Amber and Clay Read online

  Contents

  Exhibit 1

  Exhibit 2

  Exhibit 3

  Exhibit 4

  Exhibit 5

  Exhibit 6

  Exhibit 7

  Exhibit 8

  Exhibit 9

  Exhibit 10

  Exhibit 11

  Exhibit 12

  Exhibit 13

  Exhibit 14

  Exhibit 15

  Exhibit 16

  Exhibit 17

  Exhibit 18

  Bibliography

  Copyright

  EXHIBIT 1

  Ostracon, or fragment of a broken pot, circa 400 BCE, found in the marketplace of Athens.

  The letters scratched on the clay are unevenly formed, suggesting that the writer was learning to write. Though many words are missing, what remains is remarkable. Some scholars have interpreted lines 10 –11 to mean “I will be a free man someday. I will no longer be a slave.” If this is so, the inscription gives us a unique example of a Greek enslaved person expressing himself in writing.

  Still more extraordinary is the writer’s assertion that he knew Sokrates and the reference to Sokrates’s famous saying “The unexamined life is not worth living.” A few art historians have been tempted to identify Rhaskos the Thracian as the “Horse Painter” responsible for the famous red-figure vases in the British Museum. While this is an appealing theory, there is little evidence to support it.

  Hermes here. The Greek god —

  No. Don’t put down the book —

  I’m talking to you. If the lines look like poetry,

  relax. This book is shorter than it looks.

  I am Hermes,

  a Greek god,

  young, fleet-footed, good-looking:

  Note my winged sandals,

  my cloak, my crooked hat —

  I’m the Jack that slays the giant,

  Bringer of dreams and king of schemes,

  The crafter of lyres and sometimes of lies.

  Protector of travelers, tricksters, and thieves.

  Also, communication:

  poetry, picture books, opera, the internet,

  television, smoke signals, whispers in the night.

  It’s all my territory. I hear it all.

  — What am I doing here?

  I assure you, I go everywhere —

  I can soar above Olympus

  or dive to the deeps of the underworld,

  talk to the dead and come out quick —

  that’s a pun. Quick means alive,

  or used to. Which reminds me:

  I bring you a story that tells

  of the quick and the dead:

  the tale of a girl as precious as amber,

  the tale of a boy as common as clay.

  The meaning, the moral,

  is up to you. We gods swap stories,

  but you are the ones

  who divine what they mean.

  I think because you suffer. We gods don’t.

  We think pain

  is overrated. We watch you

  the way you watch television. If you make us laugh —

  and believe me,

  you do —

  we adore that.

  If you make us cry, so much the better.

  That’s a good show. But we don’t lose sleep over your suffering,

  or puzzle over what it means.

  You poor mortals, you want to know why.

  We gods don’t suffer, so we don’t care why.

  Where was I? This story: two children. A boy, Rhaskos,

  and a girl, Melisto,

  plus a bully, a wise man, and a bear. Wait!

  I’ve thought of something else:

  A tale I stole from a playwright!

  It may shed light on our story:

  Long ago.

  In the beginning.

  Every person was two people,

  gummed together like a globe. Belly to belly!

  Four legs, four arms,

  twenty fingers, twenty toes!

  They could flip and turn cartwheels,

  a riot to watch:

  They could curl like waves,

  creep like spiders,

  and climb like monkeys,

  double-quick, and so wise . . .

  (two heads are better than one!)

  — Wait. Did I mention the sex thing?

  Most of them

  were male and female: hermaphrodite

  (the word comes from Aphrodite, my sister,

  and also from Hermes — that’s me).

  but some were two men or two women . . .

  Either way, they were priceless,

  those fabulous, two-for-one twins!

  The only thing was, they were bound to make trouble —

  plucky and puckish and proud to boot.

  And Zeus, my father, doesn’t like trouble,

  so he decided

  to chop them in two.

  (That’s another thing. We Greek gods

  are not known for our tender hearts.)

  So! He sliced up the twins as you’d cut up an apple,

  cutting their power in half.

  And ever since,

  people have been lonely:

  “Where’s my twin? What happened to my old self,

  my other half?”

  The men who’d been fastened to women, chased women.

  The men who’d been fastened to men, chased men . . .

  and so forth. We watched. It was amusing.

  It’s still amusing. All that panting and longing,

  and loving and losing. Dear child,

  somewhere in the world is your missing piece,

  and you’re going to spend your life trying to find her

  or him, as the case may be. I wish you good hunting.

  I wish you good luck.

  The children I spoke of before were like that.

  They weren’t alike, but they fit together,

  like lock and key. The boy, Rhaskos,

  was a slave boy. Unlucky at first.

  A Thracian boy — (Thrace is north of Greece)

  — redheaded, nervy, neglected.

  A clever boy who was taught he was stupid.

  A beautiful boy whose mother

  scarred him with a knife.

  The girl, Melisto, started life lucky.

  A rich man’s daughter, and a proper Greek.

  Owl-eyed Melisto: a born fighter,

  prone to tantrums, hating the loom.

  A wild girl, chosen by Artemis,

  and lucky, as I said before —

  except for one thing: she died young.

  This is their story. When it’s over, if you like,

  you can tell me what it means.

  1. HONEY

  I wonder if I speak aloud —

  can my words reach you?

  It’s been over a year since you spoke to me —

  You and Sokrates: I lost you both

  the same month. I think of him, too;

  but you’re the one I want to tell.

  I want you to hear me remember.

  Sokrates taught me:

  if you don’t think about your life,

  that’s no life for a man.

  I’ve tried to write my story,

  but writing’s slow,

  and Sokrates said

  written words can’t be trusted. When you read,

  you can’t ask questions. You have to ask questions.

  Those are the most important things:

  to remember;

  to ask questions.

  My memories are like my drawings.

  Some are no good. I mean —

  when I used to draw in the dirt,

  the line was fat and blurred, />
  and you couldn’t tell what the picture was.

  Now I draw on clay with a knife,

  and my lines are sharp. Clear. Detailed.

  Some of my memories are like that.

  The early ones are blurred.

  I was born in Thessaly,

  a land known for witchcraft,

  horses,

  and meadows rich with grain.

  I belonged to Alexidemus,

  a rich man. He had wide pastures,

  and swift-stepping horses,

  but no witches, as far as I know.

  My mother was his slave.

  My mother watched the children of the household.

  She was their nurse.

  There was a whole flock of us.

  We played in the courtyard:

  an olive tree, good for climbing,

  a grapevine, an altar, a flock of geese.

  Lykos was the oldest of us,

  His cousin Timaeus was the baby.

  I wasn’t allowed in the house,

  and I ate what the others didn’t want:

  the rind of the cheese,

  the crust of the bread,

  radishes. Lykos never ate his radishes —

  but I liked radishes. I never went hungry.

  My mother gave me food off her plate.

  This was before my mother left.

  I was three, four, five years old.

  I was a warlike child.

  My mother was a Thracian woman,

  and the Thracians are warriors.

  Lykos and I wrestled every day.

  He was older and taller,

  but I was strong for my age.

  My mother let us fight it out.

  My mother had red hair, like mine, Thracian hair.

  She was a slave, so her hair was cropped short,

  but I found her beautiful.

  She was tall, not meek.

  She was born free. The Thracian women are free

  until they marry. My mother used to walk

  on the shore of the Black Sea,

  free

  but one day raiders came. They kidnapped her.

  They wronged her

  and made her a slave.

  Once I asked if we could go back to Thrace,

  and she said no. She was ashamed.

  She said we could never go home.

  But she told me about Thrace.

  Her father owned horses, precious horses.

  Once he dined at the banquet of a king

  and drank from a golden cup.

  She told me those stories at night.

  We shared a stall in the horse-barn.

  That part I remember: the sounds in the dark:

  the straw rustling; a long snort,

  the thud of a hoof.

  My mother taught me Thracian words,

  tales of the gods,

  and how to count. She was proud of me.

  In the summer, she took water from the horse-trough

  and made me wash.

  In the courtyard, she favored the others.

  She held Timaeus in her arms

  and bounced him till I burned with jealousy.

  When she took the others into the house

  and put them to bed,

  I stayed in the courtyard, staring up at the windows.

  She sang lullabies to them.

  I picked up the heaviest rocks I could find

  and threw them as hard as I could.

  She was my mother. Not theirs. Mine.

  But as soon as the others slept,

  she came back outside.

  She swept me up on her shoulders

  and I rode her like a horse. I dug my heels into her

  and clicked my tongue —

  she gripped my ankles

  and we galloped.

  Once we were in the barn, she held me in her lap.

  She squeezed my feet.

  I kissed her. Sometimes I bit her.

  She said I was her warrior-boy, her little Thracian,

  better than all the others.

  We slept curled up together.

  There was one night —

  I don’t know how she knew —

  but the storeroom was left unguarded.

  It was a moonlit night: I remember that.

  The sky was pale, and the stars were dim.

  We stole over the grass without a sound,

  and opened the door by inches.

  There was no one but us.

  She took a loaf, split it, and poured oil over the bread.

  She opened a jar of crystallized honey.

  She showed me how to dig into it

  and take out a great knob,

  which I sucked off my fingers

  slowly, making it last.

  My time with my mother was like that,

  golden and secret

  and over too soon.

  2. HORSE

  This I remember clearly: we were playing a game:

  Lykos’s game: he called it Do-What-I-Do.

  He circled the courtyard,

  arms like wings.

  We panted to keep up.

  He grabbed a branch of the olive tree —

  Some boys couldn’t reach that branch,

  but I could. We swung, kicking our feet,

  jumped down, took off:

  whirling like leaves, darting and scampering,

  following Lykos the leader,

  hopping on one foot, crossing the courtyard —

  into the shadowy house.

  I don’t know where my mother was that day.

  She would have stopped us.

  It was cool inside, the shutters drawn.

  I wasn’t allowed in there.

  Even Lykos, the master’s son,

  wasn’t allowed in the andron.

  That was the best room in the house.

  It was for the men, for drinking parties.

  There were couches along the walls,

  Lykos scrambled up on one:

  “Do what I do!” Then he leapt

  from couch to couch —

  they were strung with rope, those couches,

  cushioned with sheepskins,

  loose and springy.

  He slipped

  skidded

  onto his bottom. That meant

  we all had to slip.

  We were

  bouncing

  and falling,

  leaping,

  shrieking with laughter,

  trespassing,

  asking for trouble.

  That just shows how little we were.

  We didn’t know when to shut up.

  Then I caught my breath

  struck dumb.

  A wonder before my eyes: a horse on the wall.

  A whole horse, large enough to ride,

  and it was flying.

  You could see the wind ruffle its mane,

  the sinewy legs pranced, the nostrils flared;

  and it had wings,

  luminous

  spread like the wings of a swan.

  The beauty of that horse was supernatural,

  and all around it was the sky,

  dazzling blue, with winds and clouds.

  The horse kept galloping, galloping,

  soundless

  staying in one place.

  You’re thinking I was stupid.

  But I wasn’t. I’d lived all my life in the barn.

  I’d never seen a picture.

  And the man who painted that horse must have been like a god.

  He knew how to draw legs, and set them in motion,

  how to make wings that fanned the blue air,

  how to paint the moist glint

  in a horse’s eye.

  I had to get up close —

  this impossible thing.

  I had to touch it.

  I stood on the couch

  and pressed my hands against the horse.

  I thought it w
ould be warm. I thought I’d feel the muscles

  under the shining skin.

  But the wall was cool and rough.

  There was a cry. Galene —

  the master’s wife, mistress of the house —

  stood in the doorway. She screamed at us. The others scattered.

  She seized me by the arm,

  yanked me off the couch,

  and slapped me so hard

  my head swam.

  “I’ve told Alexi —

  I won’t have that slave brat in the house!”

  Slave brat.

  I fled. I raced for the courtyard, the olive tree;

  I scurried up like a squirrel.

  My mind was cut in half.

  One half echoed: Slave brat. Slave brat.

  The other half-mind was fixed on that horse.

  I wanted to see it again.

  3. KNIFE

  This memory is blurred,

  painted with a dark glaze.

  My mother: standing in the doorway of the barn —

  the light behind her. Twilight.

  The air smelled of thunder. She was holding a knife

  and a bowl of ashes.

  There was dread in her face. She told me

  she was going to cut

  marks on my arms. Tattoos. The Thracians wear tattoos.

  She warned me: it would hurt —

  I was afraid of the knife.

  I said so. I said no.

  She moved quickly. Next thing I remember

  I was flat on my back

  struggling —

  She was pinning me down,

  her knee on my chest

  gripping my wrist,

  holding my arm so she could cut.

  I screamed. She was rough. Her hand shook. She hissed

  hold still! She was doing a thing

  she feared to do

  and she wanted to get it done.

  Even in the dim,

  I could see the cuts:

  my blood: fat drops oozing

  then red ribbons

  I screamed stop! but she wouldn’t stop —

  My throat ached.

  Something flared in my mind

  like a torch catching fire:

  I don’t know what I did,

  or how I did it,

  but I, Rhaskos, turned to smoke

  or dissolved like salt in water —

  after that

  someone else was wailing

  and the pain

  and the blood

  and the cries came from

  someone else

  only

  time

  stretched out

  immeasurable.

  When my mother set aside the knife

  I came back to myself.

  I thought it was over,

  but it wasn’t. She took ashes

  from the bowl

  and rubbed them

  into the cuts.

  It stung. I begged her to stop,

  but she wouldn’t. Not till she was done.

  She let me get up.

  I ran at her.