To Theasides son of Leoprepes, his brother wishes joy. Suddenly I started laughing. I could hear him say, “Sim, by the dog! Whatever did the boy pay to this learned fellow? The street-corner scrivener would have done.”
I told him everything. I was not in want, I said, and had no need to beg of our father; but the war had ruined my master’s former patrons. Were any feasts or contests being planned in Keos, where he could come and sing? I did not ask Theas to hide my letter; that would come naturally at home.
It was easy to find a Kean ship. Since Ionia fell, two-thirds of them put in at Samos. It was my luck to see Laertes, whose wedding had changed my fate, walk into the Victory. He had carried landless fugitives from half-a-dozen cities, and found nothing surprising in my present work. Nor, being a neighbor, was he surprised at being asked to give my letter privately to Theas. To my father, I sent respects by word of mouth.
Before I sealed my letter, I added by way of postscript,
A horn-handled knife, my brother,
you won for strength at the games.
Me it won from dark Hades,
saved by your gift though the sea divided us.
That was the first time I wrote a poem down. It felt very strange.
The days passed. I found the uses of memory. What with my own songs, and all those I’d learned (I had the Sons of Homer entire), by the time I ran out, I could start again at the beginning. Meantime I ate and drank and could take home all my pay. Often I could make as much as an extra drachma, if a song was asked for by name. And it might even be one of mine.
Anakreon looked in sometimes, and was always charming. He and Ibykos seemed to have patched things up. Ibykos, having sung his way into royal favor, had sense enough not to make an enemy of a poet whom fame and charm alike had made secure. As for Anakreon, he liked to please and be pleased; the bile Hipponax lived on would have poisoned him. Indeed, he resented Ibykos less than I. In Anakreon I knew a master. I suppose, in my heart, I thought I could better Ibykos myself.
About eight days after I’d sent my letter, Theodoros gave a supper for his apprentices; they had just set a new marble up. He asked me for my Bellerophon, a favorite of his (though I’ve improved it since then) and I was singing to his table, when I was half aware of someone with presence, standing in the doorway till the song was done. I took my applause, and turned. A tall splendid man, gold-bearded like a young Zeus, shouted out, “Sim!” and grasped me in his arms.
After a while, aware of everyone staring, I said, “Gentlemen, this is Theasides, son of Leoprepes of Keos, my brother.” It was my proudest moment in that house.
The house enjoyed it. Ionians are curious and love news. We put off private talk, while Theas told how he’d heard of the fall of Ephesos, feared for my life, and so on. You’d have thought, to hear him, that I was Keos’ most honored citizen, the ornament of my family. Time fell away, as I felt the cloak of his kindness once more drawn over me.
Theodoros had been eating him with his eyes; soon he pulled a chalk out of his pouch and made sketches on the table. He had lately been employed to sculpt Polykrates’ favorite, Bathyllos, the green-eyed flute-player. Like a fish he was all head, and boneless beneath the neck; you could have wound him round a flagpole.
Everyone cried that I must sing something for my brother. I gave them some old favorite with a clapping chorus; then everyone danced. When the party broke up, and we walked into the street, we poured out our news as if we had been meeting every day, except that there was more to tell. Outside my lodging, he said, “I won’t trouble your bard to find a bed for me. I’ve put up at that inn the pilot’s brother keeps, the Vinestock.”
“What?” I cried. “Theas, that’s the dearest place in town. The rich merchants stay there. They’ll seize your baggage if you can’t pay. Come, settle for what you’ve had, and come back here.”
He laughed, and slapped a jingling purse at his belt. “All found. I’m here to do credit to the family.” I looked at him. He grew serious, “Laertes slipped me your letter in the fields. But he had to tell them you were alive; and he never thought to hide what you were doing. He knows Ionia, thought nothing of it, and said you were one of the lucky ones. But you know the father.”
Yes indeed. I should have been singing for the Landsharers, men of decent birth; that would have pleased him, even more than the Tyrant’s patronage. Before disgracing us all at a common wineshop, I should have come home, asked for his favor, and lived decently on the farm. My choice must have spoken for itself; there seemed nothing I could do that did not wound him.
Theas clapped me on the shoulder. “Next time, write a letter we can show off to our friends. No one knows you’ve become a scholar. But what got into you, not to know what to do? Have you been so long away, you’ve forgotten the Apollo festival?”
It was true; I had. The moon was waxing now, and it came at the next new moon.
“Only stand up at the contest,” he said, “and sing as you did tonight, and the rest will be wondering why they troubled to try.”
It had long been out of my thoughts, to sing in Keos. Time and change had touched the boy who had flinched before; the roads of the earth and the ways of men, learning and skill, pride and anger. A man thought now, Yes, I could sing before my father.
I knew it should be now, while the mood and strength were in me. But I knew also that here, at last, was something I had to give. “Another year; not this. Kleobis must compete this time, and I can’t enter against my master. He needs to be crowned again.”
“Why? How could he grudge it you? He’s won a dozen crowns to your one.”
“That is why. He is going down and feels it, and it’s no fault of his. He is losing pride, and with that he will lose everything. I can wait; he can’t.”
He looked at me, in a patch of moonlight. “The old man took good care of you.”
I nodded. I did not say, He has been my father. We never said things like that aloud. “When you meet him, don’t speak about my competing.”
“Very well, Sim. If that’s the way of it, you must pay your debts.”
Next morning at our lodging he kept his word. “Everyone still talks of Laertes’ wedding, sir. Your song must have brought good luck; two boys and a girl, and lively as young goats. It would be a great day if you came again.”
Kleobis smiled, and his eye kindled a little. He sat stroking his beard. Presently he said, “My dear boys, it is part of a poet’s skill to judge occasions. There are times to compete, and times to present a pupil. When the pupil returns to his native city, not having yet been heard there, he will arouse, if he does well, both pride and wonder. In these the teacher has his share.”
Theas looked at me, meaning, “Just what I thought myself.”
I, too, could see the truth in it. It was also true that if he entered, and someone of note should chance to come and win, that would be his death-blow; and I thought he knew it. He had not pushed me when I was afraid, and I owed him the like return.
“Sir, if I can show Keos even half of what I owe you, it will be the best day of my life. But only if you are there to see it.” Never mind if I don’t win, I thought; if they see Black Sim, Leoprepes’ youngest, do anything at all, they’ll believe his teacher can work miracles.
“You’ll honor our house, I hope, sir,” Theas said. I nearly jumped out of my skin; but he spoke with confidence. Clearly, he had come to be a power in the family; Leoprepes’ eldest was already a man to reckon with.