Amber and Clay by Laura Schlitz (easy books to read TXT) 📗

way across,

and before that, half the quarter,

half of that,

and half of that. You could never get across,

because of all those bits of street you’d have to cross

before you could cross —

but I’ve crossed hundreds of streets,

and my legs make short work of it.

Then they’d ask, with puckered brows:

does everything in the world change?

or does everything stay the same?

Even I know

it’s not one way or the other.

Some things change, like eggs,

and others don’t. Like rocks.

The talking was a contest. I saw that.

The man who talked best was the winner.

That first symposium, Menon was very quick

and made the others laugh. Everyone admired him —

good-looking,

only twenty years old

and already a general.

By the end of the night,

he was reeling

with wine and conceit.

I carried the torch and led him back

to the house of Anytus, where we were guests.

I helped him into bed

and set a water jar beside him.

In the morning he was still drunk.

He slept heavily

one knee up

one arm over his face. I knew he would sleep till noon.

I knew him.

Every slave knows his master.

3. AKROPOLIS

It was my chance, and I took it —

I shoved my feet in my sandals,

hugged on my cloak. It was early;

the sky was turning pink.

The streets were full of shadows:

veiled women carrying water.

I rushed for the crown of the city,

the steep slope, the overhanging glory

of the temples on the rock.

The men at the symposium

had boasted of those temples:

pure Pentelic marble,

even the roof tiles.

Somewhere on that hill

was a giant statue: the Trojan Horse,

with life-sized men

crawling out of its belly!

That morning, with Menon asleep, was my only chance to see it,

I ran till my chest ached.

Around me, up the hill

through the streets

distractions: shrines

festooned with ivy,

temples, tavern-keepers

bawling out the price of wine,

shops and stench and smoke —

The wind was cold against my teeth.

I was gasping like a fish

stumbling, knocking into people,

but I couldn’t lose my way. In Athens,

the Akropolis is always up

halfway to the sky. I kept going up

until the city was down. There was so much to see —

the sunrise above

and the city below.

There’s a ramp on one side of the mound

— the mound is steep as a waterfall

but the ramp zigzags —

so the heifers and goats

can walk up the hill,

to be sacrificed.

I could see the paint on the temples

scarlet and blue,

and the gold leaf

flashing

the great gates ahead.

The marble blushed in the morning sun;

the light seemed to pierce the stone,

or glow out of it, I don’t know which.

Columns and spaces —

Stripes of white that stung my eyes —

And the spaces between

mysterious

dark and dazzle:

glaze and glare

shadow and softness.

Between the columns:

guards

at all five gates. I stopped.

If anyone was going to be turned away,

it would be me.

Foreigner.

Tattooed.

Red-haired barbarian.

They’d know I was a slave.

Where’s your master, boy?

He’s home in bed. He’s drunk.

Why aren’t you tending him, boy?

They’d treat me like a runaway.

It was like biting into an olive gone bad,

only there was nothing I could spit out.

I took a step back

away from the crowd.

I saw my shadow waver across the stone.

There were still things to see: I could go back,

look at the shrines, the fountain house,

a bigger market than any in Thessaly —

but everything had gone sour.

I had to get back.

If Menon woke up —

and I wasn’t there

I’d be beaten for sure.

I made my way downward,

lost the path

ended up in a hollow,

a circle of olive and willow trees

where an old man was dancing.

I didn’t know who he was.

He was naked, I saw that.

And it wasn’t a gymnasion, and he wasn’t young.

He was ugly. He was like an old satyr,

the arms sinewy, but a belly like a full bowl,

a swaying gut.

His nose looked smashed,

as if he’d been a boxer

and fought too many rounds.

He wasn’t too clean,

he was humming,

raising his ropy arms to the sun,

the hair in his armpits

like two birds’ nests;

his feet striking the ground

in a strong rhythm.

Even I

a slave

a thickheaded Thracian

could see how unseemly it was: an old man

who had no beauty to display:

dancing

naked to the sky. He was worse than I was.

At least I was young

with no sag in my flesh;

And I had more sense

than to dance like that.

I thought of jeering at him —

Menon would have mocked him —

but then: I wasn’t Menon.

I didn’t want to be like Menon.

That man was as happy as a child at play;

he didn’t even seem cold,

that naked

ugly man.

I ducked behind the willow

so he wouldn’t know I saw.

I found my way back,

but I was sore inside. I’d missed my only chance

to see the sights of Athens;

that’s what I thought

that dawn

when I beheld first the wonder of wonders

Sokrates.

Sokrates!

what can a slave boy,

a clodhopper with a pitchfork,

know about Sokrates?

I’ve nothing against slaves. I owned dozens when I was alive;

no, I’ve nothing against slaves

— but a half-breed Thracian

who sneers at symposia,

what could he know of Sokrates?

Sokrates was my friend.

In fact, he once said

that he loved two things best of all:

philosophy

and Alkibiades. That’s me.

Don’t try to pronounce my name unless you’re Greek.

I am

I was

Αλκιβιαδης Κλεινιου Σκαμβωνιδης.

All my life long, I was famous! Even now,

twenty-four centuries after my death

(I was murdered)

my name is mispronounced

by scholars all over the world!

But I’m not here to talk about myself.

Hermes offered me time off from Hades

if I told you about Sokrates.

I leapt at the chance. After twenty-four centuries,

Hades is tedious. And to tell you the truth,

my home down there

is not in the best neighborhood.

Plus I’m a restless sleeper. Murder — that is, being murdered —

leads to insomnia.

Enough about me.

I’m here to tell you about my friend.

We’ll start with his name. Σωκρατης. First syllable, So. Not sock.

He never wore socks.

We had socks, we Greeks —

our second-best poet, Hesiod, sings of socks —

but Sokrates never wore them. He seldom wore sandals:

the soles of his feet were as thick as hooves,

and his cloak . . . We used to tease him,

that hairy, hoary old cloak

that stank like a badger’s den,

same cloak, season in, season out . . .

Now, I wore silk:

purple-dyed, fantastic,

tickling the grass around my feet.

I wore my hair long

and crowned myself with violets —

a cure for drunkenness.

(It doesn’t work, but it’s becoming.)

My armor was gold and ivory. If I’d been less a man,

I might