The Seven Wonders

Начало книги

“Now that you’re dead, Antipater, what do you plan to do with yourself?”

My father laughed at his own joke. He knew perfectly well what Antipater was planning to do, but he couldn’t resist a paradoxical turn of phrase. Puzzles were my father’s passion-and solving them his profession. He called himself Finder, because men hired him to find the truth.

Not surprisingly, old Antipater answered with a poem made up on the spot; for yes, the Antipater of whom I speak was the Antipater of Sidon-one of the most celebrated poets in the world, famed not only for the elegance of his verses but for the almost magical way he could produce them impromptu, as if drawn from the aether. His poem was in Greek, of course:

“I died on my birthday, so I must leave Rome.

Now your son has his birthday-is it time to leave home?”

Antipater’s question, like my father’s, was merely rhetorical. For days the old poet and I had been making preparations to leave Rome together on this day. He gave me a smile. “It does seem unfair, my boy, that your birthday should be overshadowed by my funeral.”

Читать дальше →