The Praise Singer Page 7

  What Theodoros really wanted of him was to have him pose for a bronze of Perseus. He did it, too, staying for some days as the sculptor’s guest. He always liked, he told me, to see how things were made.

  I too enjoyed the making of a bronze, though I’d seen it once already. It had a kind of magic, unlike the slow chipping and smoothing of stone or marble. Theodoros had been to Egypt to learn the art; there, they had been casting life-size time out of mind, when only little votives were being made in Greece.

  He had a huge yard down by the harbor, full of sheds and hoists and scaffoldings, all powdered white with marble-dust that got up one’s nose. The noise was dreadful, at least for an ear like mine, what with slaves sawing blocks or chipping them down for columns, grinding and polishing column-drums. There was also a clattering forge where they were making rivets to fasten wall-blocks together. Clang-clang went the great hammers, and tink-tink-tink the little ones, as some skilled apprentice made the trims for a bronze. Hands over ears, I threaded my way to Theodores’ own workroom, which was swept and polished and had a great table full of drawings and plans. On a dais stood my brother, splendid in nakedness, one arm propped up on a wooden stand. He was to be holding up the Gorgon’s head, and the torso muscles had to show the lift. Before him stood Theodoros in his working dress, which was a small apron to keep the grit out of his private parts, and a great deal of clay daubed here and there on the rest of him. He had set up the core and was putting on the first surface, talking with Theas; the touchy part of the work was still to come. Theas used to say he learned enough good stories as Theodoros’ model to dine out on for the rest of his life.

  Two days later, he could hardly open his mouth without being snapped at. I myself had known enough to come in on tiptoe. Theodoros was washed clean from dust and clay. My brother’s face returned me to my boyhood; he had shaved his beard. It was the statue’s skin that was being finished, down to the finest touch; the nipples, the hair of head and groin, the face. Its color had changed from clay-grey to a creamy white like alabaster. Theodoros was working upon the wax.

  It had been spread with a hot knife over the clay and left to harden. Now he was smoothing it with a warm tool, or graving it with a cold one. Not to be in the way, I went over to the table. At one end were the set-squares and compasses and plumb lines of the architect; at the other, under the window, the tiny tools of his gem-carving, the vise and the treadle-wheel for the drill. A young man came in, and set down softly a hideous white waxen mask. The chief apprentice had been trusted with the Gorgon’s head.

  “Please, Theodoros,” said Theas like a boy at school, “may I go outside?”

  “If you must, if you must,” said the master, who must have known he was too well-mannered to ask unless he was bursting. “Yes, take a rest, I can finish the ears without you. Look in that tray, Sim, and you’ll find his eyes.”

  It was full of split agates; set on one side was the perfect one, brown at the core with a milky rim, each half curved and smooth. “They don’t come in blue,” he said, “not with the markings right.”

  At last the wax was finished; there stood complete a white ghostly man, pierced with rods through body and limbs and head, to tie the form firmly within the mold. Theodoros walked round and round it, making a tiny line with a stylos upon the eyebrow, or stroking a tendon with his broad thumb. Then he turned his back on it, and said to his apprentices, who were watching in dead silence, “Yes. Get on.”

  Slaves had dragged in a tub full of wet clay. Into this slip the apprentices dipped their hands, working it with fingers and thumbs to test its fineness. One found a grain of grit, at which they all exclaimed with outrage, and started over again. Theodoros strode over and rubbed some between his palms, and said it would do, but let Sesostris look out next time. On this they scooped up the clay, which was so soft that it almost ran, and began to smooth it over the waxen body. Their touch was tender and delicate, as if they were anointing it; but as they worked, the fine outlines blurred, and in a while it was clay-grey again. Theodoros said to us, “Come back in four days. There’s nothing to see till then.”

  As we walked off past the forge, Theas lifted his voice to shout, “I don’t know what the father will say. I should be home by now.”

  All the same, he did not look anxious. Sculptors like Theodoros don’t find their models among men who want to be paid. You will see peasants strong enough to take an ass on their shoulders, hardier than soldiers; but they are not built like the athlete who has had the chance to train, and shape from his own body a work of art. Our father would not be sorry to see his heir shining in Samos, in eternal bronze. It was another thing than singing in a tavern. For that he would wait a few days longer, to see what had become of me.

  Next day we spent with Kleobis, who had cheered up, and told Theas about our Ionian days. I hoped he would soon be putting on flesh again. He had lost his old healthy tan; his face was almost the color of Theodoros’ wax. He came with us, though, to the workshop to see the bronze broken from the mold. In any great city it’s a common sight today; but when I was young, hollow-cast statues were still a marvel in Samos, and unknown in the rest of Greece. A whole crowd who could not get in to watch the modeling were allowed to enjoy the sight.

  Theodoros, I saw, could have done without us all. He enjoyed his fame; but, like most artists, not everything it brought with it. He’d have liked to view the work in peace, complete the finishing, and then show it perfect; and I do not blame him. No one can make me disclose a half-formed song; my mold, my furnace, are safely within my head.

  After the smooth slip, the statue had been coated with thick strong clay, turning the waxen man into a clumsy giant with just a head, body and limbs. He was stained with the fire, in which he had been slow-hardened; and pierced with vents, through which his delicate waxen flesh had vanished away. When it had been melted out from him, in its place had been poured the bronze.

  Theodoros never had sightseers when that was done. It was an agon, he said, a contest, win or lose all. His chief apprentice, who venerated him, confided to me at the tavern that he went on like a madman, shouting at them all, hitting them over the head, calling them bastard sons of slaves. If the mold was not propped and chain-slung just right above the fire; if a bit of unmelted metal closed a channel within the mold; if a hand or a foot had not been drained of all its wax before the casting, it would be disaster. “It’s like childbirth,” the apprentice said. “You know what went in at the start, but you don’t know what will come out.”

  The fire-stained mold, holding its heavy secret, had been hoisted with a crane, and laid down on an oaken frame. Theodoros and his apprentices stood round with mallets and chisels made of hardwood. He stepped up to the mold. I saw him close his eyes a moment, and wondered what god he was appealing to: Hephaistos, I suppose. Then he hit the head a few sharp taps down the face, and it split open like a chestnut shell. There was Theas, in all his beauty and even a little more, noble and calm, each curl on his forehead perfect. He was dark from the furnace, his sockets awaited eyes, the tie-rods still stood out from his crown and nape, there was a nick on his brow from a bit of grit in the clay. All that would be mended before the burnishing. Theodoros swore at the nick, and cursed Sesostris, and set about cleaning the ears. The apprentices started on the body.

  At last they craned it up onto its feet, for us to see it whole. Even unfinished, you could see it was one of the artist’s master-works. I looked from this immortal to my brother, gazing at it with his head on one side, the only time I could remember him looking shy. I thought of him as a child, crying when our father had his young dog killed for sheep-chasing; or staring open-mouthed at a thrall’s wife we had discovered bathing in a stream, then grabbing my hand and running away; or exercising with his javelin, creasing his brow to recall his trainer’s instructions. His beard was starting to grow again, and had just reached the untidy state. One day it would be grey, if he lived so long; and here forever would shine this burnished hero. T
ears came to my eyes; but everyone was sneezing from the dust of the broken clay, and no one noticed.

  He had two days to wait for a ship, in which time I showed him Samos. As we strolled the waterfront, he asked me what song I meant to sing at the contest.

  “A hymn to Apollo. But I’ll have to work on it, to sing it solo. It was meant for a choral ode.”

  “Why a solo, then? It’s the choral odes people come to hear.”

  “Dear man, because I have no chorus.”

  “But you could have one on Keos. How long do you take to teach a song?”

  “Seven days; at a pinch I’ve done it in less. When I had a chorus.”

  “Then whatever’s troubling you? We’re citizens, aren’t we? Just tell me how many, and if you want men or girls or boys, and I’ll have them for you.”

  “But, Theas, how can you? You don’t know anything about music, except what you like to hear.”

  “Oh, I know that,” he answered cheerfully. “But I know where to go, to get it done.”

  Yes. He was the heir of Leoprepes of Iulis. If he said he could do it, he could. So I agreed; thinking in myself that if once more I was going to take and take and show him no return, I would as soon be dead. Even love cannot cast out pride.

  He sailed some days ahead of me, to make smooth my path. Theodoros came with me to see him off, complaining that he had not stayed to see the statue polished and set up. Kleobis had a cold, and stayed indoors.

  He was lending me the kithara. It is a costly instrument, which only a master of the craft can make; the money I’d saved for one had gone since Ephesos fell, part of it on a gay Samian robe to do the tavern credit. I could not take that to Keos; even my old one from Ephesos had to have half the border stitched back out of sight.

  At the very last, on my sailing day, Kleobis begged off. He said his cold still hung about; would be nothing if he looked after it, but on a ship would most likely fly to his chest. He would stay in Samos, and make an offering for me on the day.

  I was sad, but not much astonished. He had lost heart, he felt unlucky; he feared, perhaps, that on Keos he would find himself forgotten. I did not forget how the best doctor in Iulis had tended his sick apprentice; he could hardly fare worse in Samos, which had physicians of some renown. So I embraced him, told him to take good care of himself, and said that if I had any success, all Keos should hear my teacher’s name.

  In some ways it was a relief to me. My father was too well-bred to insult a guest; but Kleobis was, after all, the father I had chosen in his stead, and I could not think the visit would have gone off easily.

  I packed up the kithara, as I’d done over the years till I could almost do it sleeping, in its leather case, the embroidered sling folded around the soundbox, the spare strings in their pocket outside. “No one but I shall carry it a step,” I said, “till I bring it back.”

  “Did you pack the wax and the resin? Don’t forget to warm the wax, don’t use too much, polish alone unless the wood feels dry.” I promised; I had known it all since I was sixteen. “Have you a spare plectrum?” I showed him two, one silver and one bone. “Good, good … I was as near to Sappho once as I am to you. A little dark thing; not much better-favored than you; which in a woman means worse … If now she flies you, soon will she follow; Taking no gifts now, soon be the giver; Wanting no love now, soon be the lover, For all her striving … I tell you, Apollo is a gardener who knows how to prune a vinestock. Go gather your grapes, my son.”

  “If Apollo pruned me, I know who has fed and tended me. The grapes are yours.” I felt like weeping, and turned away. “Don’t come to the harbor. It’s a cold sharp wind, for all it’s sunny. Keep warm indoors.”

  He laid aside his cloak, allowing that I was right. As I left, he said again that he would make an offering for me.

  Among the people come to see me off I found, with astonished joy, Anakreon.

  “We shall meet again, dear boy,” he said, putting both hands on my shoulders with his head aslant, and narrowing his green eyes. “But I think not in a tavern, except to drink. Come, you know as well as I do, yes? Keos has a surprise in store. I wish I could be there, but my host requires me. Ibykos hasn’t come. Now I wonder why, when I reminded him …? We shan’t quarrel, my dear. The hatter and the shoemaker don’t spoil each other’s trade. Now remember, let us see you here again, if only for a celebration.”

  I was seen off, too, by a young hetaira I had visited once or twice. She had put on her best robe and all her paint; it was plain she really wished to claim my acquaintance in public. I was so touched that I embraced her on the gangplank. Oh yes, I was humble when I was young.

  I expected to be met in Koressia by Theas, with a spare mule for me. As we turned the point, I described his bright head; then, as the sail was lowered and we rowed in, I saw the cluster of men about him. It was like an embassy. And one of them was my father.

  Left to himself, I doubt if he would have known me. Till Theas hailed me, he was still looking about. I don’t know what he had expected, surely not a shepherd boy in a sheepskin; but whatever it was, he was not seeing it. As for me, it seemed he should have been much taller, and without a bald patch on his crown; he should have made me ill at ease, not causing him to be so. My sins against him would be different now.

  He embraced me, which he’d not done when I left home, but which was proper with people watching; and that was just how it felt. I asked after his health and he after my journey. Then he presented me to his friends who had come to meet me. I understood now. Just as Theas had been told to stay at the best inn in Samos, all this had been planned to cloak me in respectability. I found myself thinking, O Zeus, how soon can I escape from all these people and get to work?

  I conveyed my master’s regrets. Only my father remembered who he was, and that was not for his singing. Theas was at ease with everyone, a man among the men, and treated so by our father. He did not break the harmony; he was a son of the house, part of its riches, like a fine piece of vineyard. I, such as I was, was my own creation, and that of a foreign bard. What I brought to the house would come only from me. He was not used to it. Never mind, I thought; we are wanderers all, from Homer onward. One sings, and one moves on.

  Our ride to the farm was quite a cavalcade; the friends had been invited to celebrate my return. I thought, like a passing traveler, how good the land looked and how small the house. My mother at the door had aged more than my father. She kissed me, and said I should have sent word that I was safe, which I knew was true. As her eyes dwelt on me, I remembered our father saying once that I got my looks from her side of the family. Whoever it was he had reproached her with, dead, I suppose, before my birth, I must have grown more like him.

  While she bustled about with the food and wine, I slipped inside to find Philomache. She was waiting, dressed in her best, to appear for the short time proper to a modest maiden. In these years she had bloomed, with the thin delicate skin of red-haired beauty; her only defect was that she was small, like me. She stared amazed at this man who had come pushing through the curtain; then rushed to me crying, “Sim! I never knew you! How much better-looking you are!” She stood back from me, and added, “I mean, you look like someone important, now.”

  “Theas says you’re betrothed.” It had been on my mind; I did not think our father would have considered her wishes, if the estate was right. This was so; but by luck she was pleased with the young man, who it seemed had courted her prettily, sending her gifts and garlands as if they had been free to choose. “He’s here now,” she said, lighting up; I could see she was less shy of him already than she was of me. “Midylos, the son of Bacchylides.”

  It was the father, I now remembered, to whom mine had presented me first of all at the harbor. He’d not thought to show me the youth with whom she was to spend her life.

  “He sent me a dish of apples,” she said, going pink, “with a real poem, written. It said I was like an apple at the very top of the tree.” I did not spoil it by hoping
he’d quoted right. Of course, she could not read.

  When I sought him among the guests, I found him well-favored and no fool, eager for news about the war. Overhearing our talk, other men came up to learn what was happening in Ionia. Before long I had a good-sized audience. I was used to that in Samos. It was only when I saw my father’s eyes on me, that I remembered I’d never been let in with his guests before.

  Theas in his wisdom had found me a flautist living in Koressia, and it was there that I trained my chorus. Even so, my brother was at some trouble to bring my father questions about the farm, lest he should come down to oversee me.

  Thanks to this, I was happy enough. The flautist had never seen me before; the chorus boys, though all from Iulis, had been young children when I left home. More than half their lives had passed since they had seen Black Sim, if they ever had. I started clear; they were all proud of being trained by a Iulis man, instead of a Koressian as they had been last time.

  Though a poet of no distinction, he had not trained them badly. He had even taken them to Delos, where the song, rather than the singing, had lost the prize. They came in together, and you could hear the words.

  I’d used for my ode the old story of Apollo and his little brother Hermes, the newborn rogue who crept from his cradle to go cattle-stealing, and crept back there, all innocent, before his lordly brother could trace the herd. Boldly, I had put in two solo passages: a handsome boy for Apollo, and for Hermes, a little treble, bound to win hearts. In those days, breaks in the unison were thought unorthodox. Not long after, Thespis established them in Athens, taking the chief solo himself, from which we have modern tragedy. But Keos is wary of innovations.

  The story ends, of course, with Apollo tracking the little thief by the sound of his lyre, which he has just invented. He gives it his big brother in exchange for the stolen cows. Apollo, entranced, forgives him, and tries the new instrument with his divine hand. This is where one shows what the kithara will do.