Read Online The Praise Singer by Mary Renault - Free Book Online

didn’t wish it. Theodoros said he could tell I’d studied with a fine master, but I never said a word.” I could see him brighten a little. He’d been out of sorts lately, from the change of air, and want of use for his skill. I could not tell him that this man’s praise had healed my bruises, left by Polykrates’ minions.
    Theodores must have been all of sixty; but his great arm and shoulder muscles were still hard, and his broad hands calloused. He could behave like a lord, but he always looked like a craftsman. “There’s always something one has to take from a prentice and do oneself.” The taverner kept for him his favorite cup, black on white figured Lakonian, smooth as an egg. When he picked it up, you saw the delicate touch of those big fingers. Besides marble, he carved gems. The Tyrant’s emerald was his masterwork. He worked too in bronze. Nowadays he had his marbles roughed out by his pupils, and only did the finishing; but he tinted them all himself. I know no sculptor today who does not use a painter; but he used to say he had the whole in his mind’s eye and did not want it spoiled. Besides all this, he was part architect of the grand new Hera temple, going up on the western shore.
    “Yes, yes,” said Kleobis, fidgeting on his pillow. “A great man of his hands, no doubt. But don’t make yourself common among such people.”
    “Court people come to the tavern too, sir. I don’t think it would do you harm to be seen there. It would pass the time.” I was disturbed by the tedium of his days, and his loss of spirits. For twenty years, before this, he had stayed in no city except as an honored guest-friend. Now that I can say the same of myself for twice as long, I understand his feelings.
    At least he no longer had my keep to find; which was as well, since no summons came from Polykrates. Soon after, on a day of sun and rain, he made a new song about Apollo weeping for dead Hyakinthos, drawing a cloak of cloud over his shining head. It was one of his best; polishing it kept him happy for two days, after which I could see him starving for an audience. A cruel waste; for it would be a great success at the Victory. When Polykrates’ friends honored the house, they often brought along their favorite boys, who no doubt looked to them as lovely as Hyakinthos, even if not to me.
    Life is hard on Keos, and its springtime short. The beauty of our youths is that of first-flowering manhood. I, born without beauty, had looked at it with longing-to inhabit it, not to embrac?e it. The images of desire change with each new love; but the image in the soul will keep its shape. Beauty to me was my tall brother at seventeen, stripped on the wrestling-ground, his oiled muscles gleaming like bronze.
    I could picture him at the Victory, wrinkling his nose at the courtiers’ Ganymedes. Several had fathers of some consequence, who you would have thought would be bringing them up like gentlemen; but they were all new men, and had settled for favor at court. If your son was in fashion, sour looks would do you no good; nor, if you wanted to get on, would you prevent him from scenting himself with Persian rose-attar, slitting his tunic up the thigh, or swaying along like a lily drenched with rain.
    Nonetheless, here was this splendid song, there was its audience; between stood my master’s dignity. I thought, and saw an answer.
    “Sir, it’s wicked for this not to be heard. Listen: come tonight to the Victory, just as a guest. Sit there with your wine. I’ll sing the song. It won’t be what you would make it; but it will make a hit, for sure. When they applaud, I shall bow to your table, and say, ‘There sits the poet.’ Depend on it, word will get to the court.”
    I had half expected him to start up like a pheasant from the dogs, and was ready to talk him round. But he drew his brows together, and pulled his beard. The truth was, we were getting desperate; it was just that he would have liked to sing it