"Mary Renault - Greece 1 - The King Must Die" - читать интересную книгу автора (Renault Mary)

had torn a back muscle, and it took me by surprise. She came over and felt it gently; but I looked away.

"Theseus, my son," she said. Her gentleness almost undid me; I had to shut my teeth together. "Nothing
forbids me to tell you this: it is not I who find you wanting. And I think I am fit to judge." She was silent,
looking out through the gap in the oak leaves at the blue sea. Then she said, "The Shore People were
ignorant; they thought Ever-Living Zeus dies every year. So they could not worship the Mother rightly, as
we Hellenes know. But at least they understood that some things are better left to women." She paused a
moment; but she saw I was only waiting for her to go away. So she went; and I threw myself upon the
ground.

The black oak soil, rich with the scents of spring, drank down my tears into the fallen leaves of ages. The
Grove of Zeus is not a place where one can defy the gods. I had been angry with Poseidon, who had
broken my pride like some column tossed down for a whim. But presently I saw he had done me no
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harm, but many favors. It would be hubris to affront him; and not even worthy of a gentleman, who ought
never to be outdone, either in cruelty by an enemy or in kindness by a friend. So I limped home, and got
into the hot bath my mother had ready. She rubbed me down after with oil of herbs; but we did not
speak.

I could not wrestle for a fortnight, and told the other youths I had fallen on the mountain. For the rest, life
went on as before; except that the light had been put out. Those to whom this has happened will
understand me; not many, I daresay, for such men die easily.

For a man in darkness, there is only one god to pray to.

I had never before singled out Apollo for worship. But of course I had always prayed to him before
stringing a lyre or a bow; and when I went shooting, I was never mean with his share. He had given me
good bags time and again. Though he is very deep, and knows all mysteries, even those of the women,
he is a Hellene and a gentleman. Keeping that in mind, it is easier than it seems not to offend him. He
does not like tears intruded on his presence, any more than the sun likes rain. Yet he understands grief:
bring it to him in a song, and he will take it away.

In the small laurel grove near the Palace, where he had an altar, I gave him offerings, and played to him
every day. At night in Hall, I used to sing of war; but alone in the grove, with only the god to listen, I sang
of sorrow: young maidens sacrificed on their wedding eve, ladies of burned cities weeping their fallen
lords, or the old laments which have come down from the Shore People, of young heroes who love a
goddess for a year, and foreknow their deaths.

But one could not always be singing. Then melancholy would fall black upon me, like a winter cloud
heavy with snow. Then I could bear no people. Those days I took myself into the hills, alone with my
bow and my dog.

One day in summer I had wandered far, loosing at small game and taking up my arrows; but the wind
had tricked me, and I had got nothing but one hare. I was still on the heights in the last light, and looking
down saw the shadows of the hills thrown right across to the island. From the foot slopes hidden by trees
and dusk, the smoke of Troizen rose faint and blue. They would be trimming the lamps there. But on the