I ran fluttering
Like a girl
After her mother.
—SAPPHO
NEW MOTHERHOOD IS A time of tempestuous emotions. Even though my own mother was here with me in Syracuse, even though I had Praxinoa at my side, my mind was full of fantasies and fears as I fell more and more deeply in love with my baby.
My mind was a seething cauldron. Tenderness for my baby warred with terror for her fate. I understood why babies have often been sacrificed—from the beginning of time. Their little dented skulls show us the thinness of the membrane between life and death. Their new unsteady breath reminds us of the slender difference between being and nonbeing. Only a sigh of air released from the new wet lungs divides them. A baby’s fierce life-cries sometimes sound like death-cries to the anxious mother. All of existence hangs on a thread during those early days. I never stopped thinking I would walk into Cleis’ nursery in the middle of the night to find her still, stopped, mute, a little lump of putty without air.
A gift so newly given may be snatched back by the gods. It seems tentative, provisional, fragile. We know the gods are nothing if not capricious. What they give with golden hands, they may take away with bloody ones. From one minute to the next, their will may change. Until you know this in the pit of your gut, you are no parent. Persephone’s dark bedroom awaits us all. Demeter’s desperation for her lost daughter, kidnapped by the king of death, could be the fate of any mother.
I was always glad that I had borne a daughter. Her beauty and fragility never ceased to stir me in that secret place where fear and desire mingle. But as Cleis grew, I also wondered what it would be like to be the mother of a son—a little Alcaeus who would smile and coo for me when I unfastened his loincloth, a little boy whose tender phallus would come to overmaster him and guide his fate, a little hero offered up to Ares to be killed on the battlefield, to be transported home as cold ashes in a jar. No! It was too horrible to think about. I was grateful for my daughter. At least she could be kept off the battlefield—until she came to the battlefield of birth.
Still, my mother and I left nothing to chance. We used all the magic at our command to ensure the baby’s life. This time I did not go back to Cretaea, but instead we found an Egyptian priestess who was reputed to be able to read the future.
In the ancient quarter, not far from the fountain of Arethusa, lived the one who called herself the priestess of Isis. My mother and I visited her with little Cleis in our arms.
The priestess’ house was full of cats—which are sacred to the Egyptians. They leapt about, meowed, rolled over like dogs, urging you to rub their soft bellies. There must have been at least twenty living cats I could see and surely more in hiding. Against every wall stood small sarcophagi, which held the mummified remains of other cats. I later learned that every cat the priestess had ever loved was here. Despite the fact that Egyptians are very clean, the smell was overpowering. I guess, with that many cats, even the most meticulous practices cannot remove the odor.
A female slave led us to the inner courtyard.
“The priestess will see you soon,” she said.
My mother held the baby. I busied myself with observing the decorations of the priestess’ courtyard.
Isis is the name the Egyptians give to Demeter. There was a statue of her in the middle of the courtyard and one cat stood unceremoniously on Isis’ shoulder. Isis is usually depicted as having horns—the way we Greeks depict Io. Cows are sacred to Egyptians and cannot be eaten.
There was a fountain with lotus flowers in one corner of the courtyard and the sound of running water gentled the air. Most soothsayers, I had found, live in squalor and seem to grub for bits of gold—but this one had obviously grown rich in the practice of her craft.
“How much money did you bring?” I asked my mother.
“Enough,” she said, gazing down into the baby’s face as if it were a precious jewel that twinkled on her finger.
A slave who had greeted us padded into the courtyard on bare feet. “The priestess will see you now,” she said, “but first you must purify yourselves.” She led us to a tinkling fountain, bade us wash, then dried our hands with clean linen. She anointed our hands with sweet-smelling almond oil.
We were led into a small chamber draped with red silk where the priestess sat on a throne. I had expected an old crone, but this priestess was young and beautiful, with shaved eyebrows and jewelry that seemed like liquid gold.
“You bring a babe for me to bless,” she said, speaking Greek with only the smallest hint of an Egyptian accent.
“Yes,” my mother said. I was silenced by the priestess’ beauty—her long almond-shaped golden eyes, her tawny skin, her aureole of red-brown ringlets, her breasts plainly rising and falling under her silken chiton, which fell into a hundred rainbow pleats of red and purple. I could not help but stare. My breath caught in my throat.
“Are you wondering about my eyebrows?” she asked. No, I was wondering about her beauty, but did not dare to say so.
“I have shaved them in mourning for my favorite cat, Sesostris. He died some days past. He is being mummified and a splendid golden sarcophagus is being made for him. He is the only babe I will ever have. If I could reincarnate him I would, but alas, not even priestesses have that power. Tell me, what can I do for you?”
“I need to know the fate of my child,” I blurted out, “and my fate.”
“A tall order,” said the priestess. “One fate at a time. Show me the baby.”
My mother reluctantly handed over Cleis. The priestess held the baby tenderly and gazed down at her. She gazed for a long time but said nothing. Then she handed the babe back to me. I was almost afraid I would drop the infant, since my knees were weak from the priestess’ beauty. Her tawny oval face seemed to hold the secrets of the universe.
“Usually I sacrifice a bird and read its entrails, but the words of the goddess are so clear, I do not have to.
“Isis says that you and this child will someday return across the sea’s broad back to a land you love, that you will be a singer and a teacher there, that you will teach the air to resound with your syllables so that they will forever echo, that you will be a muse to all who come after you, all except your own daughter, and that when you die, your name will live forever.”
“But what about baby Cleis?”
“She will grow and prosper,” the priestess said. “She will have her own renown and she will live to bury you. That is all a mother can ask.”
The prophecy was so clear and precise that I immediately doubted it. I knew that soothsayers, like oracles, sometimes spoke in riddles. I knew it took a strong and clever mind to understand them correctly. But on this day my mind was far from strong! Not only was I crazed with worry over my child, but also the beauty of this priestess had weakened me. Already confused by my tumultuous feelings for my daughter and Alcaeus, I was further confused by my sudden feelings for this priestess. Her skin was golden, her hair a mass of ringlets, her arms and legs long and sinewy, her aroma that of frankincense and myrrh. My breath caught in my throat. My knees seemed to sway under me. I could feel the sweat under my arms and the moisture between my legs. If she had touched me, I would have swooned and fallen over backward on one of the soft pillows that lined the room. My mother steadied me. She quickly took the baby out of my arms.
“Sappho!” she said, as if to awaken me from some reverie. Syllables formed in my mind:
Love, that loosener of limbs,
Makes me tremble to the root.
I did not say these words aloud.
“Where are you, Sappho?” my mother asked again.
“The girl is flower-picking on Parnassus,” the priestess said. “She will come back to us by and by.”
The baby suddenly cried as if it knew it had a rival. My mother hushed her, rocked her, comforted her. I knelt before the priestess with my hands on my knees in the Egyptian style.
“I do not even know your name,” I said, prostrating myself.
“You can call me Isis,” the almond-eyed beauty said.
“Isis, tell me the prophecy again,” I asked.
“I never repeat my prophecies,” she said. “If you want a more complex and confusing prediction, go to Delphi, spend your money needlessly. Leave me! I have no time for those who question me!”
Love is a fever, a contagion, a storm among the old oak trees. I went home with my mother and my daughter, but in my mind I remained with Isis.
Praxinoa knew instinctively that something had changed.
“Sappho—you walk like someone in a dream. What has happened to you? What did the soothsayer say?”
“Only good things, Prax.”
“Then what has come over you?”
“Nothing, I’m fine, I promise you.”
But Praxinoa knew me too well to believe me. She sensed that strong winds of change were blowing in our lives. She watched me carefully after that and I felt her uneasiness. My love for Alcaeus and the baby she could almost accept, but love for another woman—never.
I knew I would try to see Isis again as soon as I could leave the baby and evade my mother and Prax. The priestess had my heart to twist and throw away. Or was it some other organ?
The next day, like one possessed, I went to court the priestess. I wish I’d known that Praxinoa was trailing me and reporting to my mother!
Isis was not an easy prey. I waited in the antechamber again, amid the cats. This time my heart pounded and my chiton was drenched in sweat. I waited an hour or more. Eventually, the priestess saw me.
“You are agitated,” she said, “despite my prophecy.”
“You are the most beautiful creature I have ever seen.”
The priestess laughed. “You think that if you hold me in your arms and stroke me like a cat, your soul will purr. It is Aphrodite you love, not I.”
“How can you say that? I ache for you. I would give everything I have for one taste of your mouth.”
“Even your child?” Isis asked.
“Everything but that,” I said, my heart pounding.
“At least you are honest with me,” said Isis. With that she kissed me, her tongue reaching into the moistness of my soul, her slender fingers entwined in the damp tendrils of hair behind my neck. I shook with desire like an oak tree in the wind. Oh, Praxinoa and I had played with each other and pleasured each other as small girls. This was the first time I had been kissed by a grown woman. A kiss can be more intimate than any other form of touch.
“Now go,” she said abruptly.
“Go? How can I go when I adore you?”
“Go home to your babe and your mother,” the priestess said. “This is no time for play. Come back when you can bring an offering from your deepest well.”
“And what would that be?”
“That is the riddle you must solve before you may love me,” Isis said.
Was I mad to have fallen in love so precipitously? Was I getting even with Alcaeus for his beautiful boys? Was I terrified of the responsibilities of motherhood and looking for an escape? Or was I in love with my daughter, my own reflection, and seeking another woman as a double? All these questions raced around and around in my head like Isis’ cats.
I thought of “an offering from your deepest well.” What did it mean? Did she desire my firstborn child, like a priestess of Motya? What else could I give that had great worth? My lyre? Surely she did not desire anything as worthless as gold. And why did she say that I loved Aphrodite and not her? I loved her as passionately as I loved Aphrodite. I thought of her all day and dreamed of her all night. Her tawny flanks, her shaved eyebrows, her eyes the color of cats’ eyes, her long thin fingers whose soft pads I longed to feel on my skin—all these visions and imagined sensations haunted me. I began to study everything I could about the Egyptians and their lore to understand her. I was determined to make her mine.
The Egyptians believed that Isis was the oldest of the old, the giver of life, the mother-goddess from whom all creation arose. They addressed her as “mistress of the gods, thou bearer of wings, thou lady of the red garments, queen of the crowns of South and North, mother in the horizon of the sky, mistress and lady of the tomb, giver of enchantments, giver of milk and blood and all things which flow….”
Isis was first among the gods. She gave birth to Horus, the sun. Without her light-giving womb, the earth would be dark and nothing would grow. She had swallowed Osiris the savior and brought him back to life. He was reborn as Horus, whereupon he grew to manhood and mated with his mother so that life could continue. The annual flooding of the Nile was caused by Isis weeping over her dead son. Her overflowing eye was also a delta. Her symbol was a circle surmounted by a horn.
I prayed to know how to please the priestess. Suddenly it came to me. She had lost her beloved cat, Sesostris. If I could replace that animal, surely she would love me. I went to her house and found one of her handmaidens.
“Tell me what Sesostris looked like,” I asked her.
“He was like no other cat in the world—his coat was red-gold. One eye was pure blue, the other agate, and his claws were the longest of any cat I have ever seen. He understood Greek and Egyptian and Phoenician. He cried like a human baby. And when you stroked his fur, lightning was made in the sky and clouds parted, bringing rain. We thought him no ordinary cat but a messenger come to earth to tell us the will of the gods. My mistress loved him better than any being on earth.”
I rewarded the girl, bade her keep silent about my inquiries, and went home to ponder my predicament. Alcaeus was in my mind, and my baby, and Isis. I dreamed mad dreams in which I was in bed with all three of them. I sweated in a fever all night and suffered the chills all day. I was wild. I longed for more messages from Alcaeus, and yet I feared that if they came, they would distract me from my pursuit of the priestess!
In the days that followed, I sent my slaves all over the city and the countryside to find a cat who resembled Sesostris. Only Praxinoa refused to go. The other slaves found cats with golden manes and cats with agate eyes, cats with blue eyes and long sharp claws but none with precisely the right combination of features. My house swarmed with cats, yet I was in despair. I had convinced myself that unless I could fulfill the priestess’ desire, she would never love me.
The cats that had taken over our house appalled my mother and Praxinoa.
“And what will you do if one of these wild creatures scratches out the baby’s eyes?” Praxinoa asked. “Sappho, you are mad. Banish these cats to the garden or your babe will not be safe and I myself will not stay in this house.” She sulked like a wounded lover. Whenever I entered a room I heard her whispering with my mother.
I gave in and made a compound for cats in our garden. My slaves brought fresh fish every day and laid it out for the cats. Before long all the cats of Syracuse had visited our courtyard. But another Sesostris was nowhere to be found. It was true that he must have been a most unusual cat. I could not find a cat that understood Greek, let alone Egyptian or Phoenician!
In despair and defeat, I went back to the priestess.
“I have tried to find another Sesostris to replace the one you lost,” I admitted, “but he is nowhere to be found. There are cats with golden manes and agate eyes, cats with blue eyes and long claws, but none that understands Greek, let alone Egyptian and Phoenician. What you have lost is irreplaceable. I cannot restore it to you. Yet I love you with my whole heart. May I sing what I have composed for you?”
The priestess nodded her head.
Love shook my heart
Like a fierce wind
Troubling the oaks on a high mountain.
The priestess listened deeply. Then she rose. “Come,” she said, “let me show you something.”
She led me through the courtyard and into the house where her women were weaving. She led me through the baths and the banqueting rooms. She led me down a damp and narrow stair. There, under the house, she had stored a huge, carved stone sarcophagus in which she planned to be buried. Against the wall there was a life-sized likeness of her face that would eventually form the mask of her mummy. Painted by the most skillful artist, it would preserve her youth forever as the minerals of the embalmers would preserve her flesh. The sarcophagus was uncovered. She climbed inside. I stood there puzzled. What was I supposed to do? She peeked out mischievously and beckoned for me to follow.
The coffin was larger than it seemed. There was just room enough for two. We lay down in it together so our bodies were touching at every point.
“We will be dead a long time,” Isis said, as she touched my face with silken fingers. Her body smelled of lotus flowers, jasmine, and myrrh. She drew my tongue into her mouth and stroked my body with her cool hands. She touched the tips of my nipples, which rose to meet her fingers. She sucked them with her sweet mouth.
Then she lowered her head to my navel, ran her tongue around and around in it until it was brimming. She stroked my thighs until I pounded with desire. I had never felt so cavernously empty inside, so ready to be filled up.
“There are many things you may bring me besides another Sesostris,” Isis said, as she brought her mouth to my hot center. She ran her tongue around and around the flesh nib that hardened for her. Then she insinuated a slim finger into my liquid core, rocking and rubbing until I came like the Nile in flood. A warm toasty smell suffused the sarcophagus and my legs felt as if they were floating in space.
“We have landed on the moon,” said the priestess of Isis. “Let us see if we can return to the sun.”
Then she began to show me how she liked to be touched. She loved the lightest touch, a teasing caress that made the golden hair of her arms stand on end. She had an amazing tongue, which she used on me as I used mine on her. I imitated her touch. My tongue became her tongue. Head to foot in the sarcophagus, we pleasured each other as if we had all eternity to do it.
“When I am embalmed and lying in my coffin, I will remember this warmth. We may not be eternal like the gods, but when we make love we experience a foretaste of immortality. Take what you want, Sappho, for what you desire you truly are.”
“Immortality is what I want.”
“Then take it with your songs. They will bring you immortality.”
You came when I lay aching for your touch
And you cooled my burning heart.
“Make a song of that—and bring it to me. That is the gift I will receive.”
“I wanted to bring you back your favorite cat as a gift of love. I despaired when I could not.”
“You brought me something more precious,” the priestess said, “your honesty. You have the gift to transcribe the heart. Use it! Every day you neglect it, you deny the gods.”
In the days that followed, I wrote a song for the priestess every morning and brought it to her every afternoon. Sometimes we made love in her sarcophagus, sometimes in the boat she kept ready at the harbor. Her slaves would row us into the open sea, hoist a sail if there was wind, and as we rode the seas in the will of the wind, drinking honeyed wine and eating figs and dates, I would play my lyre and sing my songs to her. She would lie back on pillows as the songs entered her and she would try to memorize their words and music. Then we would pleasure each other under the sun or stars.
“We are fortunate to be living in this age,” Isis told me. “In times to come, people will fear Eros and hate all pleasure. There will be a dark age in which all the sweets of life will turn bitter. It will last a very long time.”
“How do you know this?”
“I have read the entrails of the future. I am glad I will not live to see them. Music will die because there is no music without Eros. People will live for gold and conquest and only dimly remember that humans did not always live that way. Even your songs will be misunderstood. All songs to pleasure will be seen as evil. Music itself will be suspect. Everything will be measured by how much gold it brings.”
“Only fools measure everything by how much gold it brings! Not civilized people.”
“Darling Sappho, sweet Sappho—it’s better not to know what the future holds. Soothsayers are sad because they know the future but do not know how to change it.”
“Songs can change the future,” I said. At the time I believed it.
“Songs can do everything but that,” the priestess sighed.