The Praise Singer (19 page)

“Why, here. Just let me fill your cup. He’ll have heard by now of your coming.”

This was taking too much for granted, and I told him so. But the words were hardly out of my mouth, when heads turned to the doorway, and Anakreon came in with outstretched hands. The crowd parted for him with as much respect as if he’d been Polykrates, but more cheerfully. His red hair was fading, but he had kept his thin fine-boned grace; he felt as light as a fawn when he ran up and clasped me.

In life as in song, he never used an unneeded word. He had claimed me as a brother, after which all other compliments would have fallen short. He just talked, as though we’d met only a few months back instead of years, and as if I had had a name as long as he had. Since the Old Archon died, I’d thought him the only man on earth who could really awe me; but now, in his presence, I felt only delight at being here. I had even forgotten my errand, when he said that of course I must put up at his house.

It was close by the Palace, in the best Samian style, with a carved doorframe, and a columned porch of rose-red Samian marble. Inside it was as handsome as Hipparchos’s; smaller, but with everything in scale, as delicate as his songs: chairs inlaid with ivory, a carpet from Egypt, silver cups with gold insets, upon an ebony sideboard; a big wine-cooler painted with Meleager’s boar-hunt. He had sent orders ahead to have bath-water warmed for me; and I was waited on by a beautiful young slave, whose polished manner I doubt the presence of a king could have discomposed. He must have been as costly as the inlaid wine-cups; Persians nowadays were hard to come by. One thing was certain: not even Hipparchos could offer Anakreon more than he already had.

Still, I had to try. Soon after an excellent supper of sturgeon cooked with herbs, the youth was kindly dismissed to eat his share, leaving the wine between us. When I complimented him on so excellent a servant, he said he had been a real pleasure to train, having been bought from some vulgar fool on whom he had been quite wasted. “Now that I’ve taught him to think well of himself, he is so proud that he can afford to be gracious.”

“Like to like. It’s not every man to whom good fortune gives good grace.” And I led round the talk to the pleasures of life in Athens, the good company, the Archons’ open hands, and so on. Before I’d half done, his green eyes slanted round at me, and he began to laugh.

“Stop, dear man!” He leaned from his supper-couch to grasp my shoulder. “Enough! I can take the next verse myself. I was to have come to Athens, and said all this to you. ‘Anakreon, my dear fellow, can’t you persuade Simonides?’ What collectors these autarchs are.”

“Me!” I said, too startled to join the laughter. “But I thought-“

“Oh, that. I don’t think he even knows you’ve been here before. No one has liked to tell him what he missed. A good deal was happening in those days, you know, a host of people passing through. He first learned of you from Athens. Now you’re a treasure he’s panting to acquire. You’d have heard from him by now, but as it happens he’s in Naxos, visiting his old friend Lygdamis. Only just before he left, he urged me to go and bid for you.”

This time I laughed too; then I said, “But you didn’t come.”

“No.” He pushed his hair back, tilting his rose-wreath drunkenly. He was sober enough, though. “I put him off; I’m not sure why. Mostly from a feel in my skin, that all this”-he waved ?his hand towards the window and the spread of the town below-“can’t last much longer. No reasons; or too many. When the fruit is sweetest, it falls. One can’t tell the day.”

I looked round the beautiful room, and at the window above the teeming harbor, the shops full of foreign luxuries, the well-dressed crowds. Just across the strait were the hills of Persian-held Ionia, so near it seemed one could shout across and be heard. But that had been so for many years.

“He didn’t press me,” Anakreon said. “He thought that I might be jealous.”

“Do not tempt me into hubris, son of Apollo. Or your father will be after me.”

He laughed, and lifted his wine-cup. Then he grew serious. “Hubris. That’s what they are saying about the Tyrant. Well, yes and no. You know, he would never have burned those hostages. He gambled with them, and won. He always wins. The fruit hangs down full of juice, riper and heavier . . .” He dipped the rhyton into the masterpiece of a wine-cooler, wiped it with a drawn-thread napkin, and filled my cup. “But I ask myself, am I getting some warning from a god, or just feeling my skin too tight, like a sloughing snake? Does it concern any man but me?”

“Indeed. It concerns me, I can promise you.”

“Yes, we have been concerned for one another. Now, as I see it, if you go back and say that Anakreon feels beholden to his patron, but will be honored to visit Athens as your guest, just to pay his respects-that won’t set you back at court, will it? Then we can see.”

“Why, I shall be the happiest of men. Will you really come?”

“How not, when Simonides invites me? I shall come to Athens and say all I’ve been told to say, which you have not yet heard the half of.” He straightened his wreath, making a solemn face.

“But,” I said, “you have heard my piece; and what do you say to me?”

“Oh, once I’m in Athens, I suppose Hipparchos will do his business with me himself. Then my refusal will come from me, not you, and cast no shadow on you. After all, you did persuade me to come.”

“Refusal!” I felt as if I’d seen one of my father’s best sheep fall down a cliff, and I expect I showed it. “I thought you were saying yes.”

“I am sorry,” he said, with a smile that would have softened bronze. “I thought so too, until just this moment. No, it won’t do. He has been very good to me, you know. And in return I have offered praise which I can’t recant without dishonor.”

There is never an answer to that. I tried none. He pushed at his wreath, and it tilted over again.

“And then, of course, I’m in love.”

“Again?” Disappointment had made me cross.

“Come, come, my dear. A furnace is no cooler for last year’s fire . . . Maiden-faced boy, heedless of my pursuing, And all unknowing my soul’s charioteer. That is no longer quite true. But he would never leave his ancestral home for me, why should he? Yes, well, I’ve a good-healing heart, as soldiers tell you they have good-healing flesh. I could go now, and know I had left my patron at his height of fortune, not waited like a ship-rat to smell the leaky plank. And yet, and yet. . . Bear with me, my dear. Ionia was my world, and only this is left of it. I think I will see it out.”

There was no answer to that, either. I was not fool enough to spoil the rest of the evening. We drank and talked and drank and sang, and dawn was near when he lit me to my bed, having long since sent off the gracious Persian to get his beauty sleep.

Next day he asked some very pleasant people to meet me. My presence was never explained; it was enough, it seemed, that Simonides was visiting Anakreon. The noble Samian, his soul’s charioteer, was not on view. “Only a fool,” he said to me in private, “will show a purse of gold to a shipload of pirates. I could tell you things . . .” It was a good party, and next day I took ship for Athens.

Hipparchos was so charmed to hear of Anakreon’s visit that I got anxious, and warned him not to expect too much. One never liked the thought of disappointing him. All I’d managed to do, I said, was tempt Anakreon with ?the glory and fame of Athens, so that he longed to visit it; and had ventured to promise it would surpass his hopes.

This would ensure him a dazzling fee for his recital, a small return for his help and kindness. Often I wonder that bards will be so silly as to bicker with their peers, and lower themselves with jealousy; when, if we are friends, we can not only learn from one another, but do each other useful good turns like this.

He came to Athens the next month. Everyone had a triumph. He did: he performed at Hipparchos’ house before everyone worthy the privilege, enchanting our ears, melting our hearts, and leading us at will from mirth to tears. I had one: he thanked me publicly for having led him, like a guiding Hermes from Olympos, to the delights of this splendid city. Even Hipparchos had one: Anakreon told him that the graces of his court (with its famous ornament, the great Simonides) made a singer who had failed to visit it seem only half a Greek. After their private interview, my patron came to me in the sweetest of tempers, saying, “Well, you did your part, my dear Simonides. He would come, without a doubt, but for his obligations. He didn’t say that in so many words, but it was plain to me. Wasn’t it charming, the little song he made about Kallias at the hunt?” (Kallias, a dashing horseman, was the current friend, as I’d remembered to tell Anakreon.) “I shan’t repeat all his praise of you, it would make you too proud to live with. Mark my words, we shall see him in Athens yet.”

Besides all this, it was a triumph for Polykrates, when his favorite poet returned to say how they’d tried in vain to steal him away to Athens, but Samos had his heart. I have lived a long time; but in the art of pleasing everyone while betraying no one, I have never met anyone to touch Anakreon.

I KEPT MY LAND, and cared for it. It was part of my freedom; and I felt its people my charge. I told Hipparchos at the outset that I had a family estate I should sometimes need to visit; one must start as one means to go on. He said with his easy good manners that of course I must look after my inheritance; hinting, just as politely, that he would rather it was not when he was giving an important party, or entertaining some foreign guest of honor. He gave me good notice of such things; one always knew where one was with him. I in turn would give good notice to Dorothea; now that I came less often, she liked to prepare a feast. It was coming to seem more her house than mine, and I would not spoil her hospitality by taking her unprepared.

Meantime, in Athens, I was a man with a man’s desires.

The Archons had installed me in one of their guest-houses on the Acropolis, looking south to Phaleron and the sea. I ran it with my Karian boy and an old woman to cook. I never bought a slave-girl. I do not like the unwilling service of barbarians, with whom one cannot exchange a thought. I have never been a man who needs a woman every second night; I’ve had other things to save my vital spirits for. So when I did feel the need, I walked out to the Kerameikos.

It was a place, then as now, for the women of the middle sort, who liked to call themselves hetairas and not whores. This was a time when the great courtesans of Athens rivaled even the Corinthians, but I never thought of attempting them. They scared the ugly Kean shepherd who still lived on in me; I feared their mockery. Where I went, I was welcome enough. I had money, and was somebody from the court. It was an easygoing way of life; most of the time, at least.

Well, there was one girl . . . She was working for an old madam who’d been a beauty in her day, and ran a clean friendly house; not one of those where the girl’s name and price are painted over the door of every room. The girls who were free would treat one like a guest, just catching one’s eye and pulling their dresses tighter. All except this one girl. Thalatta was the youngest, I suppose about fifteen; a small face, triangular, a wide mouth and tilted nose; thin, with the air of having been betrayed by ?fortune, and taking it very bravely. She never displayed herself as the others did; just gave one a look and half a smile, as if saying, “We two could understand each other, if you did but know it.”

I don’t care for thin girls as a rule; the delight of the sculptor is also mine, I like the living marble. But she was clever, and her fragile body flattered a man’s. “We two,” she could say without a spoken word, “we have our secrets from all those fools.” At first she did not talk much; after a while, she told me she came from Naxos, and that her father had pledged her for a debt. The truth, as I later learned, was that she’d run off from there with a sailor, and was no one’s thrall, but kept a third of her takings. She used to tell me - never whining, she was too clever for that - that she was saving to buy her freedom, but lived in dread that her mistress would sell her first. Two or three men were offering to buy her. She would hint at dreadful things about them, always as if making light of it to spare my feelings. Sometimes she would point one out, if someone gross or drunken should be leaving as I came in.

“Oh,” she would say, “one can put up with them now and then, that’s only the luck of the trade, there are far worse houses than this one. But to be shut up alone with a man like that, always at his bidding, never to see a friend again - never you again, the only one who has understood me . . . ! Oh, I think I should kill myself before long.”

Of course, I would always slip her something extra to save towards her freedom; and, of course, the time duly came when she was to be sold that very month. The buyer (a fat man with scrofula) would have the money soon. True, the mistress would wait till she saw his silver; but it was just a matter of days.

Well, she pleased me in bed, and I liked the thought of having her to myself; but most of all it was because, as it seemed, she had only me to care for her, that made me say I would be there with the money first. She embraced me, and warned me to say nothing yet to the mistress; the other man was rich, and if he knew, would raise his offer. |It would be best if I gave her the money, not at the brothel, but at my house. I can’t think how I swallowed that; I daresay because she was too clever to make excuses. Presently she led me out to the common guest-room and saw me off with a tender kiss. I was still on the threshold when I remembered I’d left my walking-stick inside the door, and turned back to get it. She was looking towards another girl who was sitting there, a painted Egyptian; and though she’d not had time even to open her mouth, her face said louder than words, “What did I tell you? The fool will pay.” The other girl saw me first, and grimaced to warn her. That killed my last doubt, even before she saw me and tried to face it out. There was no need to say anything, and I went away.

For a while, this brought me back to my prentice days in Ionia. It was lucky that at least I remembered Hipponax, and did not spoil my work with tedious scoldings. She was not Women, but one girl, as Hipponax was one man, by whom one must not judge others. My pride was not so tender to blows as in those old days, and a visit to Dorothea healed its bruises. Presently, feeling cured, I pulled the scab off my wound by making a good story of it for Hipparchos, one evening when I was sharing his supper-couch.

When I had done, he cried, “My dear fellow! Wherever have you been wasting yourself? A man like you, in Athens, to be making do with a common trull! Tell me, what price did she set on herself, this little vixen?”

“A hundred drachmas. But then, there were the other bidders.”

“You must be joking. Why, you could buy a good dog for that. Well, she has played that game for the last time. I’ll see to it.”

“By all means,” I said, “if you know of any other fish she is playing on the line, give them a word of warning.”

“We shall see. My dear Simonides, I blame myself for all this. I have been a selfish host; I don’t invite enough women here. A man of your wort?h should not have to go foraging. People will think I don’t look after you . . . Come to supper-yes-three nights from now. I shall try to make amends.”

When the night came, it was clear that he’d taken trouble. The room was garlanded, smelling of roses and rich spiced food. The other men, of whom one was Thessalos, were all distinguished; and the women did not appear with the wine and wreaths, like common flute-girls or dancers. They were to share the meal. After our host had greeted us, and each man had been shown to a couch with room for two, an inner door was thrown open with a flourish, and in they came.

I wondered, indeed, where I’d been wasting my time. They walked with the dignity of ladies bringing offerings to a temple, but much more gracefully; their paint, if they wore any, was as delicate as nature; their gowns in clear bright colors were thin, but not tight, so that their bodies were just glimpsed softly as they moved; their hair was put up into embroidered snoods, as the fashion was just then; and from their softly hennaed ear-lobes dangled worked gold. They brought in the scents of a rose garden, planted here and there with aromatics.

Hipparchos stepped down from his supper-couch to greet them, just as if they’d been men; and I understood the nature of this occasion. These were the royalty of their calling. No lesser man could have brought them into one room together. Certainly, he took on nothing he did not mean to do well.

I don’t know how they were allotted among the guests, it flowed so naturally. I do know that from the moment they came in, one had especially dazzled me: a young woman with that brilliant fairness which art can never counterfeit, and large deep blue eyes. It’s a coloring that often goes with silliness; when you see wit and sense there, it can seem almost divine. Her gown was deep blue, sewn all over with small gold stars, and starry clusters hung from her ears. I was wondering who would have the god-sent luck to get her, when she walked towards my couch, and said, like a queen being gracious to a worthy subject, “Greetings, Simonides, and good health to you. Why have you never called on me?”

I made room for her, with some confused reply. She settled her gown, smoothing out its embroidered borders, and said smiling, “I don’t believe you even know who I am. I am Lyra.”

Just so, on the slopes of Ida, might Aphrodite have declared herself to the young Anchises, simply, without fuss.

I must collect myself, before she thought me an oaf. “I have heard of Lyra, as I have heard of Helen. But I’ve neither the beauty of Paris, nor Menelaos’ rank.” (Nor his wealth, I thought.) “Fear of presumption kept me from your door.”

“Foolish man,” she said lightly. “Do you think that Helen would have shut her door to Homer?”

“Beautiful Lyra, but I am not Homer.”

“Sweet-tongued Simonides, but I am not Helen. So we’re quits. And because you have never deigned to attend my parties, I’ve had to sing your songs to the guests myself. Of course everyone said, ‘But where is the poet?’ And what could I reply?”

“Why, that the crow should stay in hiding, if he can have his song sung by the nightingale.”

Her blue eyes changed and grew soft. “They wanted the Lament of Danae. I know every word, but I dared not. It always makes me cry.”

She laid her hand on mine, and pressed it gently. I lifted and kissed it; the fingers were long and delicate, with faintly tinted tips. Even the slave with the jug and finger-bowl had seemed to rinse them with reverence. I recalled with shame the coarse grasping hands of Thalatta.

The first tables came in and were set beside us. You don’t get such meals any more in Athens. (Here in Sicily, yes, if I could still digest them.) She ate with an elegance I’d not seen since I left Ionia. Now and then she would take up some choice bit and dip it in sauce and feed it to me, with a gay subtle glance that said, “This will be good, but some things are more delicious.”

She leaned on her cushions just near enough for me to feel her scented war?mth. Though she roused desire, she gave off too a sense of ease and harmony, both promise and present pleasure. Her skin was flowerlike however close one looked. I said, “Tonight for the first time I rejoice that I am not Homer. They say that he was blind.”

“He is dead, too.” She put a shelled shrimp into my mouth. “But don’t lie to me, poet. To be Homer you would forfeit me, and him up there, and all that he can give you. Even your eyes. Your life, maybe. Not so?”

“I thought so once. He is for all time, yes. But only his own time could have begotten him. He is a god to me, yet my own time made me otherwise; and time has taught me that I have my own things to say.”

“When will you come and say them to me, Simonides? I don’t eat men, like Odysseus’ sirens.”

“Ah, but those who dare the current can still be drowned.”

“Put your toe in the water, much-enduring voyager, and come to one of my parties. My friends only pay their share of the feast, you know. Sometimes we sing and amuse each other till dawn. Or sometimes we have a little contest of some kind; and then, of course, there is a prize.” The lamplight shadowed a laughing-crease beside her mouth.

“I should have got someone to bind me to the mast. It is too late now; I have heard the music from the island. Yes, I will come.”

The second tables came in, and she began to gossip about the guests, with a little salt but no vinegar. I remarked that our host’s chosen companion was well past her prime. “Oh,” she said, “Peitho will amuse him all the same. She has known everyone. His father too . . . well, of course he must know that. They say she was matchless in her day; she spent one fortune and saved another. Even now that she’s put away her mirror, she still gets rich. Some old lover tells her what ships to take a venture in; she has a cargo now with Theasides . . . Oh, you know him! He comes from your part of the world.”

“He’s my brother. Is he so well known in Athens?”

“He’s well known wherever he goes.” Maybe I was wrong, but I thought she sleeked herself a little, like a cat that has almost purred. “He doesn’t visit us very often; I think he prefers Corinthians. He tells us that he comes to Athens to see his brother. I might have known!”

“Most people say they never would have guessed it.”

“Oh, there’s a look. Men who both know what they can do. A style.” She nodded, and glanced round the room again. Her fine brows drew together. “But why has our host put Antenor with Phylinna? I wish he would not do those things.”

“It doesn’t seem that Antenor is complaining.”

“Oh no. That girl will get him and keep him, now. But everyone knows about him and Milto, he has been her friend so long. Poor girl; now when she’s been ill and can’t look her best, it really was not kind.”

Milto, with too much paint on a face that should have had distinction, was doing her best to look as if her supper partner delighted her. I said, “I don’t suppose he meant it. Parties like this he gives to please his friends; I doubt he knows much about such things himself.”

She glanced up from the bread she was cleaning her fingers with, looked round at me and seemed about to speak; but just dropped the crust to a little dog under the table, and started to talk about her own pet dog at home.

The tables were cleared, the wine and the wreaths came in; a pretty boy and girl danced naked, Herakles and Antiope, which made everyone laugh; then a couple of flute-girls who had played for them played on, a screen of sound for talk. There was a good deal of merriment, and calling from couch to couch. Lyra did her share; but would drop her voice to talk to me again, as if she found it better. She will take me, I thought, when I have courted her in the way she will expect. I must ask Theas to buy me a Persian necklace. She would like lapis. When will her next party be? The warmth of the wine brought out the scent she was wearing. My hope of possessing her was only a part of my pleasure; it was almost enough that a creature of such loveliness was here, contented,? in my company.

The dancers had gone; the flute-girls now made their bow; there was the pause that expects departure. Lyra pushed back a feather of hair into her snood. Her soft lips brushed mine like a whispered promise; she spread out her skirt to step down with grace. Then her head turned sharply, so that I followed her glance.