Penelope's Secret

by Nicolas Ségur

  “Even if you’re speaking this time without irony, of which one can never be sure with you, I can’t give you any precise response. I only know amour indirectly, via those turtle-doves that you can see flying heavily over the roof of my hovel. They’ve been there for ten years. They’re my family, and I can tell you that it’s amour that leads and guides them. They’re its prey and they only live to cover one another, motionlessly, to savor the quivering silence of intercourse, and then procreate and die. Such as I see amour, via those winged creatures, I have to declare to you that it appears to me to be a sublime mystery.”

  “But isn’t it a simple desire that agitates your doves, Simon?”

  “I’m not able to affirm or deny that, young man. Do you remember the verses of an ancient poetess who lived in the era when Sappho herself inflamed Ionia? Nothing is as delicious as amour, sang Neossis, and no rapture is comparable to the one that it procures. But the man whom Venus does not designate, by according him her flame, is incapable of forming an idea of that joy, just as it is impossible for him to imagine enchanting roses before having scented their perfume and seeing their color.”

  “And what if amour only existed in the imagination of poets?” said Plato, thoughtfully.

  “Then you would not be wise, you would not have that desire always to learn more, and nothing beautiful would exist,” Simon replied. “But there you go. When you reach my age, you’ll no longer be inclined to deny that which you don’t know. Rather look at those turtle-doves. As it is spring, they’re more beautiful. Their bodies become harmonious and their cooing and their flight, thanks to amour, discover the laws of a divine music.”

  And Simon lowered his head and began to strike with his hammer, attacking the leather as if he wanted to punish it for its resistance, and for Plato’s.

  The son of Ariston left the shop and headed slowly toward the Acropolis. Since human intelligence was not furnishing him with enlightenment, he wanted to meditate the problem that was preoccupying him under the calm gaze of the Immortals.

  As he went past the temple of Demeter Chloe, which rose outside the enclosure, he saw Agoracritus, the beloved disciple of Phidias, who was slowly coming down the stairway carved into the rock. He stopped in order to look at him from a distance, so pleasing was the rhythmic stride of the artist, the measured movements of his body, and his face, illuminated by a masculine persuasion. There was a generous strength imprisoned in the sculptor’s torso, and one might have thought that creative lightning traversed him, inflaming his body.

  “You’re leaving the Acropolis early, Agoracritus, said Plato, going to meet him. “Did you go up to see Ictinus, who is still retouching the colors of the Propylaea, or to admire the little temple of Victory, so pleasing to the gaze?”

  “I’m glad to have met you,” the sculptor replied, “And if you’d care to retrace your steps, we can walk together. I’m heading for my studio and I’m coming from the Parthenon. I went there in order to thank the Poliade,11 who has deigned to acquiesce to my dearest wishes. You know Callinicus, the young ephebe that I love. He’s as handsome as the Pentarces of whom Phidias has left the portrait in marble to the Eleans. Callinicus has just been victorious in the Megaran games. He took part in the kissing contest that the Megarans have founded in memory of a hero, and won the prize, for his kiss is very soft and melts on the lips. I’m proud of his victory.”

  “You love Callinicus, then?” asked Plato.

  “I engrave his name on the hand of all my statues and I find his body so perfect that I attribute it to the gods whose images I sculpt. Callinicus’ forms are worshiped by the Greeks in Apollo and Minerva, Venus and Jupiter. How can I not love him, since I recognize in him the reflection of divinity?”

  “But is it admiration for the perfect beauty of the young man in question that you experience, Agoracritus, or amour? Answer me I beg you, for the interest I bring to that question is singular.”

  “But what is amour, Plato, except an adoration of beauty, the imperious joy that we experience in contemplating the most successful efforts of nature, the greatest perfection of human appearance?”

  “Perhaps you’re right,” said the young man.

  “That’s why amour is worthy of veneration. It elevates humans by the effect of beauty, all the way to the regions where the Immortals dwell. Is a perfect body anything but the crystallization of a mysterious music, the material symbol of an impulse of prayer, the human revelation of the Divinity? I love Callinicus, and in saying that I love him I’m enunciating my desire to communicate with Beauty, to elevate myself as much as possible toward the perfect forms of the Olympians, to approach, by means of the exaltation that his body gives me, heroes and sages, in that amour is a harmonious impulse and the most religious action of human beings.”

  “But then, according to what you are saying, amour would entail in its essence a kind of superior orchestration, since it would be inspired by the harmony of forms and would be the product of a certain assemblage of lines. It enters into the category of bewitchments provoked by rhythm.”

  “Well put, Plato! Amour is music and it has its source, like the arts, in enthusiasm. To create a beautiful image or to possess it—that is the object of esthetics, that is amour. That’s why, when I find myself before masterpieces in marble or in ivory, I experience a quiver of passion. And I see all the mysteries of creation and the enchantments of life through the perfection of a curve or in the occult movement of a beautiful line.”

  “I doubt, however, Agoracritus, that beauty can satisfy us fully. For I suspect that, for me, there are differences between beauty and amour. A beautiful body only inspires desires in me, without contenting them.”

  “We’re talking about perfect beauty. Now, that frees us from passions and makes us forget desire. Desire—and you are skillful enough in philosophy to agree with this—is only, in sum, a sort of irresistible need, which impels us toward an ever greater perfection. But if the beauty is perfect, it contains all the satisfactions and only inspires the desire to contemplate, and not to possess.”

  And Plato, who was walking in silence beside the sculptor, thought that it might indeed be the case that the ideal amour, the superior amour whose definition he was searching, was a sort of elevated harmony, a supreme comprehension of finished forms, a sublime conversation with beauty.

  I’ve sampled carnal sensuality, he said to himself, but I found it inferior and I felt disappointed by its ashen taste. It gave me the memory of ties that link me to the beasts of the forest, to elementary beings. But beauty such as Agoracritus conceives it is specifically liberated from desire. His statues do indeed inspire a sweet meditation and, enticing us outside our carnal envelope, they enable us to soar in ideal regions.

  “Would you like to come to my studio?” the artist asked him when they had circled the hill and found themselves in the southern part of the city. “I’m finishing a Venus that the Rhamnusians have asked of me I’d like you to see it, since you’re skillful in the appreciation of poetry and the arts. I’ve modeled it on a beautiful slave that Alcibiades brought from Sicily and whose name is Sthenelais.12 She’s a flute-player and her body has the gracility of the infant Apollo. One does not discover in her forms the harsh necessity that rounds out the limbs in order to give them the possibility of bearing children. But Sthenelais has something sharp and bitter in her beauty, a thrust of all her members toward the heights, and when she smiles she unveils so many mysteries by her smile that one might think that she is gazing at Olympus.”

  They were now entering the low studio that was at the foot of the rock. Plato saluted in passing Paeonius, a friend of Agoracritus, and the young Theocosmus, who also worked in marble and created fortunate figures. Then he stopped in front of a statue of Venus, who was placing one foot on a tortoise; it was the work of Phidias, and had been sculpted in Paros.

  “Isn’t it true, Plato, that one recognizes in this the goddess composed of the frisson of the foam?” asked Paeonius.

  �
�Yes,” the ephebe replied, “One can see the modesty and the passion dividing the Urania. Phidias was able to enclose desires in her body, but assuaged by I know not what ideal tenderness.”

  “Come on, Plato,” said Agoracritus, “And don’t forget that we’re here for the Rhamnusian.13 A particular fever possesses me while I’m working on my statue. I believe that it will be my finest work and I shall thus be able to approach before dying the excellence of my master Phidias. In any case, I’ve never attacked the marble with so much surety and contentment. After work, on putting down the chisel, I feel more repose than when I picked it up in order to begin the day. So natural is my effort that it appears to have its source in the same imperious necessity that makes the grass grow and the flowers bloom.”

  And, passing through a long gallery, they entered the sculptor’s private studio, in which the Venus stood that the Rhamnusians were later to call Nemesis, clad in dazzling colors, dominating the place with all the splendor of her beauty.

  Plato remained plunged in a profound meditation for a few moments. The apparition of the goddess seemed to illuminate the depths of his own soul, and he felt inundated by repose and rapture. The daughter of Jupiter, holding a branch of an apple tree in her hand, appeared to him as if she had surged forth miraculously.

  The marble was warm, respiring life. The feet and the legs rose up in a thrust of grace and strength, as if to support, not the loins, but a sacrificial altar. The breasts swelled in a luminous wave, and there was, especially in the face, so much concentrated beauty that the young man experienced a slight intoxication, akin to the possibility of accomplishing superhuman actions.

  “Behold the source and the goal of amour,” he said, in a low voice.

  But at that moment, the sculptor went to the back of the studio and called: “Sthenelais! Sthenelais!”

  Then, addressing Plato, who was still absorbed, caressing the statue with his eyes, he said: “After the work, you’ll have the chance to see the model!”

  A young woman came in, clad in a saffron-colored mantle with short sleeves, which left one shoulder uncovered as a sign of slavery. Her step was light. A layer of air seemed interposed between her feet and the ground, and invisible wings sustained her shoulders, annihilating the weight of the limbs.

  Plato delighted in gazing at that being, whom Nature had enveloped with all her mysteries, and then the somber and mild face in which the beauty became tragic and proud. For Sthenelais’ eyes were wide open, seemingly contemplating in the distance a beautiful and frightening head of Medusa. There was such a soft shadow on her eyelashes and the curve of her mouth, and the expression of her features was so changing and varied—like the forms of clouds, like the ripples of water—that when the young woman smiled in saluting the two men, Plato was gripped by it and reminded of the enigmatic faces of Sphinxes.

  “Behold an incarnation of beauty that can conduct the spirit into the paths of joy and aid a man to support destiny with surety,” said Agoracritus. “Does an enigma exist more profound than that gaze? And for all the questions relative to wisdom that you study with Socrates, could you find a book richer in information than the lines of Sthenelais’ sides, descending toward the hips with the sinuosity of a spring?”

  And Agoracritus approached the flute-player, gently removed the clasp that attacked her mantle, and allowed the cloth to cede, to fold and to fall to the ground. The nudity of the woman was radiant, pure and ordered, like a flash of wisdom. In accordance with Athenian custom, the young woman burned with the flame of her lamp the nascent hair of puberty, and her body was neat. The flexible and harmonious lines triumphed stainlessly.

  Yes, to love is to break the chains that hold our soul captive, Plato thought. And how can one break them except by contemplating a perfect beauty? I believe that I’m a creator in looking at this young woman, and I find myself full of life and happier, more winged, before this body, which, although perishable, bears the seal of infinite perfection! Agoracritus is right, and I find therein the definition of amour: it is our communion with the beauty of the universe.

  And, addressing Sthenelais, because he felt irresistibly drawn toward her, he said: “Young woman, you are fortunate, being a sanctuary in yourself and retaining divinity in your body. I believe that when your mouth opens, it will reveal a sublime secret to us. Perhaps it will enlighten us regarding the enigma of the eternal force that makes the spheres move in the heavens and also animates living beings. Confide to me the thought that is lending so pure a light to your mouth and your gaze at this moment. I promise you to meditate upon it to the point of conceiving an immortal work therein.”

  Steneelais looked at him for a few moments with motionless eyes, and then replied to him:

  “I am thinking, young man, since I ought to speak to you sincerely, that I need two talents to buy my freedom, and that old lovers, the only ones who pay well, are becoming rare at present in Athens. I don’t know the advantageous secrets of Medontis, who is from Abydos, a city knowledgeable in sensuality. In any case, the brothel in which Alcibiades makes me work is near Phalera, with the consequence that our clientele is all sailors and miserly Phoenicians.”

  Her voice was rough, a trifle hoarse, and had a dolorous effect in emerging from such lips.

  In listening to that discordant sound, and understanding the meaning of the words. Plato sensed affliction, almost pain, as if a taut bow had been abruptly released within him.

  At the words of that perfect being, he thought, I experience what Achilles must have experienced when, by trickery, the cowardly Priamide cut the tendon of his heel, the only vulnerable part of his body.

  And in reply to Sthenelais, he said:

  “So those are the thoughts that render your forehead so glorious, young woman. But why do you want to find the two talents? Is it by virtue of an innate sentiment of liberty? Would you like to devote yourself to some divinity, to practice amour henceforth as a divine art? Or do you desire to reveal your beauty in future as a special gift to sculptors and poets, in the sacred arbors of Eleusis, or during the festival of the Panathenaia?”

  “I’m not speaking for you but for Agoracritus,” the young woman said, irritated by not being understood. “What I want and what I would succeed in accomplishing, if Adrasteia were not rendered jealous thereby, is to open a brothel of my own and make others work as I have worked myself until now. I know a merchant of Delos, the same one who sold me. He has promised to procure me agreeable young women and boys at a good price. I’d quickly obtain the means of attracting a clientele, and I’d be sure of making a fortune.”

  “Fortunate Agoracritus!” said Plato, after a few moments of silence and discouragement. “You are more fortunate than Prometheus himself! You create perfect beings, but you seal their mouths with a divine silence. Everyone, on seeing your statues, can lend them his own thoughts, and suppose the language that appears to him to approach the sublime most closely. Your Venuses and Dianas are as beautiful as Sthenelais, but I decipher in their features the designs of Jupiter, and I believe that they are thinking nostalgically of the celestial meadows where they hunted and reposed beside radiant Apollo.

  “Such meditations I also attributed to your Rhamnusian. However, she is only inflamed by the desire to enrich herself by opening a brothel, since you have made her faithfully in the image of Sthenelais and Sthenelais is only cultivating that unique thought. I salute you, dear sculptor. No, amour certainly does not reside in beauty and I was mistaken, as you are mistaken. When this young woman spoke, a spark finally sprang forth in the disarray of my mind; and I am certain now that beauty, like desire, belongs to the domain of the body, while amour can only be the prerogative of the immortal soul.”

  And, saluting the sculptor, Plato left the studio, returning to the daylight, without looking back once. His thought was struggling in darkness, searching for the truth.

  V. On the Way to Aspasia’s House

  On the following day, which was consecrated to the festival of Prometheu
s, Plato met Socrates in the gardens near the temple of Hercules, known as the Cynosarges.

  The master was standing still, his eyes riveted to the Venus by Alcamenes that rose up, beautiful and powerful, in the midst of olive groves.

  Plato sat down beside him and respected his silence. He knew that at such moments, Socrates heard the voice of the spirit that resided within him. Plato even had it from Alcibiades that, during the battle of Potidaea, Socrates had gone for an entire day without speaking or taking nourishment, motionless in the middle of the camp, enraptured by his meditation. The interior life was so rich within him.

  The disciple wondered curiously what problem was possessing the son of Sophroniscus at that moment.

  Socrates finally raised his head, like that of a Faun drunk on nectar. And, designating with his finger an invisible insect that was singing, he turned to his disciple as if he were continuing a conversation already commenced and said:

  “Do you not believe, Plato, that cicadas are desiccated poets, singers that passion has consumed? All of estival nature seems to exhale its heat through that little winged voice. One might think, in fact, that on the pleasant Attic soil, birds and insects have a human voice and that their songs respond to one another like the strophes of a chorus.”

  “I’ve been beside you for a long time, Socrates,” Plato said. “In spite of my impatience to hear your voice, I could only respect your meditations.”

  “I was enraptured by the season that is ripening the grapes. In contemplating this marvelous image of Venus, and also aided by the visitation of the sun, which inflamed my mind, I thought I could glimpse the Empyrean and follow the Olympians. What majestic evolutions, participating in music, must animate the interior of the heavens when chariots conduct the Immortals to their divine banquets. Souls also mingle with the gods because they too are immortal. Liberated from their carnal envelopes, they navigate, albeit more painfully, following the celestial furrows. And it appears to me clearly, at this moment, that the essence of the divine is the beautiful, the true and the good. Souls will only be able to identify divinity and contemplate it in the Empyrean if they have loved beautiful truths on earth and have nourished themselves on intelligence, science and goodness.