“Yes: about half a million—for me,” he said majestically. “All Athens. And yet I seek a model at the sale of the Olythians. You shall hear why, and you will comprehend.”
Here he drew himself up proudly—
“I shall make a Prometheus.”
In saying this his face expressed the horror that the subject of Prometheus would have.
“There is a Prometheus (of some sort or the other) under every portico, as you know. Timagoras made and sold one; Apollodorus has attempted another. Zeuxis has believed that he has the power to ... but why bring back to our memory so much piteous painting. The Prometheus has never yet been given to the world.”
“That I fully believe,” I replied to the Master.
“They have represented peasants naked and attached to rocks made of wood. Their faces were distorted by a grimace of some sort, a mere face-ache. But, Prometheus the forger of fire, and creator of the man and his struggle with the eagle-god.... Ah! No one has yet created that, Bryaxis. Such a Prometheus, one of the greatest grandeur, I see as plainly before me, created by my brain, as I see your face. That is the type of Prometheus that I wish to nail to the walls of the Parthenon.”
Saying that he quitted the support of his girl companion, took his wand of wood and gold, and traced great waves of outline in the air.
“For two months I have worked upon my great scheme. I have found splendid rocks in the domain of Crates, at the Promontory of Astypolus. All these studies were finished, the foundation of my picture ready, the line of the figure in its place. All at once I find my way barred before me. I fail to find a head. If it was merely a question of a Hêrmes, an Apollo or Pan, all the citizens of Athens would be proud to pose before me. But to take for model a man whose face is shining with genius and to tie, or bind, him by the ankles, the hands, no, you can see that is not possible. One cannot dislocate his limbs like the limbs of a slave. We lack slaves who have the heads of freeborn Greeks. Ah, well, Philip brings us some like that, and I come to buy where Philip comes to sell.”