Then came the day for the Presentation of the Poets, which always makes the contest seem very near. We went to the Odeion in our festival robes and garlands, to make our bow while the subjects of the plays were given out. Our poet being in Syracuse, some sweet-voiced orator deputized, no doubt a good exchange. I was anxious lest our robes might be overdone—it is, after all, a ceremony, not a performance; one appears as oneself, without a mask, and should dress without hubris. But we were fitted out with sumptuous elegance; if our sponsor did not have good taste, he knew where to buy it.
As Anaxis had foretold, the name of Dionysios got no booing; but Hermippos was greeted with a few laughs, because he had last been seen in comedy. A comedian, in the nature of things, gets more typed and known by sight than a tragedian; and if audiences remember you waving a string of sausages, with a great stuffed phallos bouncing about, it takes more than a gilt wreath to make them forget it. If Hermippos was displeased he did not let it show, but bowed as if to a tribute. He was a stout-hearted man; even when he was tiresome, I could not keep from liking him. I said to Anaxis, later, that it was a good thing he had been there to keep the public sweet.
“That clown! Let me forget him while I can. Dionysios took second prizes here while he was much more disliked than now. I can’t think why you should be so anxious.”
I was about to deny it, but had a better thought and said, “My dear, you must bear with me; the truth is, I’m strung up like a lyre with this trouble between you and Hermippos. It’s amazing you put up with him so well. But the fear of your being put off on the day, with so much depending on it, keeps me awake at night.”
“My dear Niko!” he said at once. “I trust it would take more than Hermippos to do that to me. We are in the hands of the god. It may start to snow, the Chief Archon’s wife may go into labor in the seats of honor, or the Thebans cross the frontier. These are real evils, which we may pray Iakchos to avert. But as for Hermippos, let us keep our minds on serious things.”
At dress rehearsal, therefore, he was all graciousness; and Hermippos, like the good artist he was at heart, found no time for foolery. “It’s going too well,” I thought. “The bad luck will come on the day.” Then at my chariot entry after Hermes, one of the horses stretched its neck, picked up Hermippos’ mask by the wig, which I suppose it took for straw, and plucked it clean off his head. We laughed ourselves sick and felt better.
Now came the fateful draw for playing order. It was raining that day, but we joined the crowd of artists and sponsors waiting in the theater colonnade to see the lists go up.
The first days would not concern us; comedy is king at the Lenaia, and always opens. After that there were trilogies with satyr-farce finales, one day for each. Then came the single plays. The list went up, the word went around. Leaving out the comic closure, we were on last.
Now if this happens at the Dionysia, it is plain good news. But at a winter festival like the Lenaia, you can’t tell if you are blessed or cursed till the very day. If it is showery, or there is a bitter wind, the older people, and the sickly, and those with thin cloaks, start going home. The rest get restless, going off to stretch their legs or relieve themselves; their minds are half on hot soup at home; they are getting sulky and fidgety and hard to please. On the other hand, if it turns out fine you have the best of the billing and of the day as well. The mildness and sweetness of the theater on such afternoons is an artists’ proverb. No wonder Zeus, and Dionysos, and Apollo Helios do so well for offerings beforehand.
On the eve of the festival, I lay listening to the noise of the midnight rites—the cries of the women trying, as they ran about the streets, to sound like maenads on a mountain, playing at danger in safety, as they do at the Lenaia, and garlanding King Vinestock to placate him for being pruned. Their hymns, and their squeals of “Iakchos!” and the red light of torches sliding across my ceiling, would wake me whenever my eyes had closed. Towards morning, I heard a huddle of them go by with their torches out, shivering and grumbling, and complaining of the rain.
Next day opened cloudy—not the rank bad weather that gets the show put off, but gray and threatening. During the first of the comedies it looked so black that people stayed at home, and the theater was half empty; if the cast had been less discouraged, I think the play might have won. Later it cleared a little; the theater filled; a play no better was well received, and got the prize.
On the day when the contest of tragedies started, the wind got up. The audience came muffled to the eyes, their cloaks pulled over their heads, and with two cloaks if they had them. The wind snatched at the robes of the cast and chorus; the flute-player, who had to use both hands to play, had his skirts flung up till they showed his naked backside. This did not help the protagonist, playing Bellerophon and doing a solemn bit of recitative. In the next part of the trilogy he had to be flown in riding Pegasos. My heart bled for him as he swung to and fro, with the audience squealing or laughing. Of course the play was sliced in half; but it was middling work, which I doubt stood a chance in any case.
Next day started even windier. The chorus of women had trailing scarves, a stupid thing at the Lenaia; during a choral dance they got tangled up together and had to unwind. They were quite young boys, and started giggling; I don’t suppose they sat down for a week, after the trainer got his hands on them. The play was uneven, the poet having put into the first part all he had to say, but being resolved upon a trilogy. During the last part the wind dropped and the sun came palely out; but by then the audience was bored, and waiting to see the slapstick.
The following day was ours.
I could not sleep. I thought of taking poppy syrup; but it leaves one dull, and one would do better tired. Just as I was going off, a wedding procession passed, singing and shouting; there is one nearly every night in that month of marriages. I tossed and turned, and put out my hand at the window, and felt the air still, but very cold. Dim light from the sky showed me Apollo in his wooden frame. Since I was up, I lit a small clay lamp and stood it before the mask. The flame moved faintly in the air from the window; the eyeholes looked at me; they seemed searching, but calm. I went back to bed with the lamp still burning, and lay in thought. Suddenly I awoke to daybreak. The lamp had burned out; birds were chirping. The sky was clear.
I jumped up and looked out. A mild white frost furred the edges of the oleander leaves and the black fingers of the courtyard vine. My breath lay unstirring on the air.
I threw my blanket round me, and did my practice at the window. My voice sounded true and flexible. A ruffled-up bird in the vine whistled so like a flute that I did a bit of recitative as well. I blew up the embers in the hearth and mulled some wine, breaking some eggs into it and adding white meal and honey—an old-fashioned posset which suits my stomach at these times. I sopped some bread in, knowing I would eat nothing later. Then, having scattered the crumbs outside as my flute-player’s fee, I said an invocation before Apollo’s mask and poured him an offering.
By the time I went out I felt warmed and brisk. My landlord and his wife, who seldom noticed me except of an evening to see whom I brought home, called out to wish me luck, which I took for a good omen. The sky was getting quite blue. My feet and fingers tingled still, but I could feel the cold grow less.
I stopped at the barber’s, and found Hermippos being finished. As soon as he could talk, he offered me a bawdy tale about two girls he had met last night returning from the rites. I was in a mood for quiet, but could see that under it all he was on edge, and this was his notion of keeping up both our spirits. So I gave him his laughs, and in return got his company all the way, since he waited till I was done.