Lament for the Tyrant

                                             Lament for the Tyrant









“Listen to my story”

“For it a story of a courageous and authoritarian King, much like yourself.” The blind musician began as he pulled the lyre over his shoulder and rested it against his breast.

This man sat within a gilded room of excess. Pillars of white marble trimmed with pressed gold line the room, though no shadows are cast for torches shone in every place a shadow could creep. Dazzling resplendent illustrations of great wars were stippled upon the effulgent illuminated chamber.  The room was of the purest marble that had been brought by ships from the lands of the Pharaohs.  In the center of the chamber was a shallow pool whose surface was as lustrous as a mirror.

Upon the raised dais sat a single cathedra, for no other person warranted the honor to sit next to him. He also feared death, this king, in whose chamber this blind beggar sat.

The sovereign who had been told that by the oracle of Delphi, while siting within the darkness circular room, that the son of a fallen king would murder him.

For the last ten years this king had been engaged in combat against his neighbors and had now grown opulent from levy. He had to have his palace augmented, where rooms upon rooms, chambers upon chambers where added, making it a labyrinth of quarters and colonnades. 

But this man, this potentate has had made many adversaries in the last decade. For within this time he has walked by the side of Aries, God of war, along with Strife and Panic, giving the fallen to Aries to coat his bed with their skins.

Engagement after Engagement he had triumphed all trembled in his penumbra.

Now, no longer did he war, ever since he had called upon the Oracle, he has fled and secured himself within the walls of his alcazar and kept his battalions always close at hand, in case of assassins.

A promise was forgotten in his fear.

A promise of that kind is never forgotten by the Gods.

A mortal’s vow will be repaid, within one shape or another.

For the Gods never forget nor forgive.

“This Potentate, whose name does not matter any longer, but his actions shall be commemorated always etched into the rock of the mountains. For this king had never been routed in combat.” The musician strummed his lyre as his milky eyes looked everywhere and nowhere, “He was a son of Zeus, the bolt thrower. Upon his arm was a birthmark of the sacred lightening bolt.”

The king smiled as he listened to the tale. The notes of the lyre chased themselves around the room.

“A king can be of no other heritage but that of Zeus!” Cried the autocrat in his excitement tilting passionately towards the blind man at the foundation of the dais.

“Indeed, my king.” Began the musician, “This king was smiled upon by the Gods, though secretly even they feared him. For his potency was paramount, his battle cry could agitate the heavens and when his infantry marched it caused earthquakes in their course.”

The overlord’s eyes light up brightly as the tale emerged. The soft euphony of the lyre was filling the room with soft ardor.



For nearly a week the potentate had called forth from across the lands for musicians to come and emulate for him. His fear of assignation had kept him from the melodies he once enjoyed nightly.

Every minstrel he had turned away, for in his mind’s eye he saw daggers and blades hidden upon them. That was till the day the blind minstrel appeared upon the portals of his city.  Once he saw that the man was sightless, he invited him in to play for him.

The fellow refused all offers of comestibles to him, and simply told the sovereign that he was satisfied to simply ply his art upon the most terrible and great monarch himself.



This king had without warning wanted to hear the song of the lyre. For just over a week ago, while he walked amongst his horde of gold, the memories of the lyre tugged at the strings of his heart. It soon became such an obsession, that he had sent out runners to spread word of his request for a musician.

What the king did not know was that in anger of the sudden stop of warring had brought the wrath of Aries. 

“The earth drank greedily from the blood spilled by the mighty armies of the Cretan King! And what a king, a king of kings, was this man blessed above all by the gods! Even the Sun God, Apollo, weeps his name as he sits upon the dome of the world playing his lyre.”

Softly the minstrel fingered the strings to his lyre. The notes drifted upon the air mingling together, forming a song, that obligingly like a lover’s touch toys with the strings of the heart. Each note vibrant yet is insignificant without neither the next note nor the one before it.

“O’ King, mighty and brave, a man of tremendous potency and bearing. Allow us to call out your name in the night as we sleep beneath the palm of your terrible hand.”

The potentate closed his eyes, as the music plaits it consonance around him, like a comforting cloak upon a winter’s day, whose breath murmur quietly your eminence.

A single tear ran down the minstrel’s milky eyes as they looked into the shadows of the gilded throne room. His slender fingers tread slowly over the strings oblivious to what the rest of his body was executing.

“From the chaos and wildness of uncertainty, the King brought to these people law and order that only he could have established.  For his mind was shrewd and wise.”

His voice esplanade with the notes, two separate sounds that conformed uniquely, a bondage that could not be described without weeping.

The Monarch leaned back against his chair, folding his legs together as he listened to the song and enthralled him, wholly. A pleasure he had almost forgotten during all his campaigns of war.

“Tell me, minstrel, what is your name?” The Potentate inquired airily, arching his brow but not opening his eyes.

The aria stopped, though the chamber stilled resonated with the reminiscence of it.

“My lord, I have no name.  For I have neither land nor a king. My personage was stolen from me and so I now wonder and croon to whomever wishes my descants. They are all that I have left to me.”

The minstrel’s blind eyes vacillate from side to side as his head pitch slightly.

“A pity, but I must admit, a mishap that has served my purposes.” Chortled the potentate, a cheerless smirk upon his cruel lips.

“If I may be so bold” The minstrel began, “May I have a savor of your wine before I commence once more”

The king apathetic by the delay waved absently.

“Yes, yes but be expeditious and endeavor once more for the echoes are fading from this chamber of your song.”

The blind man reached forward his fingertips caressing the ledger searching for the chalice. He found it, and with shaking hands lifted the golden goblet to his lips and drank profoundly of the red fluids stifled within its chamber. He replaced the chalice and brought his lyre to his shoulder as his fingers linger just above the strings.

“And so, the gold of the kingdoms he had subjugated, made its way to him. For this had become a sea, if you will, of gold unlike ever seen before. He stood upon his walls and looked out as train after train of gold came to him. Like the center of a great chariot wheel, he stood. For all things came to him.”

The king leaned forward and took his glass and drank deeply of the red wine, smiling to himself as the song once more. His black pleated hair swayed around his shoulders as he leaned back into the chair. His hand absently fell to the side and began to finger the golden coins that were spilled around his chair.

The faintest of flickers teased at the corner of the minstrel’s lips.

The Potentate licked his lips of the extra wine.

“His wealth became so vast that everyday he had to build upon his palace to try and stem the flow of gold. The veins of wealth that ran the landscape upon the backs of mules and men blazed corollary the daystar, vying for the glory of Apollo.”

The music elated the ears of the king that languish in the presence of the musician before him. The man himself was all but forgotten, though his music clutched him taunt like he holds the youthful concubines of had bought.

“But the fates are blind to all things even joy.”

The king faintly opened his left eye, the verdant pupils, peering out beneath his lashes as the sudden fork of the song. Absently he brushed the back of his hand across his perspiring forehead.

“For he had relinquished his war and dwelled in decadence that could only be bought with such fortune that even the Gods would blush.” The lyre strings twilled sharply, “For a promise was forgotten by one but not the other.”

Once more the monarch wiped his forehead as his head began to swim lightly. He looked over at the torches that lined the chamber as he reached over and took the goblet in his hands and drank deeply. For abruptly it seemed his thirst could not be quenched.

“In distant lands, a prophecy began to unwound as the havoc was unearthed and vengeance was vowed.”

The minstrel’s voice sang softly, like velvet, as it filled the room. The notes of the lyre washed up against the potentate like the perpetual crescendo of ebb tide from the Aegean herself. His eyes swam from side to side as he tried to focus them on anything. He felt as if he was drowning and raised his arms, in what looked like a drunken dance.

“From across the sea came the cure to this pustule upon these lands. Though he has no lance nor sword, he will charge into combat strenuously and with the courage of the lions.”

The king began to sway, and vaulted with each word that was sung. It was as if each utterance was a strike upon his countenance. He raised his arms before his face as he came to his feet. His robes clung to him, for he was now sweating profusely along all of his battle scared person.

“As this song, this dirge, comes to an completion heed well, for your doom has been sealed upon the violation of your covenant! O’ mighty king of prevaricators, O’ sovereign of Tyrants, hear my words and asphyxiate them down.” The minstrel rose to his feet with an impetuous that belied his years. 

The words smashed over and again against the tyrant. His body jerked as if being assaulted by these inconsequential words. He bewailed out, but his own words came out unintelligible.

“Now know the sincerity.” The minstrel began as he stepped impudently towards the shrieking Tyrant who was backing up, swaying from annex to annex.

Thumping upon the great twin posterns behind the minstrel began, as the Kings guardians perceived the screams. They found the door sealed and could not be budged.

“Recollect your concordat with Aries!” The old blind musician screamed, with lungs that belied youth in them.

The tyrant gaped at the man before him as he shivered with burning pyrexia that coursed through his arteries. To his abhorrence the façade of the minstrel began waver, like a still natatorium when a fingertips violates the serenity of the stillness.

“Aries! Why have you relinquished me!” The King cried, for a blinding moment he had perfect equilibrium.

Before him stood not an old beggar of a musician, but a proud, strong youth. His back was not curved but straight as a rail.

He knows who this man was.

This was King Lamoden’s youngest son.

It had been a small kingdom outside of Athens, but it was no more. For they had refused to grovel before him and in his wrath he had incinerated the entirety of the city to the earth. From the walls he and his warriors had hurled the infants to the ground. All the men they had annihilated even the women he didn’t omitted from the sword. King Lamoden and his elder two sons he had personally strangled with his bare hands.

Fear gripped him as he shivered frantically. The vociferation of the prognosticator came to him telling him of his ruin. In a fevered frenzy he wrenched his sword that hung on his hip and plunged it forth.

  “Do not quail, for Aries has not abandoned you!” The youth began.

His words died upon his lips as the hideous sounds of twangs erupted. The youth looked downward and merely looked serenely at the expanse of bronze that had cut through the cat gut strings of his lyre and had embedded itself within his breast. His dirty white garments began to turn a deep sanguineous shade as his vital fluids fled out of the laceration. He could feel the warm liquid run down the smooth flesh of his abdomen.

He looked up slowly and stared at the Tyrant that stood before him. His eyes burning with jubilation though paled to the fever that was radiating from his flesh. He closed his eyes and let the lyre pitch from his grasp. It made a far away thud as if it were in another room.

“I have broken the prophecy!” The Tyrant cried joyfully and twisted the sword inside the other man; “The Gods have not forsaken me!”

He swayed dangerously from side to side but he took no notice.

The youth began to laugh, his voice raising louder and louder as he threw his head back and roared with laughter. As he did so rivulets of blood ran down his chin from his lips.     

The Tyrant stopped laughing himself and looked at the man, utterly bewildered by his own laughter.

“Why do you laugh? Your family is dead, your kingdom is gone, but you will never join them for I will not give you the coins to take passage across the river Styx. Your shade will wonder blindly for an eternity!”

This caused the man to laugh harder. A spasm of pain shook through him and he fell to his knees, the sword still in his chest. He looked up; his strong chiseled visage became serene once more.

“My potentate, I will not be leaving the upper world alone this day! For you see, I was away training with the centaur Chiron, for Athena had granted my mother this, and secretly I had gone. Upon my return I found my beloved home and kindred gone, all destroyed by you. To the Gods I cried for vengeance!” He smiled up to the Tyrant.

“Did Athena come to your aid?” The Tyrant asked, as his eyes shuddered.

“No she did not, for it was another who acknowledged my solicitation.” He smiled a crooked grin, “For the God who came, was delivered by your hand!”

The Tyrant stood stock still as his eyes began to grow wide in horror.

“Aries came to me, and told that it was you who had done this to my lands. That it was you who killed my kindred and my family.” He laughed in his agony of the memories; “He told me that you had broken the pact you had made with him. That if I wanted my vengeance he would give it to me. Without vacillation I told him yes.”

The Tyrant let go of the sword and began to shake his head backing up.

“Oh yes, he told me to come to Crete without weapons of any kind, except for this lyre. Then he gave me a vial, a vial that Hera mother of the Gods gave to him. He told me that while I traveled here to take a fingertip amount every day till I got here. This I did and everyday till I got here I suffered the poison. Till today. This day Aries appeared and transformed me to the appearance you know. He told me then to put all of the poison upon my lips and not to eat anything but to drink from your cup. This I did.”

“No! No!” Screamed the Tyrant as his knees gave out and into a large pile of coins he fell, still shaking his head.

“You broke your pact by stopping your wars to lavish in your wealth, did you think you can mistreat the Gods and not have retribution!” He coughed, a thick mist of blood sprayed out, “But I chortle because you will die, and this alcazar will be your sepulcher!”

“You will die as well!” Screamed the Tyrant as he began shudder violently, a white foam beginning to form upon his lips.

“I died the day I returned home, but with my death comes the vengeance of my people for the brutality they had suffered at your hands! So I do not fear death, but instead I hold my arms out to Hades and cry to him that I have given my life for the peace of my loved ones.” Tears streamed down his face though he did not cry in fear or shame but in love.

It was an act of utter love that could never be bought or sold with the shiniest of coins. And so he cries as he drags himself to the Tyrant.

The Tyrant has begun to shudder and flop as white foam spews from his mouth. His eyes roll utterly out of restraint as blood begins to flow from the corners of his eyes and from his nostrils. Frantically his hand tried to clasp the coins that lay around him like a sea of gold, but his fingers can’t grip them. Again and again he tries till he at last caught a hold of two and begun to convoy them to his face.

They without warning relinquished as the youth grabbed a hold of his arms and pushed them back down. Fear rippled through the Tyrant as he struggles to place the coins upon his eyes but he can’t compete against the strength of the youth.

He looks up and behind the youth stand his God, Aries. A look of erroneous delight grips his face as his eyes glared down into the Tyrants. His lips curl back into a dark smile. Then in susurration a voice that only the Tyrant can hear says.

“You are doomed, you shall spend eternity wondering the underworld deaf, dumb and blind and all the dead shall know your punishment. You will never find peace, you shall never find silence and you will never cross the River Styx.”

The world became utterly gloomy before the Tyrants eyes. But it was not silent, for in his ears he could hear the screams of those who fell to his sword screaming, over and over.

The youth looked down upon the lifeless corpse beneath him and let go of it, and then sighed deeply as he rolled over, lying next to it. He felt no anguish but knew that his demise was drawing near for him and beamed.

“Mother, Father, I have kept my pledge and now I shall come and unite with you once more. Welcome me with open arms.”

He reached into a pouch and took out two coins and carefully placed them over his eyes. A single tear ran from beneath them.

Then he was no more.



The doors to the throne room ruptured open and the Tyrants warriors flooded into the room. They where locked in their tracks as they stared in both abhorrence and stupefaction at the two men that laid upon piles gold coins. The old man was nowhere but a stalwart youth lay next to their patrician with his sword protruding from his breast.

The Tyrant showed no signs of a cause of death, but his frame was twisted in grimace.

The men gaped down in bewilderment.