He swept into the room with his little troop behind him, waving a greeting here and there. Unlike his elder brother, he had not their father’s face; no doubt he took after the mother’s side. Of course I had heard of him; no one could have been entertained in Athens even once without that. If my mind had not been on other things, I should not have been so slow. As it was, I had barely time to collect myself before he reached me.
“Ah!” he cried, embracing Prokles and me in a single smile, “we are still in time! I have been urging these fellows through the streets as though we were on a training run, to be here before the victor picks up the lyre.”
I was presented, and he praised my ode. He was the first to mention the lines that I had liked best myself. (There is praise, after all, which makes one wonder what one did wrong, to have caught the fancy of such a fool.) A handsome laughing young fellow beside him, with dark hair hanging in long crimped lovelocks, said, “Don’t forget Mother’s message.”
“I was coming to it, brother. She said the ode was very fine and made splendid music. I will add for myself, to spare their modesty, that my sisters said just the same. Thessalos expects me to forget everything I’m charged with, I don’t know why.”
Despite their different looks, there was a likeness in their movements and their way of speech, as if they were a good deal together. They and their friends were all found places on the couches; there was a sense of precedence, but without formality, which one could see was the style of their set. Fresh wreaths appeared for all; our host, provident man, must have been prepared for this visitation. The wine went round again. Then the cry began for a song.
I had known enough to be ready for this. At one’s victory feast, one can sing whatever one chooses; and some people always expect something in the style of one’s competition piece. But it is unwise to give it them. The solemn precinct, the great audience, the thought of the famous bards who have stood in that place before one, the men of one’s choir all tuned like one’s lyre to concert pitch: one can offer only a shadow of all this, singing solo in a private room. Part of our craft is a sense of the occasion.
There was a song I had made in Samos, and never had the heart to sing; not even to my master, for whom it would have gone too near the bone. It came from long brooding on the changefulness of human fortune, of fate and chance, and the folly of counting on anything beyond the moment. Now that the wheel had turned again for me and come bright side up, I knew that I could sing it
The heroes too of old,
Sired by the gods our masters,
Knew ere their days were told,
Their perils and disasters.
All things are from the gods, I ended; when they send us joy, let us catch it as it flies, for who would choose life without it? Not even kings, not even the immortals.
The new guests made a very courteous audience. It must have been their second party that night, if not their third, and none of them were sober; but they listened quietly, applauded as if they knew what they had heard, and said some very graceful things. After that the lyre went round, and we all sang skolions. Though Hipparchos made himself lord of the revels and could almost have been the host, he was never insolent, and Prokles seemed flattered, rather than not.
A few places along, a man was sharing his couch with a handsome youth, with whom he had arrived. Between the songs, as people moved here and there, Thessalos went up, and asked the youth to move for a moment, as he had some news to give his friend. He got down, and was beginning to look about, when Hipparchos called, “Oh, my dear Kleinias, my brother wants a lesson. Come here and take his place, and let him find one where he can.” The youth went over with a smile—he could have done nothing else, without looking surly—while Thessalos talked charmingly to the older friend. Hipparchos, laughing at first, grew serious and confiding. Once I saw the brothers catch each other’s eye. It seemed they were loyal allies.
Prokles, returning to our couch from going among the guests, said in my ear, “He has paid you a great compliment, coming like this with the most select of his friends. As a rule, when he looks in at a party, he brings some flute-girls to play.”
“No boys?” I asked, having used my eyes.
“Oh no. That matter he takes seriously.”
I glanced that way. He did not look as if he pledged his soul in the cup; but I guessed what Prokles meant. “A matter between gentlemen?”
“Just so. A matter of pride, I fancy.”
No need for more. The old nobility of Attica, like that of Sparta, looked back to the Sons of Homer. Women were for pastime; but your young friend must be someone you met in the gymnasium, not the whorehouse; someone whose father your father knew, who would lock shields with you or ride at your side in war. And no house went further back than the Pisistratids.
A few songs later, they left in a little breeze of gay goodbyes. Hipparchos took Prokles by both shoulders, and thanked him prettily for putting up with their invasion. “You must blame your own good company, and the gifted friends it brings you. Here’s one whom I hope to share.” He turned to me, with a boyish and modest grace. “I must put in my claim before all Athens gets ahead of me. Will you sup with us three days from now, and let us hear you sing again?”
I expect I accepted civilly as I’d been trained to do; when he had gone, I felt I must have stared at him like an oaf. Prokles rushed back from seeing him off to grasp my hand and cry, “You’re made, my boy! You’re made!”
He called for a toast to my success, and everyone drank, even the rival poets. There was only one silent man: the one whose supper-couch Thessalos had been sharing. He sat alone now; the handsome youth who had come with him was missing. But at any big Athenian party, trifles like that are no more than common form.
2
OFTEN, IN THOSE ATHENIAN days, I asked myself, Why did I wait so long? I am twenty-five; I could have had all this much sooner. If I had gone to Keos when Kleobis first urged me to, and sung before my father, I could have won a crown there—I was good enough for that—and he’d have given me the Euboian farm. My master would not have wasted his health and hope in Samos; I would have gone to Athens, and found that the land was peaceful, and gone again. All I have now, I could have been heir to years ago.
I don’t suppose I would have been crowned there any sooner; my work had ripened and that was all. But I could have been making friends, hearing songs, seeing the craftwork, sharing the talk, living the rich life of this city which put out the fruit of men’s minds as an old vine gives its grapes in a good year.
From the day of that first supper in Hipparchos’ house, I was Athenian in my heart, so far as a wanderer belongs to any city. All I had lost in Ionia was here, distilled and refined; the painted walls, the slender-legged tables, the couches with their fine embroidered cushions, the clean well-mannered boys who served food and wine; everywhere elegance, nowhere ostentation. No flaunting Samian goldwork; but, exquisitely painted, the first service in red-figure I’d ever seen. Or, for that matter, the Athenian diners either—yes, that would make men smile today! It was Hipparchos who had inspired it.
Answering our compliments, he said, “I was in Exekias’ shop. He painted me that wine-cooler, which I don’t think will displease me however fashions change. That day, however, I was there to order a small dedication to Eros.” The handsome youth (a new one) who shared his couch, returned his glance with charm, but no vulgar simpering, and touched his wine-cup, doubtless inscribed with “The Beautiful” and his name. “I had attended to that, and was idling about the shop, when I heard the master roaring at a pupil who’d been working, it seemed, industriously in his corner. People say my curiosity will be the death of me someday.” He turned on us his winning smile. “So I went over, in time to hear the culprit told that if he thought he had all day to spend in foolery, he had better make room for someone else who’d value his place. By now, I was craning over Exekias’ shoulder. The young man was holding an oil-jar, on which he’d drawn a Greek and a Phrygian dueling. As you’ll have guessed, he had amused himself by painting the background black, and reserving the figures. It was the very best Ilissos clay, that bakes a soft glowing red. Seeing Exekias just about to dash it to the ground, or maybe at his pupil’s head, I caught back his arm, crying, ‘Fire it! Fire it, my friend, and let us see. And don’t have a brush laid on that cup I ordered, until I have had a look.’”