Sappho (7 page)

She sprang from her bed and rang for it to be removed, impatient to see the traditional masks: the supercilious young man, the scheming slave, the old man. She longed to melt into the crowds that followed the phallic symbol raised in honor of procreation and birth, all the while chanting the ancient chants. How wonderful this first day was!

Sappho set out for the baths with three of her women. In the street strolling bands of musicians recounted the exploits of the joy-god. Tales of his beauty filled all ears. Over pipes and flutes the human voice rang out—how he had turned the pirates who captured him into dolphins. Sappho loved the story—she loved all stories. She passed beneath Aeolian columns, and the owlish eyes of their decorated capitals watched as her maids took her robe and she slid into the Paros marble of the bath. Other girls were bathing, for it was their time at the pool. They chatted of plum cakes and caraway confections, of perfumes and the fine things their mothers took from their women's chests for the occasion—pale gold ornaments from Sardis, silks of Kos, scented Athenian oils, and from Thrace silver statues of griffins, herons, creatures combining man and lion, and many representations of the dolphin.

Listening, Sappho found their voices sweet and their merriment beguiling, but the observer in her did not allow her to be totally part of this or any gathering. She preferred to luxuriate in the clear warm water, handle her firm breasts, stretch her legs, wriggle her toes. She passed her hands over her belly, flat as a boy's, admiring the aristocrat's ankles. Though small, I am well made, she thought with satisfaction. She signed to her women to dry her body, which they rubbed to rosiness and covered with a single garment.

On the way to the villa their path was blocked by cavorting, caroling youths, holding bunches of grapes. She was not permitted to pass until she had plucked and nibbled some from their mouths.

At home her slaves waited to remove her robe and prepare her for the ceremony. She was handed a mirror of polished copper. She giggled with the girls at the handle in the shape of the male organ. One of the slaves went on her knees to shave the swelling mound between her legs and another her armpits, for when she led the dances, the diaphanous coan must show her statuelike through its draperies. From a milk-white glass container, spikenard of Tarsos was taken to lave on her breasts. Egyptian metopion was applied to her legs, and the palms of her hands received the scent of roses of Amathos. Her lashes were touched with gum ammoniac mixed with mastic to stiffen them, while her underarms were made sweet with marjoram, her loosened hair brushed with incense, and a comb of ivory from the Indies set in it with eight jeweled pins.

Next from her woman's chest came small alabaster boxes. The first held a white powder obtained by treating lead with vinegar. This preparation lightened Sappho's complexion. From another box came red ocher, which was brushed softly on her cheeks. The tinting continued: her lips and the aureoles of her breasts were rouged, and the outline of her eyes drawn in black fard.

Sappho looked intently at this created face. When she smiled, her women relaxed. “I will have the horns of my yearling heifer gilded. Run to the flower merchants,” she told one of the servants. “I want her garlanded and beautiful. Each day, the flowers must be fresh until she is sacrificed.”

The young woman nodded and disappeared. The decking-out continued. Massive bracelets of silver chiseled in bas relief with tiny seed pearls girded her arms; rings worked with gold thread were placed on fingers and toes. She slipped into sandals with tinkling bells, while ribbons of many colors were tied above her calf. It was time now for the coan chiton, gossamer, revealing. Two silver anklets emphasized the extreme delicacy of her limbs. Sappho waved away the amber necklace and instead bowed her head to receive a double garland of iris.

The servants stepped back and regarded their mistress with exclamations of rapture. Viewing herself from all angles, Sappho put away the mirror. “I will show myself to my noble mother.” And she went on twinkling feet past the newly painted frescoes on the walls. Trimmed with gold leaf, they depicted the dolphin cresting sea waves. It was lovely.

Kleis was still in the midst of preparation. For a woman past childbearing years, there was more foundation work. Before cosmetics could be applied, a compound of egg whites was used to eradicate wrinkles and scytharium wood to blonden her hair.

“My Sappho,” she exclaimed at seeing her, “you are beautiful today. It suits you to have left off the amber chain and chosen simple flowers.”

“I want you to be proud of me.”

“You shine with an inward glow. Many young men will look at you today. Remember, my daughter, the erotic arts are seven: the gaze with eyes cast downward and glancing sideways are the first two. Try not to look straight into the faces of those you meet, like a boy. All the fard in the world will not help you then.”

“I will remember.”

“If any become amorous, call to mind the secret of the bite: just graze the skin of him you wish to encourage.”

“So far,” Sappho replied, “I have never had to use this technique.”

“It is because of your tongue. It is too much to the point. But today you may need to remember the various body clasps…”

“Mother, I am in no hurry to find a husband.”

“The movement of the body,” Kleis continued, ignoring her daughter's comment, “the caresses that bring a man to fullness…”

Sappho sighed; she had no intention of bringing any man to fullness.

“Glottism,” her mother went on, “if it occurs either by mouth or hand, you must tell me of it immediately. That man is a suitor.”

“You've named only six,” said the meticulous Sappho.

“You've been counting!” her mother exclaimed. “Any girl who can keep track of numbers while love is being discussed, I despair of. The seventh is the kiss. But what's the use? It will never get that far.”

“I have observed,” said Sappho, “that when a woman catches herself a husband, that is the end of her.”

“Sappho, Sappho, what are you saying? Then children come—it is the beginning.”

“My children are winged words and the rustlings of thought.”

“You might as well go wash your face,” Kleis said bitterly, “if those are to be my grandchildren.”

Sappho put an arm around her mother. “Today is the first day of Dionysos, a happy day. Do not be cross with me.”

Resignedly Kleis patted her only daughter. “I worry what is to become of you when I am gone. We have lived until now from the rich patrimony of your father's house. But it is almost spent. Your brothers will follow the honorable family business of tending vineyards and trading the famed wine of Lesbos. But you are a woman. I would not want to see you sit in the corner of a brother's house.”

Sappho laughed. “Such a picture you have of me! That forlorn creature of your fears is not your Sappho. I have received true property from the golden Muses and when I die I shall not be forgot.”

The mother could always be persuaded by the daughter. She was convinced by those luminous eyes that saw where she could not. Sappho kissed her hands and fairly danced through the house to drink in the bustle. The threshold of stone was freshly washed; the doors, double and high, gleamed with scrubbing. Slaves were polishing the carved tables with their feet of cyamus. Sappho began to sing: “Gold knuckle bowls, gold knuckle bowls…,” for in them they would dip their hands between courses of flesh and dishes of fruits, both preserved and fresh. From the kitchen came the aroma of baking cakes of poppy, honey, and barley. They would feast like joyous gods; ambrosia could not be sweeter.

Incense was lit, myrrh from Ethiopia, frankincense from Somaliland. Rose petals had been scattered in the fountain at the center of the garden. Panther skins and cushions were spread everywhere. “Gold knuckle bowls,” she sang, “gold knuckle bowls.” For the optimum moment to trap Pittakos had just occurred to her.

She went in search of Alkaios to confide her plan. She found him under the colonnades of the stoa, playing dice with Pelops and his friends.

When Sappho approached, Alkaios left the game and, throwing himself to the ground, clasped and kissed her knees. “Beautiful Sappho, like Aphrodite, always different in your guises.”

“I see you have started your drinking early.”

“Wrong. I haven't started … never stopped.”

“Listen with as sober a mind as you can. It is on the fifth day we will bring down the Tyrant and his cur Pittakos.”

“The fifth day?” Alkaios was suddenly sober. The fifth day of the festival was terrible, and during the other four was not even thought about.

“Yes, when the Earth is full of evil, and the air crowded with calamity and death, and, maddened by their thymos and aphrodisiac, women girded with swinging phalluses rush through the sacred grove deflowering young maids.”

Alkaios stared at her. “Then?”

“Who will be guarding the body then? We will dig it up, fling it in the center of the agora, and set up a great cry. Everyone will rush to see.”

Alkaios looked at her intently. Sappho's white-pigmented face was expressionless. It did not even belong to her but was an invention of her slaves. The sensuous line of her body glimpsed beneath the sheer garment, the reddened teats of her breasts that seemed to break through the material, were not lost on Alkaios. “Sappho,” he said on impulse. “I need not be half charlatan, drunkard, spendthrift of my time. If you would have me, I would toss away the boys and the drink—”

“And the jokes and laughter too. No, thank you, I will have no reformed character on my hands.”

“The tongue of Sappho says one thing, but her eyes beam a different message.”

“Believe the tongue, and be my dear friend.”

He laughed unhappily. “All that is left, then, is to agree to the fifth day.”

She kissed him on the cheek as the boys summoned him with pretty chords on the lyre.

Sun had made his journey eastward when Sappho hurried to the sacred grove, where, before the temple, an altar to Dionysos had been erected. She strapped on her cothumis, the high, cork-platformed boots, Lydian made, which all participants wore. She loved being raised for this brief interval above the crowd.

The games were in progress, a mock war in which attack, defeat, and death were mimed and sung. Sappho took her place leading the mystic chants of the women—a chorus of youths answered. Garlanded sheep and oxen were herded in and sacrificed before each episode. A group of youths dressed in fawnskin, horns, and tails, created a diversion, throwing bunches of grapes and singing as they made the stamping motion used in pressing out wine. Alkaios tumbled into their midst, scattering them, for he was a sight none had seen except on painted vases. He had done himself as a silenos, a mythic creature both horse and man who lusted for the flesh of women. His feet ended in cleverly wrought hooves and he had a splendid bushy tail and movable ears, which were attached under his costume to his hands. When he neighed, the ears stood straight up. He pranced about, reciting with mock-serious intonation that only two things made human love higher than the coupling of animals. He demonstrated by seizing a pretty girl from the audience whom he made part of his act, kissing her and taking other liberties. She struggled under these public attentions, to the delight of the throng. The bolder Alkaios became, the more they roared.

“You would push and shove to get in the first row, my love,” he said to the abashed girl, then continued his lecture. “The kiss and the caress, these are human inventions. Animals do not know of them. Perhaps some of you also need instruction?” He peered quizzically at the crowd, which exploded with laughter mixed with jeers. As his caresses grew more intimate, the mood changed to one of sensuality.

“A bride for Dionysos!” The chant was taken up by a thousand voices. The silenos moved to the final position above the now screaming girl, as Sappho entered the stage with her maidens, making a living curtain. Their appearance was calming, the flow of iambic meter soothing. Sappho moved like a statue. With her verse the first day ended and the feasting began.

Day two: everyone drank Cretan wine, watching buffoons and jugglers, judging contests of lute, lyre, and zither. A straggling group of drunkards holding one another up were shooed from the arena. The chief priestess of Dionysos led her women, her feet nimble even on half-stilts. “The young king,” she sang, “bearer of Spring.” The cantata continued with a recitative of the chorus: “Thebes, pearl among cities where this son of Zeus was born. Most beautiful was the princess Semele. Ravished of the All-Powerful, she bore a son divine.”

“A son divine.” The line was repeated to kettledrum and flute. The priestess's eyes flared like torches, the expanded pupils shut out reason. She approached the freshly painted joy-god. How beautiful he was in all his limbs. Raised upon her clogs she pressed her mouth against the cold marble of his perfect flesh, offering him her breasts, cupped in her hands. And when he would not have them, she pressed her throbbing body against his, calling out a poem in praise of his prowess at love. She reached the length of him and, taking the jewels from her own neck, placed them around his. Nor would she climb down from him. The god possessed her. The crowd did not move, they did not breathe. Sappho, leading a section, no longer sang.

She, too, watched.

The votary mounted the sculptured penis and rhythmically roused herself against it. The audience clapped in time to her wilder and wilder gyrations—an orgiastic virgin, receiving climax after climax as the gift of this great god. She fell back sated and fainting into the arms of her women, who covered her still-shuddering body with kisses, taking with supple and darting fingers the hot moisture that lay in the three most intimate folds of her body. When she was stretched full-length upon the grass, Sappho came to her and raised her head so that she might sip rose-colored wine from a chrysolite goblet. The priestess opened her eyes, slowly coming back to her own form outstretched there before the multitude. When she heard how the god had honored her, a virgin, she was content.