She lifted them in her hands, and flew to kiss me. She was smiling; partly from pleasure, for she believed, like me, in never wasting what came her way; and partly because she guessed what this new wealth might mean, and wanted to show me that she kept her word. At the next women’s festival, she would be the finest in the village. She could look forward to that—and would—when she saw me off.
I had not been there two nights, before Diagoras, the chief Archon of Eretria, sent his son over from the city, begging me to give a recital there. He’s long dead now, these days they have a democracy; but they still look up to him there as a founding father. In his youth, he led the rebellion that put down the nobles. That was long before my time, but they must have been an insolent set, for it to have earned him so much gratitude. A maiden he had been betrothed to (for of course he was one of them himself) was offered by her father to a man of more wealth, who was to marry her out of hand. He raised his revolt and brought it off; and we would have said in those days that he was Tyrant, though not as men mean it now. He ruled with the hearty assent of the Euboians, and I myself lived on Eretrian land. I was glad to honor him.
He entertained me very pleasantly; a small vigorous man, still handsome, who had presence without arrogance, not aping the hubris he had put down. His wife ate with us in the old Ionian way, and had me to know she had cooked the dinner. She had been the prize of his valor, and was still paying it tribute, which he acknowledged by starting a little paunch. She, too, looked as if she liked her own good cooking. They both delighted me; next day I gave them the Winning of Hippodameia in my best heroic style, leaving no doubt of where it was aimed. The Eretrians loved it too, and voted me—for they had some share in government—a handsome fee. Then I went on to Keos.
It was all pretty much the same; except that now, each time I came, I found more people, of more consequence, asked to meet me. My father never remarked on this; but when I gave them the latest news from Athens, he did not look displeased. Looking back, I see I had begun to think of it as the civility one owes a patron. Well, it did nobody any harm.
I picked the boys for my choir, and saw to it that they kept their minds on their work. Not that I ever beat them; just turned the slovens out, and got someone fonder of music. If they wanted to go to Delos, they took care.
My pretty little Hermes had shot up like wheat, and had a lovely alto; my Apollo was a young man now, training for the boxing, not the chorus. In due course the ship with its garlands and painted sail was ready, and the Kean theoria set out for Delos: the priests, the herald, the offering-bearers, the athletes, the choir and I, and some leading citizens. One was my father; but this no longer troubled me.
Delos, Delos! I have chosen Sicily to end my days in; I gave my choice thought, and would not change it. Athens I shall see no more; I’m an old summer cicada now, a bad voyage would kill me. In any case, so much has altered there, I would be a stranger. It is only when I think, Never again the Delia, that a shadow falls on my heart.
Nothing much will have changed on Delos. The strong cool young sun on the silver-sparkling rocks and the painted marble; the old spotted lions sitting along the lake; the bright Ionian crowds. It will have grown gayer, if not as rich as before Ionia fell. But even Greeks from there who have lost their cities save best clothes for the Delia. Friends meet there after many years; youths and girls who were children five years before exchange winged glances. If a face is missing, not much is said: Apollo, who stands so tall there staring at the sun, does not like clouds and rain. It may be windy, it may be cold; but it is always fine for the birthday of the god. Some Son of Homer sang that on that day you might think the Ionians immortal, untouched by age or time.
True, indeed. Since Apollo’s healing shrines are in other places, and no one must pollute his birthplace by dying there, only those in their health and strength come to the Delia: old men with their beards combed smooth and their hair pinned with golden grasshoppers, their walking-staffs polished to show the grain; women fresh-bathed and scented with oil of violets; young men with hair flowing down over their shoulders, striding out in short tunics disdaining the sharp breeze; and the girls linked hand in hand, as they will be for their singing, in bright dresses with colored borders, green or saffron or blue, hearing each other their words for the choral odes, or giggling over their dialect songs poking fun at other cities; their mothers brooding over them, wary of the youths; the younger boys, whose voices will have broken before the next Delian feast, looking at the athletes and thinking about the games.
Spring was early that year. I don’t recall a more radiant Delia, many as I’ve seen. It’s not often the girls can find so many spring flowers for their hair, cyclamen and daffodil and hyacinth, nursed there in wet moss to keep them fresh. Mount Kythnos sparkled with little hill-flowers, and the glittering rocks were starred with them.
I have always liked to get to Delos early, before the crowds have trampled it, and try to see it when Leto came there first, to bear her child. She’d been delivered of the elder twin already; maiden Artemis could run beside her hunting the game, for the infancy of gods is brief. But Leto is still big with the younger, greater one; his light glows through her, like the sun through a rosy shell. His time is come; he commands her; she crouches by the palm tree and grasps it in her pangs; the shining babe slides down between her thighs; rests for a moment, turning his blue eyes to the sky; then the birth-cord falls from him; faster on his feet than a day-old colt, he runs to the lake to rinse off the birth-bloom; swims across and back; and striding ashore in his tall splendor, shakes the water from his golden hair. Before the crowds come, I can see all that; after, I can only tell it. That year, since I came on the state ship from Keos, they were there before me. The paean and the silence, one cannot have both at once.
Theas sailed with us; he had been chosen as an umpire in the games, and carried his stick of office. Our father’s proud eyes followed him everywhere. His wife, eight months gone, had stayed behind, but he had brought his boy. No fear there of the Cretan strain appearing.
A little fleet from Keos followed the theoria. Most of our kin and friends were carried by Laertes, who had two ships now. I saw them arrive, but had to bring my boys to the precinct and rehearse their entrance.
I was with the Kean herald, talking about this, when he pointed past me at the harbor. “Look. The Athenians.”
Yes, here was the state galley, the biggest yet. The sails were scarlet striped with blue; the whole vessel dazzled in the sun with gilding and polished bronze. The oars were painted white, so that as they rowed her in they flashed like wings. It was the grandest in the harbor, which had come to be expected; Pisistratos had seen to that.
They threw out their gangway. It was very broad, wider than a cattleship’s. I saw movement within, and it came to me what they were doing; they meant to disembark in full order of procession. It’s done now by many embassies; but that was the first time I know of. Being downwind, we could hear the flutes giving the note, and the paean beginning. At a stately pace, the procession crossed the gangway, to the admiration of the crowd. I approved whoever was getting them off so neatly from a cramped deck; but did not at once attend to the man who led the embassy, who I took it would be the priest of Apollo. Then something familiar struck my eye; it was Hippias. Standing in the prow, on the pilot’s bridge, Hipparchos was directing the procession.
Often it’s been my fortune that when I have done something to please myself, or satisfy my honor, against all seeming prudence, yet it has brought me luck. I’d left Athens when the scent of patronage hung in the air like the savor of roasting meat, rather than fail the Keans and disgrace my kin. And here was patronage, come to meet me.