Sappho's Leap (8 page)

Damn Aphrodite! I refuse to be bound in the snares of a woman's hair. Boys are simpler. You take your pleasure and walk away. Where is my Sappho? Why do you not answer me? Alcaeus is dying of love for you. Must he come to get you?

Oh, yes! I thought, come to get me. Rescue me from this horrible exile. Take me with you wherever you go! My feelings for Alcaeus burned hotter than that god with the fire in its belly. I loved him. I longed for him, but his teasing me about his beautiful boys even in the midst of his ardent love letters piqued me. I had always lived in tidal waves of changing emotions, but pregnancy had made these feelings even more pronounced. As the baby rocked in the sea of my womb, I rocked in a sea of tempestuous emotions. I cried easily. I laughed easily. I scoured the city for soothsayers and witches who could tell me the fate of my baby. I saw them all. Then I went back to Cretaea a second time to ask her why I was so diffident about writing to Alcaeus. I could make no sense of my reluctance. What held me back?

“Shall I tell the father about his babe?” I asked the hideous old witch on my next visit.

“The answer to that question will cost you three more golden
oboloi
,” she said.

“On top of what I have already paid?” I asked.

“Yes!” said Cretaea.

“All I have is one
obolos
.”

“Then I cannot help you,” said the hag.

I sent Praxinoa running home for more
oboloi
. Cretaea and I waited together in silence, staring into the multicolored flames. Once Cretaea had the
oboloi
, she stroked them covetously with her reddened claws and answered as ambiguously as any oracle:

Am I the father of the child she carries

Underneath her bosom?

A warrior asked. And the wind whispered no

But the leaves rustled yes

And the doves cooed maybe

And the bronze cauldrons rang

Like funeral bells.

“What does it mean?” I asked in a panic. “Does it mean my child will die? Is it yes or no? Shall I tell him or will it hurt the child?”

Cretaea stared at me with her rheumy eyes. “That is all the spirit said. The interpretation I must leave to you.”

“Tell me!” I cried.

“I would tell you if I could,” Cretaea said, smirking.

“Give my mistress back her
oboloi
, then!” shouted Praxinoa.

“
Oboloi
returned carry a curse,” Cretaea said craftily. “Let me only say, heed the leaves in the trees of your garden well. They will tell you.”

That night, under a full moon, Praxinoa and I sat in the courtyard of our house and listened to the leaves fluttering in the wind. At first they seemed to say yes, then no, then yes again. How could we tell?

I called for papyrus and reeds and wrote this letter to Alcaeus at the court of Alyattes in Sardis:

My love—

Why has it been so hard to tell you that the child I carry is yours? Heavy with the fruit of our love, I understand life in a way I could not when we were together. I feel the baby kicking and it is the memory of your love, kicking at my heart….

What a sappy letter! I would have to make a song to express how I really felt and so I burnt the papyrus and broke the reed!

But writing to Alcaeus was hardly the only challenge I faced. As my confinement approached, I grew more and more frightened. The cemeteries of Syracuse were crammed with the bones of women who had died in childbirth. Childbirth was more dangerous than the battlefield. Oh, I longed for my virginity now as if it were my native land! How could I have opened my legs—not to mention my heart—to Alcaeus? I was terrified of dying. If I died, what would become of all the songs I had yet to write? I understood the virgin goddesses then, understood Artemis and Athena, understood women who refused the sexual life for the life of the mind. Why had I fallen into the trap of loving a man? Why was dear Praxinoa not enough for me? I had made a terrible mistake by following Alcaeus. Perhaps that was why I could not write to him. Underneath my rapture was rage for having to face a fate he would never face! I
wanted
him to worry about me. I
wanted
him to fret. Let him be as miserable in his own way as I was in mine!

Praxinoa and I made daily offerings to goddesses who ruled childbirth—Artemis and Ilithyia. We also remembered Asclepius, the god of medicine, in our sacrifices. We would have sacrificed to Baal if we had believed it would do any good! That was how terrified we were.

Thighbones wrapped in fat, rare birds, beautiful garments woven with our own hands—these were some of the things we offered to the gods. No babes walked through flames in Syracuse—though there were certainly those who sacrificed puppies to Hecate on altars at crossroads. Yet mothers had no choice but to endure torture—emerging only if they were blessed.

Cercylas seemed tamed—not only by my pregnancy but also by my absence in Motya. He was so relieved at my return that he prostrated himself before me, embraced my knees, and kissed my feet.

“I know in my deepest heart that we'll soon be adorning the door of our house with an olive crown,” he said—like the pompous fool he was. An olive crown was symbolic of a son, while a tuft of wool meant a girl and her future toil at the loom.

“I would much prefer a tuft of wool,” I said.

Cercylas laughed, thinking I had made a joke.

Pregnancy can be a time of troubling dreams. I had them all. The trip to Motya certainly hadn't helped. Cretaea's prophecy was also troubling. I dreamed again and again of a baby given up to the arms of a red-hot god and devoured by flames. I couldn't banish the image from my mind.

The last part of pregnancy is probably best forgotten. Birth is a battle to the death between two clinging souls. We come apart so we may come together. If women knew what birth cost, they'd forswear love forever.

When my time came, it was announced by a fit of prodigious hunger. I remember eating a whole chicken baked in honey the night before my water broke.

Praxinoa called the midwife as soon as my pains began. Then the pains stopped and Praxinoa foolishly let the midwife go. Of course, when I needed her, she was off delivering another babe.

The women's quarters of my house were filled with useless helpers—slaves, nurses, sweepers, cooks—but no midwife. Everyone had an opinion. I myself had no idea what to do, and my first taste of motherhood was a chaos of conflicting advice.

When at last the midwife returned, I was given herbs to ease my pain—which again stopped the labor. Then the pains began again in earnest and I traveled to another world. Odysseus in Hades' realm was not as lost among shades as I was, laboring to bring my babe to birth. I wailed until my throat was sore. I could not
believe
the pain! I was certain I would meet my own ghost among a crowd of wailing women who had died in childbirth.

Every mother has experienced this—though none remember. Forgetfulness is the gods' blessing. I do remember that finally two helpers seized me by the shoulder and two by the legs as if to shake the baby out of me! It didn't help. Then I was seated on a birthing stool and told to push with all my might.

“Damn you, Artemis!” I yelled. “Damn you more, Aphrodite!”

When at last the head of the baby was seen between my legs, the women began to shout the ritual cry of joy—the
ololuge
—but the baby seemed to be
stuck
! Was it bad luck to cry for joy before the birth was complete? Was I doomed? Was the
child
? I hardly cared by then—if only the pain would stop! Another great wave of pain obliterated my mind—and suddenly, miraculously, I pushed the baby out!

The midwife had prepared goatskins to place the newborn babe upon. It was customary that the goatskins be filled with warm water, then pierced so that water leaked from them. The idea was that the skins would slowly settle under the weight of the babe, extracting the afterbirth by tugging the cord of flesh. But this time the cord was wrapped around the infant's neck! Once it was cut, the goatskins were useless. The midwife had to extract the afterbirth with her bloody hand.

Covered in blood, looking more like afterbirth than baby, the child was put into my arms. It was a little girl! Her sea-blue eyes blurrily sought mine. Her little sex a pale pink shell. Her red, wrinkled feet had walked to us through the air. The midwife was strangely silent.

Then I heard the old witch whisper to Praxinoa, “Don't let her grow too attached—perhaps the father will not agree to raise the child.”

“Out!” I screamed. “This child will be raised no matter what that idiot says!”

“I promise you life,” I whispered to the most beautiful creature I had ever beheld. “It is all I can promise you.” I thought of the infant girls exposed on rocky hilltops and wept. “No one will sacrifice you for your sex, little stranger,” I sobbed. “And I shall call you Cleis like the one who gave me life.”

I yearned then for my mother as I had never yearned before.

“Put a tuft of wool on our front door,” I ordered the midwife.

“But your husband?” she asked.

“My husband has nothing to do with this,” I said.

Cercylas came in to worship at my throne.

“She looks like me!” he cried. “The little darling.”

She'll have more brains, I thought.

As soon as I was well enough, Praxinoa and I went to give thanks to Artemis for my survival and the child's. We left the goddess a beautiful purple chiton and a purple cloak with a wavy blue border that looked like the sea.

At the temple of Artemis, I watched the mother of a woman who had died in childbirth dedicating an entire chest of golden treasures to the goddess. Was she mad? The gods had taken her daughter and she was still attempting to pacify them!

“There is as much carnage in birth as in war,” the woman said. “At least the goddess spared my granddaughter.”

How do women give up their babies to the midwives to be set on rugged hilltops? I will never understand it, any more than I understood the savage rites of Baal. We pretend to be civilized, but only blood sacrifice quiets the murderer within.

And tell me why Artemis, who never lets Eros loosen her thighs, should be the goddess of childbirth. She, who is a virgin hunting on the peaks of solitary mountains, holds the fate of all pregnant women in her hands. Is this just? Is this fair? Zeus of the thundercloud who rules the world has plenty to answer for!

ZEUS:
Blasphemy!

APHRODITE:
Philosophy! You never
could
tell them apart.

I was astonished by the love I felt for my baby. This little lump of flesh, with the blurry blue eyes and the pink fingernails that resembled the translucent shells of undersea creatures, remade my view of the world. I was less than before—now merely a mother—and much, much more: the maker of this marvel. I knew how the gods felt creating life.

I have a beautiful daughter who is

Like a gold flower. I wouldn't take

All Lydia or even

The whole lovely island of Lesbos for her.

Contemplating my daughter, her pink fingers like the dawn, her transparent skin, the perfect bivalve of her sex, I fell in love with life all over again. I would even trade her for my songs. She was my best creation.

During the time when Cleis was a small baby, I played Penelope, sitting at my loom but weaving my own wiles. The baby lay in a basket at my feet. When Cercylas appeared, I seduced him with my impersonation of traditional womanhood. Of course, I didn't nurse the baby myself. Two wet nurses did that on different shifts, day and night. And my share of household slaves increased.

Cercylas fell in raptures over the baby. He was already saving up a dowry for her and planning her nuptials. But more and more he had to travel to Egypt for the wine trade with my brother Charaxus. They stayed for months at a time in Naucratis, where the Greek traders could worship their own gods while enjoying the Egyptian prostitutes and luxuries. Good riddance! I was happy to be the queen of my own household.

Because Cercylas was so advanced in age, both his parents were dead. I had no wretched in-laws to obey like most young wives. That was another blessing.

Before Cleis was born, I had been terribly impatient with my mother. Now that began to change. What I had once seen as her obstinacy, I saw as her protectiveness. No woman can understand her mother until she becomes a mother. I would have given anything to see my mother now.

Repeatedly I sent messages to her through traders plying the seas between Syracuse and Lesbos. She sent greetings back—together with a beautiful sea-green cloak, emblazoned with gold, for baby Cleis. Of course, it was big enough for a five-year-old child, but I draped it over the baby in her crib and said, “Your grandmother wove this for you with her own beautiful fingers just like yours.”

Then my mother arrived. She came by boat on the broad back of the sea with her slaves and serving women. Not only had Charaxus gone to trade in Egypt with Cercylas, but Larichus had joined him—young as he was. My youngest brother Eurygius was dead. A fever brought from the lingering skirmishes on the mainland had carried him off. My mother's baby was gone, so she came to stake her claim on mine.

We were so happy to see each other that we wept. Then she ran to baby Cleis—four months old by now—and drenched her face with tears. She gazed and gazed at the baby as if her eyes would shortly go blind and she had to memorize this moment.

“How strange,” she said. “I haven't felt this way since I first saw
you
. I feel as though she were my own child. Blood of my blood and bone of my bone. It almost feels as though she's
mine
.”

Our reunion was ardent, loving, and passionate. But within days we began to quarrel.