We rode to Pentelikon, where there was plenty of boar that year, hunting having been much cut down by the war. It was now a fine fresh morning, with a breeze from the sea; from the top of the range, we could see Dekeleia clearly, and half a dozen places where we had fought side by side. I could not keep from pointing, and saying “Do you remember?” It is my nature to flare up hotly, but not to hold it long. Lysis was a man slow to anger; but once being moved to it, he did not easily put it by. He answered me shortly, and pointing to a wooded fold of the mountain, said we would try there.
On the way we met a farm-boy with some goats, and I asked him if there were boar in the wood. “Yes,” he said, “there’s a very big one. He drove out another boar who lived near here. Only yesterday I heard him rooting.” When he had gone, Lysis turned to me. I could see from his eyes that he thought things had gone far enough. But the words came hard to him; and now I was angry in my turn, because he had been cold to my signs of peace. So I said, “Do you think I’ll turn back now, so that you can throw it for ever in my face? If you came for that, you came for nothing.” On that he answered me coolly, “Save your wit for your work, Alexias.”
We dismounted in silence, and sat down to eat, each with his own food and his dogs about him, not speaking. Presently looking up he said, “Since we are doing men’s work, shall we do it like men and not like children?” He told me what we should do, shortly and clearly, as if giving orders in the field. Then he leashed the bitch-hound he used for tracking, and leaving the other dogs and the horses with the slave, led towards the thicket.
After the bright day it seemed dark and tangled within. The sun came through the trees in round coins of gold; the black damp earth smelled of rotten oak-leaves. Soon we began to find boar-droppings and tracks. They looked very big. I stole a quick glance at Lysis’ face, which told me nothing, for he now looked just as he did in war.
Presently we came to an oak-tree whose bark was all ploughed and torn with the tusks of the boar. The bitch tugged at Lysis’ arm, and bristled along her back, and growled. Ahead was a dark covert, with tracks coming out. Lysis said, “That is his run. We will net it here.”
We took back the bitch and tied her up with the others, and set up the nets in a bay before the lair, fixing them to strong stakes and to trees. A little way behind, there was a steep rock; on this, where he was safe, we posted the slave with a pile of stones, to keep the boar from breaking the wrong way. Then we got our spears. Lysis said, “Stand at the ready, and don’t take your eyes off the covert for a moment. Boar are fast.” So we fetched the dogs, which were in clamour already at the hated scent, and slipped them in the thicket. Lysis stood to the right of the nets, I to the left. In a proper hunt you will see four or five men in each of these places, with spears, and some further back with javelins to throw; to make up for numbers, we came closer in. At our signal the slave began shouting, and throwing stones. Then between two black bushes I saw the boar.
I thought, “He’s not so big after all.” He stood with the hounds in cry about him, his head low, his tusks yellow against his hairy black snout. His little eyes looked round, and I saw at once he was not going to rush blindly into the net. He was an old cunning one. Lysis and I stood in our places, our spears pointed forward and downward, gripped in the right hand, guided with the left. Then Phlegon, Lysis’ biggest dog, ran in. The boar’s head jerked once; Phlegon flew kicking in the air, fell and lay still. When I saw him die, and Lysis standing there, I came to myself at last. His dogs were better than mine; they would work the game his way, and he had known it. So I shouted at the boar to make it look, and stepped towards it. At once Lysis shouted too, louder than I. But the boar had seen me first. Before I could think, “Here he comes,” he was on my spear.
I never knew before what strength meant. With his red eyes flaming he thrust towards me, squealing and trampling, trying to run himself up the spear to reach me. His weight felt more than my own. I set my teeth and leaned on the shaft; for moments that seemed hours I looked along it at his tusks and his wrinkled snout. Then quick as lightning he gave, and twisted aside. The spear turned like a live thing, and left my hands.
I felt a great astonishment, in which all was still and it seemed I could easily take back my spear again. Just in time Lysis’ voice reached me shouting, “Down! Lie down!” Used to obeying him in battle I flung myself down quite blindly; then I remembered why, and clutched the roots and small growth below me, to anchor me fast. A boar’s tusks curve upward; he must get them under before he can gore.
My fingers dug into the ground, my teeth met on bitter stalks and leaves. I felt the snout of the boar thrust at my side, and smelt his hot stink. Close by me Lysis shouted; the boar was gone. I lay with my wits scattered, then looked round. Lysis with the boar on his spearhead was fighting for his life. It was thrashing about like a demon, bearing him here and there in the tangled ground, full of hazards for the foot. My mind seemed at leisure and very clear. I thought, “If he falls, I have killed him. But I will not live to carry it in my heart.”
My spear still trailed from the boar’s shoulder. I leaped to my feet and dragged it out and, as he turned towards me, thrust it in lower, at the base of the neck. There was a great surge against my arms; I could hear Lysis pant as we thrust together. Then the boar settled, like a boulder after hurtling down a hill. His mouth opened; he grunted and was dead.
Lysis set his foot on him, drew out his spear, and drove it upright into the earth. I did the same. We stood and looked at each other across the boar. In a while he came round and took me by the shoulders. What we first said is nothing to set down. Presently we went to look at the killed dog; he lay bravely, his teeth still bared for battle, the slash of the boar on his broken neck. “Poor Phlegon,” said Lysis, “he is the sacrifice of our pride. May the gods accept him and be appeased.” Then we called the slave down from his refuge. He was in great agitation, having thought, I believe, that when we were both dead the boar would sit down to besiege him. Being now rather light-headed, we laughed at his fears; then we broke the boar, and cut off the gods’ portion, and sacrificed to Artemis and Apollo. Afterwards we sent home our spoils, with the mule and the slave.
All afternoon we sat on the hill-side, on a slope beside a spring. Below us the blue bay of Marathon washed its sea-wrack shore, with the ridges of Euboea wine-dark and clear beyond. When we had exchanged forgiveness and could scarcely believe in our former discord, I told him in part why I had gone to the mountains, saying my father had charged me with an impiety too shameful to name. He stared for a moment; then caught his breath quickly, and took my hand, and said no more. After that he was so good to me, you might have supposed I had done something wonderful, instead of hazarding his life.
The blue of the sea grew dark, the light deep and golden; shadows leaned down the eastward slopes. I said to Lysis, “Today has not run away from us, like days that are filled with nothing. They are wrong who say that only misery lengthens time.”—“Yes,” he said. “Yet the day is ending, and still too soon.”—“At the end of life do you think it is the same?”—“I suppose the man does not live who has not said in his heart, ‘Give me this, or that, and I can go content.’”—“What would you ask for, Lysis?”—“Some days one thing, and some another. When Sophokles grew old, he said the escape from love was like a slave’s from a tyrannous master.”—“How old is he?”—“Eighty years or so. We ought to be calling the dogs in; they’re all over the hill.”—“Lysis, must we go back to the City? We’ve enough meat left here; let’s cook it, and stay in the hills. Then the day will last as long as we choose.”—“See,” he said, “how near Euboea looks. It will rain tonight.” Then, as I had hoped he would, he asked me to have supper with him at home.