The Praise Singer (20 page)

The women were not gathering to leave together, as they had entered. Their partners had got down with them. The first pair was already before Hipparchos, holding hands; I could half hear, and clearly see, the complicit thanks, the answering smile of felicitation. Only now it came to me that the party had been just the appetizer of Hipparchos’ feast. The main course would be enjoyed in private. He had bought for each guest a night with one of the first hetairas in Athens. It was his little joke. He had done it mainly for me.

I don’t know how I saw so quickly that something was wrong. Since I was a man, I’d been used to seeing men leave parties with women they had picked up there, dancers or flute-girls or hetairas. It had been expected by everyone, the host, the guests, the woman. In late years I’d done it myself, if a girl made it clear enough that she was willing; I still half feared the disgrace of being refused in public. One made one’s own arrangement, said thanks to the host, and collected the girl as one left; she might wave to friends, one’s own friends might shout good wishes. But this was different. This girl with her grace and pride had not been fooling, playing the game of courtship when already bought. She’d believed she was free to choose.

Her head was turned away; she was watching Milto’s face, as Antenor led away laughing Phylinna. I said quietly, “You were not warned of this.”

She did not look round. “Were you?”

“No. Could you not tell?”

“Yes. I am sorry.” She was very angry, though, and I felt the burn from it. Her long fingers were clenched on the gold-starred border of her overdress. Half to herself as she watched the room, she said, “The fee was high. But it was not that kind of message . . . Some of them knew. Phylinna did. Not Milto . . . Look, he is amused.”

Well, I thought, a host who gives a surprise treat at a party is bound to look amused; no doubt he meant it for the best. I was more concerned with myself. I could feel the heat of shame crawling all over me.

“If I had been asked,” I said, “I would have told him I never yet forced an unwilling woman. I am not to everyone’s taste; I know it, and so should he. Don’t fear I’ll do anything to spoil your evening. I daresay we had better leave together. Or would you rather show them all that you do just as you wish?”

We should soon be the last to move. She turned to look straight at me with her large blue eyes; then suddenly she laughed, very sweetly, like a good singer going into a song, and slid an arm round my neck. Laying her head on my shoulder, she whispered in my ear, “What are you thinking of? Look happy, kiss me, do you want to offend him? Quickly! Now! We can talk as you see me home.”

From her face, she could have been crooning me endearments. I kissed her and she clung to me. It was hard to let her go; but I did not want her to think I was for taking my present after all. We went up to the Archon’s couch, where he and his old hetaira were dismissing each couple wittily. Lyra stepped up gaily, swinging our joined hands. “Well, Simonides, my friend,” he said with his most charming smile, “have I made up at last for my neglect of you?”

I was inspired to answer that he had given me the theme for a thousand songs, and no poet could ask for more.

“And a lyre, I hope, which will answer sweetly to the hand.” For a moment his eyes moved round to her.

She bent her knee, spreading her glittering gown in her right hand, and said lightly, “Oh yes, my lord, there will be music.” Then we were out, with the linkboy waiting.

He walked before us at a decent distance, being well trained. I gave her my arm because the path was steep, and because of the linkboy. Presently s?he said, “Did you mean it, that if I’d chosen, you’d have let me walk out alone?”

“Certainly; it was your right. Thank you for sparing my pride.”

“Your pride?” Her voice had risen; quickly she brought it down. “You never thought that was all? You must be mad. He would never have forgiven you.”

“Oh, he meant it for a joke. One never knows what he will think of next. Thanks to you my face was saved.”

“And you thought the joke was on you? You should think better of yourself, my friend.”

“But on whom else?”

“On us, of course. Milto once displeased a friend of his; he doesn’t quickly forget. As for me . . . perhaps he thinks I need taking down a little. He doesn’t like women much, you know.”

“I never heard him say so. Why should he care about them one way or the other? He does without them very happily.”

“Why indeed? But a man need not scold like a Hipponax, for one to know.”

“Hipponax! You must know the poets well.”

“Oh, enough to converse with my guests, I hope. Besides, any man who wants a curse to throw at a woman has heard of him. I don’t know what they would do without him.”

“Well, his fame his outlived him. He would be glad of that.”

“Would you rather live on by cursing, or be beloved and die?”

“The second, but I hope to avoid the choice.”

“If you knew Hipponax, you must have known Ionia.” I began to tell her about it, when, too soon, the linkboy stopped at her house. I paused only to bid her good night; but she drew me near and whispered, “He might tell tales. You had better come in awhile, if you don’t mind walking home without a torch.”

“I shall have starlight.” I gave the man something and dismissed him. A lamp was burning inside, with scented oil. It was a guest-room which Anakreon himself would have approved. Four supper-couches of pale polished pearwood, a sideboard with a fine wine-cooler and red-figured cups, a little gilt Aphrodite on a marble stand. Everything was light and cool, no whore’s trimmings at all; even the wine-cooler was painted with a scene of decent revelry. A curtain of patterned loom work hid the room beyond.

“Stay a little,” she said, “to be sure he’s gone. He may have been told to wait and see.”

“Yes, indeed.” I did not yet presume even to smile. “He might go round the corner and come back.”

“A cup of wine, then. Try this. A friend of mine ships it in from Samos.”

It was excellent, just as good as what Theas brought me. “Tell me more,” she said, “about Ionia. I shall never go there, now. Some women do, and I hear some of them prosper; but the Greeks who govern for the Persians do what they like with people like us, and I could not be at anyone’s bidding. Tonight I should have known better; I was luckier than I deserve.”

When the cups were empty, I made half a move to go, just to show I was taking nothing for granted. Our eyes met smiling. She took up the lamp; but it was not to the outer door that she lit my way.

Beautiful Lyra! Like the zenith moon, more lovely when the robe of stars was shed; like the moon, making no false vows that her light was for one alone. In the years I loved her, I can’t pretend that I was ever free from jealousy; but I was never mocked, never betrayed or cheated. She had handsomer lovers-you could say that for most of them!- and richer, and higher-born; but when she said, “Simonides, you are my truest friend,” I knew I was the only one to hear those words from her. Indeed, she was as good a friend as a lover, which is saying much for her friendship.

I made many songs for her; first to praise, and later to amuse her. They are sung in Athens still. It is hardly ten years since she died. When she had put away her mirror, as the saying is-not that she ever really did it!-we were dear friends still. As I said to her, “If you like, turn the young men away. But you are still ten years younger than I, and very much better-favored.” Not that I had her to myself, even in those days. She was the kind of woman old lovers always come to with their troubles, or to talk about the past.

W?hen I knew her first, she dazzled Athens, and great men sent gifts to her door. She accepted their flowers and garlands and their presents of fruit and game, but never took jewels from men she had not slept with. She did not like, she said, to live in debt; and besides, she liked it known who her chosen friends were. Indeed, men would brag even about having been asked to one of her parties, and she charged a good deal for the privilege; but she never let anyone buy himself in if he was boorish or tedious or made jealous scenes. She set her style. It was no wonder she aroused envy in women; and, as I’d learned at Hipparchos’ party, also in men.

As for the contests she’d told me of, they were of various kinds, as the whim took her, or sometimes the need of money. Then, having ensured that no one she disliked was there, she just put herself up to auction. I was never present on such nights. Though well off for a poet, I was poor as her lovers went; and, besides taking thought for my feelings, she liked to see a sporting run. When wealthy rivals were there, the bidding went high, and there might be no such contest again for several months. She spent a great deal of money, having, as she said, very simple tastes. She hated clutter and tawdriness and mess; all she asked were a few good things, standing where she could see them; things that were plain and tasteful, like Egyptian alabaster or heavy gold.

Most of her contests, however, were for her own amusement and her guests’. Some were absurd, and the outcome left quite to chance; I remember she once had a bath brought in full of live fish, which we had to catch one-handed. The prize was always the same; so the contests were very eager. Some of them went by favor, for her poorer lovers. There was a young athlete well known for his straight eye with a javelin, who could hit the bowl just as straight at kottabos, and could have won with both eyes shut. Very soon after I knew her, she held a contest for a song.

She called me last. After the skolions and catches, I gave her something new, a hymn to violet-eyed Aphrodite. Then I was king of the feast, till it broke up soon after. It was understood on such nights that the victor would be waiting to enjoy the prize. 183

No pleasure comes free. On the night of the javelin-thrower I lay awake; he was a handsome fellow, whom I knew she’d wanted; I guessed he was learning more about the management of his javelin than he’d ever known. Well, it is all gone by. Aphrodite herself could not raise my old spear now, and I can scarcely recall the rage of that wakeful night. Yet her beauty lives for me as clear as ever, her room with its treasures, her laugh, her friendship. Often, still, I find myself thinking, I must tell Lyra that.

We were gossips from the first, exchanging my court news for hers from the city. Between Hippias’ gravity and Hipparchos’ boys, courtesans scarcely passed the doors of either Archon. It had been different, old men said, in Pisistratos’ prime. Only performers and musicians were hired for the suppers now, and it was seldom that even dancing-girls were asked to sit with the guests. So Lyra valued my fresh bits of news, more than some of her costlier presents. I was glad therefore to bring her word that Onomakritos had been exiled, a scandal that shook the court for days.

As guardian of the oracles, he had great consequence with Hippias, who never so much as received a foreign envoy without consulting him first. He and his scrolls had been moved to the temple of Athene, and he was made free of the inner sanctuary as if he were a priest. This suited him well; he was a solemn man. Most of us got used to him; but not the young poet, Lasos of Hermione. It was his nature to dislike pomposity, and he let it show. So, when he had offered to present a dithyramb in honor of Theseus’ victorious return from Crete, and it had been accepted, Onomakritos produced some ancient oracle which said the day should not be honored by any ruler; it was most unlucky, King Aigeus having taken his death-leap then, on see?ing his son’s black sail.

The feast was called off, and Lasos was enraged; he had already rehearsed his chorus. He came bursting into my house at breakfast-time, burning with his wrongs. I shared my food and wine with him-he had been too angry to sleep or eat-and said, to calm him, that between us we could surely get the piece put on to celebrate some other deed of Theseus. In respect of Aigeus’ death, the oracle did make a kind of sense.

“What kind of sense?” He ran his fingers through his fair hair; he was a stocky, pink-faced Argive. “It was a lucky day for Theseus, it made him King. And for Athens too, he was a better king than his father. No, it was spite, Simonides. It’s my belief that old fraud makes half his oracles up.”

“I’ve seen the scrolls; they look a hundred years old to me.”

“They look dirty, you mean. From old inscriptions I’ve seen, a few generations back they had a different way of writing, more like Phoenician. They’re hard to read. Not his. He makes them up, I swear.”

It was true that those I’d seen, I’d had no trouble in reading. “All the same,” I said, “you might find yourself well out of it after all. Suppose you sang your dithyramb, and by chance some piece of bad luck did happen. Or Hippias got some notion stuck in his mind, about rulers being put out of the way. Then, if anyone were ever mad enough to try such a thing, your song would have an unhappy echo.” I put this carefully; it was the fruit of Lyra’s gossip.

After some thought, he said I might be right, but if so it was the fault of that old dog-face, and it was time he was shown up. When, on the day he would have sung his dithyramb, we had an untimely hailstorm, I said that Onomakritos did seem to have smelled out an unfavorable day. But I might as well have saved my breath.

I was surprised when he began professing to Hippias a keen interest in ancient oracles; it seemed he had taken on a contest against a master. Most people took it for mere sycophancy, and I got a number of unsought compliments for not having stooped to it. I had my own suspicions, so thought it better to hold my peace, for Lasos’ sake. Onomakritos was far from a bad poet, if rather portentous as a man; and stood well not only with Hippias, but with Hipparchos too, having composed a whole Dionysiac rite for him with action, music and words. If he’d stayed in Athens, I shouldn’t wonder if he would have gone on to tragedy. He was a dangerous enemy; and I feared that Lasos, whom I liked upon the whole, would get the worst of it.

However, Hippias received very well his modest seekings, and at last was so pleased with his new pupil that he took him to the sanctuary to see the oracular scrolls. From there he rushed panting to my house, crying in the doorway, “I knew it, Simonides! I knew it!”