“Only today,” said Dionysios, digging in the sweet-bowl that stood between us, “Plato was telling me how you were shipwrecked going home last time. I had not known of it.”
I related the tale, my mind busy elsewhere. So Plato still cast his spell. What? I thought. Will the bird he’s whistled to his hand neither sing for him nor fly away? Else why this naughty costume? But then, all the world knows how Alkibiades used to slip the leash, and come coaxing back to Sokrates, showing his radiant grace for password.
“And I suppose,” he said, “you lost that painting I gave you, of the Siege of Motya?”
“Alas, sir, yes.” He looked as downcast as a child, so to please him I said, “A loss to me and Athens. But I grieved even more for the model chariot, not just for the giver’s sake, but because I never saw, in that line of work, craftsmanship to equal it.”
I hoped to see his face light up as it had before; but he just looked gracious, and sent to summon his steward. The man came with his keys; he said, “Go to that old workroom of mine and fetch a model chariot.” When it came, he turned it over once or twice in his hands (I saw he still bit his nails) and said, “Well, here is one loss I can make good to you. State business gives me no time for toys.” There was dust on it. I am ashamed to confess such folly, but I felt near weeping.
No one troubled with me when I left, so I made for Dion’s house, thinking, as I went, what Dionysios had said about his state business. He had sounded full of consequence. Having met Philistos, I could see him flattering the young man, as an expert charioteer coaching a rich young blood will let him think he is driving. Dionysios was the very one for it. I don’t suppose Dion had ever stooped to such pretenses. It was not in him.
His house, when I got there, was well kept as ever, nothing shabby or run-down. Yet I felt a change, a loss of life and movement in the air around. As I reached the door, I saw this was more than idle fancy. Before, it had stood open. Now it was shut.
I knocked, and sent in my name. While I stood waiting, a young boy of seven or eight, a handsome child, slipped round the corner of the house for a peep at me. One saw the likeness at once. He was curious, I suppose, having heard my name, but dodged back when he was seen. Soon came the servant to say his master was at his studies and could see no one. No word of my coming some other time.
I walked through Ortygia, sick at heart. I had thought he would forgive me; he himself had done what he thought right, sorry it hurt me, but never turning back. This was the same. I would never have shut my door to him. But to me, man’s life is a tree with twisted roots. To a political philosopher, it must be like a diagram of Pythagoras.
Soon after, I met Speusippos in the street. I hardly dared greet him; but he crossed over, and invited me to drink with him. I took courage, therefore, to ask if Dion was very angry with me.
“Angry?” he said. “Not that I know of. Why should you think so?”
When I told him, he said the play had not been announced yet; I could see that it was news to him, and news of no great importance. He spoke kindly, however. “Don’t lose your sleep over it. If Dion knows of it, which I doubt, he can see you must work to eat. Give him credit for being just. You know, I take it, that Dionysios stopped the plays of his own accord? Neither Plato nor Dion urged it; they are here to get law instead of tyranny. But Dionysios found it in The Republic—a thing he could do at once, without trouble. You know him, like a child with new clothes.”
“Still,” I said, “Plato wrote it.”
“Yes … You know, Niko, at the Academy we aim to provide the world with statesmen. Already now cities are coming to us to draw up their constitutions. But like shoemakers, we cut to measure. The Republic is, shall I say, a discussion of principles, not a working code. Between you and me, I think the purpose of those passages was to startle our poets into responsibility. Half of them today have the souls of whores: give me my drachma, never mind who gets my pox. Plato is a man who would not add a grain to the weight of the world’s evil for a golden crown. When no more like him are left, men will devour each other and perish from the earth. That’s why Dion defended him to you, just as I do.”
“Well then,” I said, “if it’s not on account of the play, why does Dion shut his door to me?”
“I doubt you were singled out. He has refused himself to a good many people lately. He found if he tried to advance anyone’s interests, just the opposite happened. That was Dionysios’ way of making himself felt, without an open quarrel. He won’t, if he can help it, force Plato into taking sides; he might learn what he has no wish to know. So he pricks in ways like these. Dion found he did his friends no good by taking notice of them. That’s why he shuts his door.”
“I am sorry for it. But with me, I’m afraid he must be really angry. If not, knowing I would think so he would have sent a letter.”
Speusippos drew his black brows together, and shook his head. “No, Niko. You think so, because it is what you would do yourself. Dion is proud. Till you know that, you do not know him.”
I remembered his desk, piled with petitions and state papers. How should a man like him beg pardon of a man like me, for being no longer even a trusted servant? The thought freed me from bitterness.
Since the year of my father’s death, when I had come on as an extra, I had never been in The Bacchae. While a second actor, I had once been offered my father’s roles but had turned them down, more, I suppose, from superstition than from piety, for no doubt he would have thought me foolish. Now, as protagonist, I would play the god, with one short double as Tiresias the Prophet. Menekrates, as Pentheus and Queen Agave, was keen and shaping well.
It is a play about a mystery, and a mystery in itself. Ask any actor what he thinks Euripides meant by it, and he will tell you something different. Myself, I have played in it now some seven times, and still don’t claim to know more than what one man makes of it, on one day. It is even possible, I suppose, that it was written to show that the gods are not. If so, someone crept up behind the poet, and breathed down his neck when he wasn’t looking. One thing I take it we may agree upon: the god of The Bacchae is not supposed to be like men.
There are first-class mask-makers in Syracuse, and of course we had the best. The Dionysos was most beautiful, a delicate blond face, almost feminine, as the play describes him, but with slant eyes, darkly drawn round like a leopard’s. It seemed to me just right. Menekrates was very pleased with the Agave, and Pentheus was nearly finished.
Philistos gave no trouble. He looked in now and again at rehearsals, sat quietly in front, would come behind to say it was going well and ask if we were satisfied with the machines, for there are a good many effects, with the earthquake and so on. Of course such things are better done at Syracuse than anywhere in the world, but he seemed anxious to be cordial, and even asked the cast to a drinking party. The others went, which I did not hold against them. I begged off with the excuse that I had had a feverish flux on tour (a common complaint in Sicily, where there is much bad water) and the doctor had me under orders. He could hardly press me, if he wanted the play to go on, so I was left in peace. I was doing this role to serve the god, not as Philistos’ sycophant.
During the half-month of rehearsals, I made it my business to visit small wineshops in poor streets and find out what the people were saying. I reckoned in this way to cover ground Speusippos would miss; for he could never look like anything but a gentleman, while I, if I choose, can look like a soldier or an artisan, not by dressing up but just in small ways of sitting and standing and slicking down my hair. As a rule I said I was a skene-painter from Corinth. The accent is very easy.