“He owes you something. Is he less grateful than a man?”
“He cannot change his nature, which can light or burn. We are scorched already, my dear. You have felt it too. All through rehearsals, through the contest, all through the victory feast, you give and give, you behave perfectly. Then later your oil flask is mislaid, and it enrages you. So it will be; and in two years we shall have nothing. Let us obey the god and keep his blessing. The time is now.”
This had come hard to both of us. Having braved it, we were both in pain; but it was the pain of the cautery, not the poison. In our hearts we both knew it would be worth the cost. We disputed a little longer, both knowing the outcome now but offering it as a mark of love, then talked of the past, sharing our memories. But the thing must be finished clean, so presently I said, “Summer tours will be starting soon. You must be looking round.” To tease him I added, “What about Theophanes? You’d have the heart to steal from him.”
He laughed; we were laughing easily now, as people do after strain. “Theophanes would never let me within a mile of him. He likes his supports made of solid wood.”
“To be serious: Miron is getting no younger, and he feels his limits. He is looking for a second who can take more work. Of course all his plays will have some big oldish role, for him, but you will get some very good parts which are past him now. He’s a man of the old tradition, but you’ll fare no worse in the end from knowing how Kallippides did it in the ninety-third Olympiad or Kleomachos in the hundredth. He is quite well liked, if you can put up with his superstition and eternal omens.”
“I don’t mind other men’s omens,” he said. “I watch my own.”
“His greatest virtue in my eyes is that he only likes young girls.”
“I don’t mind his likes. I know my own.” He added softly, “I’m not one to go drinking vinegar after wine.”
So we talked, and slept, and next day he signed his contract. They were soon rehearsing; he would come home full of talk; we were happy, like autumn grasshoppers, living from day to day. Then Miron fixed up a tour to Delos and the Cyclades. All of a sudden they had sailed, and his absence lay everywhere, like a fall of snow.
I ought to have found a new second before he left. I had known this, but kept putting it off. With every day of missing him, I grew harder to please. I turned down a good offer from Macedon, and drifted, passing the time. It could not go on; I made up a short-term company, and went to Corinth for the Isthmia. Work made me more like myself; when the games were over, I stayed with old friends awhile, and went back to Athens resolved to get my life in order.
Theodoros exclaimed that I was getting dreadfully thin, and gave a party for me at which he produced all the handsome youths he could think of who were free just then. Though they went as free as they came, I was grateful for the kindly thought, and sorry to disappoint him by leaving with Speusippos. But he had let me know he had things to tell me, which would not do in a crowd.
As soon as we were alone, but for his linkboy walking ahead, I asked his news. He said, “The Academy’s by the ears. No one knows how it will end. Dionysios has written again for Plato.”
“Does it matter? He wrote last year, and Plato told him to go and play with it, or whatever philosophers say instead.” I was still rather drunk.
Speusippos, who had sobered quickly, said, “I think this time he may have to go.”
“What? You mean Dion’s exile is rescinded?” Lately my mind had often turned to him. He was the man, after my father, who had taught me honor. Perhaps, I thought, it was he who had pointed out my way.
“No,” said Speusippos, and closed his mouth.
“But that was Plato’s condition. So he can stay at home.”
“It is not so simple.” He looked like a man with warring thoughts. “To begin with, Dionysios has turned back to philosophy.”
“My dear Speusippos! It’s ten days to Syracuse with a good wind. By then he will have turned on his other side.”
“No, he’s had a year at it, really studying. He’s been writing to Plato and even making sense. So Plato has answered, and at a good deal of trouble too. The mind is there; it’s character makes it balk like a half-broken horse. That’s what teases Plato—the thought that if the beast could be trained, he’d run.”
“Well, but since he got so frisky on the rein, he may study better alone.”
“So it began to seem. But it was you, I think, who said he always wants to be crowned before the race?”
“Don’t tell me,” I cried, “that he’s calling himself an Academician?” My laughter stopped when I saw Speusippos was not even smiling. Maybe, I thought, he had drunk himself sad, as some men do.
“That is the least of it. Being a special case, he’s got his hands on something no other student of Plato’s owns—a written scheme of his oral teaching.” He saw my surprise, and said patiently, “Plato believes in the spark that kindles mind from mind. If your brand won’t burn, you carry it back to the hearth again. But he had to send it to Dionysios, since he couldn’t come and his fire kept smoking. By now it amounts to a thesis, almost. So, instead of using in quiet such disciplines as make the mind’s eye to see, he invites a philosophic concourse, and poses as a finished product of the school.”
“Plato must be angry. But, surely, not angry enough to get him out to Syracuse?” There was a pause. “Who are these hangers-on?”
“Kyrenians, mostly, from the school of Aristippos. Like him, they equate the good with pleasure, but define their terms less carefully. And he himself wasn’t careful enough. He was Plato’s fellow guest with old Dionysios; unlike Plato, he did very well out of it.”
“Does the son deserve better company? Why can’t he leave Plato be? No, I can guess the answer. These are just rivals, flaunted to make the real love jealous. One could laugh, or cry.
“I wish it may end in laughter.”
The moon had set, and a watchdog howled in the dark. I thought of the cold bed at home. Whatever bad news he was holding back, I could do without it. But as one always does, I asked.
“Dionysios is resolved to get Plato there. Persuasion having failed, he turns, like every tyrant at the pinch, to power. His last letter invited Plato to confer with him on the settlement of Dion’s estates in Sicily. As I suppose you know, the income from them has reached him every year. If Plato goes, everything can be arranged to Dion’s liking. If not, not. In other words—confiscation.”
“So that’s it,” I said. “The wretched little blackmailer! He should know better the men he has to deal with.” Speusippos was silent. I thought, as we walked on, of Dion’s splendid progresses, how he had held court at Delphi, Delos, and Olympia, a beacon to every lover of justice. Of course spies must have brought word of all this to Syracuse, and one could picture Dionysios’ jealousy. The wonder was, I thought, that he had not sunk to this meanness sooner.
“Well,” I said presently, “it’s good that Dion has always lived like a philosopher. With what he has, he’ll be as well off I daresay as you or I. His wife and son can’t come to harm, being the Archon’s kin; and though he’ll miss his travels, at the Academy he’ll have all he truly values—Plato, his books, his friends.”
In the flickering torchlight, I saw Speusippos look at me, then look ahead. Still he said nothing.
“Don’t think I make light of it,” I said. “Of course it will come harder to a man of rank, especially a Syracusan. But we know the man, and his love of honor. The greater the sacrifice, the higher his tribute to friendship and philosophy. That’s how Dion will see it. Depend on it, he will never let Plato go.”