Raising his cup, he said, “To the fortunes of Syracuse. A glorious dawn, Zeus prosper it.”
I held myself in, and answered slowly, “Shall we offer the prayer of Hippolytos, Grant me to end life’s race as I began?”
“Choose,” he said, smiling, “some prayer of better omen, for, as I remember, that one the gods rejected.”
“I see you know your Euripides. Well then, a toast to purified Syracuse. Down with all riffraff—hired troops, spies, gluttons and drunkards, whores, and artists.” I lifted the cup, and threw it down on the marble floor.
I had not known I would do this. The wine made a great red star, and spattered both our robes. A piece of the cup lay at my feet, a crowned goddess, in the Italian style.
He stood stock-still, amazed, then angry. Sicilians of his rank don’t know such things can happen to them. Well, I thought, he is talking to an Athenian now, and must make the best of it.
“Nikeratos,” he said, “I am sorry to see you so forget yourself.”
“Forget?” I answered. “No, by Apollo, I have remembered what I am. I am a citizen of no rank; I don’t understand philosophy; when you were studying, I was playing stand-ins and extras, picking up my trade which you want to take away. But whatever I am, or you choose to call me, one thing I know: I am a servant of the god, and though I honor you and love you, I will obey the god, rather than you.”
He had listened unmoving; but at these words he started, as if he knew them. I waited, but he did not speak.
“You have been godlike to me.” If I had let myself, I could have wept. “But beside the god you are just a man. Farewell. I daresay we shan’t meet again.” I paused at the door, but there was nothing to stay for, so I only said, “I am sorry I broke the wine cup.”
“Nikeratos. Come back … I beg of you.” The words came out stiffly. His tongue was strange to them. It was that made me turn.
“Come, sit down,” he said. We sat by his desk. It was covered with letters and petitions such as are sent to men in power. There were sheets too of geometric figures and a diagram of the stars.
“My friend,” he said, “Archytas tells me that you almost lost your life upon my business. I have grieved you, which I cannot help; but I did it thoughtlessly, and for that I ask your pardon.”
“If the thing is true,” I answered, “does it matter how you say it? Is it true, or not?”
“This is hard,” he said, and leaned his brow on his open hand. “Plato could say this better than I; but it rightly falls on me, the man who you feel betrays you … What did you mean, Nikeratos, when you said you served the god? Not just that you perform the sacrifices to Dionysos and Apollo, and respect their precinct, but something more?”
“Surely,” I said, “you don’t need to be an artist yourself to understand me. It means not setting oneself above one’s poet, nor being false to the truth one knows of men. When one can see that the audience wants the easy thing, or the thing just in fashion, and even the judges can’t be trusted not to want it too, for whom does one stay honest? Only for the god.”
“You hear him speak, and obey him. But could you have heard so clearly, if you had not learned your art from boyhood?”
“No, I think not. Or not so soon.”
“Suppose you had been badly trained, and always heard bad work praised above good.”
“A great misfortune. But if an artist is anything, sooner or later he thinks for himself.”
“But others, not? Bad teaching spoils them past remedy?”
“Yes, but they are men the theater can do without.”
“You mean they can take up some other calling. So they can. But, Nikeratos, all men have to live, either well or badly, as they are taught. If enough are taught badly, the bad will get rid of the good. And you, whether you choose or not, are a teacher. Young boys, and simple men, don’t go to the theater to judge of verse; they go to see gods and kings and heroes, to enter the world you make, to steep their minds and souls in it. Can you deny this?”
“But,” I said, “one plays for men of sense.”
“You keep faith with your art, Nikeratos. You will not offend the god with anything unworthy, even though men would reward you for it. But your power stops there. You cannot rewrite your play, though the poet may be doing the very thing you would scorn to do.”
“That is his business. I am an actor.”
“But you both serve the god. Can his god say one thing, and yours another?”
“I am an actor. He and I must each judge for ourselves.”
“Truly? Yet you have to enter his mind. Have you never once felt you were entering a false world, or an evil one?”
I could not lie to him, and replied, “Yes, once or twice. Even with Euripides, in his Orestes. Orestes has been wronged, but nothing can excuse his wickedness. Yet one is supposed to play him for sympathy.”
“Did you do so?”
“I was third actor then. I should have to try, I suppose, if I were drawn for it.”
“Because that is the law of the theater?”
“Yes.”
“But, my dear Nikeratos, that is why we want to change it.”
“I understood,” I said, “that you wanted to destroy it.”
“No, not so.” He looked at me with kindness, as if I were a decent soldier he had beaten in war. “Plato believes, as I do, that an artist such as you, who can portray nobility, has his place in the good city. In some such way as this: that the parts of base, or passionate, or unstable men should be related in narration, while only the good man, who is a fit example, or the gods speaking true doctrine, should be honored by the actor’s imitation. In such a way, nothing evil would strike deep into the hearers’ minds.”
I gazed at him, solemn as an owl. If, having begun to laugh, I could not stop, which seemed likely, he would despise me for instability. I told myself this, to sober up. Not that I feared his displeasure now; as I had said, he was just a man. But the man was dear to me.
“You mean,” I said, “that in the Hippolytos, for instance, where Phaedra reveals her guilty love, and where Theseus curses his son in ignorance, all that would be narrated? Only Hippolytos would speak?”
“Yes, just so. And we could not admit of evil being caused by Aphrodite, who is a god, to a just man.”
“No, I suppose not. And Achilles must not weep for Patroklos nor tear his clothes, because that is a failure in self-command?”
“No, indeed.”
“But do you think,” I asked at length, “that any of it would strike deep into the hearers’ minds? You don’t think it might be dull?”
He looked at me, patient, not angry. “As wholesome food is, after those Sicilian banquets that have made us the scorn of Hellas. Believe me, our Syracusan cooks are artists too, in their way. Yet you would not lose your figure, health and looks to please one of them, would you, even if he were a friend? And is not the soul worth more?”
“Of course it is. But …” It was no use, I thought, against a trained wrestler of the Academy. I had learned my art by asking how, rather than why.
“Only look, Nikeratos,” he said, his fine face lit with eagerness, “at the world around us. Look what men as they are have brought it to. War, tyranny, revenge, anarchy, injustice everywhere. Somewhere, somewhere one must begin.”
At these words, my feet seemed to feel firm ground. I said, “That is true. Then why, seeing Dionysios is eating out of Plato’s hand, doesn’t he seize his chance, and get the Syracusans a proper constitution? Soon it will be too late; even I can see that. Why is the city as full of mercenaries as ever? The tyranny goes on, while you all scratch circles in the sand—” His face reminded me, if my own sense had not, that I was speaking to the first minister. I said, “I go too far. But we were talking about justice.”