They say Sappho may have been a kind of prostitute, at least some of the time. They say the same thing about Mary Magdalen. I can believe it, although I can’t say that I know it. If they were prostitutes, I know they did it with the same flair for originality with which they did everything else. ’Nuff said on that topic.

Because I don’t know if Sappho was a prostitute; but I do know that she said this:

“It is the Muses //

Who have caused me /

to be honored: they /

taught me their craft.”

Survival is the first art. You can’t create art when you’re dead, at least not here. Many artists have not created any real art because they have died inside. They have let the world kill them; or they have handed the world the sword it needed to do the deed. Survival is the first art, the hardest art, the longest art, and the last art of all. Without it, you simply cannot get anything done.

Learning the craft is the second art. Reading and writing must be mixed with equal parts real experience or it ain’t worth (and it won’t ever be worth) shit.

The third art is doing it. You find out that you thought you were doing it all along but you were not doing it all along, and far from it. You were doing what can be called “getting ready to do it.” Which is just as crucial, because you can’t do it eventually without the proper preparation.

Staying alive; learning how to; and doing it right when the right time arrives.

Never question The Muses, even in those moments when you know (somehow) they’re full of it. They are holy, and that’s all you need to know to keep you going, even if you enter the phase of “afterglow,” which is the fourth phase (if it ever comes) in which you can’t exactly do it any more but now you can bask in it. Many who think they are “going” are really just stuck down in the herd muck; running very successfully on the hamster wheel, as it were and is. It takes balance to stay on the hamster wheel, but it isn’t going anywhere. And that is nothing against hamsters; it is only to point out that they aren’t lionesses and lions. And it is absurd to pretend that they are. Even in a fake mane – he’s still a hamster. Even at the highest rungs. Even in the White House (or anywhere else they tell you is important, like the end of the hall where your boss resides).

END NOTE: Endless thank you/s to Mary Barnard (1909 – 2001), who made the translation of Sappho used in this commentary. Her translations possess an Emily Dickinson-like intimacy and idiosyncrasy which must also be contained, in a different way, in the fragments of Sappho.

Dale Barrigar