The Praise Singer

by Mary Renault

  “Glaukos, Leagros’ son, was standing next me. He hardly took his eyes off her. I think he’s serious.”

  “That would be a good match,” I said. It was an old house with wealth and reputation; Glaukos was the eldest son, an athlete of some distinction. It was just the marriage a family needed, so shorn of menfolk by death. I wished the girl luck with it.

  Next day they carried their baskets. One girl had been too lazy to practice, and let hers wobble. I threatened that if she was not perfect by next day, I’d turn her out. It was only to scare her, for of course I could not do it; everyone would have thought her maidenhood was in question, and the scandal would have followed her for life. However, the silly girl was duly terrified, and performed without fault thereafter.

  I was pleased with them all, on the day of the Presentation. The sky was bright; so were the girls, each in her festal dress, the peplos damp-pleated into tiny clinging folds, and fastened on the shoulders with gold brooches; the himation draped across, often an heirloom, with borders of six months’ work; hair freshly washed and waved, combed down over back and breasts. Some had brushed their lips with the juice of geranium petals, but their faces needed no heightening. Rosy or pale, their light came from within.

  They gathered in their order, on the terrace below the crowded precinct, looking up at the temple porch with the priests’ and archons’ thrones. Hipparchos was there, with Thessalos beside him. Hippias seldom came to these minor rites.

  Bacchylides paced behind me, carrying the kithara. His hours at the palaestra had not been wasted; at his age I should have been glad of half his grace. At my signal he brought the instrument and held the sling for me. He had been well rehearsed, and did it with-out fumbling. I was about to sign for the flautist to begin, when I was aware of people turning, and saw that Hipparchos had lifted his hand, signaling me to wait.

  I looked up, puzzled, trying to catch his eye. But it was fixed on the line of girls. I was not too far off to see where it had rested.

  It’s the likeness, I thought; I daresay it’s the first time he’s seen her. But what is the man about? He will never make a show of himself before all these people; he can’t be so far gone as that

  To my surprise he turned to Thessalos, as if saying, “Is that the one?” His brother pointed, nodding. Hipparchos beckoned one of the sacred heralds, and said something; he came down the steps, looking grave as became his office, but also like a man who has been given a shock.

  After saluting me respectfully, he said, “Sir, the Archon commands that the daughter of Proxenos must withdraw.”

  I stared at him, wondering if everyone had gone mad. Such a thing was unheard of. I just said, “Why?”

  The man, who under his ritual dignity was clearly as shaken as I was, answered, “The Archon says the girl was never invited. She is not a proper person for the rite.”

  By this time my stare had become a glare; or so Bacchylides told me later. I said, “I know nothing of this. All these girls have rehearsed with me. Of course they have been invited.”

  “Sir,” said the herald—an unhappy man if I ever saw one—“the Archon wishes to speak to you about it. Will you please go up to him?”

  I looked round at the girls. Till just now, their happy whisperings had been like the hum of summer bees. What I’d heard was their silence. All their eyes were turned one way.

  With a widening space around her, the young Delias stood still as a sculptor’s block. Then her basket began to tremble on her head. She grabbed at it, wildly without grace, and stood holding it in her hands before her. In her face, which had gone chalk-white, I saw not guilt, but horror; and yet, a kind of knowledge, a little, even if not enough. She knew why this had been done to her.

  The herald looked at me. I looked at the steps, and did not start to climb them. I was very angry, and wished to have it seen. The girl turned her desperate eyes on me, as if I had power to say, “Don’t be afraid; I shall not allow it.” She knew, as well as I, that I could do nothing. I was just the straw nearest her drowning clutch.

  I got rid of my kithara, and went and laid my hand on her shoulder. “My child, I am sorry. Some great mistake has been made, we can be sure. But we must all obey the Archon for the present. It is better that you go home.”

  I looked round for the mother. Her neighbors were not struck dumb as the girls had been. Hissing whispers were everywhere; some were not even whispering. I beckoned her to come and take the girl away. As she got up, leaving her fan behind, I saw she was near fainting; but after all, she was not the widow of Proxenos for nothing. She kept on her feet, though the girl was holding her up as they went out. The women’s chatter rose, mixed now with titters.

  There was a stir by the gate. A man was shouldering through the crowd to them. I had never seen Proxenos transformed with anger; but it seemed that I saw him now. The rage in Harmodios’ face was a boy’s no longer.

  He put an arm round his mother, who at once threw all her weight on him; here was the man of the family. The other hand he held out to his sister. She paused a moment, fumbling with her basket. He took it from her and threw it on the ground, and led them both away. I don’t think that he looked at her.

  I watched them go. Then I went up the steps to Hipparchos.

  He was staring after them. When he became aware of me, he’d forgotten that I’d been summoned. His face was like a mask of clay, from which his bloodshot eyes asked how I dared accuse him.

  “You sent for me.” In public, I should have called him Sir.

  That brought him partly to himself. I was supposed to have been told why the girl must be sent away, and to have gone back and dismissed her. I had saved him this trouble, a thing he could hardly complain of; but now I was here, he did not know what to do with me. It was a messenger he had wanted, not a judge.

  He said, “We will speak about this later.”

  It was all I’d left him to say; but I had been in no hurry to come, and now was in none to go. I stood and looked at him. No, it would not be true to say I no longer knew him. I had known him a long time. All I saw now I’d known; but only as a man can know that his lynx kitten is getting bigger, not really believing that its claws are growing too. He had been much praised, much loved, and much of it deservedly. His sense of his deserts had grown. Now he was sure that what he desired, he deserved, and anyone who denied it merited punishment.

  Whatever he’d become, it was not a fool. He had read me, as I’d read him. His bitter look said, Yes, I knew I could tell you nothing.

  I said, aloud, “I should have been told of this.”

  Thessalos leaned over. “How could we know she would dare show her face?” Hipparchos lifted a hand at him. I thought he’d brazen it out, but he fell silent.

  Hipparchos said, without insolence or anything else one could put a name to, “Simonides, you are a poet but not a priest. This matter has been settled by those whose place it is. We are here to serve a goddess. The High Priestess is waiting. Let the rite proceed.”

  I looked past him at the altar beside the porch, wreathed in its olive garlands, with the servers by it to take the offerings laid on it. There indeed stood the Maiden’s Maiden, robed in pure white, waiting to bless each girl as she did her reverence. A tall old lady, with a well-scrubbed, innocent virgin’s face, now looking severe as only innocence can. What could she know of all this, except that it was unseemly? Ever since she was a girl as young as these, she had served Athene Parthenos. It was for others, who knew the world, to see that the shrine was not polluted. Her work was holiness, not justice.

  I went down the steps, and beckoned my pupil for my kithara. He slung it on me, his eyes begging that everything should be well. I met them, and shook my head, and looked up towards the priestess. He understood. The goldsmith’s apprentice knows that gold can burn; but there is always a first time for feeling it.

  The girls were ready. They had closed the gap in their line. I signed to the flautist, and struck the first chord of the hymn. Their
fresh voices rose, all together on the note, saluting the city’s Guardian, who gave us the olive for our wealth, craftsmanship for our beauty, music for our joy, and justice to make us great. Gracefully they went up singing, carrying their pretty baskets to the altar.

  However, the grey eyes of Athene do not miss much. She knew, that day, that she was an offering short. It seems she did not forget it.

  4

  WE WILL SPEAK OF it later, he had said. Very well, let him send for me.

  A day passed; then a second day; and I began to guess what it meant. He would never send for me, not about this. Time would go by, new things would happen in the city. Then one day he would send for me, and greet me as if none of it had ever been. In silence we were to agree that it was all forgotten.

  I thought of Athens, the center of the world; of songs I’d made and would make, which foreigners would only half understand. I thought of Bacchylides, who now that Ionia was gone must be here, to hear the best. I thought of the victory chariot I’d become so used to mounting; of the tripod I had dedicated to Apollo. I thought of the man who had been my friend.

  When next he sent for me, all the old charm would be back again—with just a feeling that it might be taken away, if one showed oneself ungrateful. I would drink and sing and talk with him, never speaking of what I knew; and when the next thing happened, I would have got into the way of it. Everything just the same; except that my friend would have become my master, with whom I must seem friendly to get my pay.

  I had my men’s chorus to rehearse. There were some fine voices that year; while they sang I could forget the rest. But only then.

  Bacchylides was my pupil, which gave him all a son’s right to know my mind. We were walking back from a rehearsal, which he’d come to hear, when I found myself saying, “After the festival, I shall have to see the man, whether he sends for me or not.”

  He looked at me across the kithara, which he was carrying home for me. He was in no doubt what it meant. “Everyone thinks you stood up to him very well.”

  “For me it was not enough.”

  “You didn’t see yourself.”

  “Who’s ‘everyone’? The boys from the gymnasium? It will mean very little, you know, to most people in the city. The majority will take it that the Archon knew what he was about. Many will be glad to see an oligarch’s daughter set down. Only a handful will know the truth. This is a matter between me and myself. And you.”

  I knew that by now he was feeling desolate; but he said stoutly, “I’ll go wherever you go. Don’t worry about me.”

  “Not even that. If I leave Athens, it won’t be like traveling to the festivals. I can’t sit down in Euboia and let my life go by. I shall take my chance in Thessaly. For a time, at least, you would have to go back to Keos. I owe that to your parents.”

  “To Keos!” He almost shouted it. People looked round. “Uncle, I promise you, on Keos I’d go mad.”

  “No, you would not. You would make some songs, to sing me when we meet again, and obey your parents, so that they think well of my instruction. As soon as I have a settled home, it will be yours wherever it is, as long as I live, or you want to share it. But I’m not taking you to a land without law like Thessaly.”

  He looked round. “You said ‘if’ at first. Now you’re talking as if it were all settled.”

  “Perhaps I was. You were there; you saw it all; you know the girl was innocent. What do you think yourself that I ought to do?” I was not exhorting him; I really wanted to know.

  He saw it, and paused in thought “If you stayed, would it mean you had to tell lies?”

  “In my songs, do you mean, or in my speech?”

  “In the songs, of course.”

  “No. He has never asked me to flatter him. If the compliments stopped, he is still too proud to demand them.”

  “Uncle, you know that story about the man who was boasting of Corinth. And the Athenian said, ‘But we have Simonides.’ It’s true, you know. You do belong to the Athenians, and their heroes and their gods. Hipparchos is just one man.”

  “True. And we could eat well without his bread. But if I go to him saying, ‘You are no longer my patron,’ I would have to leave the city.”

  “He might kill you, you mean? Could he do that?”

  “No. He’d do nothing to me. Or for me, either. At the festivals he would just get other men to sing, and make sure I felt it.”

  “Then you would have to go, of course. But you know, I was there, I saw him. I think your friendship’s over, Uncle Sim, whether you speak to him or not. As it is, it’s a long time now since he asked you up to supper. But I think he’ll still call on you to sing for the Athenians, because if he stopped they would be angry. And it’s for them that you’ll be singing.”

  “Yes, that might be. There’s Hippias, too. He has no ear, but he thinks I am respectable and bring the city credit; and it’s he who has the last word.”

  “Will Anakreon stay?” His mind often ran with my thought.

  “I’ve not asked him, it would only give us pain. He will say it was all an unhappy business, but love is a lawless god. He’s his own man, I am mine.”

  He walked on awhile in silence, then said, “Thank you for talking to me. I didn’t like to ask. At any rate, it will all have to wait till after the Panathenaia. That does belong to the Athenians and their gods. It’s only three days now, and you’ve a great deal to do. After all that, something may come to you; things do, when you’ve been thinking of something else. Or I’ve found that, with a song.”

  It was the first time in his life that I had leaned on the boy like this, and his strength surprised me; which itself surprises me now. On the other hand, I have never thought him a seer. That one time only, a god breathed in his ear.

  5

  I SPENT THE NEXT night with Lyra, a promise long since exchanged. After hard work, I sought the refreshment of her healing springs, more needed than ever now. We lay at sundown, Aphrodite’s rites performed, watching the last light shine gold on the vine around the window, sharing a flask of Thracian wine cold from the well, lazily talking. She heard my story kindly, and told me I brooded on such things too much; though we both liked to choose our patrons, there were bound to be some misadventures here and there. She held up the wine-cup to my mouth, licked up what she’d spilled upon my shoulder, and added, “At least you tell me. There was a young man with me yesterday, who you’d have thought was having it for the last time in his life. I knew he’d be better for talking; but not a word. Some men don’t know how often we hold our tongues.”

  “He was the loser.” But Aphrodite was recalling me to her worship, and I had no wish to hear about other men.

  Next day the city buzzed, preparing for the festival. Crowds stood to watch the banners and garlands go up along the Sacred Way, from Athene’s temple down to the Kerameikos. I took my two choruses for last rehearsals, and was satisfied; in the presence of a watchful mother, I gave last advice to the leader of the maidens’ chorus. I would be leading the men, and she the maidens, standing on the prow of the Sacred Ship. She was a plump sparrowlike girl, who would not have looked much in the procession, but had a sweet strong voice and perfect pitch.

  In the evening Anakreon called, full of the day’s gossip. As I’d guessed, he said nothing about the events at the Presentation. He had not been there, so had no need; and we understood each other. Our friendship was a thing neither of us would sacrifice, each knowing that the good in it far outweighed the rest. I have been glad ever since that we both felt it alike.

  The day dawned perfect, sweet and balmy even before the sunrise, with a light breeze. The crowds were there already; in the Great Year, they come in from most cities in Greece, and from the islands. Bacchylides was away at cockcrow, to find his place in the dark; he had left a lamp kindled, for me to dress by, and beside it the kithara, groomed and polished like a race-horse. As I dipped my barley-cake in my breakfast wine, I gave myself to the day.

  At this one festiv
al, remembering all the heroes from Theseus on, Athenians of fighting age wore their arms. In their tribal groups, they were gathering all around the Kerameikos. They had made the best of their panoplies: leather corselets waxed and bronze ones burnished, helmets and spear-points gleaming. The cavalry, still more resplendent, were above within the city gate, wearing their scarlet cloaks. But Hippias himself was coming down to the Kerameikos, to lead the hoplites’ march.

  Further up, near the foot of the ramp to the Acropolis, the Ship of Athene stood on its tall car. At first light came its team of snow-white oxen; then the troop of girls, bearing its colored sail. It was the goddess’ new robe, which they had all been embroidering to last her till next Great Year; two girls would hold it spread from the mast, to be seen by all the people. I wondered how many stitches the daughter of Proxenos had put into it, and with what hopes.

  To be here, now, at the center of all this glory, making the music to which its heart would beat: what more could a man wish for, what more could he offer to his god? I thought, How can I go? It was for this I was born, if I was born for anything. I have grown into this, as a fig tree grows to its fruiting, rooted in a city wall. How can I forsake it, and not desert Apollo too? If he would only send me a sign!

  The girls were all gathered now. I went up through the crowds, to look at them in their beauty. Gowned and girdled and combed and crowned with flowers, by the hands of loving mothers and skillful slaves, they gave me grave smiles, too solemn now for laughter. I turned back downhill; the people who saw my kithara on its sling making way to give it room.

  A little way on, I heard my name called from above. Bacchylides had been in time to secure his chosen place. He had swarmed up the column of my victory tripod, and, like the Pythia at Delphi, was sitting snugly in the bowl. He grinned, calling out that it had the best view in the city. I shook my fist at him, laughing.

  Just below was the shrine of Leos’ Daughters; it had a good-sized precinct, with a stone slab in the middle, on which stood Hipparchos, getting the procession into its starting order. From time to time he got down, to direct anyone who seemed confused. He was an expert at such things, and it was all going smoothly.