mark twain | HYPERCOMMON

*Sappho of Lesbos and other ancient Greeks in the recently redesigned Archeological Museums. With thanks to Joe Yogerst, photographer and colleague!*

Here she is – in all her classic sculptural splendor, the leading lady of legend for millennia: Sappho herself. Fabled poetess of fifth century B.C.E. Greece, her passionate leap from the Leucadian cliffs into the Ionian Sea provoked, they said, by despair over unrequited love. On a recent trip through Greece and Turkey my colleague Joe Yogerst, captured her now serene image when visiting Istanbul.

Sappho’s fame in her own time came from her poetry. Over time, her impetuous and dramatic expression of despair at the indifference of the boatman, Phaeon, grew to legend, transcended national boundaries, crossed time and landscape and is now a feature across the globe.

When Leland found Mark Twain’s account in Life on the Mississippi, of Winona’s near fatal leap from a peak above Lake Pepin, we didn’t know we were embarking on a quest that would range from here to ancient Greece, across the westering American frontier, and to remote island nations of the Pacific and the Indian Ocean. Nope. We just laughed at Twain’s sardonic account and his description of the raconteur who told the tale.

But the quest beckoned and off we went – to find a string, a reason, a common thread for the tales of passionate love so compelling that life without it was not possible. It took a while to get from Lake Pepin in Wisconsin to Cape Leucadia in ancient Greece – but the crumbs were scattered across the millennia, across continents.

Over the centuries her story never faded from cultural memory. Indeed, her woeful saga inspired other romantic tales: Romeo and Juliet was one such tale. But so was the story of lovely Frida, a country lass from the west of England; and the interfaith lovers in eighteenth century Spain who met their fate at La Peña de los Enamorados near the city of Antequera, Málaga Province in Andalusia.

*Sappho taking the Leucadian leap, steel engraving from a painting by Richard Westfall. Sappho’s plunge was a favorite theme of nineteenth-century artists.*

We found many images of Sappho over the centuries. Her plunge was a favorite theme of nineteenth-century artists. Pictures of Indian maidens actually jumping off cliffs are rare. However, in Gadsden, Alabama a 9’ tall bronze statue created by the Baroness Suzanne Silvercruys commemorates the leap of Noccalula.

Google alerts most often bring up the Leaps at Rock City, Tenn, Jamaica’s Leap above Cutlass Bay, and (recently) Trincomalee Harbor in Sri Lanka. Road (or sea, or air) trip anyone?

The first account that we found in the new United States was reported by Zebulon Pike (yes the Pike the mountain in Colorado was named for). Before his western explorations, in 1805, he was commissioned to find the source of the Mississippi. As they waited out the weather one night, the grizzled Scottish trapper/trader guide regaled them with tales, one of which was about a young Sioux woman who was being forced into a loveless marriage. Rather than submit, she cast herself from the heights above Lake Pepin (full circle back to Mark Twain!). Pike’s journal of his expedition up the Mississippi was reviewed by the The Baltimore Repertory (Jan. 1811).

Pike’s brief mention of the Sioux woman’s leap from the cliff along Lake Pepin was quoted in full. Then followed a comparison of the Indian legend in the wilderness of Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase with a 2,700-year-old classical legend.. . . . . “It was thought that ancient Greece alone had her Leucadian rock; and the desperate leap of Sappho had consecrated it in the eyes of all the enthusiasts of love in succeeding generations. Who would have supposed that the rocks of the Mississippi were destined to be its rival . . .?

Lover’s Leap Legends, p. 47

*Princess Noccalula, frozen in her desperate impulse above the falls. Bronze statue by the Baroness Suzanne Silvercruys, Gadsden, Alabama.*

Sappho of Lesbos and other ancient Greeks in the recently redesigned Archeological Museums. Photo courtesy of Joe Yogerst.

Lens & Pen Press is having a half-price sale for all titles. Lover’s Leap Legends, Damming the Osage, Mystery of the Irish Wilderness and others are now available on our website at www.dammingtheosage.com for half the original price, postage paid.

Leland Payton pondering jumping into a book project while at Hannibal, Missouri’s Lover’s Leap.

Our last two books were on Ozark rivers – the James and the Osage (although it heads in the prairie plains of Kansas). Both streams have folklore about cliffs where Indian princesses jumped to their deaths over parental interference in their love life. These struck us as bizarre and aroused our curiosity. Researching these tragic stories that didn’t jive with our impressions of Native American culture we ran across Mark Twain’s satire on Lover’s Leaps. In Chapter 59 “Legends and Scenery” in Life on the Mississippi (1883) Twain wrote of encountering a garrulous passenger on the upper river who tells a story of a broken-hearted Indian maiden who leaps from a bluff. In a departure from other such tales she doesn’t die but lands on her cruel, controlling parents, killing them. Then she is free to marry the brave her parents opposed and lives “happily ever after.” Of course, Twain’s telling is marvelously arch – and it reminds us how much he imitated Mel Brooks.

So Crystal and I, in late March 2017, drove to Hannibal, Missouri to decide if there might be a book in these tear jerking tales. That leap in Twain’s spoof is off Maiden Rock, Wisconsin – too far for a casual drive. Hannibal, on the other hand, does have a quite well-known Lover’s Leap. Mark Twain loved Hannibal and Hannibal loves Mark Twain. Perhaps there the spirit of the writer would whisper “go or no” in our ear.

Crystal Payton took the cover photograph of Lover’s Leap Legends and ended up with more interior shots with a much smaller camera than husband Leland.

Cardiff Hill, another Hannibal bluff, is prominently featured in several Twain books. He published nothing about Hannibal’s Lover’s Leap, though he knew about it – the legend saw print before the Civil War. Today the overlook is a city park. A short version of its legend is cast in a small bronze plaque. While we were taking pictures, cars arrived and people strolled along the protective fence gazing out over the river and town.

In Life on the Mississippi, geography including cliffs are sharply realized. Norman Mailer thought Twain, a pretty promising writer but was critical of him for stealing so much of his stylistic delineations of landscape from Ernest Hemmingway. Twain’s setup for his leap satire was a passage on “the majestic bluffs that overlook the river.” That and the public’s attraction to the Lover’s Leap geography, along with the promise we could like Twain make fun of Romanticism suggested we should proceed. We dedicated the book to the godfather of American realism:

FOR MARK TWAIN

Who diagnosed America’s sentimental romantic infection.

Alas, his injection of realism was not a cure.

That moment Crystal took my picture with my elbow on the fence at Hannibal’s Lover’s Leap may not be the exact second all this jelled, but then it could be. Mark Twain proved you could get by with mocking sentimentality and get paid for it, a good trick.

A folio by Crystal and Leland Payton of Hannibal, Missouri’s Lover’s Leap and Mark Twain’s visible imprint on the town. Twain’s linkage of geography with folklore (which he thought unreliable but intriguing) was a guide to us in writing a book on Lover’s Leaps. Lover’s Leap Legend will be published February 2020.

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