The Last of the Wine (10 page)

I stood with the paper in my hand. The child was less than a day old; it only remained to take home my father’s command. It was clear that he had done prudently and with due regard for me. Since he had gone I knew something of our affairs; we could not afford a dower, and if he paid one it would come from my inheritance in the end. I had not liked to see my mother put the child to her breast, and should not have grieved much if it had died. But I had seen that it had already become pleasing to her, and a consolation in her defeat. Now that it was for me to take it from her, I thought of her pain and it tormented me. I remembered how when my bitch had whelped and Xenophon had said none of the litter was worth keeping, I had drowned them all; and she had come to me crying and pawing at my knees, believing I could give them back. It was this, I think, which drove me to the sin whose guilt clung to me for so long after. For as if I had planned from the first what I meant to do, I went to the yard behind the wine-shop, and tore my father’s letter, and threw it away in the privy. Then I found Sostias and went home. When next my mother sent for me to write to my father for her, I wrote, “By the gods’ favour we hope to hear from you, having had no word since you went away.”

W
ITHOUT LAUGHTER, WHAT MAN
of sense could endure either politics or war? So we had pictured Alkibiades among the Spartans, weeping for his perfumer and his cook; while he, on the banks of the cold Eurotas, was out in all weathers, eating plain, sleeping hard and talking short. After a month, it is said, few who saw him could believe he was not Spartan born. I believe Xenophon was right in saying he once used his teeth in the palaestra. But it was before we were born, so we had missed the point of the story: not that he was weak or a coward, but that he would stick at nothing to win.

It was he who advised the Spartans that our loan of ships to the Argives was a breach of the truce. So they in turn made a loan. They lent the Syracusans a general. He came without troops, in a fishing-boat, served only by the Helots who carried his baggage and shield; so Nikias despised him, and let him get through.

After this news we had no more for some time. Xenophon, if one asked after his father, said he was well; he had been brought up in Spartan manners, not to talk of what he felt much. But he was livelier company than any Spartan, and we were still good friends. He was now a pupil of Gorgias, and could be seen among the well-bred youths who listened gravely and spoke in due turn. That he held his tongue about my own studies, I am sure was because he knew I had not Gorgias’ fee. He had stopped making fun of Sokrates, but deplored most of his friends, who, as I was aware, would not have been received in Gryllos’ house. He said as much to me one day on Hymettos, where we had been hunting. We had killed, and taken up our nets, and were eating our breakfast high on the stony upland, seated on a slab of rock round which the grass sparkled with dew. The City lay spread below us, golden in the sun; out beyond Aegina, the hills of Argolis looked blue across the gulf, and behind them stood the high mountains of Lakedaimon. The dogs, who had been given their pickings, were licking their chops and hunting fleas. One speaks easily at such times, and he asked me without any ill-nature how I could spend my time with such people. “Euripides, for instance. Is it true he shows Sokrates all his plays before he sends them in?” I said I had heard so. “Then how can Sokrates pass anything so disrespectful to the gods?”—“Define your terms,” I said. “What
is
respect for the gods? Supposing Euripides thinks some of the old tales are disrespectful to them?”—“Once you begin deciding for yourself what to believe about the gods, where do you leave off? Besides, he lets down women and makes them cheap.”—“Not at all, he simply makes them of flesh and blood. I should have thought that would please you.” For he had lately begun to take some interest in them.

He whistled up the dogs, and worked the burrs out of their coats, while they shoved at each other to get near him. They were Kastorian harriers, red with white muzzles; their names, I remember, were Psyche and Augo. While he was searching the ear of the bitch for ticks, he said, “Well, Alexias, a man has to be loyal to his teacher, we all know that. But from the way you go on about Sokrates, one might think he was your lover. If so, I’m sorry for what I’ve said.”

I saw he was perfectly serious, and only anxious to spare my feelings if such a thing should happen to be true. As I was beginning to understand, this kind of love was foreign ground to him. I may add that he never did, as far as I know, accept a suitor. He had always been impatient for manhood, and perhaps he feared, what is certainly true of inferior lovers, that they would want to keep him a youth as long as they could. In this he was not swayed even by the example of Sparta. Sometimes indeed I asked myself whether he lacked the capacity for loving men at all; but I liked him too well to offend him by such a question.

For the sake of clearness, I had better mention at this point something concerning myself, that I had begun to attract a certain notice in the City. When I came nowadays into the palaestra, I could not fail to be aware of a general pause, with some manoeuvring and foolishness as various rivals tried to thrust themselves forward and others back. Nothing is more wearisome and ridiculous than to hear a man in the latter half of his life running on about such youthful successes, as if in the meantime he had done nothing worthier of remark. All they generally amount to is this, that he was admired not by a hundred people taking notice for themselves, but by three or four who happened to lead the fashion. This is quite enough to set off a poet or two, to make the vase-painters letter some of their wares with BEAUTIFUL ALEXIAS, and so forth.

There was small danger of a youth’s head being turned by all this while in the company of Sokrates; whose favourite joke it was that he was the helpless slave of beauty, just as a brave man will laugh after a battle and tell you he stood his ground because there was nowhere to run. No one was allowed to make fools of us with extravagant compliments in his hearing. He would take such people aside and say, “Don’t you see you are singing your own triumph-song before the victory? Moreover, you are making the game wild, and harder to catch; any huntsman would know better.” But this was not the only thing that kept me from getting proud.

One day I had arrived rather late, to find Sokrates already conversing in the colonnade, when young Theages remarked, “But Sokrates, I don’t think we have met what Lysis said just now. You objected, Lysis … Where is he? He was here a moment ago.”

It had puzzled me for some time that I never met Lysis now in Sokrates’ company. It seemed to me that since he was not at all the kind of person to have made himself unwelcome, he must have some reason for staying away. These words of Theages stuck in my mind, and I asked him later whether Lysis was often there. “Why, yes,” he said, “nearly as often as you are. You must have missed him by chance.”

Not long after this, I learned that Sokrates had walked out to the Academy gardens. I made my way out there, and saw him sitting under the sacred olive, by the statue of the hero Akademos. The slope below was all open lawn then, so one had a long view. I saw Lysis at once, and felt, as one can at quite a distance, that he saw me. Just then my path bent round some oleanders; when I came out again, he had gone.

It is one thing when a man goes off in the palaestra into a crowd full of his friends; it is quite another, when the only new face is one’s own. I had to go on, since they had all seen me; but I did not shine in the debate. Walking home I said to myself, “What is this? Not long ago, Lysis was not ashamed to speak to me before all the knights at the Anakeion. What has made me so repulsive to him? Perhaps someone has slandered me.” For I had naturally made a few enemies, some of them persons I had never set eyes on, whose friends, if they had lost them, I would very gladly have returned. “But no, he is not one to be moved by chatter, it is I myself who offend him. I have not watched my manners as I ought, I have let myself be flattered by attentions not worth considering, so that men of good judgment are avoiding me in disgust.” When next I saw Lysis there before me, I walked off myself, not caring if he noticed it or not. At least I knew enough, I thought, not to let my elders make way for me.

A few days later came the feast of Olympian Zeus, when they hold the mounted torch-race. I went with Xenophon, whom I had no trouble in persuading to leave the music-contest early; so we got a good place, arriving even before the fig-sellers and the jugglers. The Hippodrome had been garlanded with oak-wreaths and flowers; there were two great flambeaux lit at the starting-line, and one at the turn. It was a clear night, with breeze enough to fan the torches but not to snuff them; the moon came up large and dusky, like a golden shield. The teams were now assembling under the flares. Seeing the naked men on the tall horses, one thought of centaurs gathering by moonlight for the chase. The team-leaders were ready; I heard a voice commanding a horse to be still, and saw Lysis reined at the line, his left hand grasping the bridle, his right with the torch in it held straight up. The trumpet sounded; hoofs drummed on the earth; the torch-flame leaned backward on the air, and the sound of the cheering followed it like smoke. When they rounded the turn, Lysis was leading; as he finished his lap, stretching forward to pass on the torch, the flame streaming from his hand, I saw him clearly, smiling at the next man and cheering him on. Xenophon said afterwards his team had won because they had trained their horses better to get off the mark. I replied that no doubt this was the cause.

A storeship returning from Sicily brought another letter from my father. My mother called me to read it to her; it said, “The former letter I sent you by the Samian ship, the pilot’s mate should have delivered to you. When this one reaches you the child will have been born. If he is a boy, call him Archagoras as we determined. To my son Alexias, who will be reading you this, my blessing. Let him not neglect to exercise nor to practise horsemanship, and let him find besides a good master-at-arms; I recommend Demeas of Mantinea, and I sanction the cost. In my opinion, the war will not be over as soon as the City supposes.”

I enrolled therefore for a course in armed combat, on horse and foot. Demeas lent one armour to practise in; my father had not told me to buy a suit, and it was a heavy outlay to make without his sanction. But by the time I was an ephebe, next year’s harvest would be in. Meantime, the heavy drill strengthened my shoulders, and helped to balance them with my legs and loins, which were marked already with the Runner’s Girdle. At about this time, a man took to following me in the palaestra so boldly that I took offence at it, and would not speak to him. He overtook me, however, when I was scraping-down, and turned out not to be a suitor but a statuary, who wanted a model. Feeling I owed him something for my incivility, I let him make some sketches, in spite of the annoyance of people standing to watch. But when he importuned me to come to his workshop, I had to refuse for want of time. I was now working every day with my trainer, for the Panathenaia was coming near; and this was the Great Year, when her new cloak is carried to Athene, and they hold the Games.

Thrice in my life I had seen the sacred procession; at four, at eight and at twelve years old: the ship-carriage of the Goddess, with the maidens holding out the robe to show the work; the gilt-horned oxen wreathed for sacrifice, the girls with the sacred baskets, the ephebes picked for beauty, and the winners of the Games. Twice I had stood in the street, among the sweating crowds from the country, to see my father ride by with the knights, his purple-bordered cloak taken out from the chest of sweet herbs, his head crowned with myrtle, his horse groomed till it shone like bronze. This year he did not ride. Nor did I watch. For I won the long-race for boys, and marched with the winners.

More clearly than the race, I remember standing on the starting-stone, toeing the lines, afraid of getting off too soon and being thrashed by the umpires, or too late and losing. It was very hot; for many days Helios had parched the fields without rain. The dust of the track was scorching to the foot; it filled my throat and my nostrils, covered my tongue and burned my lungs; in the last lap I seemed to breathe knives, and to choke, and to be made of lead, and scarcely to move. My ears roared with the shouting and with blood; I could hear my breath sobbing, yet as I toiled more the sound grew less; it was the runner-up I had heard and he was falling behind. And I had passed the mark before I knew it; of a sudden people were catching me in their arms and laughing, unbinding the sweat-rag from my head, wiping my face, and tying on my arm and thigh the ribbons of the victor.

I felt myself snatched as it were from hand to hand; my eyes dazzled, my body clothed with thick dust seemed to boil with heat; I felt smothered with the pressure of so many; my heart swelled and beat like a drum; I thrust my hands outward, feeling I must breathe or die. An umpire shouted, “Back there, back, make room for the boy.” Then the crowd grew less, and my great-uncle Strymon appeared in it, saying the proper things. My breath came easier, and looking round I saw all the people who used to crowd on me every day at the palaestra, the same faces again. While my eyes had been clouded, and all those hands were about me, I had fancied I know not what, some happiness, drawn by my victory as a moth flies to the torch. But the faces were all the same.

So I heard my name proclaimed by the herald, and in the Temple of the Maiden I was crowned with the olive crown; and seemed, as one does at such moments, to belong no more to myself but to the City and her gods, and to be clothed with gold. Outside, the sun beat white and scorching on the High City, and dazzled back from the rock, but it was cool in the Temple; we stood in our order, while they sang the Victors’ Hymn. Before me, Autolykos, who once again had won the men’s pankration, stood like marble, modest and calm. So it was over and I came down from the Temple, and saw on the steps Autolykos greeted by his father Lykon; laughing now and returning the embrace. I went home with my uncle Strymon, holding in my hands the oil-vase they had given me, with a picture of the race on one side and the Goddess on the other. The sacred oil I gave to my mother, for you can get nothing so good in the market. She was glad of my victory and had cooked a fine supper for me, tunny in cheesecake. So I called myself happy, and went to bed.