The Praise Singer (6 page)

After only one evening, I was initiate enough to burst in on Kleobis with, “Sir! Theodoros bought me a drink!”

Even the free sights of Samos had told him who Theodoros was. He ran his hands through his hair. “Drink from a marble-carver! A pupil of mine!”

“I’ve not told them that, sir; I knew you didn’t wish it. Theodoros said he could tell I’d studied with a fine master, but I never said a word.” I could see him brighten a little. He’d been out of sorts lately, from the change of air, and want of use for his skill. I could not tell him that this man’s praise had healed my bruises, left by Polykrates’ minions.

Theodores must have been all of sixty; but his great arm and shoulder muscles were still hard, and his broad hands calloused. He could behave like a lord, but he always looked like a craftsman. “There’s always something one has to take from a prentice and do oneself.” The taverner kept for him his favorite cup, black on white figured Lakonian, smooth as an egg. When he picked it up, you saw the delicate touch of those big fingers. Besides marble, he carved gems. The Tyrant’s emerald was his masterwork. He worked too in bronze. Nowadays he had his marbles roughed out by his pupils, and only did the finishing; but he tinted them all himself. I know no sculptor today who does not use a painter; but he used to say he had the whole in his mind’s eye and did not want it spoiled. Besides all this, he was part architect of the grand new Hera temple, going up on the western shore.

“Yes, yes,” said Kleobis, fidgeting on his pillow. “A great man of his hands, no doubt. But don’t make yourself common among such people.”

“Court people come to the tavern too, sir. I don’t think it would do you harm to be seen there. It would pass the time.” I was disturbed by the tedium of his days, and his loss of spirits. For twenty years, before this, he had stayed in no city except as an honored guest-friend. Now that I can say the same of myself for twice as long, I understand his feelings.

At least he no longer had my keep to find; which was as well, since no summons came from Polykrates. Soon after, on a day of sun and rain, he made a new song about Apollo weeping for dead Hyakinthos, drawing a cloak of cloud over his shining head. It was one of his best; polishing it kept him happy for two days, after which I could see him starving for an audience. A cruel waste; for it would be a great success at the Victory. When Polykrates’ friends honored the house, they often brought along their favorite boys, who no doubt looked to them as lovely as Hyakinthos, even if not to me.

Life is hard on Keos, and its springtime short. The beauty of our youths is that of first-flowering manhood. I, born without beauty, had looked at it with longing-to inhabit it, not to embrac?e it. The images of desire change with each new love; but the image in the soul will keep its shape. Beauty to me was my tall brother at seventeen, stripped on the wrestling-ground, his oiled muscles gleaming like bronze.

I could picture him at the Victory, wrinkling his nose at the courtiers’ Ganymedes. Several had fathers of some consequence, who you would have thought would be bringing them up like gentlemen; but they were all new men, and had settled for favor at court. If your son was in fashion, sour looks would do you no good; nor, if you wanted to get on, would you prevent him from scenting himself with Persian rose-attar, slitting his tunic up the thigh, or swaying along like a lily drenched with rain.

Nonetheless, here was this splendid song, there was its audience; between stood my master’s dignity. I thought, and saw an answer.

“Sir, it’s wicked for this not to be heard. Listen: come tonight to the Victory, just as a guest. Sit there with your wine. I’ll sing the song. It won’t be what you would make it; but it will make a hit, for sure. When they applaud, I shall bow to your table, and say, ‘There sits the poet.’ Depend on it, word will get to the court.”

I had half expected him to start up like a pheasant from the dogs, and was ready to talk him round. But he drew his brows together, and pulled his beard. The truth was, we were getting desperate; it was just that he would have liked to sing it himself.

That evening, I borrowed the kithara, which they had never heard me play. But I laid it by, arousing their expectation, and played some slight thing on the lyre, keeping one eye on the door. I was pleased to see the Ganymedes and their devotees in force that night. Presently, in came Kleobis in his second-best robe (the best of course was for recitals). I looked, started, and bowed, as if overwhelmed by the sight of this famous man. Seeing the server take note and bustle up to him, I felt my heart move with love. He looked more worn, hollower round the eyes, thinner and greyer than when he sailed from Ephesos. At least I might pay him a little of what I owed. I picked up the kithara and tuned the strings.

When he was settled and served, I sang the song, turning his way as one does to the guest of honor. By now, I was getting into a style that was my own; but this was his, and I fell into his style as if it were two years back. When I saw from his face that I had got it true, it was hard not to smile back at him; but that might have cheapened my tribute afterwards.

I ended with a dying fall, and a showy cadenza on the kithara; my own, for he had not yet worked up his concert version. There was a burst of applause. I saw his eyes filled with tears, and not of grief. That moment was like a laurel crown to me. But man’s joy is fleeting.

“Expect the unexpected.” Everyone quotes me on that; it has become a proverb. Well, that was the day on which I began to learn.

I waited through the hammering of wine-cups on the tables; most of them were of bronze, and a fine din they made. I gestured to catch their eyes. They were already falling silent; Kleobis had disposed himself with a touch more dignity; I had even begun to speak. Then, in the twinkling of an eye, I had lost them. All eyes were upon the door.

For a moment I thought, Can it be Polykrates? This may be our chance. Then I saw who it was.

Three years had passed since last I’d seen him, though only across a hall. Then he had been awaited, now he was a god-sent surprise; but the chorus of delight burst out in a paean. “Anakreon! Anakreon!”

He stood in the doorway, making an entrance from mere habit; style sat on him like his clothes. A small man, with hair so bright, his head might have been on fire; a face pale as new ivory, elegantly carved; light eyes like changing water. And young; not thirty. Nobody now remembers him young, but I.

Quietly I caught my master’s eye. He lifted his brows and smiled; he had weathered much change of fortune in his day. His hand moved slightly, beckoning. I picked up the kithara a?nd came to sit at his table, joining the audience. Nobody noticed me.

For some time the noise went on. Then Kleobis said, “We must greet him,” and got up.

Of course he was right; to show my bitterness would disgrace us both. But before we could move, Anakreon’s flaming head was swooping through the crowd like a hawk through sparrows.

“Kleobis! Dear old friend! What a joy to see you! When did you get away, how long have you been in Samos?”

Too long for him not to have had news of us, if we’d had success here. Well, he was Anakreon. At once he recalled the last time they’d met, when Kleobis had given a much-praised Ode to Artemis. It was smooth; it was also kind. Even I got a charming smile and a graceful compliment, just as if he’d not scanned all the Ganymedes on his way across, like a vintner choosing grapes. We exchanged our news, to the pleasure of all the guests. There was a knot too in the doorway, of refugee Ionians without the price of a drink.

Everyone was amazed to see him. His native city was Teos, north along the coast from Ephesos; one of those whose people had fled by sea with all their shipping, and anyone else’s which was in port just then, and found empty land to start again; on the Thracian coast, in a place called Abdera. Here they had hewed timber, made mud-bricks, planted their vine-slips and their seed-grain, bred from the few cattle they had managed to bring; all the time fighting off the Thracian tribesmen, who thought it unmanly to grow what they could steal. In time, they found that pickings were easier elsewhere; and the Abderans, though they lost some fine men in battle, still held on. The young heroes’ names were known to us already. Their elegies had reached us in Ephesos, along with some charming love songs. No traveling minstrel wasted anything of Anakreon’s.

He told us that this was his second visit to Samos; before the war, he had crossed over for the Hera festival. Now he was here to stay.

I had guessed it. Something about his entrance had told me.

“My kin are established,” he said. “The Abderans can eat and sleep and rear their children in safety, and not many of them want more. I’ve given them two years of my life; and, believe me, two years in Thrace are longer than ten in Ionia.”

Kleobis said smiling, “We had thought you were still running after that little mane-tossing Thracian filly you’d vowed to ride.” That song was already famous.

He laughed and shrugged. “Fillies at fifteen, mares at twenty. Branded ones, too; by now she’s been tattooed into her husband’s clan. Beauty is thin upon the ground in Abdera. This is a banquet after a wayside inn.” Here he looked under his lashes at the most-sought Ganymede. The glance was caught and thrown back before the modest gaze was dropped; certainly, Anakreon knew his Samos. He turned back to us, as easily as if he’d merely beckoned the server, which he went on to do.

“So, as you can suppose, my summons here was welcome. I have just come from the Palace. What a civil-spoken man! And generous, as I have no need to tell you.”

He always had princely manners. If he had known that we’d come as suppliants where he was an invited guest, not a hint would have escaped him.

How simple we had been! A king like Polykrates-he was that, whatever they called him-who sent to Tyre for purple, to Persia for sapphires, to Egypt for ebony and emeralds; of course he had sent, too, for the poets of his choice, not waited for chance to bring them.

“Now that the barbarians have swallowed Ionia for as long as the gods allow”-he turned to me, not to leave me neglected-“Samos is the only place for us artists. For the mathematicians, of course, it’s different. Why should they go? The properties of a circle, the shadow of a staff at the meridian, will not change their laws, whoever is making laws for men.”

Kleobis nodded. “None have left Ephesos. Well, some of them are impious fellows; but Harpagos won’t care if our gods are mocked, so long as his are left alone.”

Soon after this we said good night; he would? certainly be wishing to improve his acquaintance here. As we parted, he called that we would be meeting soon at the Palace.

He meant it, too. In no time at all he was the darling of the court; appointed tutor to young Polykrates, the Tyrant’s heir; a sturdy, curly-haired lad, not bad-looking, and, people said, the image of his father, meaning before his father put on weight. There was a daughter, too, who came to the recitals; Samian women lived with the Ionian freedom. (Graceful and pleasant I always found it, and Athens has lost by its strictness in this later age.) She took after her father too, which in a girl was no great dower; still, she worshipped him, and any artist he admired was great with her.

It was Anakreon, I am sure, who got Kleobis a recital in the supper-room. Twenty years later he still would not admit to it, from respect for my master’s memory. A mean man would not have done it; a small one would have done it and let us know; but he was Anakreon.

Of course, it was beyond his power to get me invited. It distressed Kleobis, who in Ionia had taken me everywhere as a matter of course. On the day, however, he picked up his spirits, ran through most of his repertoire, and asked me which songs to choose. I said he must certainly sing the Lament for Hyakinthos. We discussed a couple of others, which he could give as encores. Then he spent an hour at the bathhouse, before going on to the barber to have his hair and beard trimmed and curled. I always looked after his recital robe. I had shaken it out the day before, aired it, and tuned the kithara.

I had to leave before him, to go to work, but he was dressed already. Not so richly, it seemed, as when last he’d sung, though the robe was just the same. Bright colors and gold thread were the wear in Samos; I had not known that my eye had got so used to them. But he had aged, as well. I embraced him, wished him every good fortune the gods can give, and went off to the Victory.

It was full that night. I was cheered when I came in, which got the best from me. When I broke off, I was asked to several tables; it was Theodoros’s I went to. He said, “When I have time, I’ll do a bronze of your Perseus, just as you made me see him. The Gorgon’s head, now; the snakes we could work in the forge, and weld on after the casting …” He ran on, while I sat there as mute as a cream-filled cat. “Now Ibykos, last night at the Palace, he’s been cried up enough; he should have worked with the tools he knew. A foolish business.”

I sat up like a cat drenched from a bucket. “Ibykos? But he lives in Sicily.”

“Yes, that’s where he’s from. Landed two days back. Samos is the honeypot now, my boy.”

My pleasure in the evening trickled away; it seemed treachery to my master. The great Ibykos, pupil of Stesichoros himself; the singer of heroes. Polykrates had imported another treasure. So tonight’s supper would be for often-invited guests, who had tasted all the treats and must be offered a change of fare, even though the dish was simpler.

Youthful and hopeful still, I told myself that if Kleobis made his mark tonight, he would be asked again; thanked Theodores for his wine, and went back to my singing. After my supper-break, I always gave the late guests something; so Kleobis would be home before me.

He was sleeping when I got back. At least, it was clear that he wanted me to think so. I went quietly to bed, and pretended to sleep myself. When the late guests came in, some had come on from the Palace, and told us all about Ibykos’ recital.

His ode had first promised to reject all former themes, and then declared its own: the gifts and graces of the Tyrant’s son, young Polykrates, whose beauty he compared with that of the young Troilos, to the Trojan’s disadvantage. This was his offering, the gift of undying fame.