Sappho's Leap (29 page)

“She is a mistress of transformations. If you like your present form—then come along with me! She loves to turn beautiful young men into snakes!”

The men knew I was speaking the truth. The besotted maidens hesitated. They doubted me. Honey-skinned Arete, my erstwhile playmate, challenged me.

“What do you mean, my lover will turn into a snake unless I go immediately?”

“Please don't fight with me about this. Just obey me. We have only a little time to escape the power of this sorceress. Aesop has disarmed her. While she's docile, we must sail away.”

But Arete was so intoxicated with her lover that she could not hear me. The other maidens also ignored me.

Aesop somehow broke away from Herpetia and met me on the beach.

“Now I understand Medusa, Circe—all the great sorceresses. They're simply women in search of love. Medusa, furious at being unloved, turned men to stone. Circe turned men to swine. All this could have been avoided if they were properly loved. They turned to black magic for lack of love.”

“You say you don't believe in the gods, but even
you
are in Aphrodite's power!”

“Absurd,” said Aesop. “I am reason itself. If I love Herpetia, she will turn gentle and mild. You've seen it with your own eyes. I plan to stay here on this island and be her consort. It's my duty.”

“I will not let you make this mistake,” I said.

“It's no mistake,” said Aesop. “It's my destiny.”

How I knew to do what I did next, I do not know. But I did. I picked up a piece of driftwood from the beach and brought it down upon Aesop's head, knocking him out. Then I dragged him down the beach and called for help to get him to the boat. The parents and grandparents who had remained on the boat quickly came to my aid and helped me bring Aesop aboard.

Some of the maidens who saw what had happened followed me down the beach, their swains in pursuit. Some stayed on the island lost in love; all I knew was that we had to get away as soon as possible. Whoever Herpetia was—whether a goddess or a projection of Aesop's need for love—she had the power to end our odyssey. Ever since we left the realm of Hades, we had been in lands of myth and delusion. We needed to get back to the real world.

I will never forget the view from the stern of the ship as we hoisted sail. The entire beach was a writhing mass of snakes entangling the legs of the maidens who had ignored my warnings. They tried to get away, and as they ran, the snakes twined around their legs and brought them down. When they stood up, the snakes bit them until they fell motionless in the sand. A few of the strongest maidens gained the ship. Atthis wrestled her snake to the ground and stabbed his throat with her golden clasp. Gongyla outran hers—but Arete, beautiful Arete, lay in a purple python's power, gasping with pleasure as he made love to her again and again. Her gasps and sighs brought other rainbow snakes to watch. She was embraced in the coils of the largest python I had ever seen and he was killing her with love. I was sorry I had taught her about pleasure. My lovemaking had prepared her doom.

Herpetia stood atop a mountain of writhing snakes and cursed us as we sailed away between the two white cliffs.

“Cowards!” she shrieked. “I thought I had found the one man who was not afraid of me—but even he turned out to be a coward! I should have transformed him into a snake before he escaped!”

That frightened me. Would I go below to find Aesop turned into a writhing snake?

“I will be here forever!” she screamed. “And you will all be dead!” With that, the skies opened and the rain poured down until we all ran belowdecks for shelter.

I checked on the sleeping Aesop. He was still himself.

Thracian filly, why do you look at me and flee?

—A
NACREON

A
FTER OUR ENCOUNTER WITH
Herpetia, I felt responsible for the fate of Arete and my other maidens. I was their priestess and I should have known better than to linger on such hostile shores. Pouring rain, thunder, and lightning accompanied our departure. It was no weather for sailing, but we had little choice in the matter.

Atthis and Gongyla sat with me belowdecks and tried to wake Aesop. He had a huge bump on his head where I had struck him and his eyes were ringed with black and plum.

When he awoke, he was not angry with me. “You saved our lives,” he said.

“Our numbers are much reduced,” I said. “We have lost most of our maidens to the serpents, our men to the sirens, and their parents to withering grief. I fear it is my entire fault for invoking Aphrodite's power. Our boat is hardly seaworthy, our rations few. The seas are rough. We have been punished for our arrogant disregard of all the gods but Aphrodite.”

“Perhaps I have sinned by denying the gods,” Aesop said. “Or perhaps, by calling forth Osiris and the most ancient gods, we also summoned ancient serpent-headed goddesses from the deep. Or perhaps the ancient Egyptian followers of Akhenaton were right. Perhaps there is only one god—the blazing sun.”

“Aesop, you amaze me.”

“Archilochus said, ‘
All things are easy for the gods
.' Perhaps we have just been praying to the wrong
idea
of god. Akhenaton was called a heretic for worshiping one god—but another desert people took up his creed. They claim they are the chosen people of the future.”

“One god? How can one god command all the various things in the sky and the earth?” I asked.

“Because god is a force, not a personage,” Aesop said. “God is wisdom, light, life.”

“What a strange idea!” I said.

Our damaged ship braved the waves. Some of our older passengers succumbed to seasickness, starvation, despair. Even when we saw islands on the horizon, we were afraid to stop for fear that serpents—or worse—lurked there. We were forever committing bodies to the waves. Our ship smelled foul as death. And those who remained on board grew thinner and thinner for want of food. I was sure this was the end. With no place to land and nothing to eat, the sea would eventually swallow us. No trace of us would remain—not even our names. Once I had been so sure the future would remember my name and my songs. Now I despaired.

Aesop and I, along with Atthis and Gongyla, had taken the habit of sheltering under a canvas in the very prow of the ship so we could scan the horizon for possible rescuers. Wind and rain did not daunt us. The slap and splash of seawater did not discourage us. We were determined to be the first to recognize a friendly ship. The sailors had taught me how to shimmy to the top of the mast and from time to time I did this—my heart beating in my throat—then I'd slide down. Whenever I saw distant lightning flashes in the sky or heard thunder, I'd descend the mast as quickly as I could.

We had no idea where we were. We might have strayed beyond the Pillars of Hercules, for all we knew. We had disrupted the calm order of the amazons' lives and perhaps were being punished for that. We had questioned the gods we grew up worshiping. Would I ever see my child again? Would I ever see Alcaeus?

There was a huge crack of thunder and a bolt of lightning. It split the mast and brought it down, with all the tattered remnants of our sail. Around and around we spun, out of control in a cauldron of seawater. Another bolt, and our prow was severed from our stern. Boards, broken amphorae, shipmates bobbed in the waves. I last saw Atthis and Gongyla paddling the bottom half of an amphora as if it were a toy boat—then they disappeared behind a towering wave. Aesop and I must have inspired pity from Poseidon—or from his companion Maera—because we were swept up upon a sandy spit where, unconscious, we rolled half in and half out of the sea.

We slept—for how long, only the gods know. When we awakened, it was to the thunder of horses' hooves. A pack of wild horses with the torsos and the heads of men encircled us. They advanced on us slowly, and seeming to know they could not prod us with their hooves, their leader, who had a bushy white beard and bright green eyes, knelt down and touched me gently with his hands.

His touch was tender—even for a man. Aesop leapt up as if to defend me.

“No need,” said the leader of the centaurs. “Zeus may have thought us beasts and banished us to this rocky isle, but I know how to treat a lady, as do my misunderstood brethren. I am Chiron—older than Zeus, older than Poseidon, older than them all. When the upstart gods decided to cast out the animals in themselves—or hide them, rather—they sent us far away. We were an unpleasant reminder of the past—like the harpies and the gorgons.”

“We have met Herpetia. We know.”

“My horrid stepsister,” said Chiron, “but we are far more civilized than she. We taught the gods all they know. For that, they hated us. We live in perfect harmony, eating only apples and grasses. We kill no other creatures. We study herbs and healing. We spend our lives grazing and contemplating. We have discovered the perfect stillness that reveals the secrets of the universe. It was a centaur who first observed that you never step into the same river twice.”

Chiron led us to a grove where we could feast on apples, drink clear cold water, and rest. The babbling brooks that traversed the centaurs' island home were amazingly restorative. After a short time, the shipwreck seemed as distant as childhood.

What did the centaurs do all day? They galloped all over the island to exercise their muscles. They danced in elaborate patterns to marvelous wind instruments. They bathed in the cool streams. After a lunch of apples and grasses, they briefly slept. They spent long hours standing perfectly still in contemplation of the horizon. In the evening they shared the wisdom this had brought.

But there was a problem. All the centaurs were male and they could not reproduce. They were getting older and older. Being part deity, they could not die, but Zeus had cruelly decreed that they would grow old forever. Who would replace the ancient centaurs, no longer good for anything but grazing in the pasture? Who would take care of them in their endless decrepitude? There was no younger generation.

“We need mares,” Chiron said. “Otherwise our great philosophy will come to nothing.”

“Too bad the maidens perished in the sea,” said Aesop.

“Maidens?” asked Chiron. “What maidens?”

“They were the daughters of amazons and Egyptian sailors. Some were entrapped by Herpetia's serpents, some were lost at sea.”

“Are you sure they all perished?” Chiron asked.

“As sure as anyone can be sure of anything after having been fished out of the sea! If any remain alive, I'll be astonished.”

“That's what they said of Persephone—yet we found her in Hades' realm and were able to revive her. Alas, we had to give her back for half the year because of those pomegranate seeds she ate. In those days we served Demeter, the great mother, and learned her most secret rituals for making the crops grow. Those were the days.” And with that Chiron gave a series of loud whinnies that rang through the groves and across the beaches. The youngest, fastest centaurs galloped madly into the sea. They swam so ably you would have sworn they were dolphins.

“What did you shout?” Aesop asked.

“I cannot tell you with a lady present,” said Chiron, blushing. “It's too indelicate. Let me just admit that centaurs are very sensual creatures. We meditate to tame our passions.”

I walked with Aesop on the beach.

“The whole world is Aphrodite's province,” I said. “Even these noble animals who spend half their days meditating will jump into the sea if their phalli stiffen. I give up. Say what you like about gods old and new. Aphrodite rules the world.”

APHRODITE:
What a clever girl!

ZEUS:
A contradiction in terms. Women are only good for one thing!

Aesop and I watched while the remaining centaurs danced at the edge of the sea, playing their strange pipes and treading very gracefully for such large beings. Horses fascinated me with their agility and their muscular beauty. No wonder the amazons worshiped a mare-headed goddess and prayed for the return of Pegasus.

“If only these creatures could mate with the amazons,” I said, “what a powerful race of wizards and witches they could create.”

“I think they did once in the mists of time,” said Aesop, “but Zeus sent the lapiths to prey on them and undo their magic.”

“If we could reunite them, what wonders they might give the world!”

A commotion on the beach. Several of the strong young centaurs galloped out of the sea, dragging nets of seaweed. Tangled in its greenery were Atthis and Gongyla, who seemed to have turned the same color as the seaweed. I would have sworn they were dead.

Then Chiron and his cohorts laid them out on the beach with great tenderness. First they washed their bodies with fresh water. Then they anointed them with oils suffused with herbs. They danced around them, playing those breathy instruments that sounded half like birds and half like the snorts of horses.

“O Demeter, great mother, we have brought your daughters back from the house of Hades like your own Persephone,” they chanted.

Then they neighed and whinnied and galloped in circles around the two green girls.

“The next part of the ceremony is not fit for your eyes to see,” Chiron said. “You must retire to the Cave of the Elders.” He gestured to a low entrance in a great rock that stood half in and half out of the sea.

Aesop and I did as we were told. We had to bend very low to crawl into the rock cave, where it was very dark and the stench was unbearable.

“What is that putrescent smell?” I cried out.

“The smell of death that will not die,” came the whinnying reply.

When our eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, we saw all around us creatures who had once been centaurs. Some lay outstretched. Some leaned against the walls, examining their rotting hooves with their human hands. Some of these fearsome creatures curled on the floor of the cave in piles of shedding skin. They groaned and winced at the light.