The Praise Singer (7 page)

The promise was kept, as such promises sometimes are. The song is still given sometimes, and people have asked me who this young Polykrates was. Only Ibykos’ name has kept it in the repertoire. Anakreon always said it was the worst thi?ng he’d ever done, notable only for its gross sycophancy. As he said later, “Shameless as a dog, my dear. He must have made it before he’d even seen the boy, who was no fool and knew it. He hardly knew where to look, any more than I did. However, he’s the apple of Father’s eye, and that’s all Ibykos cared for. It’s made his fortune in Samos.”

For Anakreon, this was sharp. But different men as we were and different artists, we had some things in common. I have never come to want in my calling, I am glad to say; but I have gone where my work was liked as I chose to do it. Neither he nor I were like robe-makers to whom anyone can say, “Cut it this size, and trim it so.”

Kleobis did not say much next morning; only that everyone had been very civil, and the fee would be useful till something came our way. Soon he was picking up small engagements at houses of the Landsharers. They would never have been offered to a man in the Tyrant’s favor; nor accepted by a man who had any hope of it. He was an old-fashioned singer, who had no more sense than to take on an ugly pupil, and sing of immortal loves where mortal ones were the mode. The court had already forgotten him.

Perhaps he should have stayed in Ephesos, and cheered the citizens in their servitude. The Medes, after all, only required that poets should not abuse them; they could sing about anything else they chose. Here in Samos, it was not what one must not sing, but what one must. Tell a man what he may not sing, and he is still half free; even all free, if he never wanted to sing it. But tell him what he must sing, take up his time with it so that his true voice cannot sound even in secret-there, I have seen, is slavery.

I suppose this is hardly just to Polykrates. In his way, he loved the Muses. He paid well for what he liked, and if he did not get it he did nothing worse than lose interest. We had been free to come, and were free to go. Now he is dead and I am old, I can see all this. In those days I was young and bitter.

At the tavern I was making enough to keep us both. But man does not live only by bread and olives. Kleobis’ heart was dying in him. His new patrons gave few feasts, so did not invite him twice. Before long, he would depend on my base employment. He blamed himself for it, guessing that if alone I would have moved on by now; but he had lost the will to plan ahead. He talked always about the past, and lived in that.

Where could we go? He was too old to start again in the wild north; Anakreon, young and among his own people, had found he could not bear it. Athens, an old friend to art, was near; but they had had civil wars for years, lords against commons, coast against plain; Pisistratos, the commons’ choice for Tyrant, was now in, now out, now back, and would no doubt be out again. By myself, I might have tried my luck in Thessaly. Though some of its little lords were not much better than bandits, and I did not know the country, I was strong, and used to hardship. My master was used to it too, but it had begun to tell. It was for me, the son of his art, to see that he had no more.

I thought of my father in blood. I was a rich man’s son, and much good it did me.

I had sent no news home since the fall of Ephesos. They did not know I could write, and I’d trusted to word of mouth to tell them I was alive. My occupation was no fault of mine; but I could not see my father thinking so. However, my pride was no longer mine to do as I liked with. I bought reed-paper; when Kleobis was out, I sat down and wrote a letter.

To Theasides son of Leoprepes, his brother wishes joy. Suddenly I started laughing. I could hear him say, “Sim, by the dog! Whatever did the boy pay to this learned fellow? The street-corner scrivener would have done.”

I told him everything. I was not in want, I said, and had no need to beg of our father; but the war had ruined my master’s former patrons. Were any feasts or contests being planned in Keos, where he could come and sing? I did not ask Theas to hide my letter; that would come naturally at home.

It was easy to find a Kean ship. Since Ionia fell, two-thirds of them put in at Samos. It was my luck to see Laertes, whose wedding had changed my fate, walk into the Victory. He had carried landless fugitives from half-a-dozen cities, and found nothing surprising in my present work. Nor, being a neighbor, was he surprised at being asked to give my letter privately to Theas. To my father, I sent respects by word of mouth. Before I sealed my letter, I added by way of postscript,

A horn-handled knife, my brother,

you won for strength at the games.

Me it won from dark Hades,

saved by your gift though the sea divided us.,/p>

That was the first time I wrote a poem down. It felt very strange.

The days passed. I found the uses of memory. What with my own songs, and all those I’d learned (I had the Sons of Homer entire), by the time I ran out, I could start again at the beginning. Meantime I ate and drank and could take home all my pay. Often I could make as much as an extra drachma, if a song was asked for by name. And it might even be one of mine.

Anakreon looked in sometimes, and was always charming. He and Ibykos seemed to have patched things up. Ibykos, having sung his way into royal favor, had sense enough not to make an enemy of a poet whom fame and charm alike had made secure. As for Anakreon, he liked to please and be pleased; the bile Hipponax lived on would have poisoned him. Indeed, he resented Ibykos less than I. In Anakreon I knew a master. I suppose, in my heart, I thought I could better Ibykos myself.

About eight days after I’d sent my letter, Theodores gave a supper for his apprentices; they had just set a new marble up. He asked me for my Bellerophon, a favorite of his (though I’ve improved it since then) and I was singing to his table, when I was half aware of someone with presence, standing in the doorway till the song was done. I took my applause, and turned. A tall splendid man, gold-bearded like a young Zeus, shouted out, “Sim!” and grasped me in his arms.

After a while, aware of everyone staring, I said, “Gentlemen, this is Theasides, son of Leoprepes of Keos, my brother.” It was my proudest moment in that house.

The house enjoyed it. Ionians are curious and love news. We put off private talk, while Theas told how he’d heard of the fall of Ephesos, feared for my life, and so on. You’d have thought, to hear him, that I was Keos’ most honored citizen, the ornament of my family. Time fell away, as I felt the cloak of his kindness once more drawn over me.

Theodoros had been eating him with his eyes; soon he pulled a chalk out of his pouch and made sketches on the table. He had lately been employed to sculpt Polykrates’ favorite, Bathyllos, the green-eyed flute-player. Like a fish he was all head, and boneless beneath the neck; you could have wound him round a flagpole.

Everyone cried that I must sing something for my brother. I gave them some old favorite with a clapping chorus; then everyone danced. When the party broke up, and we walked into the street, we poured out our news as if we had been meeting every day, except that there was more to tell. Outside my lodging, he said, “I won’t trouble your bard to find a bed for me. I’ve put up at that inn the pilot’s brother keeps, the Vinestock.”

“What?” I cried. “Theas, that’s the dearest place in town. The rich merchants stay there. They’ll seize your baggage if you can’t pay. Come, settle for what you’ve had, and come back here.”

He laughed, and slapped a jingling purse at his belt. “All found. I’m here to do credit to the family.” I looked at him. He grew serious. “Laertes slipped me your letter in the fields. But he had to tell them you were alive; and he never thought to hide what you were doing. He knows Ionia, thought nothing of it, and said you were one of the lucky ones. But you know the father.”

Yes indeed. I should have been singing for the Land-sharers, men of decent birth; that would have pleased him, even more than the Tyrant’s patronage. Before disgracing us all at a common winesho?p, I should have come home, asked for his favor, and lived decently on the farm. My choice must have spoken for itself; there seemed nothing I could do that did not wound him.

Theas clapped me on the shoulder. “Next time, write a letter we can show off to our friends. No one knows you’ve become a scholar. But what got into you, not to know what to do? Have you been so long away, you’ve forgotten the Apollo festival?”

It was true; I had. The moon was waxing now, and it came at the next new moon.

“Only stand up at the contest,” he said, “and sing as you did tonight, and the rest will be wondering why they troubled to try.”

It had long been out of my thoughts, to sing in Keos. Time and change had touched the boy who had flinched before; the roads of the earth and the ways of men, learning and skill, pride and anger. A man thought now, Yes, I could sing before my father.

I knew it should be now, while the mood and strength were in me. But I knew also that here, at last, was something I had to give. “Another year; not this. Kleobis must compete this time, and I can’t enter against my master. He needs to be crowned again.”

“Why? How could he grudge it you? He’s won a dozen crowns to your one.”

“That is why. He is going down and feels it, and it’s no fault of his. He is losing pride, and with that he will lose everything. I can wait; he can’t.”

He looked at me, in a patch of moonlight. “The old man took good care of you.”

I nodded. I did not say, He has been my father. We never said things like that aloud. “When you meet him, don’t speak about my competing.”

“Very well, Sim. If that’s the way of it, you must pay your debts.”

Next morning at our lodging he kept his word. “Everyone still talks of Laertes’ wedding, sir. Your song must have brought good luck; two boys and a girl, and lively as young goats. It would be a great day if you came again.”

Kleobis smiled, and his eye kindled a little. He sat stroking his beard. Presently he said, “My dear boys, it is part of a poet’s skill to judge occasions. There are times to compete, and times to present a pupil.. When the pupil returns to his native city, not having yet been heard there, he will arouse, if he does well, both pride and wonder. In these the teacher has his share.”

Theas looked at me, meaning, “Just what I thought myself.”

I, too, could see the truth in it. It was also true that if he entered, and someone of note should chance to come and win, that would be his death-blow; and I thought he knew it. He had not pushed me when I was afraid, and I owed him the like return.

“Sir, if I can show Keos even half of what I owe you, it will be the best day of my life. But only if you are there to see it.” Never mind if I don’t win, I thought; if they see Black Sim, Leoprepes’ youngest, do anything at all, they’ll believe his teacher can work miracles.

“You’ll honor our house, I hope, sir,” Theas said. I nearly jumped out of my skin; but he spoke with confidence.

Clearly, he had come to be a power in the family; Leoprepes’ eldest was already a man to reckon with.

As he left, he said, “If you want me later, Sim, I’ll be at the workshop of your sculptor friend, Theodoros. He wants to sketch my buttocks, or some such thing.” We exchanged mock punches, as we’d done when we were boys.

What Theodoros really wanted of him was to have him pose for a bronze of Perseus. He did it, too, staying for some days as the sculptor’s guest. He always liked, he told me, to see how things were made.

I too enjoyed the making of a bronze, though I’d seen it once already. It had a kind of magic, unlike the slow chipping and smoothing of stone or marble. Theodoros had been to Egypt to learn the art; there, they had been casting life-size time out of mind, when only little votives were being made in Greece.

He had a huge yard down by the harbor, full of sheds and hoists and scaffoldings, all powdered white with marble-dust that got up one’s nose. The noise was dreadful, at least for an ear like mine, what with slaves sawing ?blocks or chipping them down for columns, grinding and polishing column-drums. There was also a clattering forge where they were making rivets to fasten wall-blocks together. Clang-clang went the great hammers, and tink-tink-tink the little ones, as some skilled apprentice made the trims for a bronze. Hands over ears, I threaded my way to Theodoros’ own workroom, which was swept and polished and had a great table full of drawings and plans. On a dais stood my brother, splendid in nakedness, one arm propped up on a wooden stand. He was to be holding up the Gorgon’s head, and the torso muscles had to show the lift. Before him stood Theodoros in his working dress, which was a small apron to keep the grit out of his private parts, and a great deal of clay daubed here and there on the rest of him. He had set up the core and was putting on the first surface, talking with Theas; the touchy part of the work was still to come. Theas used to say he learned enough good stories as Theodores’ model to dine out on for the rest of his life.

Two days later, he could hardly open his mouth without being snapped at. I myself had known enough to come in on tiptoe. Theodoros was washed clean from dust and clay. My brother’s face returned me to my boyhood; he had shaved his beard. It was the statue’s skin that was being finished, down to the finest touch; the nipples, the hair of head and groin, the face. Its color had changed from clay-grey to a creamy white like alabaster. Theodoros was working upon the wax.

It had been spread with a hot knife over the clay and left to harden. Now he was smoothing it with a warm tool, or graving it with a cold one. Not to be in the way, I went over to the table. At one end were the set-squares and compasses and plumb lines of the architect; at the other, under the window, the tiny tools of his gem-carving, the vise and the treadle-wheel for the drill. A young man came in, and set down softly a hideous white waxen mask. The chief apprentice had been trusted with the Gorgon’s head.

“Please, Theodoros,” said Theas like a boy at school, “may I go outside?”

“If you must, if you must,” said the master, who must have known he was too well-mannered to ask unless he was bursting. “Yes, take a rest, I can finish the ears without you. Look in that tray, Sim, and you’ll find his eyes.”