I was still small enough to be used to women’s arms; it was odd to feel, under the pleated dress I grasped at, the hard chest of a man, holding each breath and playing it out with the phrases, the rib cage vibrant like the box of a lyre. If one thinks, I suppose most men’s sons would die of shame to hear their fathers weep and lament in the voice of a woman. But as he never missed his exercises, I must have heard them from the first day I drew breath: old men, young men, queens and booming tyrants, heroes, maidens and kings. To me it was the right of a man to have seven voices; only women made do with one.
When the day came, I was still aggrieved there was no mask for me, though I had been told again and again children did not use them. “Never mind,” said my father, “the time will come.” Then he pulled his own mask down, the smiling face going into the solemn one. He was in the prologue as Athene.
Outside the parodos the cart was waiting, drawn by four oxen, with the gilded spoils of Troy. At last came the call boy, and my father in the pale mask of the shorn-haired widow. He clambered up, someone hoisted me after, he settled me on his knee, and the oxen started.
Out beyond the tall gateway was the great curve of the theater. I was used to the empty tiers. Now, filled with faces, it seemed vast and unknown, murmuring and dangerous as the sea. My father’s voice whispered, “Don’t look at the audience. You’re scared of strangers. Think how they chopped up your poor old granddad. Lean on me.”
This is not how I myself would direct Astyanax. He is Hector’s son; I like him alert and bold, thinking no evil till the time. But my father knew his business too. Even the men were sighing as we came slowly on into the orchestra; I could hear the little coos and cries of the women, floating on this deep bass. Suddenly it took hold of me. My father and I, by ourselves, were doing this with fifteen thousand people. We could carry them all to Troy with us, make them see us just as we chose to be. I can taste it still, that first sip of power.
Then I felt their will reach out to me. It was like the lover’s touch, which says, Be what I desire. All power has its price. I clung to Andromache my mother and leaned upon her breast; but the hands I answered to were Artemidoros the actor’s. As they molded me like wax and sculptured us into one, I knew the many-headed lover had caught him too; I felt it through both our skins. Yet I felt him innocent. He did not sell, but gave freely, love for love.
The Herald came, with the news that I must die. I remembered I was not supposed to heed him; but I thought I should look sorry for my mother’s grief, so I reached up and touched the mask’s dead hair. At this I heard sighing and sobbing rise like a wave. It was coming from the block where the hetairas sit; they love a good cry more than figs. But it was a few years yet before I knew enough to look for them.
When the Herald bore me off to die, I thought everyone backstage would be there to pay me compliments; but only the wardrobe master’s assistant came in a hurry, to strip me naked and paint on my bloody wounds. My father, who had exited soon after me, ran over to pat my bare belly as I lay, and say, “Good boy!” Then he was off; it’s a quick change from Andromache to Helen, what with the jewels and so on. It is always a splendid costume, meant to show up against the other captives’. The mask was most delicately painted, and had gold-wreathed hair. He went on, and I heard his new voice, bland and beguiling, answering angry Menelaos.
Soon after came my cue to be brought on, dead. They stretched me out on the shield, and a couple of extras lifted it. The day was warm, but the breeze tickled my skin, and I gave my mind to lying limp as I had been told. The chorus called out the dreadful news to my grannie Hecuba; lying, eyes shut, while the Herald made a long speech about my death, I prayed Dionysos not to let me sneeze. There was a pause which, because I could not see, seemed to last forever. The whole theater had become dead silent, holding its breath. Then a terrible low voice said just beside me:
“Lay down the circled shield of Hector on the ground.”
I had been well rehearsed for this scene, but not with Hecuba. I had nothing to do but keep still; and this was Kroisos, the leading man. He was then at the peak of his powers, and, fairly enough, did not expect to tutor children. I had seen the mask, and that was all.
I had already heard him, of course, lamenting with Andromache; but that is her scene, and I had my own part to think of. Now, the voice seemed to go all through me, making my backbone creep with cold. I forgot it was I who was being mourned for. Indeed, it was more than I.
No sweetness here, but old pride brought naked to despair, still new to it, a wandering stranger. At the bottom of the pit a new pit opens, and still the mind can feel. Cold hands touched my head. So silent were the tiers above us, I heard clearly, from the pines outside, the murmur of a dove.
I was not seven years old. I think I remember; but no doubt I have mixed in scraps from all sorts of later renderings, by Theodores or Philemon or Thettalos; even from my own. I dreamed of it, though, for years, and it is from this I remember certain trifles—such as the embroidery on his robe, which had a border of keys and roses—glimpsed between my eyelids. When I think of these dreams it all comes back to me. Was it Troy I grieved for, or man’s mortality; or for my father, in the stillness that was like a wreath of victory on Kroisos’ brow? All I remember for certain is my swelling throat, and the horror that came over me when I knew I was going to cry.
My eyes were burning. Terror was added to my grief. I was going to wreck the play. The sponsor would lose the prize; Kroisos, the crown; my father would never get a part again; we would be in the streets begging our bread. And after the play, I would have to face terrible Hecuba without a mask. Tears burst from my shut eyes; my nose was running. I hoped I might die, that the earth would open or the skene catch fire before I sobbed aloud.
The hands that had traced my painted wounds lifted me gently. I was gathered into the arms of Hecuba; the wrinkled mask with its down-turned mouth bent close above. The flute, which had been moaning softly through the speech, getting a cue, wailed louder. Under its sound, Queen Hecuba whispered in my ear, “Be quiet, you little bastard. You’re dead.”
I felt better at once. All I had been taught came back to me. We had work to do. I slid back limp as his hands released me; neatly, while he washed and shrouded me, he wiped my nose. The scene went through to the end.
In vain we sacrificed. And yet had not the very hand of God gripped and crushed this city deep in the ground we should have disappeared in darkness, and not given a theme for music, and the songs of men to come.
As the extras carried me off in my royal grave-clothes, I thought to myself, surprised, “We are the men to come.” As well as everything else, I had been responsible to Astyanax. His shade had been watching from the underworld, hoping I would not make him mean. What burdens I had borne! I felt I had aged a lifetime.
My father, who had been standing behind the prompt-side revolve and seen it all, ran up as they slid me off the shield, asking what had come over me. If it had been my mother, I daresay I should have raised a howl. But I said at once, “Father, I didn’t make a noise.”
Kroisos came off soon after, pushing up his mask. He was a thin man, all profile, like a god on a coin except that he was bald. When he turned our way I hid behind my father’s skirts; but he came towards us, and fished me out by the hair. I came squirming, a disgusting sight, as you may suppose, all smeared with blood-paint and snot. He grinned with big yellow teeth. I saw, amazed, that he was not angry. “By the dog!” he said, “I thought we were finished then.” He grimaced like a comedian’s slave-mask. “Artemidoros, this boy has feeling, but he also knows what he’s about. And what’s your name?”