Hebe watched to make sure that Derrick took the phial of youth-wine to Dionysus -- aka Dony -- who was filling in for their sister Hestia at the grill. Hestia, being the goddess of hospitality and the hearth, preferred to stay indoors and greet the guests. She'd always had a bit of agoraphobia. She was also unusual for her family in being uninterested in sex -- not despising it, like Artemis claimed to, but simply not interested. She was so loving and welcoming in every other way that nobody in the family would ever consider letting anyone hurt her. Of course, inside, near her hearth, she could ensure that for herself, if she had to. Her power was immense in her own domain.
Outside, Derrick half-cantered over to the chef, and bent over to whisper something to him, handing the phial to the handsome cook who was barely wearing his apron. The chef nodded, and told Derrick to wait. After a few minutes he had a frying pan filled with mushrooms of various kinds, with sliced hot peppers and hot onions but no garlic. He threw in a bit of crushed rosemary and sea salt and a tiny bit of shrimp and then some new wine, and a small blob of some sort of butter, then when it was mostly dry he poured the mushrooms into a bowl and splashed the contents of the phial onto them.
"Now this is for your father and only your father. Your mother will be going inside soon to get her spa treatment, and when she does, you guys go watch the play, but make sure he finishes these before he gets up."
Derrick nodded. He took a huge bowl of salad for himself, letting Minnie the wild-woman throw things into it for flavor, and returned to the table. His father had been served a small steak, his mother a light salad and some chicken, his sister had finished a hamburger. The satyr waiter (say that four times fast) was bringing a bowl of shave-ice-milk with fruit syrup for Julie, while Sophia was finishing her salad. Derrick gave the mushrooms to his father, and settled into place next to him, kneeling the way horses do.
"No sharing. Those are just for you," he said when John offered him a taste. Not that it mattered to any of the others; his Mom hated mushrooms with wine sauce, and Julie was almost instantly enjoying a mild ice-milk headache. The salad he'd gotten for himself was really good, though he wasn't sure if he was supposed to be a total vegetarian. Horses didn't eat meat, or did they? He'd heard something about them being happy eating insects and small mice and things if they had the chance -- more protein -- but he wasn't sure he was entirely like a horse. He drummed lightly on his abdomen and swallowed, and felt the salad pause for a moment partway down before it was pushed further in, and he felt it settle down in his quadruped parts. Still. He decided to ask if anyone knew what his diet should be. There were bits of what he was sure were meat in his salad but not as much as he expected, and a bunch of boiled eggs, and some fried grain things, and Minnie gave him a fruit smoothie that tasted like oats.
John finished the bowl of mushrooms and burped, then giggled, and looked extremely embarrassed. Sophie glared at him, but relented and laughed.
"You haven't done that since our first date," she said. "You're always so stuck-up. I'm glad you're relaxing."
One of the nymph waiters leaned over and whispered to her, "your spa reservation is ready."
She stood up, and kissed John on his head, and then Julie and Derrick on their foreheads, and went inside, limping just a bit at the step as her knee tried to lock up. Derrick hoped they could fix that. He still felt amazing, himself. Even as a younger and smaller centaur, he was
"Let's go watch the play," Derrick suggested, and Julie crawled onto his back, and his father hiccuped and followed them, holding on to Julie's hand. They were led by a parade of satyrs and nymphs to a large amphitheater cut into the ground -- apparently they'd seen it before on the tour, but Derrick didn't remember it being where it was and he felt sure he'd gone that way before when going to the gymnasion. He shrugged -- this really was Mount Olympus, after all -- and he and his father and his passenger were taken to the front seating section, which one of the nymphs said was for special important guests. They were put down to the right side of a fancy gold chair in middle center front row. Most of the regular guests were further back, but they had a slightly better view. There was a circular seating area below and in front of the stage with an orchestra of satyrs and nymphs and a few leaf-covered women that must be dryads, and a minotaur on drums. Just in front of the orchestra, instead of a conductor, there was a raised, flat stone slab with slightly elevated side rails, covered in grapes, and set in the middle, a brazier exactly like the one that Dyon was cooking meat on earlier. There was some kind of bird roasting on it with herbs, and the roasting-with-herbs smell was amazing even though everyone had eaten.
The stage was a two-story building, with a wide roof over the lower, deeper part, that was level with the first row of seats. There were three "arched doors" a bit back from there which went into the remaining shallow part of the building, and a sort of 'crane' behind the building. There was a handout that explained that the arched doors were the Skene, the stuff behind them (hidden by stretched cloths or quick movable panels) was the episkene, and the roof was the proksene, which was the equivalent of the modern stage. The "parados" was the walkway between the edges of the seating area and the orchestra, and that was where the chorus would come in. And they did: there was a musical intro, with drums and flutes and some sort of a roaring-bagpipe.
The play was weird. First, the six satyrs who were the "chorus" came out up front on the lower level, and all at the same time, announced that the play tonight was a comedy, which meant that it would be making fun of the gods and of men, especially Dionysus, in whose honor all plays were given, and that they would be especially making fun of him. There would be four plays, three of them tragedies, which means that someone died and the protagonist didn't win; they were doing the comedy first because the tragedies weren't sad enough and needed the contrast to make them seem tragic. Also, one lucky audience member would get to portray either the antagonist or protagonist of the play every night. And like all great Greek plays, this one would have only a few players, other than the chorus, which (the satyrs said) would be a spectacular and handsome group of wonderfully sexy satyrs who would be happy to show off for their audience for just a few drachma. Coins only please, the paper stuff was no good for bribing hydras.
Dyon was dragged up to sit in front in the gold chair, and he started heckling the satyrs for being too sober. They threatened to get out the old vegetables and one of the nymphs brought him a cup of wine so he stopped heckling. The play was "Hercules Versus The Nemean Lion" (said the satyrs) and it was a comedy because Hercules, the hero, wins in the end. The play would be performed with masks, and props, and to save the audience's delicate sensibilities, the lion's death would be shown behind a shadow-screen behind the episkene, and with that, the play was begun! We find ourselves in Nemea, and Hercules is staying with a priest of Hera. No, Zeus. No, Hera. (His wife would say Hera. He would say Zeus.)
At this point the nymphs carried off John with them, giggling and whispering. Derrick didn't have time to ask what was happening because Dyon was flirting with Julia, and he wasn't sure that was a good thing. Hercules was played by someone who was easily big enough to be Hercules, but he was wearing a large, carved mask that looked just a little goofy in the big-eyed, heroic sort of way. The priest of Zeus wore a mask with a comically large Adam's apple, a very bald head, and big ears. The wife was played by a man who had very hairy arms and legs, a pair of comically large false breasts, and a purse-lipped female mask with unnaturally yellow hair, very long carved eyelashes, and a few highly marked age lines. Her smile was more of a grimace of sharp carved teeth and bright red lips. She also had a bald spot.
There was a lot of "Priest of Hera/Priest of Zeus" while Hercules was being given food that he wasn't ever allowed to eat as it was taken away by the wife or a stage-hand dressed with a "blank-face" mask. Eventually, Hercules left for the hunt. The Lion was introduced; Derrick and Julie recognized immediately that the nymphs had stuck John in a rather well-fitted plush, or maybe fur, lion suit with a comical yet realistic "lion mask" that had an open, roaring mouth. John the Lion was shoved out onto stage, with a stagehand reading his lines for him and prompting him, which was played for comedy. Derrick and Julia wished that their Mom could see this, because it was pretty good.
"We'll manage that, kids," Dyon said to them in a stage whisper. "Don't you worry."
On the stage, the stagehand was saying, "Your next line is, 'leave my territory, human! I am here as Hera's scourge.'" and John was giving his line. "ROAR. Roar roar growl ROAR."
"Perfect," the stagehand said.
"I don't speak Lion," 'Hercules' said.
"Roar."
"Ah, well, I don't speak Nemean either."
Hercules then shot at the lion with a nerf bow and arrows. They bounced off.
The chorus announced, "As you all know, the Nemean Lion has such great strength and a skin so durable that no arrow or spear can penetrate, no thrown sling stone nor even boulder can harm him."
A rain of foam pool noodles arced out and bounced off the lion, while the stagehand hid behind him. The lion was hamming it up, doing the "Superman Bouncing Bullets Off His Chest" pose.
Then a bunch of foam rocks bounced off, followed by a big foam boulder, that the lion caught and sat down on, miming filing his nails.
"Hercules retreated to take counsel with the old priest," the chorus said, and Hercules went back through the stage-left arch while the lion went back through the stage-right arch with his boulder.
"And now a word from our author," the Chorus said, and started talking about how handsome and sexy the author of the play was, and how his satire was better than any other author, and how he should be running the resort, except that he didn't have time because he was too busy despoiling virgins and making the most awesome wine in the universe, and by the way, even Dionysus had to admit how good the author was.
Derrick looked up at Dyon. "Who's the author?"
"Me, of course."
"But aren't you ... "
"Shh. Don't spoil it for the other guests."
On the proskenium, Priest declared that his wife will not come into his basement because it is Man Space, and she yelled from the skene (behind a folding panel) that she comes down there every day to clean up the bones from his barbecue that he keeps leaving on the floor.
Hercules explained that he has to kill the lion or he won't be able to get Hera off his case, and the Priest asked him why he's having trouble. All he has to do is get the lion's confidence. Take over some of the priest's awesome barbecue stag, and some young wine, and the lion will be as easy to take down as a mercenary's kilt. (Apparently, Greek playwrights think poorly of mercenaries, as opposed to citizen-soldiers. Also, short kilts were worn by brave men, long kilts by cowards.)
Hercules takes a ridiculous number of wineskins (hanging all over him) and a prop-haunch of animal that looks worthy of the Flintstones opening, and makes a camp (on the other side of the proscenium, while Priest's man-cave is being cleared away.
"The lion, like the Priest, has retreated to his Lion-cave," the chorus said, "because Hercules, while fun to play with, seemed a bit too serious about the whole 'kill you and take back your corpse to show my cousin' thing. The lion could understand showing off, but for a cousin? Ridiculous."
Hercules stood outside the lion's den at his fire, wafting the smell of meat inside with a cloth. The lion roared laughing at him.
"He can't be lured out. I'll have to drive him out. This cave has two ends. If I chase him through from one end he'll get out the other. But I need to get him drunk so I can beat him in the fight. GOT IT!"
Hercules strolled to the other end of the proscenium, where the far arch has been labeled "Lion Cave," and he mimed eating something.
"Beans have amazing powers," Hercules said. "They can satisfy hunger and drive away your unwanted guests. I, fortunately, ate beans regularly as a young man, as my mother could not afford to feed me and my brother at the same time."
He went into the cave (through the arch and into the skena) and pulled a grey curtain over the opening.
"That boulder will stop the sons of Boreas from cleaning the air, but the winds will surely still blow."
The orchestra created a series of farting noises with drum, horn, and bowed-string instruments.
The lion coughed. He staggered out into Hercules' "camp" with the fire made of red paper and the strange looking meat thing. He took a boulder and stuck it in front of the cave, and started miming eating the rack of whatever it was. Dinosaur?
The chorus spoke: "Hercules was overcome by the foul odor of his own flatulence, and the lion ate his dinner, but then discovered the sad truth: the meat was so salted that he began to be parched."
The lion mask tongue lolled out.
"His cave had a spring of fresh-water, and he finally had to unseal the opening."
The lion moved the boulder, and Hercules staggered out. "Man it's funky in there, don't go in there."
The lion roared, "Roarhhh cough cough" and Hercules said "Ah, my friend, I have here the sovereign cure for too much spice and salt ... " and he pulled one of the wine skins from his side, and handed it to the lion, who poured it right into his mouth.
Julia nudged Derrick. "He's really drinking it."
"Maybe it's not ..."
Dyon leaned over and said quietly, "I don't permit fake wine to be used in my plays."
The lion belch-roared, and Hercules offered him another, but he gestured a 'you first' so Hercules drained a wineskin, then they both drained a wineskin, then they both drained another, and Hercules began drunk-talking.
"Ya know buddy, you're not so bad for a lion."
"Roarr?"
"Lissen, I still gotta deliver the goods t' my cousin, but what if I jus' make you pass out an' you pretend to be dead."
"Ruh-uh. Rope. Roar."
"Aw comeon. Hey, how about a contest. We see which of us can choke the other one. You win, then you carry me back to my cousin, I win, I carry you?"
"Roar!"
"Great, le's find a more comfortable place."
The lion and Hercules went into the cave, "ROAR!" "UGH IS THIS BOETIA? WHO CUT THAT CHEESE" and then there was a sound of someone running up, down and around and the "boulder" at the other "lion cave" entrance was pushed aside, by the lion, whose head poked out briefly before being pulled back in by a Herculean hand. A few sound-effects from the orchestra later, and the central arch into the episkene lit up from behind showing Hercules and the lion trying a strangle first, then a lip-lock, then something involving what are apparently clubs being put in masks. The lion lost dramatically and Hercules came out of the cave drunkenly, said "Victory!" and with the lion draped over his shoulder, tail waving jauntily, he marched to the other side of the stage, now labeled "To Erestheus King of Mycenae" and disappeared into the skene again.
The chorus spoke up one last time. "We have concluded, it's true, that while Hercules choked the lion, it was Dionysus who defeated him in the first place!"
The orchestra struck up more music and there was dancing on the stage and among the audience, as nymphs and satyrs joined with various groups to encourage the dances.
Four strong-looking satyrs came up along the parados on the right side, hauling between the four of them a massive fellow who seemed to be at least part lion and part Hercules. They presented him to Dyon, who bent over and whispered to him. He giggled, and Derrick and Julie recognized that particular laugh, though it was lower-pitched and had something of a growl to it.
"Wait, is that Dad?" Julie whispered.
"We'll send you off to celebrate the rites of Hera with your lovely wife now, John," Dyon said, and the satyrs hefted him up onto their shoulders with a "hup! hup! hup! hup!" and quick-marched off up the stairs and out of the auditorium.
"You two ... I think you have an appointment with my semi-nephews, no?"
"I think we do," Derrick said. "That was a great play."
"It's better with a good audience and good actors," Dyon said. "Now off with you."
Derrick grinned and trotted off with Julia on his back, heading down the parados toward where the gymnasion had to be.