The Praise Singer: A Novel

6

I KEPT MY LAND, and cared for it. It was part of my freedom; and I felt its people my charge. I told Hipparchos at the outset that I had a family estate I should sometimes need to visit; one must start as one means to go on. He said with his easy good manners that of course I must look after my inheritance; hinting, just as politely, that he would rather it was not when he was giving an important party, or entertaining some foreign guest of honor. He gave me good notice of such things; one always knew where one was with him. I in turn would give good notice to Dorothea; now that I came less often, she liked to prepare a feast. It was coming to seem more her house than mine, and I would not spoil her hospitality by taking her unprepared.

Meantime, in Athens, I was a man with a man’s desires. The Archons had installed me in one of their guest-houses on the Acropolis, looking south to Phaleron and the sea. I ran it with my Karian boy and an old woman to cook. I never bought a slave-girl. I do not like the unwilling service of barbarians, with whom one cannot exchange a thought. I have never been a man who needs a woman every second night; I’ve had other things to save my vital spirits for. So when I did feel the need, I walked out to the Kerameikos.

It was a place, then as now, for the women of the middle sort, who liked to call themselves hetairas and not whores. This was a time when the great courtesans of Athens rivaled even the Corinthians, but I never thought of attempting them. They scared the ugly Kean shepherd who still lived on in me; I feared their mockery. Where I went, I was welcome enough. I had money, and was somebody from the court. It was an easygoing way of life; most of the time, at least.

Well, there was one girl … She was working for an old madam who’d been a beauty in her day, and ran a clean friendly house; not one of those where the girl’s name and price are painted over the door of every room. The girls who were free would treat one like a guest, just catching one’s eye and pulling their dresses tighter. All except this one girl. Thalatta was the youngest, I suppose about fifteen; a small face, triangular, a wide mouth and tilted nose; thin, with the air of having been betrayed by fortune, and taking it very bravely. She never displayed herself as the others did; just gave one a look and half a smile, as if saying, “We two could understand each other, if you did but know it.”

I don’t care for thin girls as a rule; the delight of the sculptor is also mine, I like the living marble. But she was clever, and her fragile body flattered a man’s. “We two,” she could say without a spoken word, “we have our secrets from all those fools.” At first she did not talk much; after a while, she told me she came from Naxos, and that her father had pledged her for a debt. The truth, as I later learned, was that she’d run off from there with a sailor, and was no one’s thrall, but kept a third of her takings. She used to tell me—never whining, she was too clever for that—that she was saving to buy her freedom, but lived in dread that her mistress would sell her first. Two or three men were offering to buy her. She would hint at dreadful things about them, always as if making light of it to spare my feelings. Sometimes she would point one out, if someone gross or drunken should be leaving as I came in.

“Oh,” she would say, “one can put up with them now and then, that’s only the luck of the trade, there are far worse houses than this one. But to be shut up alone with a man like that, always at his bidding, never to see a friend again—never you again, the only one who has understood me …! Oh, I think I should kill myself before long.”

Of course, I would always slip her something extra to save towards her freedom; and, of course, the time duly came when she was to be sold that very month. The buyer (a fat man with scrofula) would have the money soon. True, the mistress would wait till she saw his silver; but it was just a matter of days.

Well, she pleased me in bed, and I liked the thought of having her to myself; but most of all it was because, as it seemed, she had only me to care for her, that made me say I would be there with the money first. She embraced me, and warned me to say nothing yet to the mistress; the other man was rich, and if he knew, would raise his offer. It would be best if I gave her the money, not at the brothel, but at my house. I can’t think how I swallowed that; I daresay because she was too clever to make excuses. Presently she led me out to the common guest-room and saw me off with a tender kiss. I was still on the threshold when I remembered I’d left my walking-stick inside the door, and turned back to get it. She was looking towards another girl who was sitting there, a painted Egyptian; and though she’d not had time even to open her mouth, her face said louder than words, “What did I tell you? The fool will pay.” The other girl saw me first, and grimaced to warn her. That killed my last doubt, even before she saw me and tried to face it out. There was no need to say anything, and I went away.

For a while, this brought me back to my prentice days in Ionia. It was lucky that at least I remembered Hipponax, and did not spoil my work with tedious scoldings. She was not Women, but one girl, as Hipponax was one man, by whom one must not judge others. My pride was not so tender to blows as in those old days, and a visit to Dorothea healed its bruises. Presently, feeling cured, I pulled the scab off my wound by making a good story of it for Hipparchos, one evening when I was sharing his supper-couch.

When I had done, he cried, “My dear fellow! Wherever have you been wasting yourself? A man like you, in Athens, to be making do with a common trull! Tell me, what price did she set on herself, this little vixen?”

“A hundred drachmas. But then, there were the other bidders.”

“You must be joking. Why, you could buy a good dog for that. Well, she has played that game for the last time. I’ll see to it.”

“By all means,” I said, “if you know of any other fish she is playing on the line, give them a word of warning.”

“We shall see. My dear Simonides, I blame myself for all this. I have been a selfish host; I don’t invite enough women here. A man of your worth should not have to go foraging. People will think I don’t look after you … Come to supper—yes—three nights from now. I shall try to make amends.”

When the night came, it was clear that he’d taken trouble. The room was garlanded, smelling of roses and rich spiced food. The other men, of whom one was Thessalos, were all distinguished; and the women did not appear with the wine and wreaths, like common flute-girls or dancers. They were to share the meal. After our host had greeted us, and each man had been shown to a couch with room for two, an inner door was thrown open with a flourish, and in they came.

I wondered, indeed, where I’d been wasting my time. They walked with the dignity of ladies bringing offerings to a temple, but much more gracefully; their paint, if they wore any, was as delicate as nature; their gowns in clear bright colors were thin, but not tight, so that their bodies were just glimpsed softly as they moved; their hair was put up into embroidered snoods, as the fashion was just then; and from their softly hennaed ear-lobes dangled worked gold. They brought in the scents of a rose garden, planted here and there with aromatics.

Hipparchos stepped down from his supper-couch to greet them, just as if they’d been men; and I understood the nature of this occasion. These were the royalty of their calling. No lesser man could have brought them into one room together. Certainly, he took on nothing he did not mean to do well.

I don’t know how they were allotted among the guests, it flowed so naturally. I do know that from the moment they came in, one had especially dazzled me: a young woman with that brilliant fairness which art can never counterfeit, and large deep blue eyes. It’s a coloring that often goes with silliness; when you see wit and sense there, it can seem almost divine. Her gown was deep blue, sewn all over with small gold stars, and starry clusters hung from her ears. I was wondering who would have the god-sent luck to get her, when she walked towards my couch, and said, like a queen being gracious to a worthy subject, “Greetings, Simonides, and good health to you. Why have you never called on me?”

I made room for her, with some confused reply. She settled her gown, smoothing out its embroidered borders, and said smiling, “I don’t believe you even know who I am. I am Lyra.”

Just so, on the slopes of Ida, might Aphrodite have declared herself to the young Anchises, simply, without fuss.

I must collect myself, before she thought me an oaf. “I have heard of Lyra, as I have heard of Helen. But I’ve neither the beauty of Paris, nor Menelaos’ rank.” (Nor his wealth, I thought.) “Fear of presumption kept me from your door.”

“Foolish man,” she said lightly. “Do you think that Helen would have shut her door to Homer?”

“Beautiful Lyra, but I am not Homer.”

“Sweet-tongued Simonides, but I am not Helen. So we’re quits. And because you have never deigned to attend my parties, I’ve had to sing your songs to the guests myself. Of course everyone said, ‘But where is the poet?’ And what could I reply?”

“Why, that the crow should stay in hiding, if he can have his song sung by the nightingale.”

Her blue eyes changed and grew soft. “They wanted the Lament of Danae. I know every word, but I dared not. It always makes me cry.”

She laid her hand on mine, and pressed it gently. I lifted and kissed it; the fingers were long and delicate, with faintly tinted tips. Even the slave with the jug and finger-bowl had seemed to rinse them with reverence. I recalled with shame the coarse grasping hands of Thalatta.

The first tables came in and were set beside us. You don’t get such meals any more in Athens. (Here in Sicily, yes, if I could still digest them.) She ate with an elegance I’d not seen since I left Ionia. Now and then she would take up some choice bit and dip it in sauce and feed it to me, with a gay subtle glance that said, “This will be good, but some things are more delicious.”

She leaned on her cushions just near enough for me to feel her scented warmth. Though she roused desire, she gave off too a sense of ease and harmony, both promise and present pleasure. Her skin was flowerlike however close one looked. I said, “Tonight for the first time I rejoice that I am not Homer. They say that he was blind.”

“He is dead, too.” She put a shelled shrimp into my mouth. “But don’t lie to me, poet. To be Homer you would forfeit me, and him up there, and all that he can give you. Even your eyes. Your life, maybe. Not so?”

“I thought so once. He is for all time, yes. But only his own time could have begotten him. He is a god to me, yet my own time made me otherwise; and time has taught me that I have my own things to say.”

“When will you come and say them to me, Simonides? I don’t eat men, like Odysseus’ sirens.”

“Ah, but those who dare the current can still be drowned.”

“Put your toe in the water, much-enduring voyager, and come to one of my parties. My friends only pay their share of the feast, you know. Sometimes we sing and amuse each other till dawn. Or sometimes we have a little contest of some kind; and then, of course, there is a prize.” The lamplight shadowed a laughing-crease beside her mouth.

“I should have got someone to bind me to the mast. It is too late now; I have heard the music from the island. Yes, I will come.”

The second tables came in, and she began to gossip about the guests, with a little salt but no vinegar. I remarked that our host’s chosen companion was well past her prime. “Oh,” she said, “Peitho will amuse him all the same. She has known everyone. His father too … well, of course he must know that. They say she was matchless in her day; she spent one fortune and saved another. Even now that she’s put away her mirror, she still gets rich. Some old lover tells her what ships to take a venture in; she has a cargo now with Theasides … Oh, you know him! He comes from your part of the world.”

“He’s my brother. Is he so well known in Athens?”

“He’s well known wherever he goes.” Maybe I was wrong, but I thought she sleeked herself a little, like a cat that has almost purred. “He doesn’t visit us very often; I think he prefers Corinthians. He tells us that he comes to Athens to see his brother. I might have known!”

“Most people say they never would have guessed it.”

“Oh, there’s a look. Men who both know what they can do. A style.” She nodded, and glanced round the room again. Her fine brows drew together. “But why has our host put Antenor with Phylinna? I wish he would not do those things.”

“It doesn’t seem that Antenor is complaining.”

“Oh no. That girl will get him and keep him, now. But everyone knows about him and Milto, he has been her friend so long. Poor girl; now when she’s been ill and can’t look her best, it really was not kind.”

Milto, with too much paint on a face that should have had distinction, was doing her best to look as if her supper partner delighted her. I said, “I don’t suppose he meant it. Parties like this he gives to please his friends; I doubt he knows much about such things himself.”

She glanced up from the bread she was cleaning her fingers with, looked round at me and seemed about to speak; but just dropped the crust to a little dog under the table, and started to talk about her own pet dog at home.

The tables were cleared, the wine and the wreaths came in; a pretty boy and girl danced naked, Herakles and Antiope, which made everyone laugh; then a couple of flute-girls who had played for them played on, a screen of sound for talk. There was a good deal of merriment, and calling from couch to couch. Lyra did her share; but would drop her voice to talk to me again, as if she found it better. She will take me, I thought, when I have courted her in the way she will expect. I must ask Theas to buy me a Persian necklace. She would like lapis. When will her next party be? The warmth of the wine brought out the scent she was wearing. My hope of possessing her was only a part of my pleasure; it was almost enough that a creature of such loveliness was here, contented, in my company.

The dancers had gone; the flute-girls now made their bow; there was the pause that expects departure. Lyra pushed back a feather of hair into her snood. Her soft lips brushed mine like a whispered promise; she spread out her skirt to step down with grace. Then her head turned sharply, so that I followed her glance.

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

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

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

She did not look round. “Were you?”

“No. Could you not tell?”

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

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

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

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

From her face, she could have been crooning me endearments. I kissed her and she clung to me. It was hard to let her go; but I did not want her to think I was for taking my present after all. We went up to the Archon’s couch, where he and his old hetaira were dismissing each couple wittily. Lyra stepped up gaily, swinging our joined hands.

“Well, Simonides, my friend,” he said with his most charming smile, “have I made up at last for my neglect of you?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“But on whom else?”

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

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

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

“Hipponax! You must know the poets well.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As it happened, I had just got half of a good line, and had had the rest almost in reach before he scattered my thoughts. I felt like telling him to jump off the Rock, but resigned myself to listen.

“You were right, some of those scrolls are old: the Pythians, the Orphics, the Mousaios. I asked to look at them; but no one’s to look at them any more, in case they crumble. Only Onomakritos, and guess why. Because he’s recopying them!”

Keeping my patience, I said that it seemed best, if they were to be read by men to come.

“Copying, he says. Hippias read me some of the Mousaios. Why, the old charlatan’s style is stamped all over it! The very plod of his feet. Listen to this.”

He had a sound memory, did Lasos. (How seldom one finds it now!) He had kept a dozen lines from a single hearing. They were very gnomic, about a lightning-flash from Macedon which would burn the Great King’s throne. I had to admit that, apart from their being nonsense, they did have an Onomakritan sound.

“Oh, some were crazier still. About Atlantis rising in the west, and aspiring to rule the moon, sending up heroes in flying chariots. And a thunderbolt that burned a whole city of men. I can’t give you above two lines of that, but they have his mark. He must be plotting something, just working up to it.”

“So what will you do? Tell Hippias?”

“No use. He has the ear of a cow. And I expect the old scrolls have all been tampered with to match. Never mind. From now on I see my way.” On which he took leave of me, and I tried to make a flying bird from the shed feathers of my shot-down song.

I had no quarrel of my own with Onomakritos; we had been judges together in one of the Homer contests, and worked on the recension. So I minded my own business. The Isthmian Games came on soon after; and the boxing was won by the son of one of my own tenants, young Glaukos of Karystos. His father found out by chance how strong he was; told him to fit a plowshare to the shaft, and came on him hammering it in with his naked fist. I’d encouraged him to enter; he was a sweet-natured boy whom I’d known from childhood, had never used his strength for bullying, had trained hard for the games, and looked almost godlike in the glow of victory. I made him an ode as a gift; I still think it is one of my best. After all this, Lasos’ feud slipped my mind; and the war was over before I knew it.

The inner shrine of Athene’s temple, before the Medes burned it down, was pretty full, and looked like an ancient lumber-room. It was less than thirty years old; but besides the sacred scrolls, it had all the goddess’s old clothes, discarded when the maidens rerobed her; any number of ritual vessels and emblems for processions; and a great scrap-heap of old iron and bronze, battle-trophies offered in thanksgiving. Nowadays they build treasuries to house such things, but then they were heaped up halfway to the roof, ships’ beaks and shields and helmets and so forth, from the Megarian and Salaminian wars. Behind all this stuff, it seems, Lasos had made himself a lair with a spyhole in it. He had seen Onomakritos visiting the place at daybreak, early enough to need a lamp, and bringing a fire-pot to kindle it. Lasos got up still earlier, feeling his way to his ambush in the dark.

Why do men do such things? Maybe, like dogs, they hate each other’s smell and ask no reason. Lasos had lost nothing much through Onomakritos—in the end his dithyramb had been put on another day—his place at court and his stipend had never been threatened. He had lost some face, which certain men feel more than others. Or, it may be he was just possessed with a love of truth.

Came at last the long-awaited morning. Onomakritos kindled his lamp, and brought forth his own new copy of the Mousaios oracles. He did not unroll the old one. He took a wax tablet from his breast, and began to copy from that.

It was Lasos’ moment. He sprang from his ambush, dislodging a heap of shields which crashed down with a noise like thunder. While Onomakritos sprang up open-mouthed, thinking no doubt that it was an earthquake, Lasos snatched the scroll from his nerveless hand, grabbed up the tablet, and ran straight to Hippias’ house.

The Archon rose early for his devotions. He had just poured the libation when Lasos came rushing up. The ink was still wet on the scroll, indeed had smudged in the scramble; and the wax of the tablet was soft and fresh.

I had thought Hippias a much milder man than his father. I had been wrong. Pisistratos’ hardness was a kind of tool, like a craftsman’s hammer. He used it when the work required, skillfully, and then he put it away. With Hippias, it was a thing you came upon; and so, I think, did the man himself. No Pisistratid ever took kindly to being made a fool of. Lasos told me later that when, for a moment, he wondered if he could have been wrong, it brought him out in a cold sweat.

What proved his case was simply his being alone. No injured seer had come after him to accuse him of impiety. Hippias sent for his brother; they scanned the scroll; went to the sanctuary, untenanted but for an acolyte clearing up the mess (unless you count the goddess, who one assumes had witnessed everything); compared the ancient writing with the new. A messenger, sent to Onomakritos’ house, found him already packing.

Lasos was present when he was brought before the Archons. All he could find to say in his own defense was that these visions had come to him, sent him by some god; and that he wished them to be read by men to come. He was told to be over the Attic border by nightfall; an order he obeyed so fast that he never bade me goodbye.

Lasos came to me to report his triumph; and I asked him what oracle the man had been forging, when he was caught. A prophecy, Lasos said, that the islands off Lemnos would one day sink into the sea.

“What madness,” I said, “to lose a good living for. I’ve sailed by Lemnos, and those islets hardly serve for fishermen to put in overnight. I doubt more than a couple have water. What possessed the man?”

“I can tell you that. He was possessed with a belief that these things would really happen.”

“You mean he really took himself for a prophet?”

“I believe so, now.” He sat back in my guest-chair, quite limp. I called my boy to bring him a cup of wine. He had had his moment; now the flame had sunk in him, leaving him chilled. “Yes, I think that he really thought so. I never saw a man more earnest. He could have fudged up some story; but he never tried. He said he had sought no glory for himself; he’d been content to give Mousaios all the credit; he only wanted his predictions kept safe.”

The wine was good, but he swallowed it down untasted. “He was mad, of course. Not fit to be in charge of anything sacred. What could I do but say so? … Do you know, Simonides, I wish I’d let it alone. I wish I’d never found out.”

Perhaps he wished wisely. I shall never know. While I knew Onomakritos, I never found him base. His songs have lived; even some he made in Persian-held Ionia, when he’d sold himself to the Great King. In the end, he had sold everything: his new master, his old one, and any gift the gods had given him. All to buy him a recall to Athens, though she were enslaved. I wonder what happened to him after Salamis, that false prophet of Xerxes’ victory. And I ask myself even now: if he had stayed in Athens undiscovered, among his forged scrolls, would he have grown so base?

But there, he was mad. I suppose one day we would have found him raving. After all, he never foretold the fate of Samos.