After a while he said, “But you have not heard, then? I am sorry, indeed. I thought you had come to settle his affairs.”
“I came to bring him home with me. When did he die?”
“Why, it would be the day you sailed he first took to his bed, or maybe the day after; and then it was four days, or maybe five.”
“When I left, then, he had it on him.”
“Don’t take it to heart, Simonides. He said to me, and even to the wife when she brought him a sup to eat, ‘I can lie up now like a lord. I told the boy it was nothing, or he’d have stayed and missed his chance.’”
I could not say to this kindly man, “I left him to die alone.” I just asked if anyone had come to visit him.
“I doubt if many knew that he was sick. There was that philosopher, though, that he used to see while you were at your singing; he teaches mathematics and such. He came most days; was with him at the end, and saw to the funeral. You’ll be wanting to see him; he has the urn in keeping.”
“Yes; who is he?”
“He’s a son of old Mnesarchos, who was a famous gemcutter in his day. You’ll find his house up the hill, just under the acropolis.”
I climbed the steep way to the ancient walls, remembering how Kleobis had said he would make an offering for my victory. He had offered his lonely death, while I was being welcomed in my own city without a care. People turned their heads now and then to see me weeping; but I had nowhere to go, and had to make the best of it. When the houses thinned, I sat awhile on a hillside boulder, and covered my face to have my grief out.
Even before I left, our paths had been dividing, mine to the Victory, his to the fallen lords, and only one thing had done it: poverty. Theas had been right. If either of us had had a steady livelihood, I would not be here now, seeking a stranger who had tended and buried my friend. If he reproaches me, I thought, I must bear even that.
I wiped my eyes and set off, and stopped some men on the road to ask the way. They pointed, but looked at me strangely. Next time I had to ask, the passer-by spat and made the evil-eye sign. “Oh, mad Pythagoras. His house is just over there.”
It was an old one, built of the mountain stone; not fancy-trimmed like the city ones, but cool and roomy. The courtyard door was opened by a Thracian slave, big-boned and red-haired, with a blue tattoo on his forehead. It surprised me that he did not speak in the slave-talk, but in excellent Greek. “Sir, you are Simonides of Keos? Please come inside, my master is expecting you.”
Courteous, not servile, he led me through a herb garden, aromatic in the autumn sun; there was a round pavement with an upright pole in its center, and figures carved round its edge. A long measuring-cord came down from the top of the pole and was wound about a cleat; I had seen such things among the Ephesian mathematicians, who claim they can measure mountains with them, or some such matter. The slave paused a moment to see where the shadow of the pole was falling. He was plainly dressed, but in a good fine cloth. In Keos, one could have worn such stuff oneself.
He scratched at a door and opened it. “Here is Simonides, sir, the friend of Kleobis.”
The room went right across the ground floor, and was full of things: shelves of books and scrolls and writing-tablets; tables of mathematicians’ toys, cubes and cones and spheres and cylinders. One wall was whitened, and drawn all over with figures, and with squares and triangles made of blocks of numbers. There was a stand with a great astrolabe upon it; and in the middle, getting the best light, a long table laden with musical instruments, at which a man was sitting tuning a lyre. He laid it aside, and rose.
He was very tall, his black hair and beard hardly touched with grey. Under his heavy brows were large eyes with brilliant whites showing all round the iris. One could not look away from them. I should think I could have counted ten while he stood there without a word, fixing me with these strange eyes; then suddenly he came around his worktable, and embraced me as if we were old friends meeting after many years. I remembered the man on the road, but could not feel that he was dangerous.
“Come, rest; we can talk when you have eaten.” I had taken no breakfast, in my haste to be off the ship, and nothing since, but had not known I was hungry. I took the chair he offered. His lyre was a fine old one of polished tortoiseshell, with arms of slender horn and a bridge of ivory. The slave, uncalled, brought wine and raisin-cakes; my host took them and served them to me himself.
“Rest,” he said again, and picking up the lyre played on it softly. The intervals were new to me, and strange, yet soothing. Presently he laid it down. “We often talked of you, Kleobis and I. Now that I see you, I no longer doubt that you were his son. A good son, too. You have no memory of it?”
I now saw why they thought him mad. “Certainly,” I said to humor him, “he gave me a father’s care.” He had suffered enough, I thought, without a lunatic to trouble his last hours.
“No matter. The Sight is rare. But the bonds of souls are for all men, as for every creature. Leave, when you can, your honorable grief. I foresee that you will live long. Even before your soul departs its present habitation, his in its new one may return, and you can repay your debt to him, as he, you may be sure, repaid to you some ancient kindness. In such ways we lift each other towards the light.”
I began to understand him. At the tavern I’d heard of such beliefs, though only by way of joking. I just said that the landlord had spoken of his goodness to my master, for which I would be forever in his debt.
“It was a new bond to me. But now it is tied, the threads will cross again. I shall be the better for it, and I hope he also.”
“I was told, sir, that you have his ashes. It troubles me that the barbarians have his city, and I cannot give him a tomb among his kindred.”
“It does not trouble him, you may be sure. But take for friendship’s sake, if you wish, what remains of his outworn garment. He himself will have come already before the Judges, and heard their counsel; and knowing his soul’s needs will have chosen his next life.”
“He must be honored somewhere with a tomb. You have more right than I to bury him; do you wish to do it?”
“No, for his tomb would be untended here, which would cause you sorrow. I am leaving Samos, and shall not return; at least, not in this body.”
I asked if Polykrates had exiled him. “That would have come, I think. Till lately, the Tyrant hasn’t troubled himself about mad Pythagoras.” For the first time he smiled. “But now he begins to hear that I and my friends are studying harmony.”
“So? But he prides himself on being a patron of the arts.”
“Not ours. We look for music, first in the heavens”—he pointed to the astrolabe—“then on earth in the laws of its creatures, chiefly in man; in himself, in his dealings with his fellows, in his body politic. That is as displeasing to tyrants as a doctor’s advice to a drunkard. Well, we have work to do, which we need to pursue in peace. There is a piece of coastal land in Italy, good land unused; I traveled there to find it. My students are coming with me. He will be glad to see us go.”
“That’s a long way.” It seemed to me the further edge of the world.
“This is an age of tyrants. They warn each other about men like me. In Kroton they will not trouble us.”
“But, if you are founding a colony, what will you do for women?”
“Why, bring my students; there will be enough of each kind. The women have been men and will be men again, as you and I have been women. What is that, but a station along the way?”
“If you are selling up,” I said, “and want a buyer for your slave, I shall be glad to hear your price. Don’t fear I shall give him rough work, I can see he is above that. I promise to treat him well.”
“That I do not doubt. But I am giving Zamolxis his freedom, to return to his own people. He has been a good pupil; it is time he began to teach. Besides, it is in my mind that his time of penance is over.