Penelope's Secret

by Nicolas Ségur

  Penelope’s Secret

  and Other Stories

  by

  Nicolas Ségur

  Translated, annotated and introduced by

  Brian Stableford

  A Black Coat Press Book

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Introduction 4

  PENELOPE’S SECRET 10

  PLATO IN SEARCH OF AMOUR 78

  NAÏS IN THE MIRROR 172

  FRENCH SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY COLLECTION 270

  Introduction

  Le Secret de Pénélope by Nicolas Ségur, here translated as “Penelope’s Secret,” was first published by Eugène Fasquelle in 1922. Platon cherche l’Amour, here translated as “Plato in Search of Amour,” was first published by Flammarion in 1926. Naïs au miroir, here translated as “Naïs at the Mirror,” was first published by Fasquelle under the aegis of the Bibliothèque Charpentier in 1920. I have arranged the three translations in the order of their internal chronology rather than the dates of their publication, as they are probably best read in that fashion. The three novellas represent different phases in a particular investigation whose central theme is the psychology and philosophy of amour, although all of them broaden out—as is inevitable in setting that theme in the context of ancient Greek mythology and philosophy, to a more general and penetrating enquiry as to what humans might require in order to live happy and fulfilled lives.

  Le Secret de Pénélope is one of numerous “sequels” to Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey produced by modern writers, picking up the story of the hero of the later epic where the Odyssey ends, following the slaying of the suitors who have been laying siege to the hero’s wife while he has been away. The author, although he was Greek himself, calls that hero Ulysses rather than Odysseus, and almost invariably uses the Roman rather than the Greek variants of the names of the various gods of the Graeco-Roman pantheon. It might have been the case that the decision was not his and was forced on him by an editor, but whether or not it was spontaneous, the reason for it is that the French educational system strongly prioritized the learning of Latin, via exemplary texts by Virgil, Horace, etc., so French readers would have been much more familiar with the Roman variants at the time when the books were written. Although no such consideration applies to modern English readers, I thought it better to remain faithful to the original texts rather than substitute the Greek equivalents, even though it is bound to seem jarring to sensitive readers to find the inhabitants of Athens routinely swearing “By Jupiter!” and referring to the temple of Minerva rather than Athene.

  Ségur’s novella begins with the revelation that Homer’s account of Penelope’s stubborn virtue was exaggerated, and tracks the effect that that revelation on Ulysses’ attitude to his wife, which seems sufficiently puzzling to him to warrant an earnest investigation in which he seeks advice from Minerva, Menelaus—who has suffered a similar effect in respect of Helen—various shades of the dead and his old tutor, the centaur Chiron. Although the wise Chiron supplies him with a practical solution to his immediate predicament, that is merely a shelving of the issue, and the puzzling features of the mysterious ways of Amour/Eros with the human heart remain. The underlying enigma continues to intrigue the hero—although not so much as it continued to intrigue the author, who spent his entire literary career probing it.

  The enigma still remains, of course, routinely shelved but never fully explained, so the attempted unraveling of Ulysses’ predicament retains an ironic allegorical quality, addressed by the author in a light and knowing fashion, with a strong element of comedy—an approach echoed in two of the best-known sequels to the Iliad and the Odyssey by an author working in the English language, John Erskine’s The Private Life of Helen of Troy (1925) and Penelope’s Man (1928). Nicolas Ségur’s further investigations included the two other ventures into the Classical world appended to the translation of Le Secret de Pénélope in the present volume, in which the author’s imagination consulted other shades of the long-dead in order to obtain different perspectives on the issue.

  In Naïs au miroir, the author had already published an observational account of the psychology of amour offered by the courtesan Naïs, whose self-examination includes accounts of her dealings with several of her lovers, but also extends to her observations of Athenian mores in general and the conduct of contemporary philosophers, most famously Epicurus. In the climax of the story, the courtesan is challenged to seduce the notoriously chaste philosopher Polemon, who believes that he has attained a state of being immune to the disturbances of Amour—a conflict of wills more complicated than any duel of heroes beneath the walls of Troy.

  Platon cherche l’amour, on the other hand, goes straight to the summit of the great tradition of Greek philosophy, in describing the manner in which Plato, only just emerging from adolescence, feels the sharp impacts of Amour’s arrows for the first time. Naturally, he seeks the guidance of his mentor Socrates—who finds himself, for once, at something of a loss, and has to hand over a crucial part of the educational process to the great courtesan Aspasia, but eventually weighs in usefully with memories of his own initiation into the mysteries in question.

  The variety of attitudes and conclusions contained in the three stories allows them, when viewed as a set, to constitute a rich and colorful spectrum, brightened by deft ironic humor and dazzling erotic interludes. Although the philosophical reflections they contain could hardly be expected to exhaust such an intricate subject, they are certainly extensive, and always aim for profundity. Their narrative strategy is perhaps best described by a word apparently invented by Aristophanes—who appears briefly as a minor character in Platon cherche l’amour—in The Frogs: spoudaiogeloion [serio-comic]. Although the term never caught on, the strategy did, apparently used extensively by the Cynics, although so few of their works survive that it is difficult to be sure. What is certain, however, is that it is a strategy that has readily lent itself to misunderstanding, by virtue of its essential ambiguity, always tending to paradox; the allegory credited to Aristophanes in Platon cherche l’amour, paraphrased from the Symposium, is one of the most notable instances of the method and one of the most glaring example of its occasional misinterpretation by critics and commentators.

  “Nicolas Ségur” was born Nikolaos Episkopopolous on the Greek island of Zakynthos in 1874; he began his writing career as a journalist in Athens in the late 1890s, and published a number of books in Greek. In the early years of the twentieth century, however, he moved to Paris and settled there permanently, eventually dying there in 1944, subsequently writing exclusively in French. He made the acquaintance of Anatole France not long after arriving in Paris and was taken under the latter’s wing; one of his earliest French publications was a profile of the author published in La Revue in 1907. His conversations with Anatole France subsequently provided him with the material for three books, beginning with the best-selling Conversations avec Anatole France ou Les Mélancolies de l’intelligence (1925; tr. as Conversations with Anatole France), published in the year after the great man’s death.

  Ségur’s first volume in French was Pages de Légende [Pages of Legend] (1918), recapitulating and commenting on some of the best-known stories surviving from the Classical Era, and his love of ancient Greek literature and myth was further reflected in Naïs au Miroir, his first short novel, which appeared with a laudatory preface by Anatole France. The author followed that up with the adventurous utopian fantasy Une Île d’amour (1921; tr. as “An Isle of Amour” in the Black Coat Press volume The Human Paradise), which addresses the question of how the psychological and social problems posed by human amour might best be addressed by political organization, in a direct but conscientiously light-hearted manner. Although Le Secret de Pénélope was published after those two
novels, it might not be the case that it was the third to be written, and it could well have been the first; at any rate, it presents the problems by which the other two stories are preoccupied in a more straightforward and explicit fashion.

  Both of the novels that preceded Le Secret de Penelope seem to have sold well—the prefatory matter in the copy of Le Secret de Penelope that I used for translation, which is advertised as part of a third printing of a thousand copies, records that Une Ile d’amour was by then in its fifth thousand. That success was undoubtedly due to the intrinsic appeal of the subject matter, and reflects not merely the relative liberality of French literature but also the striking intellectual intensity with which erotic topics are routinely considered in France. Not only could no English language book of the period have manifested the frank eroticism of Naïs au miroir, but no English or American author would have between capable of inspecting that eroticism with such a sophisticated clinical eye. The Athenians of the Golden Age of Philosophy were not so coy, but Ségur’s imaginative recreation of Plato’s personal investigation of the subject makes the delicacies, hesitations and diplomatic evasions of the Symposium very obvious.

  Following Le Secret de Penelope, and before turning to the shades of Plato and Socrates for aid, Ségur continued his personal quest for enlightenment by looking closer to home in M. Renan devant l’amour [Ernest Renan on Amour] (1923), a virtual monologue considerably less lively than Plato cherche l’amour, but even that book was subsequently advertised as having sold five thousand copies. From the publication of La Belle Venise [Beautiful Venice] (1924) onwards, however, the level of his success increased very significantly as he found his most profitable commercial vein, redeploying the philosophical insights regarding the role of amour in human affairs gleaned in his earlier works in a long series of contemporary novels that explore the problems and side-effects of passion in today’s world, in a melodramatic and sometimes feverish fashion.

  Ségur continued to write non-fiction alongside his novels, and he published a notable collection of essays on Le Génie Européen [European Genius] in 1926. He also attempted to continue writing more generalized philosophical fiction, producing Le Cinquième évangile: Saint François d’Assise [The Fifth Evangelist: St. Francis of Assisi] (1925), but the contrast between the limited commercial success of the latter volume and Platon cherche l’amour on the one hand, and the far more voluminous sales of his contemporary erotica on the other, must have encouraged him, as well as his publishers, to concentrate on the more profitable enterprise; throughout the 1930s almost all of his fiction followed a pattern that became increasingly stereotyped, although never lacking in energy and virility. The element of spoudaiogeloion was gradually subdued, although it never entirely disappeared. Connoisseurs of that delightfully paradoxical art, however, will find it very abundantly displayed in the present volume, with a rare genius.

  All three translations were made from copies of the original Fasquelle and Flammarion editions of the three books.

  Brian Stableford

  PENELOPE’S SECRET

  Pan was the son of Penelope and all the suitors.

  (Schol. de Lycophron)1

  I

  The day after the massacre of the suitors and the happy recognition, Ulysses quit his bed at dawn, gently moving aside the tapering leg with which Penelope was enlacing him familiarly, in the unconsciousness of sleep.

  A host of anxious reflections clouded his mind, and the gracious spectacle of nascent spring that awaited him when he emerged from his dwelling could not distract him. Ulysses avoided old Laertes, occupied in tilling the soil, and scarcely cast a glance at his nurse, who had been the first to recognize him on his return to Ithaca.

  Having arrived on the shore, he sat down on a rock green with algae and devoted himself to long meditations. The waves came to unfurl and die away at his feet, accompanying his thoughts with their mysterious music.

  Joys are ephemeral, he said to himself. They disperse and vanish like the marine foam that dies almost as soon as it is formed. Yesterday, after the bloody battle, finding myself king again in my reconquered island, I felt my heart inundated with happiness and pride. But a suspicion has sufficed for my tranquility to be disturbed and for the poison of doubt to penetrate and corrode me.

  Leaning toward Argus, his dog, who had followed him and appeared to be respiring delightedly in proximity with his master, he stroked him, passing his hand over his muzzle, and naming him in a tender voice. His thoughts having led him to suspect the sincerity of humans, it was pleasant for him to be able at least to place his confidence in that humble proven companion.

  Gradually, while trying to untangle the thread of his anxieties, Ulysses became more confused. Aggravated, his suspicions attained a sort of baleful certainty. Soon, shadowed by sorrow, he thought that the sun was paling before him and that spring was darkening.

  Suddenly, a hand posed on his shoulder and the hero, raising his head again, saw Penelope, who was smiling at him amicably, having arrived with slow steps.

  “Why have you fled our bed so soon, valorous Ulysses? You have not even tried to renew in the morning the gentle and powerful caresses of which I have been deprived for so many years.”

  And, as Ulysses did not seem disposed to reply, Penelope, gazing at him attentively, perceived his sadness and the shadows of the preoccupations projected on his face.

  “What’s the matter, then?” she asked. “What dolor has transformed you so promptly? Yesterday, you were radiant with contentment, and youth seemed to be haunting your features again. Now you are dejected, as if plunged in darkness. I implore you by Minerva, your protectress, to confide your troubles to me, in order that I can share them with you.” And as Ulysses raised his hand, sketching a mute and fleeting response, she added: “Have you forgotten our affection? How can you nourish cares jealously and, in a fashion, prolong our separation by hiding them from me?”

  Then Ulysses, with the swift rapidity that always presided over his actions, made the resolution to speak sincerely. He therefore replied to Penelope: “O wife, it is you who are the cause of my preoccupations. Having heard your fidelity praised, and proud of your exemplary constancy, I trembled with emotion yesterday evening when, after having got rid of our enemies, I was finally able to resume my place in our bed and feel the soft warmth of your body. But how can I describe my surprise and my perplexity before the unexpected novelty of your kisses?

  “I had visited, during my long voyages, the beds of many goddesses, and before that, I had already lavished my caresses on the beautiful captives of proud Ilium. However, I retained, vividly and brightly, the memory of your virginal modesty, your charming gaucherie. I had not forgotten the inexperience with which you once responded to the impetuosity of my desires, and when, before Troy, in the days of destruction, I saw the frail Cassandra emerging polluted and ashamed from the violent hands of Ajax, that sight reminded me of your chaste countenance, the timid distraction you showed in amour.

  “Yesterday, however, climbing on to the high bed and enlacing you, I felt myself suddenly seized and forcefully imprisoned by your bold and intrepid arms. Your once-puerile body now showed itself expert and inexhaustible, drawing upon the voluptuous secrets of all the carnal artifices. The sensual Circe, who burned with inexhaustible fires and succeeded in rapidly drawing from me all my voluptuous sap, was truly only a schoolgirl by comparison with you. What she dispensed in passion and in charm in order to inflame me, you deployed yourself, as if in play, yesterday evening.

  “Although your science and your experience fulfilled my body, they could not help awakening a great anguish in my mind. For I began to wonder whence came that marvelous transformation, and how, in your long and pure widowhood, retired to your cold bed, you succeeded in learning so many amorous artifices and acquiring such a warm and vibrant virtuosity.”

  At these words, Penelope’s face was colored with the redness of the dawn. She avoided her husband’s gaze and, bowing her head, she remain
ed silent.

  “Respond to my question,” Ulysses went on, “and dispense with lies. All the Achaeans know that nothing remains hidden from me and that my subtlety thwarts the ruses of men. I can already see your confusion, and I hold it as certain henceforth, that you are culpable. Only sincerity can save you now and reunite us.”

  Then, trying to suppress the tumult of her heart, Penelope dared to raise her fearful gaze to Ulysses, and she replied: “You are right. Who would dare to deceive you? You are equal to the divinities and you visit the innermost recesses of the heart. I will therefore hide nothing from you, and I hope that you will recognize that Necessity was the only instigator of my sins, and that it was the will of the Immortals that prepared my defeat irresistibly. You can, moreover, punish me or absolve me as you wish, and everything coming from you will appear just to me. I only beg you to contain yourself until the end of my story and to listen to me calmly.”

  Not without uttering a long sigh, the queen continued: “It was during the seventh year of your absence that my courage received a first affront. Until then I had retained faithful to your memory and, imposing silence on my senses, I lived isolated, entirely attentive to following the vigorous growth of our son. The suitors, encouraged by the reverses of the Achaeans and believing you doomed, were emboldened. But they pressed me in vain, using flatteries and promises, to choose a husband; I believed unshakably in your return and avoided any pronouncement.

  “One night, however, a dream came to trouble me. For I saw Minerva, your protectress, who predicted to me that a child, almost divine, would soon be born of my loins, and that all the suitors would contribute to it. When I awoke I tried to forget that dream and rebelled against the will of the goddess. I knew, in any case, that malign and deceptive spirits often usurp a divine aspect, and sow deceptive dreams in order to torment mortals.