Sappho's Leap (20 page)

“Every month we offer our own blood to the goddess. It keeps her alive. But the priestesses must all be past the age of bleeding. It is their job to collect and offer the blood, not to provide it. They are the goddess's nursemaids. It is a great honor offered only to women past child-bearing.”

Praxinoa and I must have looked strange because Penthesilea quickly added, “Oh, yes, I'm sure you've heard we sacrifice captured men to our goddess. But it is not the truth. Most of the things said of us are not the truth. We are said to grow faint and weak at the sight of warrior men. The truth is they grow faint and weak at the sight of us! We do not maim little boys, nor do we worship Ares and Artemis or couple in the woods at random with tribes of marauding men. We do not seek out war and conquest—though at times we have to fight to preserve our community against outsiders. Men try to humble us by spreading rumors about us. If that doesn't work, they resort to rape. The truth is that strong women in armor arouse irrepressible ardor in most men. Then, surprised and distressed by their own emotions, they can think of nothing but how to destroy us. We turn their vision of the world upside down—and men can tolerate anything but that.”

As she spoke, she led us to another cave, where colts were nurtured. They too lay on sheepskin rugs, and some were nursed by amazon mothers whose single breasts gave copious amounts of milk.

“We are attempting to nurture them with our own milk in the hope it will solve the mystery of their withered wings.”

“Did your horses always have wings?”

“That is a fascinating story. Early in our history, when all the amazons lived near the Black Sea, we were already skilled in riding and training the fleetest horses. It was said by our enemies that our horses must have wings—so swift were they. But whether this was legend or fact, it is impossible to say. Then, somewhere back in the days of the first great queen Penthesilea, the hero Bellerophon mounted and tamed the winged horse Pegasus in order to kill the monster Chimaera. Bellerophon himself was greatly aided by the amazons. In fact, his steed Pegasus was able to shelter for a time among the amazon mares on the sacred island of Aretias, where our steeds were bred and trained. When he departed, all our colts had wings, and for a long time after that we bred the horses with the greatest wings and greatly increased their size and span. We were afraid of no one in those days. We could fight, we could fly, we were like goddesses upon the earth. Then, little by little, our colts began to be born with smaller and smaller wings—or sometimes none at all.”

“Then you must attract Pegasus to your mares and keep him with them—if only for a night!”

“But how?”

I had a vague memory of the legends of Pegasus, born of the wisdom of the moon goddess, flying on the wings of her inspiration from ancient Egypt. Didn't Pegasus have a female counterpart called Aganippe? Wasn't she the winged mare who haunts our dreams? If only Isis were here to instruct me! Isis would know how to attract the ancient mate of Pegasus, then Pegasus himself!

“Let me pray over this dilemma,” I said to my amazon guide. “Perhaps the answer will come.”

Penthesilea looked eager to believe me. “Our best minds, our greatest philosophers have considered this question, but sometimes only an outsider can see clearly.”

“But I will need to consult with Aesop, my advisor, whom you have taken away.”

“The bearded one?”

“Yes.”

“He is a man and cannot be trusted. Even the kindest men are confused by their emotions. They are incapable of thinking rationally. It's not their fault. Unless they are castrated, their brains do not function properly. Fumes, which rise from their testicles, blind their eyes and muddle their brains, poor things. They can't help it.”

Praxinoa was quick to appease her: “Perhaps Penthesilea is right, Sappho. Let's not press our luck.” It was clear she didn't mean it but was afraid of what the amazons might do.

“Sappho? Are you Sappho of Lesbos, the singer?”

“I suppose I am.”

“At last! It has long been written in the book of the goddess that you would come to us! Had we known who you were, we would have welcomed you more fittingly!”

The word went out by drum, by flute, by runner that the prophecy of my arrival had been fulfilled. The amazon queen Antiope wanted to make a feast for me. Throngs of little girls led the way for me, pulling apart roses so that I might walk on their tender petals. I was taken back to the circular temple of Melanippe, but this time choruses of maidens swayed and sang, welcoming me. The priestesses offered me cups of honey and blood as if I were the goddess herself. I felt obliged to taste the sacred offerings. The honey tasted like the honey of all flowers, but the blood tasted like iron ore scooped from deep in the earth. It jolted my consciousness as if I were becoming divine. It made the pathways in my brain spark like lightning.

At the feast I sat with Antiope the queen, trying to understand what she wanted from me—for no one, not even an amazon queen, makes a feast without some secret wish.

“It is time,” she said, “that someone tell the truth about our nation. Clearly the goddess has sent you to write
The Amazoniad
.”

I paused and thought. I didn't want to disappoint the queen. I never forgot I was her prisoner—however honored for the moment.

“I am no Homer, Majesty, my songs are brief and searing, outbursts of a moment's passion. I do not narrate myths of the founding and passing of kingdoms. I do not tell of battles, but of love.”

“Then it's time to branch out, to stretch, to become our female Homer,” the queen said. “Perhaps you have not had the proper subject till now. But I will help you. I will send all my most seasoned priestesses to you—the ones with the deepest memories. They will tell you what you need to know, act as your scribes, wait upon you day and night. And you will write our history in Aeolic Greek so all the Greek world will know the truth about us! Thanks to your art, the slanders spread about us shall perish!”

The amazon queen was surely wise in statecraft, but it was clear that she knew little about writing. Slanders stick where compliments are soon forgotten. How to put this gently to the queen?

“Majesty, the most honeyed words soon melt away, while barbs lodge in the throat.”

“Nonsense—I will tell you what to write and you will write it. I am queen, am I not?”

“Surely you are the greatest of queens.”

“Good. This is how I see
The Amazoniad
. It begins with our fore-mothers near the Black Sea in the dawn of time. It tells the story of our rise and conquests, our horsemanship, our animal husbandry, our great beneficence from Pegasus, our being chosen by our goddess Melanippe to lead womankind to enlightenment and glory, our struggles against marauding tribes, our holy wars, our great exploits, our improvements in civilization, not to mention the increase in human happiness under our reign. Do you see?”

“I do, Majesty.” What could I say? If I were a mathematician, she would have me measuring her throne room for carpets; if I were an astronomer, she would have me tracing the route of Pegasus through the night sky. If I were a painter, she would have me depict her as the goddess Melanippe flying over the earth! What good was poetry unless it could glorify power? I could not say this, so I merely nodded and agreed.

Sing in me, Muse, of woman and her curious fate

Oppressed in every nation but the great

Tribe of the amazons, by men misunderstood,

Slandered as evil, seeking the highest good.

—T
HE
A
MAZONIAD

O
F ALL THE PUNISHMENTS
that can be visited upon a singer, composing at the behest of a powerful queen is the worst! The truth is, we don't know where our ideas come from. They issue from the lower depths—some say the higher reaches—of our souls without our conscious knowing. A muse or goddess intercedes for us with the daimons of memory and desire and we retrieve what we can—mere fragments of the greater picture we suspect is there. Whatever we bring up from the depths is always less than we had hoped, compromised by our poor powers of expression, our imperfect retrieval, the amnesia for the dream-state that afflicts the waking. If only we could stay asleep we could retrieve it! But we cannot stay asleep and compose. And so we stumble on with our imperfect lyrics, always suspecting better ones are hiding from us beneath the waves.

Besides, I was used to improvising, not writing. My songs emerged from the heat of the audience as much as from my brain. That alchemy of singer and listener was lost here in the dreary solitude of the cave. I hardly knew how to compose songs this way.

The priestesses who were sent by Queen Antiope to assist me in creating a great work to glorify the amazons meant well, but they had no idea what I needed. I needed a muse! They came with both wax-covered wooden tablets and papyri ready to take dictation and write down every passing thought that flitted through my brain. They outfitted my cave with lamps, with tables to write on and couches where I could recline and babble all my dreams for them to take down. They filled my head with myths and legends, hoping to inspire me. One elderly priestess named Artemisia tried to remember all the details of the early battles she had fought, but she was losing her memory, so to disguise that fact she confabulated:

“I remember the Battle of Scythia before we settled in Parthia…or was it Ephesus?—Yes, it was Ephesus. I remember the shrines to Astarte—or were they shrines to Selene, the moon goddess? Anyway, we won. We defeated them because our hearts were pure….” Artemisia had scraggly white hair and a long thin face studded with wens. As she sat in the shadows of my cave, she looked to me like an ancient sibyl on a jug made by Etruscan hands such as I had seen in Syracuse.

The younger priestesses, Leucippe and Hippolyta, one a tall redhead and one a short brunette, shook their heads, knowing Artemisia's recollections were wrong, but not quite knowing what to do for me. They had no idea what I needed either. They kept giving me generalities about the glorious amazon foremothers when what I needed were specific details, anecdotes, and incidents. Without detail there is no vision of the past. As a singer and maker of songs, I knew that one searing image was worth more than all these generalities. I could say that Aphrodite was beautiful and it meant nothing. But if I described her as looking like my nemesis Rhodopis with her ropes of golden hair, her rosy knees, her overflowing zone of honey with its golden thatch, her silver sandals and her ten pink toes—everyone would
see
her beauty. The priestesses didn't understand this. Does anyone understand a singer but another singer? They wanted to assure me that every amazon was perfect—from the dawn of time. But perfection is hardly inspiring. It is imperfection that sets our imaginations aflame!

“Surely not every amazon foremother was perfect?” I asked. “Some of them must have had foibles, failings. Some of them must have strayed from the path of virtue. You can't make an epic with all good characters! Even Homer couldn't do it!”

Hippolyta shook her head. “All our foremothers were virtuous,” she said. “They taught us that in school.”

“Was there no Elpenor, who fell off a roof in a drunken daze? Was there no Circe? No Calypso? No Helen of Argos? No Clytemnestra?

“Not among the amazons, Lady Sappho.”

“Useless! You are all useless! Tell your queen I cannot write an epic made out of whipped honey! I must have nuts and raisins, even weevils to keep the listeners awake!”

The three priestesses went to huddle in a corner of my cave. Their whispering rustled at the porches of my ears, but I could not hear what they were saying. They came back and knelt before me.

“The old ones whispered of the black amazons who lived in Libya,” Leucippe said.

“And castrated men with scythes so they could be eunuchs of the moon goddess,” Hippolyta added. “Will that do?”

Leucippe interrupted, “There were also the gray-haired priestesses of Scythia, who rode into battle with men to cast spells for victory….When the men opposed their judgment, they killed them and battled on alone, terrorizing the enemy.”

“Describe them!”

“They were all beautiful,” Artemisia said, “even the old ones.”

“Amazons are always beautiful, even the Greeks say so,” Leucippe added.

“How can I compose an epic in which everyone is beautiful? Who would want to listen to an epic in which everyone is beautiful?” I thundered. “Oh, go away! Leave me here to think!”

The priestesses withdrew, chattering among themselves.

It was certainly a dilemma. If I retold all the honeyed tales they had told me of the amazons, no one would believe me. No one would even want to listen! But if I elaborated on the ancient stories of castrators and murderesses, the queen would surely have me beheaded or hanged or whatever it was amazons did. I could not compose a line.

What I needed was an amazon Odysseus—wily, clever, crafty, lustful, but with a good heart. A hero must be imperfect or how can she be tested? We accept imperfections in our men. We even dote upon their imperfections. But in women we want something else. We want perfection beyond humanity. And how can such perfection be real? Moreover, how can it inspire our love? Odysseus can be quirky, tempted by sirens, and too proud to be wise—and still we adore him. The more human he is, the more we love him. Not so with women heroes. Penelope is so patient we hardly believe our ears. Artemis is utterly virginal and Aphrodite utterly lustful. And then I realized if there is no female Odysseus, I will have to become her! The prospect was so exhausting that I put my head down on the floor of the cave and surrendered to the arms of Morpheus.

That night, as the moon rose over the land of the amazons, I slept deeply and dreamed of myself as an amazon priestess, flying through the skies on the back of Pegasus. I could see the stars twinkling in a black sky, the moon a sharp crescent, its points twinkling like a scythe. Down below me, I could see the earth laid out: Egypt, Babylonia, Lesbos, Lydia, Crete, Trinacria, Motya—all with their differing customs, gods and goddesses, all with their power struggles and wars. I knew there was no place on earth where all people were good and beautiful—certainly not Lesbos, which had banished me for seeking freedom. But I also knew that unless people
believed
there was someplace where everyone was good and beautiful, they would despair at the cruelty of the world. The singer had to tread a fine line between depicting Hades' realm and promising the Elysian Fields. I was not sure I was up to the task. Oh, it was easy enough to see earth as Hades' realm and dream of an Elysian Fields where all the gods were on your side, but what about the failings of human beings? “How mortals take the gods to task for their own failings!” Homer sang. But Homer was now safely dead. He was beyond being blamed for his words. A living bard was another matter.