The Praise Singer: A Novel

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OFTEN, IN THOSE ATHENIAN days, I asked myself, Why did I wait so long? I am twenty-five; I could have had all this much sooner. If I had gone to Keos when Kleobis first urged me to, and sung before my father, I could have won a crown there—I was good enough for that—and he’d have given me the Euboian farm. My master would not have wasted his health and hope in Samos; I would have gone to Athens, and found that the land was peaceful, and gone again. All I have now, I could have been heir to years ago.

I don’t suppose I would have been crowned there any sooner; my work had ripened and that was all. But I could have been making friends, hearing songs, seeing the craftwork, sharing the talk, living the rich life of this city which put out the fruit of men’s minds as an old vine gives its grapes in a good year.

From the day of that first supper in Hipparchos’ house, I was Athenian in my heart, so far as a wanderer belongs to any city. All I had lost in Ionia was here, distilled and refined; the painted walls, the slender-legged tables, the couches with their fine embroidered cushions, the clean well-mannered boys who served food and wine; everywhere elegance, nowhere ostentation. No flaunting Samian goldwork; but, exquisitely painted, the first service in red-figure I’d ever seen. Or, for that matter, the Athenian diners either—yes, that would make men smile today! It was Hipparchos who had inspired it.

Answering our compliments, he said, “I was in Exekias’ shop. He painted me that wine-cooler, which I don’t think will displease me however fashions change. That day, however, I was there to order a small dedication to Eros.” The handsome youth (a new one) who shared his couch, returned his glance with charm, but no vulgar simpering, and touched his wine-cup, doubtless inscribed with “The Beautiful” and his name. “I had attended to that, and was idling about the shop, when I heard the master roaring at a pupil who’d been working, it seemed, industriously in his corner. People say my curiosity will be the death of me someday.” He turned on us his winning smile. “So I went over, in time to hear the culprit told that if he thought he had all day to spend in foolery, he had better make room for someone else who’d value his place. By now, I was craning over Exekias’ shoulder. The young man was holding an oil-jar, on which he’d drawn a Greek and a Phrygian dueling. As you’ll have guessed, he had amused himself by painting the background black, and reserving the figures. It was the very best Ilissos clay, that bakes a soft glowing red. Seeing Exekias just about to dash it to the ground, or maybe at his pupil’s head, I caught back his arm, crying, ‘Fire it! Fire it, my friend, and let us see. And don’t have a brush laid on that cup I ordered, until I have had a look.’”

His friend toasted him in it, very tastefully; he was not merely presentable but exceedingly well-bred.

“And, after that, nothing would content me but to set something of the kind before all my friends. If you care for them, pay me the compliment of accepting them and taking them home.”

Of course nothing else was talked of, as men showed their cups to one another. Thessalos’s, which was lewd but witty, was passed right round the room. I am sure not a guest but was at a potter’s next morning; in no time at all the young Psiax, whose fortune had been made in that one evening, had set up his own shop. My cup had Apollo on his tripod, playing the lyre; I kept it forty years, till some fool of a porter broke it.

Hipparchos was a host whom guests were eager to please. But he neither asked, nor got, the crude sycophancy of Samos. He had much more to confer than gold. Polykrates’ courtiers grew rich, but were held in contempt and envy; Hipparchos could bestow esteem. His patronage was a prize to any artist, not just a living. Fashions he set were not seen later to have been foolish; when they came to be denounced, it was long after, for other reasons. Accepted by him, you were acceptable anywhere in Athens, as I quickly learned. When the wine-cups had been admired, he called on me to sing, making it seem that those trifles had been just an appetizer, this was the banquet.

I had never sung better than on that night, and knew it. The very images of the tale shone brighter in my head. The god-wrought armor of Achilles burned; the river-god he wrestled with was a great sinuous giant with transparent blue limbs and hair of stiff green rushes whose lice were silver fish. Much of it I improvised as my mind was quickened. Luckily I remembered it after.

Above all other talents, Hipparchos had the bright and perilous gift of making others shine. It was his paternal heritage, the only share he had been endowed with. For, of course, he could have possessed the graces of a god without getting where he was, if his father had not made his way secure.

It was my luck to be just in time for Pisistratos. I have always been glad not to have missed a man so remarkable and, as I still think, great. Soon after, as old age crept on him, he began to fail a little; but at that time, he was still what he had been, and one could understand how he had done what he had. It was no lie when I sang of him that he was a Perseus who had buried the Gorgon’s head.

The first time he sent for me was soon after Hipparchos’ party. He did not keep late hours; as I went up, the ornaments on the temple roofs still caught a gleam of sun. The stone house with its marble portico had an unforced dignity, and some parts looked very old. Maybe it was true that bits of King Theseus’ palace had been taken into it.

There were no guards outside; he no longer needed them as in his early days. The tale was that he got them by trickery then, showing himself and his mule-team bleeding from an ambush no one else saw, and asking the Council for the right to protect himself. They only had clubs at first, till his private army was ready and the spears came out. I daresay it was true.

The house was spacious inside, and gravely rich, the anteroom floored with yellow marble laid like a honeycomb. There was a big Persian wall-hanging, and on a green marble stand an old bronze lion, solid-cast, masterly. The chamberlain who placed us in the guest-room was well polished; so were the couches and tables and sideboards, mellow with beeswax and good slaves. It all looked, like its master, to have been there a long time without getting frowsty. From the way he greeted me, I could have been among the highest-ranking of his guests. I thought of Samos. I suppose from that moment he had my love.

The eight double couches made a big party, for him; he liked to have each guest in talking reach. Dancers and flute-girls and jugglers he never used, saying they were for men without conversation. But he was a lover of the Muses and good above all to poets. As I learned later, it was for my sake he had filled up his room that night, to get me known and make me feel myself valued. As a mark of honor, he had put me on the couch of Hippias, his eldest son.

He was a grave and civil person, but the only one of the family without ease of manner; when he ran out of talk, he would include us in his father’s, so that I heard a good deal of it. I should think, if he’d chosen, the old man could have been a poet. He had always the right word for everyone; and the poet who can improvise is always halfway to fortune. He could meet men on their own ground too, where they felt at home. I can even see him as one of those newfangled actors who go off masked as Hektor, to come back as sweet-voiced Helen. (The skill of those young men Aischylos brought along here!)

The gods, in kindness to mankind, have put in most men’s hearts the wish to be loved and honored, even when they greatly wish for power. Power is the test. Some, once they have it, are content to buy the show of liking, and punish those who withhold it; then you have a despot. But some keep a true eye for how they seem to others, and care about it, which holds them back from much mischief. He was such a one. He had commanded men, and been admired by them; he had won the city’s wars with them, and been admired by the Athenians. Long before that, it was said he’d been admired by Solon the Good himself, who in fact had been his lover. In a song I made later for his birthday, I likened him to a siren. He took it very well, though, as everyone knows, not every seaman who heard the sirens sing went safe home after.

That night, however, I gave him my Lament of Danae. I had been working a long time on it, but no one had heard it yet, except Dorothea. She was not given to easy tears, but it had made her cry; and, indeed, over the years I have seen that those who weep have not been always women. The sound works with the feeling, and seemed to come of itself, I don’t know how. She sings it at sea, drifting in the chest with her god-got child. I have often wondered why it should be a chest; but I always respect tradition. My child, in my grief you sleep, a gleam in the night …

From respect to their host, they would have had to listen in silence. All the same, I soon knew that it was I who held them.

When we were leaving and paying our respects, the Archon said to me, “Simonides, you have painted the walls of my memory; I shall gaze often at your Danae. I should like to hear it again in a little while … A man like you, I expect, knows all of Homer?”

“Yes, sir. Since I was eighteen years old. I had a good teacher.”

“Good. You shall help us rescue him. We will talk about it later.”

Tall cressets lighted us down the steps, and each had his own linkboy to see him home. Not a word had been said about money; that came next morning, with a courteous message, and bettered my expectations. Whatever politicians say nowadays, that house was eupatrid as far as you could trace it back. They claimed to come down from Melanthos King of Athens, and through him from Nestor, and no one thought it absurd.

Before long he sent for me again, in the morning this time. He was sitting at a table of dark polished wood, set out with tablets and scrolls. Hipparchos was beside him; the first time I’d ever seen them together. There was a clerk at another table, with writing things.

Father and son smiled at me, and waved me to a chair. I felt at once that this was the son whose company was enjoyed the most, with whom the father felt easiest; yet with whom he was watchful, from a habit of ruling men.

“Hipparchos tells me,” he said, “that your good memory is famous. I hope that you can help us. Next year is the Great Panathenaia, and we shall be holding the Rhetors’ Contest. It always takes time to choose which to invite, and find out where they are traveling, and get word to them to come.”

I bowed gravely; or so I thought. Sometime later, Hipparchos told me that I looked down my nose. No poet has much time for rhetors; mere learners by rote, marketplace reciters, who have their Hektor’s Farewell, or Cave of Polyphemos, or Arming of Achilles, which they give each time, or sometimes two bits that they stitch together with lame frayed lines of their own devising.

“I should like you,” he said, “to join my son as one of the judges.”

“I am honored, sir.” Which was true, as far as it went. “Are they to be judged for their declamation?”

“Well, we must take that into account, of course. But the reason we are offering a talent of silver as the prize is … but let Hipparchos tell you, since I can see him fidgeting to talk.”

“It all began,” he said, “when we were living in Thrace, after the Alkmaionids had broken with us and joined the enemy party, and we had to leave in a hurry.” He lifted an eyebrow at me, to see if I knew the story, which he could hardly retail just now. Of course I did, old though it was; Pisistratos had sealed an alliance with this powerful clan by marrying the chief’s daughter, had been polite in bed, but taken care not to get her pregnant. He’d wanted no rival heirs to his elder sons, especially from a family accursed for killing suppliants in sanctuary. In time the girl’s mother asked her questions, the virgin bride was snatched back in outrage, and the feud began. I returned Hipparchos’ glance discreetly, to tell him I’d heard all this.

“We were digging for gold,” he said, “which Mount Pangaios is full of, and recruiting warriors, which Thrace is full of, and biding our time. Since none of us were digging with our own hands—the Thracians would always sell us their tribal enemies—Father was often short of pastime, and when a rhapsodist came our way he was glad to hear of it. In Thrace, I can tell you, a dancing ape is an event. The rhetors spread the news that we paid well, and soon we were getting more of them … Well, you will guess what is coming.”

“Bad stitching,” I said.

“Just so. Not only between the patches, but in them too. They left out, and even put in; one would find all sorts of things coming in from Macedon and Epiros and who knows where. And these were the better sort, not strolling mountebanks. They had one great scene each, first garbled, then ruined with their ranting, instead of letting the music tell the tale. Then one day came an old, old man, who knew the Iliad whole. My dear, it was like tasting wine after grape-skin pressings. The exquisite treasures those swine had passed over, or broken in their rooting …! We feasted the old man, clothed him and shod him like a lord, plied him with gold, begged him to live as our honored guest; but no. His pupil had been killed in a brawl, or gone off with a woman, or some such calamity; he must travel to get another, and teach him all he knew. He did not look fit to stand another winter. At last, in our extremity, I cried out, ‘Let us get it written! I have a good scribe; I can even write myself. Just stay here till it is done. Then it will live, even if your next pupil fails you.’ I can only say, Simonides, that old man looked at me like some high priestess of noble birth, offered well-paid work in a brothel. Can you understand it?”

I could; I was still under thirty. “Surely,” I said, “it is impossible Homer should perish. I myself have every word of him.”

“Long may you live, my friend; but no man lives forever. Believe me, Homer is in more danger than you know. Nowadays, one can manage less and less without writing, one is always getting some call for it. Onomakritos has his nose forever in his scrolls of oracles, and an oracle’s brief enough. Hippias, who deals with Father’s private letters, writes something nearly every day. And he keeps all his drafts upon the wax; left to himself, he couldn’t quote you half of it. I’ve given it thought, and I tell you this: what men have written down, they have no need to remember. And soon they will feel no need to try. Then what’s still unwritten will fade away.”

Pisistratos gave his grave Zeus-like nod. “I believe that my son is right.” He opened a coffer inlaid with ivory that stood by him on the table. “This is what we have so far.”

The roll he took out was much joined and pasted together, but written clearly. He began to read me a passage; I think it was the Deeds of Diomedes. He must have had the tail of his eye on me, for he stopped and said, “Yes?”

“There are two lines missing there,” I said, and gave them him. Hipparchos signed to the clerk to note them down on the wax. Pisistratos read on. He read very well, not performing at all, but giving each sound and stress its value. I wondered how much of it he had picked up from Solon. And then, with a shock, I heard a line quite new to me. Pure gold; it must be Homer; and I’d never been taught it, which meant that Kleobis had not known it either. If they saw me look up, they were both too polite to mention it. At all events, that reconciled me to the Rhapsodia. They don’t hold it nowadays; but no matter, the work is done.

The Great Panathenaia is pretty well fixed by now. The Athenians would think it impious to put in anything new. But in those years, though it was very old already (they say King Theseus started it when he united the kingdom) the Archon was always thinking of something grander. That year I was leading a choir; four years before, I had been a sightseer, when the many-colored mass down in the Kerameikos uncoiled, like a bright serpent, into the procession: the knights in their crested helms and shining corselets (all fighting men wore their gear, the Archon had no fear of them); the hoplites marching with their blazoned shields; the garlanded beasts of sacrifice led by handsome athletes; and the Ship of the Goddess, drawn by its snow-white oxen, with her new robe hung from its mast and held out like a sail by two of the maidens who had embroidered it. The rest walked before it and behind, singing their hymn. The chorus leader had the right to dedicate her statue in the sanctuary, to stand there forever; or so she thought, before the Persians came. Never mind, it made them all happy then.

The Rhapsodia was held on the day after. Word of rich prizes had reached the artists—let us call them that—and they came in from near and far. We did find one who got a great deal of the Iliad right, and chanted it well, and gave him the first prize. Nobody went away without a gift. That year we added two new lines to the canon, and found sense in two more which till then had been incomprehensible; and the Archon was well content.

It would have been a time to stay on in Athens, and improve upon my success. But half a year before, I had promised the Keans that I would make them a dithyramb for the Delia, and I could not fail them. I would sooner have stayed; I thought about chances I might be missing; but my honor was engaged, and I said to myself that such things are arranged by fate.

I found time to visit Euboia, with some gifts for Dorothea: an Athenian gown with worked borders, a pair of gold earrings shaped like roses, and a bronze mirror engraved on the back with Aphrodite. I had seen her lean over the water-tub when she combed her hair.

She lifted them in her hands, and flew to kiss me. She was smiling; partly from pleasure, for she believed, like me, in never wasting what came her way; and partly because she guessed what this new wealth might mean, and wanted to show me that she kept her word. At the next women’s festival, she would be the finest in the village. She could look forward to that—and would—when she saw me off.

I had not been there two nights, before Diagoras, the chief Archon of Eretria, sent his son over from the city, begging me to give a recital there. He’s long dead now, these days they have a democracy; but they still look up to him there as a founding father. In his youth, he led the rebellion that put down the nobles. That was long before my time, but they must have been an insolent set, for it to have earned him so much gratitude. A maiden he had been betrothed to (for of course he was one of them himself) was offered by her father to a man of more wealth, who was to marry her out of hand. He raised his revolt and brought it off; and we would have said in those days that he was Tyrant, though not as men mean it now. He ruled with the hearty assent of the Euboians, and I myself lived on Eretrian land. I was glad to honor him.

He entertained me very pleasantly; a small vigorous man, still handsome, who had presence without arrogance, not aping the hubris he had put down. His wife ate with us in the old Ionian way, and had me to know she had cooked the dinner. She had been the prize of his valor, and was still paying it tribute, which he acknowledged by starting a little paunch. She, too, looked as if she liked her own good cooking. They both delighted me; next day I gave them the Winning of Hippodameia in my best heroic style, leaving no doubt of where it was aimed. The Eretrians loved it too, and voted me—for they had some share in government—a handsome fee. Then I went on to Keos.

It was all pretty much the same; except that now, each time I came, I found more people, of more consequence, asked to meet me. My father never remarked on this; but when I gave them the latest news from Athens, he did not look displeased. Looking back, I see I had begun to think of it as the civility one owes a patron. Well, it did nobody any harm.

I picked the boys for my choir, and saw to it that they kept their minds on their work. Not that I ever beat them; just turned the slovens out, and got someone fonder of music. If they wanted to go to Delos, they took care.

My pretty little Hermes had shot up like wheat, and had a lovely alto; my Apollo was a young man now, training for the boxing, not the chorus. In due course the ship with its garlands and painted sail was ready, and the Kean theoria set out for Delos: the priests, the herald, the offering-bearers, the athletes, the choir and I, and some leading citizens. One was my father; but this no longer troubled me.

Delos, Delos! I have chosen Sicily to end my days in; I gave my choice thought, and would not change it. Athens I shall see no more; I’m an old summer cicada now, a bad voyage would kill me. In any case, so much has altered there, I would be a stranger. It is only when I think, Never again the Delia, that a shadow falls on my heart.

Nothing much will have changed on Delos. The strong cool young sun on the silver-sparkling rocks and the painted marble; the old spotted lions sitting along the lake; the bright Ionian crowds. It will have grown gayer, if not as rich as before Ionia fell. But even Greeks from there who have lost their cities save best clothes for the Delia. Friends meet there after many years; youths and girls who were children five years before exchange winged glances. If a face is missing, not much is said: Apollo, who stands so tall there staring at the sun, does not like clouds and rain. It may be windy, it may be cold; but it is always fine for the birthday of the god. Some Son of Homer sang that on that day you might think the Ionians immortal, untouched by age or time.

True, indeed. Since Apollo’s healing shrines are in other places, and no one must pollute his birthplace by dying there, only those in their health and strength come to the Delia: old men with their beards combed smooth and their hair pinned with golden grasshoppers, their walking-staffs polished to show the grain; women fresh-bathed and scented with oil of violets; young men with hair flowing down over their shoulders, striding out in short tunics disdaining the sharp breeze; and the girls linked hand in hand, as they will be for their singing, in bright dresses with colored borders, green or saffron or blue, hearing each other their words for the choral odes, or giggling over their dialect songs poking fun at other cities; their mothers brooding over them, wary of the youths; the younger boys, whose voices will have broken before the next Delian feast, looking at the athletes and thinking about the games.

Spring was early that year. I don’t recall a more radiant Delia, many as I’ve seen. It’s not often the girls can find so many spring flowers for their hair, cyclamen and daffodil and hyacinth, nursed there in wet moss to keep them fresh. Mount Kythnos sparkled with little hill-flowers, and the glittering rocks were starred with them.

I have always liked to get to Delos early, before the crowds have trampled it, and try to see it when Leto came there first, to bear her child. She’d been delivered of the elder twin already; maiden Artemis could run beside her hunting the game, for the infancy of gods is brief. But Leto is still big with the younger, greater one; his light glows through her, like the sun through a rosy shell. His time is come; he commands her; she crouches by the palm tree and grasps it in her pangs; the shining babe slides down between her thighs; rests for a moment, turning his blue eyes to the sky; then the birth-cord falls from him; faster on his feet than a day-old colt, he runs to the lake to rinse off the birth-bloom; swims across and back; and striding ashore in his tall splendor, shakes the water from his golden hair. Before the crowds come, I can see all that; after, I can only tell it. That year, since I came on the state ship from Keos, they were there before me. The paean and the silence, one cannot have both at once.

Theas sailed with us; he had been chosen as an umpire in the games, and carried his stick of office. Our father’s proud eyes followed him everywhere. His wife, eight months gone, had stayed behind, but he had brought his boy. No fear there of the Cretan strain appearing.

A little fleet from Keos followed the theoria. Most of our kin and friends were carried by Laertes, who had two ships now. I saw them arrive, but had to bring my boys to the precinct and rehearse their entrance.

I was with the Kean herald, talking about this, when he pointed past me at the harbor. “Look. The Athenians.”

Yes, here was the state galley, the biggest yet. The sails were scarlet striped with blue; the whole vessel dazzled in the sun with gilding and polished bronze. The oars were painted white, so that as they rowed her in they flashed like wings. It was the grandest in the harbor, which had come to be expected; Pisistratos had seen to that.

They threw out their gangway. It was very broad, wider than a cattleship’s. I saw movement within, and it came to me what they were doing; they meant to disembark in full order of procession. It’s done now by many embassies; but that was the first time I know of. Being downwind, we could hear the flutes giving the note, and the paean beginning. At a stately pace, the procession crossed the gangway, to the admiration of the crowd. I approved whoever was getting them off so neatly from a cramped deck; but did not at once attend to the man who led the embassy, who I took it would be the priest of Apollo. Then something familiar struck my eye; it was Hippias. Standing in the prow, on the pilot’s bridge, Hipparchos was directing the procession.

Often it’s been my fortune that when I have done something to please myself, or satisfy my honor, against all seeming prudence, yet it has brought me luck. I’d left Athens when the scent of patronage hung in the air like the savor of roasting meat, rather than fail the Keans and disgrace my kin. And here was patronage, come to meet me.

The theoria marched singing to the temple; the herald cried, the offering-bearers came forward with their jars and baskets and wreathed bull; Hippias spoke the dedication, and poured on the altar a flask of precious incense, three times more costly since we lost the Asian cities. The Delian High Priest replied. Nothing could have been handsomer.

Important people would now be paying their respects. I let the brothers get to the Athenian lodge, and left them time for a rest and a drink, before I went to pay mine. I was here as a Kean, after all.

The lodge was handsome, built of stone by Pisistratos when he purified the island. There were still people about; but Hipparchos called out to me as soon as I was inside. Only he and Thessalos were there; the chair of state was empty.

“Come in, singer of heroes!” He shouted to a slave to bring another stool. Most of the guests were standing. “My brother has gone up Mount Kythnos to consult the oracle.”

I said I hoped the answer would be favorable. I could hardly ask about the question, though I longed to know.

Hipparchos waved it away. “Oh, it will be favorable. He has nothing serious to ask it. Oracles are his study. Wherever one exists, it’s the first thing he visits. They are all ready for him beforehand.” He beckoned another slave to bring me wine.

Thessalos said, “He may get a surprise one day. Oracles are known for that.”

“Not on Delos.” He smiled. Everyone knew that even rich Polykrates had not been such a benefactor of the sanctuary as Pisistratos. I had had it in mind when I composed my dithyramb, never guessing his own sons would be in the audience. It must, I thought, be my lucky day.

“Onomakritos has gone up with him,” Hipparchos said, “to write it all down, in case anything gets forgotten.”

I stared at this. “Why, Onomakritos is a poet. Does he need to write it?” I had met the man and thought him a charlatan; but Hippias put great trust in him.

Hipparchos laughed. He knew well enough what I was thinking. “Well, he has charge of all the oracles from the time of Theseus down, or so he claims for them. I daresay it’s a good deal to remember. He and Hippias go over them by the hour. They come to Father with them. Sometimes he even uses one, if it falls in pat just then.”

“Especially Athene’s,” Thessalos put in.

This was sailing near the wind. I suppose there were a few very simple peasants who still believed Athene herself had escorted Pisistratos back from exile. From curiosity, I had gone myself to the home village of the tall girl who had put on the helmet and the aegis for him and mounted the chariot at his side. I was snubbed, however, whenever I asked the way. She was treated with great respect there, and shielded from vulgar eyes. I believe she married the first man of the place (not ill-dowered, you may be sure!) and bore him four tall sons. Ever since she put on Athene’s armor, the people felt she was somehow god-touched. In Athens, of course, it had long since been a joke; people just admired its cleverness, though not as a rule out loud.

Lest I should feel awkward, Hipparchos sanctioned it this time with a smile. It was things like this that won him so many friends. I suppose it is no great wonder that men forget; but I am sorry, too.

The small guest-room of the lodge looked very festive, with its garlands and embroidered hangings, and the brothers’ fresh bright clothes, dark Thessalos in yellow, fair Hipparchos in white bordered with scarlet. Pisistratos never put on purple, nor allowed his sons to do it. He knew what the Athenians would think of that. He always knew what they thought.

Some tedious people left, and the talk grew gayer; Hipparchos never expected artists he entertained to sing each time for their supper. After a while a shadow fell on the doorway, and soberness along with it. Hippias came in, with solemn Onomakritos. He really was carrying tablets, without any shame, like any palace clerk.

Hipparchos greeted them; I saw him take a second, keener look at Hippias face. It certainly looked grave; but he was pious to the point of superstition. In any case, I took my leave almost at once, to let him talk with his brothers. I was short of time myself.

In the evening, my boys got in from rambling about the island, and crowded for their supper into the big room under the Kean lodge, where they would sleep in straw like puppies. I, like the kennel-man, would have my pallet there to keep an eye on them, and see they turned out next day without black eyes or bloodied noses.

Most of their parents were lodging at Rhenaia Island, close by, as people do when Delos is full. My own however were here, and I got up early to pay my respects before the procession began. To save time I put my robe and wreath on. As I came in, I saw the change in my father’s face as he made out who it was. For a moment he’d thought it was someone of importance.

Even when he’d realized his mistake, he looked as if he had had some new thought about me; but whether welcome or not, I could not tell. My mother complained that the lodging was badly swept, and kept telling me to pick up my skirts, or I would not be fit to be seen. Theas, whom I passed conferring deeply with other umpires on the state of the wrestling-ground, waved and wished me luck.

It was a fine calm morning, with only the gentlest breeze; no need to tie one’s wreath into one’s hair. We marched to the forecourt of the temple (Pisistratos’ gift, already looking mellow) singing our paeans, then stood in our order waiting for our turns. Mine came about halfway through.

I sang of the god’s birth as I had conceived it, and how Delos is still suffused with his pure fire, which will not bear sickness, or death, or tears. The last part should always deal with things in the world of men; so I sang of the Purification.

I was little more than a boy when Pisistratos visited Delos as First Archon of Athens, instead of a simple worshipper. For many years it had been treated carelessly; there were graveyards in full sight of the precinct and the sacred cave. He had all the old bones given decent burial, with their own tombstones, at the far end of the island, and had the cleared places beautified. On one of them he built the temple. All this was in my ode.

I’d rehearsed my boys to turn their circle at a gentle pace, to save their breath for the song. There was no wind to carry the sound away; no one was fidgety with cold; the boys came in dead on time as my solo ended. We were well received. As we went off, I got a gracious smile from Hippias as well as from Hipparchos, and wondered if my father saw.

The Athenian choir came next. It was the first appearance of young Lasos, a most agreeable fellow whom I got to know well in later years. So far as music was concerned, his ear was better than mine; he used to say, as if it were quite natural, that he composed it first and thought later about the words. This is why none of his words have lived on after him. They were just part of the sound, like an extra flute; he took pride in never using any word that had an s in it, a sound that he thought harsh. He used all woodwinds, no strings, and took it fast, the dance as well as the singing. His choir was well trained, too. Though without any wish to copy him, I was spellbound by his mastery, and was some time in noticing that someone was pulling my robe.

Thinking that one of the boys wanted to go and relieve himself, I said without turning, “Very well, but go quietly.” Then the tug got stronger, and I looked. It was Midylos, my sister’s husband. I saw with surprise that clinging to his cloak was Theas’ little boy. Our mother had been looking after him.

Midylos whispered, “Sim, I am sorry, but I think you had better come. Your father is sick … They have taken him to Rhenaia.”

He glanced at me. There was no need to say more.

If one calls up one’s youth to answer to one’s age, one must ask the truth from it. The truth is that I thought, “Not now!”

Who would take care of the boys, and lead them in the closing procession? The flute-player? I had never shown him what to do, he had only to walk behind me. He could set the note for the paean, but it ought to be sung, not played, and he could no more sing than a frog; I did not trust the boys not to burst out laughing. How would I get word to the High Priest, now sitting in state and not to be approached, that I had to leave? Suppose the judges called for me? What would the Pisistratids think?

All this rushed through my head; while young Lasos’ choir sang about half a line. “Yes,” I said, “I will come.”

I beckoned the flute-player; gave him some hasty instructions; chose the boy with the finest voice to start the paean when the flute gave the note. I told the younger ones to behave themselves in the precinct, or I’d tell their fathers of them. I did everything as if my thoughts had been what they should.

As we edged through the press, I put my arm out to protect the kithara, still slung about my neck. How should I get it cared for? I would be crossing in a leaky ferryboat. After a salt drenching, it would never be the same again. It had been made by a master for a master; for his sake it was dear to me; it had spoken with his voice, and had come now to speak with mine; its beauty was closer to me than any woman’s. Because of the fine weather, I had left its case at the Kean lodge.

The little boy said, “Uncle Midylos, why did they take Granddad away? Why couldn’t he go to bed?”

Midylos said, “He has gone to see the doctor.”

“What happened?” I asked. “He seemed quite well this morning.”

“Yes, it was sudden; while you were singing. He leaned on me—Theas was still busy over the games—and said he felt giddy, and one of his legs was prickling. While we were leaving he fell down, and some men helped me carry him out of the crowd. He tried to speak, but the half of his face was numb. It sounded like ‘Rhenaia,’ and that seemed best. Theas has taken him over, and I came for you.

“Yes. Yes, let us go at once.”

“Look, that’s the way to the ferry. Only big ships are using the harbor now.”

“I know. But there is something I must …” The kithara seemed to cling to me, like a frightened child. I forget how far I went out of our way towards the Kean lodge, before I found a man I knew and trusted, who promised he would get its case from the warden of the lodge, and put it in safekeeping. If I had not met him, perhaps I would have gone to the lodge myself. I cannot tell.

Most of the ferryboats were idle, waiting on the Delos side to take people back to their lodgings after the festival. I had never before been over to Rhenaia. Its living is mostly fish, between the festivals. Anyone who can afford it has built a room onto his house, to make something at the Delia and the summer Apollonia. Some rent their houses out and just sleep in their boats. We crossed where the channel is narrow, alongside the Chain of Polykrates. He had the notion of offering the whole island as a dedication to Delian Apollo, by tying it, so to speak, to his feet. It was just like Polykrates. Most of the chain was under water, hidden by weed; our boatman cursed it as a danger to the ships.

The feast had emptied the island. The jetty seemed forsaken. Theas’ little boy said, “Uncle, where does the doctor live? Can I see Granddad?”

“When he is better.” Midylos murmured to me, “He thinks the world of Leo.” The child bore his name, and was Theas to the life as I first remembered him.

As we tied up, a boy got up from the shadow of a bollard, and limped towards us. “Is either of you gentlemen Simonides, Leoprepes of Iulis’ son?”

“I am; where is he?”

The lad’s face brightened. He did not look poor, just bored and lonely. “In the shelter, sir. I’ll show you the way.”

“What?” I said. He had used the word for a soldier’s bivouac or shepherd’s hut. I turned angrily to Midylos; but he laid finger on lip and shook his head. I understood. All the lodgings had been paid for, by people who would be back at night to sleep. To a sick man they might offer hospitality; not to a dead one, who would leave the place defiled. Rhenaia, it seemed, had a proper place for that.

The boy said, “Are you famous, sir? Your mother said so. And Melesias gave your father a new bed. This way, sirs, it’s not far.” He led us on at a lurching trot. He was clubfooted; I expect his kin had not cared to show him at the feast.

The death-house was past the harbor, along the shore; a stonewalled hut, with a roof of driftwood held down with stones. No one was wailing, so I knew he was still alive.

A man was sitting outside upon a boulder. He looked round at us; by the time we came up, he was grinning like a pi-dog that scents meat. He was the man who had been ready to stay away from Delos, in case anyone arrived to die. Pythagoras’ followers, as they told me when I visited their city, do things like this as an offering to the gods. This fellow was not one of them.

I suppose the plain dress of Keos had not promised well. At the sight of my robes he almost dribbled. Anything he could do for the poor old gentleman … not that it was easy with so many folk away, but hospitality to the stranger …

We walked past him. The doorway had no door. Only the family was there, but there was barely room inside. I could see my mother kneeling by my father, and hear his heavy breathing. A cold, damp stink of old sickness and death crept out. Little Leo did not ask again where Granddad was; he started to back away.

Philomache peered out. Midylos beckoned her, and she took the child by the hand. “Come, let’s look on the beach for something pretty, to give to Grandpa when he’s better.” He went with her silently, not deceived but thankful to be gone.

Her leaving made room inside. My father lay with his feet to the door, on his new bed. The boy had spoken truly; the straw was fresh.

I stood by my mother and looked down. Theas’ cloak was rolled under his head for a pillow. Half his mouth had dropped, so that he seemed to gaze at me with an angry and sour disgust. In the prison of his face his eyes had moved, and were fixed on me. I knelt and took his hand. It felt cold and dead. The straw smelled of the urine his body could not contain.

“Father.” What more? I was as dumb as the child had been. “I am sorry, Father.” The good side of his mouth moved, and it seemed that he spoke my name.

“This won’t do, Father,” I said. “We must find you something better.” Then I remembered that despite my splendid clothes, or rather because of them, I was the only man there who carried no coin at all. My money was at the Kean lodge, in the warden’s keeping.

He could move his head a little. He turned his eyes towards a block of stone that served as the only table. There was a cup on it; my mother lifted it to his mouth, and raised his head. He swallowed some, though more was spilled; then he looked hard at her, and his eyes moved to me. I said, “He wants more”; but with every inch of face he could make work, he seemed to say, “You fool!” He looked at Theas, and his loose mouth mumbled again. I could not catch the words; but I saw Theas go white. He bent down and said, “You are my father. You know I cannot do it.” He turned to me, his face telling me everything. “And nor can Sim, Father. You know that.”

Indeed, I had been slow. This should have happened to him at home on Keos, where old custom met his need. He would have had no trouble there in getting what he wanted, and a friend to give it.

Theas said to me, “Sim, you know Delos. Would there be someone there?” He spoke quite simply; we were all Keans.

I shook my head. “Doctors, yes. But they’re servants of Apollo. They have to take a vow never to give such things. ‘Even if it is asked of me.’ That’s in their oath.”

My father said, “Keoth.” It was the best he could do, and clear enough.

“Yes, Father,” Theas said. “Just rest now. We will take you home.”

He shut his eyes. I expect that saying so much had been hard work. I went outside with Theas. The custodian came fawning up. I silenced Theas with a look—he had just got a buffet ready—and whispered, “You had better give him something. I came just as I was.” The man spat on the copper piece and looked at me with scorn. The lame boy, who had stayed not for gain but because he had missed the festival, sat bright-eyed on a clump of sea-grass.

Theas and I looked at each other. Men from anywhere but Keos would have found much more to say. “No ship will leave Delos before tomorrow,” he said. “But if that is too late, he will have had his wish.”

“But now, today? He is lying here like a dog.”

“That creature asked five drachmas for a bedstead. None of us had enough. He won’t give credit. He charges for water, too.”

“I’ll go get my money from the lodge. Dressed like this, I expect some boatman will trust me.”

“They burn the bed after, or so he claims … Yes, go, Sim.” As I was turning, he added, “And don’t take what Father said to heart. His mind’s half gone, or he’d have known you couldn’t do it.”

“I know. Shall I see him first? No, tell him where I’ve gone, if he can understand.”

I began to walk back along the foot-track towards the harbor. I was nearly there, when I heard a call, and saw the boy behind me, waving his arm. From pity for his deformity, I paused to let him come up. “Sir,” he called, “I think your dad has died. I just heard the ladies wailing.”

As he spoke, I saw Theas running to overtake me. The boy waited and watched. He had missed the feast, but in the end he had had his moment. As Aischylos told me, in most tragedies the Messenger is a much-sought role.

After a while, I remembered to take off my festal wreath. I wore one so often that I could forget it like my clothes. The boy picked it up from the ground, and, sitting down, teased out the braid from among the laurel.

We had not gone far before we could hear the women. I said, “After I left, did he speak again?”

“Not to make it out. I think once he said, ‘Sim,’ and I told him where you were. I don’t know if he understood. Soon after that his breath rattled, and then he died.”

The child was sitting where the boy had been. His eyes were great with terror; he looked at us without a word. Theas picked him up and held him firmly, saying, “We are all going home soon. Be good now, and I’ll tell you about it later. Granddad is with the shades, where the heroes go.” The child was still silent, but I saw his face was soothed. Theas ruffled his hair, and set him down. Then we went on towards the wailing.

They had closed his eyes, and bound up his jaw with Philomache’s hair-ribbon. He looked his own man once more. His mouth was straight again, keeping its own counsel. Whether he judged the gods, or us, or himself, was a thing he did not confide. I remembered Pythagoras, and wondered what life he would choose next time, if a choice was offered him.

My mother and sister were beating their breasts as women do. Their wailing throbbed with the blows. I envied them. Had I been a barbarian, I too could have had my part. Women can float away upon lamentation, like birds upon the air, or fish in rivers. Later they must return and know their grief; but for a while they are freed, as the poet is by the song.

If I had gone back before I left for the ferry, I would have seen his death. He named me; perhaps it would have told me something. As it is, I ask myself, even now, why it was not until I came that he asked for hemlock. Was it just that I knew Delos, and might be able to find it? Or did he think I would give it more willingly than the rest? Or to be humbled before me, was that the last stroke, too much to bear?

We burned him at evening, on a platform near the death-house, whose stone is blackened with old fires. Shipmasters will not balk at carrying a funeral urn; but not even Laertes would have taken a corpse on board, his crew would have refused to sail. I went back to Delos to take off my choral robe, and put on what I had come in. We sheared our hair; even our traveling clothes were too gay for mourning, and we sprinkled them with dust.

I had brought oil and incense for the pyre; its driftwood and flotsam crackled and sparked with salt. The flames turned blue, and did not hide the blackening body; but they were fierce and quick. Before long the core of the pyre fell in, and he fell with it, sticks of bone among sticks of wood.

Something offended my nose, more than the burning. The warden of the death-house stood at my elbow. “If you have business to attend to, sirs, I can collect the ashes, and put them up for you nicely. The mourners before have always been very satisfied.”

I must have whipped round on him like a snake, for he cringed away; then he yelped, as Theas got him in a wrestler’s lock. “You carrion crow! If you lay one claw upon our father’s pyre, I swear I’ll rekindle it and throw you on.” “With a rock on your belly,” I put in, “to hold you down.” As he went off, I divined that Theas had been as glad as I to drive out this scapegoat laden with our guilt. Theas had lived a blameless son, and his father’s pride. I expect that his need was no less than mine, and maybe more.

When I went back to the Kean lodge, evening was falling, and the rocks of Delos glittered with sparks like fire. Theas was seeing to the urn, Midylos to the women and the child. Laertes would sail at first light, and I only went to gather my things together. I meant to sleep on board, rather than deal with scores of polite condolences. My boys would not know what to say, and my presence would spoil their holiday. The flute-player would look after them.

No one was about; Delian evenings are merry. I had found my kithara safe, and was on my way out with my things, when a man came up dressed for a party. Having heard the news, he apologized for this unseemliness. When all that was proper had been said, he told me that after the dithyrambs were over, he had been sent to look for me by Hipparchos, to ask me to supper at the Athenian lodge. He and Hippias had expressed great pleasure with my ode, and with its praise of their honored father.

“Please thank them for their kindness. Who won the contest?” He looked surprised. I said, “I have been on Rhenaia.”

“Of course, of course; forgive me. As I heard, it would have been yourself; but you sent the judges word that you were obliged by piety to incur pollution. So they gave the prize to that young man, Lasos.”

“They did well; he has a gift. I heard part of his piece and would have liked to hear it all. Wish him well from me, if I should not see him.”

As I learned later, he got the message and was pleased. Nothing looks more foolish than a petulant loser.

The man went back to his party. He must have had a friend among the judges, to hear that I could have won. I said in my heart, “He has wronged me, even in his death.”

I walked towards Laertes’ ship, thinking how I might have gone home in the state galley, crowned with victory. As I walked along the jetty towards the mooring, an oldish man approached me. I thought, Another fool with whom I must exchange civilities; but I put on a good face, and waited for him.

“My dear Sim!” I recognized the Kean accent. “I hear the good Leoprepes is dead. Give my sorrowful respects to your excellent mother, and all the family. You have lost an upright man, as I can myself bear witness. It was ten years ago, or maybe fifteen; at any rate, it was the year of the sheep-sickness. Before the start, I had bought fifty from your father; and when some thirty died, I was at my wits’ end. I had counted on the lambs, to pay off a loan; it seemed I would have to pledge myself in bondage. Then your father’s steward came. He brought word that fifty of your father’s flock had died, and he had no doubt that those he had sold me must have had the sickness on them. He would take back those that were left, and return me the price of them all. Then and there, his man paid it me. He did not even demand to see the hides of the dead beasts. Just the silver, paid in full. My luck turned soon after, and now we do pretty well. But I have often thought that but for your father, I should be a thrall today … Did he never tell you this?”

“No,” I said. “Never a word.”

“Well, well. I am glad I met with you. To think of that; never a word. He thought his uprightness not worth boasting of, because it was his habit.”

I went on my way. I remembered the sheep-sickness; I had been still a shepherd. When the first few died, he had beaten me for letting them eat black hellebore. Later, when he knew the truth, he said, “Well, Sim, it seems you were not to blame.” I was angry that he said it so unwillingly, never counting the cost to his pride in saying it at all. This man had done him more justice. I had often been ashamed that he was known for a hard man; that he had never been known for a crooked one, I had not considered; just taken it for granted, as he had brought me up to do. All in all, I thought, I had best stop pitying myself over the choral prize. The judges had thought me the best, and I should be content to know it.

So I went to my mattress on the ship, with some bread and cheese bought on the way, and bedded down for the night. Some sailors were working late, shouting and hammering, so I lay awake. About midnight, I heard singing, coming along the waterside, and threw my blanket round me and went up on deck to look.

It was a komos of revelers, waving torches, and singing a skolion to which they dance-stepped along. They were not far away, and I could see Hipparchos leading them. He had one arm over the shoulders of the youth to whom he had given the painted wine-cup. They made a handsome group, like Dionysos with a young satyr.

The sound faded away; the sailors had turned in, and so did I. It had been a long day. As men count great events, nothing much had happened. The Delia had been celebrated; an old man had died in the way of nature, and his sons had put him on the pyre. Yet it had been a full day for me.

It is a strange thing to recall; but as I fell asleep, I was wondering how it might feel to be courted for one’s beauty. I expect Pythagoras would have told me that in some past life, as youth or woman, I had been cruel to my lovers, and had chosen to make amends. In my time I have talked with many philosophers, who have expounded to me the ways of the gods with men. Out of them all, Pythagoras’ belief seems to me the most just, supposing it is true. But then, if it is, and all these things befall us, unless we have the Sight we shall never know.