Someone had said that Autolykos the athlete was wrestling in Taureas’ palaestra, so we asked our tutors if we could watch. They agreed to pass through but not to stop. We found that Autolykos had finished his bout and was taking a rest; the place was full of people admiring his looks and waiting for him to wrestle again. A statuary, or a painter, was sitting and making a sketch of him. He was used to all this and took no notice of it. We were edging our way through the press, when from the other end came a hush, and then the muttering of an angry crowd. My hands felt cold. I knew who had come in.
He was alone. It did not occur to me that he had not sought for company; I thought they had all deserted him. Kriton, who had been watching the wrestling, came over at once to walk with him; and to everyone’s surprise, Autolykos himself saluted him, but being naked and covered with dust did not leave the wrestling-ground. Everyone else drew away as he passed, or turned their backs; as he drew nearer, I heard someone laugh.
As for me, I was neither brave enough to go forward, nor coward enough to go back. When others withdrawing left me in sight of him, I could scarcely bring myself to look. The best I hoped for was to see him staring them all out, as they say he did the enemy at Delion in the retreat. But as he passed me he was saying as if conversing at home, “But his contention is that the method can be taught, not the power of apprehending it. If it were a question of mathematics …”
I did not hear any more. As Midas was calling me, I turned to go: then I saw that Xenophon was standing just behind. At first he did not see me, for he was following Sokrates with his eyes. I waited for him to pay up his bet, for he was always a good loser. But still looking past me, he said, “On the day when the gods send me trouble and danger, may they send me also that man’s courage.”
On the way home, we climbed to the High City and looked out at the harbour. A ship was leaving; the day being clear, we saw a blue device upon the sail. “That will be the Salaminia,” we said, “with her blue owl.” She stood away quickly, making haste to Sicily.
6
THAT YEAR AT THE Dionysia, my father took my mother and me to the theatre. The poet was one he was very fond of, because he laughed at the sophists and the democrats and at everyone who wanted to upset the City with anything new. Kydilla came to attend my mother, and Sostias to carry the cushions; my father gave him two obols to see the show. It was a clear bright day; a few little cloud-shadows swept across the sunny theatre, and blew away towards the sea. My mother with Kydilla went off to the women’s seats. She had on a new pair of gold earrings my father had just given her, with little leaves hanging in them that trembled when she turned her head. The seats were already filling. The sheep-skins and undyed clothes of the working people at the top, and the bright colours on the lower benches, made the bowl of the theatre look like a great flower, lying against the flank of the High City in a calyx of dry leaves.
Nowadays I often wonder that I still attend the plays of Aristophanes, whose hands are stained, if words can stain the hand that wrote them, with the blood dearest to me on earth. That day I went unwillingly, because his mockery of Sokrates was quoted everywhere, as indeed it stuck to him all his life. Yet in this comedy was a song about birds, so beautiful that it made the hair prickle on one’s neck. Indeed, while he is singing, he makes his own heaven and earth; the good is what he chooses, and where he sets their altars, there the gods alight. Plato says that no poet ought to be allowed to do this; and he is too distinguished now to be argued with any longer. I notice, however, that he goes himself. At all events, Aristophanes missed the prize that year. It went to a play called The Drunken Revellers, which roused the audience to great fury against Herm-breakers and blasphemers.
We were waiting outside for my mother, when a man came up and said, “I stayed to tell you, Myron, that your wife has gone home. But don’t be anxious; my own wife has gone with her, and says it is nothing of consequence. You can trust her; she has had four of her own.” He smiled, and my father thanked him with more warmth than he had shown at first. “Well, Alexias,” he said, “let us go home then.”
On the way he was in good spirits, and talked about the play. I don’t know how I answered him. He went through to see my mother and I was left alone. Without giving a thought to what I was about, or looking for my tutor, or asking leave, I ran out of the house and through the streets. Near the Acharnian Gate someone called to me, “Where are you going so fast, son of Myron?” I saw that it was Lysis, but I could not have spoken with anyone for my life; I turned my face to hide it from him, and ran on. I ran through fields and woods, and found myself at last on the slopes of Lykabettos.
Climbing the steep rocks above with my hands and feet, I came out on a level place, where a few small flowers clung to the stone. Even the High City looked flat below me; beyond the shoulder of Hymettos shone the sea. I lay down panting, and said to myself, “What did I run for? One ought not to do things without a cause.” Then I turned my face and wept bitterly; yet I had not known when I ran that I wanted to weep.
I said to myself that my grief was absurd; yet it filled my heart and even hurt my body. It seemed to me that my mother had betrayed me; having taken me up when I was wanted by no one, now she had leagued herself with my father to put another in my place. I hated him for it, though I knew it was impiety towards the gods. Better, I thought, that the Spartans had not come down on the day of my birth, and that long ago, in some such place as this, foxes had picked my bones and the wind scattered them.
In time my tears were spent; the little flowers threw long shadows and I felt the evening chill. It put me in mind of how I climbed the roof on my father’s wedding day, to see the bride brought home. I had supposed in my simplicity, being only seven years old, that I should be allowed to come to the feast. My father had said that he was bringing me a mother; and as if he had promised me a dog or bird of my own, I thought she belonged already to me.
It was not till the time of the lamp-lighting that I left my memories and came down from Lykabettos. I was hungry, for it was a sharp evening now the sun was down. I remembered that I had been gone some hours without my tutor, and wondered whether by good luck my father might be out. When I got in, however, he was in the living-room waiting for me.
He was alone; and instead of begging his pardon, I said before he had time to speak, “Where is Mother?” for I was suddenly afraid that she was really sick. He got up from his chair saying, “All in good time, Alexias. Where have you been?”
When he spoke as if I had no right to ask, anger rose in me. I stared him in the face with my mouth shut. I saw his colour rise, as no doubt mine had risen. At length he said, “Very well. If you have done what you are ashamed of, you have cause to be silent. But I warn you it will pay you better to tell me now, than to wait like a coward till I find it out.” At this a fire burned in my head, and I said, “I have been in the men’s palaestra, hearing the sophists, and meeting my friends.”
Being now very angry, he paused before he spoke; then without raising his voice he said, “With whom, then, were you there?”—“With no one more than another,” I said; “though your friend Kritias asked me to go home with him.”