The Song of Orpheus

by Tracy Barrett

  Pallene and her sister, who had given up on ever marrying, were thrilled at the news of the arrival of these suitors. Rhoeteia helped Pallene dress for dinner with particular care—twining fresh flowers in her dark hair, using the burnt end of a twig to line her eyes with charcoal—as they tried to guess their father’s plan.

  That night, they entered the banquet hall under the watchful eyes of their parents and their beloved guard. Quietly, they took their places at the women’s table. As musicians played pipes and stringed instruments, a juggler and an acrobat performed, and dogs yipped and fought over scraps, the girls discussed the strangers.

  “They’re both handsome,” Rhoeteia said.

  Pallene agreed, but her eye had been caught by Kleitos. He was good-looking, but more than that, he listened courteously when others spoke, and when the performers circulated among the diners with their bowls, he generously gave them large helpings off his plate.

  “I like that one,” Pallene said. “The shorter one, with the light hair.”

  Eros, the god of love, happened to be there with a quiver full of the golden arrows he used to make people fall in love. Being in a good mood, he decided to help the princess, so he shot two of his golden arrows: one into Pallene’s heart and the other into the heart of Kleitos, just as he glanced at Pallene. Both fell instantly in love.

  When King Sithon stood, the room fell silent. “Honored guests,” he began, “here we have two suitors for the hand of my daughter Pallene. I am an old man—” He waited modestly until the cries of “No, no!” and “You’re still in your prime!” died down. “It’s time for the girl to be married, but her husband must be worthy of her.” He turned to Dryas and Kleitos. “In three days, the two of you will fight one another from chariots. Whoever wins will become my son-in-law. Whoever loses,” he looked around the room, “will die.” The king sat down as low murmurs and buzzing conversation rose around him.

  Pallene had lost her appetite. A strong, tall man would stand the best chance of winning such a swordfight, and Kleitos was smaller than Dryas. She knew that she could not change her father’s mind once he had made a decision. All she could do was pray that somehow Kleitos would be victorious. And over the next few days, the more Pallene saw of the two, the more she liked Kleitos—and the less she liked Dryas.

  The night before the chariot race, Pallene didn’t sleep at all. How could she bear it if Dryas won the fight? Toward morning, she wandered into the garden. The stars moved overhead, and when dawn broke in the east, she sat on a stone bench and sobbed quietly.

  “What’s wrong, princess?” The familiar voice of her old guard broke in on Pallene’s thoughts. At first, she was reluctant to confide in him, but he managed to coax the truth from her. “You’re sure you wish to marry this man?” he asked.

  “Oh, yes.” She started to cry again.

  The guard stood up. “I’ll see to it.” His voice was firm. “Don’t worry. If this is the man you want to marry, you will marry him. Just leave it to me.” He hesitated. “It will take a little money.”

  “Whatever you need.” Pallene handed him the pouch of coins she wore around her waist. She didn’t care what his plan was, as long as Kleitos won. “If it’s not enough, just tell me.”

  The guard hurried away, and Pallene went to the field of combat. People had been gathering since the night before to get a good view of the contest, and now they were shouting and cheering. The princess climbed up to the royal seats, where her mother and sister awaited her. She was eager to learn what the guard’s plan was, but frightened at the same time. What if it didn’t work? How could she bear to see Kleitos killed?

  When King Sithon strode onto the sandy field, leading a white bull, the crowd fell silent. The king recited a prayer to the gods, dedicating this fight to them and begging them to let the more worthy man win. Then he drew his gleaming knife across the bull’s throat, spilling its blood over the high stone altar and onto the sand as an offering to the gods.

  Pallene looked around anxiously but didn’t see the guard anywhere. Had he failed her? She shuddered. “What is it, sister?” Rhoeteia asked. Pallene shook her head. She wished no harm to Dryas, but she couldn’t stand the thought that Kleitos’s blood would probably be spilled on that sand in a few short minutes.

  Sithon joined his wife and daughters in the stands, and the spectators rose to their feet, cheering wildly, as two chariots appeared at opposite ends of the field. The opponents climbed in behind their drivers, each clutching his sword in one hand and his shield in the other. Then the crowd fell silent. Their bronze helmets covered most of the fighters’ faces, but everyone could sense their grim determination.

  When Sithon shouted, “Go!” the drivers slapped their reins on the horses’ backs, and the animals took off. The spectators shouted themselves hoarse with excitement as the horses picked up speed, tearing across the field.

  All of a sudden, one of the huge wheels on Dryas’s chariot began wobbling dangerously. But Dryas’s driver, instead of trying to slow the horses, dropped the reins and held onto the edge of the vehicle with both hands, as though aware that something terrible was about to happen. Then he jumped out, leaving Dryas alone in the chariot. Dryas flung his sword and shield away and grabbed desperately at the reins to try to stop the horses.

  Pallene leaped to her feet in horror, her hand at her throat. Kleitos shouted at his own driver to stop, but before the man could react, Dryas’s chariot crashed onto its side, flinging its passenger onto the ground. Kleitos instantly jumped down and stabbed his rival, killing him.

  It all happened so fast that Pallene was bewildered. Kleitos had won and that thrilled her, but why hadn’t Dryas’s driver checked his chariot to make sure it was sound before they climbed into it? Why had he jumped out instead of reining in the horses as soon as the wheel started to wobble?

  The crowd ran to congratulate Kleitos and to carry Dryas’s corpse off the field. Preparing to burn his body in a magnificent ceremony, they built a huge funeral pyre. A man who had fallen in such a contest should be honored.

  Pallene tried to rejoice at Kleitos’s victory, but she couldn’t. Her feeling of dread grew when she saw two men walk over to the broken chariot and crouch down next to the wheel. They pointed at something and spoke in excited tones.

  Then one of the men ran to where Pallene stood with her family and knelt before her father. “Sir,” he said, “someone has tampered with that chariot.”

  “Tampered?” Sithon asked sharply. “What do you mean?”

  “The pins that were supposed to hold the wheel to the axle—they’re not there. Someone took them out. The wheel jolted loose as soon as the chariot hit a stone.”

  “Bring Kleitos and both drivers to me,” the king ordered.

  Soon the three men stood before Sithon, Dryas’s charioteer looking terrified, Kleitos and his own charioteer looking bewildered. “Tell them what you told me,” Sithon barked.

  After hearing the man’s suspicions about the wheels and the axle, Dryas’s driver said, “You can’t blame me if the chariot fell apart. I didn’t make it happen. I only jumped off to save my life. If anyone is to blame, it’s the man who was supposed to attach the wheels to the chariots. Why—”

  “Search him,” the king ordered, cutting short his excuses. In a moment, the pouch that Pallene had given the guard was found tucked into the charioteer’s robe. People murmured as the king spilled a small heap of gold coins out of the pouch.

  “That’s—that’s not mine,” the driver babbled. “I was just holding it for a friend.”

  The king ignored him and turned to Kleitos, whose mouth gaped open in astonishment. “What do you know about this?”

  “Who, me?” Kleitos looked even more confused than before.

  “A charioteer wouldn’t earn this much money in a lifetime,” Sithon said. “Someone must have bribed Dryas’s driver to take the pins out of the wheel to cause this accident. Who else but you would pay him to kill your rival?”

 
Kleitos had no answer. Pallene tried to speak, but her father hushed her.

  “Take Kleitos to the altar and slit his throat,” the king commanded.

  Then a voice spoke from the crowd. It was Pallene’s guard. “Kleitos had nothing to do with it,” his deep voice boomed. “I was the one who paid Dryas’s driver to loosen the pins that held the wheels to the axle. It’s my fault Dryas died.”

  “And where did you get the money?” the king demanded. He knew how little he paid his servants. The guard fell silent, but the king saw him glance at Pallene.

  The king turned to her in fury. “From you? From my first-born daughter, my favorite, the girl I loved so deeply that I fought off every man who tried to take her away from me?”

  The guard tried to protest that the money was his, that Pallene had had nothing to do with the accident, but the king was too furious to listen. “Bring my older daughter to the funeral pyre,” he ordered. “There I will sacrifice her to appease the shade of Dryas.”

  In vain did the guard protest that Pallene had not known what he was planning to do with her money. In vain did Rhoeteia beg for her sister’s life. The king wouldn’t listen. No matter who had paid the bribe, his daughter and her love for Kleitos had caused the death of a brave man. Both justice and the king’s honor demanded her death in return.

  Without another word, Sithon strode off to the beach, where dry wood had been piled high, ready to set alight. Dryas’s pale, lifeless body lay on top of it.

  Pallene shook off the hands of the men who tried to drag her to the pyre and walked toward it as serenely as if she were taking a stroll in the palace garden. She tried to calm her terror, despite the wailing and sobbing of her sister. “It will all be over soon,” she told herself. When she saw her father, a grim expression on his face and a blazing torch in his hand, she hesitated. Then she swallowed, held her head high, and approached him.

  But Pallene never reached the king. The heavens, which all day had been a lovely pure blue, darkened. The wind rose into a roar, and as the crowd scurried for shelter, rain fell so heavily that no one could see the person standing next to him.

  The strange storm ended as suddenly as it had begun, and when the bewildered people moved out of their shelters, wringing out their soggy robes and slipping in the mud that just minutes before had been firm ground, they saw a woman standing in front of the pyre, which was, of course, soaked through. It would be impossible to light it for days. The woman was so lovely—and so dry—that everybody knew instantly that she was no mere mortal.

  “I am Aphrodite, goddess of love,” she informed them. “And if you are looking for someone to blame for this death, look no further than my own son, for it is due to him that Pallene and Kleitos fell in love. Put away your knife, Sithon, and give your daughter to this man. I myself will see to it that Dryas’s shade rests easily in the realm of the dead.” With those words, she disappeared.

  Sithon was relieved that he wouldn’t have to burn his daughter alive. He wasted no time in following the goddess’s orders, and within a day, Pallene and Kleitos were married. Sithon died soon after, leaving Kleitos to rule, and Kleitos renamed both his country and its capital city Pallene in honor of his beloved wife.

  I Do—But Do I Have To?

  Some ancient Greeks might not have been happy to marry the person their parents chose for them, but you never see anyone in ancient times saying that it’s unfair that you can’t marry for love. Being with the one you love wasn’t the point of marriage. Choice of a spouse was a business and social matter—even, in the case of powerful families, a political matter. True, there are some stories from ancient Greece about loving couples, but being in love with your spouse was considered a lucky outcome, not something you could count on. Most couples who fell in love probably did so after the wedding, not before it.

  BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR

  Ah! Almost halfway through!

  Wait—where are you going? Can’t you stay a little longer? I’ll try to be quick—I can’t stand to be this close and not finish. If you have to be somewhere, can’t you use that little thing you people always carry and tell them you’ll be late?

  Thanks. I appreciate it, I really do. That little thing you talk on is awfully handy, isn’t it? So many misunderstandings that made problems in the myths could have been avoided if someone had been able to get in touch with people who were far away. If Kydippe had been able to call the plowman and tell him to bring the oxen back—but you don’t know what I’m talking about, do you? Here’s what happened.

  Like I said before, some things never change, despite all your modern technology. For three thousand years, I’ve heard complaints that young people are spoiled, that they don’t respect their elders, and that nowadays—whenever “nowadays” might be—everyone treats them as if they were more important than their parents. Maybe this is true and maybe it isn’t, but people said it back in my time and probably before then, all the way back to the Golden Age. What do you think? You’re young, but I’ll bet you don’t feel like everyone worships you, right?

  Anyway, that’s what this myth is about. Youth is supposed to be such a great time of life that—well, you’ll see. I’ll warn you that this tale has a sad ending, or at least that’s how it would probably seem to you modern folk. A lot of the ancient Greeks would have thought it was a really happy ending. You can decide for yourself.

  More than two thousand years ago, two teenage brothers named Kleobis and Biton lived in the proud and independent Greek city-state of Argos. The brothers were as proud and independent as their homeland. Like most people of the time, they were farmers. Their father was dead, and they lived with their mother. They weren’t rich, but they were comfortable enough. Their mother, Kydippe (not the same Kydippe who was tricked into marriage by Akontios), was a priestess in the service of Hera, queen of the gods.

  When it came time for Hera’s festival, Kydippe was eager to go to her great temple, the Heraion, to help with the celebration. She got dressed and made up with great care, since a priestess’s beauty honors the goddess. The white makeup that covered Kydippe’s face made her look like a lady of leisure who never had to work in the fields, and bright rouge made from crushed berries reddened her cheeks and lips. A servant darkened her eyelashes and eyebrows with charcoal, joining the line of her brows over the bridge of her nose, and carefully painted sacred designs on her cheeks with a slim brush. Another servant bound her hair into an intricate knot at the back of her head. Dressed in a tunic of the finest linen, Kydippe wore ornaments of gold and jewels in her hair, around her neck and wrists and ankles, and on her fingers.

  “You’re as beautiful as the goddess herself,” Biton told her.

  “I’ll go harness the oxen to the wagon,” Kleobis offered. He went to the barn but came back almost immediately. “The oxen haven’t returned from the field yet,” he said. “But don’t worry, Mother. Surely they’ll be here soon.”

  At first, Kydippe wasn’t concerned. True, the temple was five miles away and the oxen had been plowing all morning, but they were powerful. They had enough strength to get Kydippe to the Heraion in plenty of time to participate in the sacrifice and the other rituals planned for that day.

  But time passed, and the oxen didn’t appear. Both boys went out to look for them, but the fields were large and the oxen were nowhere to be seen. The priestess paced up and down, worry spreading across her face.

  Her sons drew aside to confer. “Do you think she can walk all the way to the temple?” Kleobis asked.

  Biton shook his head. “Not dressed in her finery.” They imagined their mother’s face streaked with sweat, making her eyeliner run and her reddened cheeks smudge. The other priestesses would be appalled, and Kydippe would be mortified. Besides, it would be dishonorable for a priestess to arrive on foot like a common person.

  Kleobis looked at the wagon. He knew the disappointment his mother must feel at the prospect of missing the festival. Even worse would be her fear that failing to show up
would anger Hera, the powerful goddess-queen. No, he couldn’t allow that. He glanced at Biton and saw from his brother’s eyes that he too was determined to get Kydippe to the festival on time.

  There was only one thing to do. The boys hitched themselves to the wagon and leaned hard into the yoke. At first the wheels refused to turn, but then slowly, slowly, the brothers were able to move down the drive, until they came to a stop in front of their mother.

  “Boys, you can’t pull me all the way there!” Kydippe exclaimed.

  “Of course we can,” Biton said.

  “Climb in, Mother,” Kleobis added. “You don’t want them to start without you!”

  A servant helped Kydippe, still protesting, into the wagon, and she settled onto the seat. She had no need to use the reins or whip, of course. Kleobis and Biton pulled her over the dusty road in the hot sun, over pebbles and rocks that scraped their sandaled feet, until they reached the Heraion.

  The priestesses were just about to go ahead with the ceremony, even with one of their number missing. Only once their mother had been safely escorted to the sacred area did Kleobis and Biton allow themselves to be unhitched from the wagon and take a drink of water. As the sacrifices and prayers began, everyone exclaimed at their strength, and even more, at their love for their mother and their piety.

  When all the rituals had been performed and the feast had ended, the worshippers settled down in the temple for the night. Kydippe looked at her two boys, deep in exhausted sleep. They were so handsome, so young, so full of strength, and so dutiful. Everyone admired what they had done, and other women were already telling their own sons to be as good and as pious as Kleobis and Biton.

  Quietly, Kydippe stood before the altar of the goddess and said a prayer from her full heart: “Dearest Hera, goddess-queen, ruler of the heavens, you too are a mother. You know how I love these boys, and how they have honored both you and me by what they did today.