The Mask of Apollo

by Mary Renault

  “That clown! Let me forget him while I can. Dionysios took second prizes here while he was much more disliked than now. I can’t think why you should be so anxious.”

  I was about to deny it, but had a better thought and said, “My dear, you must bear with me; the truth is, I’m strung up like a lyre with this trouble between you and Hermippos. It’s amazing you put up with him so well. But the fear of your being put off on the day, with so much depending on it, keeps me awake at night.”

  “My dear Niko!” he said at once. “I trust it would take more than Hermippos to do that to me. We are in the hands of the god. It may start to snow, the Chief Archon’s wife may go into labor in the seats of honor, or the Thebans cross the frontier. These are real evils, which we may pray Iakchos to avert. But as for Hermippos, let us keep our minds on serious things.”

  At dress rehearsal, therefore, he was all graciousness; and Hermippos, like the good artist he was at heart, found no time for foolery. “It’s going too well,” I thought. “The bad luck will come on the day.” Then at my chariot entry after Hermes, one of the horses stretched its neck, picked up Hermippos’ mask by the wig, which I suppose it took for straw, and plucked it clean off his head. We laughed ourselves sick and felt better.

  Now came the fateful draw for playing order. It was raining that day, but we joined the crowd of artists and sponsors waiting in the theater colonnade to see the lists go up.

  The first days would not concern us; comedy is king at the Lenaia, and always opens. After that there were trilogies with satyr-farce finales, one day for each. Then came the single plays. The list went up, the word went around. Leaving out the comic closure, we were on last.

  Now if this happens at the Dionysia, it is plain good news. But at a winter festival like the Lenaia, you can’t tell if you are blessed or cursed till the very day. If it is showery, or there is a bitter wind, the older people, and the sickly, and those with thin cloaks, start going home. The rest get restless, going off to stretch their legs or relieve themselves; their minds are half on hot soup at home; they are getting sulky and fidgety and hard to please. On the other hand, if it turns out fine you have the best of the billing and of the day as well. The mildness and sweetness of the theater on such afternoons is an artists’ proverb. No wonder Zeus, and Dionysos, and Apollo Helios do so well for offerings beforehand.

  On the eve of the festival, I lay listening to the noise of the midnight rites—the cries of the women trying, as they ran about the streets, to sound like maenads on a mountain, playing at danger in safety, as they do at the Lenaia, and garlanding King Vinestock to placate him for being pruned. Their hymns, and their squeals of “Iakchos!” and the red light of torches sliding across my ceiling, would wake me whenever my eyes had closed. Towards morning, I heard a huddle of them go by with their torches out, shivering and grumbling, and complaining of the rain.

  Next day opened cloudy—not the rank bad weather that gets the show put off, but gray and threatening. During the first of the comedies it looked so black that people stayed at home, and the theater was half empty; if the cast had been less discouraged, I think the play might have won. Later it cleared a little; the theater filled; a play no better was well received, and got the prize.

  On the day when the contest of tragedies started, the wind got up. The audience came muffled to the eyes, their cloaks pulled over their heads, and with two cloaks if they had them. The wind snatched at the robes of the cast and chorus; the flute-player, who had to use both hands to play, had his skirts flung up till they showed his naked backside. This did not help the protagonist, playing Bellerophon and doing a solemn bit of recitative. In the next part of the trilogy he had to be flown in riding Pegasos. My heart bled for him as he swung to and fro, with the audience squealing or laughing. Of course the play was sliced in half; but it was middling work, which I doubt stood a chance in any case.

  Next day started even windier. The chorus of women had trailing scarves, a stupid thing at the Lenaia; during a choral dance they got tangled up together and had to unwind. They were quite young boys, and started giggling; I don’t suppose they sat down for a week, after the trainer got his hands on them. The play was uneven, the poet having put into the first part all he had to say, but being resolved upon a trilogy. During the last part the wind dropped and the sun came palely out; but by then the audience was bored, and waiting to see the slapstick.

  The following day was ours.

  I could not sleep. I thought of taking poppy syrup; but it leaves one dull, and one would do better tired. Just as I was going off, a wedding procession passed, singing and shouting; there is one nearly every night in that month of marriages. I tossed and turned, and put out my hand at the window, and felt the air still, but very cold. Dim light from the sky showed me Apollo in his wooden frame. Since I was up, I lit a small clay lamp and stood it before the mask. The flame moved faintly in the air from the window; the eyeholes looked at me; they seemed searching, but calm. I went back to bed with the lamp still burning, and lay in thought. Suddenly I awoke to daybreak. The lamp had burned out; birds were chirping. The sky was clear.

  I jumped up and looked out. A mild white frost furred the edges of the oleander leaves and the black fingers of the courtyard vine. My breath lay unstirring on the air.

  I threw my blanket round me, and did my practice at the window. My voice sounded true and flexible. A ruffled-up bird in the vine whistled so like a flute that I did a bit of recitative as well. I blew up the embers in the hearth and mulled some wine, breaking some eggs into it and adding white meal and honey—an old-fashioned posset which suits my stomach at these times. I sopped some bread in, knowing I would eat nothing later. Then, having scattered the crumbs outside as my flute-player’s fee, I said an invocation before Apollo’s mask and poured him an offering.

  By the time I went out I felt warmed and brisk. My landlord and his wife, who seldom noticed me except of an evening to see whom I brought home, called out to wish me luck, which I took for a good omen. The sky was getting quite blue. My feet and fingers tingled still, but I could feel the cold grow less.

  I stopped at the barber’s, and found Hermippos being finished. As soon as he could talk, he offered me a bawdy tale about two girls he had met last night returning from the rites. I was in a mood for quiet, but could see that under it all he was on edge, and this was his notion of keeping up both our spirits. So I gave him his laughs, and in return got his company all the way, since he waited till I was done.

  When we got to the theater, the public benches were full of people bundled up in all they had, with hats pulled down on their ears. In the side seats, where actors sit to hear what they can of other plays, Anaxis had kept us places. Beside us sat the cast of the second play; they would have to leave halfway through the first. A little way below were the cast of the satyr-farce which would end the day, Silenos and the Gorgons. They greeted Hermippos as a lost brother, and asked when he would come back to comedy. Above us, right to the top, were the chorus men and boys, gossiping among themselves or swapping boasts and jokes.

  Down below, in the seats of honor, ambassadors and archons, priests and choregoi and their guests were coming in, their slaves all laden with rugs and cushions to make them snug. Then came the greater priests and priestesses: the High Priestess of Demeter, the High Priests of Zeus and Apollo and Poseidon and Athene. Presently drums and cymbals sounded; the image of Dionysos was carried in and set down facing the orchestra, where he could see his servants play; his High Priest took the central throne; the trumpet sounded, and ceased. The theater hushed. Out of sight, beyond the parodos, were heard the first notes of the flute playing in the chorus. Whether you are behind or out in front, there is nothing quite like this moment.

  The first tragedy was an Amphytrion by a poet whose name escapes me, a new writer, who was never heard of again. He must have written himself out with this one, for it was far from bad. He had had his ear to the ground, and not missed one new effect, or bit of bus
iness, which had hit last year. It was polished like a racing chariot. Though everything had been lifted from something else, you felt the poet had hardly noticed this, it was done with so much confidence. The choral interludes were very striking, with Lydian obbligatos for the flute—what, in those days when it was newer, we used to call belly-music. Even today, it puts me in mind of the wailing for Adonis. The flute-player was not quite up to such a tricky score, but I doubt if the audience noticed it. It was a brisk, sharp, neat piece, and was going down like hot spiced wine. Hermippos, I saw, was quite out of laughter. I said to Anaxis, “This is a hit.”

  He nodded, more calmly than I expected, and said, “The judges are an elderly lot this year.”

  I craned over to look at the tribes’ ten representatives. A man has to be of sober years to get onto the ballot, and this year, true enough, there were some solid granddads. They did not look the men to relish that sobbing flute; and some were sure to take the wrong notes for modern music. I could picture the poet biting his nails each time.

  However, the play had taken; the audience shouted, stamped, waved hats and shawls. The judges kept their own counsel. I was somewhat dismayed to meet such a challenge from this first play; it had been the second one I had had fears of. Anaxandrides, the author, was a prizewinner from the Greater Dionysia; such poets seldom trouble to enter at the Lenaia at all. Perhaps he had something sharp to say; people prefer hearing the City criticized when winter has closed the roads and seaways, keeping foreigners out of earshot. In any case, he would be a strong contender; and besides, his sponsor, winning first draw, had got Eupolis, who had been getting actors’ prizes for twenty years.

  The opening chorus had some fine lines, yet was patchy, and not in Anaxandrides’ latest style. I began to suspect this was some old discarded play worked over, which he had not cared to risk at the greater festival. But he still had Eupolis, who now came on as Telemachos, son of Odysseus, moving beautifully, as he always did. I thought, “What crazy hopes have I been feeding? We shan’t even be placed.”

  Hermippos leaned over to me. “I thought he had more sense. He should have cast himself as Penelope.”

  I raised my brows. Eupolis was famous for his juveniles; he was not much over forty-five, and graceful as a boy. Then he started to speak. I was amazed. He sounded twenty years older than he had last summer.

  “Has he been sick?” I whispered.

  “No; he’s had three teeth pulled. He’s been in torment with them half the year; at last his doctor warned him they’d be his death if he kept them longer. Hadn’t you heard? But to think of his trying Telemachos!”

  I have much to thank my father for, not least that he had strong teeth which gave him no trouble all his life, and passed on the same to me. Each actor, I am sure, who heard Eupolis that day shivered as if he had seen an owl in sunlight. It might happen to any of us next year. Once an artist is finished as an all-round man, he is mostly done for. It is rarely you get a play like The Troiades, where the lead is old and need never change to a younger mask.

  Our chance now looked better. But I could not rejoice, when I heard a fine player sing his swan song, and the whole theater knowing it. When Anaxis nudged me and said we should be going, I knew it was too soon. But I got up; I had not the heart to stay and listen.

  Down in the skeneroom there was the usual quiet scramble. I had known it since I was so small that I came and went like a mouse in a busy kitchen, scarcely seen if I troubled no one. After that I had been a chorus boy, one chirping bird in the flock, giggling and gossiping and showing off and mocking each other’s suitors; then carrying a spear, delighted to get some bit of business; then standing in for some real actor, sitting in front at rehearsal to study how he moved; at last, third man, the foothill one scales in triumph, to see from there the real mountain all to climb. Then second lead, where one may live and die unless one gets the chance and can take it. Now, for the first time, I came here as protagonist; here in the First Men’s dressing room was my table, the dresser waiting, my costumes on the wall pegs, my masks and props laid out.

  I put on the robe of Zeus for the prologue, a lovely thing, purple worked with golden oak leaves. The dresser rubbed up the great mirror of smoothed bronze. It showed me at my back the other end of the room, with Eupolis’ table. In the quiet, I heard clearly his voice on stage, and the audience coughing. From the sound of the lines, he would soon be due for his last exit. I picked up my scepter, pushed back the mask on my head by its august beard, and said to the dresser, who was fidgeting with my girdle, that I would be back shortly. I expect he thought my bowels were griping, which is a common trouble with actors just going on; he did not keep me, and I got away in time. Eupolis had nowhere else to go between his exit and his bow, and in his place I would have liked the room to myself.

  I don’t know where I went to wait; the next thing I remember is sitting enthroned down center on the god-walk, eagle on left fist, scepter in right hand, Anaxis in the mask of Thetis coming on towards me, and all the eyes of Athens skinning me to the bone.

  As I sat, right foot advanced upon my footstool, in the pose of Olympian Zeus, it was as though I had sleepwalked here, and only just found out where I was. Suddenly I was gripped by terror. My first five lines sounded in my head, turning round on themselves, leading nowhere. When I was through them I was going to dry. You can’t be prompted up there without the whole theater hearing it. With a god it always gets a laugh. If this happens, I thought, I’ll be a wreck all through the play. I thought of Dion; I was going to fail him; of Anaxis, whose hopes I would destroy. Here he came. In an instant I had lived an hour of fright. Daughter of Ocean, I thought, Daughter of Ocean … My hands felt icy cold. I thought, My father would die of shame. He never dried. He was twice the artist I am.

  At once my lines came back to me. I started my speech, taking care of the little things about which he was exacting. I could scarcely believe he was not in front. Soon I got into the part; and when I came on as Priam I felt no more fear than at rehearsal. But all through till the end I was aware of him, as if he had never been away.

  6

  I DONT REMEMBER THE VICTORY FEAST VERY clearly. Gyllis of Thebes, who was in Athens for the festival, said she never saw a man drink so much and keep so sober. I am no great drinking man, but I daresay I drank whatever was put into my hand. My happiness must have burned it out.

  The party was given by the Syracusan consul, and was the most lavish seen for years. In his speech on behalf of the author, he invited us straight away to Syracuse to play before our poet. He had bespoken our passage on the first good ship.

  Anaxis and Hermippos sang a skolion together, their arms round each others’ necks. Hermippos had forgotten he ever was in comedy, recalling only his tragic roles; each story ended with a laugh, though. We were all like brothers; I don’t recall any prize party with so little bitchery. Anaxis had given a much sounder Achilles than ever at rehearsal, simply, I think, because he played down to give me a better chance, only protagonists being in the running for the actors’ prize. I had worked like a dog to get the award for the play, but could scarcely believe I had been crowned as well. I kept putting up my hand to the ivy garland, as if to straighten it, but really to convince myself that it was true.

  There was only one misadventure. Axiothea, though too discreet to enter a wineshop or pass the gymnasium door, took a fancy to attend the party. Speusippos, as he told me later, knowing more than she did, tried to dissuade her; but she said she would not think of staying; to congratulate me would only take a moment and a friend could do no less. He agreed to escort her, if she would not leave his side. I was amazed to see her enter; and, feeling in love with all the world, went straight over and took her in my arms. The poor girl, cold sober, looked quite startled; some fool, who supposed she was Speusippos’ boy friend, called out a joke which made people look; her blush made her still handsomer, and the joker declared he would cut us both out. Speusippos, who I was surprised to find had a blazing t
emper, would have set about him, and it would have ended God knows how; luckily I managed to keep the peace and pass it off. When I begged her pardon, she said I had only welcomed her like a friend. I think she was more put out than she pretended; but she was a generous girl, and would not spoil my victory.

  Though the Lenaia prize was founded when money was worth more than now, it is still a pleasant sum, and with our expectations I saw no harm in spending it. I knew enough about Sicily to understand we must make some show off stage as well as on; so, since I hate tawdry stuff, I went to Kallinos. He made me a robe of fine-combed Milesian wool, cream-white, the borders embroidered in fine stitching with a deep band of crimson stars, edged above with pointed rays in blue picked out with gold. Unlike stage costumes, it looked good across the room but much better close up. I did not mean to come before Dionysios of Syracuse looking as if I owned nothing but what he chose to give me. There was Athens’ credit to think of, besides my own.

  Anaxis and Hermippos felt this still more. Anaxis’ robe was embroidered nearly all over; he could have played King Midas in it. Hermippos even had his dipped in purple, having heard that in Syracuse it was common wear. I guessed this must have left him without a month’s rent in hand; my ingrained caution, settled since childhood from hearing of artists’ ups and downs, nearly made me say, “Take it back”; but I feared he might think that I was jealous.

  We waited some days for a ship, the consul being anxious we should arrive in style, and not be risked in storms on a small craft in the bad season. We set out, however, in very good weather for the time of year, and had a smooth run across from Korkyra to Tarentum. At Sybaris we put in to unload a consignment of painted vases, which were packed and handled like eggs, being no doubt as costly as everything else in that city. Hermippos, who visited a brothel there, said it was like a noble’s house, with murals in every room, the most instructive he had ever seen, put there, he supposed, lest thinking of the price should make the patrons impotent. He was now flat broke, but made nothing of it since we were so near Sicily.