Sappho (44 page)

The night was warm, unlocking fragrances whose loosened stoppers made the senses reel. There was no longer much for Phaon to do. The wind did his job for him, and he continued to lean against the ropes. Even in a posture of relaxation his body held the hint of dynamic power.

Sappho continued to sing to herself. He strained to hear. She smiled; he also wanted to say, “I heard Sappho sing.”

The moon rose, gibbous, as though squeezed from its perfect form by the hand of a child. Night engulfed them. They moved silently, parting black waters. “Phaon,” she called.

He was by her in a moment. “Lady?”

“We will return now.”

She could feel his disappointment, for he was as transparent as her youngest hetaera.

“It was satisfactory … the sailing?”

“It was completely satisfactory, but I have finished my song. However, it is certain the nine Muses travel with me and have enjoyed the outing, even as I. This boat of yours shall be hired again.”

“Tomorrow night?”

“I do not know. I will send word.”

“You were comfortable, Lady? And you had all you wished?”

“It was very pleasant.”

“Then I shall not disturb the rugs and cushions, but leave them as they are.”

She nodded; the point was too trivial to discuss. They rethreaded the passage. He furled the sails and lowered the mast beside them, rolling them together into a compact bundle. She knew everything that he did, memorized each motion. When he handed her into the small cockleshell, she thought his fingers lingered over hers.

*   *   *

Sappho sent word by a slave that it was not convenient to come the next day, or even the two days past that. This she did because she was mad to be there. For such desire had leapt upon her as she had not known since the golden days of her hetaerae. She could think of nothing but Phaon, and spent the time until she saw him reconstructing all his movements and everything he had said. Closing her eyes she felt again the lingering fingers that had not wished to leave hers. She began to plan their next encounter.

None knew love's strategy better than Sappho. And what was Aphrodite's strategy? Had the goddess given her a chance to relive her youth? Or was it a cruel taunt?

“I know the path of my wisdom!” she flung at the Kyprian-born, but knew she would not follow it. My brain is blighted, she told herself, because what started in a light, carefree manner had laid hold of her heart. “The chain of Fate binds all.” Was Phaon disappointed that she put off the day? Did he think of her as she did of him? Did he think of her at all?

Another question followed closely. “Is it possible,” she asked in wonder, “that I love again?”

*   *   *

Once again her slaves made processional and Phaon's craft was filled with fresh incense, even more glorious clusters of flowers, fine soft Amorgos drapery, all magic that presaged her presence.

The small, light vessel danced impatiently, and the same Nubian slave rowed her to it.

As before, Phaon raised her to his ship. He was more beautiful than she remembered, his lashes sweeping his cheek as sweetly as any girl's. He found courage to look directly in her face, but only for a moment. Once again he stared at the planking. “Welcome, O Sappho.”

“Peace to you, Phaon.”

He did not release her hand but kept it as he led her to the place prepared for her. When she seated herself upon the skins and rich materials, he said haltingly, “Since you so love flowers, Lady…” and held out to her a woven garland of violets and crocus.

To accept it she must remove the mantle and coan veil.

Phaon was spellbound, for Sappho's chiton revealed her form—even to the mound of Aphrodite, which her women had plucked clean of hair, rouging and outlining the nether lips.

Sappho lowered her head that he might slip the chain of flowers over her more easily. He knelt to perform this service, and her breasts with their delicately tinted paps swung against him. Phaon jumped back as though he had touched fire.

Coolly, she said, “I give you thanks, Phaon. The flowers were a pretty thought.”

She drew the coan wrap about her. It did not obscure, but only lay another fold between them, making her filmy and unreal. Her body seemed shot through with the gold of a constantly disappearing thread. Phaon retreated to his oars and guided the bark from the harbor.

Sappho picked up her lyre and sang as before, very softly to herself. When Phaon secured the sail, she called to him, saying, “O Captain, I would have a companion to share a goblet of white wine with me.”

As he came toward her, she was conscious of his male smell even among the perfumes and sweet oils. It disturbed her. It had always disturbed her.

“Will you pour?” she asked, handing him a flagon. It was encrusted with jewels as shells at the sea bottom were encrusted with barnacles. He took the decanter almost reluctantly and spilled to Poseidon.

Sappho frowned slightly. “I see through some oversight my servants put in only one goblet.” Her expression changed as though she had at that instant solved some weighty problem. “Therefore you must sit, that we may share it.”

“I am not worthy…” he protested in real agony.

She smiled sweetly on him. “I make you worthy by my request.”

He sat—Sappho desired it, what else could he do? Many scents wafted over him and his head reeled, encompassed as he was by a garden of strange delights.

Sappho sipped from the single goblet, around which ran a frieze of Dionysian dancers. She regarded him over the rim, leisurely.

Aware of her scrutiny, he evaded her glance by lowering his, but that brought his eyes along her body and he quickly raised them again. She passed the cup to him without a word, and without a word he drank. Then exclaimed, “Is this wine?”

She laughed softly in her throat. “Of course not. It is nectar stolen from Clymene, shapely daughter of Ocean, who bedded with Iapetus and gave birth to Prometheus and Atlas and Epimetheus.”

Phaon stopped drinking. “Epimetheus,” he said, “brings bad luck to those who must toil for their bread.”

“Not bad luck, just luck—both good and bad.”

“By your hire of my boat I have been granted better luck than I ever knew before.”

“Is the pay generous? I did not inquire.”

“I did not mean the pay. In your presence, O great Sappho, the world is remade.”

She laughed. “By your talk, Captain, I think I was right, and that this simple wine you drink surely is not from grapes trod out by oxen led round the millstone.”

“What then?” he asked.

“My ladies may have packed, by mistake, something stronger, a Thessalian brew, perhaps, concocted by Cotytto herself, made of incantations and special potions.”

“If witchcraft is your meaning, then is there no need to drink, for I am under Sappho's spell.” He seemed to hold his breath as he waited to see what effect the boldness of his words would have.

“Did my music please you then?”

“Yes … no … you, yourself. I never saw a lady of your rank so … close before.”

“Oh, if that is all. There are many with more grace than I.”

“I believe your veracity, great one, but not your judgment.”

Sappho laughed musically, like the cadence of bells. “Tonight I want company, Phaon. Listen and I will sing you a tale.” Sappho chose an epic such as would fascinate a man. Her song was about Theseus, who, after slaying the Minotaur, freed from the monster seven boys and seven girls.

Phaon was enraptured. He listened at her feet as she chanted. He is like a child, she thought, a beautiful child. And she wove her stories and songs about him, with each binding him more surely.

She told of King Priam of Ilium when he received the news that his son Hector was returning with a bride, the daughter of the King of Cilian Thebes:

With power and speed to his legs came the herald,

Idaeus, announcing this wonderful news …

Phaon watched her face and she whispered to him, “These tidings spread all over Asia and turned to legend forever.”

Hector and all his companions are bringing

from sacred Thebes and the plains of Placia,

over the salty sea by ship,

a delicate dark-eyed girl: Andromache.

Many the golden bracelets

and purple stuffs the winds are bringing

and trinkets bespangled;

numberless, too, the silver cups and ivory chasings.

So uttered the herald, and Hector's dear father

nimbly arose as the news

sped to their friends through the ample city.

Then the people of Ilium

harnessed their mules to the smoothly moving cars;

and all the women in one,

with the prettily ankled girls,

ascended—the daughters of Priam apart.

The men had the horses yoked

to the chariots; every youth

was there; till a mighty people moved

mightily along.

And the charioteers drove

their jingling horses on …

She glanced at Phaon. He had not moved. He begged her not to stop, and she told him of the warriors returning after the fall of Troy.

“It is a bedazzlement to hear you,” the young sailor said in awe.

Sappho stretched her arms lazily above her head. “I am weary. Take me back.”

“Must I?”

She smiled gently at him. “Yes.”

“But you will visit my boat another time? Not to hire it, but as an honored guest?”

She studied him a moment, as though making up her mind. “That would be delightful,” she said, playing the great lady—when she wanted to press him, mouth him, frenzy him.

He suggested a day. She replied that she would study her commitments and send an answer.

*   *   *

She spent the time at home working out an ode in the epic vein, for this is what fascinated him. She decided to retell in her own way the tale of Prometheus and his theft of fire. When humankind received this godlike gift, Zeus and his race, in vengeance, had no more face-to-face dealings with either man or woman but came thereafter only in dreams and portents.

Sappho was pleased with her story, certain that Phaon would like it. So, she was to be his guest. Guest-lover, she whispered fiercely to herself. For she could not again keep her body from his.

She had conceived a superstition that semen from his young and powerful loins entering her, would act as a potion and keep her young. She needed his youth and beauty, and although he did not know it, he needed her not at all.

She was reminded of a favorite love poem, that of Selene, the Moon, in which it was said that the goddess saw by her pale light a fair young shepherd boy sleeping near the entrance to a cave on Mount Latmos. And she, being enamored of his grace and comeliness, determined to keep him there, just as he was, forever asleep and forever young. She fed her passion for him nightly, rousing him with her kisses, exciting him with her touch, so sensual that in his sleep he moaned and cried out and his erection lasted until she slid from him at morning. The name of the youth was Endymion. And though she possessed him each night and seduced and inflamed him, Selene never let him wake. And he never saw her, who was the mistress of his slumbering body. She allowed him the most erotic dreams of her, and pictured herself to him as she would be: a maiden both wanton and pure, who by accident it seemed, tripped and fell across his prone figure, tearing her chiton so that it did not protect her. She then cajoled the East Wind into stripping Endymion of his clothing. Her lust for him was never ending and never satisfied. And Endymion knew sensations that only gods know when they mate.

“Come to me, Moon goddess, and advise me in my sleep,” Sappho murmured. And in the morning, more strongly than ever, she knew she must keep Phaon forever asleep, allow him to see her only by dim torchlight, spin him tales of heroes and bring delight to his body.

She could do this magic because she was Sappho. And magic was the main ingredient of her small self that stretched to encompass what she wished.

So on the night agreed upon, she commanded Niobe to fetch her most skillful women and with consummate art was again prepared. Very lovely she seemed, and enticing. “Yes,” she told her women, “I am the Moon.”

They looked at one another without comprehension. Niobe alone smiled; her mistress often spoke in such fashion. Riddles, it seemed to the others, but Niobe knew she spoke with gods.

Sappho was driven to her Endymion, who stood in the bow of his long ship straining his eyes toward shore. She was handed down from the chariot and, light-footed, ran to the small boat where the enormous Nubian waited to row her out.

Phaon lifted her to the deck and was instantly wrapped in a cloud of scents, both tranquil and disturbing. “You are like a thistle, Lady. Welcome.”

“Thank you. I feel welcome.”

He led her to her bower, but this time he had provided the picnic.

“How lovely,” she exclaimed at the care with which each item had been arranged. The food was poorer and coarser than she had tasted since high Pyrrha, but it was served with flowers as beautiful as any she had ever gathered.

“It is only Lesbian wine—” he began.

She interrupted. “Than which there is none better. My brothers are both growers and sellers.”

“Sit then, Lady, and once the craft is free of the harbor, we will taste of it.”

“So grant the gods.” And to herself she promised to taste other things as well.

Tonight he did not run up the sail, but let the ship rock gently as he came to her side. They poured to the gods and then he poured for her from the mixing bowl. “May every good attend you, most dazzling of women.”