Once Upon A Time, ON LESBOS

The sound of the horn announced the commencement of the festivities and dragged everyone out of his thoughts. The pageant of priests appeared from the colonnades of the temple, clad in snow-white robes, walking in a pre-scheduled and well-rehearsed manner. They approached the space where the three altars stood, one for every deity honoured in the very temple. After a while, the morning air carried the muffled cries of butchered animals, bloody offerings to the Gods, coming to the end of their existence on the altar fires. The smell and fumes of burning flesh were all over. Cercylas waited patiently for all these - common procedures for every religious festivity around Greece - to come to an end, doings he could not take to his heart, closely connected with his strong dislike for the caste of priests, people who presented themselves as mediators between men and gods, only to take advantage of the fears and ignorance of the former. Ever since he was a boy, Cercylas had a natural dislike for all aspects of conformity with established practices and beliefs, and kept searching for roads and avenues to exercise the freedom of choice he knew he was entitled to, like every man in Greece, something he had heard his father say many a time. Most of his tutors - for there was quite a plethora of them, as they did not stay in the job for a long time - who tried to bend his will with force, had come to realize their mistake pretty soon. His father was desperate and frequently spoke of giving him a good thrashing, especially when his offspring played a nasty trick on his latest tutor, driving him away, for he could not, or perhaps bothered not to understand the boy. However, he never laid a heavy hand on him, being his only son, and indirectly allowed him the kind of liberty little Cercylas was longing for. And now, sitting next to people like Alcaeus and Phanias, he felt he had not, after all, failed his father. He had managed to maintain a status he thought his father would have approved. He did, indeed, feel he was part of a world of freedom. Only that here, same as any place he had been so far - and possibly any place he would ever be in the future - some people will always exploit the naïve credibility of the populace, their generic fears and consequent necessity for hope, and pretend they can deliver protection, speak to omnipotent gods on their part and secure welfare and security for them. Alas, it is only themselves they provide with those goods, gaining huge profits for nothing. Priests! But, if people go to them it means people need them! So be it! He could accept it, but nonetheless their performances made him sick. So, all he could do for now was to wait patiently till they are finished with their never-ending hymns and acting in front of the altars, and withdraw - they would have to wash the blood of the offering off their hands at some time, wouldn't they? Then, at last, the chorus of maidens came forward, led by Sappho with her lyre in hand, conducting the rest, singing a couple of verses alone first, honey-voiced, for the chorus to repeat while dancing gracefully, an enchanting sight to all spectators. They danced and sang, their colourful robes flying in the morning air like wings. From afar they looked like butterflies feasting round a lily in bloom, the queen of the hive, Sappho, who led them into perfect concord playing the lyre like a siren. They sang in lovely melody, danced in admirable unison, and the people around them, their heart in rapture, watched and listened in absolute silence that even small children dared not to break. The latter, flabbergasted, quit their toys and games, and fixed their eyes to the scene. Cercylas, as if mesmerized, lost sense of everything else around and the only thing he could think of at the moment was a verse he had heard of, sometime, somewhere, referring to lesbian singers as the best of the best Reference is made to the saying “Next to the poet of Lesbos” which meant that lesbian singers and poets were to take precedence. . That was indeed true! Beside him, Phanias could not take his eyes away from Drossila. Her flaxen hair freed from her Lydian headband, her slim, tall, though mature, body clad in crocus and light blue finery revealing the beauty of her ankles for a moment and covering it the next, just as the purple sun emerges from behind the clouds and disappears soon after, presented a nymph like image that had imprisoned his thoughts. The rough warrior felt clearly that this girl attracted him like no other woman he had at times, either for the night, or longer. She had been gaining on his thoughts ever since he first saw her, but now he felt so dazzled by her beauty, he knew he had to approach her somehow and speak to her. Then, even when the whole thing was over, the chorus began to withdraw and the people were cheering and expressing their appreciation in loud whistles and cries of approval, even then, he was still plunged deep into the vision of her image, only to be dragged back to reality by Alcaeus, who handed him a small wax plate he had been scratching on for some time with a reed pen. Phanias took his eyes off her, not without some difficulty, and read the words written by the poet: Now Lesbos' long-robed girls are here for the beauty contest. All around, the women's wondrous annual cry, the holy alleluia, rings.