Glorious Exploits

The hearts of men are alike wherever you go. The rest is scenery.

You don’t rob a man of his suffering,’ says Gelon quietly. ‘That’s his.

Common sense is common, has no imagination, and only works by precedent. It leaves the man who follows it poorer, if not in pocket, then in his heart. Fuck common sense.

There's more to Athens than tragedy,' says Paches with feeling. 'We laugh till we cry, and we drink.' Another swig. 'We drink till we fall down, but we're up first thing in the morning to scheme and love and build and do it all again. It's a city of belief, not despair.

Hunger, what an odd thing it is. Is the source of all love a lacking? Is that what creates emotion? Not a presence but an absence. Do you need to be emptied to be filled?

But still, a tragedy without a tune is like a sun that doesn’t give off heat; dead and nothing will grow from it. When men go to war, they do it to music. When they set sails for better shores and row into the vast blue, they do it to music. Even our hearts beat to some rhythm. And the director who neglects it neglects what makes us men.

He sang a song from Media's chorus, it was a few bitter scenes later when the kids are dead, and it gives a weird sense of time mergin', and for a moment I have the feeling that the future and the past aren't separate at all, just different snatches of a single song, always sung, giving consequences when aired.

I never believed. I needed to, which isn't the same.

It's poetry we're doing,' he whispers. 'It wouldn't mean a thing if it were easy.

Those rats are the worst of everything under an indifferent sky, but the sound coming from the aulos, frail as it might be in comparison, well, that's us, I say to myself, that's us giving it a go, it's us building shit, and singing songs, and cooking food, it's kisses, and stories told over a winter fire, it's decency, and all we'll ever have to give, I say to myself, as my lungs burn and my eyes water, 'cause I don't have much left, but I keep blowing away at the aulos, playing my song, but the rats are as loud as ever, and this is madness, I'm pouring water in the desert, hoping flowers grow, what does it even matter if a few do, we're fucked, and the music stops. Gelon's taken the aulos, and I'm too spent to protest. I feel hollowed.

The leaves don’t so much fall as rip from the trees. All of them are red, and they skitter along the roads like bleeding stars under that knife of moon.

Since his son’s death, Biton has become a devotee of Dionysus, but being skint, he gets to worship rarely.

… and for a moment, I have the feeling that the future and the past aren’t separate at all, just different snatches of a single song, always sung, given consequence when heard.

have the feeling that the future and the past aren’t separate at all, just different snatches of a single song, always sung, given consequence when heard.

His master was ever in love with misfortune and believed the world a wounded thing that could only be healed by story.

There's more to Athens than tra- gedy,' says Paches with feeling. 'We laugh till we cry, and we drink.' Another swig. 'We drink till we fall down, but we're up first thing in the morning to scheme and love and build and do it all again. It's a city of belief, not despair. That proverb has nothing to do with the Athens I knew.

Your friend professes belief yet I’m not convinced. What about you? Are the gods real?” “They are real,” says I, “And you’re a prick.” “But still, a tragedy without a tune is like a sun that doesn’t give off heat; dead and nothing will grow from it. When men go to war, they do it to music. When they set sails for better shores and row into the vast blue, they do it to music. Even our hearts beat to some rhythm. And the director who neglects it neglects what makes us men.

It's hope that makes us afraid, and I remind myself that a man should be grateful for his fears, 'cause it means he has something to lose and to win.

Eyes closed, I see it: the quarry theatre. Gelon, the Athenians, the kids, and even Biton, all of us as we were back then, and though she never came, I see Lyra too, and we’re moving about tinily beneath the staring sky, shivering with want and mad with the conviction that this is it, cold ground below, eternity winking above as we whisper our parts, and it seems to me a soft and delicate thing.

Gelon’s shockingly handsome. But it’s a desolate handsome, which only makes it better. Gelon had a face you’d imagine demands contentment, yet the briefest look at him dispels this. It’s a cheeky reminder that beauty isn’t everything. Look, it seems to say. Here’s Gelon: godlike, broken Gelon. Look and remember that beauty isn’t all.

A tragedy without a tune is like a sun that doesn’t give off heat: dead, and nothing will grow from it. When men go to war, they do it to music. When they set sail for better shores and row into the vast blue, they do it to music. Even our hearts beat to some rhythm, and the director who neglects it neglects what makes us men.

The assembly was aching with the need to cut that deal, save the city, and then, whether the gods fancied a change or it was just our time, the Athenians started to lose. Small skirmishes at first, of no real consequence, but each loss, each near miss took a little bit of their faith away, unspooled a thread of soul, so that when the real battles came, the ones that would decide it all, they no longer believed and you could taste their doubt in the air, like fetid rain on the wind, and the only deal we were interested in was hawking their possessions after total and utter surrender.

Anything is possible, and it always has been. For the world was once just a dream in a god's eye, and the man who gives up on himself makes that very same god look away.

My daughter,' says one tearfully. 'I hope she's okay. I'm so worried about her.' 'Liven up!' I don't know why, but him saying 'I hope' just pissed me off. 'Of course she's fucking okay. She's great. Your daughter's a stunner, and all the lads are smitten. She's just waiting for you to come back so she can pick one.' 'She's nine.' 'Going on twenty.

Am I losing faith too easily? Aren't there a load of things that have happened to me this last while that would've seemed nuts?...Anything is possible, and it always has been. For the world was once just a dream in a god's eye, and the man who gives up on himself makes that very same god look away.

but to marry the moon and be served by stars.