I shall not be forgotten – Sappho of Lesbos

 

We know very little of Sappho's life. She was still a toddler when the teenage Jeremiah made his first appearance at the Jewish Court in 628 BC, and she just had returned from exile in Sicily when Nebuchadnezzar began laying siege to Jerusalem in 587 BC.

Sappho (631 – 572 BC) grew up and died in Lesbos, a craggy island with steep slopes and sweltering olive groves. Like Virgil I noticed the vines, "which trail like ivy on the ground" (Georgics). Strolling along the dozing beach I didn’t heed the warning of the old songstress, "If you are squeamish don't prod the pebbles in the sand," and promptly stumbled over sharp little stones. There is a Greek-Orthodox monastery up in the hills; sleepy cats survey the blazing village lanes from the height of whitewashed garden walls. The people here are as friendly and hospitable as in Sappho’s days – "if you come I shall put out new pillows for you," she wrote to a visitor – and the tourists point their cameras at the half finished sculpture of a naked athlete in the abandoned marble quarry. Who knows, it may have been of the person Sappho herself had sponsored in the 42nd Olympiad (612 – 609 BC), a “track star from Gyara, doing rather well." Perhaps the sculpture was commissioned before the athlete came home, but then abandoned because he didn’t make it in the finals.

I made friends with the locals. I learned to play backgammon and it was a good time to get a seamless tan. It was our honeymoon and Sappho would have mocked the two of us: "Yes it is pretty, but come, dear, need you pride yourself that much on a ring?" At night the "stars covered their bright faces as the lovely moon was at her roundest and lit the earth with her silver." We went to our room and "night rained her thick dark sleep" upon our tiredness.

I photographed with disapproval the brutal killing of an octopus, done with nothing else but bare hands and determination, but later had no problem eating it. I even earned a little money and published in the local newspaper my black and white photographs from the National Holiday, with parades and marching bands. Looking out across the sea, it occurred to me why Homer in his epics never uses the word "blue." At dawn, the sea is dark as whine with gently swaying patches of mother of pearl pink. It is beautiful, but my impressions may have received their radiance from something else: "Some say a cavalry corps, some that infantry, others that the swift oars of our navy is the finest sight on earth; but I say it is the one you love. Has not Helen - she who had the flower of all the world’s manhood on parade – chosen as first among men the one who laid Troy's honor in ruin? Bent to his will, forgetting the love due to her own blood, even to her child, she followed this man. So, Anactoria, you too, in that distant place, will forget us, but the fall of your footstep and the blink from your eyes has moved me more than all the glitter of Lydian horse or the armored march of mainland infantry" (Sappho).

Sappho was a member of the local aristocracy. Her younger brother was a public cupbearer at Mitylene, an office held by youths of noble birth. Sappho addresses the members of her own class with an air of slightly ironic familiarity: "Greetings to Gorgo! I profusely salute, madam, the descendant of many great kings." The Greek were a loquacious lot, forever divided in blood feuds between the clans of the aristocracy and self-styled tyrants, who held a precarious mandate based on referenda and silent support by the commoners. The Greek historian Thucydides (471 – 400 BC.) explains the situation: "The cry of political equality for the people on one side, and of a moderate aristocracy on the other, provided each side with the fairest promises, but actually sought prizes for themselves in those public interests which they pretended to cherish, and, recoiling from no means in their struggles for ascendancy engaged in the direst excesses, making the party caprice of the moment their only standard. Meanwhile the moderate citizens perished between the two." The aristocratic Sappho was not exempt from the prejudice of her class. She had no qualms of snubbing an upstart: "Rich as you are, death will be the end of you. Afterwards no one will remember or even want to remember you. You had no share in the Pierian roses. You just dart about and flitter invisibly among the indistinct dead in the Palace of Hades."

However, the factions turned to "frantic violence” mistaking it for “the attribute of manliness. Plotting became a justifiable means of self-defense. To succeed in a plot was to have a shrewd head, to divine a plot a still shrewder,” and “revenge was held of more account than self-preservation" (Thucydides). After some bloodshed Sappho’s family lost the home and in 592 BC "the hearts in the pigeons grew cold and their wings dropped to their sides" (Sappho). By then the poetess had become a mother. "Darling I have a small daughter, her name is Cleis. She is my golden flower; I wouldn't trade her for all of Croesus' kingdom even with your love thrown in," she says. The father is unknown.

Sappho emptied her jewelry box, took her daughter by the hand and in Mitylene boarded a ship bound to Sicily. Of her life in exile there is nothing to tell, except that “the exiles, I think, had never found peace and quiet more difficult to endure!"

Ten years later, Sappho and her family returned to Lesbos; a long stretch, considering that life used to be short in those days. The repatriates carried with them the remains of the dead: "We take the urn with us on board the ship. It has an inscription. ‘This is the dust of little Timas. Unmarried and before her time she was led into Persephone's black bedroom.’ Home is far from here and girls of her age mourn and with a sharp blade cut soft curls from their hair" (Sappho). The historian Herodotus (485 – 425 BC.) knows the name of Sappho’s father, Scamandronymus. That’s all we know of him, if the historian didn’t make it up – which is very possible. Her mother appears in one of Sappho’s poems, but it doesn’t give us a name: "It's no use Mother dear, I can't finish my weaving. You may blame Aphrodite. Gentle as she seems, she almost kills me with longing for that boy." We have an idea of Sappho’s looks: she had dark hair in contrast to the golden blond of her daughter: "Don't ask me what to wear,” she says, “I have no embroidered headband from Sardis to give you, Cleis. Once I wore one and my mother said that in her days a purple ribbon looped in the hair was high style indeed. But we were dark; a girl whose hair is yellower than torchlight should dress her hair with nothing but fresh flowers" (Sappho).

According to Herodotus the older of Sappho's two brothers was Charaxus, a wine merchant. He exported his goods to Naucratis in Egypt (now Nebireh). The Egyptian authorities used to keep foreigners under a strict curfew, and for centuries Greeks were permitted to trade their goods only in one Pan-Hellenic emporium. Charaxus fell in love with a beautiful slave girl, Doricha. For a great sum of money he bought her freedom, yet Doricha refused to go with him and "being very lovely, acquired in Egypt great riches for a person of her station" (Herodotus). Later historians tell us how Pharaoh Apries (589 – 570 BC) held court in his capital in 588 BC, when suddenly an eagle dropped a lady's sandal into his lap. Taking this as an omen, the king had the whole country search for the owner. They found Doricha, who had lost the shoe in a public bath. The pharaoh married his Cinderella and they lived happily ever after until he was dethroned in a military coup and went to Babylon into exile in 567 BC.

Sappho didn’t seem amused; there was a trait of belligerence in her character: "As you love me Aphrodite, make her find even you too bitter! Stop her loudmouthed bragging, don’t allow her to say 'See! Twice now, Doricha has received the kind of love she likes!'" Some people gave Sappho a strange look over this tone in her voice. Although somewhat defensive, Sappho is not backing down: "Really, Gorgo, my disposition is not all spiteful, I have a childlike heart. But strange to say, people I treated well are those who do me the most injury now" (Sappho). I think her temper got more than once the better of her; she was a bit of a nag: "But you, you monkey face, I was in love with you when you were still an ungracious child, and now after all this, Attis, you hate even the thought of me and dart off to Andromeda? I hear you caught fire over Andromeda, this hayseed in hayseed finery, even without having her to lift the skirt over her ankles for you."

Gradually Sappho’s fame carried to distant shores, but mail from abroad arrived only every fortnight: "Not a word of her, I wish I were dead. When she left, she wept so much; she said to me, ‘we must endure this parting, Sappho; I go against my wishes.’ I said, ‘go, and be happy and remember, you know whom you leave in the shackles of longing. Before you forget me, think of our offerings to Aphrodite, of all the loveliness that we shared, all the violet tiaras, braided rosebuds, the dill and crocus we twined around your neck, the myrrh poured on your head. Think of the girls on soft mats with their precious things beside them. Remember that no other voice chanted in a chorus but ours, any of the groves in spring bloomed without song. Even in Sardis you will continue thinking of us, of the life we have shared, when you appeared to us as the Goddess incarnate, and we were in love with your singing. Now with the Lydian women it is your turn to stand out, just as the red-fingered moon at sunset outshines the stars around her and spreads her light everywhere across the salty sea and the wealth of fields in bloom. Her dew pours down and refreshes the roses, the delicate thyme and the sweetness of clover in bloom.’ There you shall wander aimlessly, with gentle Attis in your thoughts, the heart heavy with longing in that little breast. You cry out aloud, we know you do; the night has a thousand ears for that cry across the shining divide of the sea" (Sappho).

Her feelings towards this Attis remain ambiguous, she clearly didn’t believe in a “good breakup.” So yes, it has come to the worst, but what we had wasn’t all bad, was it? "It was you, Attis, who said, ‘Sappho, if you don’t get up and let us look at you I shall never love you again! Get up, unleash your suppleness, lift your Chian nightdress and, like a lily leaning into the spring, come and bathe. Cleis will bring down your best purple frock and a yellow tunic from the chest of clothes. You throw over a cloak and wear a crown of flowers in your hair. One of the gods has been good to us. Today we shall go to Mitylene, our favorite city, with Sappho, the loveliest of its women, walking among us like a mother who came from exile, with her daughters around her.’ So why have you forgotten everything?" (Sappho).

Sappho was a priestess of Aphrodite. The Philhellenic Emperor Hadrian consecrated to Aphrodite the last and grandest of her temples in 135 AD, yet the observances within the sanctuary had faded to a far cry from the original "Aphrodisiacs," where the priestess of Aphrodite had sex with the worshipper. The goddess had an old pedigree, reaching back all the way to the Great Mother and to the flat-bodied Bronze Age figurines with a square head and three tiny markings for their gender. When Sappho prays to her mistress, she addresses her as "Aphrodite of the leopard spotted throne, eternal daughter of Uranus, you knitter of snares!” This was an era of oracles and of the intoxicated medium speaking in a trance. The goddess reached out to Sappho in visions and dreams: “Aphrodite, in my dream the folds of a purple head scarf did cast shadows on your cheeks, the same that Timas once had sent from Phocaea, a timid gift. Then, in the morning, standing by my bed on golden heels, you awoke me at this very moment." The communication between the goddess and her priestess is direct and intimate: ”Don't, I beg you, cow my heart with grief! Come, as before, when you heard me calling from the distance, and come to listen, and step out from your father's house, and hitch to your golden chariot the winged team, whose beautiful thick-feathered wings beat heaven’s air like oars and carry you to a swift arrival on the dark earth. Again, my Lady, dispense your blessing, smile your immortal smile and ask what is ailing me, why I call on you again. Ask me what distracts my heart, what my greatest desire might be. Ask who it is that needs persuading to open up to my affection. Speak to me and say: ‘Who, Sappho, is unfair to you? Let her walk, she will soon run after you. And not accepting your gifts, she will one day give you hers. And if she won't love you now, she soon will be in love, albeit unwillingly.’ So if you come, do it now Aphrodite! Relieve this intolerable pain! What my heart is hoping to happen, make it happen; pull your weight on my side!" (Sappho).

In her clerical functions Sappho apparently served to both sexes: "He is more than a hero, he is a god in my eyes, the man who is allowed to sit at your side, he, who hangs at your lips and listens to the sweet murmur of your voice, the inviting laughter that spurs my heartbeat. I meet you and I suddenly can't speak, my tongue is tied. A thin flame runs under my skin; I see nothing, hear only my own pulse hammering, I drip with sweat. I tremble, I shake, I turn paler than grass when it is dry. At such times death is not far from me." This is her most famous poem. Hands up who noticed, that it is not the man she is addressing.

Aphrodite had more than once a thing with a mere mortal. The most tragic of Aphrodite's escapades was her infatuation with Adonis. It aroused the jealousy of Artemis. Not satisfied to take turns, Artemis invited the young man to a hunting party. Whether by ruse or accident, the Caledonian Boar killed Adonis in the prime of his beauty. Since then, women “weep over Adonis' death” (Ezekiel 8: 14): “Young Adonis is dying! O Cytherea, what do you want us to do? Make fists and beat your breasts girls and tear your dresses!" (Sappho).

At the end of her life Sappho fell in love for one last time: "Be kind to me Gongyla. I only ask that you wear at your arrival the cream white dress. Desire darts out to your loveliness and at the sight of you sails in narrowing circles around you. I am glad. I, too, have quarrels with Aphrodite. I pray to her for you to come. With his venom ready, irresistible and bittersweet, infatuation, this softener of the knees, strikes like a reptile. Tonight I've watched the moon and then the Pleiades going down. The hours are turning grey. Youth passes, and I am in bed, alone” (Sappho).

There was never a doubt in Sappho’s mind that her fame would prevail: "Although they are only breath, the words I command are immortal," she said. Three hundred years later the Great Library in Alexandria listed nine volumes of her work, some three hundred songs, litanies, and a book of obituaries such as this: "In memory of Pelagon, the fisherman. His father Meniscus laid down here a fish-basket and an oar, the tokens for a life without fortune" (Sappho). In the esteem of the ancients, Sappho was the poetess, second only to Homer. Since then only 270 lines have reached us, most of them incomplete. The loss is irreplaceable. Prophets and “saviors” come a dime a dozen; we can reinvent Einstein and the infinitesimal calculus, if we must. We cannot reinvent Sappho and her testimony to a unique combination of circumstance and emotion.

The weight of her years began to tell: "Pain has penetrated me drop by drop. At my age, why does the swallow from heaven, the daughter of King Pandion, bring more news to plague me? Of course I love you, but if you love me, marry a young woman! I couldn't stand it to live with a young man, I being older. I have often asked you not to come just yet, Lord Hermes. You lead home the ghosts. But this time I am not happy; I want to die and see the moist lotus at the banks of Acheron." What was the cause of this unhappiness? The loss of a loved one? Incurable illness? The dark side to a manic depressive personality who almost in the same breath could raise her hopes and count the blessings of the day? “You know the place where at noontide the earth is bright and a flaming heat is beating straight down on the shrill cricket singing in its wings. Without warning, like a whirlwind that swoops down on an oak, infatuation is shaking my heart and Earth with many flowers puts on her spring embroidery! So depart from Crete and come to us. We wait for you at the pleasant grove, the spot so sacred to you. Smoking incense rises from the altar, the cold stream murmurs under the apple branches, a young rose thicket is spilling shade over the ground and from quivering leaves descends the soothing sleep. Horses grew sleek in this meadow and spring flowers and dill are scenting the air. Queen! Aphrodite! Fill our gold chalices with affection and stir it into clear nectar. Tell everyone! Today, I shall give my best song for the pleasure of my friends in the twilight of spring under the full moon. The girls will take their positions and move their feet to the rhythm, just like the tender feet of Cretan girls, when they assemble to dance around an altar of Aphrodite and crush a circle in the soft flowers and the grass" (Sappho).

When the inevitable was approaching, Sappho faced it with courage: "We know this much, death is an evil. We have the gods' word for it; they too would die if death were a good thing. But I shall not complain. The prosperity the golden Muses have bestowed on me was no delusion. In my death, I won't be forgotten. So, must I remind you, Cleis, that sounds of grief are unbecoming in a poet's household, such as ours?" She looked towards the setting Sun for a last silent prayer: "Shepherd of the evening, Hesperus! You herd homeward whatever the morning’s light has dispersed. You herd the sheep and goats, herd children home to their mothers.”

© – 2/27/2009 – by michael sympson, 3,350 words, all rights reserved