priest, or the Goddess’ husband; how could he swear fealty to the servant of another god?
With a hard question, one cannot do better than bring it to Apollo; and that very night he sent me guidance. I dreamed of playing my lyre, which lately I had neglected, and of singing something wonderful. On waking I forgot the song; but I saw what the dream meant, and how the god would help me.
I tried it out first myself, dressed as a poor men’s bard who sings for his supper and a bed. Coming to a valley farm at evening, I gave them a lay of Peleia Aphrodite, whom they worshipped there as something else. But of course they knew her in the lay, the Foam-Born with her doves and magic girdle; and I put in the song how the King had made her a shrine at Athens for helping him home from Crete. This time I went away without telling my name; it had pleased me to have my music praised by men who had no hope of favor. They gave me wine and a good cut off the saddle; and what is more, a pretty girl I had been playing eyes with while I sang came slipping to my bed when the house was quiet. Clearly, my plan had Apollo’s blessing.
So then I got the bards together. I paid them well, since their work would bring them to places below their standing. But if I could do it, so could they. Besides, they could see glory waiting for them in Athens, once it had the chief shrines there of all the gods. They agreed with me that no service could be more pleasing to the Immortals; and very well they did it.
As for me, I had to go about in my own person among the chiefs, and it was often tedious. One must remember their fathers’ deeds, right back to whichever god they sprang from; remark the heirloom in the hall; sit through the plodding lay strummed by a hanger-on. And never a look at the women; I had got a name for liking them, and where someone else could lead out the horse, as the saying goes, I could not glance at the bridle without putting the family in a panic. One could soon have enough of this. Often I wished for someone to share my mind with; but their hearts were in little things, they would have thought me a dreamer, and I had to plan alone.
One summer day, I drove down to my great pasture on the plain of Marathon. It was royal land; my father had not stocked it for fear of raiders, it being much open to the sea. But I had had it cleared and the stone folds mended; and there I had reared the bull-calf got on old Hekaline’s heifer by the Cretan bull. He was three years old now, running true to the strain; last year’s calves were coming on, and a score of cows were carrying. For his dark-red muzzle, I had named him Oinops.
I was coming along through the olive groves, when I saw the smoke of bale-fires rising above the trees, and heard the horns. My charioteer pulled up the team and the riders stopped behind us. He said, “Pirates, my lord.”
I smelled the air for smoke. This was a new thing on the seas, since Crete had fallen; or rather, an old thing had gathered strength. The Cretan captains, when they came to the mainland to take our tribute, had claimed it went to keep pirates down. There had been something in it.
My charioteer gave me a righteous eye. It said, “Why will you ride so ill-attended? I told you your father would have brought the Guard, if he went so far.”
“Come, hurry,” I said, “and let us see.”
We cantered along, and presently met a young lad running, the son of a small chief near. He knuckled the flaxen hair on his damp brow—he was about thirteen—and said out of breath, “Sir, my lord King, we saw you from the tower. My father says be quick, I mean be pleased to honor the house, sir, the pirates are landing.”
I leaned down an arm and heaved him into the chariot. “What sails do they carry? What device?”
One always asked this. Some sea-raiders were just a cutthroat rabble, content to burn the nearest peasant farm, steal the winter stores and sell the folk to slavery. But there were men of
With a hard question, one cannot do better than bring it to Apollo; and that very night he sent me guidance. I dreamed of playing my lyre, which lately I had neglected, and of singing something wonderful. On waking I forgot the song; but I saw what the dream meant, and how the god would help me.
I tried it out first myself, dressed as a poor men’s bard who sings for his supper and a bed. Coming to a valley farm at evening, I gave them a lay of Peleia Aphrodite, whom they worshipped there as something else. But of course they knew her in the lay, the Foam-Born with her doves and magic girdle; and I put in the song how the King had made her a shrine at Athens for helping him home from Crete. This time I went away without telling my name; it had pleased me to have my music praised by men who had no hope of favor. They gave me wine and a good cut off the saddle; and what is more, a pretty girl I had been playing eyes with while I sang came slipping to my bed when the house was quiet. Clearly, my plan had Apollo’s blessing.
So then I got the bards together. I paid them well, since their work would bring them to places below their standing. But if I could do it, so could they. Besides, they could see glory waiting for them in Athens, once it had the chief shrines there of all the gods. They agreed with me that no service could be more pleasing to the Immortals; and very well they did it.
As for me, I had to go about in my own person among the chiefs, and it was often tedious. One must remember their fathers’ deeds, right back to whichever god they sprang from; remark the heirloom in the hall; sit through the plodding lay strummed by a hanger-on. And never a look at the women; I had got a name for liking them, and where someone else could lead out the horse, as the saying goes, I could not glance at the bridle without putting the family in a panic. One could soon have enough of this. Often I wished for someone to share my mind with; but their hearts were in little things, they would have thought me a dreamer, and I had to plan alone.
One summer day, I drove down to my great pasture on the plain of Marathon. It was royal land; my father had not stocked it for fear of raiders, it being much open to the sea. But I had had it cleared and the stone folds mended; and there I had reared the bull-calf got on old Hekaline’s heifer by the Cretan bull. He was three years old now, running true to the strain; last year’s calves were coming on, and a score of cows were carrying. For his dark-red muzzle, I had named him Oinops.
I was coming along through the olive groves, when I saw the smoke of bale-fires rising above the trees, and heard the horns. My charioteer pulled up the team and the riders stopped behind us. He said, “Pirates, my lord.”
I smelled the air for smoke. This was a new thing on the seas, since Crete had fallen; or rather, an old thing had gathered strength. The Cretan captains, when they came to the mainland to take our tribute, had claimed it went to keep pirates down. There had been something in it.
My charioteer gave me a righteous eye. It said, “Why will you ride so ill-attended? I told you your father would have brought the Guard, if he went so far.”
“Come, hurry,” I said, “and let us see.”
We cantered along, and presently met a young lad running, the son of a small chief near. He knuckled the flaxen hair on his damp brow—he was about thirteen—and said out of breath, “Sir, my lord King, we saw you from the tower. My father says be quick, I mean be pleased to honor the house, sir, the pirates are landing.”
I leaned down an arm and heaved him into the chariot. “What sails do they carry? What device?”
One always asked this. Some sea-raiders were just a cutthroat rabble, content to burn the nearest peasant farm, steal the winter stores and sell the folk to slavery. But there were men of
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