Among the olives of the Academy we greeted Axiothea, but did not linger, since she was not alone. She seldom was, now that Plato had accepted another girl. Lasthenia of Mantinea wore women’s dress, feeling, I suppose, that this suited her soul; she was small and slim, with a kind of serious liveliness. They walked with their heads together, their hands sketching the argument to and fro. It had been a good day for Axiothea that brought her here. For the woman whose mind and body both need men, there is the life of the hetaira; it was not for her. She would have starved and turned sour if Plato had not been above convention. I was glad for her, and wished her joy.
When we reached our destination, Thettalos, who had much delicacy about serious things, said he did not know Speusippos well enough to intrude on him just now, and went to stroll in the gardens.
At Speusippos’ door, I could hear a girl inside crying and pummeling her breast, and wailing, for the hundredth time by the sound of it, “I may never see you again!” Not having the face to knock during this scene, I walked off into the grove. I had heard what I came to know, but, longing to know more, persuaded myself I might be of help if I came back later.
Presently I was aware of two men ahead of me on the path between the trees. It was Plato, with Dion. I stopped, meaning to turn back; but just then Plato caught sight of someone beyond (no doubt he was full of business) and went over there, leaving Dion to wait.
He sat down on a shady bench. I could easily have slipped off unseen. But without pausing even to wonder at myself, I walked straight up to him.
It was impossible I could be welcome, and indeed he returned my greeting less coldly than I expected; perhaps I seemed a good omen, a harbinger of Sicily. At any time up till now, I would have walked on without presuming further. But I sat down beside him.
I conversed, I forget of what—of course, nothing to the purpose. I could see Plato deep in talk; he would be some time yet. Dion was quite civil. I could feel him thinking that when Plato came back, I had manners enough to go; meantime, what with one thing and another, it was his duty to put up with me. My awe, I suppose, had first begun to spill away in Syracuse, with the wine from his broken cup. Since then, too, I had advanced in my calling; and, which perhaps made the more difference, also in love.
Awe was gone; yet I had come to recover something. The noble beauty of this face was like a splendid mask I had long been used to live with. I studied it now again. So many men of his age (he must now be rising fifty) have faces getting fat, or loose, or drawn with petty cares, or bitter. But his outlines had kept their shape; if his skin had aged, it was a healthy weathering. A royal face—one of those classic masks made of good hardwood that carves like stone.
I forget how we came to talk of Delphi; but I recalled The Myrmidons, and how seldom it was done in Athens. Whichever of us it was who referred to Homer, it was I—as I am not likely to forget—who said, “Aischylos has departed from him here and there. Take Patroklos, for instance. In the Iliad, his father reminds him he is the elder of the friends, while Aischylos makes him the youth beloved. But in any case,” I went on, following my thought, if you can call it that, “I suppose he would still be a man in the flower of his strength, when Achilles sent him into battle.”
It was not till these words were out of my mouth that I perceived what I had been saying. If you ask how such stupidity is possible in a man able to get about and earn his bread, I can only suppose that my soul borrowed my tongue before I knew it. Had it been my own reflection, it was bad enough. But an actor’s memory is like a jackdaw’s nest; it came from Plato’s Symposion.
Even before Dion’s face went dark and cold as a winter mountain, I knew what I’d done, and had lost the look of innocence. To have begged his pardon would have made it ten times worse; nor indeed did I feel the wish. I can’t remember with what form of words he let me know he was not at leisure. He could not have wished me gone more heartily than I did.
One must be prepared sometimes to make an exit when one is upset. Thinking only of what was at my back, I started at running into Thettalos, who made me sit down and tell him what was the matter. At the end he said, “Nonsense. You could have said much more than that. Only wait till you are seventy, and see if I treat you as he does Plato.”
Laughing did me good, but it was not till next day that I felt fit to call on Speusippos.
I found him in his garden, talking with the old Persian slave who tended it, and with the young man Aristoteles to whom he had consigned his specimens before. The place was full of small shelters for delicate plants, rock terraces, wind screens and potting sheds. Seeing him busy, I would have withdrawn, but he said he would be glad of a break, and was only fidgeting there from restlessness. “I must remember,” he said, “to enfranchise old Oitanes in my will, in case I don’t come home. It would break his heart to lose the garden; it would be too much to be sold himself as well.”
He called for cooled wine, and conferred a moment with the young Aristoteles, a dapper youth with thin legs and small, keen eyes. Presently he came back to sit with me against the shady wall of the house, under the vine trellis. Sweet herbs stood in pots around. “I can leave it all to him,” he said. “He never forgets anything. One of our most gifted men, but not at home with first principles. How, how, how—he will probe into that forever; he can’t see that for Plato the use of how is to find the why. Why, Niko, is man? And why does man ask why? When we know that, we have all truth in our fingers. Without, a lifetime of how leads where? Maybe to designing a catapult like old Dionysios’, which can lob a stone two stades from the walls, and kill a man—a mystery of God which we can bring ourselves to destroy because we have never defined it … But why run on? What can I do for you, Niko?”
I told him I had heard he was sailing with Plato, and had just come to say goodbye. “You have no notion,” he said, tilting his head back against the wall with a sigh, “what has gone on since last we talked—and before that, for I kept things back; you were defining my own thoughts to me faster than I could bear … Oh, yes, of course you’re wondering how Plato was induced to go. The only wonder is that he held out so long. He’s had barely a day of peace—do you know, Dionysios has written, over the last few months, to every friend of consequence he has in Athens, urging them to push him on, saying, as a rule, that when in Syracuse he proposed reforms which can only be carried out under his direction. He should know what that’s worth; but you can suppose how he’s felt, with half Athens saying he has power to reform the tyranny, but prefers his ease at home, or is afraid to test his theories. Besides all that, Dionysios has been pressing the Tarentines, and has written to Archytas hinting that the treaty may be denounced if he doesn’t get Plato there. Archytas is trusted like the father of the city; how can he risk the people’s safety for one friend’s, when it must seem to him the friend might even do good by going? Of course the Archon’s Kyrenian guests have written too, praising their host’s progress in philosophy, and his devotion to Plato’s doctrines—which means without doubt that he’s been expounding half-baked versions which Plato would die to hear.” He paused for breath, while his servant set up the wine table.
“Poor Plato,” I said. “Like a poet when some barnstormer butchers his best lines.”
When the man had gone, he said, “All Dion’s friends have written, too. And there are more of them than all the rest put together.”
I said nothing. He broke off a sprig of basil, and turned it in his hand, peering into the little flowers.