Now Eëtíon began to etch the hair in fine-drawn lines in the old fashion and bind it down with a fillet. Nikander saw at once that this figure was the result of long and intense imagining of the mind. Eëtíon could not otherwise have modelled with such swiftness. The skill, too, was no idle skill, it was the result of long hours of training and toil.
At length it satisfied its creator. Eëtíon breathed deep, looked up and saw all the company gazing at him, and laughed a quick, embarrassed laugh.
“Eëtíon!” spoke Nikander, amazed. “Surely you are not a sculptor!”
Eëtíon hung his head. “I sometimes think I am,” he confessed.
“But your father Euclides was a high-born citizen. He surely would not give you over to the sculptor’s trade.”
“No,” answered Eëtíon. Then on the defensive, “But after all, Nikander, is there any nobler way of honouring the gods than by beautiful sculpture? What would Delphi be without its statues and its songs?”
“Oh, but Eëtíon, this is hand craft. See, your hands are soiled even now. Song is the work of the mind alone.”
“But you use the hand to play the lyre,” said Eëtíon, quickly hiding his dirty hands in his himation.
“Apollo presides over song,” retorted Nikander. “No such god fosters sculptor work.”
“There is Hephæstos.”