Free The Last of the Wine by Mary Renault

waited for him to pay up his bet, for he was always a good loser. But still looking past me, he said, “On the day when the gods send me trouble and danger, may they send me also that man’s courage.”
    On the way home, we climbed to the High City and looked out at the harbour. A ship was leaving; the day being clear, we saw a blue device upon the sail. “That will be the Salaminia ,” we said, “with her blue owl.” She stood away quickly, making haste to Sicily.

6
    T HAT YEAR AT THE Dionysia, my father took my mother and me to the theatre. The poet was one he was very fond of, because he laughed at the sophists and the democrats and at everyone who wanted to upset the City with anything new. Kydilla came to attend my mother, and Sostias to carry the cushions; my father gave him two obols to see the show. It was a clear bright day; a few little cloud-shadows swept across the sunny theatre, and blew away towards the sea. My mother with Kydilla went off to the women’s seats. She had on a new pair of gold earrings my father had just given her, with little leaves hanging in them that trembled when she turned her head. The seats were already filling. The sheep-skins and undyed clothes of the working people at the top, and the bright colours on the lower benches, made the bowl of the theatre look like a great flower, lying against the flank of the High City in a calyx of dry leaves.
    Nowadays I often wonder that I still attend the plays of Aristophanes, whose hands are stained, if words can stain the hand that wrote them, with the blood dearest to me on earth. That day I went unwillingly, because his mockery of Sokrates was quoted everywhere, as indeed it stuck to him all his life. Yet in this comedy was a song about birds, so beautiful that it made the hair prickle on one’s neck. Indeed, while he is singing, he makes his own heaven and earth; the good is what he chooses, and where he sets their altars, there the gods alight. Plato says that no poet ought to be allowed to do this; and he is too distinguished now to be argued with any longer. I notice, however, that he goes himself. At all events, Aristophanes missed the prize that year. It went to a play called The Drunken Revellers , which roused the audience to great fury against Herm-breakers and blasphemers.
    We were waiting outside for my mother, when a man came up and said, “I stayed to tell you, Myron, that your wife has gone home. But don’t be anxious; my own wife has gone with her, and says it is nothing of consequence. You can trust her; she has had four of her own.” He smiled, and my father thanked him with more warmth than he had shown at first. “Well, Alexias,” he said, “let us go home then.”
    On the way he was in good spirits, and talked about the play. I don’t know how I answered him. He went through to see my mother and I was left alone. Without giving a thought to what I was about, or looking for my tutor, or asking leave, I ran out of the house and through the streets. Near the Acharnian Gate someone called to me, “Where are you going so fast, son of Myron?” I saw that it was Lysis, but I could not have spoken with anyone for my life; I turned my face to hide it from him, and ran on. I ran through fields and woods, and found myself at last on the slopes of Lykabettos.
    Climbing the steep rocks above with my hands and feet, I came out on a level place, where a few small flowers clung to the stone. Even the High City looked flat below me; beyond the shoulder of Hymettos shone the sea. I lay down panting, and said to myself, “What did I run for? One ought not to do things without a cause.” Then I turned my face and wept bitterly; yet I had not known when I ran that I wanted to weep.
    I said to myself that my grief was absurd; yet it filled my heart and even hurt my body. It seemed to me that my mother had betrayed me; having taken me up when I was wanted by no one, now she had leagued herself with my father to put another in my