As long as there is breath in my lungs,
I shall love—
And even after
—SAPPHO
WAS I HAPPY WITH Phaon? Perhaps I was distracted from my grief more than I was happy. And he made himself indispensable to me. Copying out my songs was the least of it; he really did make himself my willing slave. He took over all the things in my life I hated to do—arguing with Charaxus over my share of the wine crop, defending me with Rhodopis when she tried to take the furniture that had belonged to my mother and grandparents, ferrying my students around the island, organizing their travel home, dealing with their parents on my behalf. He made my life easier. In fact, he coddled me.
“If you ever left me, how would I survive?” I used to joke to Phaon. It was only half a joke.
And I did not give up visiting Cleis and trying to make peace with her. That was my deepest desire.
Every week I would sail to Eresus in Phaon’s boat and stay with Cleis for three days until Phaon came back to fetch me. In the meantime, he took care of the students and their needs.
Hector was five by now and Cleis desperately wanted a daughter—but she kept losing babies. It seemed she could not keep a pregnancy. I privately thought this was because she was unhappy with her husband, but I never said this to her. We consulted midwives together. The best midwife in Mytilene was said to be a woman who called herself Artemisia after the goddess Artemis, who protected women in childbirth. (Immortal Artemis was a fierce virgin who hated intercourse and consequently the men who subjected women to the perils of childbirth.) Her devotee Artemisia was about my age—old!—and she lived in a great house on the harbor in Mytilene. She was famed far and wide. Her practice had made her rich. But she did not hate men. Quite the contrary.
Artemisia was not easy to see, even if you were the adopted daughter of Pittacus and the daughter of the singer Sappho. She had many women waiting for her counsel. I had sent Phaon again and again to plead with her for an earlier audience. He must have bewitched her with his beauty, because finally we were to be given one.
Artemisia was tall and handsome, with a square jaw and flashing dark eyes. She wore her dark hair coiled in serpents of gold. Her clasps were fashioned like gold serpents and her golden sandals were entwined with golden serpents. At first sight she reminded me of Herpetia the snake goddess, but I tried to put that out of my head. We needed her—Cleis and I.
Cleis told Artemisia her sad tale of lost pregnancies while I sat silently, listening. Artemisia asked questions that Cleis found embarrassing.
“After your husband makes love to you, do you lie still without jumping up out of bed?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean—do you run away? Do you run back to your own quarters?”
“Why would I do that?” Cleis asked.
“I don’t know,” Artemisia said. “Some women don’t like their husbands very much.”
“But I love him like a dutiful wife!”
“But are you fond of him?”
“Why does this matter?”
“Some doctors believe that the male fluid determines a boy, while the female determines a girl. If you are nervous or jump up after love, your fluid may not be sweet enough.”
Cleis leaned forward in wonderment. “Astonishing,” she said. “Mother—will you wait outside?”
“Of course,” I said and I left to wait outside among the desperate young women—one of whom recognized me.
“I dream of a golden flower like your Cleis,” said the woman. “I sing that song each night before bed, hoping for a golden girl. I already have three sons—but who shall be with me when I am old if there’s no daughter?”
“I am grateful for your words,” I said. “Thank you.” The woman seemed crestfallen that I had not said more, but I had heard this so many times from strangers while the same song embarrassed my own daughter. Silly me. Families never appreciate what comes from your muse. Why should they?
Everywhere I went, this sort of thing happened to me, and yet my songs were still out of favor with Pittacus and forbidden to be sung at public festivals. Andromeda had risen like a terrible goddess over us all. She and the maidens who followed her sang her dreadful songs at every festival, at every symposium. Yes, they had revived the symposium in Lesbos, but even there no one dared to sing anything but songs to Pittacus and his warrior glory. Glorifying the warrior-ruler is such an easy emotion. It covers a multitude of sins. And a multitude of clumsy songs with witless words.
I waited while Cleis confided in Artemisia. Better that I was not there to hear. Finally I was called back into the room.
Artemisia was instructing Cleis about a magic spell involving red binding thread and birds’ eggs. It seemed that if you bound three sparrows’ eggs in a nest with red thread and invoked Aphrodite and Artemis, you might persuade a pregnancy to last.
“Eggs bound to the nest will never fall,” said Artemisia. “But your intention must be pure. You must cleanse yourself for seven days before you perform the ritual; you must gather only the largest eggs of sparrows, sacred to Aphrodite for their fecundity. If you cannot find sparrows’ eggs, you may, in special cases, use the eggs of doves. Both sparrows and doves are sacred to the Cyprian. You must spin the red thread at your own loom. You must gather the nest from the highest tree on your land. If you will do these things and lie still after love, perhaps I can help you, but only if it is the will of the gods.”
Cleis said, “I will do all these things.”
“Then come back in two weeks with the eggs, the nest, the thread.”
“I will,” said Cleis.
I sent one of Artemisia’s slaves out to fetch Phaon and the bag of gold we had brought for Artemisia.
In a little while, Phaon appeared, bowed low to Artemisia and gave her the bag. A look passed between them that made me think they knew each other intimately—or perhaps I was imagining this.
Artemisia looked in the bag, saw that it contained gold coins from Lydia, and seemed not wholly pleased. “I shall also require oboloi to be sent to me. Send them with the boy!” She nodded at Phaon, who lowered his head.
“How do you two know each other?” I asked.
“What makes you think we do?” said Artemisia. “Return in two weeks with the objects I have commanded! And purify yourself before you come!”
I stayed in Mytilene then to help Cleis prepare for her next audience with Artemisia and sent Phaon back to Eresus to fetch the oboloi and attend to my students.
The red thread was not a problem to spin, but it was the wrong time of year for a sparrow’s nest and sparrows’ eggs. We would have to wait months for sparrows’ eggs! And doves’ eggs too! Was this part of Artemisia’s intention? Cleis was frantic.
“Why didn’t you think to tell her that sparrows’ eggs could not be found this time of year?” Cleis fretted.
“It slipped my mind. I just never thought of it! Sometimes the most obvious thing is impossible to remember.”
“Mother! Don’t you care about me at all?”
“More than life itself.”
“Then we must find sparrows’ eggs out of season!”
“Where will we find sparrows’ eggs out of season?”
“I don’t know! Perhaps your boy can find them!” She said this with considerable derision.
We went back to Cleis’ house, where she proceeded to weep uncontrollably. I had sent Phaon away to Eresus, but Phaon was the only one who could scour the island of Lesbos for me to get sparrows’ or doves’ eggs out of season. I ran to the harbor and commandeered a boat to follow Phaon to Eresus. We encountered fog and rough seas and when we finally arrived in Eresus we were much the worse for wear.
Phaon was not there. None of my students knew where he was. I remembered the look that had passed between him and Artemisia and I had a sickish feeling, but I suppressed it. The next morning he appeared, begged forgiveness for his lateness—the storm! the fog! the seas!—and we sailed back to Mytilene so that I could see Cleis and try to comfort her.
In the boat I looked at Phaon coldly and hated myself for having gotten involved with him. He was no Alcaeus! No Aesop, even. He was a vain boy who was much too proud of his indefatigable phallus. He was no man. He was no hero. He was any woman’s plaything for a price. My coldness penetrated the air between us. He felt my disgust.
“What can I do to comfort you?” he asked.
“Nothing,” I said.
“Sappho, please, I cannot bear your anger.”
“Why do you think I am angry? I am more sad than angry.”
“What can I do?” he asked, stroking my back as he had that first time.
“I fear there is nothing you can do to melt my mood. I am angry at myself, at fate, at the gods,” I said.
“Then give me a task. May I fetch the golden fleece? May I stare down the gorgon? May I kill a Cyclops? May I climb to the top of Olympus and plead with the gods on your behalf?”
“It will do no good,” I said despondently. “What I need most in life, I have carelessly thrown away. When love is gone, nothing can make up for it, not even the elixir of sweet youth.” Alcaeus was in my mind then, as he always was. He was the emptiness in my heart, the queasiness at the pit of my stomach, the throbbing pain in my temples.
“But I love you so,” Phaon said.
“Even if it were true,” I said, “it would not matter.”
We spoke no more on that trip and we parted in silence.
In two weeks Cleis and I returned to Artemisia with the red thread but without the nest and eggs.
“There are no sparrows’ eggs in this season,” Cleis said. “Nor doves’.”
“If this is the strength of your intention, you will never be a mother again!” Artemisia said. Cleis began to sob.
“Don’t cry,” Artemisia said. “I have the nest of eggs, but it will cost you twenty oboloi.
“I have no oboloi here,” I said.
“Then send your boy with them,” said Artemisia.
She produced a sparrow’s nest with three eggs in it and, taking the red thread from Cleis, began to bind each egg to the nest with Cleis’ red thread, chanting:
Bind me a babe.
Bind me a daughter,
Give me four heart,
Immortal Artemis!
Bind me a heart,
Bind me a daughter.
Babes can be bought
But I would hatch mine.
Let her be blond,
Let her be beautiful,
Let her sing like her grandmother,
Have wit like her grandfather.
May the blessings rain down!
May the harvest he rich!
Bind me a daughter!
Bind me a babe.
“How do you know the grandfather of Cleis’ babe-to-be?” I asked Artemisia.
“Everyone knows it was the witty Alcaeus and not your witless husband Cercylas who begot your babe! Alcaeus is a legend in Mytilene. He has long been banished, but the people still speak of him—and privately sing his songs, though they are publicly forbidden.”
“Mother! You are interrupting the spell!” Cleis hissed. “Hush!”
Artemisia repeated the spell, twice. I knew we would have to pay for it thrice.
When the spell was done, Cleis took the nest and eggs and secreted them under her chiton. She was to sleep with them under her pillow for seven nights.
Artemisia took me aside. “Would you have news of Alcaeus?” she asked.
“Gladly!”
“Then come back to me alone!”
“When?”
“As soon as you can!”
“Let me escort my daughter home and I will return!”
Artemisia winked at me. She really did look like Herpetia the snake goddess. My blood froze. Had she transformed my dear Alcaeus into a serpent? I wanted him back in any form at all!