The Praise Singer

by Mary Renault

  It was my luck to be just in time for Pisistratos. I have always been glad not to have missed a man so remarkable and, as I still think, great. Soon after, as old age crept on him, he began to fail a little; but at that time, he was still what he had been, and one could understand how he had done what he had. It was no lie when I sang of him that he was a Perseus who had buried the Gorgon’s head.

  The first time he sent for me was soon after Hipparchos’ party. He did not keep late hours; as I went up, the ornaments on the temple roofs still caught a gleam of sun. The stone house with its marble portico had an unforced dignity, and some parts looked very old. Maybe it was true that bits of King Theseus’ palace had been taken into it.

  There were no guards outside; he no longer needed them as in his early days. The tale was that he got them by trickery then, showing himself and his mule-team bleeding from an ambush no one else saw, and asking the Council for the right to protect himself. They only had clubs at first, till his private army was ready and the spears came out. I daresay it was true.

  The house was spacious inside, and gravely rich, the anteroom floored with yellow marble laid like a honeycomb. There was a big Persian wall-hanging, and on a green marble stand an old bronze lion, solid-cast, masterly. The chamberlain who placed us in the guest-room was well polished; so were the couches and tables and sideboards, mellow with beeswax and good slaves. It all looked, like its master, to have been there a long time without getting frowsty. From the way he greeted me, I could have been among the highest-ranking of his guests. I thought of Samos. I suppose from that moment he had my love.

  The eight double couches made a big party, for him; he liked to have each guest in talking reach. Dancers and flute-girls and jugglers he never used, saying they were for men without conversation. But he was a lover of the Muses and good above all to poets. As I learned later, it was for my sake he had filled up his room that night, to get me known and make me feel myself valued. As a mark of honor, he had put me on the couch of Hippias, his eldest son.

  He was a grave and civil person, but the only one of the family without ease of manner; when he ran out of talk, he would include us in his father’s, so that I heard a good deal of it. I should think, if he’d chosen, the old man could have been a poet. He had always the right word for everyone; and the poet who can improvise is always halfway to fortune. He could meet men on their own ground too, where they felt at home. I can even see him as one of those newfangled actors who go off masked as Hektor, to come back as sweet-voiced Helen. (The skill of those young men Aischylos brought along here!)

  The gods, in kindness to mankind, have put in most men’s hearts the wish to be loved and honored, even when they greatly wish for power. Power is the test. Some, once they have it, are content to buy the show of liking, and punish those who withhold it; then you have a despot. But some keep a true eye for how they seem to others, and care about it, which holds them back from much mischief. He was such a one. He had commanded men, and been admired by them; he had won the city’s wars with them, and been admired by the Athenians. Long before that, it was said he’d been admired by Solon the Good himself, who in fact had been his lover. In a song I made later for his birthday, I likened him to a siren. He took it very well, though, as everyone knows, not every seaman who heard the sirens sing went safe home after.

  That night, however, I gave him my Lament of Danae. I had been working a long time on it, but no one had heard it yet, except Dorothea. She was not given to easy tears, but it had made her cry; and, indeed, over the years I have seen that those who weep have not been always women. The sound works with the feeling, and seemed to come of itself, I don’t know how. She sings it at sea, drifting in the chest with her god-got child. I have often wondered why it should be a chest; but I always respect tradition. My child, in my grief you sleep, a gleam in the night …

  From respect to their host, they would have had to listen in silence. All the same, I soon knew that it was I who held them.

  When we were leaving and paying our respects, the Archon said to me, “Simonides, you have painted the walls of my memory; I shall gaze often at your Danae. I should like to hear it again in a little while … A man like you, I expect, knows all of Homer?”

  “Yes, sir. Since I was eighteen years old. I had a good teacher.”

  “Good. You shall help us rescue him. We will talk about it later.”

  Tall cressets lighted us down the steps, and each had his own linkboy to see him home. Not a word had been said about money; that came next morning, with a courteous message, and bettered my expectations. Whatever politicians say nowadays, that house was eupatrid as far as you could trace it back. They claimed to come down from Melanthos King of Athens, and through him from Nestor, and no one thought it absurd.

  Before long he sent for me again, in the morning this time. He was sitting at a table of dark polished wood, set out with tablets and scrolls. Hipparchos was beside him; the first time I’d ever seen them together. There was a clerk at another table, with writing things.

  Father and son smiled at me, and waved me to a chair. I felt at once that this was the son whose company was enjoyed the most, with whom the father felt easiest; yet with whom he was watchful, from a habit of ruling men.

  “Hipparchos tells me,” he said, “that your good memory is famous. I hope that you can help us. Next year is the Great Panathenaia, and we shall be holding the Rhetors’ Contest. It always takes time to choose which to invite, and find out where they are traveling, and get word to them to come.”

  I bowed gravely; or so I thought. Sometime later, Hipparchos told me that I looked down my nose. No poet has much time for rhetors; mere learners by rote, marketplace reciters, who have their Hektor’s Farewell, or Cave of Polyphemos, or Arming of Achilles, which they give each time, or sometimes two bits that they stitch together with lame frayed lines of their own devising.

  “I should like you,” he said, “to join my son as one of the judges.”

  “I am honored, sir.” Which was true, as far as it went. “Are they to be judged for their declamation?”

  “Well, we must take that into account, of course. But the reason we are offering a talent of silver as the prize is … but let Hipparchos tell you, since I can see him fidgeting to talk.”

  “It all began,” he said, “when we were living in Thrace, after the Alkmaionids had broken with us and joined the enemy party, and we had to leave in a hurry.” He lifted an eyebrow at me, to see if I knew the story, which he could hardly retail just now. Of course I did, old though it was; Pisistratos had sealed an alliance with this powerful clan by marrying the chief’s daughter, had been polite in bed, but taken care not to get her pregnant. He’d wanted no rival heirs to his elder sons, especially from a family accursed for killing suppliants in sanctuary. In time the girl’s mother asked her questions, the virgin bride was snatched back in outrage, and the feud began. I returned Hipparchos’ glance discreetly, to tell him I’d heard all this.

  “We were digging for gold,” he said, “which Mount Pangaios is full of, and recruiting warriors, which Thrace is full of, and biding our time. Since none of us were digging with our own hands—the Thracians would always sell us their tribal enemies—Father was often short of pastime, and when a rhapsodist came our way he was glad to hear of it. In Thrace, I can tell you, a dancing ape is an event. The rhetors spread the news that we paid well, and soon we were getting more of them … Well, you will guess what is coming.”

  “Bad stitching,” I said.

  “Just so. Not only between the patches, but in them too. They left out, and even put in; one would find all sorts of things coming in from Macedon and Epiros and who knows where. And these were the better sort, not strolling mountebanks. They had one great scene each, first garbled, then ruined with their ranting, instead of letting the music tell the tale. Then one day came an old, old man, who knew the Iliad whole. My dear, it was like tasting wine after grape-skin pressings. The exquisite treasures those swi
ne had passed over, or broken in their rooting …! We feasted the old man, clothed him and shod him like a lord, plied him with gold, begged him to live as our honored guest; but no. His pupil had been killed in a brawl, or gone off with a woman, or some such calamity; he must travel to get another, and teach him all he knew. He did not look fit to stand another winter. At last, in our extremity, I cried out, ‘Let us get it written! I have a good scribe; I can even write myself. Just stay here till it is done. Then it will live, even if your next pupil fails you.’ I can only say, Simonides, that old man looked at me like some high priestess of noble birth, offered well-paid work in a brothel. Can you understand it?”

  I could; I was still under thirty. “Surely,” I said, “it is impossible Homer should perish. I myself have every word of him.”

  “Long may you live, my friend; but no man lives forever. Believe me, Homer is in more danger than you know. Nowadays, one can manage less and less without writing, one is always getting some call for it. Onomakritos has his nose forever in his scrolls of oracles, and an oracle’s brief enough. Hippias, who deals with Father’s private letters, writes something nearly every day. And he keeps all his drafts upon the wax; left to himself, he couldn’t quote you half of it. I’ve given it thought, and I tell you this: what men have written down, they have no need to remember. And soon they will feel no need to try. Then what’s still unwritten will fade away.”

  Pisistratos gave his grave Zeus-like nod. “I believe that my son is right.” He opened a coffer inlaid with ivory that stood by him on the table. “This is what we have so far.”

  The roll he took out was much joined and pasted together, but written clearly. He began to read me a passage; I think it was the Deeds of Diomedes. He must have had the tail of his eye on me, for he stopped and said, “Yes?”

  “There are two lines missing there,” I said, and gave them him. Hipparchos signed to the clerk to note them down on the wax. Pisistratos read on. He read very well, not performing at all, but giving each sound and stress its value. I wondered how much of it he had picked up from Solon. And then, with a shock, I heard a line quite new to me. Pure gold; it must be Homer; and I’d never been taught it, which meant that Kleobis had not known it either. If they saw me look up, they were both too polite to mention it. At all events, that reconciled me to the Rhapsodia. They don’t hold it nowadays; but no matter, the work is done.

  The Great Panathenaia is pretty well fixed by now. The Athenians would think it impious to put in anything new. But in those years, though it was very old already (they say King Theseus started it when he united the kingdom) the Archon was always thinking of something grander. That year I was leading a choir; four years before, I had been a sightseer, when the many-colored mass down in the Kerameikos uncoiled, like a bright serpent, into the procession: the knights in their crested helms and shining corselets (all fighting men wore their gear, the Archon had no fear of them); the hoplites marching with their blazoned shields; the garlanded beasts of sacrifice led by handsome athletes; and the Ship of the Goddess, drawn by its snow-white oxen, with her new robe hung from its mast and held out like a sail by two of the maidens who had embroidered it. The rest walked before it and behind, singing their hymn. The chorus leader had the right to dedicate her statue in the sanctuary, to stand there forever; or so she thought, before the Persians came. Never mind, it made them all happy then.

  The Rhapsodia was held on the day after. Word of rich prizes had reached the artists—let us call them that—and they came in from near and far. We did find one who got a great deal of the Iliad right, and chanted it well, and gave him the first prize. Nobody went away without a gift. That year we added two new lines to the canon, and found sense in two more which till then had been incomprehensible; and the Archon was well content.

  It would have been a time to stay on in Athens, and improve upon my success. But half a year before, I had promised the Keans that I would make them a dithyramb for the Delia, and I could not fail them. I would sooner have stayed; I thought about chances I might be missing; but my honor was engaged, and I said to myself that such things are arranged by fate.

  I found time to visit Euboia, with some gifts for Dorothea: an Athenian gown with worked borders, a pair of gold earrings shaped like roses, and a bronze mirror engraved on the back with Aphrodite. I had seen her lean over the water-tub when she combed her hair.

  She lifted them in her hands, and flew to kiss me. She was smiling; partly from pleasure, for she believed, like me, in never wasting what came her way; and partly because she guessed what this new wealth might mean, and wanted to show me that she kept her word. At the next women’s festival, she would be the finest in the village. She could look forward to that—and would—when she saw me off.

  I had not been there two nights, before Diagoras, the chief Archon of Eretria, sent his son over from the city, begging me to give a recital there. He’s long dead now, these days they have a democracy; but they still look up to him there as a founding father. In his youth, he led the rebellion that put down the nobles. That was long before my time, but they must have been an insolent set, for it to have earned him so much gratitude. A maiden he had been betrothed to (for of course he was one of them himself) was offered by her father to a man of more wealth, who was to marry her out of hand. He raised his revolt and brought it off; and we would have said in those days that he was Tyrant, though not as men mean it now. He ruled with the hearty assent of the Euboians, and I myself lived on Eretrian land. I was glad to honor him.

  He entertained me very pleasantly; a small vigorous man, still handsome, who had presence without arrogance, not aping the hubris he had put down. His wife ate with us in the old Ionian way, and had me to know she had cooked the dinner. She had been the prize of his valor, and was still paying it tribute, which he acknowledged by starting a little paunch. She, too, looked as if she liked her own good cooking. They both delighted me; next day I gave them the Winning of Hippodameia in my best heroic style, leaving no doubt of where it was aimed. The Eretrians loved it too, and voted me—for they had some share in government—a handsome fee. Then I went on to Keos.

  It was all pretty much the same; except that now, each time I came, I found more people, of more consequence, asked to meet me. My father never remarked on this; but when I gave them the latest news from Athens, he did not look displeased. Looking back, I see I had begun to think of it as the civility one owes a patron. Well, it did nobody any harm.

  I picked the boys for my choir, and saw to it that they kept their minds on their work. Not that I ever beat them; just turned the slovens out, and got someone fonder of music. If they wanted to go to Delos, they took care.

  My pretty little Hermes had shot up like wheat, and had a lovely alto; my Apollo was a young man now, training for the boxing, not the chorus. In due course the ship with its garlands and painted sail was ready, and the Kean theoria set out for Delos: the priests, the herald, the offering-bearers, the athletes, the choir and I, and some leading citizens. One was my father; but this no longer troubled me.

  Delos, Delos! I have chosen Sicily to end my days in; I gave my choice thought, and would not change it. Athens I shall see no more; I’m an old summer cicada now, a bad voyage would kill me. In any case, so much has altered there, I would be a stranger. It is only when I think, Never again the Delia, that a shadow falls on my heart.

  Nothing much will have changed on Delos. The strong cool young sun on the silver-sparkling rocks and the painted marble; the old spotted lions sitting along the lake; the bright Ionian crowds. It will have grown gayer, if not as rich as before Ionia fell. But even Greeks from there who have lost their cities save best clothes for the Delia. Friends meet there after many years; youths and girls who were children five years before exchange winged glances. If a face is missing, not much is said: Apollo, who stands so tall there staring at the sun, does not like clouds and rain. It may be windy, it may be cold; but it is always fine for the birthday of the god. Some Son of Homer
sang that on that day you might think the Ionians immortal, untouched by age or time.

  True, indeed. Since Apollo’s healing shrines are in other places, and no one must pollute his birthplace by dying there, only those in their health and strength come to the Delia: old men with their beards combed smooth and their hair pinned with golden grasshoppers, their walking-staffs polished to show the grain; women fresh-bathed and scented with oil of violets; young men with hair flowing down over their shoulders, striding out in short tunics disdaining the sharp breeze; and the girls linked hand in hand, as they will be for their singing, in bright dresses with colored borders, green or saffron or blue, hearing each other their words for the choral odes, or giggling over their dialect songs poking fun at other cities; their mothers brooding over them, wary of the youths; the younger boys, whose voices will have broken before the next Delian feast, looking at the athletes and thinking about the games.

  Spring was early that year. I don’t recall a more radiant Delia, many as I’ve seen. It’s not often the girls can find so many spring flowers for their hair, cyclamen and daffodil and hyacinth, nursed there in wet moss to keep them fresh. Mount Kythnos sparkled with little hill-flowers, and the glittering rocks were starred with them.

  I have always liked to get to Delos early, before the crowds have trampled it, and try to see it when Leto came there first, to bear her child. She’d been delivered of the elder twin already; maiden Artemis could run beside her hunting the game, for the infancy of gods is brief. But Leto is still big with the younger, greater one; his light glows through her, like the sun through a rosy shell. His time is come; he commands her; she crouches by the palm tree and grasps it in her pangs; the shining babe slides down between her thighs; rests for a moment, turning his blue eyes to the sky; then the birth-cord falls from him; faster on his feet than a day-old colt, he runs to the lake to rinse off the birth-bloom; swims across and back; and striding ashore in his tall splendor, shakes the water from his golden hair. Before the crowds come, I can see all that; after, I can only tell it. That year, since I came on the state ship from Keos, they were there before me. The paean and the silence, one cannot have both at once.