“Surely,” Dion went on, “to crave revenge is to fall down before one’s enemy and eat dust at his feet. What worse can we let him do to us? In hatred as in love, we grow like the thing we brood upon. What we loathe, we graft into our very soul. The man has more profit who beggars himself for a whore. The mind neglected; the soul starved of its true food; condemned at last to some base rebirth, if, as I am persuaded, Pythagoras taught us truly. Who in his senses would give that triumph to the man who wronged him?”
These words impressed me. I had never thought of any of it, and said so, adding, in apology, “I was thinking about this wretched Meidias. All his life he wanted to be somebody, but without having to pay for it, which is always death to an artist. Now this. I couldn’t have done it to a dog. But of course you are right about the soul. You have shown me the riches of philosophy.”
“Borrowed riches,” he said, smiling and catching Plato’s eye. “It is the fate of the teacher to hear his words come limping back from the pupil’s mouth.”
“The pupil,” said Plato in that low light voice of his, “who lives what he learned, is a teacher too. A city of such pupils could teach the world.” Then, as if he had lapsed from courtesy by speaking of some private thing, he turned to me, saying, “You are clean of this death, having neither willed nor welcomed it. Remember, the man suffered it for sacrilege. It was the god’s honor they avenged.”
I drank some wine, which I could do with, and held my peace. But I was saying within me, “Is that what you think, wise man? If I had called for help up there, squeaking with fright through Apollo’s mouth so that they all laughed and despised me, they would have beaten the cover round the precinct, from duty, and then gone home. But I pleased them; they took trouble for me; this is my wreath of victory. So wise, and you can’t see it.” They were quoting Pythagoras to each other. I looked at their fine faces full of mind, and thought, “I’m only an actor; the best I do will be gone like smoke when the last graybeard dies who heard it; these are great men whose fame will very likely live forever. But for all they know, they don’t know a crowd.”
“Your cup is empty,” Dion said, dipping into the mixer. “We cannot have you melancholy. Did Achilles grieve for Hector? And here’s only a Thersites dead. Which brings me back, Nikeratos, to what I had to say. Would you like to play Achilles again, in another tragedy, at the next Lenaia?”
So it’s come, I thought. For a moment I saw Anaxis with the barber. But in Athens? “I am happy that you thought of me; but I’m not yet on the roll of leading men; and besides, the sponsors draw for them.” I had forgotten he was a foreigner. So near, so far.
“Apply again,” he said, smiling. “I think friends of mine can manage that. As for the draw, if we miss first turn we may still have the luck to get you, while your name is new on the list.”
I saw he knew what he was about. Past victors get chosen first; the draw exists, indeed, to give sponsors a fair chance at them. He was telling me that even if his choregos drew first turn, he would still choose me. The door I had knocked on for years was opening at his finger-touch. I thanked him as best I could. Even now, though, I had been too long in the business not to ask, “What is the play?”
I guessed the answer before I got it. I saw him swallow.
“The title is Hector’s Ransom, a work by my kinsman Dionysios, the Archon of Syracuse.” He would rather not have looked at me, so he gave me a soldier’s stare. “As you will know, his work has been presented at Athens in the past, and won the lesser prizes; but, like every poet, he sets his heart on the first.” He clapped his hands, and said to his slave, “Mago, bring me the book from my bedside table.”
We talked while waiting, I forget of what. I was thinking he had done it well; he knew how to ask like a gentleman. The man being his kin and ruler, he could scarcely beg my pardon. And no one could say he offered a mean reward.
The book came. He said, “Would you like my secretary to come and read it? He is a Tarentine, and reads quite well.”
“Thank you,” I said, “but it’s best to hear oneself. The torch still burns on the terrace; may I go out there?”
He hoped civilly that I would not be cold. I went into the cool garden, fresh with dew, and full of the sounds of a mountain night, trees rustling, a bell-like bird call, goat-clappers tinkling across the gorges. Pavers of moonlight washed the Phaidriades as pure as crystal. The dark foam of the olives flowed to the sea. Vine-shadows crossed the veins of the marble pavement. The torch was burning low, but I hardly needed its light.
I sat down on a couch with the book closed in my hand. In the dappled shadows of the oleander I seemed to see a waiting face. I untied the ribbon from the roll, then paused again. “Loxias,” I said, “if there’s good here it comes from you. Then I’ll play in it, and people can say what they choose. But if it’s pretentious bombast, it’s not yours, and I won’t touch it, not if I have to wait till I’m forty for another chance like this, besides losing the friendship of a man who makes one believe in men. I promise, Loxias. A man hasn’t much to give a god in thanks for saving his life; it’s the best I have.”
I unrolled the book, and read.
To Zeus on the god-walk, enter Thetis grieving for Achilles her doomed mortal son. It sounded quite well, Thetis especially. Nothing much developed, but it would pass in production well enough. Exeunt gods, enter boys’ chorus (captive women), the men’s chorus (Greeks). Center doors open, Achilles within, discovered mourning, brought out on the reveal. So far, so-so.
Scene for Achilles, lifted from Homer with a touch of Sophokles. If one is going to borrow, by all means use the best. One could do something with it; there was no bathos, at least. I read on; the plot was not badly contrived and had touches of originality, as far as it is possible with such a theme. After a scene for Phoenix and Automedon, chorus, while the actors change masks; then enter Hermes, forerunning Priam. Not a bad speech for third actor. Now for Priam, a chariot entry through the parodos, which always goes well. The chariot stops center, and Priam speaks.
I had been skimming, to get the shape of the play. Now suddenly I was held, and started reading aloud. The old man speaks of his dead son whose corpse he has come to ransom from the victor: first as the hero-king he will never be, then as the child he was. The father recalls his scrapes as a daring lad, and how he beat him. It was a marvelous transition; even I, trained to read with my head, was near to tears. There was an entry for Agamemnon: nonrecognition, cross-talk, irony, the usual thing. The play was just respectable, except for Priam. Then it breathed, and you could not fault it. The scene with Achilles would have melted bronze.
I was surprised, having heard from everywhere that Dionysios thought pretty poorly of his own son and heir. Here it was, at all events—a part one couldn’t miss with.
I went back to the supper room. They broke off their talk; Plato’s cool eye told me, in case I had not known, that I had paused in the doorway to make an entrance. “I like this play. It should act well. Did I understand you to have offered me the lead?”
“Certainly,” Dion said. “How not?”
“The lead is Priam. Achilles only feeds him.”
“Any part you choose, of course.” He looked amazed. I might have known the Achilles in his own soul would hide the rest from him. But Plato, whom I had forgotten, said, “He is quite right, Dion. The Priam has some freshness; the Achilles is everywhere derived. I did not tell you so; I doubted I could be just.”
In that moment I was as sure as if I had seen it that the tale was true about the slave market at Aigina. Aristophanes, I thought, could have done something good with that. While we discussed the play, I trifled with this thought; but one thought leads to another. This was a proud man if I ever saw one. How he must have loved Dion, if he could love him still. It quenched my laughter.