Amber and Clay by Laura Schlitz (phonics books txt) 📕

My master will be angry if I’m late.

It isn’t that I don’t like talking to you.

I like it, even if I don’t know what I’m talking about.

But I have to get back to work.”

“Why don’t I come back with you?

I often frequent the potters’ quarter,

and I’d like to pay my respects to your master.

I’ll explain to him that if you’re late

it’s because I waylaid you,

with a search for the truth.

Shall we?”

I was proud to walk beside him. I was thinking:

What Sokrates had done with me

was the same thing he’d done with Menon.

He asked me a question that sounded simple,

and I thought I knew the answer, but I didn’t.

It made Menon angry, but I wasn’t angry.

I liked wondering. I felt as if my mind were a toy,

full of riddles to solve.

We came to the spot on the path where Phoibe always balks.

She stopped short. I gripped her halter.

Sometimes she tries to back up, but I don’t let her.

She’s getting better.

She used to tremble when she came to this part of the path.

Now she just stops, her head up,

her breath coming in short puffs.

I explained to Sokrates: “Phoibe always balks here,

There’s something about this place she doesn’t like.

The slave before me used to beat her,

which made things worse. I don’t beat her,

but I don’t let her back up, either. We have to wait here

until she goes by herself.”

“And will she?”

“Yes, but it takes time. We have to wait her out.

It’s boring, but it’s worth it.”

Phoibe twisted her head inside her halter

and screwed her donkey lips sideways

to nibble my hand. She wanted to play.

I wouldn’t play. She had two choices:

stand still or go forward.

She knew what her choices were.

At last she took a step forward,

and I praised her,

“Good girl, Phoibe, good girl!”

coaxed her. Another step.

Once we got past the bad place

I stroked her and scratched her

and let her crop the grass.

“You may not know all things, Rhaskos,

but it’s clear that you know donkeys.”

Once again, I felt the sheer joy

of being with Sokrates; of not being stupid.

I pulled up Phoibe’s head

and we headed back to Athens.

I kept looking to make sure Sokrates was still beside me.

I couldn’t stop smiling.

“You know, Rhaskos,

I think we’re donkeys ourselves.

Here we are, as happy as swallows,

because we’ve each made a new friend,

yet neither of us can say what a friend is.”

EXHIBIT 13

Black-figure bowl with Akhilleus killing Penthesilea, circa 400 BCE.

This naive drawing shows a battle scene: single combat between a male warrior and an Amazon. Inscriptions inform us that the warrior is Akhilleus, and the woman is the Amazon queen Penthesilea.

Penthesilea was the daughter of Ares, and a powerful warrior. As the greatest of the Amazons who fought for the Trojans, she was the female counterpart to Akhilleus, the greatest of the Greeks. When Akhilleus dealt the death blow to the queen, their eyes met, and he fell hopelessly in love.

The treatment of this dramatic scene is so primitive that it is a matter of wonder that the bowl was ever fired. Akhilleus’s arms are different lengths, and his buttocks are improbably round. Penthesilea’s pose is even more awkward; she seems to be attempting a split. At the same time, the artist was able to convey some of the pathos of the battle: the invisible line that connects their eyes runs parallel to the warrior’s spear.

The summer after I came to Athens

Zosima broke her sandal strap,

and my secret was brought to light.

It was a bright afternoon.

Phaistus set up shop outside the courtyard.

Kranaos was napping in the sunlight. I was in the workroom,

wedging clay on a plaster slab.

I rolled it out with a rolling pin

and picked up a bone tool. I took a deep breath

and started on a horse.

When I draw a horse,

I’m in another world. There’s only the two of us,

and I can almost hear the horse whinnying, Make me, make me!

Show the arch of my neck,

and the spring in my haunches!

Loose the wind in my mane

and set me free!

And I’m gentling him, saying, “Hold still, my beautiful,

let me double-check those slender legs.

I want to capture every angle.”

I was hunched over,

the smell of the clay in my nostrils,

when something made me raise my eyes

and there she was, so close I could have touched her.

She stood between me and the door.

She ought to have blocked the light,

but the light streamed through her.

Loose hair, sunburned cheeks,

her lips parted as if to speak —

The hair on my arms stood erect

a prickle ran down my spine —

I saw you, Melisto!

Then a voice behind me: “Phaistus!”

Zosima, barefoot, come from the house —

there had been no flap-slap,

slap-flap

to warn me she was coming.

She was peering over my shoulder. My horse — !

I wedged one hand under the clay

smacked it, flipped it over

squished it

pounded it —

“Phaistus! Come here,

come and see what Pyrrhos did!”

Then there he was — Phaistus — (and the girl was gone).

“What’s all this?”

“Pyrrhos! Why did you have to ruin it? He was drawing, Phaistus!

The most beautiful horse! Pyrrhos, show him!”

The master was annoyed;

he’d been called in for nothing.

Already he was looking over his shoulder,

afraid of missing a customer.

“Is that all?”

“No. Stay a little, Phaistus. He can draw. You have to see.

I’m sure I never saw a boy draw as well.”

She took the tool from the slab.

“With this. He carved into the clay.”

“He was supposed to be working.”

I saw a way out. I would play the slave,

humble myself, distract him.

“I was wasting time, despotes.” I called him Master.

I seldom called him that; I found a way around it.

“I won’t do it again.”

“You will if I tell you to.”

He took the lump of clay,

picked up the roller I’d used. Flattened it.

“Show me what you can do.

Draw the horse.”

My heart jumped in my chest. My mouth was dry.

I stared at the tool in my hand.

Like the wing of an insect in flight

it juddered. Like one of those white butterflies

that never flies in a straight line.

“I don’t have all day, boy.

Draw me a horse.”

I cut into the clay. Too deep —

the clay rose up in ridges, both sides of the