He could not wait while I did it, but ran on, “I had heard you were in Syracuse. Among all my concerns—my father’s death, my own accession—it must have stuck in my mind. For while I was addressing the Assembly, having prepared nothing at all upon the matter, it came to me as if sent by a god. I just spoke as my thoughts formed themselves. Is not that strange?”
I said nobody would have guessed it; and that is strange, if you like. I have never liked fawners, and can’t imagine that I would have flattered his father so. But in the presence of this gangling youth (for with his awkward rawness he seemed no more)—lank-haired, his mourning crop showing his pink scalp here and there, sitting fidgeting with a writing tablet, digging his nail into the wax, picking out bits and rolling them like a schoolboy, clutching at dignity, while his eyes begged like a dog’s for notice—with him it seemed trivial to stand upon one’s status rather than help him out. So I soothed him as well as I could without being familiar, since it was clear he must dread being taken lightly. In the end, he called for some sweets, which I hate at such an hour, but which he himself ate greedily, and started talking theater, bringing out truisms about the classic tragedies as if no one had thought of them before. He dug down among the stuffed dates and candied rose-leaves, holding forth about the comedy element in Alkestis; and all the while my mind’s eye retraced my steps that morning: the fort, the Iberians, the drawbridge and portcullis, the Nubians, the Gauls, the causeway with the catapults; the quinqueremes and triremes and pentekonters; the armament shops, the barracks, the walls, the grilles, the searching room. Here we sat talking banalities about Euripides, while around us the greatest power machine in Hellas—or the world—idled along by its own momentum, beside its dead engineer, its quivering levers awaiting the new master’s hand, this damp pale hand with bitten nails, rolling wax along the table.
Presently he said I would no doubt wish to pay my respects in the death chamber before I left, and clapped his hands for the chamberlain. When I had changed into my own clothes, I was led towards the wailing. Old Dionysios was lying in the banquet hall, on a catafalque hung with black and purple, in a chest lined with lead. They had packed him round with ice from Etna, to keep him fresh for the funeral. As it melted it ran into a tank below; there was a steady come and go of slaves, bringing fresh ice and emptying the tank with buckets. It had kept him from stinking; I saw his square fighting face, his black stubbly chin, his short pug nose. The hired mourners had got into the swing of it, howling and pummeling their breasts in a drugged rhythm. But at the head of the bier were others who were clearly kindred. One, who had a square face like the dead man’s, and the same dark brows, I thought must be his daughter, maybe the one who was Dion’s wife.
I took the shears on the offering table, and cut off a lock of my hair and laid it on the pile, which was big enough to stuff a mattress. I was on my way out with the chamberlain when, in the outer courtyard, a man who looked like an upper servant came up and said, “If this gentleman is Nikeratos, the tragedian of Athens, my master would like to see him about the rites.”
I followed him into the park, past the fountain, and down to a grassy terrace. Beyond was a house, not very large but perfectly proportioned, with a herm in front of it that looked like a Praxiteles. I had expected the lodging of some official; but even before I was inside, I knew. Everything spoke—the good lines, the plainness, the splendor of the few adornments.
The servant brought me to a white-walled study lined with shelves of scrolls. At a table of polished pine, by the open window, Dion was sitting. I stepped forward. “Good day,” he said, as if to a stranger. I was shocked stupid, and just stood there. I’m not sure I even replied. He dismissed the servant; then at once his whole face changed.
“My dear Nikeratos.” He got up and grasped my hand. “Forgive me that cold greeting. One moment.” He flung open the door, but the passage was empty. “I have had my man ten years; but doubtful times, doubtful men, as they say. Sit down, and let us have some wine; I have been busy since dawn, and you too, I daresay.”
He went over to a side table, where a mixer stood in a big krater packed with snow. Having poured for us both, he offered me fresh bread to dip. Nothing could have surpassed the dignity with which he did these simple services. It had a charm too, like that of a well-bred boy looking after his father’s guests.
We sat down near the table. On a trellis above the window was an old knotty vine just budding; its sharp shadows fell on the soft waxy shine of the wood, and his brown soldier’s hand which rested there.
“The other actors, I hear, went back,” he said. “You, Nikeratos, faced the change of fate with your usual courage. And it would have prospered as you deserve. Your speaking of the Eulogy would certainly bring you offers, not only hereabouts but in many other cities. I tell you this in fairness. When one comes to a man for help, one should let him know what it will cost him.”
He paused. I could find nothing to say. I feared I must be dreaming this. Had he really asked help of me?
“As for the mere money,” he said, “of course I shall cover that. But a rising artist, still young, looks first for reputation. Don’t think me ignorant of this. I know what I ask. You must judge if the cause deserves it.”
I said I would do anything. I could feel myself blushing like a boy, which seldom happened in my boyhood.
“You are a man I trust,” he said, not making a speech of it. “When I heard you had been sent for here, it seemed like the hand of God. We have the business of the rites, and no one need know of any other.”
He took from a writing box a letter folded small and sealed.
“To you, Nikeratos, who have heard us share our thoughts, I can say more than just, ‘Get this out of Sicily to Plato.’ In the first place, you won’t fear its being seditious; you know our views on violence. No, the enterprise I urge him to is one of honor to us both. It can bring good beyond reckoning to our young Archon, to this city, even to the world. But of necessity I had to write with frankness, which might give offense and spoil our hopes. Perhaps you understand me?”
I said I thought so.
“If Plato comes, as I have urged him here to do, the thought must seem to Dionysios to be his own, or he will resent it. This is natural in a young man new to power, following such a father. But Plato’s welcome depends on this, and on his welcome, everything. As you too may have heard him say, philosophy is not a tool which can be passed about like a mason’s rule; it is a fire struck from the glow of minds in search of truth. Without that fire, it is nothing.”
His voice, his face, took me straight back to that room at Delphi. The noble folly, the mad beauty of it struck me dumb. Twenty years, or thereabouts, since the golden lad in love brought his friend to Syracuse, to change the old tyrant with philosophy. (I thought of the square pug face in its bed of ice, the jaw clenched like a fist in death, the shrewd wary lines round the closed eyes.) And after everything—after that legendary clash of disparate prides, after the tricked parting, the slave market at Aigina, all these years of half-stolen meetings—now in this man of forty, a diplomat, a soldier, the flame revived when the coals were blown on; he was ready to try again.
I must have been a long time answering. He said, “Yes, speak, Nikeratos. There are few here I can share my mind with. You have met Dionysios. What do you think?”
After thinking how best to put it, I said, “Plato won’t stoop to flattery. Do you think it will matter less this time?”
He smiled, and paused. Then he said, “I see you have the funeral speech there in your hand. Have you had time yet to run it over?”