Home is sweet as honey.
—HOMER
YOU MIGHT WONDER HOW I could even think of suicide after my trip to the Land of the Dead. Those who have seen the shades close up generally do not wish to join them. It is not that the punishments there are so severe. I saw no frozen canyons, no burning lakes, and no spikes to pierce the heart more sharply than motherhood pierces it. To be dead is to lose the power of physical feeling. Whatever wisdom comes to replace that bittersweet ability is not enough. And the dead still long for life—that much I knew. They cannot feel the warmth of human flesh, yet they can feel regret.
We had left Hades’ realm—or whatever glimpse of it I had been granted. (Perhaps, not being truly dead, I could not really know its essence.) Much time had elapsed during my brief travels there. I knew this when Aesop and I came back to the ship—for some of the amazon maidens were now mothers of three-year-old children, and there were many younger children as well. I had wandered among the dead, marveling at how much they looked like their living selves. Aesop had slept and slept and the whole ship had become a nursery! I saw these newly hatched children with an aching heart, missing Cleis more than ever. She would now be five years old!
Some of the sailors were happy to be fathers and doted upon their children, but others were restless and jealous, feeling themselves displaced in the affections of their women. These had begun to court the other amazons and the community was hardly as harmonious as it had been when last I left it.
In my absence, all attempts at sailing had ceased. The ship had been dragged up on land and the sails had become tents. The animals we had carried aboard now roamed free on the strand—at least those that hadn’t been eaten. The amphorae of wine and grain were empty and it was time to stay and plant crops or move on to another island. But nobody seemed to have the discipline to make any decisions. Between the squalling babies, the wooing and courting of the amazons and the sailors—chaos had come again.
The Nubian galley slaves had also become full members of the community and had intermarried with the amazon maidens. The captain’s power over his mariners and oarsmen was at an end. And he was in love with an amazon maiden who had borne him two sets of twins. He had become such a passionate father that he wished only to babble at them in baby talk and stare into their bright eyes.
I’d emerged from Hades’ realm to find a sprawling settlement at the edge of the sea—without laws, without sufficient food, without peace or serenity.
Maera was now the mother of two—an infant and a two-year-old. She had banished her lover from her tent for wooing another young amazon called Leto, who had no children and was liberally entertaining those sailors who’d grown tired of fatherhood. Leto, named for Apollo’s mother, had become a sort of Rhodopis of this uninhabited island, luring sailors into her pleasure tent on the edge of the strand for orgies.
I had returned from Hades’ realm, in short, to find a mess that nobody had sufficient power or authority to end. The amazons were used to being ruled by their queen; they saw no reason to obey a man—even if he had been appointed captain by a distant pharaoh.
Who was the pharaoh to them? Simply a man in curious robes and a double crown. They had no fear of him—or any man.
As for the Nubian slaves, they saw no reason why they should row the ship rather than steer it from on deck—but the Egyptian mariners refused to row, being unaccustomed to the task. While the slaves and masters fought over their future duties, the ship moldered. Its hull had not been tarred, nor its sails—those that had not been cut up for tents—mended. It was rotting even as we watched. Clearly, we would all perish on this rocky island on the edge of the Land of the Dead unless something was done. Water had been found, but food was running low. You cannot live on fish forever—at least without oil, without grain, without fruits and vegetables. We had goats’ milk and cheese, but no fruits. The island grew none and its rocky soil was inhospitable. The ale and wine were gone and some of the men found life without these anodynes intolerable. The babies had milk, but their mothers were malnourished for lack of fresh foods. Some beautiful amazon maidens were losing their teeth from nursing.
Already several amazons had died in childbirth and babes had perished in infancy. Beyond Leto’s pleasure tent was a little graveyard by the sea that grew daily. Its grave markers were made of driftwood and shells. It was open to the wind and bodies had to be buried quickly before the wild seabirds could feast on them.
I consulted Aesop.
“A leader is needed—and a strong one,” he said.
He was right. But who could claim authority over this disparate crew? The amazons were used to one form of society, the Egyptians to another. They had worshiped different gods, followed different ways of life, different sacrifices, different rituals. The Egyptians believed the body must be preserved after death. The amazons fed their monthly blood to their goddess. And yet, no matter how various their ways, they had common needs: for order, for feeding themselves and their children, for educating their young.
I thought about the amazons and the rules they had lived by. They had accepted a world without men, but as soon as the joys of sex beckoned, they converted quickly enough to the worship of the goddess of love. What was the answer here? A world where love was free or a world where love was chained? Where was happiness to be found? In freedom or in deprivation? Had my brothers found happiness in Naucratis? A city of rampant luxury and sin—and they fall prey to a courtesan who enslaves them. Some people will turn freedom to slavery and others will turn slavery to freedom—like Aesop. Aesop understood all these paradoxes better than anyone.
“You must become the leader of these people,” Aesop said, “or they will never survive. They are confused. They have no rules to live by.”
“Why not you? You have a beard. A beard is always helpful to those who wish to rule!”
“Sappho, you jest. You know that a beard is no sign of authority to amazons.”
“How shall I—a mere musician—command the Nubians, the Egyptians, the captain, the navigators?”
“By making them think you have the gods on your side, as kings and queens have always done. You have returned from the Land of the Dead. Surely that gives you authority!”
I wondered. By what right could I seize command? I wavered as I had with the amazon queen. The only power I knew was the power of song.
“You must seize your right with words. Either words or swords win leadership—and words are your best weapon.”
“I have no idea how to begin.”
“How did Pittacus take over Lesbos?”
“He was the leader in the war against the Athenians, but he subdued the aristocrats of Lesbos more by guile. He seduced the leaders to his side and little by little took over their power.”
“Then so must you. You must use the power of Hades’ realm and prophecies you learned there to get the attention of the natural leaders of the populace.”
“Who are they?”
“That we will only learn by going among them. Sappho, we must begin, or we will all be buried in that graveyard, except for the last to die, who will be torn apart by wild seabirds. There is no time to waste!”
So Aesop and I began to go among the people, to take a tour of the domain we sought to conquer. We would listen to their hopes and grievances and start to learn how to bring order to our little land.
The amazons were angry with Leto—who was no titaness. Not only Maera of the red ringlets, but many of the other young mothers wanted Leto’s pleasure tent closed down. Leto had been joined in her enterprise by a few of her sisters, but most of the amazons were disgusted by her exploitation of their men.
“Men are weak,” Maera said. “We all know that. Seducing them is no trick. But try getting them to take care of their children! Oh, I wish that I had never left the land of the amazons, where women band together instead of fighting among themselves for men! I would go back if I could!”
“Antiope would have had you killed after your first child was born,” I reminded her. I did not say that I had met Antiope in the Land of the Dead and knew that she had perished.
“Even Antiope looks good to me now!” Maera fumed. “Antiope was a moral force compared to Leto!”
“Listen to her!” Aesop whispered to me. “Even an unjust ruler is better than no ruler at all.”
That night, Aesop and I went to find Leto at moonrise. The sea lapped at the shore. Birds rustled in the dark leaves. A fume of incense rose out of the opening at the top of Leto’s tent. Within we heard the music of pipes and stringed instruments. The flute sounded its low melancholy tone. Leto emerged from the tent briefly to lure the admirers who waited outside looking like stray dogs.
Perfumed like a goddess, she wore a cape of woven sea grass, which shimmered as she moved; under it were multicolored silks. She had borne no children and still smiled with all her white and shiny teeth.
She now had dropped the sea-grass cape, and her rippling rags of silk fluttered as she danced. With great skill, she unpeeled the silk streamers one by one.
Now she ushered us all into her tent.
Eros loves disguises more even than touch and perfume. Leto knew this. She had to be all things to all men and she had constructed cunning masks for the purpose. She had bird masks and animal masks, masks with horns and masks with long gold hair. She had fashioned them herself and her movements transformed her into any creature she wished to be. A dancer can transport her audience by movement alone and Leto had that gift. She could become a cat, a panther, a snake, a horse. She could impersonate any mythical being she chose. Perhaps she was a titaness after all.
The men were rapt and silent at her performance. They were transported to a world of magic. Whatever the blessings of children, they make magic seem far away indeed—and Leto also understood this. She was slim and lithe. Her eyes were gray-blue and her lashes were long and dark. Her long hair was almost the color of silver with gold threads. She draped it over her chest where one breast was missing. The sight sent a shiver down my spine. She was joined by her two amazon attendants—as beautiful as she, though one was dark and plump, with olive eyes, and the other had blazing red hair the color of polished copper and eyes the color of that metal when tarnished. The three began to dance together, fondling each other’s single breasts, kissing each other’s lips, exchanging masks and then acting mute pantomimes in which they seduced each other.
I watched them in a trance, remembering how long it had been since I had tasted ripe flesh, since I had kissed a living man or woman. In the Land of the Dead no one could fuse flesh to flesh. That was the paradox of that place: endless yearning, endless deprivation. In the Land of the Dead, everyone was cursed like Tantalus. I had been chaste among the lovely amazons—what a waste! All I did there was write! And in Egypt, I had pleasured the pharaoh rather than having him pleasure me. (That’s the problem with pharaohs!) How long had it been since I and a lover had gifted each other with our liquid love? My legs ached and my belly throbbed. I thought of Alcaeus and Isis, thought of the joy of clasping a friend who is also a lover. It had been too long!
There were far too many men for three women to receive in love. What could Leto possibly have up her sleeve? Or under her silken rags?
Soon enough, she produced a rude clay pipe. One of her maidens lit it. A strong smell filled the tent. The men leaned forward to inhale. They clapped and stamped their feet.
As the dancing continued, the pipe was passed from one spectator to another and its fumes were inhaled deeply. There was so much smoke in the tent that even I, without puffing the pipe, began to get light-headed. I thought I saw swirling rainbows in the smoke.
Aesop and I left the tent for a few moments to breathe fresh air. We gulped it hungrily.
“Somewhere on this island, she has gathered mushrooms,” Aesop said. “I know the smell. Leto should be careful. In small doses, some of these mushrooms are intoxicants, but some are lethal as hemlock.”
“The amazons studied herbs—both anodynes and stimulants. They know far more than any people I have met. I am from Lesbos—I know only wine.”
We went back into the tent. Now the men were sprawled on the floor, dreaming in the smoke-filled air. The amazons continued dancing. They danced over the men triumphantly, linking hands and weaving around their prostrate bodies. They laughed.
“Well, that was a great beginning for our interviews of the populace,” I told Aesop when he and I were alone together.
“Information is always useful.”
“You and your damned epigrams! You govern this island! I’m not interested.”
“All right. But where will you go? Back to the Land of the Dead? To sea without a boat? Sappho, you have no choice. Either govern this island or let it govern you!”
I thought about this. Aesop was right. He was always right! I kicked a stone. I walked into the sea and swam in the darkness. As I swam to and fro, to and fro, wishing the nereids and Poseidon would save me or drown me, I had an inspiration, and the inspiration became a plan.