The Mask of Apollo

by Mary Renault

  Pentheus denounces the god as a juggling charlatan, crops his long hair (the wig is a trick one), then orders him to give up his thyrsos. He, however, stands still. “Take it yourself,” he says quietly. “This belongs to Dionysos.”

  This line I spoke with its meaning; and Menekrates, who was a sensitive actor, played back to me, holding off a moment and pausing, before he snatched angrily at the wand. I turned to the maenad chorus, and made the gesture which says, “It is accomplished.” There was a hush, fraught, as I meant, with fear.

  The thyrsos is the madness of the god, which the man must choose for himself. Thus each fulfills his nature.

  The god came kindly at first to Thebes, saying, “Bring me all that wildness in your hearts; I understand it, it is my kingdom. My gift is the lesser madness which will rest your souls and save you from the greater. Know yourselves, as my brother Apollo tells you. You have need of me.” The Theban women answered, “How dare you? Would you make wild beasts of us? We have laws and live in the city. You insult us; go away.” That’s why they have the madness of the god without his blessing, and run on the mountains tearing wolves with their nails.

  Then comes Pentheus, saying, “You dirty foreigner, debaucher of decent ladies, don’t try your tricks on me. I am master of myself; don’t deny it, or I shall be angry. I am pure; I can’t rest for thinking of those women’s lecheries in the woods. To prison with you, out of my sight. Let me hear no more of you.”

  It is from the man’s own soul that the god with the smiling mask will draw his power, enchanting Pentheus with the hubris in his own secret heart. Once drunk on this sweet poison, he will know himself the one sane, righteous man in a wicked world. He has refused the little madness, to choose the great.

  Yet the god warns him, as gods do before they strike. One can play it mockingly; indeed, I had rehearsed it so. But suddenly, now, it seemed to me the mortal veil should be lifted here, for the man to see if he would. The line, You know not your own life, nor what you are, I spoke softly, pitching it at the echo chamber. It was a lucky try. I nearly frightened myself.

  Menekrates played back, recoiling. I had asked a good deal of him, changing the tone like this, but he had caught it. Well, I thought, when one sits with one’s mask, one calls the god. I must take what he sends.

  When we went off, the audience shouted and stamped, as people do after tension—another gift of Dionysos, I daresay. There was no such release for me. I did not lift my mask, though the sweat was pouring down my face. Menekrates put his hand on my shoulder, saying, “Niko, this is a great interpretation. This is truly Euripides, I am sure.”

  He has found out, I thought, if he didn’t know before. I loved him for his kindness, but could do with nobody just then. I said, “We shall do, my dear,” and went away.

  The chorus were lamenting their gracious leader in his chains. In my dressing room I could not rest, but paced about. The sun was well up now; on stage the mask helped shade one’s eyes, but one felt the heat. I wondered where Dion was sitting. The one thing I dreaded like death was that someone might come and tell me.

  It was time to command the earthquake. I was so wrought-up, I felt a shiver, like a sailor when someone whistles at sea. Well, let it come, I thought, as I ran backstage to the sounding board and made a noise like doom. The effects were tremendous; they can do anything at Syracuse—thunder far and near, whole columns falling, lightning that nearly blinds you.

  Out steps the god, delicately, from his broken prison, a human youth again, chaffing the maenads for their fright, while the fire effects smoke up behind him. Pentheus comes on enraged, his captive free, his roof on fire, his herdsmen in flight from the mountain maenads. He has learned nothing. He curses the smiling god, and orders his army to fetch the women. Even then Dionysos gives him one more warning. “Don’t fight the gods; it would be better to offer sacrifice. If you ask it of me, I will bring the women home in peace.” But Pentheus knows best; no smooth-tongued Lydian shall trick him. He calls for his armor. He is like the mouse that runs about before the crouching cat. And now the paw comes down.

  Pentheus has had his run. Now the god will play with him. Yet it is not Dionysos who by himself has devised the game like a cruel child. It takes two to play. The god is that which is. If we will not know him, it is we who make the ironies the Immortals laugh at.

  When the scene was done, we stood listening to that great chorus which stops one’s breath each time—the beauty before the horror. Menekrates said, “Niko—we don’t do this next scene for laughs?”

  “No,” I said. “But someone will laugh in any case. They have to. Never mind it.” I had played myself in, and knew where I was going.

  We were coming to the scene where the god leads forth King Pentheus in a woman’s robe. Softly his wits have been charmed away; now, obedient as the bird to the swaying snake, he goes to spy, as he thinks, upon the maenads who will tear him piecemeal. Dionysos walks around him like a tiring-maid, patting his hair and dress, stealing even dignity from his dreadful death; while the insensate man giggles at the joke, or boasts that his strength can uproot the mountains.

  Euripides wrote this play in Macedon, where, if this did not get some laughs, it would much surprise me. But wherever you play it, and whatever the interpretation, one hears it somewhere—from someone on edge, or from one of those you are sure to find among so many thousands, who would laugh still more if the lynching were done on stage.

  This, I thought as I walked on with raised arm to summon Pentheus, is the scene our sponsor and his lord have so much looked forward to. We shall see.

  This was what the mask of Dion had been made for. Mockery like this is a crucifixion, meant not just to hurt but to kill. Even in comedy it can finish a man; a few score know him, the whole city knows the lie. It was so with Sokrates, they say.

  As soon as Pentheus entered, the catcalls and laughter started. One can always tell a claque, they react too soon. Others—democrats, or those who just wanted to hear the play—hissed and shushed them. I had been prepared for all this. Presently they did me the honor of attending.

  Much as I had asked from Menekrates, now he gave me more. Whether he read my thoughts, which can happen when the god consents, whether he was making his own answer to what had been put on him, I do not know. Both, I daresay.

  Pentheus has refused the god’s offered good, and now is given the evil. The god is more wicked now than ever the man dreamed at first, and it is the victim’s fate to trust him.

  This scene can be done in many ways. One can make Pentheus a loud-mouthed tyrant burlesquing his own pride, with Dionysos all wit and charm. One can direct the sympathy this way or that. This time, Menekrates needed no telling; he could not have matched my purpose better if we had rehearsed for weeks. In the previous scene, he had built up Pentheus’ sincerity, his striving for order, and fear of the excess which makes men less than men. Now he showed a man better than his fate, a king in ruins, wrecked through a noble hubris—the belief that man can be as perfect as the gods.

  When rehearsing with the chorus, I had arranged in this scene for them to sway forward when I raised my arm, like hounds when the huntsman lifts the quarry. They were intelligent boys; when I heightened my gestures, they worked it up. I heard one or two women scream in front. By this time everyone pitied Pentheus, and felt horror of the mocking, cruel god. But of course the claque kept on; they had been paid to. So at the peak of the action, the pack as it were just closing in, I made one more gesture, wider and higher, bringing in these people, as if they too were my servants. The audience took it, and so did they. There was quite a hush.

  “I bring the young man to a great contest,” says Dionysos as he goes. But the worst of mine was over. I had given the Messenger’s great narration of the death to young Philanthos, to give him his chance, though the protagonist often takes it. He was glad; but not half as glad as I felt now. Pentheus was out of the play; Menekrates now changed masks for the crazed Queen Agave tossing her dead son�
��s head. I left him to dress in peace for this testing role. He was good—though not better, I think, than my father was.

  He played the Recognition; the audience groaned and wept; I appeared upon the god-walk dressed up for my epiphany, to pronounce everyone’s doom; and the play was done. The chorus sang the famous tag, the flutes receded; we came forward mask in hand to take our bows. When applause is noisy at Syracuse, the echo chamber picks it up, and it goes right through one’s head. Mine was aching already.

  I lay down (the first man’s room there has every luxury) and let my dresser sponge me. He talked away, as they do, and I was glad of it. My mind was filled with darkness. I had done my best, for Dion, and the god, and my own honor; but one can’t enact a living man’s death without horror, when one cares for him. What he himself must feel, I could only try not to think of. I had borne enough.

  Menekrates came in, a towel flung round him, his dark body gleaming with sweat. “Niko. What can I say? That cursed mask came with the call boy. What could I do?”

  “Do?” I said. “I never had such support from another artist in all my life. I was coming to say so. Has the sponsor come behind?”

  “Not that I know.” He dipped his towel in the basin and rubbed it through his hair. “But I’ve not been out looking.”

  “I doubt he’ll come carrying garlands. But that’s the theater.”

  As I spoke the door opened, and the usual crowd came in, poets and gentlemen and courtesans and merchants and young bloods, with their attendant sycophants, and, nosing among them, like rats when the cargo shifts, government informers and spies of various factions, mentioning the mask and asking clever questions. Menekrates and I kept saying, “Thank you, thank you,” and looking stupid. As long as we kept quiet, nothing could be charged against Menekrates. The protagonist directs; they were not to know how we had rehearsed it. As for the choregos, there was still no sign of him.

  At last they all went. I was alone, putting on my street clothes, when someone came to the door. It was Speusippos.

  There was only one man I had dreaded more to see. He looked worn and ill. I greeted him, and waited to suffer what must be. He was a man who could make his anger bite.

  “Niko—I saw the crowd leaving, and thought you would be here.” Then he saw my blank face, and said with tired courtesy, “I am sorry to have missed the play. I have been with Plato. I was passing, and stopped to tell you. Dion has been exiled.”

  No other man, I suppose, is so full of himself as an actor just off stage. For a moment I thought he was blaming me for it. I expect no one to credit this, except another actor.

  “Come,” said Speusippos, “it could be worse, he is not dead. We shall see him in Athens.” He looked about; I told him my dresser had gone. “You know how it’s been, like dry brush waiting a spark. It happened through the Carthaginians.”

  I gaped as if hearing of this race for the first time. I don’t know how he kept his patience.

  “I told you, he’s been in touch with their envoys; he’s the only man they are used to treating with, or fear in war. He was sure they would push forward if they knew he was out of power. He wrote to the envoys, men he knew, asking them to let him see their terms first in private. Someone played him false, and gave his letter to Dionysios.”

  I said nothing. One needed to know no more.

  “I imagine his vanity was hurt,” Speusippos said impatiently. “But it was Philistos persuaded him that it was treason. We knew nothing of this. On the contrary, Dionysios made Dion a great show of friendship, said he regretted their late estrangement, and persuaded him to an evening stroll by the water stairs, to talk things over. Our authority for the rest is Dionysios himself, who, as you may suppose, has never stopped talking since. He spent hours with Plato, trying to justify himself. I had to leave, it was so disgusting. He wept, laid his head in Plato’s lap … I thought that I should vomit.”

  “But where’s Dion?”

  “Gone. During the seaside walk, it seems Dionysios suddenly pulled out the letter and faced him with it. He says Dion could give no proper explanation. No doubt he gave one which stuck in Dionysios’ craw; it’s the truth that vexes. In any case, everything was arranged beforehand, the ship at anchor, the boat at hand. I daresay it was done in less time than I’ve taken to tell you. You can imagine what Plato has been suffering, not knowing what orders had really been given, and whether Dion hadn’t in fact been dropped overboard with a stone tied to his feet. But of course he guessed our fears; as soon as he was in Italy, he sent a courier over. He is safe enough. But the cause, Niko—the cause!”

  I had no time yet for the cause. I said, “A courier? From Italy? Then how long has he been gone?”

  “Since yesterday. Of course it has been kept from the people. That’s why he was sent off so quietly.”

  We talked on, I suppose. He went. I stood in the empty dressing room, hearing the shouts of the cleaners who were sweeping down the benches, calling across the theater. No echo of us, no footfall left. So short a time since I had wrestled with the god, with twenty thousand people, with Dion, with Philistos, with my own soul. Dion had been gone, knowing nothing of it. Philistos had not stayed away in anger; he had serious business. I sat like a grain of sand in a scraped-out bowl, listening to the grasshoppers on the hillside.

  Someone coughed hoarsely. An old man stood in the doorway. I thought he had come to clean, and told him I was just going. He paused, and shuffled his feet. I saw he had a basket with him; he had been selling figs, or sesame cakes, or some such thing. He cleared his rusty throat again.

  “Pardon me, sir. But when I was a chorus boy, I heard Kallippides in that role. He was the best of my young day, not a doubt of that. But to my mind, you put more into it.”

  After he too had gone, Menekrates came hurrying. “Niko, I waited, I thought your Athenian friend was with you. What’s the matter?”

  I should be starting to laugh soon. I answered:

  In vain man’s expectation;

  God brings the unthought to be,

  As here we see.

  “But never mind. I have had an oracle from Dionysos.”

  Menekrates looked at the lynx-eyed mask on its stand.

  “Won’t it wait till we feel stronger?”

  “No, my dear, it won’t wait. Never keep a god waiting. He said, ‘Get drunk.’”

  12

  NEXT DAY PHILISTOS SENT FOR ME TO BE PAID. I had lain awake half the night, thinking what I would say to him. I kept improving it, till I wished I had written the best parts down. Then I slept; and in the morning I saw I could forget all I had thought of. Menekrates’ home and kin were in Syracuse. Dion, in exile, might need a messenger who was not suspect, and could come or go.

  Philistos received me in his business room. His desk was heaped with state papers, just like Dion’s’ before. His red pouchy face, with hard little eyes in smiling folds of flesh, made me queasy, like pork when one is seasick. He greeted me as someone he had discreetly shared a joke with. As I knew, he had not been at the play, but he commended my performance. His Egyptian accountant came at his hand-clap, with a big heavy leather bag. I waited for it to be opened, but Philistos just pushed it over. It had the silver talent mark.

  In recent years, I have been paid as much for one performance; once, indeed, a rival sponsor offered me even a little more to go sick and not to play. But in those days it was a sum beyond belief. No actor got such money. I paused, to make sure there was no mistake. I have never been so glad in my life that a fee was big.

  “Thank you,” I said, “on behalf of the company, and myself.”

  “My dear Nikeratos,” he answered, breezy as a sailor, “your company is provided for. This is your own fee.”

  This saved me the trouble of doing sums. I pushed the bag back again. “Will you offer it, please, at the temple of Dionysos, for some dedication in my name?”

  He went on smiling, but not with his little eyes. “Have you some reason?” he said, and watched me.


  “Yes, I have. I was not satisfied with my performance.”

  “Everyone agrees you performed outstandingly.” He did not say it as a compliment, but with hard suspicion. Having pretended he had seen me, he could hardly now go back on it.

  “I think not. Conditions were against me. You have a very well-equipped theater here; but I prefer to play where poet and artist are taken seriously.”

  “What do you mean?” he said, in a voice which did not ask, but threatened.

  “Portrait masks are for comedy. In tragedy they distract the audience. To spring such tricks on actors in performance is to treat us like clowns at a fair. What is this money for—my reputation? Thank you, but I’m afraid it is not enough.”

  He spluttered, then forced a laugh and held forth about the vanity of artists, quite believing, now, that this was all, and, of course, that I would take it in the end. With some trouble I undeceived him, and left him admiring my self-importance. It had never struck me this might impress him, but of course he was just the man. I could see, when I left, that my consequence had been raised with him.

  I would have liked to leave at once. Just as when the old Archon died, the streets were full of muttering groups, the citizens in their factions, foreigners with their kind. Now and then soldiers would go past: a great Gaul staring haughtily over people’s heads, a swaggering Nubian shouting to another across the street in their unknown tongue; or a group of Romans swinging along in step together, taking everyone’s size in the self-sufficient way these people have, as if wondering when they would get orders to clear the street. The mercenaries were making their good spirits known. What the citizens thought, they were not telling.

  No man has less taste than I for getting caught in foreign civil wars; yet I had thought that out of all those people I had heard praising Dion’s justice, someone would strike a blow for him. But no. I was in Syracuse. They waited to see what would happen to them next; they had forgotten they could themselves make happenings.