was
I
, they ushered me in with the child in my arms and Phaon by my side.

Artemisia was surprised we had come back so soon.

“Show me the
oboloi
Phaon brought for you! I want to be sure they are the right ones!”

Without a pause, Artemisia produced the
oboloi
.

“Good,” I said. “I am happy Phaon is so efficient.”

“He is a
good
boy,” Artemisia said, without a trace of irony.

“Go back to Eresus,” I said to Phaon, “and tell my students I will be back soon. Come to fetch me in a week.”

“Very well, my lady,” said Phaon, bowing low and taking his leave.

“A beautiful fellow,” said Artemisia.

“
Too
beautiful,” I said.

“He looks like a
kouros
made by the greatest sculptor,” Artemisia said.

“Agreed,” I said, “but I worry that he knows it all too well.”

“Ah,” said Artemisia, “beautiful men are a blessing and yet a curse. When we find them beautiful, so does everyone else. It is said that Alcaeus suffered that fate when young.”

“What
of
Alcaeus? You promised to tell me.” Artemisia was quiet for a moment, simply gazing at me. I could hear the abacus clicking in her head. Should she sell the information like her sparrows' eggs or give it for free, hoping for even greater future gain? She paused and thought. Then she decided on the latter.

“A client of mine has just now come from Delphi, where she saw Alcaeus. He spoke of yearning to return to Lesbos. He spoke of you, Sappho, with great longing.”

“He did?”

“Yes. He was seen in Delphi traveling with two friends—one a dark-skinned former slave who makes fables and another former slave, who tells the world she is queen of the amazons and needs to know the future of her people. It is said that a centaur accompanied them—which must be rubbish, since there are no centaurs except in legend.”

“I know some very wise centaurs—wiser than men.”

“Remarkable,” said Artemisia, clearly taking me for a madwoman but refusing to battle on this account when more
oboloi
were at stake.

My heart began to flutter like a trapped bird. Sweat poured from my armpits. My skin prickled. A shiver raced down my spine.

“Tell me more!”

“More I cannot tell. All I know is that the woman seen with him had but one breast and a brand on her forehead like an escaped slave. She was no mistress, but a boon companion to Alcaeus. And this other man—he had a dusky complexion and a long white beard. As I said earlier, he is a fabulist.”

“Aesop—the famous maker of wise fables—do you not
know
him? He is famed throughout the Greek-speaking world! As famed as Alcaeus.”

“I can make my own fables,” Artemisia said with a laugh. “Who needs a
slave
to make them?”

Artemisia was a rather vulgar woman who thought song and fable were quite superfluous unless they earned political power. Or
oboloi.

“Is this your grandson?”

“Yes—the joy of my life!”

“And now all you need is a granddaughter!” Artemisia laughed and laughed—rather cruelly, I thought. “What will you pay for one?”

“I have already paid dearly.”

“Yes, but there is one more thing I might do to grant your wish.”

“What is that?”

“I cannot say. Power spoken dissipates like fog.”

“How much?”

“I will not charge you until the babe is born and it is a daughter. I will take that risk.”

Surely this was a trick. Surely the treacherous Artemisia had something up her sleeve. Still, I decided to risk it.

“I am a betting woman. So be it.”

“Sappho, you will not be sorry.”

“Whenever anyone says I will not be sorry, I
know
I shall be! But do your magic! I will take the chance. With the help of the gods, all will turn out well!”

APHRODITE
:
You see! She puts her life in our hands. Let us not disappoint her!

ZEUS
:
What do I see? I see a poor deluded woman! An old woman! Who cares about an old woman?

APHRODITE
:
I will make you care when I win my bet!

ZEUS:
Daughter, I doubt it. When you have lived as long as I have and had as many silly women, you know the species Jar too well to have any illusions about their common sense.

APHRODITE:
Sappho is different from other women.

ZEUS:
Hardly. She is just like Leda with whom I played the swan, Europe with whom I played the bull, and even Metis the titaness. I fooled even her! She was said to be invincible, yet I conquered even her. And my daughter Athena, born from my own skull, is here on Mount Olympus to prove it!

APHRODITE:
Sappho will surprise even you!

ZEUS:
No woman surprises me
—
not even Hera
—
that scheming bitch.

APHRODITE:
Did anyone ever tell you that you hate women?

ZEUS:
Me? I love them. Look at how many I've bedded!

APHRODITE:
But none of them twice
—
or so I've been told.

“Very well,” said Artemisia, rubbing her hands together. “Do I have your word on this?”

“My word is golden.”

Hector and I went out and walked to the harbor again.

“I do not like her,” Hector said. “She's mean.”

“What a clever boy you are!” I said and pressed him tight. We returned to the house of Cleis and her husband.

Cleis' husband was repulsive—at least to me. He was large and square and he could not utter a sentence without stumbling over his words like a peasant. Oh, he was rich. His family grew and pressed all the olive oil in Lesbos and from that they had branched out to buy more and more land from the old aristocratic families who had fallen on hard times. In a war, food is necessary for armies, and Pittacus had patronized the family of my son-in-law and made them rich; after that he made them new nobility.

My daughter might be angry with her mother, but her mother's hot blood ran through her veins. She could not quash
that
heritage. Aphrodite ruled her even if she did not yet know it.

“Welcome, honored Mother,” said Elpenor.

“Thank you, honored son-in-law,” I said. I could hardly look at him without being revolted. How could this boob have produced this beautiful boy? Hector had all his mother's beauty and none of his father's bumbling. He was a golden boy, as Cleis was my golden girl. The blood of Alcaeus ran in their veins. Wit and beauty were their legacy. So what if Cleis found me troublesome now! So what if I irritated her as much as she irritated me! She was my bone and blood. Someday she would have a daughter and understand everything I understood. Then we would be friends—the better friends for having been so prickly to each other. This I knew.