The situation is becoming impossible: Why has Charaxos dragged Alcaeus into our quarrel?

I found them hurling insults at one another, Alcaeus' house and servants in an uproar. I hurried into the library and had to pound on the door.

"I can thank you for this!" shouted Charaxos, the moment he saw me.

"Leave, Sappho. I asked him to come and now I'll have him thrown out," Alcaeus bawled, lunging across the table.

"Our hero!" snorted Charaxos.

"Enough. Get out!"

"Suppose you and I have a private word elsewhere," said Charaxos to me, bitterly. "As for you, old battle ax, I'll settle with you another time. I'm sick of your trouble-making. Maybe one exile was not enough..."

Quick as a flash, I slapped him. He eyed me grimly, then turned and left.

Naturally, Alcaeus refused to tell me what the visit was about.

All this is contemptible.

I can not forget the scene of the angry men, the threat.

Perhaps the next move had better be mine? Before my opponent makes it a "check" from which I can't escape...as they say in the new Persian game.

My girls sense that I am troubled and try to distract me.

"No work today!" cries Gyrinno.

"Let's hunt flowers in the woods."

Heptha bothers the cook to prepare me special delights.

Anaktoria dresses up a song, Helen and Gyrinno dance, Atthis tries a musty joke.

It is a healing tempo...I am grateful...

These are lazy, summer days, the hammocks full, doves cooing in the olives. I send my thoughts on a long trip: may they find Phaon and bring him back to me.

This is theatre season and the talk is of actors and acting. I like to familiarize myself with a play before attending its performance because I can appreciate it much more. I never miss a play if I can help it, whether comedy or tragedy, though I prefer comedy. But I think the "offstage" is interesting, too-that is, if one can remain a spectator there. It is when we become involved that we lose our theatre perspective.

Neglates, who used to be a leading actor in Athens, likes to sit with me. He is our best critic. He is always urging me to write a play, "something about us," he says.

"The theatre needs you. Why don't you try? We need new blood."

I suppose he is right. If we rely on the old writers altogether, the stage will become stale. Perhaps I can think of something for the religious festivals next year.

Theatre means meeting people I seldom see anywhere else. I like the contacts.

People feel sorry for Scandia because he is the father of such a charming, marriageable daughter. White-faced, pinch-eyed, his neck twisted by a boyhood accident, one arm dangling-would they feel less sorry for him, if his daughter were ugly?

Andros is the next thing to a dwarf in size. He has the face of a twenty-year-old, although he must be well over fifty. He needs no one's pity-only some money! He is the best mask-maker our theatre has ever had.

Moonlight: Hand in hand,

Sappho and her daughter, Kleis,

walk along a path through hillside

olive groves, the ocean white below,

the murmur of waves part of their leisure and

sad conversation about Aesop.