I told the slave to leave us the wine and go to bed; our gossip was never very discreet. As soon as the door was shut, Anakreon said at once, “Well, I’ve done my best. I prophesy you’ll be the next one called on. I wish he’d gone to you first. Now I’ve not only failed, which has annoyed him; I’ve made the quarry wary, and spoiled the chase for you.”
I asked what he was talking about. He looked astonished. “What? Wherever have you been? Oh yes, among the horse-tamers. But surely you’ve heard by now what is going on?”
“No, not a word.”
“Our playful friend has been shot through the heart at last. Why is it that with people like him, it’s always someone impossible?”
“All praise impossible? That’s bad for us all. And him.”
“Oh, my dear, much worse than that. Impossible to get.”
Like a hen with one chick, my first foolish thought was of Bacchylides. We would have to go traveling.
“I have tried,” Anakreon was saying, “to drag him down out of the clouds; but he is blind with dreams. I tell you, he had better wake up soon. If he does it too late, there will be trouble.”
“Why, who is it?”
“I can’t believe you don’t know. Well, perhaps I can. But weren’t you on the stand at the Isthmian horse-race?”
I knew then. It gave me a shock, like bad news; the room felt colder. We poets sometimes have divinations.
“It’s Proxenos’ son,” I said.
“Harmodios, who hardly gave him good day. Who sucked in oligarchy with his mother’s milk. Who venerates his father, a man resentful even of Pisistratos.”
“And,” I said, “there is a lover.”
“Acknowledged before all the city. If you know any more, don’t tell me; I shall believe it in advance.”
“But how far has this gone? I don’t see how Hipparchos would even get to know him.”
“Oh, that was quite tastefully done at first. It was while you were away. The Athenians who had ridden at the Isthmus were asked to a parade and sacrifice for Ilissian Herakles. A mounted torch procession to the shrine; pleasant, a delightful spectacle, everyone on best behavior. After the rites, a supper at the riverside, with a little music. I sang.”
“What, a new one, and I have not heard it? Come, give!” I pushed the lyre at him.
It was his lyric about the fair young horseman who is begged not to caracole too high, because he is carrying someone’s heart and one more leap might break it. It is charming, and I told him so.
“Yes, I’ve done worse. The right song at the wrong time. Too soon. Not that he took it to himself, at first. But it was set in the wrong mode, it made him uneasy. Hipparchos should have sent for you, to sing about Perseus or Achilles; but he was impatient. He always was, but it’s grown on him.”
“And after the music, what?”
“The host mingled, of course, among the guests. It was all informal, you understand, no set couches, just cushions on the grass. The nightingales were in good voice; the river murmured; aromatic torches stood here and there, to lend enchantment without too much light. There was no lack of agreeable employment, with all those little walks among the plane trees; and as soon as my duty was done I took care to be invisible. A failed conjurer is better out of sight.”
“And a failed lover?”
“Ah. When I came back, and found they had both gone, I thought I’d been successful beyond my hopes. But it was worst, not best. They had not left together.”
“The boy had better leave town. What did he say; did anyone overhear it?”
“I learned from those in earshot that, after some trivial chat, not a word was uttered. But, alas, I fear that far too much was spoken, on either side. There has been an echoing silence ever since, which I do not like at all.”
“I knew his father. I could make some excuse to call. Only to see how things are, no more. The old grandfather’s been ailing; that will serve.”
Next day I took a jar of my best Euboian honey. Inside the courtyard, the first person I met was the young Harmodios, on his way out. Certainly, I thought, Anakreon had been right. I could see his hackles rise at the mere sight of somebody from the court. Taking no notice, I made my kind inquiries. His cool thanks put me in mind of that salute at the horse-race. At this rate, I thought, he will grow up a formidable man.
“You will find him rather weak, sir; but I am sure he will like to see you for a little while. The women will take you in to him. Please excuse me; I have to meet a friend.” He stopped to give some order to a household slave, in the voice of one already used to authority; then he was gone.
The women, as he had said, received me. Proxenos’ widow I had met once or twice while he was alive. She was a fragile anxious lady, brought up from childhood not to fidget or complain, and now looking overstretched; if you’d blown on her, she’d have thrummed like the strings of a lyre. However, it was clear that nothing was on her mind but her sick father-in-law and her upset house, for which she begged my pardon. One could be sure her son had confided nothing. He’d have thought it unbecoming; besides, he could be sure she’d be shocked to death, fall ill as like as not, and give him nothing but trouble. This was a woman who had always leaned on her menfolk. She was a part of his charge.
In me, she saw only a man of her own years who had known her husband, and treated me as a family friend, keeping the young daughter unveiled beside her. Her name, I now learned, was Delias; she was about fourteen, rather tall for her age, grey-eyed, with long fair hair falling nearly to her girdle, very much her father’s child. Though I saw that she was shy, she greeted me with courtesy, and after that kept her eyes upon her mother; anxious for her, I thought, rather than modest for herself. Proxenos’ children must be a close alliance. And yet, how much of his life must be unknown to her.
That was true indeed, and to her cost. But then, how much that would concern me was unknown to me.
I found the grandfather dozing. He roused himself feebly to say, “How kind, how kind,” and to hope my wife and children were in good health. I could see he wanted to be rid of me, and creep back into the womb of sleep. He was shrunk as small as a ten-year child, turned ninety years old; I wish I could have talked with him before his memory failed. I slipped quietly off. He would die kindly; they would hardly know when he was gone.
I had half a mind, next time I supped with Hipparchos, to mention this visit, just to see what it would bring forth. All poets should be inquisitive. But the old man’s name was Harmodios, his grandson having been named for him in the usual way, and I did not think I could carry that off easily. Besides, I remembered Anakreon’s saying that I might be asked in my turn to woo, and I did not mean to put myself in the way of it. I knew too much.
The old man died soon after. Once more I brought a grave-gift to the house and heard its women wailing, this time in kindness more than grief. He looked lost in his bier, like a child in a grown man’s bed; there had been handsome bones, though, in that fragile skull. The great-uncle was absent, sick or already dead. Harmodios was doing the honors.
It was his first family rite, as sole head of the house. I could see his sense of it, his resolve to perform it well. His earnestness made one feel what a boy he was, straining after manhood. Well, I thought, that will come to him soon enough. Poets don’t always have the gift of divination.
No friend of the dead man’s youth had survived to mourn him. Many of his clansmen had come, and former friends of Proxenos; but the guest I noticed most was Aristogeiton. Several times, at the funeral feast, he gave the mother a hand like a second son, and was so treated. It was only the young Delias who would be quietly gone from any place he came to. He was not yet thirty, and it would not have done for them to stand talking in public, especially at such a time; but there seemed more than that in her avoidance. Maybe, I thought, Harmodios wants to marry his friend into the family—that is often done—and she does not like it. Or then, again, brother and sister must have been lifelong confidants, and now the secrets are told to someone else. But I had done my duty by them all; I went back to my own concerns and soon forgot her. Bacchylides, who was now just about her age, gave me quite enough to think of.