The Praise Singer

by Mary Renault

  When all had been ushered out, he turned to me smiling. “My dear boy, all we old fellows have been rambling on till past our bedtimes. It is their loss, that they have not heard you sing; but I hope it need not be mine. Will it be playing tyrant, if I keep you for a while, to please an audience of one?”

  I said what was natural, adding that it would be something to remember; which, indeed, I found was true.

  He motioned me to the supper-couch next his own, and beckoned the slave to bring me a clean wine-table. Seeing him pause above his cup to smell the bouquet, I ventured to praise the vintage. He looked up, like a man recalled from his thoughts. “The best year in ten. I am glad it pleases you. It was Solon who taught me to know wine. Will you sing me something of his?”

  I was startled speechless. Solon’s fame, as I knew it, was firstly for his laws; then for refusing a tyranny, and choosing exile instead; then, on returning to find Pisistratos in power, for urging the Athenians to resist him. When they would not, Solon left his old panoply outside his door in the street, and gave out that he had retired. I had only snatches of his songs; they were all political, and I pleaded my shortcomings with relief.

  “Did you never hear this?” He put out his hand for my lyre—at these small parties I did not use the kithara—and tried the strings; then in his old cracked voice gave the first line of a charming love song. He stopped too soon; just as if he had been some poet met at a festival, I said, “Sir, will you teach it me?”

  What is more, he did, and I have it to this day. It is not very long; it likens itself to a flower which will not die while the beloved wears it. When I had sung it back to him, he said smiling, “Yes, it deserves to be worn longer, and you are young. I bequeath it you.”

  Even in his age, you could trace the bones of old beauty. He had all his teeth, and his mouth was still finely carved. Faint gold shone in his hair. When he was not looking, I half shut my eyes, and could trace the brave keen face, a sculptor’s delight had the art of those days been good enough; listening to his lover, learning the thoughts of manhood. What other would Solon choose?

  He had our cups refilled with the cold pale wine. We drank; I waited. “He loved me to the end. And I him. I loved him when he warned the city of me, and begged them to throw me off before it was too late. He would not have been Solon, if he had not done it. He was the best man of our age. When he did it he loved me still. It was partly for my sake too, for fear of power corrupting me … Do you know, people went to him, after that speech of his (part was in verse; I will teach it you one day when it is not so late); they went to him, and urged him to fly before I killed him. Dear man, he laughed. He said his old age would protect him—he was ten years younger than I am now. Again and again, after all that, I went to him for advice, never in vain. He was like a fine olive tree, which when its roots are checked one way will put them out another. Summer or winter, storm or calm, his soul sought justice and the end of wrong. He worked as he could, with what he had; first with the people, then with me … Kleon, fill up.”

  The slaves had gone, the butler was there alone. He shook his head like an old nurse, then lovingly filled the cups.

  “There was no one like him. Everyone knew it; or why did they go to him when the state was like a knot of vipers? They begged him to give them laws, because he was in no blood-feud, and was the only man fit to do it. The lords, the knights, the merchants, the commons, all swore before the gods to keep whatever laws he made for them. And so they do. They keep them to this day … I see to that.”

  I gazed with fascination at that grim smile. Now I could picture him in his prime, while I was an urchin tending my first sheep, weeping from loneliness on the mountain; and he was lord of Brauron in the north, teaching his hill-men to fight.

  “He had promised them justice, and that he gave. He took from every man the right to wrong another. He freed the debt-thralls. He canceled the mortgages, and had the debt-stones broken in the fields. I was with him often, when he was at work on it. I was young then. I saw he had removed oppression, but had not gratified envy or revenge. He seemed to me like a god. I said, ‘If there is any justice in men, they will set you up a hero shrine.’ He brushed that aside; but I think it was what he hoped for. From public office he never made one drachma, though ever since his fool of a father went broke, he’d had to shift for himself with trade. He was a fine soldier; but at home he would never grasp at power, he wanted nothing not given him by free consent. But what man does not covet honor?”

  “What man,” I said, “or what god, for that matter? But he has it, surely? The Athenians call him Solon the Wise.”

  “Now they do. I hope, where he is, it reaches him. They have lived with his laws and liked them, now that they have me, who could have given them laws they would have liked much less, but for my oath and honor, as well they know. Oh yes, they thank him now. Did they thank him then? Not they, not when it could have warmed his living heart.”

  His fingers tightened round the wine-cup’s stem. I think he might have broken it, if it had not been made of gold. I asked, “How was it then, sir?”

  “Then?” He looked at me, saw me young, and suddenly looked old again. “Then he gave out his laws, and had them carved on the wooden tablets you can see today, set up in the King Archon’s colonnade. All sorts of men—lords, knights, merchants, commons—praised him for his laws and found them admirable. Except, each of them found, for just one thing. He had satisfied none of them. That shows you how just he was. So, therefore, each of them wanted a thumb upon the scales, just a tilt their way. Then they would truly honor him … Kleon, fill up.”

  The butler came softly with the jug. He had put in more water, when his master was not looking.

  “He was a man of honor, and believed the same of his friends. Well, perhaps he was right; let us say they were not all men of discretion. Somehow, before his laws were proclaimed, one or two men learned that he meant to cancel mortgages. So they bought land on mortgages, for which they could not have paid. And mean-minded men, whose greed he had not satisfied, put it about that he had advised it.”

  He set down his cup. He had truly returned there. I saw that his hand was shaking.

  “In my youth, I was not without some beauty. It was all I had to offer him in his trouble. Every day they bickered and complained; and always what they wanted had to be taken unjustly from some other man. He had a steady soul—that was why they’d gone to him in the first place—but he began to lose his sleep. Still, he had true friends who had never tried to use him. They told him his laws were just, and should be enforced. They urged him to accept a tyranny; they said he would be backed by all moderate men. They offered him gold of their own, to hire Thracian soldiers—excellent advice, as I have found. I was a boy still; I begged him to consent, as though he would do for my young face what was not in him to do at all. He was kind to me. Solon was always kind. ‘Tyranny, my dear, is like one of those mountain climbs which take one up, but not down. One can only fall. They have sworn their oaths to me; if they fear the gods, they will have to keep them. And they cannot harry me to change my laws, if I am not there.’ He was gone ten years, trading his way, seeing the world. I stayed, and became a man … He’d known I was old enough to think; he thought that because I loved him I would think like him. Indeed I loved him. Indeed he was my teacher. But what he taught me was not what he supposed.”

  I murmured some assent. I did not want to remind him of who I was, in case he had forgotten. I felt like Orpheus, visiting the shades.

  “Few men are wise enough to know themselves, as Pythian Apollo commands us. He was. He had done what he could, and knew what he could not do … When he sailed, he gave me his dog, a young harrier, liver and white, that he’d been rearing. One can’t do with a dog on shipboard, he could not keep him, so he gave him me. I reared and trained him; he was the best dog I’ve had. His name was Bia: Strength. I was young, but I knew it was an omen.”

  The old butler, who’d looked as if he wanted
to get him off to bed, had stopped fidgeting and drawn near to listen.

  “He grew old here without bitterness. It was as if he drained all of it in one draught and threw the cup away. When he came back to find they’d made me First Archon, he sang the Athenians one of his poems, telling them not to blame the gods if they thought better of it later. Someday I will teach it to you; but I expect you know those lines. Everyone does.”

  He was right, of course. He saw it with a smile.

  “He retired from all public life, just as he’d said. But he knew how to live without being busy. He had traveled the world, meeting the sages and the kings; he knew the gods’ names among foreign peoples, and their rites of worship. At Sais, the temple priests had told him Egypt’s history back for six thousand years, and how the anger of Poseidon destroyed Atlantis. He had known and seen more than Odysseus …”

  I wonder if, like old Argos, the dog Bia had known his master on his return. But then, Argos had been left masterless.

  “He had known pleasure too, choosing the best like wine. All in all, he had enough stored up in himself to last him another lifetime. He lived between his town house and his farm, enjoying the seasons and his friends. People thought I made much of him for the sake of policy. It was no matter what they thought. We understood each other.”

  He picked up his mint-scented napkin, wiped his mouth and set aside his wine-cup. The butler prepared to show me out, I prepared my thanks. Then he said, “A good man will gather good men round him, and know too little of evil. A bad one will gather his like, and do nothing good. Ruling men, it seems, must be like this wine we have drunk tonight: strong enough, sweet enough, but with a fleck of mold upon the grape, which comes once in a way and makes it what it is. And never drunk neat … Ah well, it grows late. Thank you, my dear boy, for the pleasure of your conversation, and for your charming songs. We were all delighted. A very good night to you.”

  Eight or ten days later, he invited me again to sing; but while I was dressing, a messenger brought me his regrets. He was indisposed that evening, but hoped for the pleasure shortly. So I did not ride back to Euboia; at first, because I waited to hear from him; then, because I waited as all the city was waiting.

  First, he had caught a cold; then, it had gone to his chest, with fever; then, his mind was wandering, and with his sons by his bed he had asked to see his children; then, he was sinking fast. As news came in, there began to be a hush all over Athens; at any sound in the street, everyone would pause to listen. The Acropolis, when I went up, was full of silent people, watching the house. When sunset came, the guards did not close the gates, and anyone stayed who wished. As the dark deepened, some went off to bed. I waited. It was a calm, warm night; and I knew the hour at which Hermes the Guide comes oftenest for his travelers. A little before the dawn, a woman cried; then we heard the household lamenting.

  Around me, in the dark, women began to wail. In those days they went about more freely than in Athens now, and not a few had kept the death-watch. For some time they keened, their mantles flung over their heads; men stood still, talking in low voices, as people do when there is nothing left to stay for, yet they cannot make up their minds to go. As dawn was breaking, we saw the tall jar of purification set by the door, for those leaving the house to asperse themselves clean of death. In little knots the crowd drifted away.

  I walked in half-awakened streets in the faint light. Doors opened, people looked out to ask for news. When they heard it, they seemed not so much grieved as dazed. For days it had been expected everywhere; yet now they could not quite believe it, nor see beyond. He had been there so long. He had put his style on everything, like Exekias who both shaped his vases and painted them. Like Exekias he kept up the old grand manner. He had been tyrant, but never upstart; he was the Old Archon now, head of the family. It was as if they had waked that morning, and found the Acropolis gone.

  Next day he was laid out in state, and anyone he had ever received as guest came to do him honor. He lay in the hallway with its honeycomb marble floor, his bier draped with an old embroidered pall, maybe an heirloom from King Nestor’s day. They had clothed him in pure white wool, and spread fine linen over him, and laid fringed fillets across him. He was crowned with a wreath of gold, twined with parsley and origan. His three lawful sons stood gravely by to greet us; his daughters and daughters-in-law and granddaughters keened for him, but decently, as Solon’s laws required, without loud outcries or rending their hair and clothes. Nothing was in excess, nothing hubristic; but he looked in death what he had long been in all but name—last of the Athenian kings.

  Before dawn next morning they took him to his grave in the Kerameikos, his menfolk walking before, the women behind wailing softly to the sound of a single flute. They needed no slaves to carry him; at every rest-halt there was a little crowd of Athenians waiting, in silence, to take the bier. Silently they did their stint, and silently stood back after, asking no recompense for the pollution; men came forward, even, to lower him into the grave. They laid on the coffin his old panoply, the two-winged helmet, the javelins and the spear, the gold-hilted sword, the shield with its serpent blazon. A wavering torchlight shone down into the vault; the shadows of the helmet-crests flickered like black bats. The kindred came forward with their gifts, pots of spices and scented oil, vases from Egypt, grave-flasks painted by masters of the art. Then the masons closed the slab, and so they left him, till the sculptors set up his stele. The mourners went home to take off their ashen clothes, comb their shorn hair, bathe and break their fast.

  He did not stay long alone. Quietly, when the great had gone, the people came with their offerings. They brought what they could, what they might have brought for their own fathers: a basket of figs, a copper cloak-brooch, an ancient vase long in the household, painted with checkers and rings; a fillet stitched in the night; a little warrior pinched out of clay with the colors fading; a dish of honeycakes. They laid them down, and went away with their cloaks pulled over their faces.

  Solon, I thought, now are you reconciled?

  I turned towards my lodging to sleep. The streets were waking, the stalls set up in the Agora; men met and greeted, and everywhere one heard, “What now?”

  On my way, I fell in with a man I knew, a certain Proxenos, one of the first men of the Gephyriot clan. He was as handsome as I am ugly, and pleased with it too; no popinjay, however, but a noted horseman who had raced his own chariot at the Isthmia. We walked on together; he too had watched on the Acropolis. “And I would have brought my son, if he were a few years older, so that he would have had it to remember. Such things should be handed on.”

  At his door, he asked me in to breakfast. Over the wheat bread and warmed wine, I asked him what he foresaw for the city now.

  “Who knows?” He looked up frowning. “My father supported Solon, because the times were bad and the man was honest. Everyone gave up something; my father said the eupatrids gave up too much. To my mind he was right. But we gave it for law, not tyranny.”

  It was the first time I’d heard that word used in Athens, except about other states. His family was a very old one. “I’m a Kean, so it’s not for me to say. But it seems to me there is law here, and justice too.”

  “Truly. While the Tyrant consents. He is still a man with a spear while we have none. Pisistratos seldom lifted it, and I give him credit for that. But we are still disarmed; the spear is there; and as for the man who holds it now, I doubt he is better than any one of us whose forefathers played their part in affairs in former days … Forgive me; you are a guest-friend of the family. I have said too much.”

  I said smiling, “You would have done in Samos. But here in Athens, we are just two men talking of public business, and your only fear is lest you have offended me. That is something, we can both agree.”

  “You are right, although … No, you are right. We have seen the fate of other cities in stasis; we should know when we are well off. Hippias will be made First Archon without dissent. He has been his
father’s pupil; for that matter, he must have been governing, in all but name, for some time already. He is steady and past his youth. No doubt we could do worse.”

  “And Hipparchos,” I said, thinking it my due to a generous patron, “he has done a good deal to adorn the city.”

  “Oh, yes. That is his part; I expect he’ll keep to it and be content. A pleasant lightweight, who will be neither here nor there.”

  Just then his young son, of whom he’d spoken, came running into the room, having escaped somehow from the women. He must have been two or three years old. Proxenos picked him up, and pretended to scold him; but I could see, and he too no doubt, that his father was delighted to show him off. No wonder; he was as lovely as infant Apollo in my Delian ode. He clung about Proxenos’ neck, telling of some nursery exploit. It was a pretty sight; I offered the hoped-for tribute, that the family looks had been passed on.

  “That’s to be seen,” said Proxenos, proudly rumpling his golden hair. “Handsome is as handsome does—eh, young Harmodios?”

  4

  PISISTRATOS ON HIS DEATHBED had desired that the power should be shared between his two eldest sons, with precedence for the first Law-abiding in death as in later life, he had willed it should be voted on by the Areopagos, that venerable tribunal. Each member was a former archon. But the old man had been First Archon a long time; of the ex-archons who could still get their old bones up the sacred hill, almost all in their time had been Pisistratos’ men. As for the Alkmaionids, they were still in exile. Hippias became First Archon without a vote against it, with Hipparchos next in rank. As Proxenos had foretold, it all went smoothly.