"Sappho & Helen: A love affair that changed the world"

This is an excerpt from a novel I am working on. I classify it as speculative prehistorical fiction. The ladies may like this one since the protagonist is female and the antagonist is male.

Debate

“I will not do it!” Sappho looked at the other assembled priestesses. “Forget that she is my lover, forget that she is Menelaus’ wife, a marriage she was forced into by the barbarian customs of the Achaeans, forget Agamemnon’s threat; consider only this: who among you would force a woman, a free sister, back into slavery among those barbarians? That is what it would take for Helen will not willingly go back to them. She has pleaded with me to give her a boat that she may flee into the east and escape Agamemnon and his brother. I have refused. How long would a woman, without servants, slaves or at least a very strong man, remain free in the barbarian world? She has also offered to seek refuge behind the walls of Troy, Priam is benevolent and honorable for a barbarian. This too I have refused. The guarded shores of Lesbos are safer than any walls that Agamemnon can place his barbarian horde in front of.”

“You would bring them here, to Lesbos?” Amphitrite cried shocked at the thought of the barbarians in the waters off Lesbos.

“I only wished Agamemnon were so foolish as to do so! We are still strong at sea and the guard is well practiced at repelling a seaborne invasion.” lamented Sappho. “Still Agamemnon is arrogant, with erudition, prudence and restraint; we may be able to goad him into a blunder of that kind.” She made a mental note to discuss this idea with Minos.

            From the other end of the room Mnemosyne cried out, “You are talking about war, open conflict with the Achaeans! How far back in the sacred tablets must one go to find any of our blessed foremothers who would suggest such a rash and precipitous action?”

            Sappho turned to face her stunned sister priestess. Now was the time for her to make them see the unpleasant truth. “Sisters, did you not hear the words of Prince Hector? Was his speech not plain and to the point, unembellished by innuendo? I did not have him come here just for you to gaze on the beauty of his oiled and battle scarred body.” Sappho knew that now she must chide her sisters, she must push them from the comfortable traditions that were the habit of her culture. She continued, “Other than to hear his words and listen to his message, my only use for bringing the valiant Prince Hector before you was to remind you of what a real man looks like. How long has it been since any of you have borne a child from a real man? Not these soft things that tend the temple fields and herd our sheep. Would any of you breed your cattle like that, sending the slimmest of bulls among the cows? What do we do with a young boar that does not chase and mount any sow he can get at? The worthless thing is hanging in the smokehouse before the first frost. Why, pray tell, is our saffron the best in all the world and the source of our affluence and opulence. It is because for untold generations our foremothers have chosen and nurtured the best plants.” Sappho paused and let this concept sink into the minds of her sisters.

            When the wisdom of this truth had set in, Sappho continued. “Tell me sisters, in only one generation, will you send the sons of these soft things to be slaughtered at the hands of Agamemnon’s heir? If we do not act now, the Achaeans will only grow stronger. Perhaps, for now, Agamemnon will be satisfied with taking the rest of Crete, the sacred and much neglected home of our ancestors. Maybe his avarice will be satisfied with the conquest of Troy and the riches of their horses. Even if we escape Agamemnon’s greed, he is an old man and soon he will be replaced by an heir that will yearn to surpass his forbearer’s glory. We may be able to forestall the Achaeans for this generation, but our daughters will not. Our mothers and their mothers were too complacent and have left us this inheritance. If we remain seated on our cushions filled with comfortable buckwheat hulls, eating our lamb and lentils seasoned with saffron, the gift of our ancestors; then the best our daughters will have to look forward to will be harvesting the saffron as slaves of the Achaeans.”

            Sappho continued, “Sisters, it is without any doubt that propitiation will accomplish nothing but to encourage Agamemnon. This is the undisputed way of the world. We can no longer rely on the superiority of our civilization. The Achaean smiths forge bronze into swords that deal death to not only other barbarians, but will kill our men as well. They even go to sea! While it is true that they cling to the coast in ponderous, crude vessels; they are there. They have even journeyed as far as Egypt!

Mnemosyne objected, “What you are asking is for us to create and hand over to you powers that haven’t existed since the earliest of our foremothers, powers like those taken by the old kings of the south in the days before the Cataclysm.”

Sappho replied, “What I am saying to you, what I have illustrated here in council through witness testimony, undisputable evidence and irrefutable logic is that if we fail to take drastic and decisive action right now, then it will be to our society, to the Minoan way of life that we all cherish, worse than if the Cataclysm had returned.” She paused for a moment to let her words soak into the other priestesses, “Do you wish to see your daughters enslaved to harvest the saffron for the enrichment of Agamemnon’s heir? Would you condemn your daughters to a life of being raped by Achaeans at their whim? Have all Minoan women to be nothing but animals for those barbarian brutes to satisfy their lust inside of? Would you deny them every woman's natural right to choose the man or men she mates with?” Sappho looked each woman in her eyes. “Please tell me, were the Achaean raids on our colonies nothing of importance, did they not happen? Tell me that Prince Hector’s testimony is irrelevant, that he does not know the Achaean barbarians as well as you do. Tell me where my exhaustive reason fails the test of your dialectic. Can any of you say this? Forget my love affair with Helen. Have any of you not taken a beautiful young woman as your lover because she met your fancy? Had I not met Helen I would have returned to you with the same conclusion, with the same urgency. Our affair is nothing more than a distraction to this matter. Sisters I urge you not to be diverted by my love for this foreign woman. What I have told you is true, my reason is sound and the facts are plain and unassailable. There is only one path left for us all. It is a hard choice and a difficult path, but it is the only way left for us to preserve what we all love and cherish so much.” Now she saw it in their eyes, even Niobe saw the truth of it now. They were still stunned, bewildered by how their world had changed this afternoon, but the fact of the matter had taken hold of them and they could no longer ignore it. Sappho gave it a moment to cook, and then she slowly spoke, “We have much work ahead of ourselves and little time in which to do it. I have already discussed the problem with Prince Hector; he assures me that King Priam will stand with us. King Priam is honorable and opposes Agamemnon as much as we do.” Sappho was pleased that none of them objected now. They all listened intently without opposition, Niobe as well. She knew that the debate was over; she had won the hardest of the battles she had to fight. “We must seek help from what friends we have to the North, South, the rest of the East and the far West.”

Reviews

[Christina]

Great storytelling! I especially loved the following excerpt, which is quite fitting in the game right now:

"How long has it been since any of you have borne a child from a real man? Not these soft things that tend the temple fields and herd our sheep. Would any of you breed your cattle like that, sending the slimmest of bulls among the cows? What do we do with a young boar that does not chase and mount any sow he can get at? The worthless thing is hanging in the smokehouse before the first frost."

So applicable in most any facet of life!