The Praise Singer

by Mary Renault

  “It was a new bond to me. But now it is tied, the threads will cross again. I shall be the better for it, and I hope he also.”

  “I was told, sir, that you have his ashes. It troubles me that the barbarians have his city, and I cannot give him a tomb among his kindred.”

  “It does not trouble him, you may be sure. But take for friendship’s sake, if you wish, what remains of his outworn garment. He himself will have come already before the Judges, and heard their counsel; and knowing his soul’s needs will have chosen his next life.”

  “He must be honored somewhere with a tomb. You have more right than I to bury him; do you wish to do it?”

  “No, for his tomb would be untended here, which would cause you sorrow. I am leaving Samos, and shall not return; at least, not in this body.”

  I asked if Polykrates had exiled him. “That would have come, I think. Till lately, the Tyrant hasn’t troubled himself about mad Pythagoras.” For the first time he smiled. “But now he begins to hear that I and my friends are studying harmony.”

  “So? But he prides himself on being a patron of the arts.”

  “Not ours. We look for music, first in the heavens”—he pointed to the astrolabe—“then on earth in the laws of its creatures, chiefly in man; in himself, in his dealings with his fellows, in his body politic. That is as displeasing to tyrants as a doctor’s advice to a drunkard. Well, we have work to do, which we need to pursue in peace. There is a piece of coastal land in Italy, good land unused; I traveled there to find it. My students are coming with me. He will be glad to see us go.”

  “That’s a long way.” It seemed to me the further edge of the world.

  “This is an age of tyrants. They warn each other about men like me. In Kroton they will not trouble us.”

  “But, if you are founding a colony, what will you do for women?”

  “Why, bring my students; there will be enough of each kind. The women have been men and will be men again, as you and I have been women. What is that, but a station along the way?”

  “If you are selling up,” I said, “and want a buyer for your slave, I shall be glad to hear your price. Don’t fear I shall give him rough work, I can see he is above that. I promise to treat him well.”

  “That I do not doubt. But I am giving Zamolxis his freedom, to return to his own people. He has been a good pupil; it is time he began to teach. Besides, it is in my mind that his time of penance is over.

  His eyes had fixed in his head, the white gleaming round the iris; bright eyes, not blind, and yet unseeing. With any other man, I should have thought it was a fit, and called for help. As it was, I would have gone away quietly, but had not been given the urn. I waited, wondering how long these turns might last with him, and whether I should tell the slave, so that he could be looked after. I was afraid to wake him myself. However, the shadows on the floor had hardly moved, before he came calmly to himself, and smiled at me.

  “Forgive me. The Sight chooses its own time. When the door opens, even on the same day of the same life, there is always something new. Just now I tasted the food he shared with me.”

  He paused, and I was afraid he would go off again. “Yes?” I said.

  “I mean Zamolxis. That is one of my strongest bonds. I was an Egyptian, a child—I know Egypt in this life, and much came back to me. My father took me on his ship to trade in Tyre. We were seized by pirates; Zamolxis was the captain. My father fought and was killed, escaping slavery; they threw him dying overboard. I ran to the one man I saw taking no part in this, not knowing that only his rank prevented him. I clasped his knees and begged him to save me. He was pitiful, and chose me for part of his spoils; for his pleasure, the others thought, but he did no harm to me. Once, in a calm, I taught him the common writing, and once in a storm he comforted me. In the end he put me ashore, in a place that is now unknown to me, where I had kindred. Someday I may come upon it.

  “Well, that is the cause of his present life. For the blood he had shed and the people he had enslaved, he had to make reparation; he was enslaved as a boy, to a hard master in these parts. I passed by—not by chance, you can be sure, although it seemed so—and heard him crying under the whip; and the Sight came to me, and I knew my debt. For ten years he has shared my studies; I took him to Egypt with me, when I went to the temple schools. He knows the motions of the stars, and the properties of plants. In all these years, he has not shed the blood of a living creature; he knows they are souls which have been men, or will be. Now he shall go to the Getai, from whom he came, in the country north of the Ister. As in his former life he brought death and darkness, in this he will bring life and light.”

  I thought to myself that he talked like a poet, and wondered what he sang. As to his tale, I could tell that he believed in it; but it seemed a waste of a good slave. He’ll just be one more cattle-raiding tribesman, I thought, within half a year.

  However, I replied as I thought he’d wish; and shortly after, he gave me the funeral urn; a beautiful piece, Corinthian, painted with lions and flowers. Later, I made a tomb for it in Euboia, carved with this epitaph: I was Kleobis of Ephesos, till my city was possessed by the long-haired Mede. But my songs remain, and will abide his going.

  From time to time, I heard news of Pythagoras and his school in Italy. Lately, when I was traveling to Syracuse, my ship put in at Kroton. He was dead by then, but I talked to some citizens, who honor him next the gods and keep all his laws. They live more plainly even than Keans, but from devotion rather than harshness; to me they were very courteous, and brought me to some old men who had known the founder well. I asked whether they’d ever heard anything of a freed slave called Zamolxis. Yes indeed, they said; he was still alive, and honored by the Getai as their greatest sage. Two kings in turn had appointed him prophet and counselor to the people. He lived in a cave, keeping his master’s laws and preaching his philosophy. The Getai, who had been great hunters, now killed no living thing, and were known to the tribes around as Milk-Eaters.

  ATHENS

  1

  I LIVED THREE OR four years in Euboia, before my father died.

  Every month or so, I used to cross over to show him the farm accounts: so many horses sold in Attica, the yield of olives or oil or barley. The steward told me, and I wrote it down; my memory is for words, not numbers. I would bring my father his half-share, and give him the mainland news; and, if he asked me, would tell him where I had performed.

  I came, if I could, to the chief Kean festivals, and the games. One year I had my wish, and made Theas a victory song when he won the wrestling. At first I was still just Leoprepes’ son, home on a visit. Later, things began to change. He let it be seen that I no longer disgraced the family; but I don’t remember his ever praising a song.

  The farm had had a wing thrown out, for Theas and his wife and their two handsome children, boy and girl. Philomache and her Midylos were still childless. His father Bacchylides, who had been a great athlete in his day, fretted about it more than he did. “We’re both young yet,” he said. “I don’t believe she’s barren.” He had too much courtesy to tell her brother that he’d sired healthy bastards himself. “And even if she were, I’d sooner have a woman who pleases me than a fool farrowing fools.” She had a bloom on her, and it seemed he suited her too.

  Each year I traveled to the greater festivals as they fell due, the Isthmia, or the Olympics, the Nemea, the Panathenaia; sang in the contests, and sometimes hymned the victors. I have always enjoyed the challenge of a victory hymn. One can’t know beforehand who the victor will be of any event, nor which victor is going to hire one. Besides which, only one bard can win a singing contest, and one may have one’s work for nothing but applause; but a victory ode means money.

  The rest of the year I shared between Euboia, where I had my house, and Athens, where I had my hopes.

  In these first years, it was Euboia mostly. It is a god-frequented land, with woody gorges and chestnut-shaded hills. In the mountain villages, or along the sho
re away from the big harbors, old men will tell you tales which Achilles may well have heard at Cheiron’s knee. They have that smell of great age one can’t mistake, like old green bronze. I made my Lament of Danae there, because of a song I heard a woman sing as she turned the quern.

  The land had been in our family time out of mind. We had been Euboians, till two generations back, when my great-grandfather was on the losing side in the Lelantine War. He’d been a great landowner down in the plain; when that was gone he retired to Keos, and lived on the place which had been his Kean wife’s dowry, and where I was born. My father used to say the Euboian land I farmed was just a smallholding, compared with the ancient glories. But I wanted a living, not a fortune, which I hoped to find for myself; and I lived there very well.

  The farm is in the hills near Dystos, east of Swallow Lake, on a slope that faces Attica. It’s a short ride down to the coast, where any boatman will run you across to Rhamnos. From there it’s an easy journey to Athens, between the heights of Parnes and Hymettos. I used to keep a mule stabled with a Rhamnos farmer; starting early, I could be in Athens by noon.

  Old Phileas, the steward, was worth his weight in gold. He set me free. When I first came, he made me about as welcome as a conquering Mede. He was a square, slow-moving countryman, full of grumbles, straight out of Hesiod. I soon saw his sullenness did not come from fear of having petty misdeeds found out; he was afraid I’d spoil his good work with ignorant meddling. The land was tended, the slaves were well trained and fed, the horses sleek. I saw what this would mean to me, and took more trouble to sweeten him than I’ve done with many a prince; rode round the estate with him, praised this or that (it was wonderful how my boyhood lore came back to me) and told him my father had advised me to lean on his experience. He softened; though he grumbled still that the master would have nothing changed from his own father’s day, and if the horse-pasture was put under corn it would bring in as much again. However, I was now his audience and not his theme.

  He found me a good maid to cook for me and keep house, a free-woman, cheerful, black-haired and ruddy, who, when she sang about the place, did it in tune. One day, when he came with his morning business, he looked about at the room, remarked on the well-kept furniture, and, gazing at the sideboard, said, “That Dorothea, she’s a rare admiration for you.”

  I pricked an ear. Noting he had a kindness for her, I took it they were bedmates, and had not presumed on bright smiles and dainty cooking.

  “She’s a good girl; whose daughter is she?”

  He scratched his ear. “Well, sir, that’s a question. She’s known as Smikros the pilot’s daughter, but he claimed he’d been a two-month at sea when she was got. Then he drowned in a squall off Rhenaia, so it was all one to him. But it’s stood in her way, and the offers she’s had weren’t fit for her. She reckons she’s well placed where she is.”

  His eye enlightened me. “Well,” I said, “I daresay she’s not been without a father’s care, whoever he may be. I think she and I will get on well together.”

  I was right in this. Of course I was not the first; she took it easily, as something we had both been expecting. Her cheerful friendliness went on much the same; she felt that she was now in her proper place, and could manage things more to my advantage. When I offered to buy a slave for her, she said she liked things done her own way, and would never have the patience to stand over some clumsy slut. She was the best-natured of girls, teaching me her old work songs, but always quiet when I was making a song myself. She bore no bastards—the women of the island have their ways—and it startled me when one night, as she was taking off her gown, she asked me whom I was betrothed to.

  “Why, to no one. I would never have lived with you, and kept such a thing to myself.”

  “Wouldn’t you, Sim? One never knows with the gentry. Every time you’ve been over to Keos, I’ve wondered if you’d come back with a bride.”

  She did not mean it. She well knew I’d have told her; she just liked to hear it said. But, though I could say it, there were other things best said, too.

  “My little quail, I’m not only not betrothed, I left home just to avoid it. But …”

  “Oh, you will.” She had folded her gown, and stood up with her hands on her firm white hips. “You’ll want a son to leave the place to, and then you’ll do it. Don’t make me promises, or I might not take it so well.” She was smiling; she had her pride.

  “Get into bed, or you’ll come out in gooseflesh. I’m not one for promises. Anything can happen to anyone; I saw that in Ionia. Men born in riches have ended up washing a Persian’s floors. But long ago I made my mind up not to marry, and I don’t expect to change it. You’re all I need in a woman, my honeycomb. I wish I were all you need in a man.”

  She laughed and reached her hand out; but I took it in mine. “No, wait. Poets are traveling men. And I’ve barely begun my travels.”

  “Why, for sure you must travel, Sim. I know that. It’s like seeing the great cities myself, to hear you come back and tell of them. While you’re gone I can get the cheeses made, and the house turned out, and set something up on the loom.”

  “Like Penelope,” I said. I wanted her to understand.

  “Oh no, Sim. No hangers-on for me. My father would soon see them to rights.”

  “Penelope had a long time to wait. That’s what I meant.” Her hand fell quiet. I said, “Once a poet has made a name, he looks for a patron. And a patron wants his favored poet to be his house-guest most of the year.”

  “I’ve heard of that.” She was thoughtful, not angry. “But this is good land. You’ll never need to eat another man’s bread.”

  “Not from want, no. That’s why this land was given me. But I must go where I’ll be heard.”

  “Yes, Sim,” she said, and lay thinking. I blamed myself for not having talked of all this before. Most people I met needed no telling.

  “Praise-singing is like love,” I said. “You do it from the heart, or you’re a whore. If a man I despise invites me, I can say no, and wait for someone better. But one day it will come. If you feel it’s no life for you here alone, waiting for me to visit when I can, then I’ll give you a dower, and find some old grannie to keep the house for me.

  “You’ll keep the place? You’ll not sell it?” She was her father’s child, both feet firm on the ground.

  “No indeed; it’s family land.”

  “Why then, what kind of fool do you take me for? I’ve a good home and a good man; and what’s more, I’m respected now. You don’t know how it was sometimes in the village. But now, there’s many women married to sailors, or men who’ve gone off to fight for pay in foreign wars, would be glad to change with me. They’ve the cold bed, and hunger with it; and mostly their man won’t make a name to bring them credit. If you’ve kept from marrying so that no one can blame you for being long away, that’s fair dealing. You’ll get no scolding here, Sim. We’re folk who fill each other’s needs.”

  Ah well. I’m glad I can bring back those old Euboian days, and Dorothea when she was young. As for Athens, that comes back like yesterday.

  It has all gone, now. Oh yes, they will be making it very fine. By the time they’re done, my Athens will be nothing to it. At one time, they were vowing they’d keep the High City just as the Medes had left it, to witness their impiety. They soon got tired of that, as who would not; but one learns not to talk sense to men at such a time. When they came round, they resolved at least not to mend what the barbarians had defiled with blood and fire. It can all go for rubble, to fill in the new foundations or raise the bastions up. Then they will build their victory ode in marble. Well, they have the right.

  Aischylos was in Sicily a few years back—turned fifty, which I can hardly credit yet—and said to me over a jar of Etna wine, “It was you, Simonides, who first opened my ear to song. But it was those days that taught me tragedy.”

  I could not keep from smiling. “If you mean what I think, son of Euphorion, in those days you were ten
years old.”

  “True, master of memory. And what I saw has mixed with what I’ve heard, most of all from you; and those again with what my mind’s eye has made of them. It’s all one cloth now, I shall never tease out the threads. But it taught me tragedy, all the same.”

  “Yes. I can understand it. You grew up knowing the end, as your audience knows when the play begins that it will end with Agamemnon dead. But when you were ten I was forty; when I first saw Athens, your father was hardly born. The end came to us from a bright noon sky.”

  He sat staring out through the porch towards the harbor, knitting his fair thick brows above his beaky nose; a strong man still, whose greatest pride is that he fought at Marathon. I could see him setting the ancient tale to his own sonorous music. No, he never knew the lyric years.

  There was building then, too. I suppose it is all forgotten now. The new High City is to be for the gods alone; no human ruler shall have a stronghold there any more. It will be a dedication of the people, a pledge of freedom from Medes and tyrants. A great conception. I shan’t live to see even the first stones laid. It’s half ruin still, half builders’ yard.

  The Medes burned the gatehouse. By the time they’d cleared the fallen timbers, it was just as I remembered it when I first set foot there; a gap in the oldest wall, that the old men called King Theseus’ Gate. Like enough he would have had one there. The stones were dark with time, mottled with lichen, and with ancient stains which they used to call the blood of the Amazons. The threshold was sunny, and lizards lived there.

  From this dark entry, you came out into gleaming light. (The Mysteries teach us the power of that.) Much was brand-new, but everything seemed to be, it was kept so bright, the bronzes shining like gold, the paint on the marble never left to fade. Yet in all the splendor there was something welcoming, homelike; nothing on the great hubristic Samos scale. There were the comings and goings of a great house, not a palace; though the Athenians always said that the Palace of Erechtheus used to stand on that very site where the Archon built.