Sappho's Leap Read Online Free PDF Page A

hands.
    For the happy graces
    Gaze on what is garlanded
    And look away
    From the bare heads
    Of even the loveliest maidens….
    I was dozing in my tent one moonlit night when suddenly I was awakened by a rough whisper: “We sail for Pyrrha tonight—are you with us, Sappho?”
    I woke, rubbed my eyes, looked up at the sunny beard of Alcaeus, and thought I saw a vision of Apollo.
    â€œWe sail now or never!”
    I had been dreaming of him, and here he was!
    â€œNow,” I said and bounded out of bed.
    Did I stop to ask why he wanted me if he liked boys so much? Did I think of my mother, of my grandparents, of Praxinoa? Of course not! I was sixteen!
    I followed Alcaeus and his men to the harbor, where, after neglecting the proper sacrifices to the gods for fear of attracting attention, we boarded a square-rigged merchant ship to take us from Eresus to Pyrrha. The black ship had two fierce blue eyes emblazoned on its prow as if it could see into the future. I leapt aboard without a backward glance.
    If this was dreaded exile, I welcomed it. My real education as a singer had begun.

2
The Groom Comes
    Raise high the roof beams!
    The groom comes like Ares.
    â€”S APPHO
    W E LIVED IN EXILE in the woods above Pyrrha on the other side of the island. Alcaeus and his men were plotting to rid Lesbos of Pittacus. They hated him for his shrewdness and cleverness. Or perhaps they hated themselves for their own lack of it. The truth was that Pittacus had outwitted them. They cursed his bloody ways while they themselves plotted bloodily.
    Alcaeus had once been allied with Pittacus against the previous tyrant Myrsilus, but Alcaeus and Pittacus had fallen out—the gods alone knew how. Pittacus was the sort of leader who switched allegiance according to his own convenience. He had no aristocratic scruples to hold him back. That was the crux of the problem.
    At the bottom of the hatred between Alcaeus and Pittacus was a contest between an old way of life and a new. Noble families like Alcaeus’ and mine used to rule these islands and command these waters. Since the war with the Athenians, a rougher breed of men was coming to replace us. Our families were aristocrats who were raised to leisure and the lyre. Warfare was an art to men like my father. Men like Pittacus, on the other hand, were raised to commerce and manipulation. Pittacus would never drop his shield in a display of aristocratic pique like Alcaeus. Pittacus was the consummate politician. He knew how to tell people one thing and do another. He knew how to lie with straight face. He was a passionate orator who believed only in the sound of his own voice. Unencumbered by antique ideas of honor, he was invincible.
    Alcaeus had done the unspeakable: mocked Pittacus in witty verses, which were now gleefully repeated all over the island. Ridicule enrages tyrants even if they pretend to be above it.
    Pittacus now wanted nothing more than to destroy Alcaeus so he could suppress rebellion and cement his own rule. But he did not dare to kill him for fear the older nobles would mutiny. Exile, therefore, became his solution.
    I myself resented Pittacus for taking my mother and reducing her to what I considered whoredom, even if she had sought it herself. The greatest aristocrats of Greece had loved her. Minstrels had sung of her. Artists had painted her. Philosophers had based their theories of love upon her. Noble warriors—my father chief among them—had died for her, and now she was the mistress of a commoner. Even if she was not ashamed of her fall, I was. I was furious on behalf of my poor dead father. Or was I jealous of my mother’s effortless success with men? She could both infuriate and reduce me to tears simultaneously. All my feelings about her warred with each other. I loved her so much that I also had to hate her!
    â€œThere is only one person who could lead us to Pittacus when he is not surrounded by guards—and that person is your