The songs of Bilitis — Inside the Classic

Bilitis was born at the beginning of the sixth century before our era in a mountain village situated on the banks of the Melas, to the east of Pamphylia. The country is stony and sad, shadowed by profound forests, dominated by the enormous mass of Tauros; lime springs issue from the rocks; great salty lakes abide on the heights, and the valleys are filled with silence.

She was the daughter of a Greek and of a Phœnician woman. She seems never to have known her father for he is not mentioned in any part of the souvenirs of her childhood. Perhaps he died before she came into the world. Otherwise, it would be hard to explain how she bore a Phœnician name which her mother alone could have given her.

In this almost deserted land, she lived a tranquil life with her mother and her sisters. Other young girls, who were her friends, lived not far from her. On the woody slopes of Tauros, the shepherds pastured their flocks.

In the morning, at the crow of the cock, she arose, went to the stable, led the animals to drink and busied herself milking them. During the day, if it rained, she remained in the gynæceum and spun wool from her distaff. If the weather was fair, she ran in the fields and played a thousand games, with her companions, of which she speaks.

Bilitis regarded the Nymphs with ardent piety. The sacrifices which she offered, nearly every day, were for their fountain. She often speaks of them but it seems that she never saw them, for she reports with so much veneration the accounts of an old man who, one day, had surprised them.

The close of her pastoral existence was saddened by a love of which we know little, although she speaks of it at length. She ceased to sing of it when it became unhappy. Having become the mother of a child which she abandoned, Bilitis quitted Pamphylia for unknown reasons and never returned to the place of her birth.

We find her again at Mytilene where she went by way of the sea along the fair coasts of Asia. She was then scarcely sixteen years old, according to the conjectures of M. Heim, who established with probability some dates in the life of Bilitis from a verse which alludes to the death of Pittakos.

Lesbos was then the centre of the world. On the main road between beautiful Attica and magnificent Lydia, it had for its capital a city more elegant than Athens and more corrupt than Sardis: Mytilene, built upon a peninsula overlooking the shores of Asia. The blue sea encompassed the city. From the height of the temples one could distinguish on the horizon the white line of Atarnea which was the port of Pergamos.

The narrow streets were always encumbered by a throng resplendent in many-colored stuffs, tunics of purple and of hyacinth, cyclas of transparent silks, mantles trailing in the dust of the yellow shoes. The women carried in their ears great rings of gold set with raw pearls, and on their arms massive bracelets of silver roughly chiseled in relief. The men themselves wore their hair brilliantly perfumed with rare oils. The Greeks wore sandals with the ends fastened to their bare ankles by large serpents of bright metal, while the Asiatics wore soft, tinted boots. The passers-by stood in groups before the façades of the shops where the goods for sale were on display: rugs of sombre colors, cloths worked with threads of gold, jewels of amber and of ivory, according to the quarter. The animation of Mytilene did not end with the day; there was no hour so late that one could not hear, through the open doors, the joyous sounds of instruments, the cries of women, the noise of dances. Pittakos himself, who wished to give a little order to this perpetual debauch, made a law in defense of players of the flute too young to be employed in the nocturnal festivals; but this law, like all laws that pretend to change the course of natural morals, determined the secrecy but not the observance.

In a society where the husbands were occupied at night with wine and dancing-girls, the women could not fail to unite and find, among themselves, consolation for their solitude. Thus it was that they softened to those delicate loves to which antiquity has given their name, and which have, whatever men may think, more of true passion than invoked viciousness.