This told him why the living features he retained in his memory were not to be found in the statues of the gods and heroes he saw all round him and which he was being taught to make. Even the most skilled sculptors of Oeniadae (Oeniadae — Pandion’s birthplace, at the south-western tip of Northern Greece. The story belongs to the early period in Greek history, before the classical era.) could not mould a convincing image of the living human body.

The youth felt instinctively that certain features expressing joy, will power, wrath or tenderness were crudely exaggerated, and to give this artificial prominence to certain forcefully expressed features the artist had sacrificed all else. But he must learn to depict life! Only then would he become the greatest sculptor in his country and people would acclaim him and admire the things he would create. His would be the first works of art to perpetuate the beauty of life in bronze or stone!

The youth had been carried far away into the land of dreams when he was aroused by a bigger wave crashing against the rock. A few drops of water fell on the youth’s face. He shivered, opened his eyes and smiled, embarrassed, in the darkness. Oh, Gods! That dream was probably still far away in the future… In the meantime his teacher Agenor was constantly upbraiding him for his clumsy work and for some reason or another the teacher was always right… And there was his grandfather… Grandad showed little interest in Pandion’s progress as an artist, he was training his grandson with a view to making him a famous wrestler. As though an artist needed strength! Still, it was a good thing grandad had trained him like that, had made him more than ordinarily strong and hardy; Pandion liked to show his strength and prowess at the evening contests in the village, when Thessa, his teacher’s daughter, was present, and to note the gleam of approbation in the girl’s eyes.