The Mysteries, A Novel of Ancient Eleusis

by David Sheppard

  *

  The indiscretion of Melaina's appearance in public, along with her friends, didn't escape her mother's ears. For the next two days, Myrrhine pushed and shoved Melaina about. First, it was the potters needing her immediate attention, then the spinning room where the slave girls struggled with evacuating, and finally the kitchen, where so much had been sent on to Salamis that fixing a meal for the Hierophant was no longer possible. Melaina found the panic of the slave girls contagious and resisted a pull toward screaming herself.

  To escape the frenzied activity and her mother's scrutiny, she climbed the hill to her favorite overlook of the bay where she had, in the past, been allowed to go only with adult supervision. Now, she was an adult and escaped under her own recognizance. She hadn't had a moment to herself, and although usually she avoided solitude, now she noticed a definite longing for it.

  From her vantage point, she could see a long ant trail of people and beasts of burden coming from the north. These were refugees from Plataea, Eleutherai and the legendary foothills of Mt. Kithaeron, where Oedipus had been exposed as a child and the frenzied maenads of Dionysus ripped apart wild animals and ate their flesh raw. The trail came to the very edge of Eleusis where it turned west to the Isthmus and Corinthia. Through the low rumble of all this traffic, Melaina heard the sharp ping of the blacksmith's hammer.

  She found a seat on a stone shaped by ancient hands beside a laurel bush and pulled a small clay tablet from her bag. Strumming her lyre, she sang. "Artemis, arrow-pouring virgin and divine nurturer of moral youths, I sing to thee and ask not for a bow and swift arrows, not for a gift at all, but only for something I already have. Give me forever my maidenhood to keep, and stay the hand of Aphrodite when she comes bringing weak knees and limb-gnawing passion. O don't forsake Melaina now that she's grown, Artemis. Instead, bring Melaina..."

  A noise stopped her, something on the other side of the laurel, and she looked around it to see Sophocles' tall form gazing out to sea. If he's heard me, I'll die, she thought, but he seemed to be judging the magnitude of the sunset or the thickness of distant smoke from Persian fires. He looked less formidable than that night before Kallias' chariot leading their escape. Perhaps he doesn't even know I'm here, she thought. Her heart sank when he finally spoke.

  "Who is this poet you quote with such confidence? Though it rings of Sappho, the rhythm seems fresh, original. Such a delicious weaving of melody and rhythm. Is it a poet of the past that my education is sorely lacking, or someone too recent to be in the curriculum?"

  Melaina tried to take a breath but found no air. Why didn't he return down the hill? she wondered. He must know it's not proper for me to be alone with a young man. "Surely, you make fun of me, sir. It's my very own poetry. A man of any manners wouldn't eavesdrop on a lady who, thinking she's alone, opens her heart to a goddess."

  Young Sophocles, barely three years her senior, his cheeks covered with something more than fuzz but less than beard, peeked around the laurel bush, alarmed. "Forgive me. Until you spoke, I thought I was alone myself. Still, I wouldn't trade hearing your poetry for a season at the Dionysia."

  "Perhaps if you hadn't laughed at me over the camel, I'd think more kindly of your intentions. Your flattery does me no credit. I'll be ashamed to open my mouth henceforth."

  "No! Don't be. Truly, I'm grateful to have heard you, but ashamed it embarrassed you. I too am a poet still in training and hope one day to present tragedies at the City Dionysia. I've been laughed at and told my gift is modest, so would never think unkind thoughts of another's poetry."

  "I've heard it said, the slow-maturing soul gains the deeper insight."

  "Perhaps. Still Lamprus, my music teacher, says dancing is my only talent."

  "I would have thought you'd be home evacuating instead of leisurely roaming a hilltop. Do you live in Eleusis?"

  "No. Beautiful Kolonus. You might remember. We stopped there briefly on our way back from Brauron. It's just north of Athens. We evacuated to Salamis several days ago."

  "Yes, indeed I do remember. And a marvelous site it seemed. Is that where you receive training to become a famous poet?"

  "Now it's you who's playing with me. My father is but a simple blacksmith. We use my teacher's home in Athens and his second one here in Eleusis. That's why I'm here. I'll never be a famous poet, but he encourages me, perhaps beyond my measure."

  "The smith here at Eleusis is not simple, and I suspect your father isn't either. They speak of blacksmiths as the 'priests of metals'. But who might be this famous poet teaching you?"

  "The greatest in the world, Aeschylus."

  "Uncle Aeschylus!" Mention of him brought her back to her senses. She panicked. "I must go before I'm seen. You've nothing to lose. I could be outcast."

  "Here," said Sophocles, snapping a branch from the bush, "laurel is sacred to Apollo and has powers of purification." He reached it out to her. "For my lady," he said, "to cleanse her from an encounter with the forbidden."

  She reached for it, averting her gaze, but not before noticing Sophocles' subtle blue eyes. She felt close to him because hers were blue also, but deep blue, not subtle. Gradually his stare drew her eyes upward until their eyes met. She saw him stagger, wondered at it. Their fingers intertwined, both refusing to let go the branch. His warmth seeped into her. Such exquisite warmth. She'd heard of the legendary hotness of young men, its superiority to that of women, and had always thought it a lie.