“I won’t marry Theras! I won’t! I won’t!” she raged.
At the end of the interview Nikander brought out a small whip which was used for child slaves. With this he whipped his daughter. Greek fathers had this right even with grown sons, but Nikander had never used it.
At last, when she stood tall and tearless and he stood trembling in spite of effort to keep steady, he said:
“Daughter, this is not for your present act alone. It is for your year-long disobedience. I believe now that you will obey.”
She stood like a straight reed, so still, so horror struck. And in that stillness her father left her.
An hour later Theria was roused from her apathy by the sound of beautiful music.
It was in the street, and she curiously stole forward to her father’s room to look out of the little window there. She was in time to see Dryas borne along the way on the shoulders of his friends.
The full moon of the festival made the street as bright as day and the torches of the procession twinkled like jewels in the white light. Pindar walked in the procession chanting a strophe in Dryas’s honour. A chorus of youths followed singing the antistrophe, and behind these a boy played the cymbals upon which the glitter of sound met the lovely glitter of the moonlight.
Leaning out of the window, Theria suddenly exulted. “It is my song Pindar is praising. All those words are for me and it is Pindar, Pindar!”