The Walled Orchard (18 page)

And there was hunting, too — the Spartan invasions meant that Attica was alive with hares and deer, and wild boar and even bears were starting to come back — and fowling, and fishing, of course, which had become a very important part of many people’s lives since the start of the war. My dislike of the sea meant that I took little direct part in that, but I spent money on fishing-boats and even a small coaster, so that I could take surplus produce round the coast to sell in other parts of Attica instead of having to drag it by land all the way to the City and out again. In short, as you may already have guessed, I enjoyed myself tremendously in the country, and did no harm to anyone.

And, above all, I got back to my play. I found manual labour extremely conducive to composition, and since I carried the entire text of
The General
about with me in my head, I could work on it wherever I happened to be. I’m sure that several of my seasonal workers, if they are still alive, could even now recite you the big speeches from that play, for they heard them often enough, and, being sensible men, were always careful to laugh in all the right places. Sometimes we performed a few scenes for my neighbours, when it was too hot to work and we drifted together under the shade of the nearest trees. Naturally I took the lead, and Little Zeus was my one-man Chorus; the rest of the parts were shared out among the slaves and free hands. I don’t suppose I shall ever have a more appreciative audience than those farmers of Pallene and Phrearrhos, who were pleased enough for an excuse to lie still after a hard morning’s work, and who hadn’t had to sit through three Tragedies before the Comedy. Nevertheless, it was worth watching to see exactly what did make them laugh and what slipped by unnoticed, how far a joke could be drawn before it became boring, and just how long a scene should be.

I suppose I was putting off for as long as possible the horrible day when there was nothing more I could do to it without spoiling it entirely, and I would have to take it to the Archon, like a tenant farmer taking his year’s produce to be measured and divided. I dreaded the thought of not getting a Chorus. After all, there were already more Comic poets than Choruses, and new ones coming forward almost every day, as far as I could see. I was starting to bristle with hatred whenever I heard an established poet’s name, and often found myself praying that one or other of them would be killed in the war or struck down by the plague. But when I fell to contemplating my
General,
which was something I did far too often for a modest man, I could honestly see no flaw or imperfection in it, from the first joke to the exit of the Chorus. But at other times, after a long struggle with an unwieldy scene, I doubted if anyone, however sick his mind might be, could ever be made to laugh by such dreary nonsense; there was nothing which had not been done a hundred times better a hundred times before. To be brief; there were days when I loved it and days when I hated it, but my play was never far from my mind. It was the one thing I really had to look forward to, yet it was a terrible shadow hanging over me. If it succeeded — would that I could die in that moment! — and if it failed, then I might as well throw myself off the tower in the Potters Quarter and be done with it all.

To make matters worse, Philonides the Chorus-trainer had not forgotten about me. You may remember that he expressed an interest, that night at Aristophanes’ party. Well, I had expected to hear no more from him, but that was not the case at all. In fact, it became quite embarrassing, for I seemed to meet him everywhere —not just in the City, but even in the country, for he had land at Phrearrhos not far from mine, and I always seemed to be running into him on the road home at night — and each time we met he would ask, ‘Have you anything for me yet?’ and each time I would say, ‘Well, nearly; but there’s still a few things I must iron out ..

But instead of putting him off, this seemed to make him all the more eager, and in the end he took to calling at my house in the City, where Phaedra made him as welcome as a beggar with the plague.

I can understand Phaedra’s reluctance to have any acquaintance of mine in the house, for she was filling in the long hours of our marriage quite as effectively as I was, if half the rumours I heard were true. Of course, a husband always believes rumours about his wife, and they’re very seldom true; but there were so many of them and they all sounded so probable that even the most sceptical juror would have found it difficult not to be convinced.

To start with, I was overjoyed at the thought that I might be able to divorce Phaedra for adultery and be rid of her for good. I remember joking about it, at home in Pallene or at Philodemus’ house; we drank toasts to my liberator as if he were a new Solon come to free the serfs, and adapted the words of the Harmodius. But somehow I could never get around to doing anything about it, even though Philodemus and Callicrates offered to fight the case for me.

‘For God’s sake, boy,’ Philodemus would say, ‘it’s like a gift from Olympus, and you just sit there and do nothing. If it’s losing the dowry you’re worried about, I’ve spoken to half the lawyers in Athens, and—’

But I would shake my head and change the subject, and after a while they stopped bothering, looking on me as mad and already lost; or perhaps they were waiting until Phaedra got pregnant and I was forced to take action. I couldn’t understand it myself; I only knew that it was something to be done next week, or next month, or after the figs had been harvested.

The day came when, to my inseparable joy and sorrow,
The General
was finished and, try as I might, I could think of no reason why I should not take it down to the Archon. It was as near perfect as it would ever be, I had the backing of several influential people including Philonides himself, and I was old enough to take out a Chorus in my own name. By the way, I realise that I have omitted to describe my coming-of-age celebrations and setting-down in the phratry lists. When I started writing this History I intended to give a full account of it, so that generations yet unborn should know what such a ceremony was like in the heyday of the Athenian power. But to be honest with you, it’s such a tedious business that I can’t be bothered; so if you wish to read about it, I recommend that you dig out one of the metrical accounts by one of the old lyric poets.

Anyway, I trudged unhappily over to my uncle’s house with a big knapsack full of Egyptian paper, commandeered his secretary, and dictated the whole thing at a sitting; then I made the poor boy read it all back to me and corrected the mistakes, and told him to write out five fair copies, while I stood over him just to make sure he was doing it properly. I live in terror of having my words distorted by incompetent copyists. One lapse in attention can ruin a whole roll, in my opinion, and they hate the sight of me at the copying workshops when I come down to see how they are getting on.

When the rolls were finished, cut, dried and folded and properly polished with pumice, I packed them up in little bronze cylinders which I had had specially made in Pallene, with ‘The General of
Eupolis son of Euchorus of the deme of Pallene’
and the first line of the play neatly inscribed on the outside, and set off for the Archon’s house. My dear Callicrates could see how nervous I was and offered to come with me, but I refused. I wanted to go alone, without even Little Zeus. I felt like Theseus going into the Labyrinth.

It was nearly dark, and I was terrified in case I ran into robbers who would steal the rolls for their bronze covers; but apparently there was a big funeral over on the other side of the City that night, and so the streets were deserted and safe. I arrived at the Archon’s door and knocked loudly, to raise my spirits.

A housemaid opened the door and asked who was making such a noise at this time of night. I gave my name and said that I wanted to see the Archon.

‘Is it important?’ she said. ‘He’s got visitors. They’re singing the Harmodius.’

The thought of going away and coming back the next day was more than I could bear. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘it’s very important, you’d better let me in.’

As I stepped into the house I immediately thought better of it. What, after all, could be more likely to inspire the fury of the Archon than bursting in on him when he was drinking with a few friends? It would be a miracle if he even accepted the rolls. I looked despairingly around the room. To my horror, I saw that the guests, who were all staring at me, included some of the men I had most savagely and obscenely attacked in the play. There, for example, was Hyperbolus, and beside him Cleonymus the Vulture, and Cleon himself, who I knew to speak to and who was smiling at me in a friendly and welcoming way. I stammered out my business, thrust the rolls at the Archon (for some reason I cannot remember his name, although every other detail of that scene is etched on my mind as clearly as my name was inscribed on those confounded roll-covers) and prepared to make my escape.

‘So this is your famous
General,
son of Euchorus,’ said the Archon drowsily — he had reached that stage of relaxation that is easy to confuse with drunkenness. ‘Lie down and have a cup with us. We’ve all heard about this marvellous play of yours, haven’t we?’

His guests murmured that they certainly had, and I started to sweat. It was, I decided, that defile in Samos all over again, except that this time the enemy were well within range.

‘Let’s have a few lines,’ said Cleonymus, wiping oyster sauce from his chin. ‘I feel like some poetry.’

‘The hell with that,’ said Cleon. ‘It’s early yet, and we have the author here. Let’s have the whole thing. You’re not busy tonight, are you, Eupolis?’

I started to explain all about this party I had promised to go to. In fact, I was late already.

‘Well then,’ someone said, ‘if you’re late already, you’d better not go at all. Dreadful manners to arrive late. Stay here and let’s hear your play. Isn’t there a scene with an old woman and a pot of lentils?’

I cursed my mother under my breath for ever having given birth to me, sat down on a couch and gulped down the cup of strong wine which somebody passed to me. Then I fumbled the roll out of its cover (whatever possessed me to order those stupid bronze cylinders in the first place?) and drew it open across my knee. Of course, I didn’t look at it since I knew the play by heart already, and Cleonymus told me later that I had it upside down.

The opening scene went down very well, and Cleon
in
particular laughed at the old joke about the size of his private parts — which must have been a politician’s instinct, for it was a very unfunny joke and only put in because such a joke was now virtually obligatory in the opening scene of a Comedy. The entry of the Chorus too was rapturously received. It all seemed so horrible, for any moment now the really unforgivable personal attacks would come along, and they would probably cut my ears off with their meat-knives. I couldn’t bear to look; instead, I crouched down over the roll and tried to give the play the best reading I could. My favourite lines, which I had nursed since they were little more than a patter of sounds in my head, rattled off my tongue like olives falling out of a punctured basket, and I wished that I had never composed them.

The Cleonymus scene came and went, and the scene where Hyperbolus sells his grandmother to the stone quarry foreman in return for a pound of salt and two cloves of garlic, and still they were laughing. I was just about to start on the Cleon scene when the man himself laid his hand on my arm and asked, ‘Am I in this?’

Cleon, the only man in history to have prosecuted a Comic poet. ‘Yes,’ I said, staring at the writing on the roll.

‘Have you got a spare copy?’ Cleon asked. I handed him one, and he found the place. Then he motioned to me to continue. Suddenly I heard his voice — he was reading his own part, and roaring with laughter as he did so.

‘This is quite good,’ he kept saying. ‘Do I really talk like this?’

‘Yes,’ Cleonymus said. ‘Get on with it, will you? I’m enjoying this after the beating I took just now.’

Somehow I struggled on to the end, and when I had finished, they clapped me on the back until I thought my spine would snap.

‘Eupolis of Pallene,’ said the Archon gravely, ‘do I take it that you are petitioning me for a Chorus at the City Dionysia?’

‘Yes,’ I replied. It was not the most graceful speech in the world, but I felt too drained to say anything else.

‘Then I shall read and consider your play,’ he replied, taking the roll from me. ‘Of course, it would be most improper of me—’

‘Most
improper,’ said Cleon. ‘Don’t be so damned pompous.’

‘Most improper of me to make any comment,’ the Archon continued, ‘but if you know of a suitable Chorus-trainer, it might be worth your while giving him a copy now. They like to have time to work out the dances, you know.’

‘Actually,’ I said, ‘Philonides the Chorus-master.

‘Oh well then, you’re all right,’ said the Archon. ‘If he’s behind you, I don’t know why you bothered bringing it to me.’ A wicked sort of grin passed over his face. ‘Who shall we nominate to finance your play, Eupolis son of Euchorus, of the deme of Pallene? Cleon here is rich enough; do you fancy it, Cleon?’

Cleon laughed. ‘It’d be the kiss of death to it if I did. Who else gets a hard time, Eupolis? What about Nicias son of Niceratus?’

The Archon made a very peculiar noise and spilt his wine down his chest. ‘You’re evil, Cleon,’ he said. ‘I’ll summon him first thing in the morning.’

‘Nicias,’ explained Hyperbolus, who was the only man present (except me, of course) with a straight face, ‘is a good man but he has no sense of humour. None whatsoever.’

Then someone demanded an encore, and this time not only Cleon but Hyperbolus (who would have made a superb actor) and Cleonymus took their own parts, and the Archon was the Chorus-leader, and we went through virtually the whole play all over again. Two of my beautifully prepared rolls were ruined by having wine spilt all over them but by this stage I couldn’t care less; and I don’t think I’ll tell you what we did with those elegant bronze covers.