Ivan Yefremov - Thais of Athens

A priest prepared to carry out the last pouring, and quietly prayed to the master of the underground world. A huge crowd of Memphis citizens stood respectfully at a distance, the admirers of the gold-haired horse tamer as well as simple onlookers.

Egesikhora’s and Menedem’s faces seemed calm and beautiful. The Spartan hetaera’s slightly lifted eyebrows gave her face an expression of sweet puzzlement, unusual for her. Menedem smiled with the same weak smile he’d sent Thais with his last breath.

Thais had no time to realize the depth of her loss. At the present she felt only the departing beauty of her loved ones, lying on a common burial pyre, akin to the ancient heroes of Hellas.

Thais looked around. The rows of Spartans still stood motionless, the soldiers regarded the dead. The Athenian jumped off the pyre and someone handed her a burning torch, which she raised high above her head. Every second soldier handed his spear to a friend, then picked up resin-covered sticks and lit them in the braziers which smoked at four corners of the pyre.

Thais circled the pyre until she stood at the north end, then shoved the torch under a pile of thin cedar shavings. The flame, almost invisible in the sunlight, breathed hotly and crawled to the top edge of the pyre. Thin blue smoke rose into the sky as the Laconian soldiers set fire to the entire pyre. The manes and tails of the horses crackled, and one could smell the sharp scent of burning hair. Thais glanced at the dead for the last time through the dancing flames. She imagined Menedem moved his hand in farewell, and the Athenian turned away. Lowering a light Egyptian scarf over her face, Thais went home with Hesiona, never looking back.

The next day, after the enormous fire had cooled, the Spartans would gather Egesikhora’s and Menedem’s ashes, mix them with the ashes of the horses, and scatter them in the middle of the Nile. From there they would flow to the Inner Sea, on whose shores they had both grown up. A day later the Spartans themselves would sail down the river to Naucratis, and from there the route would take them back to Lacedemonia.

The Spartans insisted that Thais leave with them, but the hetaera refused. She could not bear to leave Memphis right away. It no longer made sense to leave Hellas. Troubling gossip from Athens spoke of the riots caused by Demosthenes’ speeches, and the entire Hellenic world, excited by the incredible victories of the Macedonian king, seemed ready to move east, into the lands considered forbidden until then.

Thais spent five days locked away indoors. She lay face down in the gloom of her bedroom and allowed no one to see her but Hesiona, who tried to convince her mistress to eat something. Thais’ strong feelings of friendship toward the Theban had strengthened gradually, despite Hesiona’s persistent attempts to keep to the role of a servant. Now, during these bitter days, these feelings increased and developed into true attachment. It was hard not to love the courageous, pure and beautiful daughter of Boeotia.

On the sixth evening Thais finally left her home to go to the Neit temple. Much to her disappointment, she discovered that the Delos philosopher and his student the poet had left for Hellas before the last full moon. The Spartans were gone, too. Memphis, excited by the triple murder for a time, had already forgotten it all. New events related to Alexander’s approach occupied Helenians and Egyptians alike.

Thais hired a horse for Hesiona, and every day after that the two of them took long rides together. Thais was training Salmaakh, and Hesiona marveled. She had never thought such stunts were possible or that such a complete understanding could be possible between a rider and a horse.

Thais discovered she liked to descend down the impossibly steep, sandy slopes of the Nile shores. Salmaakh would slide with her hind legs bent while her rider leaned back, the back of Thais’ head touching the horse’s croup, her knees closed over the high withers. It seemed as if the horse would flip over at any moment and go crashing down, breaking her rider’s bones.

Going along with Hesiona’s pleas for safety, Thais found a smooth, comfortable clearing and used it for dancing. Hesiona secured her own horse’s reins around a rock, then stood at the edge of the clearing, singing a flowing Thessalian melody, accompanying her voice with a small tambourine. Salmaakh was stubborn at first, until a few days later, when she finally figured out what was required of her. All thoroughbred horses have an innate sense of rhythm, the result of millions of years of keeping a proper pace. No horse can trot for any length of time without a clear sense of rhythm. Hoofbeats of a good runner are expected to be akin to the measured drops of water in a clepsydra, a water clock. A good, well-defined rhythm is required for human runners as well. It is necessary whenever a living creature has to sustain longterm strain and demonstrate endurance.

Soon enough, Salmaakh tapped away to Hesiona’s tambourine like a real dancer, which was no great surprise. After all, she was being educated by the “fourth Kharita” of Hellas herself. According to legend, the ancient dance of a woman on a horse, hippoginnes, was created by the Amazons. The legendary women of Thermodont performed in the valley of Temiskira [17] Presently the Turkish coast of the Black Sea in the vicinity of Sinop. at the Paphlagonian coast of the Black Sea. It always happened on a full moon, under its bright light, during the days of ellotias, celebrations in honor of Artemis. Presently, hippoginnes was nearly gone, performed only rarely by the brave Thessalian women, who were professional horse acrobats and performed it in Attica or in Sparta when invited by the wealthy feast hosts.

Through doing these exercises, Thais unsuccessfully tried to find oblivion and fill the emptiness in her life, which not only remained but seemed to grow bigger each day. Helenians had no faith in the trouble-free life after death that filled meager lives of people of other faiths, who expected rewards and meetings with the loved ones on the other side of death. The dignity with which sons and daughters of Hellas met their end was founded on the feeling of a fully drunk cup of one’s own life, the passionate love of land and sea, body and passion, beauty and intelligence.

The Spartans’ incredible courage and physical perfection, the Cretan’s amazingly sophisticated connection with the sea, the Athenian’s inventiveness, initiative and eternal thirst to discover new things became legendary in all of Ecumene.

But Thais no longer possessed either joy or fulfillment. Her formerly lively spirit had faded, giving way to the sad thoughts of her future path. Hesiona too started thinking of how to heal her mistress’ and friend’s heart-deep wound. She even regretted the departure of Thais’ mysterious teacher, of whom she used to be so jealous. The Delos philosopher would have done something to speed up the mistress’ recovery after having been wounded so badly by the unseen weapon of fate and gods.

But Hesiona, with her feminine intuition, sensed the inevitability of Thais’ rebirth. There was too much strength in that young body, and too much active interest toward everything in the world, inherited from her Athenian ancestors.

Waters of the great river receded, and the Nile became slow and transparent as it would be in winter. Thais shared her time between Salmaakh and a light narrow boat, boating with Clonaria and “the Daughter of the Snake”. She did not respond to any of her increasingly persistent admirers. Hesiona still rejected all things male, and when Clonaria fell in love with a middle-aged Greek merchant who offered to buy her from Thais, the slave girl herself refused out of fear of leaving Thais’ home, where she felt safe and was used to gentle treatment.