THE SCENE: Being the most powerful person in the land doesn’t insulate you from criticism, as is demonstrated by this passage about an emperor who vastly overestimated his singing skill.
THE TEXT: He was very proud of his voice and aspired to be something of a musician, but his natural gifts were not commensurate with this aspiration. He could not keep time and he had little talent for singing in tune either. Nevertheless, he was accustomed to lead the worship in the psalm-singing, and especially so when the canons of the feast were being sung on the day of Christ’s nativity. He would intone the odes with his strident but untrained voice and when he intoned the verse of the seventh ode [for Christmas] which begins: “For love of the Sovereign supreme they poured contempt…” he opened himself up to be laughed to scorn by those who heard him.
– John Skylitzes, Synopsis of Histories, 11th Century AD
