Sappho by Nancy Freedman Page A

Ethiopians held joyful banquets in their halls. The blessed dead lived by Ocean’s sand. But the fearful Kimmerians lived no one knew where, and day was never there—so it had been told and sung to her. Therefore, not priests but poets were closer to the beginning of the world and the meaning that ever emerged.
    It was Dionysos himself who showed her these things. Within her small frame a great cauldron spilled sentences, seemingly calm, but when you looked hard, the words seared; not raging, but rage invoking. Her lips formed what the young god dictated:
    While the full moon rose, young girls
    took their place around the altar.
    In old days Cretan girls danced
    supplely around an altar of love,
    crushing the soft flowering grass
    Sappho swayed with abandon, repeating the verse. This year, too, she would lead the choral dance of Arkadia.
    *   *   *
    The message Sappho had been expecting came to her from the priestesses of the caves. It was brought by a young novice, a graceful girl of Sappho’s age, with delicate waist and shapely ankles. Sappho delighted in looking at her and offered her a cup of Pramnian wine and grated goat’s cheese into it herself with a bronze grater, while a slave threw in barley meal. The girl, lovely, virginal, and shy, kept her eyes down as she drank, only gradually daring to look at Sappho.
    She is not used to a great house, Sappho concluded, and spoke kindly to the girl, who, for all that she was a novice of the powerful sisterhood, was still a simple country maid. “Come, have another cup of the wine I have prepared for you. Then you will tell me your message.”
    The wine brought a flush to the girl’s face and courage to begin. “I am come…”
    â€œYes?” Sappho smiled.
    â€œI am come…”
    â€œAh, it is the great festival of Dionysos!”
    The girl darted a grateful glance at her.
    Sappho continued to spare her shyness. “They, the priestesses, wish me to compose a verse.”
    â€œYes, oh yes.”
    Sappho laughed. “It is difficult to talk with someone who knows me, but whom I do not know. Tell me your name.”
    â€œDoris. It is Doris.”
    â€œWell then, Doris, the verse is written. Shall I teach it to you, or am I to instruct the chorus?”
    â€œThe initiates, the holy priestesses of Dionysos Zagreus, son of Zeus, wish you to instruct and lead the chorus as you did last year.”
    â€œAnd,” Sappho prompted, watching her, “these priestesses of Dionysos, what do they say of Sappho?”
    â€œThose who listen to the joy-god whose heart All-Father Zeus swallowed to produce him anew, that he might destroy the Titans by lightning and from their ashes create man…” This litany, recited in a small, clear voice, left Doris short of breath. She began again, hands folded in her lap. “They say there is witchery in your words. That to produce them you enter into divine madness. They say you are our sister.”
    â€œAh,” Sappho breathed. She shared her mother’s fear of this society of women who alone knew how to appease the powers below, the Khthonians, Lords of Death. “Actually, you see, it is all very simple with me. That is, crickets sing at noon and I sing back. Or I see a garden of cyclamen bordered with red-flowering oleander, and I stand outside myself and in joy grow with them. Do you see?”
    The novice nodded her head. “It is ever so. Do you think she at Delphi knows the words that pass her lips? The sisterhood say your utterances are so passionate they are made in flames.”
    Sappho looked at the serene young face, unshakable in its knowing, and wondered if indeed her words struck so close.
    *   *   *
    She heard a zither, the strains floating up from the street.
    Standing by my bed
    In gold sandals
    Dawn that very
    moment woke me
    She stretched her arms above her head and her heavy, well-molded lips curved with