Voices from the Past Part 16

Theatre means meeting people I seldom see anywhere else. I like the contacts.

People feel sorry for Scandia because he is the father of such a charming, marriageable daughter. White-faced, pinch-eyed, his neck twisted by a boyhood accident, one arm dangling-would they feel less sorry for him, if his daughter were ugly?

Andros is the next thing to a dwarf in size. He has the face of a twenty-year-old, although he must be well over fifty. He needs no one's pity-only some money! He is the best mask-maker our theatre has ever had.

Moonlight: Hand in hand,

Sappho and her daughter, Kleis,

walk along a path through hillside

olive groves, the ocean white below,

the murmur of waves part of their leisure and

sad conversation about Aesop.

Mytilene

642 B.C.

M

y heart is heavy... Aesop, my friend, is dead.

He could have had a kinder messenger-it was Pittakos who brought me the news.

"The mob killed him for causing trouble in Adelphi," he said, his eyes cruelly cold. He had met me on the street, after a performance of "The Martyrs."

Did he think this the right time to let me know? Was it a warning?

I stared at him, as he shambled beside me. Then, before my face could reveal too much, I lowered my veil and walked away, trembling, my eyes unseeing.

I did not go home for a long time. I walked by the sh.o.r.e until the ball of fire sank wearily into the dark water. The hills had a beaten look, the sea an oppressive flatness. A gull's cry wept in me. Alone...alone... I was much more alone.

Alone in my library, I opened the box Aesop had given me and removed his fox, lion, donkey, raven and frog. He had moulded them for me. Two were made of light-colored clay, others of dark. They were as highly glazed as scarabs. I arranged them on a shelf above my desk and could feel my friend's presence, as though he were beside me.

But there would be no more letters.

No visit!

Lighting my lamp, I began my ode to "The Friend of Man."

I knew Alcaeus would be as disturbed as I.

I expected him to roar, "The mob!" Instead, he bowed his head, his hands on his lap, and remained silent.

Slowly, he clenched his fists and gouged them into his thighs. Muscles corded his arms and swelled as he stood.

"He should have come here, to us!"

"He was sick, Alcaeus."

"Then I should have gone to him! Why was I doubly blind? I knew he was under attack for opposing the aristocrats."

Round and round, back and forth, we talked: what might have been, what should have been:

"If he had gone to Athens, he would have been safe with Solon."

"If only he could have stayed in Corinth..."

And remembering what a friend Aesop had been to us, he said: