Sappho's Leap (38 page)

When I no longer care for her gifts

Let me die!

Clandestine love,

Persuasive presents,

A scented bed

Are the blooms of youth!

When a man grows old,

These gifts are fled!

He takes no pleasure

From the radiance of the sun!

“But you will never grow old, Phaon. Aphrodite has seen to that!” I said coldly.

“I don't know what you mean.”

“You know perfectly well,” I said. “Phaon—you and I must talk.”

“With joy, my lady!”

“Don't
my lady
me! Come to me later in my library, after the midday meal.”

“With greatest pleasure, my lady Sappho.”

He betook himself in all his beauty back to the apple grove to continue gathering wood.

Dica and Atthis stayed with me on bended knee. I caught Dica gazing after Phaon dreamily. Then she looked down and twisted the new gold ring on her finger.

We finished the sacrifice, bade Cleon and Castor tend the fire and roast the meat for our meal later that day. I put my arm around Dica and walked with her into the house. Atthis returned to her chamber in the
gynaikeion
.

In my library, beside another applewood fire, I questioned the shy Dica.

“My girl, what is that ring?”

“Sappho—I am so glad you asked! Phaon loves me! We are to be married!”

I looked at silly Dica with love and pity. “And how do you know this?”

“He
told
me! He plighted his troth to me. He says he loves me above all mortal women. He says that only Aphrodite is more beautiful.”

I looked at Dica, with her lovely curly reddish hair, bound in a gold-embroidered ribbon from Sardis. I saw her round, swelling breasts, the blush that rose on her cheeks when she spoke of love. The tenderness with which she pronounced the name
Phaon
. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Poor darling! Poor sweet girl! I saw
myself
when I first fell for Alcaeus. I saw the whole tribe of maidens back to Hera. Back to Helen. Back to Leto, mother of Apollo. I saw Europa mastered by the bull and Leda seduced by the swan. I wanted to hold her and kiss her and at the same time slap her!

“Dica, Dica, Dica,” I said.

“What is the matter, Sappho?”

“What is the matter? What is the matter? The matter is
Aphrodite
. The matter is love and madness. The matter is Eros with his poisoned arrows. The matter is youth. The matter is fire in the blood.”

“I don't understand, my teacher, my mother, my beloved singer.”

“Of course you don't. It will take another twenty years before you even
begin
to.”

“Sappho, I am scared. Doesn't he love me? He gave me this ring. It is pure gold.”

“And did you ask him where he
got
the ring?”

“Why should I ask? That would be ungrateful.”

“Give me the ring,” I said.

“I swore never to take it off,” said Dica. “It is bad luck ever to remove it, Phaon says.”

“Don't worry. The spell cannot so easily be broken.”

Reluctantly, she gave the ring to me. I looked inside it. Engraved in tiny letters was this sentence: “
Panaenus made me for the great Artemisia who plights her troth to beautiful Phaon beloved of Aphrodite.
”

“Dica, did you
read
what it says inside?”

“That would be bad luck!”

“That would be
smart
! Let me read it to you.” And I slowly read the awful inscription aloud. Dica looked confused. Then she looked stunned. Then she began to cry. She blubbered, “But it can't be true! He now loves me!”

“Then why did he give you the ring Artemisia gave
him
without even bothering to have her inscription scratched out? Surely that would have been an easy enough thing to do.”

“Then he
doesn't
love me?”

“I'm afraid he loves no one but himself.”

“Sappho—I may be pregnant. What shall I do?”

I took the girl in my arms while she sobbed and rocked her as if she were a small child.

“We will worry about the baby soon enough. First you must weep out all the tears you have inside you.”

“That will take years! I will never stop weeping!”

“You think that
now
, but the truth is you
will
stop weeping. I promise you, you will even
laugh
about this one day. Love is not a fatal disease but a powerful lesson. It will never stop teaching you about yourself.”

“I will never stop weeping.”

“You most certainly will—and sooner than you know. You will stop weeping and start laughing. Love is tragic at first, but in time it becomes comic. All you have to do is
wait
.”

“My father will kill me if I come home pregnant!”

“Then you will not come home pregnant!”

“What will I do? I cannot kill his baby, I love him!”

“It's yours to do with as you will. It hardly belongs to Phaon. If you have it, you will never regret it. If you lose it, it's the will of the gods. All in good time, all in good time we will understand what the future has in store.”

“How can you be so calm?”

“Because I am old. I have lived through many shipwrecks. I know what I know. You will too, someday. Let me tell you a story. When I was just the age that you are now, I also fell in love with a beautiful young man.”

“Who was it?”

“He was a great poet and a great warrior—Alcaeus of Lesbos.”

“The one who wrote the legendary songs?”

“The very same.”

“What happened?”

“I fell in love—precipitously, disastrously, completely.”

“And then what happened?” Dica had stopped crying. Now she was curious about my story.

“Ah, Dica—I will tell you the whole story if you will dry those pretty eyes. I will tell all—but not just now.”

“When, Sappho, when?”

“I will tell you all after I have attended to some other business. Go and be calm. Trust in the power of Aphrodite. I will come to you soon and tell all.”

Dica ran off to the women's quarters with dry eyes.

After our midday meal of heifer, rice, olives, all washed down with wine from our family vineyards, I met with Phaon as I had promised. He came into my library, looking as beautiful as ever.

“You called, my lady Sappho?”

“I think you know why,” I said.

Phaon opened his big eyes at me as if he knew nothing. Innocence. His look was pure innocence.

“
What life, what pleasure is there without golden Aphrodite
?” I said, quoting him, quoting Mimnermus.

“I don't know what you mean,” the boy lied. “I worship you, my lady, above all other women.”

“Come, Phaon, truth is the only love we owe each other. We have shared the pleasure of the bed—one of Aphrodite's greatest gifts. Let us not insult each other with lies after such intimacy.”

“I don't know what you mean,” said Phaon, fluttering his long black lashes.

I gave the boy a swift slap on the cheek. “Do you remember now?” I asked.

There was a red mark where I had struck him. Now he began to cry great round tears, which only made his eyes look more beautiful. He sobbed more than Dica. Oh, it was an awful sight, to see this grown man cry!

“It's not your fault, Phaon. Aphrodite decreed all this. She is the queen of madness and lust, of aching loins and throbbing deltas. She makes the phallus stand and the mind relax into submission. I cannot blame you entirely. But I can exact payment. I can demand justice.”

“What sort of justice, my lady?”

“You will never see Dica again, or me, or Artemisia. You will leave this place, but you will be bound by my wishes until I release you.”

Phaon looked frightened. Was I about to enslave him? In my own way, yes.

“You will go to Mytilene and seduce my daughter Cleis. You will stay with her until she bears a beautiful daughter. Then you will bring her and the baby and my grandson to me and disappear forever!”

“Never to see you again? I cannot bear it!”

“You'll manage—with Aphrodite's help!”

“What shall I do with all the papyri I have transcribed?”

“Leave them with me! They are the least you owe me.”

“But I love you. I love you with all my heart.”

“Then show your love with your obedience to me.”

Phaon knew now he had no choice. He took his boat, and before sundown was bound for Mytilene in the frigid wind.

I am not one of those with a spiteful temperament.

I have a gentle heart.

—S
APPHO

A
FTER PHAON LEFT FOR
Mytilene, my brother arrived. Charaxus had not aged well. He looked as puffy as his wife Rhodopis. And he was getting old. Was it possible I looked as old as he? I was the elder, and yet I felt much younger! Song keeps you young, I suppose. Or perhaps it was love. Aphrodite had breathed her hot breath on my life and kept it warm!

APHRODITE:
That's for sure!

ZEUS:
Oh, you credulous girl!

APHRODITE:
Why credulous? No one escapes my power for long. Even you succumb to desire, Father.

ZEUS:
Had I ravished you, you'd be more compliant and less arrogant!

APHRODITE:
You revolt me.

“Rhodopis bade me come, my sister. She said I must help you in any way I can!”

“Well, there's a change!”

“You underestimate Rhodopis, Sappho. She has grown. She is no longer the Rhodopis of Naucratis. She's a good woman now. My influence, I think.”

“She certainly has grown,” I said. “Sideways.”

“It must have been our baby. Her pregnancy quite distended her. She will get back her shape in time. I know it.”

I looked at my brother. Was it possible the gods had given all the brains to women and had none left over for the men? Or was it simply that the phallus drained the brain of wisdom? No. Alcaeus was clever. Aesop was clever. Even Chiron was clever. Only my brother had forfeited his intellect.

“Let us not discuss your lawful wife, nor the baby she bought off some slave and pretended had come from her sullied womb.”

“Sappho, that is my own dear son.”

“I would not lie to you, Charaxus. Honesty is kind. It is the only kindness we know. I will honor my nephew however Rhodopis got him. He is my kin as you are. Do you know why I have called you here?”

“No.”

“Let me take you back to your slavery in Naucratis many years ago. You promised to be forever in my debt and to repay in time. Will you keep your word or die and go straight to a traitor's grave?”

Charaxus looked perplexed. Then, slowly, recollection dawned. Mnemosyne, goddess of memory, found him.

“I remember, sister. What do you require of me?”

“Take my student Dica to Artemisia in Mytilene and do it privily. Tell no one—not even your wife Rhodopis. Can you manage that?”

“What if she presses me?”

“Be strong. Be silent. Keep this one secret in your life. Are you a man or not?”

“Of course I am a man!”

“Then
do
something for once without consulting her! I was your sister before she was your wife! Do you remember how we played in Eresus when we were small? Do you remember how we played that the Athenians would come to enslave us?”

Charaxus looked down. He could not look me in the eye. “I do, sister.”

“Then for the sake of loyalty, of kinship, of all the gods, take this girl to Artemisia without telling Rhodopis!”

“I will, Sappho.”

“Do you swear on our sacred father's honor?”

“I do, Sappho.”

“Do you swear on the ghost of our beloved mother?”

“I do, sister.”

“Do you swear on the blessed lives of the next generation?”

“I do, Sappho.”

“Then here is what you must do.”

Whereupon I carefully instructed him to take Dica to Artemisia in Mytilene and pay for the cleaning of her womb. Charaxus looked at me wide-eyed. Women's mysteries somewhat embarrassed him. He knew
of
Artemisia, but naturally he had never been in her inner sanctum, seeking counsel, and like many men, he believed her to be a witch, like Circe.

I read his mind, hardly a difficult task. “She is no witch, my brother, but just a greedy woman who has grown rich off other women's desperation. She will not bite you.”

“I am not afraid of her!” my brother snapped.

“Just as you are not afraid of your wife,” I smiled.

“Sappho—do not mock me.”

“Did I mock you when you enslaved yourself willingly? Hardly. But I see it has taught you nothing. You will always be a slave to someone—if not to the enemy, then to some woman. Come, Charaxus, your good sister Sappho will save you.”

I put my arms around him and kissed him tenderly. Charaxus shed a tear, then quickly wiped the corner of his eye.

“Oh, Sappho—how can I repay you?”

“You know perfectly well how! Pay me the lawful share of the wine crop! Send me the
oboloi
you owe. Give me a fair accounting. Did I quibble about payment when I liberated you in Egypt?”

“But Rhodopis claims she has
saved
our wine trade and therefore deserves the lion's share! She spends and spends! I can never make enough to keep her!”

“The lion's share! Would that Aesop were here to make a fable of it! And you? Are you a lion or a mouse? Would you cheat your sister for your whore? Many men have done this, but I thought you were more honorable. Now I see I was wrong!”

Charaxus looked sheepish. He wavered between family honor and his fear of Rhodopis. I knew him so well. I could see the conflict on his face.