“That was not so much because I was ashamed of my action; it was rather because I could not easily explain and make known to others the new and precious significance of my wife’s beauty. Like the oak that one leaves paltry, slender and weak, prey to the winds, and finds again, after a few years of absence, majestic, tall and bushy, Helen’s empire over me had increased during the separation and had been fortified.
“That is what I had to tell you, Ulysses, and in order to understand my story more fully, turn your eyes and see her coming.”
The radiant Helen was, indeed, approaching, in the glory of the setting sun, distinct among her retinue. Very blonde and supple, she changed her rhythm and attraction at every step. She was like a sinuous wave, like a tenuous white cloud, like the pure and extreme flame of fire. Around her loins, one divined that she held, huddled and subservient, all the secret fatalities of the flesh, which attract the gaze irresistibly and wound the heart by planting the arrow of lust within it.
But Ulysses, filled and overflowing with the image of Penelope, looked at Helen without emotion.
He recognized her. She had not changed since he had conversed with her in Ilium, one night when he had penetrated the city secretly.
The same gaze of a shameless bitch, he said to himself, the same lascivious bearing, the same perfidious gait. And she has aged!
He deplored the fact that, softened by desire, Menelaus had not run her through with his sword.
And he added that: One can see that he has not known Penelope, in order to find that woman beautiful.
Helen came to sit down, and after an exchange of warm and joyful words of recognition, Menelaus, his eyes riveted upon his wife, spoke again to Ulysses: “You saw her once, when were disputing her, fighting against the man who had taken her to his palace. Confess that she was not as beautiful then! Look at her arms, so white, animated by the same tender life, the same gracious movement, as the doves! Harmonious is her flesh! Everything in her vibrates, and everything in her quivers. As for thinking of what she becomes when, in a bed, she opens her arms to the man she loves, how can I express it to you and how can I not faint in thinking about it?”
His eyes attached to the profundities of the vesperal sky, however, Ulysses, deaf to words, was evoking the massive bed attached to the earth by tortuous roots, in which the true enchantress lay, the diverse, troubling, incomparable Penelope, the object of desire.
IV
The days succeeded the nights, and aboard his ship, cleaving the waves, Ulysses interrogated the sky, prayed to the winds, and waited, vigilant.
When shall I cease to travel the humid routes, then, and how long will I continue to wander, a plaything of capricious Neptune? he asked himself.
Following the advice of Menelaus, he was, in fact, going to consult their former master, the luminary of Greece, the celebrated Chiron. At first, Ulysses had turned the prow toward the countries of the East, intending to go northwards afterwards as far as the savage and haughty Thessaly, the refuge of the Centaurs. It was there that Chiron studied the course of the stars, the secrets of numbers and the charms produced by harmony.
But Neptune, perceiving Ulysses’ ship from the depths of his palace, inflated the winds, which drove it all the way to the foggy and tenebrous land of the Cimmerians.
Once there, Ulysses wanted at least to interrogate the shades regarding the matter that preoccupied him. Attaining, therefore, the rock where the two chthonian rivers met, near the black forest of Persephone, he immolated victims and evoked the dead.
They hastened and crowded around him, innumerably. Perceptible in the melee were the beardless faces of ephebes, the pale and clear faces of virgins and the ravaged and tortured bodies of aged individuals whose sex could no longer be distinguished. Ulysses allowed them to come to slake their thirst on black blood, and then he asked their advice.
“I was deceived abundantly by my wife, but I only love her more for it. How can I get out of that frightful situation.”
Thus he proposed the problem.
Reanimated by the blood, and seized again by the memory of the past, the dead responded. But Ulysses remarked that they contented themselves with talking about their own amours, declaring moreover that, in passion, they had acted in opposition to reason, against all logic, as if a god had overturned their understanding and enveloped their eyes with darkness.
The majority of men confessed that they had been deceived by their wives. Some had known that while alive and, according to their temperament, either they had killed the infidels in the first boiling of anger, or they had spared them and ended up desiring them more. Others, who had not been aware of their misfortune until after their death, retained doubts in that regard in order to console themselves for it.
The hero consulted few women. He was fearful of their loquacity and their deep-seated penchant for lying.
A king of Egypt, who still bore the uraeus on his head and held the ankh in his hand, a sign of power, desolated Ulysses with his response.
“I lived,” he said, “in the fortunate country irrigated by the Nile. One day, the gods, to punish me for a crime that I had committed, plunged my gaze into darkness. The oracle that I went to consult told me that, in order to recover my sight, my eyes had to be touched by the hand of a woman who had only had intercourse with her husband. I thought at first that my own wife, on my return to the palace, would promptly deliver me from my woe. Nothing of the sort. I then had recourse to my sisters-in-law, the spouses of the priests who lived in the sanctuaries, and then the wives of royal functionaries celebrated for their virtue. But I did not find a single woman who had the purity required to cure me. There were all adulteresses. My kingdom did not contain any others. I had despaired of seeing the light again when, after many years, I chanced to met a beggar-woman on the road to Thebes who had only known her husband. She confessed afterwards that on the very day of our encounter, she was going to an amorous rendezvous for the first time. I had found her just in time, and she rendered the light to me.”
One last apparition was floating in the thick darkness of Erebus. Ulysses summoned him. It was the shade of Cephalus, the son of Aeolus,5 who, after having listened to the hero’s request, said: “Unfortunate Prince, no one can be as interested as me in your anguish. Handsome once, until being abducted and seduced the delightful Aurora, I was united by the bonds of marriage to Procris, daughter of Erectheus, king of Athens. I loved her and was jealous of her. Wanting to prove her, therefore—for that is the constant occupation of the jealous—I pretended to go away. Then, returning unexpectedly and disguised as a merchant, I tempted Procris’ virtue by offering her sumptuous robes and rich presents.
“She resisted those dishonoring propositions at first, but her resistance was weak and did not last long. Soon she seemed ready to succumb, forgetting the memory of her husband. Fortified by that fatal and shameful certainty, I abandoned my disguise, had myself recognized, and expelled the infidel from my house. She fled, disappeared into the woods, and from then on, no longer possessing her and knowing her to be prompt to seduction, I regretted her until death. Know, O Ulysses, that one scarcely loves that which one holds securely, but adores that which has ceased to belong to you and which others have appreciated. That is the fate of the living, the sad law of amour.”
As a last resort, Ulysses evoked the shade of Tiresias, the diviner of Thebes.
“What, unfortunate man, you are still traveling?” exclaimed the latter when he appeared. “Can you not remain tranquil for a while in your house, far from the uncertainties of the sea? After having run after warrior adventures, you are wandering now in order to clarify amorous problems. Instead of simply feeling, you exhaust yourself trying to dissect and analyze your own sensations. Well, go and consult Chiron, since destiny is driving you there. Still living, he knows the agitations that passion provokes in the human heart. As for me, I am dead, and such concerns seem trivial and vain to me.”
*
Ulysses, finally aided by
Notus, the favorable wind, was approaching Thessaly.
One morning he saw Mount Pelion, the summit of which was confounded with the clouds. The ship was hauled on to the shore, and the hero, mounting one of the celebrated horses that are nurtured in that country, headed toward the lair inhabited by Chiron.
A strange emotion had taken possession of his soul, conquered by distant memories. He recalled the inimitable Centaur distinctly, the son of a god, whose immense science had caused wonderment in his youth.
Chiron knew secrets forbidden to mortals. Favored by haughty Diana, hunting with her in the forests, he had learned to discern the virtue of simples and decipher the mystery of the stars. The supreme arcana of knowledge were opened to him by the skilful manipulation of numbers, by the true penetration of celestial movements, by the usage of redoubtable or salutary substances elaborated in plants. He knew how to cure the sick, to prevent crimes, to deflect evil influences and divine the future. Young Achaeans, avid for instruction, flocked toward him.
After having tempered and sharpened the indomitable soul of Hercules, Chiron had organized the expedition of the Argonauts and had then brought it to a successful inclusion. All the noble heroes who had risen to the luminous summits of glory and left an imperishable memory among the peoples—Aesculapius, Castor and Pollux, Theseus and Hippolytus, as well as the majority of those who had perished before Troy—had emerged from his school. But his dearest disciple, after Bacchus, was the son of Thetis, his beloved godson Achilles, the swift runner.
Ulysses recalled the powerful and unforgettable aspect of the master. With his robust hindquarters and his equine legs, which posed forcefully on the ground as if they were drawing their strength from the earth, the Centaur had a slender and noble bearing that his mortal disciples envied him. If the extremities of his body still plunged into the mystery of animal instinct, his head, on the contrary, equaled the wisdom that of the omniscient Apollo.
Impatient to see his master again, Ulysses penetrated into the shady forest that he had traveled so often in his youth, initiating himself in panic fear and experiencing the first and gripping admirations that nature inspires.
The Centaur’s grotto came into view. It was entirely covered by the tortuous vine that seemed to be playing with it, suspending its clusters of grapes everywhere and going to mingle with the branches of the poplars and elms that shaded the surroundings.
Ulysses stopped in order to listen to the cadenced murmur of springs; and that familiar sound recalled a thousand memories, causing many charming and forgotten images to surge forth before his eyes.
Finally, he went in.
By the light of the odorous cedar that was burning in the middle of the grotto, he distinguished Chiron, lying on the ground, his tawny breast projected forward and his head reposing meditatively against a stone.
As he moved closer, however, he scarcely recognized the Centaur’s features, so much had the years and sadness altered them. Ulysses was surprised by that, for he knew that Chiron was immortal and did not understand how the insults of old age and the movements of dolor could have affected him.
The hero did not have time to make himself recognized. The Centaur extended his forefeet, the extreme elegance of which came to him from his mother, the mare Phylira, hugged him cordially to his breast. It was evident that a great pity dominated the joy that had assailed him at the sight of his disciple
“My son, unfortunate and estimable Ulysses, I’ve been expecting you,” he said. “There’s no need to recount your life to me; I know exactly what has covered you with glory and what has heaped woes upon you. Your actions before the impregnable city are familiar to me, and I also know how you have suffered during your return. I am not unaware, finally, of the cause of your latest voyage, nor what you have come to ask of me.”
He looked at him again; his eyes, which appeared to have penetrated definitively into the profound and forbidden regions in which everything is intelligible, were moistened tenderly by tears.
“You want me to enlighten you regarding the problems that are troubling your mind. For the mind, granted by the gods in order to help humans, has been perverted in you to the extent of becoming a source of joy and a source of sadness. I experience keen regrets in that, all the more so because I recognize therein the fruit and the development of my lessons. Yes, I failed in your education and I repent of it bitterly. Seeing your understanding so alert and so exceptional, I allowed myself to go so far as to cultivate it and enable redoubtable reflection to flourish within you.
“In the same way that I oriented all the faculties of Achilles toward strength, appeasing and atrophying thought to the profit of the muscles, and caused to flourish in Bacchus and bring to their complete blossoming the tragic and uplifting instincts of enthusiasm, I nourished and fortified curiosity in you, the appetite to seek everything and know everything. Instead of a movement, I wanted every phenomenon to awaken in you a thought. I succeeded in that—and now look where it has brought you! Not content with thwarting the designs of your enemies, you want to enter into the torrent of the passions and take your soul, sacrilegiously, as an object of study.
“Furthermore, I have already learned by my own example how deceptive knowledge is and what a bitter aftertaste its deadly fruits leave behind. You are not unaware that the god who engendered me granted me immortality, considering it as a supreme gift; and, indeed, it is a fine and inappreciable thing to exist, while life brings novelty and provokes continual surprise. But when one knows and divines the play of things, when one pierces the veil of appearances, when one knows all causes, and one sees the present and the past united in a single plane with the future, life no longer offers anything attractive. Existence then appears to be a frightful, fruitless and vain waiting.
“Such is my case. Knowledge has poisoned my vital sources. I know what will happen, and for me, every instant contains, and encloses insupportably, all eternity. So, overwhelmed by that morose monotony, no longer able to tolerate my dismal science, I have begged the gods to cure me of the disease of living and to pass my immortality to another being. Jupiter has granted my wish. Prometheus is becoming immortal in my place, to his misfortune. As for me, I glimpse the end and deliverance henceforth, and I am savoring the sweetness of growing old, which is giving me in anticipation the first fruits of the happiness of dying.”
As Ulysses was about to speak, he went on:
“Yes, my son, I understand that all of that is of scant relevance to you. One single question is enfevering you. You are in haste for me to tell you what you want to know. What can I tell you? You are dealing with amour, with stormy, anguishing amour, which scarcely spares the inhabitants of Olympus and equalizes, and confounds under its power, slaves and those who carry the scepter. Created to renew life and hasten death, amour nourishes itself on blood and suffering. One cannot curse it, however, for it is also what grants moments of perfect joy, of total rapture, and enables us to glimpse the blissful countries.
“Of that redoubtable and divine passion, however, no one can grasp the laws, so absurd, iniquitous and violent do they seem. It is necessary to declare oneself the prey of a scourge when one is in the power of amour, and it is also necessary to avoid darting an inquisitive glance at it, just as it is necessary to avoid looking into the terrible and divine face of Medusa, daughter of Saturn.
“I can, however, enable you to profit from my science by telling you that what has happened to you is routine and always comes to those who love. For our desire runs toward that which flees it, and only ever wants to possess that which it is going to lose. Vexation, jealousy, cruelty, violence and everything that pollutes the beloved object in adultery only serve to enfever passion. Cease, therefore, to plunge your gaze into that incomprehensible and deceptive abyss, and since, being intelligent, you can already attract nothing but dolor in every fashion, at least refrain from adding thereto the torments that an exact knowledge of passion imply.”
“What if I were to kill Penelope?” said
Ulysses, frightened by that speech and rolling his eyes. He appeared agitated, as if he were struggling between the claws of a lion.
“You would regret it eternally,” replied the Centaur. “Your amour would crystallize, becoming immutable, no longer able to be subject to any alteration. You would consecrate yourself to the memory of your wife and you would soon imagine that she was perfect. It is death that plays the greatest tricks upon us when we are amorous.”
“What if I were at least to expatriate myself and go to live far away from her?”
“Like the magnet that summons iron in an occult fashion, she would attract you. You cannot flee her. It is futile to caress such a project. Why not rather resign yourself to entering under the common law and submitting to that which you cannot understand?”
“I’ll resign myself to it,” Ulysses sighed. “In any case, the mystery is clarified. I’m beginning to understand. Moist with other kisses, the woman we love appears to us more desirable, and she renews our passion. But that amour, which defies logic, frightens me. It will perhaps lead me where dementia led the unfortunate Ajax. For know, O my master, that Penelope could doom me with a single word, that in her hands I am an object more docile than her spindle, or the ball of cloth with which she plays by the river when she is resting after work. One of her smiles makes the joy of my days, and an irritated movement plunges me into distress—me, who killed Paris, made Ilium tremble and whose true name is Redoubtable!”
Falling at Chiron’s feet and embracing his knees, Ulysses begged: “Save me, you who can do anything. Annihilate the poison that is acting more powerfully in my veins than Circe’s charms. Banish the frightful delirium from my understanding, in order that I can look at Penelope with indifference, as I looked at Nausicaa or the beautiful Calypso, who, although she was a goddess, could not retain me or distract me from the travails of life. Cure me! Cure me, O my master!”
Penelope's Secret Page 4