Sappho Read Online Free PDF Page B

sung.
    The first event was the chariot race. Her favorite brother, Kharaxos, the one next to her in age, was driving. So was the war hero, Pittakos.
    She had not foreseen this. She pulled her eyes from Pittakos and tried to concentrate on the scene before her. A black bull without spot was slain to the deathless gods, and garlanded horses, their manes shining with oil, champed in their traces. The felloes of the chariot wheels were of gold, the eight spokes bronze and the naves silver, but the strength was in the oaken axles.
    â€œThe skill here is in wheeling around the post,” Alkaios explained to her. “The chariots must not go wide in circling either end of the course. The nave of the wheel must almost graze the stone of the goalpost. One miscalculation, and the chariot is dashed to pieces.”
    Sappho nodded; she understood the race and had no need of Alkaios’s well-meant instruction. She found herself praying as the charioteers took their places, but she did not name the one she prayed for. It was her brother Khar, of course.
    How brutish Pittakos appeared beside her slim brother—how brawny, how strong. Again she forced her eyes from him. For Sappho was double-seeing. She saw him for what he was, an opportunist rising fast in the influential circles of politics. This upstart, this outsider, she was certain, intended to rule Lesbos. She resented the male resumption of power. Women had done very well for the ten years that Lesbos had been left in their hands. Their decisions had been wise and equitable. Now that the men had returned, all that went before was forgotten. Only she did not forget.
    The contestants mounted their flower-strewn vehicles. An umpire gave the signal. The chariots leapt at air. “Lean to your left! Your left!” She was dancing up and down, catching only a glimpse between the shoulders and heads in front of her.
    â€œCan you see?” Alkaios asked.
    Sappho hated any reference to her size. “Of course,” she said. “Khar should urge his right-hand horse, give him a looser rein.”
    Alkaios looked puzzled. Had he guessed that while she said Khar, she had described Pittakos, who was holding back, planning a last-minute spurt?
    A horse fell, breaking its leg against the painted white stone; the chariot shuddered and overturned, pinning its driver. The scene was enveloped in dust. “Who is it?” Sappho screamed.
    â€œNot Khar. He is well in front. He and Pittakos, they are both holding.”
    Sand and grit sprayed the drivers. Sweat from the animals fell in streams on the ground, and the wounded horse writhed under the chariot, while the man was still.
    With bodies leaning toward the goal, the drivers made the final pass. Khar was wide of the post and Pittakos won. Sappho’s face flamed with shame. She took it as a personal disgrace that one of her house should lose to that great bumpkin. The prize was a woman skilled in the arts of love and valued at four oxen.
    As they moved to the waterfront for the next event, Alkaios drew her attention to a pigeon tied by a foot to a ship’s mast. To cut the string was to win, to miss or kill the bird was to lose.
    Next came the javelin throwing, and the naked bodies of the young athletes were sweet to gaze upon. Sappho thought, as she had recently, that the male had much equipment for love.
    Footraces followed. The contestants, their bodies taut and gleaming with oil, their muscles tense, bent at the ready. Sappho studied their lean haunches, bulging calves, slender ankles, and dangling parts of love with foreskins drawn down and fastened securely to protect their manhood. Was it because of these instruments for cleaving and entering the body of women that they deserved to be lords over everyone? What god had decreed this? For it seemed a peculiar claim. Why were the qualities “larger, stronger” preferred over “delicate, kinder”? Why was the world everywhere under the control of