Penelope's Secret

by Nicolas Ségur

  The words of the poet were so vivid and so vibrant, his tone recreated the extinct life so intensely, that the hero was frightened at times, thinking that he was penetrating recklessly into the luminous abode of the Immortals.

  Finally, one day, the ship of the pilot Mentes appeared in the harbor and the poet got ready to depart.

  Ulysses made him a present of a golden cup that the king of the Phaeacians had given him, as well as a heavy bronze tripod.

  Then, on the eve of the departure, while Helios was inclining his chariot toward the west, he took him to the lair of the Nymphs, wanting to enjoy his words again.

  “I will sing you, since it is the last time we shall see one another, a long rhapsody that I have just composed, on your return,” the poet said to him.

  And he sang the anger of Neptune, the tempest, and then the isle of the Phaeacians, and Nausicaa, more beautiful than Diana, and the arrival in Ithaca. It was all of his youth, and the grandeur of his exploits, and his sensualities, and his dolor, that loomed up before Ulysses, eternalized by the Word and as imposing as Mount Ithacos, which protected his isle. The hero saw himself, reliving an existence even more beautiful, and his heart filled with pride and joy, so great did those past things seem that had worn him away in passing, all transfigured by genius.

  He had already wept when the poet had related the death of Alpenor falling from Circe’s roof, and he had shivered when the redoubtable shades of the Black Dwellings passed before him again, and then had laughed at his own ruse against the Cyclops. Now that the poet was singing the joy of old Laertes seeing his son again, he could not retain himself.

  Caressing the stranger’s chin with his hand and kissing him on the cheek he stammered: “Where have you learned these things, divine aede?” For he could not believe that he had recounted them himself.

  “Now,” said the poet, “I am returning to my homeland, near devastated Troy and the shores that you knew. A great fatherland in dissolving in those countries, multiple races are uniting there, an entire people is awakening that seems to have inherited the merits and the cunning of the Achaeans. It is the youth of a new world. All of them are as avid to know as you, and in their hearts the appetite for great deeds is triumphant. I shall spread there the admirable things that you have told me. Children will retain them, and young men and old. Thus, perpetuated by song, they will live in centuries to come.

  And then, in the mind of Ulysses, the mysterious words surged forth of the promise that Minerva of the blue had once made to him in that same place. Then he sensed his heart becoming sated with tranquility, and a strange calm invading him, as if his end were approaching. And he knew that, although about to die, he was nevertheless savoring nectar, and that the stranger was founding his immortality with sonorous words.

  “What you say is true, O poet,” he exclaimed. “Your words will remain, and through them I shall live incessantly in human memory, for such is the will of the powerful goddess, daughter of Ceraunian Jupiter.

  In a single instant, it was as if he were penetrated by the grandeur of the Art that the Centaur had revealed to him for the first time near Pan’s lair.

  Depicting the aspect of things by means of sculpture, moving and consoling souls by mans of music, Art could thus perpetuate the memory of men.

  And, seized by a sort of panic before that whole new era of thought and harmonious edification, the era that was about to succeed years of mighty sword-thrusts and happy rapine, Ulysses turned to the singer again.

  “Tell me,” he said, “what the name is of the land that you are announcing to me, and where your songs will resound.”

  Then Homer extended his hand and, describing with a broad gesture the expanse of the unfathomable sea, he said: “It is Greece. Everything that is deployed before us is Greece.”

  And the hero was able to see, with his final gaze, that the places the poet was indicating to him were filled with light.

  PLATO IN SEARCH OF AMOUR

  Preface

  Plutarch reports that the Botticeans, a people living in Thrace, but who pretended to originate from Attica, expressed their aspirations toward the primitive fatherland by a solemnly-intoned religious chant whose refrain was “Let’s go to Athens.”

  That nostalgic cry of the Botticeans symbolizes marvelously the appeal of every well-born individual who loves beauty and the ideal.

  Today, still, “going to Athens” means ridding oneself of any narrow or heavy thought, lightening oneself of all material and temporary cares, and reimmersing oneself in the eternal sources that ennoble and elevate.

  It was in my desire to go to Athens for a while that I imagined, freely, this short novel.

  To live for a few moments in the divine Greek maturity, to animate certain anecdotes that seem to me to characterize that perfect human spring, to evoke shades that are dear and familiar to me: such was my aim.

  Anyone who wants to know Plato’s exact ideas about Amour should read the Symposium. He will only find a feeble, altered and fictionalized echo here of the august words, once pronounced near the little hill on which the Parthenon rises, which transformed the consciousness of humankind and suddenly orientated its destinies.

  I. The Crown of Athens

  When Phaedo came back bringing figs he found Socrates sitting on the bank of the Ilissus near the lair of the Nymphs. He was dipping his feet in the running water and the river was caressing his ankles and crowning them with stripes of silvery foam.

  “The coolness that rises from the water summons clear thoughts,” said the master. “Sit down beside me in the shade of these agnus castus trees. The day is mild, and, because if the luminous quietude that surrounds us, while eating this beautiful fig, I believe I am communicating with the sun that ripened it.”

  It was the meditative and ecstatic hour when the star, finding itself in the middle of its course, envelops Athens in a gilded torpor. The light is insinuating then, saturating bodies with an obscure and muted sensuality and slowly enchaining the brain like the virtue of a generous wine.

  Socrates and Phaedo kept their eyes half-closed, troubled by vague reveries, and only conscious of the cold caress of the water.

  “I have a question to ask you that is soliciting my mind imperiously, like the enigma of the Sphinx,” said the disciple, finally. “Yesterday I went up to the Acropolis to see Phidias’ radiant Minerva again. At the back of the sanctuary, the austerity and meditation of her face struck me, and I remembered the ancient statues of the goddess, less perfect but smiling, with features as clear and joyful and the gush of a spring. The old masters of Sycion and Aegina were able to lend the deities that cheerful aspect, so typical of our ancestors, but which we judge inappropriate today. I wonder why Minerva lost her soft smile, and why sadness and cares invaded her and invaded us. We have now become like Pericles, who always appeared pensive and severe, studied in his movements and his stride, not consenting to laugh in front of anyone.”

  “Perhaps we differ from our ancestors by virtue of a graver conception of the meaning of life,” relied Socrates. “In that case, we would simply have taken a step forward n the road of wisdom.”

  “Do you believe, Socrates,” the disciple objected, “that there is anything wiser than living each day in harmony with natural things, savoring pleasure, conversing with friends and crowning the passing hour with the most beautiful flowers? You were anxious yesterday in seeing young Alcibiades intoxicating himself in the arms of Herpyllis. You criticized him for possessing vast stables, for maintaining a host of slaves and amassing in his home so many cloaks of byssus cloth and crimson sandals. I confess to you, however, that sitting next to the river now and seeing the Attic plain resplendent under the sun, like a cup filled with gilded wine. I am tempted to recognize the sovereign good in sensuality.”

  “The freshness of the water is communicating happy thoughts to you, friend,” said Socrates, opening his eyes slightly. “In any case, I’m not as Spartan as you imply. I didn’t criticize Alcibiades for
possessing fine chariots and wearing rich cloaks. I only wanted him to occupy himself with other things as well.”

  “But, precisely, is it worth the trouble of occupying oneself with anything else?”

  “By the Stars,6 I believe so!” replied Socrates. “And in order to succeed in that, I judge it preferable to order one’s life with simplicity.”

  “It was, however, exactly the opposite that our forefathers did, who vanquished the Persians,” the young man remarked. “In those days, the citizens only went to do battle for the liberty of their hearths. On their return, they enjoyed the good things of life. The Ionian wind had blown its delightful softness all the way here, and the streets of Athens were perfumed by the passage of beautiful slaves clad in Punic fabrics. Cedar and ivory, rare stones from the banks of the Ganges, Phoenician embroideries, peploi from Lydia and carpets from Ecbatana were abundant in the houses. The men were handsome. At the festival of the Panathenaia they were seen, slimmer than the stem of a palm tree, ivory scepter in hand, with majestic beards curled in stages in the Oriental style, their red tunics embroidered with flowers and their hair attached over the forehead by large golden clasps.”

  “Were they happier?” asked Socrates.

  “At any rate, they savored life more. Themistocles had himself carried in his triumphal chariot by four naked women, and Cimon loved the large wineskins of Samos so much that often, on emerging from banquets, he could no longer distinguish Syrian maidens from young boys.

  “Yes, Phaedo, but on the other hand, our ancestors’ eyes reflected fewer thoughts. In the epoch that you admire, the Athenians were still superstitions. Don’t forget that the priests succeeded in enabling Pisistratus to reenter the city by having him accompanied by a wretched wooden doll. The people believed that doll was Minerva in person, and no one dared attack a tyrant protected by the Olympians.”7

  “No, Socrates, you won’t be able to convince me easily that the coarse tunics, simple mantles and trimmed beard of today, our sad expressions and our subtle thoughts, create a superiority over our ancestors, and constitute progress. I think, on the contrary, with the young Aristophanes, that our ancestors did great things, and that they equaled in splendor and in glory the most ancient peoples, the Egyptians and the inhabitants of sumptuous Babylon. You can say that we think better and reflect more on the aims of the universe, but others have done that before us, and Greece already possessed Homer and Orpheus, Heraclitus and Pythagoras. Can we lay claim to a greater splendor than that of those days?”

  As he did not receive any response, Phaedo turned round and saw Socrates motionless, rapturous, in ecstasy, in one of the moments of intimate mediation in which consciousness seemed to quit his body. It was said that a mysterious voice spoke within him then.

  Eventually, he seemed to wake up and replied:

  “It isn’t easy to demonstrate that we’re better than our ancestors. Who, in any case, would dare to appear sure, except Apollo, who divines the future? He alone could see clearly into what we’re doing. We are like the pieces of multicolored thread with which the virgins of the Acropolis weave the peplos of the goddess; we don’t know what design we’re going to form. Perhaps we surpass our ancestors by virtue of the very gravity and sadness for which you’re reproaching us.

  “While you were speaking I remembered the response that old Silenus made to King Midas when the latter, having captured him, demanded the secret of happiness from him. ‘Why are you forcing me to tell you what you ought not to know, Midas?’ he said. ‘Happiness for you would have been not to be born. But since you exist, the only happiness that remains to you is to die soon.’ That, Phaedo, is a conception of destiny that elevates life by giving it a profound and tragic significance, entirely contrary to the insouciance and levity that you propose as the ideal.

  “In any case, don’t worry. We can only continue what our forefathers did. But while they only gave a meaning to the joys of life, we also want to give one to its mysteries and anxieties. Our goal is theirs, by which I mean beauty. Except that the beauty that, for them, was external and naïve, we enable to penetrate into the soul. After having made it the law of our lineaments, we also want to import it into the rhythm of our sentiments.

  “Athens, which you can see extended down there, under the intoxicating song of the cicada, is striving to ennoble its life. According the same severe harmonies to thoughts and forms, its genius composes, with the aid of all our creative aspiration, a hymn to the ideal. The old artists of Sicyon that you mentioned liked smiling faces, and were ambitious to give their statues a naïve expression of happiness. Phidias wanted more. He climbed Olympus and attempted to mingle the human with the immortal. Can’t you see that he spread a spiritual aurora prodigiously over his metopes?

  “His works are enlightened by intelligence. His adolescents and virgins appear to be conscious of the marvels that a generous soul inhabiting a beautiful body is capable of accomplishing. His Minerva is grave because, being conscious and nurturing beautiful thoughts, she wants to show the harmony that exists between her soul and her body and to become not only the plastic center, but also the moral ideal, of the universe.”

  “I think I understand what you’re saying,” replied Phaedo. “According to you, the ideal of our epoch ought to be the ideal that I once heard you assign to music and wisdom, the equilibrium of the beautiful and the good, the radiant alliance of physical perfection with moral grandeur. I’m beginning to grasp your thinking. And as usual, you’re winning me over and becoming familiar to me. You believe, then, that it’s Phidias who concentrates within him the consciousness of the new era, and will testify for us before the future. Isn’t that your opinion?”

  But Socrates was slow to respond, gazing in the direction of the Fountain with Nine Jets, which rose up in the middle of the road.

  “Can you see over there,” he said, finally, “an old man coming toward us surrounded by a cloud of dust. One might think that Boreas, who appears to be waking up and blowing violently, is attempting to take possession of him, like a new Orithyia. Either I’m much mistaken or that old man is wearing the robe of a strategus. He’s just passed the statue of Achelous and his daughters.”

  When the man had come closer, he went on: “Yes, it’s one of the old strategi who were in command during the expedition to Samos. I recognize him. His name is Sophocles.

  “Is he the one who once gave Antigone to the choregi?”

  “That’s right,” replied Socrates. “We can go to met him. I know him, and his company is agreeable.”

  When they reached him, Socrates invited him to sit down with them near the Fountain.

  From there, they could see the tranquil fields of asphodel whose rosy waves flowed all the way to the plain of Phalera. The sea seemed scarcely separate from the sky, so blue was the atmosphere and so resplendent were the horizons with an even light.

  “Have you come from the Agora, Sophocles?” Socrates asked the old man.

  “I’ve come from further away,” the latter replied. “I’ve come from my house in Colonna. I don’t know why all the Athenians don’t go to shelter in those arbors of vines and ivy, where I can see the daylight and which the voice of the nightingale animates. The air of Colonna is so mild that one might think that Bacchus and his Nymphs stroll there every year. You know where I live, Socrates. The perennially murmuring waves of the Cephise meander there, fecundating the dear earth. And my little house, escorted by saffron and narcissi, is crowned by beautiful gilded grapes, in which celestial dew scintillates.”

  “I believe that the fruit of the vine of which you speak is also dear to Bacchus,” said Socrates. Ion was telling us recently about the cheerful days that you spent in Samos when the battles left you a respite. The charm of Ionia is vivacious in Samos and amour blows over the shore of those fortunate isles. Ion was telling us in particular about your feasts and the joyful conversation that animated them.”

  Sophocles smiled in remembering the distant expeditions. Beautiful recollec
tions caressed his memory.

  “Yes,” he said, “there were happy days and cheerful conversations.”

  “You see, Phaedo,” said Socrates, addressing his disciple, “that the Athenians have always had an appetite for fine things. But tell us, Sophocles, what subject is haunting your mind at the moment, and what new tragedy is about to surge from your mind, as perfect and serene as Minerva’s.”

  “The misfortunes of Oedipus are still summoning my verses and moving my thoughts. I would like to show Oedipus growing by force of dolor, to the extent of reaching and equaling the Olympians. That man marked by fatality, who unwittingly accomplished so many crimes, seems to me to be superhuman and sacred by virtue of the very extent of his misfortune. The mysterious links between dolor and wisdom: that, in sum, is the subject of the tragedy that I’m planning. I’ve already composed the choruses, but certain details still escape me...”

  Socrates gazed at the poet and his eyes were veiled by emotion.

  “Sophocles,” he asked, finally, “can you tell us what the origin of tragedy was, in truth? It’s a creation that no people prior to the Greeks knew. Its nature is troubling. Sad, it transports us beyond joy. Showing us crimes and dolors, it nevertheless purifies us and procures us noble emotions that our ancestors did not experience.”

  “It’s by virtue of a miracle that tragedy has been revealed to the world,” Sophocles replied, gravely. “Aeschylus affirmed that to me before dying. His story remains engraved in my memory.”

  “You can repeat it to us, then,” said Phaedo, sitting down at Sophocles’ feet, and embracing his knees,