and from quivering leaves
a deep sleep falls.
Here too is a meadow for grazing horses
blossoming with spring flowers and breezes
blowing sweet like honey . . .
In this place you . . . taking, O Cypris,
gracefully into golden cups
nectar mingled with our festivities
pour now.
Scholars can’t agree whether this is an imagined scene or an actual hymn used in worship, but in either case it’s a song of powerful religious imagery evoking a mystical union of worshippers, the goddess, and the natural setting of her outdoor temple.
Sappho weaves a profoundly sensual prayer with her use of sight, smell, taste, and sound in the lush and primal grove of Aphrodite. Apples, a symbol of love and a fruit of the autumn, mingle with roses and other flowers of the spring in a magical place removed from time. The worshippers hear the babbling water of a sacred spring echoing through the branches above and see the dappled shadows of blossoming roses, a powerful image of female sexuality favored elsewhere by Sappho. They can smell sweet frankincense burning on the altar, feel the gentle, warm wind from the meadow on their skin, and taste the nectar, a food of the gods, poured into golden cups for their festivities by the goddess herself. From above through the quivering leaves, a deep sleep falls down upon them—and not just any sleep. It is a koma, or hypnotic sleep, of enchantment, a powerful trance such as that which descends on Zeus after making love with Hera or which overcomes an audience listening to a skilled bard sing and play the lyre.
This gathering of women worshippers is echoed in another poem of Sappho mentioned in Chapter 5:
The moon in its fullness appeared,
and when the women took their places around the altar . . .
This fragment is another rare glimpse into the private religious life of women in ancient Greece. The moon, as seen earlier, is a powerful feminine symbol that oversees the worshippers as they gather around the altar at night. Whether this is a sacrifice to Aphrodite or another goddess is unknown, but the solemnity of the occasion is clear even from only two lines. We don’t know whether Sappho was a priestess or leader of a religious cult herself, but these two poems do speak of her as a participant in worship in a time and place set apart by women for themselves.
Libation bowl with young women dancing around an altar (c. 450 BC).
(MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, BOSTON)
IN ANOTHER FRAGMENTARY poem, Sappho invokes Hera, the wife of Zeus and a goddess favorable to women in all phases of their lives:
Come close to me, I pray,
Lady Hera, and may your graceful form appear,
you to whom the sons of Atreus prayed,
those glorious kings,
after they had accomplished many great deeds,
first at Troy, then on the sea.
They came to this island, but they could not
complete their voyage home
until they called on you and Zeus the god of suppliants
and Thyone’s lovely child.
So now be kind and help me too,
as in ancient days.
Holy and beautiful . . .
virgin . . .
around . . .
to be . . .
to arrive . . .
It’s possible this is a choral song sung by a group of women worshipping Hera, or it could be a private prayer by Sappho, perhaps for the safe return of a loved one from a sea voyage, as we’ve seen elsewhere. We know that the sons of Atreus she refers to in the first stanza are Agamemnon and Menelaus. In Homer’s version of the story, Agamemnon stays at Troy after the war to appease the angry goddess Athena, but his brother Menelaus, along with aged Nestor and Odysseus, sails away. Odysseus soon returns to Agamemnon, but Nestor and presumably Menelaus continue to nearby Lesbos to seek a sign from Zeus about the best route for the voyage home. Here Sappho is presenting an alternate local tradition in which both brothers arrive together in Lesbos to pray to the trio of Zeus, Hera, and Dionysus, Thyone’s love child, and a god particularly worshipped by women.
Sappho’s contemporary Alcaeus also sings of this peculiarly Lesbian trinity:
The people of Lesbos founded
a great and conspicuous temple precinct
to be held by all and placed in it
altars of the blessed immortals.
They named there Zeus, god of suppliants,
and you, Hera, the glorious goddess of Aeolia,
mother of all, and third Kemelios, Dionysus,
eater of raw flesh . . .
Alcaeus and a later ancient commentator also say that the section of the temple devoted to Hera was the site of an annual beauty contest for the women of Lesbos, who gave a sacred shout each year in honor of the goddess.
In this poem Sappho once again turns Homer on his head by deliberately presenting a different tradition and adding the goddess Hera along with Dionysus as a trio of gods the brothers once prayed to. Then she herself sets aside the two male gods and invokes Hera alone, both building on and altering the legendary precedent laid down by the sons of Atreus in Homer’s tale.
A FINAL FRAGMENT of a religious poem composed by Sappho and quoted by Hephaestion once again addresses Aphrodite. It is our earliest evidence of the imported Eastern cult of Adonis:
“Delicate Adonis is dying, Cytherea—what should we do?”
“Beat your breasts, girls, and tear your clothes.”
This song is a different sort from the previous poems. We have here part of a group ritual in which women call on Aphrodite (Cytherea) in mourning for the handsome young Adonis.
Adonis was a mortal born from an incestuous affair who attracted the attention of Aphrodite. She entrusted him to the underworld goddess Persephone, who also fell in love with the boy and refused to give him back. In judgment, Zeus decreed that Adonis would spend four months each year in Hades with Persephone, four months with Aphrodite, and the other four months with whomever he chose. He picked Aphrodite and enjoyed his life with her until he died in a hunting accident in the arms of his heartbroken lover.
Each year, Adonis was mourned by the women of Greece as an emblem of the fragility of life. To honor him in Athens, women planted seeds in broken pots in the midsummer heat so that they soon withered and died. The Athenian celebration was a noisy, obscene, and public affair of women that alternated between joy and grief. A similar religious celebration almost certainly happened annually on Lesbos. And although we may long to know more, the images we do have in Sappho’s poetry provide us with a unique, inside glimpse into the religious life of women in ancient Greece.
7
UNYIELDING TIME
It’s not by strength or swiftness or dexterity that great things are
achieved, but by reflection, character, and judgment. In these respects
old age is not poorer but richer.
– CICERO, ON GROWING OLD
WOMEN IN THE ancient world were lucky to live past the age of forty. Given the ravages of disease, the backbreaking work of farm and domestic life, and the dangers of frequent childbirth, most wives and mothers could only dream of attaining the biblical three score and ten years. A Roman gravestone from North Africa records a typical story: “Here lies Ennia Fructosa, dearest wife, whose modesty was evident and obedience praised. She was married at age fifteen and accepted the title of wife. She lived no more than thirteen years after her wedding.”
But there were exceptions. Elderly women from the poorest families who had given birth to many children could be seen gathered around every village well, trading gossip. By fate or natural disposition, they had beaten the odds to reach sixty, seventy, or beyond. In an age when women of succeeding generations gave birth to their first child soon after puberty, it was possible to find five generations of girls and matrons living together in a single household. For a woman like Sappho from a wealthy family with slaves to perform the harshest tasks and access to the best medicine of the day, the odd
s of long life were even better.
As with most aspects of women’s lives in the ancient world, we know precious little about how they themselves viewed growing older. Men were little help. The Roman orator Cicero composed an entire book on the joys and sorrows of aging without once mentioning what the experience was like for a woman.
The Greeks had no concept of middle age. Men passed from being neoi (young adults) to presbyteroi (elders) with nothing in between. On those rare occasions when a man is called mesos, or “middle-aged,” in Greek literature, it’s usually a term of derision for those who can’t come to terms with growing older, as in a story by the second-century-AD Greek writer Babrius:
There was once a man of middle age who was neither young nor old but had white and black hairs mixed together on his head. Yet still he spent his time carousing with women. He was sleeping with two women, one who was young and the other older. The young woman wanted him to look like a lover her own age, so she plucked out his white hairs. The woman in her prime wanted him to look more mature, so she plucked out his black hairs. Eventually the two women left the man bald.
Adult women were divided into those of childbearing years and those beyond menopause. A wife who bore her husband sons and lived beyond the time when she could bear children was honored and achieved a degree of freedom unknown to younger women. Such a respected matron was free to go outside her home by herself, since she was no longer at risk of becoming pregnant by another man. As the fourth-century-BC Athenian orator Hyperides said: “A woman who leaves her house ought to have reached that stage of life when those who see her don’t ask whose wife she is but whose mother she is.” Greek medical writers, such as Aristotle, agreed that most women reached menopause in their forties. These male commentators were also quick to point out that women going through this change of life could be emotional and unpredictable.
For women who survived into their forties and beyond, life could be very pleasant. Most would have been married in their teens to men almost a generation older than themselves, so that by the time they passed menopause their husbands would often have died from old age. However much they loved their spouses, these women for the first time in their lives were free to make choices for themselves.
The financial support of widowed matrons fell to their sons, who generally treated them with great respect and affection. To ill-treat or ignore his mother brought great shame on a man. A woman without sons faced a more problematic future. Her relatives, daughters, or late husband’s extended family would usually provide for her, but sometimes elderly matrons struggled to eke out a living by serving as midwives or as professional mourners at funerals. Older female slaves could be cherished and valuable members of a household, as was the aged nurse Eurycleia in the home of Odysseus, but there must have been many who were left to starve when they became too sick or feeble to serve their masters any longer.
GREEKS FEARED THE process of dying more than death itself. For most, life after death was a vague and uncertain concept. Even if they believed in an afterlife, it wasn’t necessarily something they looked forward to. This attitude led to an appreciation for living, especially among older people. When the mythical king Admetus hears that he is doomed to death unless he can find someone to take his place, he asks his aged parents to die for him, but his father refuses, even though he is old, saying: “It is precious, this light the gods send, yes precious.”
The earliest literary portrayal of life after death is the dismal Hades of Homer, to which almost everyone went, regardless of their actions in life. When the living Odysseus visits the shade of Achilles in Hades and praises him for being famous in the afterlife, the hero of Troy rebukes him:
O shining Odysseus, don’t try to console me for dying. I would rather follow the plow as the slave of a landless farmer struggling to survive than be king over all the dead.
Homer’s dead spent eternity wandering the twilight realm of Hades unable to speak unless some rare visitor gave them blood to drink. As Sappho herself says to a woman she disliked:
But when you die you will lie there and there will be no memory
of you nor longing for you after, for you have no share in the roses
of Pieria. But you will wander unseen in the house of Hades,
flying about among the shadowy dead.
It was not a fate to be envied, but neither was it feared by most. There were, however, those who hoped for something more, whether philosophers or followers of mystery religions. For these there was the possibility of a pleasant afterlife or reincarnation here on earth.
WHATEVER A GREEK’S attitude about life after death, the proper care of the dead was of the greatest importance—and it was a ritual presided over largely by women. The first stage was the preparation of the body at home, starting with the closing of the mouth and eyes by the next of kin. It was the shutting of the eyes that allowed the psyche, or soul, to leave the body.
The women of the house would next bathe the body with seawater, if available, and then anoint and dress the deceased in a long robe or wrap the body in a shroud of white linen cloth. The corpse was then placed on a wooden bed with the feet pointing toward the door. A virgin who had died would be dressed as a bride, while soldiers were often attired in their uniforms. Jewelry was common for the deceased, depending on the means of the family. Funerals in Sappho’s time could be particularly extravagant, prompting some cities to pass laws against ostentatious displays aimed at impressing the neighbors. Funeral rites required no fixed service or particular words, but images of ritual mourning by women frequently appear on Greek vases. The women would tear at their hair, beat their breasts, and sing songs of lamentation, while the men stood by in quiet grief.
After a respectful time of mourning, the body was taken from the house before sunrise and carried on a bier or transported in a wagon to the site of deposition. Men with weapons led the way, while the women followed behind. A wealthy family might hire musicians to accompany the procession. Families had plots outside the precincts of the town, where the body was either burned or placed in a coffin and buried. With cremation, the fires of ancient times were not usually hot enough to completely burn the bones. These were collected and placed in jars after the ashes had cooled. Priests were not present and, in fact, were forbidden to attend burials, lest they be ritually polluted by the closeness of death. In early Greek times, sacrifices were performed for the dead, perhaps by the women of the household.
After the interment of the remains, men and women left the cemetery separately. It’s likely that the men stayed behind to close the grave and seal the tomb, while the women returned home and prepared a meal for all the family gathered to honor the dead.
AS WITH THE rest of Sappho’s life, we have only glimpses of her later years. We can presume she returned home from exile in Sicily at some point in the early sixth century BC and again took up her life on Lesbos as a poet. We know that her daughter, Cleis, was with her as she grew older, and since she never mentions any sons, it’s likely that Sappho lived with Cleis. We know nothing of Sappho’s relationships with other women in her later years, nor do we know whether the friends who had once gathered around her to hear her songs were still part of her life. But we do know something about how Sappho viewed growing older, thanks to a remarkable poem rediscovered in a two-part story over the last century.
In 1922 there was great excitement among the small community of papyrologists when a new fragment of one of Sappho’s poems was published after being discovered in the familiar trash heaps of Oxyrhynchus. Unfortunately, the papyrus was in even worse shape than most, with only a handful of legible words:
. . . beautiful gifts . . . children
. . . the sweet-sounding lyre dear to song
. . . old age . . . my skin now
. . . hair once black
. . . knees do not carry
. . . like fawns
. . . but what can be done?
. . . not possible to become
. . .
rosey-armed Dawn
. . . carrying to the ends of the earth.
. . . yet seized . . . wife
The poem clearly showed Sappho writing about growing older, but what was she trying to say? The words were her typical blend of stark reality and beautiful imagery with a possible reference at the end to a well-known myth about the goddess of the dawn carrying off the handsome mortal Tithonus in a futile attempt to make him her immortal lover. But with so little of the poem surviving, there was not much more to say. It was given the catalog number 58 in the Sappho corpus, published in a collection of papyri excavated that year, and soon forgotten by all but a few Greek scholars.
Then, exactly eighty years later, something remarkable happened. An antiquities dealer in Europe let it be known that he had in his possession a small collection of papyrus fragments from Egypt. Where exactly these came from and how he had acquired them were a mystery, but a quick inspection confirmed they were genuine. To save these treasures, the University of Cologne in Germany purchased them for its archives. And only a short time later, two researchers, Michael Gronewald and Robert Daniel, working with one of these fragments from the wrappings of a mummy, announced in a scholarly journal that they had found some of the missing pieces of Sappho 58. With this discovery, a still fragmentary but much more complete poem could be read for the first time in two thousand years:
. . . beautiful gifts of the violet-laden Muses, children
. . . the sweet-sounding lyre dear to song.
. . . my skin once soft is wrinkled now,
. . . my hair once black has turned to white.
My heart has become heavy, my knees
that once danced nimbly like fawns cannot carry me.
How often I lament these things—but what can be done?
No one who is human can escape old age.
They say that Dawn with arms like roses once took
Tithonus, beautiful and young, carrying him to the
ends of the earth. But in time grey old age still
Searching for Sappho Page 12
