The Mask of Apollo: A Novel

10

I ENJOYED MY TOUR WITH MENEKRATES. WE worked well together, though I had been warned of him, behind his back, as a man who would not give. Theater in Syracuse is full of malice. Maybe he did not like being put upon, having had plenty of that at home, but as I never tried it I cannot say. After running through a few scenes with him I knew that he was sound, so chose plays with strong second roles, and never had to regret it.

It was at his suggestion that we put into our repertoire a modern comedy by Alexis. He is such an innovator, tragedians might as well play him as old-style comedians. Not only has he got away from all the topical satire and scolding which stale as quickly as cheap wine; he has even dared to put away that poor old prop the phallos, too tired these many years to pleasure the goddess Thalia much. Alexis has real men and women in real scrapes, natural masks for the juveniles and the sympathetic characters, and, between the jokes, much kindness for mankind. Menekrates said he liked to think, when he took off his mask, that maybe someone in front had gone home less ready to beat his children. This was about as near as he got to talking about his boyhood. It was a pity, I thought, that he and Dion would never understand each other.

We had both started young and poor and slept hungry in old straw; we laughed over it together, sharing our pleasure in good food at clean inns. Often we improved even on this, for Sicilians are theater-mad, and lords with land to the horizon would not only ask us to supper, but put us up. The backstage gossip of Athens or Corinth was all they asked; if one felt like giving an excerpt from some success not yet on tour, then nothing was too good for one. As for the peasants, they would walk all night to see a play, when the grind of their lives would let them. At Leontini, Tauromenion, Akragas and Gela, even in the little towns, the audiences were splendid and took all the finer points. The skies were blue, the fruit trees blossomed, thyme and sage scented the hills; and we had, as Menekrates had foretold, no competition. The leading men of Syracuse feared to lose status by doing local tours, and were holding out in the city for better times and then, when they did not come, going off to Italy. Our own third actor and extra were much better men than we would have had when things were easy. We made good money, and lingered in the pleasant places.

No one we met believed for a moment that theater could stop in Syracuse. People laughed or shrugged, saying young Dionysios had run through a dozen crackpot whims already; we should get back to find him learning the kithara. Hadn’t we seen for ourselves that all Sicilians had theater in their blood? At this the company would all cheer up, and I myself along with them; then I would think of Dion, trying to shift from its foundations a forty-year load of tyranny, and would be at odds with myself, not knowing what to feel.

We were playing Heloros, which is about twenty miles south of Syracuse, when we heard of bandits in the hills. By now we were carrying a good deal of silver, from smaller towns which could not give us bankers’ letters. I showed the company the accounts; it was agreed I should go over to the city and get the surplus takings safely banked.

I did this business without trouble, and went to look about me. The theater tavern I avoided; by now it would be a desert of old men and embittered failures. I chose a wineshop where the gentlemen resorted; it had a cool shady courtyard with a vine. I had hardly sat down and given my order, when a voice cried, “Niko! What are you doing here?” It was Speusippos, Plato’s nephew.

He came over to my table, as usual well dressed and barbered; yet I thought at once that he was not as young as I had supposed, the wrong side of thirty. Lines showed in his face, and his mouth looked drawn.

I offered him a drink—which he refused, saying he had just been drinking with some Syracusans—and asked how long he had been in Syracuse. He said he had come out shortly after Plato, who was in need of help with his work and correspondence from someone he could trust.

I had always liked Speusippos. In spite of his hot temper, he was not the man to pick a quarrel, or drag it on. Though he was agreed to have one of the best minds at the Academy, and was an expert on the growth and properties of plants, he also studied girls and horses and the theater, and found no trouble in talking with common men. I would have been pleased to see him, but for his look of having had bad news.

He asked about the tour; I told him, since Plato had better know, how rooted the theater was in Sicily. He nodded, but I saw this was the least of his troubles. So I asked outright whether Dionysios was making good progress.

He ran his hands through his dark hair, upsetting the barber’s curls. “Progress! You met him, I believe. The progress a boy makes with his book, while someone is showing him a cockfight.”

I looked round; I had been in Sicily long enough for that. But he was no fool; the near tables were empty. “Philistos?” I asked.

“You know the man?” He had sharpened, as if eager for any scrap of knowledge about a dangerous enemy. I said I had barely seen him, but had heard things before I left.

“You’ll hear more now. And mostly praise. Can you believe it, Niko? That venal, greedy old lecher, who did as much as anyone to set up the tyranny! Now they call him a sound statesman because he wants the city kept in chains, and a good fellow because he wants to make the man whose slaves they are the slave of his own appetites.”

“Well,” I said, as one Athenian to another, “they were bred up without justice, like bats without light. It must hurt their eyes.”

“We all come from the light, Niko. The soul can remember, or forget.” For all his easy manners, he was Academy through and through.

“How much,” I asked, “does Dionysios’ soul remember?”

He gave a short laugh, then answered seriously, “Enough to open his eyes. If that were all.”

“He won’t work for it,” I said, “and wants to blame someone else?”

“You must know him well.”

“No, I’ve known actors like him. Yet Plato is still in favor?”

“He won’t hear of his leaving. Of course all Greece would know, and say the son had followed the father. But I don’t think it’s only that.”

“Nor I. So he loves him still?”

He looked down his high-bred nose. As a youth he must have been striking. Perhaps he had had some share in Plato’s love.

“You may call it that; or you can say he would like to be Plato’s best student, without working. Of course he would like to be Philistos’ best student, too. He has rolled by this time in enough logic for some to stick; he knows when two propositions exclude each other, but …”

“But he feels,” I said, “right down in his soul, that logic should make an exception just for him.”

He propped his chin in his palm and looked at me. “You are mocking us,” he said.

“What am I, to do that? A phantom in a mask, a voice of illusion.”

“You too, Niko, even you.”

A harsh Sicilian sunbeam stabbed down through the vine, picking out the lines of thought and pleasure in his face, deepened by weariness. He had meant it; in his trouble even I had power to cast him down.

“Forgive me,” I said. “‘He who mocks sorrow shall weep alone.’ But if you think me sour, talk to some Syracusan actors, and I’ll seem like honey.”

“It is your life,” he said wearily. “I know it. But somewhere the surgeon’s knife must cut, or the patient dies.”

“Artists are few among many; that I understand. But bear this in mind, Speusippos: while you, sitting in front, are watching our illusion, we are looking at reality. While you see four men, we see fifteen thousand. Twenty years I’ve played to them. One learns a little.”

He said harshly, “What do you mean? That they won’t forego the theater? Or something more?”

“Well, both. What is it you Academics say of Plato? Like his master Sokrates, he won’t sell his teaching, he’ll choose his audience. Does he think he can do that here? He must make do with what comes, just like an actor.”

“Plato was born among great affairs, and has lived with them ever since.”

Here’s another, I thought, who loves him still. I said, “Once at the Dionysia, someone in the skeneroom fell down deathly sick, and they fetched a doctor. The good man came running, took the wrong door in his haste, and found himself upstage center, standing next to Medea. Hasn’t Plato seen yet where he is?”

He fetched a deep sigh. “Oh, Niko. I think I will have that drink you offered me.”

I called the boy. When we were alone again, he said, “What do you think I was doing here before you came? I’m about the city all day, scraping acquaintance, joining hetairas’ evening parties, talking to bathmen and barbers, to learn the temper of the people. It’s the best I can do for Plato; that, and staying away from the Palace. The Archon thought we were too close; he was getting to hate me nearly as much as Dion.”

“Hate!” I said, shocked. “Has it come to that?”

“Hush,” he said, as the boy came with the wine. Then, “On your life, Niko, keep that quiet. Every day that doesn’t bring it out in daylight is something gained. So far it’s only slights, coldness and pinpricks. If it comes into the open, what can Plato do? Honor, truth, the pieties of friendship, are his very soul. To put it as low as you can, he is a gentleman. He can’t be neutral. It would be the end of this whole great mission.”

“Nearly two months ago,” I said, “I tried to tell Dion this.”

“It is hard,” he said slowly, “for a lover of truth, who lives in a corrupted polis, not to become rather unbending. He has seen too much base compromise; any accommodation scratches his integrity. With his looks, he must have come young to that.” He frowned into his cup, and drained it. I lifted the flask from its bed of snow, and poured again.

“At the Academy,” he said, “we think that truth, being man’s highest good, should be sought like joy, not endured as children take a purge. From that faith comes all philosophy … Don’t look so anxious, Niko, I won’t engage you in elenchos. I mean it’s no shame to make persuasion pleasing. If you want clear water, don’t tease the squid. Plato is forever saying that to Xenokrates—a kind man, if he would own it to himself—who charmed you so by likening actors to whores. ‘Sacrifice to the Graces,’ Plato says; I told him once I’d build them an altar in the garden. Well, not long ago I heard him say it again; but to someone else.”

“You mean Dion?” The blood stirred round my heart. I slammed my cup down on the table. “He need not sacrifice. He has the graces of a king. Why should he use a courtier’s? Do you know what I think, Speusippos? If it comes to an open break, so much the better. Then he will be free to take his rights.”

Speusippos’ face changed. He laid his hand over mine; it looked affectionate, but his nails dented my flesh. I took their message and was silent. He leaned forward and dropped his voice discreetly, but not quite enough. “Of course, my dear, if they quarrel you shall be the first to know. That is, if you really want to court this boy? But I warn you, he’s spoiled, as mercenary as he’s pretty, and tells more lies than a Cretan.”

I had heard, while he spoke, the benches scrape close by, and thanked him with my eyes. “You’re jealous,” I said, “because he went home with me after the party. A charming lad. I can’t think why you call him mercenary. When he asked me for my ring, it was only as a keepsake.”

When I returned from the city to our inn at Heloros, the company crowded round me, asking the news from Syracuse. I told them I could not see much change. All their faces fell. I asked myself why I was hiding news which would have made them happy. They were fellow artists, and friends. The third actor, Philanthos, a promising young man who should have been playing second in better times, had stopped at every shrine of Dionysos along the road, and made some little offering.

I had affronted Dion to his face—with such difference of rank one can scarcely speak of quarreling—yet had been ready almost to fly at Speusippos for his sake. If Menekrates and the others, elated by my news, went drinking to his speedy downfall, no doubt I would also fly at them, which they did not deserve.

Trying to understand myself, I thought how often I had sat before the mask of some hero king—say, Theseus in Oidipos at Kolonos—to feel my way into his greatness. As Plato said (from what I could make out of it), before there can be imitation, the original must exist. Can one hate the Form whose essence one has tried to enter? But having found the nature of my problem, I was no nearer solving it.

We played one or two more engagements, and a return visit to Leontini. Having seen us in Alexis’ comedy, they now offered us a chorus, to put on Hippolytos at a public festival. I played, as the protagonist always does, Phaedra and Theseus; Menekrates was a good Hippolytos, moving in the death scene; and we had an excellent house. The party which followed went on till dawn; the hotter it gets in Sicily, the more they turn night into day. We were all offered hospitality, my own host being a retired captain of Dionysios’ mercenaries, one Rupilius, a Roman, but quite civilized in his manners; he had been given some land here, by way of pension.

It was past noon the day after the party, and I was still in bed, playing with a breakfast of melon chilled in snow and pale cold wine from the slopes of Etna, when my host scratched at the door. Begging my pardon for waking me so early, he held out a letter. It had come from Syracuse by fast courier; the man had changed horses, and was waiting for my answer.

I put down my cup on the marble side table, and took the letter. It was sealed with a crest which I could not make out, the shutters having been closed against the noonday glare; but I could think of only one. He needs me, I thought; in some trouble he has turned to me. He trusts me still.

If my host had been Greek, he would have been dawdling by me, in hope of learning all about the letter; but Romans are too proud to show curiosity, which they think undignified, and he had withdrawn. I jumped out of bed in the dim room, opened the shutters, and stood naked in the sun to read. The strong light dazzled me; it had been a real Sicilian party. I blinked and tried again.

“Dionysios son of Dionysios, to Nikeratos of Athens. Joy to you. When you spoke our late father’s epitaph, we expressed the wish to see you in classic tragedy, when the mourning time had passed. Cares of state, and our course of studies, caused us to defer it. These studies being now complete and ourselves at leisure, the City Theater will present, on the ninth day of Karneios, the Bacchae of Euripides, with yourself as protagonist. You may choose your own supporting actors. A not unworthy chorus is already training. Philistos is choregos. Farewell.”

I read it twice. Something stirred in the courtyard; it was the courier’s fresh horse, waiting to take my answer back.

I closed the shutters, and threw myself on the tumbled bed. The room smelled of melon rind and wine and sweat. The flask was still three-parts full; I reached for it, but put it back. It would not help me think.

Syracusans use the Dorian calendar; I tried to think which month Karneios was. It must be the coming one, our Metageitnion. The ninth was fifteen days ahead, barely time for rehearsals.

Why, I thought, did I ever come back to Sicily? I had my work my friends, my life at home; I knew where I was, there. Out of a thousand actors minding their own business, why must it fall on me to be grasped by both hands and pulled in half? When did I speak the bad-luck word? What god have I offended?

Not Dionysos; here he was, through his mortal namesake, inviting me to play himself in one of the greatest bravura roles of classic tragedy; no deity of the machine, but the kingpin of the action. I thought of young Philanthos, lingering by all those altars with his pinch of incense or bunch of grapes. Who says the gods don’t regard men’s offerings? After a command performance, he could step into second roles at once. As for Menekrates, he would do a first-rate King Pentheus—his Hippolytos had shown me that—and be made for life. His family would offer him the chair of honor, and Theoros stand up for him.

Dionysos blesses his faithful servants. So much for Dionysos.

I lay a long time, while the flies buzzed round the melon rind, my arms behind my head, watching a gekko on a beam. At last I got up, and opened the mask-box on the table. This time I had brought it with me.

I propped the mask upright on the pillow, and lay before it, naked in the oven-hot Sicilian afternoon, my chin cupped in my hands. It gazed back at me, not empty-eyed as in those months at Athens, but secret, Delphic, dark. It answered nothing, only asked. “Are you not Nikeratos, son of Artemidoros, who said to a man he loved and honored, ‘I will choose the god, rather than you?’ Choose me then, if you can find me. The courier is waiting, and so am I.”

“Phoibos,” I answered, “they call you Longsight. You can see what this means. This is Philistos’ triumph-song. Dion is out of power. Standing before your image I said I would not fail him. Must I sing for Philistos now?”

The mask looked formal and holy, as in a temple. “Truly, friendship is sacred. Guest-friendship above all.”

“You mean Menekrates. My lord, I know. I am bound to both. What shall I do?”

“Most men count the cost.”

“To my fortunes? Little either way. If I play, I shall have a fine role with a handsome fee, and my company will love me. If not, I can go back to Athens and say I refused the tyrant. Everyone will admire me, and someone will give me an important lead, to reward my constancy, and because a well-liked protagonist helps a play to win. Someone else will pay: Dion, or Menekrates, as the case may be.”

“Which loses most?”

“Each loses something dear.”

“Are you a god, to measure loss with loss?”

“Apollo,” I said, “we are starting to talk in stichomythia. This is not a play.”

“You say truly. Well? Are you asking me to help you choose between your friends? You said you would choose me.”

He had stared me out. I laid my face on my folded arms, but not to weep. I could do that later. The courier was still waiting. At last I said, “It is my turn to ask you if I am a god.”

He answered in the voice of Speusippos, “We all come from the light, Niko. The soul can remember, or forget.”

“Dion remembers, or so he and Plato claim. Justice, and the good life.”

“They remember their share.” A sun-glint through the shutters struck the pillow near him; the reflected light changed his face; he seemed to smile. “And you? What do you remember?”

There came before my eyes, seen through those very eyeholes, the theater at Phigeleia. I felt on my head the hot gold wig, smelling of Meidias, the lyre in my hand, my youth beating like wings in me, and words sounding out across the empty battlefield. I said aloud:

The gods wear many faces,

And many fates fulfill

To work their will…

Far off in the mountains a shepherd’s pipe was sounding. Now Phigeleia was gone; I heard Athenian flutes receding, the singers dying away beyond the parodos, the stillness left in the heart.

“Well?” said the god impatiently. “So you remember the tag of The Bacchae. I should suppose as much. No more?”

He was going to tell me, so I waited. “It seems to me, Nikeratos, that when last you sat in front to see this play, you said something to the youth beside you. He was not attending, since it was not for his knowledge of Euripides that you had sought him out; but I, as it happened, overheard. Don’t you remember? ‘To my mind, Phrynon, one cannot go everywhere with Euripides. He is sometimes impassioned over dead things, the war, the oligarchs and demagogues of his day, or that old scandal when the Spartans bribed the Pythia; then he gets angry himself, instead of leaving justice to the nature of things, which after all is tragedy. The old scores are settled, the scar on the play remains, like the mark of an old rotted goat-tether on a living tree. With The Troiades he rose above it; but with The Bacchae he digs down far below, to some deep rift in the soul where our griefs begin. Take that play anywhere, even to men unborn who worship other gods or none, and it will teach them to know themselves.’”

There was a silence. He waited a little longer, then said in a voice as cool as water, “Do you deny those words?”

I answered, “No, my lord.”

“Goodbye, Nikeratos,” said the mask, making its eyeholes blank. “The oracle is over.”