my experience gods are capricious and need appeasing. For centuries we sacrificed our own babies. Then we began to substitute slave-babies and our island continued to prosper, but perhaps my kinsmen are fooling themselves. Baal knows everything. Perhaps we are risking our lives by playing games with the all-seeing gods.â
I was to think of this conversation often in the next few months as I grew bigger and bigger with child. Would I substitute a slave-child to save my own kin? Was I as hypocritical as the Motyans? I didnât know. Fortunately, Aphrodite no longer demanded human sacrificeâor so I naively thought at the time.
Praxinoa and I returned to Syracuse across a glittering sea. The winds were fair and we made better time than we had on the outward sail. Being aboard ship made me think constantly of Alcaeus. I had been writing to him in my head ever since his letter arrived, but I had not yet sent him my reply. Everything I thought to write seemed foolish. Whenever I reached for reed and papyrus, I grew frightened. How could I let him know of his impending fatherhood? It was too large a thing to put in a letter. It should be whispered across a pillow. I remembered our lovemaking and I ached for him. Praxinoa rubbed my back while I thought of Alcaeus. I didnât tell her who I was thinking of, but I think she knew.
My love,
I have just witnessed a wretched ritual in which a child was sacrificed to appease a savage god. I thought I knew human nature, but until now I did not understand the war between creation and destruction that is waged in every human heart. The ceremony was all the more painful to watch because of the child I carry which belongs to both of us.
I wrote this letter in my head as we returned to Syracuse by sea. I promised myself that in time I would send itâas soon as I got the wording right.
4
Gold Flower
Hesperus, bringing all that the shining Dawn scattered,
You bring the sheep, you bring the goat,
You bring the child back to its mother.
âS APPHO
B UT I NEVER DID. Back in Syracuse, I thought of Alcaeus with every sunrise and sunset. I wrote him many letters in my mind. But still I could not bring myself to send him anything I scrawled on papyrus. Why, I did not know. I wanted to contact him, yet could not. Was it because I feared my letter would fall into unfriendly hands? The household was full of potential spies. Was it because I feared my letter would never reach him? Was it because my pregnancy was too great a thing to be communicated except mouth to ear? What if Cercylas discovered that the child I carried was not his? I was full of trepidation. It seemed I walked above a great abyss. Away from home, far from all the certainties I knew, I became addicted to soothsayers like all the other Syracusans, who were a most superstitious lot.
But I cannot blame my love of prophecy only on the ways of Syracuse. We all consult soothsayers at the times in our lives that are most precarious. Pregnancy is surely such a time. Will you live or die? Will the babe live or die? Will your life change utterly? (Of course it will, but you hardly want to credit that!) Soothsayers beckon to us because we get so few answers from the wandering gods who delight in withholding their gifts. Magic attracts us when our humanity seems most frail.
There was no lack of magic in Syracuse. The city teemed with diviners and oracles. Some were obvious charlatans. Others put on amazing demonstrations using birds and herbs and incense, red binding cords, lead manikins, cauldrons of green and purple fire.
One day I found myself in the humble hovel of one Cretaea, sitting on a packed mud floor around a fire filled with lead manikins with huge phalli. These priapic manikins represented the beloveds of her clients.
Cretaea had three wobbling wens on her sagging chin, eyes and hair the color of pitch, and long fingernails stained red with henna. She chanted:
Where are my magic spells? Where are my charms?
I was to think of this conversation often in the next few months as I grew bigger and bigger with child. Would I substitute a slave-child to save my own kin? Was I as hypocritical as the Motyans? I didnât know. Fortunately, Aphrodite no longer demanded human sacrificeâor so I naively thought at the time.
Praxinoa and I returned to Syracuse across a glittering sea. The winds were fair and we made better time than we had on the outward sail. Being aboard ship made me think constantly of Alcaeus. I had been writing to him in my head ever since his letter arrived, but I had not yet sent him my reply. Everything I thought to write seemed foolish. Whenever I reached for reed and papyrus, I grew frightened. How could I let him know of his impending fatherhood? It was too large a thing to put in a letter. It should be whispered across a pillow. I remembered our lovemaking and I ached for him. Praxinoa rubbed my back while I thought of Alcaeus. I didnât tell her who I was thinking of, but I think she knew.
My love,
I have just witnessed a wretched ritual in which a child was sacrificed to appease a savage god. I thought I knew human nature, but until now I did not understand the war between creation and destruction that is waged in every human heart. The ceremony was all the more painful to watch because of the child I carry which belongs to both of us.
I wrote this letter in my head as we returned to Syracuse by sea. I promised myself that in time I would send itâas soon as I got the wording right.
4
Gold Flower
Hesperus, bringing all that the shining Dawn scattered,
You bring the sheep, you bring the goat,
You bring the child back to its mother.
âS APPHO
B UT I NEVER DID. Back in Syracuse, I thought of Alcaeus with every sunrise and sunset. I wrote him many letters in my mind. But still I could not bring myself to send him anything I scrawled on papyrus. Why, I did not know. I wanted to contact him, yet could not. Was it because I feared my letter would fall into unfriendly hands? The household was full of potential spies. Was it because I feared my letter would never reach him? Was it because my pregnancy was too great a thing to be communicated except mouth to ear? What if Cercylas discovered that the child I carried was not his? I was full of trepidation. It seemed I walked above a great abyss. Away from home, far from all the certainties I knew, I became addicted to soothsayers like all the other Syracusans, who were a most superstitious lot.
But I cannot blame my love of prophecy only on the ways of Syracuse. We all consult soothsayers at the times in our lives that are most precarious. Pregnancy is surely such a time. Will you live or die? Will the babe live or die? Will your life change utterly? (Of course it will, but you hardly want to credit that!) Soothsayers beckon to us because we get so few answers from the wandering gods who delight in withholding their gifts. Magic attracts us when our humanity seems most frail.
There was no lack of magic in Syracuse. The city teemed with diviners and oracles. Some were obvious charlatans. Others put on amazing demonstrations using birds and herbs and incense, red binding cords, lead manikins, cauldrons of green and purple fire.
One day I found myself in the humble hovel of one Cretaea, sitting on a packed mud floor around a fire filled with lead manikins with huge phalli. These priapic manikins represented the beloveds of her clients.
Cretaea had three wobbling wens on her sagging chin, eyes and hair the color of pitch, and long fingernails stained red with henna. She chanted:
Where are my magic spells? Where are my charms?
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