And promptly, she raised her hand in order to give him a slap; but Theodorus parried the blow and contented himself with lifting the philosopher’s skirt and exposing her gangling body.
There was general laughter in the audience that was following that discussion.
At that moment, however, Leontion, who perceived me from a distance, came to extract me from the midst of the men, and, taking me aside, she said: “I’m stifling among so many hairsplitters, They exhaust me and weary me with this perpetual enervation of thought. Above all, I can’t suffer any longer the yoke of that decrepit lover, that Epicurus, who, at such a high degree of old age, still permits himself to be jealous. He scolds me at the slightest opportunity and takes umbrage at everything. After eighty years, will I still have to suffer because of his stink and the filthy animal skins with which he covers himself? Let him keep for himself the beautiful sentences about the nature of things and limitless pleasure. I want him to leave me alone. Yesterday he wanted to forbid me to see the handsome Timarchus, who was the first to initiate me into the mysteries of Venus. Is it just that I distance that young man from myself, who, moreover heaps me with presents and doesn’t permit anyone to taste the first fruits every years before me? Epicurus however, is furious with him. He loads him with such insults that, if you heard them, you’d believe that you were in the company of a Cappadocian rather than an Athenian philosopher!”
A few moments ago, Glycera, Menander’s mistress, had come to join us, and was following our conversation.
“I agree with you,” she said. “I judged all these philosophers deceptive, and I’m inconsolable that Menander, who has had so much success in the theater and who has such a sane mind, finds them pleasing. For after all, they call us corrupters of youth, we courtesans, and it’s rather them who corrupt it. Only yesterday, Stilpo had the effrontery to reproach me for my profession again! ‘My friend,’ I replied, ‘We’re both equally guilty. I enfeeble the body and you spoil the mind. I don’t see the difference between the ephebe who wears himself out with a girl and the one who exhausts himself with a philosopher. At least the courtesan accords him pleasure. And then, as the poet Agathon says: If woman is feeble of complexion, she has no less intelligence and activity in the soul.’”
“However,” exclaimed Leontion, “These toothless and perverse old men are taking away our lovers. Consider the wan and stupid faces of those disciples surrounding Menedemus. Let’s go see what grave problem is tormenting them at present.”
We approached discreetly, in such a way that our arrival did not trouble their meditation. Menedemus was caressing his beard and looking at his disciples one after another as if he were waiting for a response. But they remained mute and we heard him say to them:
“In sum, we need a definition. You have said that the life of an animal is different from that of vegetables. So, I take a gourd from the garden and present it to you, asking you in what genre you classify it. What do you have to reply?”
They remained pensive for a long time. Finally, a very young man raised his dainty head and said: “It’s a vegetable with a round head.”
The master remained motionless, manifestly disappointed.
“It’s a tree,” hazarded another disciple.
“It’s a plant,” said a third.
“Reflect, reflect further,” replied Menedemus, softly.
“The gourd is an animal,” ventured my young Adonis, hoping this time to get it right.
At that moment Crates went past and, seeing them sunk in the meditation of the problem, he could not help himself, and farted tumultuously in their faces in order to create a diversion. We could not succeed in holding back our laughter. As for Menedemus, he pretended not to have heard, and addressed his pupils: “A little more effort,” he said. “Don’t be discouraged, you’re approaching the right definition.”
Four young women, recognizable as auletrides by virtue of their simple violet tunics, went past us.
“Look at those wrigglers,” Leontion said to us, quivering with hatred. “Their names are Marmaria, Hedia, Erosia and Nicidia. Where do you think they’re going at that pace? They’re hastening to join Epicurus, my venerable lover. I’m not sufficient, it appears, for his failing strength. By night he reposes between four young women, like some Asiatic satrap, and when I want to deliver myself from his chains he sends me Timocrates, Metrocles, Menander and the whole clan, all his favorites and all his darlings, in order to persuade me to remain faithful to him and renounce Timarchus. By Apollo, I won’t put up with it!”
But I abandoned my friends to their chatter, having spotted Polemon. He was sitting next to a plane tree and looking attentively at an object that he was holding in his hand.
I went up to him and wished him a good day.
He smiled in response to my greeting, and then invited me to sit down beside him.
“I was looking at this plant,” he told me, “so frail, so prettily flowering, which is called a helenium. And I was thinking, and marveling, that it’s a hermaphrodite and has no need of amour. Fortunate are the plants, dear Naïs! They do not know the torments of the kiss and do not put on make-up to please their lovers. In brief, they have no need to be courtesans. Behold perfect beings!”
“You detest amour so profoundly, then, Polemon?”
“May Pallas preserve me from such unfortunate thoughts! I fear offending Venus, who would certainly punish me for them as she punished Hippolytus. No, I nourish neither hatred nor admiration for amour. I observe in its regard, rather, the same indifference as toward the Indians who live near the Ganges, or the children who are being born at this moment over the entire extent of the earth. How can I love or detest then, since I don’t know them?”
“And courtesans?”
“As beautiful as you, I admire them. But on the other hand, I find them unskillful when they have been putting on make-up for three hundred Olympiads and have not yet succeeded in discovering a make-up or a manner of using it appropriately. When going through the Ceramicus I often go past the priestesses of Cypris, who are lined up as naked as the nymphs of the River Eridanus, However, I always refrain from fixing my gaze upon them and fathoming the charms of their faces. They cover their eyelids with antimony, paint their lips with the juice of mulberries and plaster their cheeks with ceruse, with the result that sweat traces streams and profound meanders there. I would rather kiss a panting by Apelles while it is still fresh than such a face.”
“You ought not to find me beautiful, then.”
“What, you’re made up too?” he replied, ironically. “I hadn’t noticed.”
“Listen, Polemon; I aspire precisely to correct myself, to become better, and I’ve come expressly to ask you for a few lessons in wisdom. I won’t hide it from you, however, that coquetry is not unconnected with this step, since, once intellectually ornamented and refined, I shall appear more desirable. Like Hipparchia, Leontion and Glycera, I too want to open myself up to knowledge. I won’t consent, of course, to take any other master than you. If I can rely on what you said at Demetrius’ banquet, my face comes back to you, and the sight of me isn’t disagreeable to you. For my part, I promise to be attentive to what you say to me. Will you accept my proposal?”
He burst out laughing, then controlled himself and said: “You also want wisdom! What egotism, and how avid you are, Naïs! You are so beautiful, and yet you don’t even consent to leave the privileges of the mind to the ugly and disinherited. Well, we can try. It’s sufficient for you to come to the Gardens in the morning or to the Academy after midday.”
“I would have preferred you to come to my house, O Polemon. We’d be more tranquil there.”
“I don’t see any inconvenience in that. I’ll come tomorrow, after the meal.”
“I’ll expect you.”
Proud and content, I returned home, with a warm heart. I will win my wager. I shall see tomorrow come with impatience and great curiosity.
XII
My ideas are tangled, my reaso
n is wandering here and there, in disorder. Amazement, the dolorous bitterness of defeat, the humiliation of my beauty vanquished and scorned, those are the sentiments that dominate me. However, I am not sad. I have discovered a superior being and sensed a master. Admiration is fomenting and soothing the numerous wounds of my vanity. That man, who departed my house victorious, made me enter into curiosity. He was able to inspire in me the delicious and furtive alarm that I experience when wandering alone in the shady and murmurous woods of Venus.
But I want to repress my confusion and try to evoke that strange day in an orderly fashion. Thus, I shall see myself with more clarity and I will be able to comprehend her.
Totally devoted since the morning to the unique thought of seduction, I prepared myself to please, prolonging my warm bath in order to accentuate the dullness of my skin, easting peppers, which heighten the cheeks like make-up, and saturating my house and my bed with heady perfumes.
But I did not ornament myself much, fearing to awaken Polemon’s suspicion, and I waited for him without finery, my hair simply retained by a golden ring and my body enclosed in my long tunic from Amyclae. Made of taut crimson fabric, that tunic is decorated with a head of Medusa. The frightening and attractive beauty of the Gorgon covers it to the waist.
Polemon came at the favorable moment when it is permitted to mingle the red flame of torches with the mauve tenderness of fading daylight. He was handsome by virtue of his tall stature and the grave expression that is an ornament in him. His large eyes accorded gentleness and strength in their gaze, in the same way that his entire being, without lacking sinew or vigor, is nevertheless entirely deployed to thought.
I found myself lying cleverly on an anaclintron, my feet scarcely flexed and quivering. The tunic was narrowed at the top in order to hug and emphasize my figure, and then spread out amply in the form of a lyre, thus giving me the corporeal attitudes and appearance of the Winged Victory that Phidias represented in the little temple of the Acropolis.
I was holding a pretty papyrus in my hand, the only one there was in my house. It contains the poems of Anacreon; Philemon the comic actor left it for me after the contentment of an amorous night.
“There’s a poet who incites mild wisdom,” Polemon said to me, when he had inclined his head, almost touching mine, and looked at the handwriting.
Then, taking the papyrus, he chose and slowly read a gracious little ode:
“Far from me the treasures of Gyges, the monarch of Sardes. The idea of gold does not transport me and I do not have enough to make a scepter. I prefer to spread perfumes over my hair and crown my head with beautiful roses. The hour that is passing and that one must collect is my only passion, my unique concern. For I do not know whether I shall be alive tomorrow.”
I looked at him, scarcely retaining my surprise. He did not have a sarcastic and somber expression, as he had the other day. His gestures were affable, his voice soft. Without any hesitation, he sat down next to me on the anaclintron.
And immediately, I thought that my ambition would be satisfied, that I would see him at my feet or feel him against my breast.
“The other day, Polemon,” I said to him, “I heard related in Menander’s house a certain conversation that the immortal Socrates had with the courtesan Theodota. He spoke to her agreeably about her métier, teaching her the essential and accessory aspects of it, initiating her in amorous ruses. She must certainly have profited from that lesson and become better. More than the study of the philosophy proper, what I am seeking, in my turn, is a similar amicable and substantial conversation, a little light brightly cast on the obscurity of my ideas, a delicate polishing of my thought. I do not believe, as I have already said, that another could serve as my master, but in you, everything seems pleasant and our science appears amiable.”
“By Apollo, you talk well, Naïs! It would be pleasant for me to guide along the flowery paths of wisdom a woman as becoming as you. If I were more worthy of it, and the times were better, I would have liked you to become another Aspasia in my hands. But tell me first, Naïs, whether you know sensuality—for otherwise it will be difficult to bite into the fruits of knowledge. Wisdom is only a just estimation of the pleasures of this world. To appreciate them it is necessary to have known them.”
I started at that demand.
“What does that speech mean, Polemon? Sensuality has never ceased for an instant to be my profession. Since the age of fourteen, insatiable and welcoming, I have embraced enjoyment in its thousand aspects.”
“You want to tell me that you are a courtesan, Naïs, but I know that. Do you believe that that is sufficient to possess sensuality?
“Listen, Polemon,” I said to him, estimating the moment favorable for the accomplishment of my design. “Is it sensate to assert that one knows sensuality? That cannot be enunciated, it can scarcely be proven. Shall I tell you that I always feel carnally stirred, prey to all the transports, and that the frissons emerge naturally from my body as from a profound spring? My arms are avid to embrace, and my reason is ever in debauchery. Come closer, incline your head over my breast to count the palpitations; then, see how impatient my feet are, jealous of one another, and with what fierceness the blood invades my skin, solicits it and amorously besieges it.”
As I spoke, I took his hands and, looking him in the eyes, I tried to draw him toward me.
He came toward me, meekly, but in order to speak to me at closer range, not to embrace me. His hands were knotted with mine, but his gaze was untroubled. One might have thought that he was next to a friend and not a woman.
“Now, Naïs, I am sure that you are ignorant of the true essence of pleasure. I have no need of any other proof. If you have a contrary opinion it is because you are confusing sensual delirium with sensuality. You are pressed by the spurs with which Amour pricks all beings, you have entered into blind orgy, but you are still ignorant of meditative ad measured enjoyment, the ornate pleasure of thought. True sensuality, Naïs, does not flow only from the body; it needs the collaboration of the soul. And, being more demanding, it also draws in its wake the cortege of the arts, the splendor of poetry, the rhythm of music. It seems complex, conscious, refined. And, far from being avid, it gladly allies itself with satiety. In order to define it, it would first be necessary to indicate that it implies the self-fulfillment of the soul above the flesh.”
“What you say there, Polemon, appears profound, although I cannot grasp its meaning clearly. But you’ll talk to me about it again. Don’t you believe, however, that all speech pales and is effaced before a passionate gaze, a keen and extended embrace. I am, in sum, only a woman, Polemon. While you were speaking I was thinking that a kiss from your mouth would infuse me better than your science...”
I drew nearer to Polemon negligently and put my hand on his shoulder, where the clasp of the mantle leaves a little flesh uncovered. My tunic was also disarranged and my feet emerged from its creases, round, impish and immodest.
Polemon reposed his gaze there tranquilly, and continued: “For sensuality to spring forth, therefore, I tell you, Naïs, it is necessary that the soul is tranquil and disengaged, and that it can lean over the body and gaze at it. You know the fable of Amour and Psyche. It’s a pure allegory, adaptable to several meanings. Imagine that Psyche symbolizes perfect consciousness and that Amour incarnates divine desire. Their harmonious union, their hermetic assemblage, will offer you the image of perfect sensuality. Outside of that, everything is merely inferior slaking. For, in sum, pleasure, such as the vulgar conceive it, is the prerogative of all beings and does not constitute an attribute proper to humans. It animates plants, insects, and even the fish in the sea. It is by virtue of amorous solicitation that birds sing, stags bell and wild beasts roar. All of them feel that sharp constraint, all of them aspire to unite, to penetrate one another, to conjoin. The entirety of nature swells and extends. One might even say that if everything consisted of voluptuous ardor, humans would be humiliated before the superb embraces of wild pigs, th
e burning and consuming intercourse of cantharides and the mordant feline amours of panthers.
“But in order to equal and surpass those supreme carnal orgies, humans were endowed with the infinity of thought, the multiple decors of dream, everything that is not flesh and which can add to flesh. Only humans can fecundate their own pleasure, reflect upon it, and meditate upon its sensuality. More than that, they are capable of eroticizing dolor, of confusing the exaltation of amour with the fear of death and considering their own desire as a mirror of human desire in general.
“But now I am asking myself whether it is not too soon to talk to you about sensuality, and if it might not be preferable to talk about simpler and elementary things, about the intimate meaning of beauty, or the science of adornment. Do you even know your body? Have you fathomed its secret rhythm, its mysterious law? For every body, like every face, has a unique expression, a mind that is proper to it, and a beauty that is singular and distinct.”
“Teach me, then, the law of my body, for it might be escaping me, Polemon,” I said to him, smiling. “I’ll render the task easier for you.”
So saying, I unfastened the gold clasp at the shoulder and allowed my garments to fall. My image appeared to me in the large bronze mirror; I looked at it as if it were foreign to me and I appreciated my beauty impartially. At the same time, as if my nudity gave me a clearer consciousness of my desires, I sensed that the caresses of that man were becoming necessary to me. His words had awoken a passionate curiosity within me; his presence subjugated me. Not only Demetrius’ wager, but the cry of my flesh, pushed me to his conquest.
“Yes, you are beautiful, O Naïs! I approve of your beauty and I love it, as I loved and approved of your face the first time I encountered you. How many things its lineaments say to me, and how eloquent all of your flesh is! If only you knew how to refine it, to sharpen it! You’ve refrained from putting on make-up today, but in exchange, you’ve perfumed yourself abundantly. The odor is penetrating, confused and monotonous. Do you not know, Naïs, that each member of the body has a particular essence and demands an appropriate aroma? The rose, it is said, is only for the breasts. With the violet, I would have liked the mouth to be perfumed, while the hair should be anointed with the vivid scent of rue or cinnamon, in order to intoxicate. Under the armpits, I would gladly put helenium, which has a suave and piquant odor of warm flesh and opening flowers. Over the abdomen one would spread a viscous drop of nard, which gives voluptuous dreams and emits a sort of heavy vapor, insinuating itself everywhere, like the genius the presides over orgasms.”
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