The Praise Singer (9 page)

Though a poet of no distinction, he had not trained them badly. He had even taken them to Delos, where the song, rather than the singing, had lost the prize. They came in together, and you could hear the words.

I’d used for my ode the old story of Apollo and his little brother Hermes, the newborn rogue who crept from his cradle to go cattle-stealing, and crept back there, all innocent, before his lordly brother could trace the herd. Boldly, I had put in two solo passages: a handsome boy for Apollo, and for Hermes, a little treble, bound to win hearts. In those days, breaks in the unison were thought unorthodox. Not long after, Thespis established them in Athens, taking the chief solo himself, from which we have modern tragedy. But Keos is wary of innovations.

The story ends, of course, with Apollo tracking the little thief by the sound of his lyre, which he has just invented. He gives it his big brother in exchange for the stolen cows. Apollo, entranced, forgives him, and tries the new instrument with his divine hand. This is where one shows what the kithara will do.

We rehearsed in the flautist’s orchard, a pleasant place. I took care to bring him some gift each time, for the fruit was ripe and of course the boys were stealing it. It is a great mistake to rehearse indoors, when you will perform in the open air.

Once I walked down to the Apollo temple, in whose precinct the contest would be held. True to Kean simplicity, or cheeseparing if you like, it was one of those antique places most cities had pulled down by now, to rebuild in stone. A cottage-sized naos, with the image at one end of it; a roof of thatch, everything else of timber. Apollo, too; and Keos does not excel in wood-carving. He stood stiff as a tree, his arms straight down at his sides, his hair in round curls like sausages; you could say that he had a face, but not much more. Bright blue eyes, bright red hair. The columns had red shafts and blue capitals; woody knots showed on the shafts. I thought of the Artemis temple at Ephesos, the new Hera one at Samos. I gazed, and began to laugh. Not that the god would despise the offerings of simple worshippers. I was just remembering how scared I’d been of performing in this little town, before people whom this had satisfied. I too, as a child, had entered this barn with awe.

Behind the image I found the mouse-pit, the only bit of marble in the place; the sides were polished, to keep the tenants in. “Bold plunderers of Demeter’s hoarded store,” I said, invoking them with proper gravity. One or two stood up and twitched pink noses at me, in the hope that it was feeding-time.

The flautist-may his shade drink nectar in Elysium!- invited me to his house the night before the contest, to keep rested and fresh, he said. The night before that, my father spent the first half of suppertime complaining he was short-handed for getting in the barley; thinking, clearly, that I could have shortened rehearsals to give a hand. The second half, he went over my list of boys, which he had got from Theas, telling me which of their fathers were of consequence, and ought to be obliged, and which had d?one him bad turns, making their sons unworthy of any favors. One of these, as it happened, was singing the solo lines for Apollo. I listened in respectful silence.

My mother glanced at me sidelong. I had always been her changeling; now I was double-changed. I knew, though I could not help it, that I was talking like some distant kinsman on a passing visit. I caught Philomache watching me almost with awe. I must tell Kleobis, I thought; it will make him laugh.

Next day I slipped away without ceremony, bidding only Theas goodbye. “I won’t ride down with you,” he said, “you’ll be wanting to think what you’re about, and we’ll be cutting the barley. He’s only short-handed because it’s cropped well this year. I offered up a kid for you, at the turn of the moon; but don’t tell him, he hasn’t missed it.” He strode off through the silver olives.

The flautist knew Ionia well; we spent the evening in pleasant talk, and turned in with a cup of warm neat wine, to settle us. Almost it could have been Ephesos. I slept quite well.

The morning was fine, already smelling of autumn. The smoke of sacrifice hung in the air, sweetened with a little incense; Keos is sparing of such things. There were three or four other choirs, all Kean but one, which came from neighboring Kythnos. We poets exchanged homely gossip, as people do at country festivals. The Keans were curious about me, most of them not having heard of me before, even from my family; but they were more concerned with their own affairs.

The choral odes opened the day; the games and the fair would follow. Robed and wreathed now, we poets stood in the temple porch behaving ourselves. The maiden choruses sat whispering, in their strict matrons’ charge; the boys dropped beetles down one another’s backs, and so on, and were tapped by us poets with our little staffs.

The judges sat on their wooden thrones, brought out from the temple store. There was one, an oldish man, whom the others seemed to defer to. I asked someone why; he murmured that this was a guest of honor from Athens.

The back of my neck tingled. I was to sing before an Athenian.

Despite her wars, nobles against commons, hills against plain, Pisistratos out or in, which made this seem no place for my old master, the name of Athens rang for me, as it had in my boyhood on the Kean hills, looking towards Hymettos. I forgot the Keans, and my worries about whether they would know what I was doing. An Athenian was here.

His name was Prokles. You never hear of him now. But his Lay of Ajax was good, and at one time you heard it everywhere.

I kept my eye on him while the first two choirs were singing (mine would be third) and at one bad passage I saw him blink. This gave me hope.

So much I remember well. But I’ve given my Apollo ode so many times, that my ear hears Athenians, Thessalians, Andrians, Euboians … At any rate, I was told later that the last choir sang badly because mine had put them out of heart. Well, in my time I have made good music before my betters. Why not? Our art is like a wheatfield, the tallest force up the rest. May I no longer live-not that I shall much longer in any case!-when the shortest want to cut the tallest down.

It was the Athenian judge who crowned me with the laurel. Then the people who’d come up to greet me parted to make way; and I remembered I’d been singing before my father.

I felt for him then, a little. He could not have borne it if his son had failed to win; on the other hand, he’d always hated to be proved wrong. Some of his acquaintances asked him, meaning it quite pleasantly, where he had been hiding me all this time; some said they had not known that he had two sons; and one put so much discretion into it, it was clear he thought me a by-blow. Theas, as usual, sailed in with the right word and got us out of it.

After this, for some days I was taken about to meet people. But one morning, when my father was about his business, Theas fetched me to an outhouse, where his sheepdog had whelped, to look at the litter and decide which ones ?to keep. We drowned the runts; the dam seemed glad to be rid of them, and suckled the big ones happily enough. As we flung the bodies on the midden, I said laughing, “That’s where I nearly went, I daresay.” He went quite white, before covering it with some silly joke. I hastened to share it; we laughed like a pair of idiots. I’d guessed the truth from his face: as a child, he’d heard our parents debating whether to keep me. Perhaps for a long time after, in his simplicity, he’d supposed they might change their minds. No wonder he’d thought the ugly baby, whom only he befriended, belonged more to him than them.

“Well,” he said presently, slapping me on the back, “the father wants now to keep you in the family. Don’t say I told you; but he wants you to take over the Euboian land.”

“Me?” I stared at him unbelievingly. “But why? He might as well offer me a ship to pilot. I’ve forgotten everything I knew about farming; and besides, I’ve my life to live.”

“Cool down! He doesn’t want you to farm it. Old Phileas can do it in his sleep; he’s been steward for ten years. The father just thinks that a son who does such credit to us all should have a proper estate. All this has touched him in his pride, you know.”

“I can see,” I said, “that he doesn’t want me singing in taverns for a living. Of course I don’t intend to. But if one of us is to live like a landed gentleman, with a steward to do the work, it should be you, not me. The gods know, you’ve earned it.”

“Oh, it was I put it into his head. You’ve never seen the Euboian farm, have you? Nor had I, before you went away.” I remembered how the air at home had seemed to lighten, when our father went to visit it. “I’ve been over once or twice since then. It’s good land, horse-pasture mostly, though the olives bear well. The plan is that it’s to be your portion, and this place will be mine.”

All this was slowly coming home to me. “If you say it’s good, it is. But meantime, I’d be caretaking, and I need to travel.”

“He knows that. I told him all about it. He’s quite willing you go to the festivals to sing-or anywhere else respectable, is the way he put it! You’re to draw half the yield from the place in his lifetime; and you won’t be skimped on that. Look now, Sim. You’ll be a famous man before you’ve done, that I can see; but even so, you’ll live hand to mouth, unless you’ve something behind you. Only think of all those famous men in Ionia, and yourself for that matter; prospering one day, fugitives the next. If you’d owned some land, would you have hung on in Samos? No slavemaster like an empty belly, the saying goes.”

I saw, at last, all he had done for me; and for my master, to whom I could give a home in his last years. My tongue was loosened, and I thanked him as best I could.

He was pleased, as he’d always been when I looked up to him as a child. Why not? If it was a weakness, I loved him for it and was glad to indulge it; it was a small enough return. “You see,” he said, “I talked to that judge from Athens, who came to your victory feast. I asked him where a poet would do best, now Ionia’s overrun, and he said, ‘In Athens, if all goes well there.’ He says Pisistratos looks to be settled in the tyranny for life. The people want him, most of the lords put up with him, and he’s exiled the few who won’t. He hasn’t spilled much blood, he governs well. This man says he’ll bring back the great days of Theseus.”

“So he said to me. But they said the same about Polykrates.”

“Ah. But now you won’t have to look for bread. Euboia’s so close to Attica, it’s no more than a ferry-crossing. You can live on the estate, and just go over for the festivals to show what you can do. If this is another fellow who’s only for flattery and fancy-boys, never mind; you’ll have seen Athens, which sounds to me worth seeing. I don’t see how you can lose.”

“Prokles asked me to be his guest, and said he’d show me the city. But I thought, then, that to be another tyrant’s suppliant would be too much.”

“Well, you’ll be nobody’s suppliant now. All you need is to? be civil to the father. You’ll be no suppliant there; he needs it as much as you do.” He did not add, “But of course he will not say so.” Such things were our inheritance. We were about to walk home, when I looked back at the midden. One of the pups we had drowned in the tub had come to life again, and was mewling and wriggling. I looked at Theas. He picked it up and put it to the dam, and it nuzzled to the dug, sucking strongly. We laughed, and went away.

3

THERE WAS MUCH to keep me on Keos. In two months, Theas was to be married. The girl he’d been betrothed to in childhood had died from fever a year or so before; and being now a man, he had claimed the right to choose this time. The maid, though not so well-dowered as our parents would have liked, was wellborn and not too poor, so they had given way with a good grace. When I was presented to her, she murmured a few shy words about my victory, eager to please any kin of his. I saw her eyes stray to him, wondering that he could be my brother and still so beautiful.

Everyone now thought I’d stay on till the wedding. I promised to be there with a wedding song, in time to teach the bridesmaids; but first I must go to Samos to see my master. He was alone, and I owed him everything.

Theas scratched his beard. It was now quite shapely, reminding me how long I’d been here. “Well, yes. It’s true you ought to care for him, now he’s old and past his best. But the father won’t be well pleased. He meant to take you to Euboia, to see the farm.”

“O Zeus!” I cried. “I must go. Can’t I breathe without doing him some injury?”

“Come, come,” said Theas. He thought this passion unbecoming; but offered comfort, just as when I’d squalled in infancy. “Things can be managed. Tell him it will dishonor the family if you neglect a benefactor. Say the old fellow is dying, and it will bring you into reproach if you’re not there.”

I made the averting sign, but did as he said. While I was a boy and feared my father, a stubborn pride had kept me from lying to save my skin. Now I was a man and afraid no longer, it came easily, and seemed mere good manners. After all, when I was born he could have put me out on the mountain.

Autumn was setting in; I had a rough crossing, and was glad to get into harbor. There was no one I knew on the mole, so I went straight to our lodging. The lyre-maker was at work in his shop below. At the sight of me he got up from his bench, putting his work aside. He was a cheerful man, as a rule.

“Ah, my dear Simonides, they said you would certainly be coming, and I never doubted it. He left you his goods, of course, and spoke especially of his kithara, which you have in keeping. Had he kin living, and do you know where they are? Is there anyone who ought to have his ashes, now his own city has fallen? Everyone said you would be sure to know.”

After a while he said, “But you have not heard, then? I am sorry, indeed. I thought you had come to settle his affairs.”

“I came to bring him home with me. When did he die?”

“Why, it would be the day you sailed he first took to his bed, or maybe the day after; and then it was four days, or maybe five.”

“When I left, then, he had it on him.”

“Don’t take it to heart, Simonides. He said to me, and even to the wife when she brought him a sup to eat, ‘I can lie up now like a lord. I told the boy it was nothing, or he’d have stayed and missed his chance.’ “