"Mary Renault - Greece 5 - Mask Of Apollo" - читать интересную книгу автора (Renault Mary)

don't get it. We were opening at Eleusis, then on through Megara and south around the Argolid. When
Lamprias went on, as he did every day for both our good, about the fine experience I would be getting,
what he meant was that we would hardly see a bit of modern equipment from first to last, or, probably, a
sponsor; we would cart along our own costumes, masks and props (stuff bought secondhand after the
Dionysia, when richer companies had had their pick), fix up the skene with whatever we found when we
got there, and practice making do. Though I never thought I would live to say so, one can make worse
beginnings.

It seemed a pity that in the last week of rehearsals I had to knock Meidias down. Even though he took
against me from the first, I had tried to get along with him for the sake of peace; but that day he thought
fit to quote me a piece of envious bitchery about my father, from one of his fancy-friends. He was bigger
than I, but had not troubled, as my father had made me do, to go to a good gymnasium where one learns
how to stand and move. One also learns some throw-holds. We had been rehearsing in the Piraeus
theater and were walking up the steps between the benches when I hit him and tipped his knee; so he did
not fall very soft, and rolled a good way down. Some little boys, who had perched at the top like
sparrows to watch us act, were glad to get so much for nothing, and cheered the scene. Luckily he broke
no bones, and his face was no one else's business. So Lamprias said nothing. I knew I should be made to
pay; but that could not be helped. Little I guessed, though, how far along my life that blow would cast its
shadow.

The day of departure came. My mother saw me off by dawn and lamplight, shed a few tears, and
warned me against temptations, which she did not name, guessing no doubt that I could have instructed
her. I kissed her, shouldered my bundle, and went whistling down the twilit streets where half-wakened
birds replied. The shouts of the night-fishers, bringing in their catch, rang far over the gray water. At the
meeting-place I found that Lamprias, to show we were a troupe of standing, had hired a handyman for
the baggage-cart, asses and mules. This cheered me; I had thought I might have to do that too.

It was a chancy year for touring, he said as we moved off. It was-like most other years. Lately the
Thebans had amazed the world by throwing the Spartans first out of their citadel and then out of their
city. They had run them clear of Boeotia; we Athenians had beaten them at sea; all over Hellas men
stretched, and breathed more deeply. However, with all this, troops were forever marching about the
Isthmus; Lamprias said he would be glad to leave it behind. No doubt Megara would be quiet; they are
apt there to mind their own business; but in the Peloponnese the cities were working like a pan of yeast,
throwing off the dekarchies the Spartans had set over them. We might run into anything.

People are always saying what fine free lives we actors lead, able to cross frontiers and go anywhere.
This is true, if it means that hired troops have nothing against us, and others respect the sacred edicts.
You are likely enough to get where you are going with a whole skin, and can count there on roof and
food at least from your choregos, always provided this sponsor is alive, and not exiled overnight. But for
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a company working its own way, to arrive is hardly enough, if you find that the men have taken to the
hills, the women have battened themselves inside the houses, while a squadron of cavalry has hitched its
horses in the orchestra and is chopping up the skene for cook-fires.

However, it was a fine morning. The straits of Salamis glittered against the purple island; remembering my
Aischylos, I peopled the water with grinding oars and crashing prows, and rammed galleys spilling