Martin Millar - The Goddess of Buttercups and Daisies

‘I mean they’ve disappeared!’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘How much clearer can I be? Our giant funny phalluses are no longer on the premises!’

‘But how?’

‘Someone’s stolen them!’

Aristophanes looked at him, aghast. ‘Not the new, big ones? Not all of them?’

‘Yes!’

Aristophanes sagged. Never before in the theatre had he received such a body-blow.

‘It’s the end,’ he muttered. Tears welled up in his eyes. He looked up to heaven. ‘Why? Why do the gods curse me? Am I really such a bad person?’

He slumped into a chair. ‘Cancel the play. We can’t go on.’

‘We can’t cancel the play,’ said Hermogenes. ‘The play must go on. Everyone knows that. The crowd would riot.’

‘But what can we do? We can’t send the actors on without huge dangly penises. It’s unheard of. It’s probably against festival rules.’

Hermogenes shrugged ‘We’ll just have to use the old, small, unsatisfactory penises.’

‘But they’re back at the rehearsal space!’

‘I’ll send people to fetch them,’ said Hermogenes.

‘Do we have time?’

‘We could ask Isidoros to recite for a little longer. He’s due to go on any moment now.’

It was a long time since Bremusa had actually seen anyone skipping gaily along the street. It tended not to happen on Mount Olympus, and it was never done among the Amazons. Metris was, however, skipping along at that moment, bubbling over with enthusiasm.

‘What are you so happy about?’

‘I’m so looking forward to the comedy! It will be lovely to be in the theatre!’

‘I think you’re happy because you sneaked off to see Luxos.’

‘No, I didn’t!’ Metris smiled. As a nymph, she never felt that much obligation to tell the truth, if the truth happened to be awkward.

Bremusa was trying to think of something withering to say, because the skipping was annoying her, when she practically bumped into Idomeneus of Crete. He stood, tall and rock-like in front of her, looking down on her with contempt. Behind him were two men, pulling a cart.

‘Bremusa the Amazon.’

‘Idomeneus of Crete.’

‘I’d kill you but I’m busy at the moment.’

‘I’d kill you but I’m busy too.’

The cart was covered by a tarpaulin. Metris, for no particular reason, peered under it.

‘Look! It’s full of big penises.’

‘I told you, the city is obsessed with them,’ said Bremusa. ‘Let’s go.’

‘But they must have stolen them from Aristophanes!’ cried Metris, an astute observation that had not occurred to the Amazon. She stared at Idomeneus.

‘Is that true?’

‘What if it is?’

Bremusa laid her hand on the pommel of her sword. ‘Hand them over.’

‘No,’ said Idomeneus.

‘I’m not letting you ruin Aristophanes’ play.’

‘What do you care about the theatre?’

‘I’m a huge enthusiast.’ Bremusa drew her sword. ‘You’ve lived too long, Idomeneus.’

Idomeneus drew his sword. ‘Prepare to die, Amazon.’

Abruptly, shockingly, and rather absurdly, a huge wall of flowers suddenly erupted between the Amazon and the Cretan warrior. Metris had caused a giant mass of buttercups and daisies to separate them, doing it in such a way that Idomeneus and his men were on one side, while she, Metris and the cart were on the other.

‘Metris, what are you doing?’

‘I’m fed up with all this silly fighting. You really ought to try resolving your problems some other way. Come on, let’s take these back to the theatre.’

Bremusa and Metris hurried off, pulling the cart behind them, leaving Idomeneus and his hirelings still trying to fight their way through a wall of flowers.

Aristophanes mopped perspiration off his brow. The heat was oppressive in the covered backstage area.

What’s keeping Hermogenes? Where’s Isidoros? He should be reciting by now.

Outside in the theatre, there were murmurings. The audience were becoming restive. They didn’t like to be kept waiting, not when the temperature was so high. A lot of festival wine had already been consumed. That could make an audience receptive. It could also make them hostile.

Hermogenes burst into the room. ‘Isidoros can’t go on.’

‘What? Why not?’

‘You’d better see for yourself.’

Aristophanes followed his assistant into the next room, up a flight of stairs, and along a corridor. There, in one of the dressing rooms, he was not that surprised — having already worked out that this was the most likely cause of the problem — to find Isidoros lying on a couch in a drunken stupor. The playwright looked at his prone figure with disgust.

‘Didn’t he promise he wasn’t going to do this?’ Aristophanes rounded on Hermogenes. ‘You were meant to keep him sober!’

‘I can’t do everything! He was fine when I last saw him.’

The famous lyric poet opened his eyes and raised a limp hand in greeting to the playwright. ‘Aristophanes. You’re always criticising Hyperbolus. But he’s a fine man. Very liberal with the wine. Always ready to give a man an amphora or two.’

With that, Isidoros closed his eyes and began to snore.

‘Now what do we do?’ cried Aristophanes. ‘We can’t start the play without our penises and we don’t have Isidoros to entertain the crowd while they’re waiting.’

‘You’ll have to stall,’ said Hermogenes. ‘Get out there and make excuses to the audience.’

‘What sort of excuses?’

‘You’re the creative genius,’ said Hermogenes. ‘I’ll see if there’s any sign of the old phalluses arriving.’

Hermogenes hurried off. Aristophanes made his way pensively back along the corridor and down the stairs to the side of the stage. He felt his spirit wilting. It was all very well for Hermogenes to talk about stalling. An Athenian audience was not that easy to stall. Particularly at the end of the day, when they’d already worked themselves up by watching two comedies and drinking heavily. Anyone walking out on stage with bad news was liable to get hit by a well-aimed onion. The Athenian audience could turn nasty very quickly.

Some of these people will have drunk enough wine to sink a trireme by now, he thought . Wine is a curse. It should be outlawed.

He took a deep breath and walked out on stage. Already the murmurings of discontent were growing as the audience realised the play wasn’t going to start on time. Aristophanes emerged through the skene, the small wooden building at the back of the stage, and made his way forward. The noise coming from the crowd was growing. The theatre was built to seat twelve thousand people, and there were more than that crammed in today, with some sitting in the aisles, and others standing at the back.

Aristophanes gazed out at the vast crowd, hoping to see a few friendly faces. Unfortunately, the only faces he could see were those of Hyperbolus, Euphranor and their friends, gathered near the front of the auditorium, no doubt for the purpose of heckling the production. He walked to the front of the stage. The heat was still intense.

‘Citizens of Athens! There has been an unfortunate delay —’

That was as far as he got before the first jeers started. It struck Aristophanes that after all he’d done for the city, they might have been a little more tolerant, but apparently not. He could feel sweat trickling uncomfortably down his neck.

‘We’re not quite ready to begin, and our esteemed poet, Isidoros, is currently indisposed —’

This produced a great deal of mocking laughter. Isidoros’s reputation was well known.