“A free society...this is the most fabulous joke of all time. The ones who rant loudest about it would run the farthest, were it to happen.
“I may have to flee soon, back to Corinth, it seems. These rulers here have friends. They know how to apply pressure.
“Write me, Sappho. I need your sense of the gracious. Beauty foremost—I wish I could think as you think.
“Tell Alcaeus I send him my best, that I miss him...”
I took my letter to Alcaeus and read it aloud in his library.
“I’m afraid it is serious this time,” I said.
“It is always serious, when we speak out,” said Alcaeus, laying his palms flat on the desk.
“He says it is dangerous for him to come here.”
“He must learn restraint!”
“And you, Alcaeus, do you think you have learned restraint?”