All this, mind, in a spirit of raillery; Clytemnestra would chuckle, and Merope chide him for overboldness. But I saw how the Queen’s eyes flashed, no longer at my cadenzas; and Merope’d say later, “At least he can talk about something besides politics and music.” I laughed too at his sallies, however anxioused by Merope’s pleasure in her new role, for the wretch was sharp, and though it sickened me to picture him atop the Queen — not to mention my frustrate darling! — heaving his paunch upon her and grinning through his whiskers, I admired his brash way with them and his gluttony for life’s delights, so opposite to my poor temper. Aye, aye, there was my ruin: I liked the scoundrel after all, as I liked Clytemnestra and even Agamemnon; as I liked Merope, quite apart from loving or desiring her, whose impish spirit and vivacity reblossomed, in Aegisthus’s presence, for the first time since we’d left the goats, and quite charmed the Mycenaean court. Most of all I was put down by the sheer energy of the lot of them: sackers of cities, breakers of vows, scorners of minstrels — admirable, fearsome! Watching Clytemnestra’s eyes, I could hear her snarl with delight beneath the gross usurper, all the while she contemned his luxury and schemed her schemes; I could see herself take ax to Agamemnon, laugh with Aegisthus at their bloody hands, draw him on her at the corpse’s side — smile, even, as she dirked him at the moment of climax! Him too I could hear laugh at her guile as his life pumped out upon her: bloody fine trick, Clytie girl, and enjoy your kingdom! And in Merope, my gentle, my docile, my honey: in her imperious new smile, in how she smartly snatched and bit the hand Aegisthus pinched her with, there began to stir a woman more woman than the pair of Leda’s hatchlings. No, no, I was not up to them, I was not up to life — but it was myself I despised therefor, not the world.
Weeks passed; Clytemnestra made no reference to my gaffe; Merope grew by turns too silent with me, too cranky, or too sweet. I began to imagine them both Aegisthus’s already; indeed, for aught I knew in dismalest moments they might be whoring it with every man in the palace, from Minister of Trade to horse-groom, and laughing at me with all Mycenae. Meanwhile, goat-face Aegisthus continued to praise my art (not without discernment for all his coarseness, as he had a good ear and knew every minstrel in the land) even as he teased my timid manner and want of experience. No keener nose in Greece for others’ weaknesses: he’d remark quite seriously, between jests, that with a little knowledge of the world I might become in fact its chief minstrel; but if I tasted no more of life than Clytemnestra’s dinner parties, of love no more than Merope’s favors however extraordinary, perforce I’d wither in the bud while my colleagues grew to fruition. Let Athens, he’d declare, be never so splendid; nonetheless, of a man whose every day is passed within its walls one says, not that he’s been to Athens, but that he’s been nowhere. Every song I composed was a draught from the wine jug of my experience, which if not replenished must anon run dry.…
“Speaking of wine,” he added one evening, “two of Clytie’s boats are sailing tomorrow with a cargo of it to trade along the coast, and I’m shipping aboard for the ride. Ten ports, three whorehouses each, home in two months. Why not go too?”
At thought of his departure my heart leaped up: I glanced at Merope, standing by with her flagon, and found her coolly smiling meward, no stranger to the plan. Aegisthus read my face and roared.
“She’ll keep, Minstrel! And what a lover you’ll be when you get back!”
Clytemnestra, too, arched brows and smiled. Under other circumstances I might’ve found some sort of voyage appealing, since I’d been nowhere; as was I wanted only to see Aegisthus gone. But those smiles — on the one hand of the queen of my person, on the other of that queen of my heart whom I would so tardily recrown — altogether unnerved me. I’d consider the invitation overnight, I murmured, unless the Queen ordered one course or the other.
“I think the voyage is a good idea,” Clytemnestra said promptly, and added in Aegisthus’s teasing wise: “With you two out of the palace, Merope and I can get some sleep.” My heart was stung by their new camaraderie and the implication, however one took it, that their sleep had been being disturbed. The Queen asked for Merope’s opinion.
“He’s often said a minstrel has to see the world,” my darling replied. Was it spite or sadness in the steady eyes she turned to me? “Go see it. It’s all the same to me.”
Prophetic words! How they mocked the siren Experience, whose song I heeded above the music of my own heart! To perfect the irony of my foolishness, Aegisthus here changed strategy, daring me, as it were, to believe the other, bitter meaning of her words, which I was to turn upon my tongue for many a desolated year.
“Don’t forget,” he reminded me with a grin: “I might be out to trick you! Maybe I’ll heave you overboard one night, or maroon you on a rock and have Merope to myself! For all you know, Minstrel, she might want to be rid of you; this trip might be her idea.…”
Limply I retorted, his was a sword could cut both ways. My accurst and heart-hurt fancy cast up reasons now for sailing in despite of alclass="underline" my position in Mycenae was hot, and might be cooled by a sea journey; Agamemnon could scarcely blame me for his wife’s misconduct if I was out of town on her orders; perhaps there were Chief-Minstrelships to be earned in other courts; I’d achieve a taintless fame and send word for Merope to join me. At very least she would be safe from his predations while we were at sea; my absence, not impossibly, would make her heart fonder; I’d find some way to get us out of Mycenae when I returned, et cetera. Meantime … I shivered … the world, the world! My breath came short, eyes teared; we laughed, Aegisthus and I, and at Clytemnestra’s smiling hest drank what smiling Merope poured.
And next day we two set sail, and laughed and drank across the wine-dark sea to our first anchorage: a flowered, goated, rockbound isle. Nor did Aegisthus’s merry baiting cease when we put ashore with nine large amphorae: the local maidens, he declared, were timid beauties whose wont it was to spy from the woods when a ship came by; nimble as goddesses they were at the weaving of figured tapestries, which they bartered for wine, the island being grapeless; but so shy they’d not approach till the strangers left, whereupon they’d issue from their hiding places and make off with the amphorae, leaving in exchange a fair quantity of their ware. Should a man be clever enough to lay hold of them, gladly they’d buy their liberty with love; but to catch them was like catching at rainbows or the chucklings of the sea. What he proposed therefore was that we conceal us in a ring of wine jugs on the beach, bid the crew stand by offshore, snatch us each a maiden when they came a-fetching, and enjoy the ransom. Better yet, I could bait them with music, which he’d been told was unknown on the island.