Ancient World Corner

The Very Ancient Diary of Sappho

Lesbos, 654 BCE

Sing to me, oh Muses, of my shockingly awful day.

A slight tangent perhaps, but I sometimes wonder how the accomplished nine would feel about my professed title as the ‘ΔέκαΜοῦσαι’. Whenever I do a vivid picture forms in my  mind of them groaning behind their hands and turning their noses up at me, whispering to one another: how can a mortal woman from some tiny island presume to call herself one of us?

Well, that would be your mistake Muses – I never called myself that.

Anyway, back to what I intended to write about: my terrible day. It truly is remarkable how distracted I become once my pen touches paper. Although admittedly such sidetracks often result in what I consider my best lines, they have also resulted in subsequently deleted nonsense (for example: ‘her eyes shone bright as apples of the full moon’ – where exactly was your mind Sappho?)

My terrible day began with a letter. The letter itself was not objectively awful, but the news enclosed therein was enough to make me growl in frustration and crumple the papyrus in my fist.

Alcaeus. Coming here. To visit.

The next ten minutes were spent pacing up and down the corridor outside my rooms, running through possibilities for being unavailable. After a starting brainstorm of seventeen, I narrowed it down to three potentially viable options.

1. Sickness. Always a good one. Preferably women’s sickness as Alcaeus was unlikely to want to risk infection by miasma. Unfortunately that had been my last excuse and I doubted it would work a second time.
2. School duties. Alcaeus knows I teach the girls on a Friday, but on the other hand he would expect me to clear my schedule for him. And my father would expect me to clear my schedule for him too…
3. I’ve left the country. Although I don’t often take trips off Lesbos, it has been known to happen. On occasion.

With a defeated sigh, I accepted my fate and went to get changed.

Muses, I know I have told you many a time of Alcaeus, but I feel the need to complain about him again. I promise that if you ever had the misfortune to meet him, you would understand.

Alcaeus is a fellow poet from Lesbos. He claims to also be a fellow musician.  Every time he visits (which has been becoming more and more frequent) I am forced to listen to his latest compositions and pretend to be impressed. Not grimace as if every note were a barbed wire sliding up my spine.

Today’s visit was no better. Once I’d changed into what my father deemed a suitable outfit, I stood on the steps of our villa, looking out onto the groves with the shimmering beach and ocean in the distance, and awaited his arrival.

Alcaeus was not a subtle man. He never did anything subtly – it simply wasn’t his style –including arriving at my villa. We heard his retinue before we saw it. The sound of an off-tune lyre almost drowned out by his warbling voice.

Finally, Alcaeus’ carriage turned the bend, his slaves trailing along behind carrying his supplies. He was perched on the seat with a lyre wedged between his knees, gazing off across the ocean. I knew he was picturing himself as Orpheus, lamenting after Euridice – it was his favourite pastime besides making my ears bleed.

The sun had almost baked me into the porch by the time the carriage stopped outside the villa. Alcaeus climbed down and handed his lyre to a slave who bowed and stood aside as his master swept up the steps to greet my father and I.

“Lady Sappho,” he bowed and took my hand in his. It was clammy and hot. Valiantly, I resisted the urge to pull away. “A pleasure, as always. Your face is as beautiful as your verse.”

By the gods. I forced a smile. “Alcaeus, so lovely to see you.”

My father shot me a look. “And my apologies for my absence last time you came,” I added reluctantly. “I was indisposed.”

“You are forgiven,” he said, no doubt under the illusion that he was the embodiment of good grace.

I was saved from dredging up a response as my slave hurried over to us from the road, carrying a stack of papyri. Seeing the crowded steps, she hesitated, looking anxious.

“It’s alright Phaedra,” I smiled at her. “What do you have there?”

“Your students’ assignments, my lady,” Phaedra almost tripped on the steps. “I just brought them from the school as you requested this morning.”

“Ah yes, thank you,” I took them from her, ignoring the glare from my father and the miffed expression on Alcaeus’ face.

I looked down at the top paper and saw ‘Erinna’ written in beautiful script at the top. I resisted the urge to immediately read her composition. (Muses, I did indeed read it just before writing this – it was exquisite. She will be a true poet for the ages). Instead, I smiled at Alcaeus and we went inside.

Four long hours passed.

Although my father assures me that time is incapable of changing velocity, it seems that what Alcaeus lacks in musical proficiency he makes up for in temporal manipulation. As I sat through a vigorous rendition of his latest composition, I repeated to myself that ‘the flow of time is on my side’ and ‘no moment is eternal’.

Admittedly, I think my father intended the advice for maintaining vigilance through fevers, but I found it served just fine when confronted with Alcaeus’ singing voice.

All things considered, it began as a relatively standard visit. I successfully managed to restrain myself from seizing his poor lyre and playing it for him and my father even gave intermittent nods of appreciation for my good behaviour.

Dinner, unfortunately, was when things took a bad turn.

I am confident you have gathered my father’s intentions with these invitations to Alcaeus, Muses, even if I have never expressed them outright. For the twenty-four years of my life thus far, I have managed to avoid marriage, largely due to my artistic success. Whenever my father would breach the topic in my teenage years, I would quickly emphasise how exceptionally busy I was with my latest work – and he wouldn’t want any unforeseen marital circumstances to detract from that, now, would he?

The other reason was Cleis.

Cleis is my daughter, in every way that counts. However, when I embraced her as my own, I may have forgotten to mention to my father that I didn’t give birth to her. The ruse was fully intentional, I admit, and perhaps had something to do with avoiding marriage.

This was whilst I was on one of my infrequent trips away from Lesbos. I made the journey to Crete to meet with a patron of my work, accompanied by Callista and her daughter Cleis. Only the baby and I were fated to return.

Muses, even writing her name remains painful. Despite the years that have passed I cannot imagine a day that sting will fade – and I’m not sure I would like it to. Surely to forget the ache of her loss is also to forget the joy of her memory.

The story of what happened in Crete is one I truly hope to one day recount for you. But not this day.

To return to the tale at hand…

My father had thus far hidden Cleis’ existence from Alcaeus. To this day he remains under the impression that I was pregnant when I left for Crete and gave birth away from home. You can imagine what this would do to my marital potential if the story became public. So Cleis is a distant cousin whose parents died at sea. Still, my father didn’t want him growing suspicious, so decided it would be better if Alcaeus remained ignorant of Cleis for the time being (until an offer of betrothal, I suspect – or matrimony).

Today, Cleis had other ideas.

Shortly after Alcaeus began his fifth composition – having refreshed himself with dinner and copious amounts of wine from our vineyards – the door burst open and Cleis dashed in, frazzled plait flying behind her.

“Mother!” she cried. “Look! I wrote something – another story!”

She pulled up short, staring wide-eyed at the assembled guests. “Um… hello.”

I winced. The room had been stunned to silence. Even Alcaeus’ fingers lay still on his lyre. I could feel the anger simmering from my father like heat on our baked porch. There was no sound or movement but the stirring of the breeze through the windows.

Muses, the temptation to flick a glass was almost irresistible.

Cleis was permitted to call me mother within the house, but outside she was to refer to me as ‘Lady Sappho’. Unless, of course, guests were present.

Slowly but surely, all eyes in the room swivelled from my daughter to me.

I will spare you the details of the chaos that ensued. Alcaeus’ demands to know what was going on here, and then – upon explanation – why he had been so grievously misled. Cleis’ tears, not knowing why her presence had resulted in such a disturbance but painfully aware that she had caused trouble for me. The outraged bellows of  Alcaeus’ retinue, who had accompanied him all this way.

And then the final blow. My father.

Not his anger, no. That would have been more manageable. Someone in the fray must have done something. It can be anything: tilting a glass at a certain angle, shifting so the light casts differently, a particular word or tone. Anything can be the trigger, but whilst everyone was arguing I saw it begin.

My father’s fist clenched in the fabric of our seat, his eyes began to dart between the assembled guests and his chest rose and fell with increasing speed, as if the air was leaking from the room and he was trying to suck as much of it as he could before we suffocated.

Cleis was tucked into my lap, but I quickly untangled myself and went to my father’s side.

“Father?” I said. He didn’t respond. Sweat trickled down his temple.

He has never been the same since the war between Chalcidians and Eretrians. The guests were also beginning to realise something was wrong. I had to find an escape for him, a way to protect him from the shame I knew he’d feel if these people realised what was happening.

“Father, Cleis is upset,” I told him, gripping his shoulder. Sometimes a physical anchor helped. “Will you take her upstairs?”

“Excuse me, young lady!” one of Alcaeus’ retinue exclaimed. “We were in the middle of a discussion with your father. I think it would be best if you removed yourself.”

Cleis, the incredible girl, caught my line of thought and started crying. “Grandpa,” she sniffed and ran to him, jumping into his lap and wrapping her arms around his neck.

For all his disapproval of my apparent situation, my father loved Cleis. And me. I hope I’ve always made that clear in this diary, Muses, and indeed for anyone who might one day read this.

He put his arms around my lover’s daughter and squeezed her tight. “Come Cleis,” he said softly. “Let me put you to bed.”

My father lifted Cleis and carried her from the room, ignoring the protests of the assembled guests. “We are finished here.” He called flatly, without turning back. I breathed a sigh of relief. Crisis averted.

Unfortunately, dear Muses, that left me squarely in the vipers’ nest.

As I write this now, it is long past midnight and the quietest hours of the night hang still in the warm air of Lesbos. I sit in my room, my daughter sleeping softly in the bed near me. The argument with Alcaeus did not last long. Once my father had left he seemed to decide that there was no one there worth talking to. He announced it a wasted trip and that he and his retinue would be leaving immediately and would not return.

Oh, and he had no intention of reading any more work by Sappho.

After writing it out, today doesn’t seem quite so awful after all. At least, it seemed worse earlier. So I am choosing to see it as a success – I no longer have to endure Alcaeus’ visits!

There is still that weight in my belly though. The one that reminds me of how fragile a woman’s reputation can be in this world. Especially a woman like me. I worry for my daughter: what sort of future awaits her? Well, certainly one with me in it. I never intend to leave her side, not until she is steady on her own.

This has been quite the diary entry, Muses! Thank you for being my eternal inspiration (and long-suffering audience).

– Sappho