The Laughter of Aphrodite

by Peter Green

  A sudden wave of blind indiscriminate fury surged through me. I hated them all, without distinction of party or position: Myrsilus, wrapped up in his grey self-importance, with his idiotic banners and lawyer’s sophistries; Pittacus, so grossly opportunistic, so hungry for the trappings of public office; Antimenidas, the failed idealist, the master of the useless gesture; my mother, with her false male heroics and her sentimentality; Alcaeus, so irritatingly sensitive behind those masks of irony, so futile in action, so aggressive with words. I hated them as a child hates, and—let me be honest—for much the same reason: they had, between them, destroyed my bright, secret, cherished world, the world that was—is—so much more real, more meaningful than these shabby political posturings. That was all I could see; all, in the last resort, that I cared about. To know this—clearly, without any doubts or hesitations—brought me relief as intense as it was unlooked for.

  I remembered my mother’s hard, contemptuous voice saying: What concern has a girl of your age with plots or politics? Your world is made up of quarrels and jealousies, of picnics, new dresses, dancing, poetry, idle chatter. How furiously I had resented those words at the time; yet they were true, true, true, and my real betrayal had been to deny that truth, to act out my small, contemptible part in the public farce that was now drawing to its conclusion.

  I love all beautiful, delicate, sensuously pleasing objects, I thought, I love spring flowers and moonlight on water and the wind moving over a field of ripe corn. I love rich, exquisitely woven materials, to look at and touch: the soft rasp of gaily-striped Milesian wool, the crisp white matte folds of fine Egyptian linen. I love the smoothly swelling curves of a master-potter’s jar, so irresistible to the fingers as one moves past it. I love all things worked in gold; I love the hard brilliance of precious stones. I love all fragile, swift-fading physical beauty. But my first and greatest love is for the singing words, intangible, immortal, by which all these things can be given living substance for ever. Winged words: Homer was right. Winged like the eagle, circling and gliding in sunlight, high among crags. Winged like the arrow, swift and terrible to its mark. Winged like those great beasts, Sphinxes, Griffons, Chimaeras, that guard the holy places of Egypt and Babylon and the Land of the Two, Rivers.

  Once he had dealt with Antimenidas, Myrsilus wasted little time on the other prisoners. The joke had gone stale on him: he was bored, and showed it. Very quickly he pronounced identical sentence upon Alcaeus and the other survivors of that ill-fated assault on the citadel: the only exceptions were two men from Pyrrha, whom he sent back, under armed escort, to appear before their own civic tribunal. Then he turned to us.

  “Lady Cleïs: he said, “it appears to me that you have suffered unduly from the mistaken convictions held by your late husband and his friends.” His tone was quite different now: warm, animated, sympathetic. I had never been quite so surprised in my life; nor—to judge from her expression—had my mother. She flushed like a schoolgirl, frowned, blinked, began to protest, changed her mind at the last moment, and covered her indecision with a fit of nervous coughing.

  “Therefore,” Myrsilus continued—none of this, clearly, had been lost on him: the smirk was back again—“therefore, it is the decree of this tribunal, taking into consideration your widowed state and the children for whose welfare you are responsible, that you be dismissed with a reprimand.”

  My mother half-rose. She said, in an odd, breathy voice: “I protest, my lord President. I refuse to accept this verdict—”

  “I fear you have no option, Lady Cleïs,” said Myrsilus: he sounded very cheerful about it. My mother sat hunched forward, hands grasping the arms of her chair. Looking at her then, seeing her deep bosom and fine, queenly profile, I thought in astonishment: Why, she is an attractive woman, a woman men might die for. Then, instinctively, I glanced up at Myrsilus, and knew—though nothing tangible showed on his face—that the same thought had occurred to him.

  “Lady Sappho,” Myrsilus said, and, as though in a dream, I rose to my feet. “Lady Sappho, this tribunal finds that you have been deeply implicated in seditious and revolutionary activities—”

  A faint, but quite audible, intake of breath could be heard round the council chamber as he pronounced these words.

  “—by association, consent, and the carrying of treasonable messages on many occasions. This tribunal is conscious that, in your case, extreme youth and inexperience may palliate what would otherwise be most grave offences. We emphasize this, since the sentence we will impose upon you is designed, in part, to protect you against undesirable influences till you are of an age to judge rightly for yourself.”

  I stood very straight, schooling my expression, hands folded in front of me, head high: if I did nothing else, I would put Aunt Helen’s deportment lessons to good use.

  “This tribunal decrees, therefore, that you suffer the penalty of exile, to such a place and for such a period as the tribunal may hereafter determine and communicate to you. Until that time you will remain within the city boundaries. Let the verdict of the tribunal be recorded.”

  “It is so recorded,” the clerk said.

  There was a brief, awkward pause. Some sort of official acknowledgment seemed to be called for, so I dropped Myrsilus a stiff little curtsey. It was not, perhaps, quite appropriate to the occasion (I caught the swift glint of amusement in Pittacus’ eye), but it was better than nothing.

  The next few days were, one way and another, a considerable strain. My mother prowled the house like an angry wildcat: Meg retreated to bed, pleading a sick headache, and I felt strongly tempted to follow her example. But there was so much to be done—clothes and books and knick-knacks to sort, pack, or put in storage; the endless, exhausting round of farewell visits—that I simply could not afford the luxury. In any case, darling Aunt Helen protected me from Mama’s worst tantrums—which perhaps was only fair, since she provoked several of them herself. (“Some people are so hard to please,” she remarked at dinner on the day of the verdict. “Antimenidas appears to be furious because he wasn’t executed, and here are you black-guarding Myrsilus for the unspeakable crime of not sending you into exile.”)

  But this was not, I fancy, my mother’s main cause of annoyance. It soon became apparent that someone had been working very hard on my behalf in high places. A bare two days after, the tribunal (which meant, in effect, Myrsilus) had laid down Sicily as my place of exile, Aunt Helen had all the arrangements made. I would stay with her younger brother Lycurgus, one of the biggest landowners in Syracuse. (“He may be chill, darling, but he’s a most enthusiastic patron of the arts.”) She had also—even more improbably—caught a visiting celebrity on the wing, as it were, and talked him into acting as my escort on the journey. This was the distinguished poet and musician, Arion, now here on a brief visit to Lesbos, his birthplace, from Periander’s court at Corinth. The moment Aunt Helen had met him, and found out he was planning a trip to Sicily, the poor man never stood a chance—or so she told us.

  All this fell too suspiciously pat for words, to my way of thinking; and I have no doubt my mother felt so too. I had to remind myself at intervals that I was being sent into exile, and not on a cultural tour. I began to wonder just what had been happening behind the scenes, especially when my mother (having decided it was her parental duty to accompany me) was informed, through official channels, that she would not be granted a permit for foreign travel.

  It was easy enough to guess at the motives involved. Aunt Helen was determined to prise me loose from my mother’s control (a task most people would have dismissed as impossible) and give me a chance to enjoy a change of scene abroad. Pittacus found me a personal embarrassment for several reasons and would be only too glad to get me out of the way for a while. But Myrsilus: what was there in it for Myrsilus? Then, abruptly, I remembered the curious charged exchange between him and my mother in the council chamber. So that was it. I nearly burst out laughing. How, I wondered, had Aunt Helen convinced him he stood a chance? Perhaps by pre
senting me as the too-clever, marriageable, devoted daughter, always ready to poison any threatening intimacy with jealous innuendoes: it was just the sort of fabrication which would appeal to her.

  So my mother fumed, and I puzzled, till at last curiosity got the better of me, and I asked Aunt Helen straight out whether she had arranged the whole thing.

  “Darling Sappho, you really must learn not to ask questions like that.”

  “Yes, Aunt Helen,” I said as demurely as I could.

  “And don’t put on those kittenish airs with me.”

  “No, Aunt Helen.”

  “I think you’ll like Syracuse, you know. It’s a good place for young people. New. Exciting. A sense of discovery in the air. Besides”— she put her head on one side and studied me thoughtfully—”you’ll benefit from a little constructive spoiling.”

  “Spoiling?”

  “Indeed. You show every sign of possessing naturally luxurious tastes. With any luck, Lycurgus and Chloe will indulge them to a point where you refuse, thereafter, to put up with anything less. That should be extremely useful to you in later life. When you think of getting married, for instance.”

  I said fiercely: “I shall never marry—” and then paused, taken aback by the vehemence of my own reaction.

  “Ah,” said Aunt Helen, and there was a compassion in her eyes that robbed the words of any hurting quality, “you are in love with your own virginity. It’s not as rare a complaint as you might suppose; and it seldom proves fatal.” Then, unexpectedly, in her fine, light voice, she sang the opening line of an old folk-song I had first heard as a child in Eresus: “Maidenhead, maidenhead, where are you gone from me?” And without thinking I gave her the response: “Never again shall I come to you, bride, never again—” and my eyes filled with tears.

  “You seer Aunt Helen said gently.

  I shook my head.

  “You will, darling. You will.” She took me in her arms, and cradled my head against her breast, and rocked me gently, like the small child that in so many ways I still was.

  Antimenidas came to say good-bye. The bandage was gone now: a brown, ropy scab ran slantwise across his cheek, and the flesh round it was pulled together in a series of angry, puckered folds. Neither of us made any direct reference to what had taken place before the tribunal. He sat in the colonnade with me and drank wine: his dark eyes were wary.

  “What will you do?” I asked. “Where will you go?”

  He shrugged. “I have little choice. My property is confiscated. I know only one trade: war. The Bing of Babylonia needs mercenaries for his campaign in Judaea. I shall try my luck there.”

  Something in his expression, the way he emphasized those last words, made me say: “Don’t try your luck too hard, Antimenidas. Let it bring you safely home.”

  “Let it bring me a good sword first,” he said, with a glance at his empty belt. “They took that too.” Then he smiled that singularly sweet smile which always looked so odd on his hard, grained, craggy features. “If I do come home, Sappho, I promise you—”

  “What?”

  “No. Wait and see.”

  I said: “Is your brother going with you?”

  He shook his head, frowning.

  So they had quarrelled again.

  “Then where—?”

  “Egypt, my dear. The pursuit of wisdom.” He drew down his mouth, as though in contempt: the scar twisted, stretched. He finished his wine and stood up, hesitated, then—as though in answer to my unspoken question—said: “Alcaeus has never found it too difficult to finance his—adventures.”

  “It must be pleasant to have such generous friends.’

  “Yes.” Antimenidas stared at me ironically. “You, I gather, should appreciate that better than most. Well. Enjoy yourself in Sicily—though I fancy that’s unnecessary advice.”

  He picked up his light summer cloak and flung it over his shoulders. He looked very tall, standing there in the colonnade with the afternoon sun behind him.

  “Good-bye,” he said, and turned away without waiting for an answer, his long, uneven stride echoing across the

  “Wait—” I called, breathless, not knowing what I meant, only what I had to do, fingers reaching for the clasp of the thin chain that held the amulet at my throat, the golden amulet I had worn since I was a baby. “Wait—” And then, as he looked back, I threw the amulet towards him, with a quick, awkward gesture, so that it skidded along the polished stones and came to rest in a patch of sunlight. As his hand closed over it I felt the touch on my throat and breast, a wrench, a pang. He will go safely now, I thought. He will come home unharmed. I smiled as I watched his long shadow out of sight. Then I remembered my own coming journey, and despite the heat a quick shiver ran through me.

  There were weeds sprouting between the stone blocks of the drive up to Three Winds; not many, but enough to catch the eye. Already Phanias’ death had, in a hundred tiny ways, affected things that seemed stable, permanent, part of the natural order. Mica, too, at seventeen was very different from the bubbling, excited twelve-year-old who had sat painting me under the apple-tree. Her plumpness had dropped away, her freckles were fading: only her hands, those fine, strong, sensitive hands, remained what they had been, in a world where they no longer had any true home.

  Yet Three Winds itself still looked reassuringly the same, with its high, white rooms, its seasoned beams, its all-pervading scent of sweet grass, beeswax, jasmine. Down the familiar arched corridors we walked, Mica and I, past the central courtyard towards Ismene’s private chamber. As we crossed the lobby I found myself staring, memory-haunted, at the great tapestry of centaurs and Lapiths on which Ismene had been working that summer afternoon five years ago. Time looped out and away: there was nothing between then and now, all lost, strange, alien. Hold on, I told myself. Have faith.

  “Mica—how is she? How has she taken it?’

  Mica’s eyes were lonely, sad with the knowledge that would always be a little more than she could bear, that was the price of her talent.

  “She’s—different. It’s not just Papa’s death. I wish it were.”

  “No—don’t—”

  Sometimes the truth is too hard to put into words.

  But she burst out: “It’s all finished, Sappho. Everything’s finished—” There were tears on her cheeks. “I can’t explain. I’m sorry.”

  Ismene, in black, rose as we came in, took both my hands in hers. It was not her appearance that shocked me most. That outgoing stream of warmth and reassurance had dried up. She was a husk, a ghost: she had no more to give.

  I offered formal condolences on the loss of her husband: I did not trust my own spontaneous words.

  She said: “Some losses are—supportable. Given time and courage, we shall learn to live again, to reshape the pattern—do you see?— without his presence.”

  “Yes. I understand.”

  “But something else is lost, Sappho. Surely you, of all people; must realize that? An atmosphere, a unifying force, the power that made Three Winds more, much more, than a house and so many acres of land, that gave it meaning and joy—”

  At least Three Winds has an heir now, Lady Ismene. That should bring you comfort.”

  “Should it? What will become of his heritage in the years ahead? Can I turn back time for him? Can anyone?”

  I remembered Phanias at the orchard gate: It looks so permanent, doesn’t it? So unalterable. And then: Nothing is permanent. We can only do what we must, knowing it may not be enough. So he, too, foreknew, foresuffered: the irony of Hippias’ birth could not have been lost on him. My heart turned suddenly cold: what unspeakable thread of despair linked the two images that flashed and merged in my mind—Phanias, skewered on the swords of Myrsilus guardsmen; my father, red with Melanchros blood, going down under a rain of dagger-thrusts, the butchered tyrannicide? What was it Antimenidas said, that winter day in Pyrrha? Your father killed himself, quite literally, to be what his family wanted. No, I thought, there is more to it than that
: more, and worse.

  I spoke the easy, conventional words of reassurance: “Have no fear, Lady Ismene. Hippias will rule Three Winds when he comes of age.”

  Strange and ironic prophecy.

  “Thank you,” she said, with a white little smile. “But it is you who need our prayers now, Sappho.” Then, with a formality that matched my own: “May the Gods grant you a calm passage, safe landfall, a speedy return: all that your heart most desires.”

  On a sudden impulse I asked: “Where is Atthis? I must say good-bye to Atthis—” And suddenly this became all-important, it was the one thread back to that lost, still, sunlit perfection, the timeless moment in the apple-orchard.

  “I’m here, Sappho.” The voice from the doorway behind me was clear, sweet, a little sad. “I’m always here.”

  “Don’t forget me when I’m gone,” I said, turning. She stood there in her black mourning robe, sharp-outlined against the white of the corridor: a slight, enchanted creature, neither child nor woman, with budding breasts now, but the same enormous grey eyes, the same neat-coiled hair, like dark burnished copper, the same brown skin and heartrending awkwardness of movement I remembered from that first meeting long ago.

  “I shall never forget you,” she said; and there was something about her that brought all three of us up short, lifted the moment out of its half-teasing casualness onto quite a different plane.

  All that your heart most desires.

  I caught my breath, recovered myself, and said, laughing: “You will, you know.” But I had seen the sudden flash of prophetic sadness in Ismene’s eyes: so must Cassandra have looked during those early years in Troy, the years of bright unknowing.

  IX

  Sunlight glittered on the calm waters of the Saronic Gulf: there was scarcely enough breeze to fill the great patched sail overhead. Down below decks, on their thwarts above the bilge-washed ballast, the rowers heaved and sweated. Oar-blades dipped, thrashed whitely, rose wet and glinting, wavered like the legs of an upturned beetle. The air was alive with sharp interdependent noises: the leathery creak of oar-holes, the higher-pitched stress and play between rope and timber, the timekeeper’s hoarse, rhythmic bark, the slow froth and slap of water, close-penned goats and sheep complaining loudly from their unwanted vantage-point in the bows.