Sappho's Journal Read online

  “This is how I beat off his genitals...”

  Alcaeus roared, hand on his beard.

  “I beat open his helmet...”

  Yes, the war...

  And in my room, I found relief listening to the wind, remembering theboat’s passage to Limnos, my friends there, the festival in thevineyard, flute and drum, carom of bodies, laughter: Was it Felerianwho laughed that low pitched melodious laugh? Was it Marcus who hurledhis spear through the target? I erased Alcaeus: so much of life demandsvoluntary forgetfulness!

  My girls had clambered about me at the dock, detaining me. Why doestheir love soften me? So often there are petty squabbles but, atreunions, they dissolve: the moment becomes a moment of accord, makinglife worthier: Gyrinno insists on carrying my basket, another smoothsmy scarf, another offers flowers. Kisses. They buzz into a flurry ofplans.

  “Tomorrow, we’ll go up the mountain...”

  “Tomorrow, we’ll...”

  Ah-hah-who, ah hah-who, the quails cry, as night comes.

  I light mama’s lamp, so smooth to the fingers after all these years,like alabaster. The wick struggles into flame, as if reluctant to leavethe past.

  My Etruscan wall girl comes alive.

  “Ah-hah-who.”

  I take off my chain and pearl cluster and lay them in their scentedbox, pausing, sensing, dreaming.

  Perhaps Phaon will be back soon—unexpectedly. I could not remainlonger in Limnos, thinking he might return—tonight. I long for hismouth, the jerk of his legs, his obelisko’s tyranny.

  Hunger—let me sleep tonight, tired after the voyage.

  ?

  No sooner have I returned than I am upset. Life is constricted... Istand among Charaxos’ Egyptian treasures, confronting him: a twisted,gilded serpent god sneers at me: fragments of gold leaf blink: mellowgold is underfoot: I sway, as I talk, my parasol clenched across mybelly.

  “Now, I know,” I say to him.

  “You know what?”

  “That you schemed with Pittakos, to have me exiled, with Alcaeus.”

  “What?”

  “After all these years I’ve found out. Stop lying. You tried to getour home, that’s why you wanted me exiled. What a brother you’ve been!What a fool I’ve been!”

  For once he shut his mouth.

  “During the war years you made many trips, to sell yourwines...refusing to help me financially...yours is a debt you won’tpay...and you don’t care. I’ve dedicated my life to writing...I live nolie. I work to make life significant.

  “And now, why have I come? To quarrel? No, to tell you the truth.I’ve nothing more to say. I want you to know that I know. It’s asatisfaction...”

  I could have talked on, but I left, snapping open my parasol,clutching Ezekias’ arm, walking swiftly, curbing my pulse, hearing aseagull, the wind icy at the corners of the town, dogs sleeping in thesun, carts passing.

  I tried to believe something was settled, that life was worth morefor having told the truth. Yet, I wanted to return to Charaxos, demandapologies and restitution, apologies for impertinent, biasedcriticisms, as if apology, like a brand, could stamp out wrong, as ifthere were restitution for my cheated years.

  Somehow, as I walked, as Ezekias chattered, Aesop commiserated: hishunchback shoulders squared my shoulders: his doll had the dignity of ascepter to prod my spirit.

  A tow-headed youth greeted us and I thought: I wish I could have ason. Yes, to give birth again. That glory cancels many defeats.

  In Libus’ house, I turned to him and said:

  “I told Charaxos what you told me weeks ago.”

  “But I shouldn’t have told you, Sappho.”

  “It was time I knew the truth.”

  “And now you have an enemy,” he said.

  “He has been my enemy all the time, Libus.”

  We sat on his veranda, an agnus-castus sheltering us from the wind.His boy brought us drinks.

  “Are we better friends?” he asked.

  “I trust you more.”

  Tree shadows moved across his mouth and chin.

  “Trust is not always friendship. I shouldn’t have informed. Howshallow we are, the best of us. We bungle. Friendship, yours and mine,it’s hard to measure, perhaps we shouldn’t try: isn’t it better leftalone? Friendship, that’s what we’ve had all these years...Ioverstepped propriety.”

  How pale Libus was, in his grey robe, shadows ridging the fabric,chalking his face, thickening his lips, greying his hair. His sandalsmoved nervously yet he never moved his hands: they remained weighted tohis lap.

  I ate supper there, lingering with the ancientness of his rooms, darkmosaics, the crowning of a king behind him, Libus’ chair of whiteleather, the king in the mosaic studying his crown, his jewels flashingred, a hint of Corinth and a hint of Crete.

  ?

  Remembering my shepherd visit, I wrote this:

  EVENING STAR

  Hesperus, you bring

  Homeward all that

  Dawn’s light disperses,

  Bring home sheep,

  Bring home goats,

  Bring children home

  To their mothers.

  ?

  What is it urges the mind to seek beauty? What is the challenge? Whygo where there are no charts?

  Beauty says it is a kind of love.

  So, I make love, in my quiet room, the word symbolic of man, life’scontinuity, my paper taken from reeds and trees. I write of birth,love, marriage and death, sensing that the unrecorded is vaster thanthe recorded. I sense the stumbling: the past could be a giganticstorm, fog obliterating at moment of revelation, fog fumbling from manto man, saying come, saying stop. The past is a wave through which noswimmer passes. As surf it inundates, then vanishes. On windy nights,it moans at my window, beautiful and hideous. I struggle on.

  ?

  I quote from my journal kept in exile:

  For three days we have had little to eat, days ofquarrels, bitterness and savagery.

  I gave myself to a merchant and he has returned the favorby feeding Alcaeus and me. We ate in the kitchen, glad tofind considerate slaves. We can remain long enough torecover our strength, if not our hopes.

  How I long for home and my servants, fish as Exekias canprepare it, onions in Chian wine, olives from Patmos. Ithelps to list the good things. Surely they are not lost.

  How wretched to cheat myself to keep alive, to cheat theface, the mooning eyes, the stupid mouth, the odor offlagrancy, the disbelief...chattel, cringe, lie still,perform.

  Copying those lines I remembered things I have never recorded, ourfilthy clothes, windowless room, flies, thirst, sickness...Alcaeus injail... I was fined...authorities jeered at us...no sympathy, no luckuntil Aesop, his fox, raven and rooster.

  I never thought him brilliant but he was always entertaining,agreeable about the smallest problem. Nuances come to me, as he told ofa turtle that ferried a small turtle and then, at the end of thepleasant ride, said:

  “Little turtle, you must pay.”

  “How can I pay?” asked the little turtle.

  “By doing me a favor.”

  “Well, what can I do?”

  “Hump along the beach and snatch me a fly.”

  “I’ll do my best,” said the little turtle.

  After humping and snapping till almost noon, the little turtlebrought a fly to the big turtle. Finding the big fellow asleep, thelittle one had to cuff him.

  “Here,” said the turtle, between closed lips.

  “Ah,” exclaimed the big turtle, swallowing the fly, tasting it withcare. “Umm, that’s the first fly I ever ate! You see a little fellowlike you can do things a big fellow can’t.”

  ?

  During the night an earthquake woke me and I wandered through thebedrooms, to see about my girls. Atthis needed covering and as Iarranged her covers she murm
ured, “Mama, mama.” Before I could slipaway, she grasped my hand.

  “Are you homesick, darling?”

  When I kissed her, I found her face wet with tears. “Why don’t you gohome for a few weeks?” I whispered. “You were calling your mama in yoursleep. If you’re homesick, you must go home. Let’s talk about ittomorrow. Do you want me to sleep with you?”

  So we cuddled together and almost at once she relaxed and, after afew endearments, slept with her head on my shoulder, her violetfragrance around me. I held her fingers a long time. Drowsily, I asked:where do we go...why can’t we remain young...happy? The last thing Irecalled was the sweetness of her perfume.

  The earthquake had been forgotten.

  ?

  Alcaeus sat on his leather stool, his dog at his feet, sunlightbehind him; elbows on his knees, he said:

  “...I prefer that hymn. There’s really no finer. In spite of timeit’s full of force, spring’s arrival, the brevity of summer, the dyingyear. It has the shepherd’s power, the forest’s—passion tamed andsanctified. Another one I like is...

  The woods decay, the woods decay and fall...

  Libus, sitting near Alcaeus, quoted his favorite, huddling in hisrobe, his face averted:

  Alone, in sea-circled Delos, while round on beach and cove,

  before the piping sea wind the dark blue storm wavesdrove...

  “Why do you break off?” I asked.

  He did not answer but said:

  “They knew, those ancients, how to supplicate the lowliest...theypreferred the virginal...snowy peaks...whispering groves...the huntingcry...”

  Warming my feet on a warming stone, I said I preferred the goldenhymn and repeated fragments...

  Long are their ways of living, honey in their bread,

  and in their dances their footsteps twirl, twirlinglight...

  ?

  Fragment of talk:

  “We can’t marry, unless we have a child...you’ll be twenty-threesoon...it must be like that...my house is a house of women...”

  I thought of those words as I passed Phaon’s house, beyond the wharf,isolated. As I passed, waves climbed its base, licking at boulders. Itswalls are thicker than most, cracked and mottled. I used to be afraidof that house as a girl and as I passed these thoughts brought backsome of that apprehension. I glanced at the seaward balcony, totteringon wasted beams, painted years ago. Seagulls squatted on the flat roof,as they have day in and day out. There are five rooms underneath thosetiles and his mother and uncle lived and died there, a harsh strugglein rooms of simple furnishings, coils of rope, nets, brass fittings andbronze anchors.

  Phaon lives there with two men, their servants and a hanger-on. Kleisvisits occasionally. A parrot, some say nearly two hundred years old,gabbles sayings and fills the sea-sopped silences.

  Yes, his house troubles me—its darkness, its evocation of poverty andmy own exile.

  ?

  While I was ill, Libus cared for me, the mastery of his handsrelieving pain. By my bed, talking soothing talk, he brought gradualrelief, just as two years ago. His hands are more than hands, it seems.Magical masseur, he explores yet never gropes: his fingers, padded atthe tips, press, release, wait. Our friendship, with all itsconfidences, in spite of differences, weathers the years and isstronger at such a time, under his mastery. As he obliterates pain, heblinks absently or smiles his pale smile, withdrawn yet assuring. Helearned his art from a young Alexandrian, a man he met while studyingin Athens, who spoke many desert languages.

  “I’d like to see him again. I’ve learned something through my ownexperiments; we would share. Of course, he’s a great man.”

  And when I asked Libus about my illness, he said:

  “Too much work, too much rich food, too much concern. You haven’tbeen using common sense.”

  I didn’t care for this and said:

  “I know from what Alcaeus says, you help him more than anyone. Youcan help me.”

  “I’m not able to help him all the time.”

  “You mean his drinking?”

  He shrugged.

  “Let’s call it something else. He does nothing so much of the time.That’s where the trouble lies. He’s not thinking...doesn’t care.”

  “He wouldn’t let me in when I went last. Thasos had to turn me away.”

  “The great soldier...drunk.”

  “What can I do?”

  “Try again, Sappho. You and I know what he is—and was. You used tounderstand him better than anyone. Now, well, I do what I can. He’sgrowing worse...have you heard him bellow at me or Thasos, as if hewere commanding officer? No doubt you have...and more...”

  Libus’ hands pushed and then, feather-weight, stroked upward, overand over, inducing me to breathe steadily: his hands brought warmth, mythinking became clearer. As he pressed, the weight on my heartlessened; as his fingers covered my stomach, rotating their tips, Ifelt bitter anguish might not come again.

  Lecturing me, he cautioned me about food and advised less exercise:rest, let the days flow by.

  So, I sail with my girls, lie in the sun, walk, poke along lazytrails, fuss in my garden. Winter is hard on me. Chills come, leavingmy stomach knotted, my eyes afire.

  ?

  Phaon has returned.

  ?

 

  Phaon and Sappho kneel in a grove,

  a cithara beside them:

  age-old trees shade the lovers:

  the age of a ruined temple is part of

  the timelessness of the grove:

  bronze Phaon and white Sappho,

  dusk takes over their whispers,

  their motions, the wind in the olives.

  Mytilene

  U

  nder the olive trees we faced each other, alone, the sun coloring theground, patching yellow and brown. A butterfly circled, as ifconsidering us. Tenderly, Phaon fitted his hands over my breasts and Iheld him in my arms; swaying, we kissed: we had not talked much and weknew talk could come later: his legs crowded mine: his hand undid myhair, spilling it over my shoulders: confirmation was in that un-disturbed place and accord burned our mouths and throats. Encystmentwas the slipping down of robes, our knees touching, the feeling, self,and underneath self, the ground, our earth: yet we were not aware, onlybefore and later: the consummation dragged at the trees: I forced himto me, forcing back his face, his mouth: how warm his stamina:tenderly, we rose, to fall back: tenderness, how it becomes ash, takingus by surprise: I couldn’t stop quivering till his hands stopped me:his voice was real so all was real: then, he was home and this was nota lie: I knew it on the slope of hills sloping to the ocean: I knew itin the boat, far at sea.

  ?

  When we learned of a terrible earthquake at Chios, we loaded Libus’boat with food, wine and water and set out, before dawn, across choppywater, Phaon and I at the stern, under blankets, Libus managing thesail. We were part of a small fleet but I couldn’t discern anotherboat. Spray swished overhead and fog, ahead and astern, seemed ready topincer us. Under our hull the water flooded ominously; the sky, withoutits stars, might have been the ocean.

  Our hard trip brought us into Chios tired and hungry; we had beenunable to look after ourselves but, without eating, we began todistribute food and wine.

  Chios—happy town—lay broken. I walked about, remembering, stoppinghere and there: all the central part, shops and temple, weredismembered, had windy dust blowing across it, greyish dust that seemedmortuary. Yet, I saw no dead, only the injured: Libus helped them,bandaging, talking: I gave wine and water, afraid: he was annoyed by myfear: I could not find Phaon and that worried me. Wine, and water,dribbling them, my hamper shaking, the wind icy and dust in my mouth, Ifelt sick again. A child raced to me, wailing: crouching down, Imothered her, fed her a little bread: as we crouched, a slab ofbuilding fell, tottered forward and disappeared in a wave of dust.

  “The quake came and came and th
en came again,” an injured woman said,accepting dates and cheese.

  By now, I saw others from Mytilene and their hearty faces cheered me.But how the gulls screamed. Flocks wheeled and screamed.

  On the beach we lit fires and cooked our suppers, wind and dust stillbothering us: Phaon and I ate with people from home, our fire puttogether from the prow of an old boat, the talk about Chios and theinjured, their lack of food and care. We slept in beached boats, thesurf snarling, stars breaking through fast clouds: I remembered the bigdipper and frightened people... Libus woke us early and we did our bestto help, using splints, caring for a head wound, bandaging a boy’schest... Libus scarcely allowed himself time to eat.

  The wind had subsided, and I felt less fear and went about with mybasket of food and wine. In the afternoon, we welcomed other boats fromLesbos and after a second night on the beach—this one calm, all thestars awake—we sailed for home, three of us leaving at the same time,our boats so many grey corks on a line.