People first spoke of Koretas when he was only twenty-five years old. He had already been to Corinth twice and once to Athens.
But Kyrkanos had been last years champion at the games of Demeter in Krissa. He had won three times, in the discus throw against Dorylaos of Aba and the broad jump against the Kytininian Lykortas whom men called the starving Babylonian. But in wrestling he had thrown the notorious Andriskos of Amphissa out of the ring. It was a great triumph for the entire region of Phocis over its rival to the north, Lokris.
They were friends, shepherds of their own free will as they moved through the rugged country with their flocks from Elatea and Delphi. They grazed the mountain slopes and moved on to Helicon, then into the mountain ranges of Kirphis or mount Parnassus. They loved this restless life. The one loved to breathe the fresh mountain air, to make his muscles hard and strong. The other loved the solitude, to dream alone under the open sky.
“Listen,” cried Kyrkanos. “We must find the goat again. Come on, help me.”
“Which goat?” Koretas asked, stretching his body.
“Styx, the black one that belongs to Olybrios the tanner! It has been missing since this morning. I have been searching the entire plains all day with the dogs down to the river Kephisos. The trail was false and now it’s evening. I fear the wolves will get the goat. We must search the slopes of Parnassus!
Koretas got up and strode after his friend. They left their flock under the watchful eyes of the boys and the dogs. They only took one strong sheepdog with them and climbed up the slope.
“Let’s meet up again in an hour,” said Hyrkanos. I will climb up further while you search the myrtle bushes. You might as well take the dog. I won’t be needing him.”
Koretas went into the bushes a few steps and then sat down on the ground. The dog waited for awhile, sniffed around and impatiently returned when his master did not go any further. Koretas remained sitting there unmoving. Finally the dog barked and ran with great leaps up the slope after Hyrkanos.
Meanwhile Hyrkanos was climbing up above. He searched for the goat behind every stone, behind every bush. He searched in vain. Finally he came back and found his friend sitting in the same spot he had left him.
“What? You let me search and search while you sit here and sleep?”
“I wasn’t sleeping,” said Koretas.
“Do what you want!” Hyrkanos cried and hurried off into the myrtle bushes that the other should have already searched. It was a few hours later when the dog finally drove the goat out. Hyrkanos took it up on his shoulders and went back. He found his friend once more sitting on the same stone.
“Hey, I found the goat!”
Koretas didn’t answer. This time he really was asleep. Hyrkanos woke him up.
“ I have the goat! Come on, day is breaking already.”
They were both quiet as they climbed back down to the plain. Koretas was pale and staggered. Strong Hyrkanos who never tired needed to support him to keep him from falling. The sun was coming up when they finally arrived back at the flock.
* *
*
In Delphi they celebrated the games of Apollo. They were not large celebrations like those in the valley of Olympia, in Elis or Isthmos. The little city of Delphi was unknown without any claim to fame and drew only local people from the neighboring regions of Phocis and Lokris. If a Corinthian or Athenian passed through it was because they went to all the games in entire Hellas searching for the best contestants. They were always hoping to find someone that could compete at the great games, win the pine bough of Poseidon or even the branch of Zeus. Most of the little games had already been decided and the winners selected to go on to the great games.
Fourteen naked youths stepped out into the sand. Four were from Delphi. Meriones, the High Priest of Apollo and Elder shook the helmet that contained the lots. These lots would determine the order and each youth drew one. Then they all stepped up to the statue of Zeus and solemnly vowed with raised hand to compete fairly. The flute players played and the games began.
First was the broad jump in smooth sand. The competitors took heavy jumping weights and swung them to empower their jump. Each one was permitted three tries to make the mark but if they didn’t go beyond their last attempt they had to step down from the contest.
First Iphitos sprang across, then Thoas from Daulis. Strong Chrysogonos and Hyrkanos made the mark easily in the first jump but young Alkmenor fell and shattered his shinbone with the iron weight. There were three others that couldn’t reach the mark.
Everyone else stepped over to the broad throw together and threw their short spears into the air. Only the best four were permitted to continue competing. They were Hyrkanos, Thoas, Chrysogonos and Lykortas from Amphissa, the son of Pausanias. Iphitos stepped away fuming. The point of his spear lay only two fingers width behind that of Thoas.
The trumpet sounded and the four finalists began the race. Fleet Thoas took the lead with quick nimble strides. Hyrkanos was behind but the people of Delphi cheered him on. He was the only one from Delphi still in the competition. Just before the finish line he passed Lykortas with a mighty leap accompanied by the delerious crowd from Delphi. Now they would see their champion enter the discus throw.
Slaves brought out the heavy round metal discs. Each one weighed eight pounds. Chrysogonos threw first. He climbed onto the little mound, arched his upper body forward and leaned a little across to the right. Slowly he swung his right arm behind his back, then forward. Then he threw the discus in a wide arc through the air.
Hyrkanos swung his discus twice and threw it ten paces further than any of his opponents.
Then it was the turn of quick nimble Thoas but he was not able to reach the distance of the others and had to withdraw.
There were only two left and they stepped into the middle to wrestle. First they wiped the sweat and dust off their bodies with woolen cloths and anointed them anew with oil. Then they began. Chrysogonos gripped his opponent on the thigh, lifted him up and attempted to make him fall backwards into the sand but Hyrkanos slammed his iron head against his chin so hard that he staggered. Then he grabbed Chrysogonos left hand and bent back his finger until he screamed with pain and fell down onto the sand.
The fight started twice more but Hyrkanos remained the victor. The people of Elatea hissed and stamped but the people of Delphi shouted in victory and carried their champion in triumph up to the judges. One placed a white woolen band on his head. Another gave him a victory palm, but Meriones, the Elder adorned him with the Ivy wreathe of Apollo that a boy had freshly cut with a golden knife.
A circle formed around Hyrkanos. A foreign gymnast examined the muscles of his arms and thighs. He shrugged his shoulders and said.
“If he could run better I would talk to him about next years games at Isthmos.”
But a Corinthian stepped up close to him and inspected his calves and ankles.
“Come back with me to Corinth,” he said. “I will train you how to race. I promise that if you train with me for six months you will win the pine bough of Poseidon!”
Hyrkanos eyes lit up.
“Go with him,” shouted the people of Delphi.
* *
*
They celebrated the victory. Hyrkanos lay at the top of the table by the judges and Priests. The Corinthian sat right beside him and would not move away. The people of Delphi and their guests crowded around the table.
Then Koretas entered all dressed up and carrying his lute in his hand. He strode slowly as if in a dream through the crowd and up to where the priests were. Hyrkanos sprang up to make a place near him for his friend and greeted him with a mighty embrace.
“Will you sing?” he asked. “Come up here!”
He lifted him onto the bench.
“Quiet! Our friend Koretas would like to sing!”
“Quiet! He will sing the glory of Hyrkanos,” cried the people of Delphi.
Koretas began, but it was not of his friend that he sang. He sang o
f a quiet evening on which he lay on the plains with his flock at the foot of mount Parnassus. He sang of the missing animal and how he had gone out to search for it, climbing around in the ravines of the mountain.
Night fell and there was a terrible thunderstorm that came up. Lightning crashed in the rocks and thunder echoed in all the gorges but he kept on climbing, springing over gaping chasms and boldly climbing on the steep rock wall above.
The storm moved away and he pushed laboriously through the thick forest of fir trees. Ho, what just raced past him? He bent closer to see. There was a wood nymph racing over the moss. She screamed loudly for help and her green hair blew in the wind. She had ran on light feet through the forest but was now trapped by the cliff. Then he saw her pursuer.
It was Python, the giant flying dragon, with his long snake like body and horrible fish jaws. He blew fire and smoke out of his nostrils and was rubbing his scaly body sensuously against the knee of the nymph.
“Help! Help!” she screamed.
Then Koretas heard a call through the trees.
“Castalia!”
“Over here! Help! Over here!” the nymph screamed.
Branches bent and a youth sprang out. He was beardless with short curly hair and large glowing eyes. He stepped up to the monster naked, without a shield, holding only a spear. It raised its wings, blew fire and smoke out of its nostrils and throat and lunged at him on mighty paws. Then he threw his spear and it pierced through the animal’s eye into its brain.
But then the dragon’s body threw him into a narrow ravine onto the rocks below.
“Apollo be praised!” the trembling nymph cried.
“Why won’t you praise me with more than words, my beauty?” the god asked. “I have loved you for weeks but you always run away from me. Prude!”
“I love a shepherd,” said the nymph.
“And I love you,” cried the dying Python and grabbed at her. But Calistia evaded his arms and without a word quickly tried to fling herself down into the ravine. Demeter, the god’s mother, took pity on her. She transformed the poor nymph before she could jump into a swiftly bubbling spring that raced down through the ravine onto the rocks below.
Then the god got down on his knees and bowed his head over the spring named Calistia. Large tears fell down and mixed with the flowing waters. He kissed the water, drank it and moistened his brow and hair. Then he sprang up and went into the night singing a lament of yearning and desire, a song of lost love.
* *
*
Koretas became quiet and all around him the audience was quiet as well. Then Hyrkanos sprang up.
“He lies,” he screamed. “He lies! He is a liar! Ho! I was there with him when we searched for the goat. It was the black goat of Olybrios the tanner of Elateers! We climbed up there together, Koretas and I, up onto the mountain. But there was no thunderstorm. It was a clear peaceful evening! What ravine? What gaping abyss? What dragon, nymph and god? There were none! None at all!
I climbed alone in the rocks. He was supposed to help search the myrtle bushes with the dog but he sat down on a rock and fell asleep. I searched the entire night until I found the goat and when I came back he was still asleep on the same stone. Pfui! How he lies!”
The crowd howled and yelled. Koretas stood there unmoving, strangely calm as he gazed at the riot. It was as if he didn’t understand why they were yelling and screaming. Bewildered and tormented he searched around the room until he met the eye of the old priest.
“Leave him alone!” Meriones cried. “He is under my protection!”
But they pressed forward with raised hands and balled up fists.
“What protection? Beat him till he’s dead! The swindler!”
Then the priest stepped up to Koretas, laid a hand on his left shoulder and held his right out in front of him.
“Get away from him!” Hyrkanos screamed. “He is a liar!”
“A liar? No, he is a poet!”
* *
*
And the poem became the truth. Ask any third year student with their red cap on their head and their knapsack on their back as they come out of school.
Ask him, “What do you know about Delphi?”
He will tell you:
“Dephi was a famous oracle city from 1200 BC until 400AD. The Pythia sat on a large tripod and prophesied. Then when King Croesus sent his envoy to Delphi—”
I bet he could talk for a half-hour about Delphi, about Python, Apollo, the temple and the spring named Castalia and the rocks from which the blasphemers were thrown. Yes, he would be able to tell you proverbs from the temple and a half-dozen prophecies of the oracle Pythia even today after more than two thousand years!
Is there any other place in the world that is more famous?
Koretas was a poet and his listeners called him a liar.
* *
*
But even though they did, the poet’s words were stronger than the truth of the athlete. The poet won. Hyrkanos was the first that they threw onto the rocks two weeks later. They smashed to pieces the ugly truth to give life to the dream of the singer.
That was Hellas—
* *
*
But now here behind the beautiful veil! Here is the naked miserable truth.
“Damasippos,” said the old High Priest Meriones to one of the other priests of Apollo after he had so fortunately rescued Koretas from the angry mob.
“Damasippos, call all the priests together and the Elders of the city as well. Now, tonight. We meet in the temple of the gods.
They met that night and the priest convinced them, every single one of them, that there had never been a greater piece of luck brought into the city than today when Koretas sang.
“It might just be the crazy dream of a drunken poet but we will make it real! We must all believe in it, do away with those that doubt! If we believe, Phocis will believe, then Hellas and the entire world will believe! Delphi will become the center, the navel of the entire world. Its ground will become holy! They will build us temples and shrines. The Priests of Delphi will become the greatest in the world!”
“What does any of that have to do with us?” The merchant Archimenes asked.
“It has everything to do with you! Thousands of strangers will come here and they will not have empty hands! You will live in palaces and have slaves like the richest in Athens.
This fortune lies in front of you, seize it! And to make a good start, I do firmly believe that the shepherd was speaking the truth!”
“I believe, just as you do!” Damasippos cried. “I believe too!”
“Me too!”
“Me too!”
“We all believe!”
—and Delphi believed it and Phocis and Hellas and the entire world!
That is how two people created this giant work, a drunken shepherd and a clever priest.
Really there was someone else that didn’t believe, someone besides Hyrkanos whom the people threw down from the rocks as a blasphemer, the same people that had cheered him during his race and at the victory celebration.
There was one other one, the poet Koretas. He had not yet spoken but he could still speak. He was really uncomfortable about all of it.
They found him on the road one morning dead with a priest’s dagger between his shoulders.
But blood is good to fertilize the soil where the priests and merchants want to make their harvest!
The Curve
It was early, around six o’clock The Court Ballrooms of the Imperial Palace in Vienna had emptied themselves. Only in the little Arabian room still squatted a few incorrigibles. In the front were two motley Japanese sitting on the carpet, near them a white Pierrot and a Toreador in brown and yellow velvet. They laughed and drank mocha out of small bowls.
I sat in my white burnoose with crossed legs on a soft pillow in the middle of the room. I was playing Wall, leaning my right arm on a low stool using the cloth to provide as much concealment as possible.
A handsome young painter sat behind me on a beautiful Turkish rug. He was also in Arabian garments and near him sat a veiled Turkish maiden. She was playing Ivy; her tendrils were all over him. I knew the Turkish girl, had brought her to the Court Ballrooms myself. She was a sister of the Red Cross and for eight years had scarcely left the hospital where she worked as a nurse.
But tonight she was drinking with lust and enthusiasm. She, herself, had captured the handsome little painter who so heartily laughed and drank one glass of Pommery after another. She stroked his hair with her fine long hands and almost scorched him with her big brown smoldering eyes.
But she didn’t allow him to lift her veil, only her eyes were free for him to see. She would raise the veil again and again pressing her lips quickly on his but he could never see her face in the dim light of the Persian lamps. She climbed like Ivy all over him, almost suffocating him with her kisses and embraces. The vain little painter let his smile show his pleasure. She was so starved for love, my poor Turkish maiden from the Red Cross. Oh, this night of kissing must satisfy her and make up for years!
I played Wall, concealing the two as well as I could. I sat with crossed legs on my pillow, lit one cigarette after another and drank my wine. When the kissing behind me got too loud I rocked my head back and forth and sang my little proverb: “Oualâ ghâliba ill’ Allâhta ‘alâ”, to drown them out a little.
It all collapsed suddenly when a gentleman in a dress suit sitting in the back of the room called my name. I looked up—
“Oh, finally!” he said hastily. “Could I please have a moment of your time? I would like your curve!”
“Gladly,” I said. “Won’t you sit down?”
I pulled a pillow out for him and the gentleman in the dress suit sat crouched with me on the floor. I had him sit with his broad back so he could play Wall as well and assist the Turkish maiden in her game of Ivy. I poured him a glass.
Hanns Heinz Ewers Volume I (Collected Short Stories by Hanns Heinz Ewers) Page 5