The Mask of Apollo: A Novel

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BY THE TIME I WAS TWENTY-SIX, I WAS NOT QUITE unknown in Athens. I had played first roles at Piraeus, and at the City Theater done second in some winning plays. But they had had big male roles for the protagonist, and my best ones had all been women’s. It would be easy to get typed, being my father’s son; while anyone casting a great female part would think first of Theodoros. It was a time which comes to many artists, when one must break away.

It would take more than applause at Piraeus to get my name on the City Theater fist of leading men. Competition was deadly; the books were full of old victors who could hardly count their crowns. But there were still contests in other cities; it was now I should try to bring home a wreath or two.

My mother was dead. I had dowered my sister decently and got her settled; nothing held me in Athens; and I am footloose by nature, like most men of my calling. For all these reasons, I went into partnership with Anaxis.

It is a good while now since he took up politics full time. His voice and gestures are much acclaimed; and every rival orator, who wants a stone to throw at him, accuses him of having been an actor. Well, he chose his company, and is welcome to it. But though he might not thank me now for saying so, at the time I am speaking of he was very promising; and I have always thought he gave up too easily.

He was older than I, past thirty, and had a name for touchiness; but one could get on with him if one did not tread on his corns. His family had been rich, but lost everything in the Great War; they never got back their land, and his father worked as a steward. So Anaxis, though he had talent, only wanted to be an artist with half his mind; with the other he wanted to be a gentleman. Any fellow artist will understand me.

He was the only actor I’ve known to wear a beard. How he bore it under masks I can’t think, but even in summer he only trimmed it. He valued the dignity it gave him, and he certainly had presence. But he was growing no younger, and had not got on the list; so he was getting anxious.

Under our contract, we would take turns as directing protagonist. He was fond of the stately parts, like Agamemnon, which meant that even when the choice was his, he would be handing me some first-class acting roles. Always the man of breeding; on other hand, he did live up to it. He might be pompous, but was never sordid or mean, which is worth something, on tour.

We had a booking at Corinth in a brand-new play, Theodektes’ Amazons. Anaxis, who had the choice of lead, took Theseus, leaving me Hippolyta, which to my mind was the better role. Herakles was done by our third actor, Krantor. He was the best we could afford to hire, a steady old trouper, long past ambition but not gone sour, who stayed in theater because he could have borne no other life. For extra we had a youth called Anthemion, who was Anaxis’ boy friend. Anaxis likened him to a statue by Praxiteles. This was true at least of his head, which was solid marble; for the rest he was harmless, and would do as he was told. I could have improved on this choice, but had known Anaxis would never stir without him, so kept quiet rather than have words right at the start.

The Corinth theater is one of the best in Greece. It has seating for eighteen thousand, and in the top row they can hear you sigh. The revolves turn smoothly; the reveal runs out on oiled wheels; you won’t find Clytemnestra, brought forth in the final tableau of the Agamemnon, come jerking and tottering with a couple of bouncing corpses at her feet. The crane swings you up over the god-walk as if you were really flying, and puts you down like a feather right on the mark; it will take a chariot with two life-sized winged horses and two actors, without a creak.

Our sponsor, who like all Corinthians was so rich that gold ran out of his ears, had hand-picked a chorus of the loveliest boys in town to do the Amazons. I spent all my free time with one of them, a splendid creature, half-Macedonian, gray-eyed and with dark red hair.

Anaxis was very happy there. In Corinth actors are asked to the very best houses. So are charioteers and wrestlers, though I knew better than to point this out to him. What a pleasure, he used to say, to be among gentlemen, away from theater talk with its narrow jealousies. Still, theater men do know what one is doing and what it is worth; even their jealousy is a kind of praise. For me, I would rather sit drinking with a paid-off soldier from Egypt or Ionia, telling his tales, or swap advice on inns with some ribbon-seller who knows the road, than share a supper couch with some rich fool who thinks that because he owns three chariots his notice must delight you, who does not know good from bad till the judges tell him what to think, but who has you in his supper room like the Persian tapestry and the talking jackdaw and the Libyan monkey, because you are that year’s fashion, and tells you without fail that he feels it in him to write a tragedy, if his affairs would only give him time. All you can say for such a host is that he does hire the best hetairas. I can live very well without women, on the whole; but any sensible talk you get at such a party, you get from them. They really know the tragedies, starting with the texts. One soon learns, at Corinth, where their block is in the theater; everyone plays the subtleties to them.

The Amazons is one of Theodektes’ better plays, and won the poets’ prize. He had ridden over from Athens, and was so pleased with us that he never said a word about the places where I had sharpened up his lines. Our sponsor put on a victory feast, truly Corinthian; it took us all next day to get over it, and I lazed with my gray-eyed Macedonian, in a rocky pine-shaded cove near Perachora. An actor’s life is full of meeting and parting; one can’t tear one’s heart out every time; but I was touched when he gave me a necklet of blue beads to ward off the evil eye. I have it still.

Our next engagement was at Delphi.

Anaxis was full of this prospect. With every year as his hopes in the theater fell, he went further into politics, scouting out the land; and he had got wind of this booking from afar. The reason for a play being put on outside the festivals was to entertain the delegates at a peace conference, a very big affair.

Peace of some sort was overdue; for some years artists had had trouble in getting about at all, what with Spartans marching on Thebes, then Thebans marching on Sparta. Everyone was for Thebes in the early days. But since all her victories, the old neighborly jealousy had waked up in Athens; and we had an alliance with Sparta now. I suppose this was expedient, but it disgusted me; it is things like this which make a man like me leave politics to the demagogues. The one good thing was that those dour-faced bullies needing to ask our help proved they were down to third roles for good and would never play lead again. They had been thought invincible, only because they were in war training from the cradle to the grave; but the Great War went on so long that other Greeks too got this professional experience, though against their will. By the end of it a good many had borne arms since they were boys, and barely knew another calling. So, like actors short of work, they went on tour. There were still nearly as many wars going on as drama festivals, and all of them needed extras.

No sooner had the Spartans been put down than the Arcadians, who had been content till now with fighting here and there for hire, thought to try ruling the roost on their own account. So the Peloponnese was full of smoke and soldiers, just when it had looked like a good season with clear roads.

Most other cities, however, had had enough. Hence this peace conference at Delphi. Anaxis assured me, too, that backstage promoting it were powerful states outside of Hellas altogether. They had learned the worth of good Greek mercenaries, were grieved to see them wasted fighting for their own homes, and wanted them back in the open market.

Anaxis was full of lore about intrigues. I tried to attend, but found it hard. We had come by sea to Itea; now on hired mules we were hauling up the twisted track through the Pleistos valley, following the river in the shade of the olive groves which wind up through the gorge. Sometimes the trees would open wide, and one could glimpse Delphi high above, tiny against the huge flank of Parnassos, shining like a jewel.

It was warm in the olive fields; the sunlight came dappled, and one was never far from the sound of water as the river lapsed towards the sea. Now and again the boughs would stir, and a different air blow from the mountain, cold, bright and pure. It made my nape shiver, as a dog’s nose twitches before he knows why. But Anaxis had been as busy as a squirrel in Corinth, getting informed, and did not like to see my eye wandering. Pharaoh of Egypt, he said, and the Great King, would be sending agents for certain.

“Good luck to them,” I said. “At least, in peacetime, Greeks can choose whether to fight or stop at home.”

Anaxis cleared his throat and looked about; a needless bit of business, since only the mules were in earshot. Anthemion had grown bored, and fallen back to bore Krantor. “They say, too, there will be an envoy—unofficial, of course—from Dionysios of Syracuse.”

I slapped my knee, startling my mount, which nearly threw me. These words had waked me up. “By the dog of Egypt! Only envoys? Are you sure? Perhaps he’ll come himself; we might even set eyes on him.”

Anaxis frowned and clicked his tongue, hearing levity in my voice. We were talking, after all, of the most famous sponsor in the world.

“Of course he will not come. He never leaves home except for war, when he takes his army with him. Thus they cannot be corrupted; and are at hand if treason springs up behind his back in Syracuse. He would not have held power for forty years, in Sicily, if he were not one of the shrewdest men alive. On the other hand, the envoy he sends may well be someone high-ranking at his court, who has been told to look out for talent.”

I had read this in his eye before he brought it out. His solemnity tempted me. “Leave me out,” I said. “He might want to read us one of his odes, as he did to Philoxenos the poet. He was asked for his opinion, gave it, and got a week in the quarries to mend his taste. Then he was forgiven and asked to supper. When he saw the scrolls coming out again, he clapped his hands for the guard and said, ‘Back to the quarry!’”

I must own to have heard this story at my father’s knee. Philoxenos had been dining out on it for twenty years, improving it all the time, and I daresay had made it up on the way home, after hailing his host as a second Pindar. But it was too good to waste. “And then,” I said, “there was that sophist who keeps that school, the man Dionysios’ young kinsman fell in love with and brought to Syracuse, hoping, poor lad, to change the tyrant into a second Solon—how touching young love is! When the poor professor opened his mouth too wide, wasn’t he not only chased out of Syracuse, but put on a ship for Aigina when they’d just passed sentence of slavery on any Athenian landing there? And his learned friends had to bid for him at market. I forget his name.”

“Plato,” said Anaxis, breathing slowly to keep his temper. “Everyone agrees he is a stiff-necked man, who missed his chance for fear of being called a sycophant. He was asked to a party, but wouldn’t wear fancy dress; he wouldn’t dance—”

“Can he?”

“Nor, when he discoursed, would he avoid political theory—

“What was he asked to discourse on?”

“Virtue, I suppose. What does it matter? All I am asking is that you keep your eyes open at Delphi, and look what you are doing. Opportunity only knocks once.”

“Well,” I said, “if Dionysios is as rich as people say, no doubt he can stand his envoy a theater seat. It only costs two obols.”

“Niko, dear boy, you know I think the world of you.” He was trying hard. “You have a gift; audiences like you; but never think you can’t end where he is now”—he looked back at Krantor, who had slid off his mule to piss—“if you take no trouble to get known by people of influence. That boy in Corinth! A charming creature for a night, but to spend your days with him! And that party you said you were too tired to go to—do you know Chrysippos owns the biggest racing stables in the Isthmus? Everyone was there. Yet you were not too tired to go round the wineshops with Krantor.”

“Krantor knows the best. Everyone was there; why didn’t you come too?”

“In a city like Corinth, an artist of your standing should not be seen drinking with a third-part actor. I assure you, such things are not understood at all.”

“Thanks for the compliment, my dear. But if I’m too good for that, then by Apollo I’m too good to play in third-rate fustian, even if the Tyrant of Syracuse writes it and puts it on. Let him hire Theophanes, and put him in purple boots; they deserve each other.”

I could see Anaxis holding himself in, remembering, as I ought to have been doing, how quarrels ruin a tour. Men can’t get away from each other long enough to cool off; I have known it to end in blood.

“Very well, Niko. But an artist should know whether it is art he is talking about, or politics. In this case, I doubt you do.”

“Look!” I said, pointing upward. “That must be the Temple of Apollo.” I had had politics enough.

“Of course. The theater is just behind it. Tell me, Niko, have you yourself seen one of Dionysios’ plays performed?”

“Not I. I’ve never set foot in Syracuse.”

“His Ajax won second prize at the Dionysia, in Athens, some years ago.”

“Ajax? Was that his?” It had been put on of course by an Athenian choregos, acting for him, and one gets wrapped up in one’s own play. I had forgotten, if I had known, and own that the news surprised me.

“Yes, it was his. Athenians don’t sit through trash without complaining, still less see it crowned. Let us keep things in their places. Dionysios, the ruler, is a despot and the friend of despots. He governs with spies. He plunders temples. He has sold Greek cities to the Carthaginians. He is allied with oligarchs everywhere. He lends troops to the Spartans. To hate him, therefore, is the password of a democrat. In a speech to the Assembly, of course one must say his verse is bathetic and limps in every foot. If one said it is passable, do you think they would debate its structure? They would merely accuse you of wanting the Thirty Tyrants back. But we, after all, are artists and grown men; and nobody is listening.”

“Well, that’s fair. But would you really act for him, even so? I shouldn’t care to play to an audience an orator had been at first, like that one at Olympia.”

“My dear Niko! One can see you have been in theater since you were born. That was more than four Olympiads ago. How old were you?”

“About seven—but it seems like yesterday.” I had been there when friends of my father’s, who had seen it, called with the news. Dionysios had entered some choral odes at the music contest. Not content with hiring first-class talent, he had not known where to stop, but had dressed them as richly as Persian satraps, adding a marquee for the show, of purple rigged with gold cords. It came, I suppose, from his never leaving Sicily. Cultivated people laughed, and all the rest cried “Hubris!” Visiting the Games was Lysias the orator, then an old man but still impressive, who had been at war with oligarchs all his life—not without cause, seeing his brother had been murdered by the Thirty, and he himself barely got away. Seizing his chance, he made a fiery speech against Dionysios and urged the crowd to show what Hellas thought of him. They duly booed off the artists, pulled the pavilion down, and looted it of everything they could carry. At this point of the tale, I drew attention to myself by squealing out with laughter. My father, who never passed a mistake until next time, had fixed the thing in my mind forever by the taking-down he gave me. Olympia, he said, was a sacred festival; if it was unlawful for Lysias to use violence there himself, he should not have done it through other men. And at an art contest, nothing should be judged but art. How would I like to be one of the artists pelted while giving their best work? He hoped I might never find out for myself. After this I had crept away. Even now, I shrank from telling Anaxis.

“He was provincial in those days,” Anaxis said. “He is just a clerk’s son, after all. But he has bought good advice since then; and he always was a worker.”

“I’ll read his plays,” I said, to keep him quiet. We were getting up towards the shoulder Delphi stands on. The groves were thinning. A pure bright air blew from the peaks. The place smelled of bliss, danger and gods.

“In any case,” Anaxis was saying, “one must remember he is a Sicilian ruling Sicilians. The old stock of Corinth has run pretty thin there. Fighting back the Carthaginians all these years, they’ve learned their ways, and bred with them. It’s said Dionysios has a touch of it. The best they could hope for, as they are, would be to change a bad tyrant for a good one.”

For a moment the dark-browed face of my boyhood’s lover came into my mind, and I wondered if he would still delight me. Then we came out from the trees, and stood upon the shoulder.

Ask some poet to describe the awe of Delphi, and some philosopher to explain it. I work with the words of other men. I looked back down the valley, the olives winding and falling mile on mile to a rock-clipped blink of sea. Beyond a vast gulf of air were the highlands of Mount Korax, cloud-patched with sun and gloom; westward the iron cliffs of Kirphis; above us reared Parnassos, more felt than seen. Its head was hidden by its knees, the rock-towers of the Phaidriades, which themselves seemed to gore the sky. Truly, Apollo is the greatest of all chorus-masters. The town, with his temple in the midst, is tiny as a toy in all this vastness; yet all those titan heads stand around that and look towards it. They are the chorus round his altar; if he raised his arm they would sing a dithyramb. I don’t know any other deity who could bring off such a show. At Delphi, you don’t ask how they know it is the center of the earth.

I looked up the great steeps of the Phaidriades, which stand behind the theater like a skene reaching to heaven. “Look!” I said. “Eagles!”

“My dear Niko, they are as common here as doves. Do let us get to the inn while they have something left to eat. If this is your first visit, you need not tell the world.”

Next morning we looked over the theater. We were pleased to find not a bit of obsolete equipment anywhere; after the big earthquake of five years back, they had had to refit completely. There was still scaffolding round the temple, and the roof a makeshift of pinepoles and thatch; Apollo and the Earth Snake kept up their ancient war. We shouldered back through the town under the tall proud statues, past the treasure houses for the cities’ offerings, Anaxis waiting patiently while I tipped the guardians and gaped at all the gold. He squeezed past sightseers and guides and pilgrims, soldiers and priests and slaves, temple-sweepers with brooms and whores with fans; stalls selling lamps, ribbons, raisins, books of oracles, and sacred bayleaves for lucky dreams. Looking up and about, I thought it was like dwarfs playing on a stage designed for titans. I suppose it was still a small, solemn place when Xerxes’ army came to lift the gold, and they asked Apollo what to do. “Get out,” he said, “I can take care of my own.” They still show the rock-peak he hurled down on the Persians, blazing aloft the Phaidriades and yelling through the thunder. I bought, for keepsake, a little gilded bronze of the god drawing his bow. A pretty thing. The old statue in the temple, that is an Apollo to shoot straight. But the shops don’t copy it now; they say it is crude, and art must move with the times.

Presently came a slave to meet us, bidding us take wine with our choregos.

We were led to a fine painted house beside the Stadium, and saw at once that our sponsor was a syndicate. Three were Delphians; but by watching whom everyone looked at first, we guessed it was the fourth who was putting up the money. He was one Philiskos, an Asian Greek from Abydos. What with his clothes and his ivory fly-whisk, and Delphi being as full of gossip as a winter hive of bees, we added two and two. This was King Artaxerxes’ agent, playing host to the conference with Persian gold.

While sweets and civilities went round, we discussed the play. The citizens of Delphi weren’t mentioned from first to last; it was the delegates who must be pleased. It was my turn to direct and choose a role, and I had proposed Hippolytos with the Garland. It was as good as settled, when some little man, who I’ll swear only wanted to go home saying he had spoken, said it might give offense to the Athenians, by showing King Theseus in the wrong. We both assured them it was revived in Athens about one year in five, and was the surest hit in repertory. Too late; the damage was done, the panic started. At a peace conference, it went without saying that everyone would be looking for slights and insults. Helen in Egypt might affront the Pharaoh; Medea, the Corinthians; Alkestis, the Thessalians. Once or twice I stole a glance at Anaxis, meaning, “Let’s leave them at it; before they miss us we’ll be in Thebes.” But he had set his heart and hopes on this production. When I whispered, under cover of all the dickering, “Try offering them The Persians!” he looked down his nose and would not laugh.

From mere boredom I started dreaming, and dreams bring memories. Next time they paused to scratch their heads, I said, “Why not The Myrmidons?”

How often, if ever, you have seen this play depends upon where you five. It is a favorite in Thebes and well liked in Macedon. In Athens it is hardly ever revived; no sponsor likes to take the risk. Ever since Aischylos’ own day, some people have always disapproved; and you never know when they will get on the judges’ board. Demagogues have proclaimed that the love of man for youth is a relic of aristocracy (a politician will say anything, if it strikes where he wants to hit), and the last thing they want to hear is that the play is noble. They would rather those great avowals did not ring on so in the heart.

Today, however, it turned out to be just the thing. Having looked at it backwards, sideways and upside down, they could not find a single slur on anyone’s ancestors, gods or city.

We went our way, stuffed full of Persian sweets and almonds, cursing the waste of time but satisfied with the outcome. Anaxis was content with his roles. I, being protagonist, would do Achilles; but Patroklos has some lovely lines, and so has Briseis later. Krantor would do Odysseus and the other odd parts. “And,” said Anaxis, “I suppose Apollo in the prologue?”

Walking as we talked, we had come out on top of the theater seats, and were gazing over the temple roof at the mountains. I said, “No, I’ll take Apollo myself.”

Anaxis raised his brows. “Do you want to? It’s a very quick change. Don’t forget Apollo is flown on; you’ll have the harness to get rid of.”

“I’ve a fancy for it. One’s not in Delphi every day. Call it my service to the god.”

That evening we were summoned back to meet the chorus-master, the flute-player and the skene-painter. The painter, Hagnon, was an old friend from Athens. Between rehearsals, I stayed to chat with him while he painted trophies-of-arms on the reveal and Greek tents on the flats. From time to time he would shout for his man to bring him ladder or paint, or shift his scaffolding, complaining that the fellow was never at call. He was lanky and spindle-shanked, with a straggling yellow beard; once I caught him staring at me, and it stirred some memory I could not place; but it was clear he would stare at anything rather than work, and I thought no more of it. Hagnon had had to take him on at Delphi, having come to do murals in a private house and getting this contract afterwards.

Rehearsals went smoothly. The chorus of Myrmidons were fine well-built men and could sing as well. I found a saddler to make me a flying-harness. The crane-man weighed me for the counterweight; finding him skillful, I only did my fly-in once with him, and rehearsed the prologue from the god-walk.

I enjoyed working on The Myrmidons. I had steeped my soul in it when young, and it still moved me. I have heard Patroklos better done—Anaxis had technique enough to sound young, but fell short of charm—still he did bring out the character’s goodness, without which nothing makes sense.

Delphi was filling up every day. Delegates were arriving, and, as Anaxis told me, all kinds of agents to watch the delegates, sent by the opposition in their various cities, their secret allies in rival cities, the interested kings and tyrants, and I don’t know whom. I was more amused by the high-priced hetairas who had come in from other towns and set up house to the rage of the Delphi girls; they would make a better audience than all these peace-traders. Leaving Anaxis to smell about, I went walking on the thymy hillsides or through the olive groves, hearing for chorus the cicadas and mountain birds, while I ran over this speech or that. One day Anaxis came bustling up to say that the envoy of Dionysios had come at last, and bettered our hopes by being some great personage and the tyrant’s kin. My mind was on the placing of a breath-pause, and the name went straight out of my head.

At my request, Hagnon was painting the masks for the principals; the local mask-maker was fit only for chorus work, but Hagnon worked wonders with his carving, as a good painter can. He had done me a fine Achilles, and was working on Patroklos. The Apollo was not yet carved.

Ever since Lamprias died and his widow sold up his things, I had kept the mask of Pheidias hanging, in a box like a little shrine, on the wall of my room in Athens. Remembering Phigeleia, before every contest I would wreathe it and make some offering. There was no good reason why I should have brought it with me—one can always find a friend to mind one’s things when touring—yet some reason had seemed good, and it was on the table at my lodging. That evening, when the lamp was lit and the shadows moved with the flame, it seemed to look straight at me with eyes inside its eyeholes, as if to say, “Nikeratos, you have brought me home. Dionysos’ winter reign at Delphi is past and gone. Have you not heard my music on Parnassos? I should like to smell skene-paint again.”

It gave me a start. I sat down at the pinewood table, chin in hand, as my father had taught me to do before a mask, when one wants to think oneself into it.

“Glorious Apollo,” I said presently, “are you sure? Wouldn’t you like your face to be more in fashion? You could have anything—a solid-gold wreath, jeweled earrings—it’s nothing to the backers here. And they’ll be at the dress rehearsal.”

A night breeze blew in from the heights of Korax; the lamp flame quivered; Apollo looked at me with dark lidless eyes. “At Phigeleia,” he said, “you promised to give me something. Have I asked for anything before?”

In the morning, I took it to the light. The paint was dull and worn, but the carving perfect. Hagnon was in the theater, touching up; I opened the box, and asked him what he thought.

He looked long in silence, frowning and biting his lips. I waited for him to say the usual things: stiff, harsh, primitive. But he looked up as if some pain had griped him, and said, “Oh, God, what was it like when men had certainty like that?”

“God knows,” I said. “I’ll wear it and see what comes to me. Can you repaint it?”

“Oh, yes, of course. I can touch it up and tone it down, till from in front you’d hardly tell it from a modern one. Listen, Niko. I’ll buy you a new one and paint it free. Just give me this and we’re square.”

“No, I meant can you do it as it was?”

He lifted it out, turning it in his hand and scratching the paint with his finger. “I can try,” he said. “God help me. Leave it with me.”

He put it by, and hauled his ladder along the skene. I gave him a hand, asking where his man had got to. “I turned him out, and good riddance. It’s quicker to work alone. Bone-idle, sullen, and drunk half the time. Niko, did you ever hire him?”

“Not I, by the dog.”

“When I paid him off, he said he supposed it was your doing.”

“Mine? What could he mean? It’s true, there was some look about him … What is his name?”

“Meidias … You do know him, then?”

I told the story. I daresay in those days it would have pleased me to see him now; you would think he had been a seedy, shiftless day-laborer all his life. Maybe I might still have known him without a beard; but I think it was his legs had jogged my memory. Who else would have believed that after all these years, having got where I was, I would stoop to rob him of his wretched pittance? I suppose it was what he would have done himself.

“Well,” I thought, “I’ve looked my last on him now.” Which indeed was true.

Next day Hagnon did not come to the theater. Someone said he was shut in his room and would not open; he did not sound sick; he must have company in bed. At evening, he met me in the wineshop. “The paint’s not set,” he said, “but come and see.”

He had propped the mask on a table with a lamp before it. I gazed in silence, while the eyes of Apollo Longsight, full of unplumbed darkness, stared out beyond us. We had served his turn. He had come back to his mountain lair, like a snake in springtime, to have his youth renewed.

My long quiet made Hagnon uneasy. “The room’s too small. I should have shown it you in the theater.”

I said, “Did you do this, or did he do it himself?”

“I’ll tell you what I did. I found it was a day for the oracle; so I sacrificed, and took this with me, and went down to the cave.”

I stared. He looked rather shamefaced. “It was just to get the feel. But one must ask something, so I asked which attributes the god’s face should show; and the Pythia answered—quite clearly, I could hear it without the priest interpreting—‘Pythian Apollo.’ So I went home and started work.”

“Apollo Loxias,” I said. Before, rubbed down almost to bare wood, it had seemed to show only the Olympian, balanced and clear. But poring in the faded lines of mouth and eye and nostril, Hagnon had found lost curves and shadows. A shiver ran down my neck. Here was the double-tongued, whose words move to their meaning like a serpent in a reed-bed, coil and countercoil; how can a man tell all his mind to children, or a god to men?

Presently I asked Hagnon what the Pythia had been like. He answered, “Like weathered rocks. She had lost her teeth, and under the drug she dribbled. But the fact is, I didn’t look at her long. In the back of the cave, behind the tripod, is a crack running into the darkness; and in its mouth is a seven-foot Apollo cast in gold, with eyes of lapis and agate. It must go back beyond the Persian Wars; it has that secret smile. I couldn’t take my eyes from it. But I heard what she said.”

I sent out for some wine, and tried to make him take the price of his time; but he said it would be bad luck. Before we drank, we both tipped our cups before the mask.

I asked him why, if these old forms moved him so, he still worked in the current style. “Just put me back,” he said, “in the glorious age of Perikles, and dose me with Lethe water, to unknow what I know. Once men deserved such gods. And where are they now? They bled to death on battlefields, black with flies; or starved in the siege, being too good to rob their neighbors. Or they sailed off to Sicily singing paeans, and left their bones there in sunken ships, or in the fever swamps or the slave-quarries. If they got home alive, the Thirty Tyrants murdered them. Or if they survived all that, they grew old in dusty corners, mocked by their grandsons, when to speak of greatness was to be a voice from the dead. They’re all gone now; and here are you and I, who know just what became of them. What will you do with that mask, Niko, when you have it on?”

“Well may you ask. At least I’ll play in Aischylos, which is what it was made for. Perhaps it will teach me something.”

The lamp smoked, and Hagnon trimmed it. As he pricked up the wick, there was a flicker on the face of Loxias, and it seemed that the dark side smiled.

At dress rehearsal, just as I had foreseen, the sponsors asked Hagnon why he had fobbed them off with old stuff repainted. When he showed that he had not charged for it, they said, amazed, that they had ordered everything of the best. This mask lacked grace and charm; it was too severe. Sponsors are sponsors, so I did not ask them what Apollo needs charm for, coming to tell of doom in words like beaten bronze. Instead we said the god had chosen this mask expressly, through the oracle, for his Pythan likeness. That kept them quiet.

When these fools had gone, Gyllis the Theban courtesan—getting on now, but still famous for her verse-readings—came round to kiss us all. She had been in front, and vowed we should make a hit. Mikon the mechanic, who loved his work, asked if I found the crane run smoothly. “I like an artist to feel secure, or he can’t do himself justice. Here in Delphi, we never make an old rope do. Twice for a man, once for a chariot, that’s my rule. The last play was Medea, so you get a new one.” I assured him I had not felt safer in my mother’s arms; and he scrambled back into his wooden turret with his oil flask and his crock of grease.

That evening it rained, which damped our spirits; but day broke cool and blue, with barely a breeze. When we got to the theater, the upper tiers were full, and the sponsors’ servants were fussing about the seats of honor with rugs and cushions. Through the cracks in the skene, it looked like a real occasion. I stripped for my flying-harness, and belted over it Apollo’s white, gold-bordered tunic, while my dresser worked the harness ring through the slit.

On my table stood the mask in its open box. From the mask-maker I had bought it a new, fair wig. It was young, strong hair, such as the peasant girls sell when they have to cut it for mourning. The life of the face flowed into it; I pictured it streaming from the head of the furious god, while his arrows clattered at his back with his angry strides, as he came down the crags like nightfall to the plain of Troy. That is the Apollo of The Myrmidons—straight from Homer.

I lifted my hands palm upward, asking his favor, and then put on the mask. As the dresser arranged the hair, the flutes and kithara began, and Mikon from his turret signaled “Ready.”

I ran out, waving on my way to Anaxis, who was kissing Anthemion for luck, and to Krantor strapping on the corselet of Odysseus. Behind the back of the skeneroom was the hidden platform, with Mikon’s boy waiting there to hitch me on the crane-hook. The music rose, to cover the creak of the machine; the rope at my back went taut. I grasped my silver bow, and leaned on the harness in the arc of flight.

Up I soared, out above the skene; the crane-jib, with its traveling screen of painted clouds, lifted and turned upon its pivot. The sea-sound of voices hushed; the play had started. Above the Phaidriades an eagle wheeled and cried, balanced like me upon the air. The jib slewed up and outward, and the music stopped for my speech. It was then I felt, quite close above me, a twang in the rope, and a slight sag down. A strand had parted.

At first I thought it must be just a jolt of the pulley. Mikon was trustworthy and the rope brand-new. I resolved to think no more of it. I was about one-third through, when I felt something go again. No doubt this time. I felt it strain and part; I sagged down a good inch.

… Zeus’ battle-shattering aegis …

I could hear myself going on; while quick as a heartbeat the thought ran through me, “A notched rope—Meidias. Thirty feet down, on stone.”

When the tawny eagle with his stallion crest

Swoops down, safety is hard to find …

Wise words. It was still coming out of the mask, one line prompting the next. Two strands gone, how many left? The last taking all my weight could not last long. If I called out now, they might just get me back in time.

For I am Phoibos, zenith-cleaving, sun-shafted archer,

Unforsworn tongue of truth …

Brave words. I could hear myself as I spoke them, breaking off to yell, “Help! Help! Let me down!” and the theater echoing with a belly-laugh that would sound in my ears if I lived to threescore and ten. And it might be still too late. What a way to end, bawling like a scared child on a swing; what a line to be remembered by. The eagle circling the crags gave a long shrill “Yah!”

I thought of the mask I wore. I had sat so long before it, I knew its face like my own. I thought of that human bleat coming out of it. And I thought, “My father would have gone on.”

This had passed in moments. My voice still spoke the lines; now I put my will to them. The words, the light, the rock-peaks seen through the mask-holes; the smell of the mask, old and woody, mixed with new paint; the scoop of the hillside filled with eyes, struck on my senses clear and brilliant, as each moment passed which might be the last of my life. A kind of ecstasy, such as I have heard men can feel in battle, flowed all through me.

Suddenly the audience had grown restless. There was a buzz; then someone shouted aloud, “Watch out! The rope!”

It had started in the side seats where they could see behind the screen. I wished they would keep quiet. I might be dead before the end of this speech; they could at least attend, not interrupt with stale news. I lifted my hand palm out, Apollo commanding stillness, and threw in the first tag I thought of: “Lord of all gods is Fate!” Then I picked up the speech again.

Dead silence now. Each word dropped into a breathing stillness. In the harness straps I felt a tremor and strain from the rope above. The third strand was parting.

It went. The fourth must be the last, I thought; it was giving already; I was sinking down. Then as the audience groaned with relief (or else with disappointment) it came to me what was happening. Mikon had been warned; he was paying out softly, letting me down on stage.

One moment, it seemed, I was dangling from death’s forefinger; the next my feet touched ground. It was over. The silence broke then. Here I was right downstage, with nobody to unhitch me, and they expected me to stand there taking bows. I got my hand back and slipped the ring, and made some kind of exit. My last line was about flying back to high Olympos. I had just enough sense left to cut it. With a keyed-up audience, it would have been the very thing for a laugh.

By now it seemed I had been up there by myself for days. It was quite strange to have everyone grabbing me backstage and asking me how I felt. “Later,” I said. “Just let me change.”

Anaxis rushed up to me, his boyish Patroklos mask shoved back, his beard and eyebrows staring; he had gone quite pale. He pushed a wine cup at me, but after one swallow I put it by; I was afraid of throwing up. “Can you go on?” he asked. “Would you like Anthemion to stand in for you?” I pulled my face straight just in time. “No, thank you. In the name of the gods, get out on stage; nobody’s there.”

My dresser unharnessed me, and strapped on my panoply for Achilles, clucking and chattering. Mikon came running, the frayed rope in his hands, waving it about. “Later,” I said.

Achilles has a good while to sit sulking before he consents to speak, which would give me a rest; but when he does break silence, he has to be worth hearing. My blood was still stirred up, I felt ready for anything; I remember thinking, “This is just how one feels when acting badly.” However, when I got to the lines where he chooses glory before length of days, suddenly a burst of applause broke out and stopped the play. I had never thought of that; I think it was the nearest I got to losing my lines.

At last it was over. The noise seemed to last forever. Even after I went to change, I could have taken another call; but of a sudden I felt hollow as an emptied wineskin, sick, and deathly tired. Even the applause seemed empty; it would have been the same for some juggler who had jumped through a ring of knives. I thought with loathing of my performance, which I was sure had been ham all through. Stupidly I stood while my dresser stripped me, trying to be civil to the people who had come behind. Presently Mikon brought his rope again, and showed it round.

“I checked it overnight, every foot.” He pushed it under the noses of two sponsors, who had come behind to complain. “Look here, at the cunning of it. The strands were opened, and a hot iron laid inside. With filing it would have frayed, and I’d have seen it as I ran it out. This was done in the night. That drunken loafer, the painter’s man—I’m told that he was seen here.”

Hagnon said, “I saw him, round about midnight. I thought nothing but that he’d picked up some odd job. Well, I hope they find him. The young men were off on the mountain trails; they reckoned he might have gone up there, to watch it work.”

“Maybe.” I could not feel concerned. Nearby was the bier of the dead Patroklos; I pushed off the dummy corpse, glad of something to sit on.

Krantor said, “Where’s that wine jar?” He poured, and held out a cup to me. I would have swallowed anything; but the rich Samian fragrance told me this must be the best in Delphi. It ran through me like new warm blood.

Anthemion tittered. “It’s a gift from some admirer in the audience. It came round before the end of the last chorus; the message just said, ‘To honor the protagonist.’ But you’ll be hearing his name, I’m sure.”

I put it down. “You fool! Someone’s just tried to break my neck; and now you give me wine from you don’t know who.” I wondered if I ought to take an emetic. It seemed less trouble to die.

“No, no, Niko.” Old Krantor patted my shoulder. “Drink it up, my boy, I saw the slave who brought it. Groomed like a blood-horse; born and bred in good service, that one. It must come from a sponsor.” He looked at the two who had come behind; but they coughed and looked elsewhere.

He filled my cup again. The wine, though neat, was so smooth it went down like milk. On an empty stomach—I can never eat before I play—I pretty soon felt the difference. I started floating on air, needing no crane. Everything was golden, everyone kind and good and beautiful. I turned, the cup in my hand, and saw on my table the mask of Apollo, propped in its box. My dresser had plaited the hair and bound it, as I had shown him, in the style of Perikles’ day. As the wine lighted me up, it seemed about to utter prophecies. I swayed to my feet before it. It was never I who had made that speech; the mask had spoken, I thought, while I hung like a doll in Apollo’s hand. I tilted the cup, and poured him a libation.

“You do well,” said a new voice. “Truly, the god must love you.”

I turned. The skeneroom crowd had parted, just like extras for a big upstage entrance.

A man stood there who might have stepped straight off a statue plinth in the Street of Victors. Six feet and a hand-breadth tall; dark curly hair, the temples graying, but the face still young; a face of the gravest beauty, austere even to melancholy, yet keen with life. Surely a face of those days Hagnon had talked about, when men deserved their gods. His eyes were dark, and fixed on me.

I don’t know, with so much having come between, what I felt then. Only that he had come, as if sent, when I poured the offering.

All this, and the wine, had slowed me down. My answer halted; and Anaxis rushed in, all talk and civilities. The sponsors had come back and were edging up. I saw this was someone to everyone, not just to me.

While Anaxis talked, I had time to look. He was dressed very quietly for a feast day, with the severity almost of a philosopher: a long robe, no tunic under it, the left shoulder bare. There was a great battle scar running half the length of his upper arm. His robe was simple, barely an inch of border. But the wool was fine-combed Milesian; his sandals, stamped Carthage work with gold clasps. This was the plainness of a man who only knows one shop, the best in town.

He spoke upper-class Attic, yet with a touch of Doric somewhere, and some other accent mixed with that, which I had no chance to define; for his answer to Anaxis was so short and formal that the compliments all dried up. Then, with his face still set in this sternness, he looked back at me, and swallowed. I don’t know what cleared my eyes; I expect it was the truth of the grape; but I thought at once, “Why, he is shy. But too proud to own it.”

I had gazed on him with awe; he seemed from another world. Now, discerning an infirmity which proved him mortal, I began to love him.

I got up from the bier, keeping one hand on it to steady me. I was not much put-out at being drunk; after all, he had sent the wine. He was here in friendship, never, as any fool could see, having set foot backstage before. He must feel all at sea; and I was his host.

“Thank you,” I said. “The best drink I ever had, just when I most wanted it. You saved my life, next after Apollo, who stood by me like the gentleman he is. I’ll give him a goat tomorrow. And I owe a grave-offering to my father, Artemidoros. Did you ever see him as Cassandra?”

He half-smiled, looking easier, and saying, “Yes, let me think.” He put his word to nothing lightly, that was clear. “Yes! It was in The Troiades, was it not—not the Agamemnon? I was a very young man then, visiting friends at the Academy; but I have never seen it rendered so movingly. If I remember, Hecuba was done by Kroisos.”

“Kroisos!” I said. “Then you saw me too. I was the child Astyanax.”

He gazed at me intently, and said after a pause, “Then you have always been an actor? All your life?” He seemed surprised; yet it was clear he meant no discourtesy. I told him yes. “Why then,” he said, “there are some true words in Euripides, about the many faces of the gods. How does it go?”

I said:

The gods wear many faces,

And many fates fulfill

To work their will…

“Was it that you meant?”

He smiled, without stiffness this time, but like a serious boy. “Yes, and now I can complete it:

In vain man’s expectation;

God brings the unthought to be,

As here we see.

“Words of good omen, this time.”

He paused, and looked about the skeneroom crowd, all breathing down our necks. His smile faded; he said formally, “We must talk more of all this. You will be needing rest now; but won’t you sup with me this evening? Come about sunset, or a little before.”

“Delighted,” I said, more happy than surprised, for I knew we were ordained to meet. “But whose place shall I ask for?”

I could hear the two sponsors cluck and suck their teeth; Anaxis gasped, and started making signs again. But I saw the man was not displeased. It is never bad to be liked for oneself, by anyone.

“I will send my servant for you,” he said quietly. “I have rented a house on the bluff at present. My name is Dion, a citizen of Syracuse.”