Sappho's Leap (32 page)

I knew now that my mother's dying had somehow reached me even on the
Eye of Horus
in the middle of the sea.

I thought of so many things I wanted to tell my mother—of meeting my beloved father in the house of Hades; of living with the mythic amazons whom she had so revered; of losing Alcaeus again because of Aesop; of understanding now that a woman could love two men, that a mother could follow her destiny and still love her child more than life itself, that the gods were capricious and uncontrollable—but all I could do was hold her in my arms and weep. She wept too. “Forgive me, forgive me,” she kept mumbling.

“There is nothing to forgive,” I said. “The gods decreed it all—even my return. The gods are in charge, not we.”

We stayed like that for a long time. How long, I don't know. Little by little her body, which I caressed, began to smell as it had when I was a child—fragrant with the perfumes of the East. Hours, days, and years went by—or seemed to. When I lifted my head, my mother's mouth was slack and a shining filament of light fell to my hand from her lower lip. Was this my legacy? Her eyes were open but gone. She had left me an orphan, holding her in my arms.

Pittacus and the young woman were standing utterly still and staring at me. Something in the young woman's eyes reminded me of those that had just closed. Could this be?

“Hang me from the rafters if you must,” I whispered to Pittacus. “But what I want is to see my daughter before I die.”

“Sappho—I pardoned both you and Alcaeus months ago when your mother fell ill. And your daughter stands before you.”

The beautiful young woman came forward to embrace me. I drank her beauty with my thirsty eyes, then sank to the floor in a faint.

When I awoke, it was in the women's quarters of my daughter's house in Mytilene. My daughter was caring for me. She was so beautiful that had I met her without knowing of our relationship, surely I would have tried to make love to her. Whenever I looked at her, my breath caught in my throat and a subtle flame heated my blood. Her teeth were straight and white and slightly buck—a sign of sensuality. Her golden hair tumbled over her flushed pink face as she nursed me.

“I forgive you for everything,” she said, “even abandoning me.”

So that was the story she had been told! I did not contradict her—not yet.

My mind journeyed back to the events that had brought me here. I saw myself on the boat with Alcaeus, living in rapture. Then I saw myself ruining it all with Aesop. And then I understood. Had I stayed in the arms of Alcaeus, my mother would have died unforgiven. There was a divine plan, after all—but one I could only see looking back.

My mother was dead. Larichus was dead. My grandparents were long dead. My brother Charaxus was running the family vineyards with the help of his wife—Rhodopis! The beautiful courtesan was now a harridan, everyone said, but she still thought herself bewitching. She, no less than my mother, had perpetrated the story of my supposed abandonment of Cleis. Charaxus had not contradicted her—but then he was afraid to contradict her about anything.

As the adopted child of the tyrant, my daughter had had her choice of men, but had chosen badly and seemed unhappy. Her husband was rich, but he was not clever enough for her. And because he was not clever, he was not kind—for kindness is the highest wisdom.

My son-in-law was called Elpenor—after that fool who fell off the roof in a drunken haze in Homer's epic of Odysseus. Who calls his son Elpenor? Only the most foolish or venal of fathers! And Cleis' husband lived up to his name too. He bumbled and stumbled with his tongue if not with his feet. No wonder his wife couldn't stand him!

Because she was so unhappy, she had fallen into the habit of consulting soothsayers and asking them the unanswerable, but not one of them had predicted my return.

Each day a bird would be sacrificed and brought to her to tell her the way the day would go.

“You'd be better off listening to their song, Cleis, than allowing their slaughter. The unhappy always fall into the traps of soothsayers.”

“Why are you so wise?” she asked.

“Pain and shipwreck, shipwreck and heartbreak.”

“Will you stay with me forever?” Cleis asked.

“I'll try,” I said.

Of course, it fell to the women of the family to wash and perfume my mother's body for her funeral rites. There I stood in the courtyard opposite my nemesis Rhodopis while we tenderly washed my mother's corpse in seawater, attached the golden strap to hold her chin, closed her beautiful eyes, and put a coin in her mouth to pay for her journey to Hades' realm. We dressed her all in white and pointed her feet toward the door as she lay on her bier. We placed a wreath of gold upon her head to indicate that she had won her battle with life and we placed a ceramic bird on her chest to represent her singing soul. We gave her her mirror and
alabastron
, a little vase for perfume, to take to the Land of the Dead so that even there she could be beautiful. We set
lekythoi
of perfumed oil about her crowned head. Then we sang all manner of dirges for her, assisted by all her female friends and a chorus of professional mourners sent by Pittacus.

“I loved her so!” Rhodopis wept. “That was why she promised me her jewels!” She was eyeing the golden crown as if she felt it was a shame to bury it.

I said nothing. At one time, I would have done battle with her over the jewels my mother left behind, but I was too exhausted for that now. However little you depend on your parents from day to day, however you expect their deaths, their final departure is a cataclysm. It is as if you stand on solid ground and suddenly the earth gapes beneath you.

I thought of the Land of the Dead where my mother and father would be reunited.

“At last!” my father would exclaim.

“At least here you have no body to betray me with!” my mother would snap. Then she would be glad to be with him for all eternity. And with baby Eurygius.

Pittacus had prepared a monument for my mother in which she appeared, sculpted in all her youthful beauty, holding a small girl child. The epitaph read:
“I hold the dear child of my daughter. May we never be parted in this world as we were inseparable in the world where the sun shines.”
Under the little girl's feet was written:
“I am Sappho beloved of Cleis as Cleis is beloved of Sappho.”
A riddle worthy of the Oracle of Delphi.

No expense was spared for my mother's funeral. My mother was carried to her grave in a hearse drawn by four white horses. Even the horses were sacrificed and entombed with her as if she were a great warrior.

“You have dealt the death of my soul by dying!” Pittacus exclaimed at my mother's graveside. Cleis wept and wept as if she could never be comforted. I took her in my arms, but she subtly pulled away.

The whole island was sunk in official mourning. I was beginning to admire Pittacus for the care he took with my mother's passing. It was not surprising that the long struggle of Lesbos against Athens had created such a leader. At times of war, people turn to heroes and strongmen and happily give them extraordinary powers. People talk of loving peace, but war cements the powers of tyrants and the military. It will never be abolished as long as men are men. The need for domination is in their blood. We women could bring peace if we did not live as an occupied nation in the world of men. But having seen how even the amazons could be corrupted by evil rulers, I did not hold out much hope for humanity of either gender. Why did the gods let us kill each other so readily? Was it all an entertainment for them in their vast boredom on Olympus? That was the only explanation that made any sense at all.

The war between Lesbos and Athens had dragged on and on for years. Just as it seemed peace was imminent, another expedition of war ships would arrive to skirmish on our shores. The populace feared peace after so many years of war. People would retreat inland from Mytilene to wait out the bloodshed. Then calm would come again. Then another skirmish would erupt. But after so much bloodshed, even the Athenians were exhausted. As the war had receded, both Pittacus and the people had mellowed. Now that he was supreme ruler, secure in his power, Pittacus could be kinder. He could become a Wise Man. In fact, he was promoting himself as such through patronizing minstrels and artists and filling his court with philosophers. He wanted to be known as one of the Seven Sages after he died.

“Even Alcaeus might now come home with no fear,” he told me. “But it seems he prefers Egypt. He was always a wanderer at heart.” When he said that, I began to sob. He put his arms around me as if he had decided he was my real father.

“It is time for you to sing again.”

“What's the use?” I said. “Song changes nothing. It does not stop war or bloodshed, or raise the dead, or prevent children from being snatched from their mothers, or allow love to last. All my life I have made songs. Now I am ready to be silent.”

And I meant all this in my despair, but the muses still nudged my elbow from time to time and bade me try to sing. All my efforts came to naught. My heart was no longer in my craft.

I tried to write a song for my mother's passing, but I could not. I kept struggling with my farewells.

As we commit you to Persephone's dark bedroom,
I began.
As wind shakes the mountain oaks, grief shakes my heart,
I attempted. But nothing was adequate to the pain. I was not an elegist after all, but a love poet, and love had fled forever.

When it came time to divide up my mother's jewels, Pittacus put them all out on a Lydian carpet in the courtyard of his house. Cleis, Rhodopis, and I were to take turns choosing pieces that we wanted. But whenever I selected a necklace or a ring, Rhodopis would stamp her foot and shout, “I was promised that!” Then she would fall down on the ground, screaming and pounding her fists.

“Don't tell me you would cry over a ring, Rhodopis,” I said.

“I loved her! I loved her!” Rhodopis wailed. “I am crying for her—not for her jewels.”

What did I care who got the majority of golden trinkets? I gave Rhodopis a necklace and ring she wanted and earrings that matched them. I gave her a golden dolphin clasp encrusted with jewels that my mother had often worn. I gave her earrings cunningly made as leaping dolphins and a diadem of gold that resembled olive leaves. I gave her earrings with rams' heads crafted in gold. No matter how much I gave, she screamed for more. At last, there was a golden snake necklace with ruby eyes and a tail that could cunningly affix to its neck. I remembered my mother wearing it when I was a child. She had worn it with matching snake earrings that Rhodopis now wore day and night.

“She was
my
mother!” I shouted. “Give them to Cleis at least. For myself I'll take nothing.”

“I loved her like a mother!” Rhodopis wailed. “Besides, the earrings and the necklace belong together!” Now even I had to laugh. Rhodopis found nothing funny in her words. Instead, she fell to the floor again and pounded it. Eventually Pittacus had to come in and make the division himself. I got the golden chain with the tiny quinces dangling from it. I wear it every day. I often sleep in it.

But even death recedes in time. Sad as I was, I was happy to be back on my native island. I walked among the olive trees with Cleis, telling her of all my adventures, of my love for her father, Alcaeus, of my despair when she was taken away. I related the whole story of her fever and Isis' spell—leaving out my love story with Isis. (Children never want to know these things.) Did she believe my version of events? She wanted to, I know.

I visited the family vineyards—which Rhodopis had revived. I took over my grandparents' house in Eresus where my mother had died.

I had almost forgotten my calling. But my fame had spread as my songs were sung all over the Greek world. Families from Athens and Syracuse, even Lydia, wanted to send their daughters to me to learn the lyre and the art of making song. I became an accidental mentor to the next generation.

Cleis hated this. She had missed me so long that she could tolerate no loss of my attention now. She made fun of my students. She wanted me to live with her and care for her child—Hector, a beautiful little boy who was dark like me—rather than care for making songs. My grandchild melted my heart. I adored him. But I could not do what my mother had done and woo my grandchild away from his own mother. I loved him, but I knew he needed his mother more. Cleis could not understand my reserve. She thought I was holding back my love somehow. That was where our rift began.

But of course it did not begin there. It began with the slander that I had abandoned her—a slander perpetrated by Rhodopis. I had told Cleis the true story, but she only half believed me. She struggled with her feelings. She wanted to love me but she was afraid to be abandoned again. Very well, I told myself, she will come to it in time. She will realize how much I always loved her.

But no, as I settled into the role of mentor to beautiful young ladies from abroad—Dica, Gyrinno, another Anactoria, another Atthis, and another Gongyla—Cleis seethed with envy. I tried to explain to her that my students were no match for a
real
daughter, but she did not believe me. She wanted me to worship her body and soul and worship her child. And I did! But teaching saved my life. Without it I would have pined away for lack of the love of Alcaeus.

“You love Dica and Gyrinno more than me,” Cleis would accuse.

“Absolutely not. I love you best, I always have.”

“Then why do you need these silly students?” Cleis protested. “Anactoria will play you false. Gyrinno is vain as a peacock. Atthis has no talent for the lyre,” Cleis protested.

“But if I am nothing but a grandmother, I will pine away,” I said. “I need song to keep me whole. My teaching is my calling.”

“Your grandchild is calling you,” Cleis said. “Listen to his cries!”