“And I ran out of that lair of savages, in a panic. In vain, Geryon hurtled into the street and begged me to return, swearing that all his narrations were imaginary and that Typhon had not killed anyone. ‘He remained in Upper Phrygia with a fever,’ he told me. ‘He’s never seen the shadow of a Nabataean in his life. It’s here in Athens that he bought from one of Demetrius’ soldiers that baboon conserved in salt you saw in his house. In reality, Tychon is naturally mild and simple-minded. We told you those stories in the hope that you’d respect him and like him more.’
“But I wouldn’t consent to return, for, although they were lies, those stories continued to frighten me and the chiliarch suddenly inspired an insurmountable dislike in me. That’s why, Naïs, I’ve come here, having no other refuge and not wanting to venture by night as far as Piraeus, where I live. But you’re very fatigued yourself.”
“That’s because I’ve had a happy day and I’m exhausted by amour. Sleep now Stagonium and try not to dream about dying Nabataeans. Know moreover, that Demetrius has made a treaty with them without a fight and, in consequence, those barbarians are still alive, procreating and prospering.”
XVI
When I woke up, next to Stagonium, that day was almost half way through.
The auletride departed diligently in order to tranquilize her sister, whom she had not seen since the previous day. For myself, I had got up indolently, my body poorly relaxed and idle, when someone came to tell me that a slave was waiting at the door with tablets from Polemon.
Come at once, dear Naïs, my lover wrote. Tomorrow I shall be far away, and you will no longer be able to reach me. Come quickly. Our day will be happy.
“Is your master ill?” I asked the slave.
“I have reason to believe the contrary,” he replied, “for he departed at dawn, in good health, for Eleusis. He gave me the order to come and find you with our mules and to take you to him, in his country house.”
“Let’s set forth quickly,” I said to him.
“Before leaving the city it’s necessary that I call in at the market. My master ordered me to buy him a fine eel.”
I did not know what to think. I was feverish, and I spurred my mule, which went through the meadows insouciantly and eccentrically, at a rhythmic walk.
It was autumn. The olives had already flowed under the press, the trees were meekly shedding their leaves. There was a breath of tenderness and the vestiges of a defunct estival ardor in the air. And I thought that everything faded, that life, like amour, is a measurable and brief thing, which only triumphs in order to wither away immediately.
When we arrived at the philosopher’s house, I got down promptly without seeking aid.
When I went in I saw Polemon, who was waiting for me impatiently. He seemed sensibly touched by my arrival, but did not get up from his chair.
“I dreaded finding you ill and in danger,” I told him.
“Come, precious friend,” he responded, smiling. “No, I’m not ill and I’ve never felt better; but my death is very imminent.”
I ran to him and threw my arms around his neck. “What are you saying, Polemon? Can one die in the prime of life without malady?”
“Strictly speaking, yes, provided that one wants to,” he replied. He continued: “Stay here by my side, Naïs, and spare me efforts and the sight of violent and disordered movement. I’m happy in gazing through the windows at the Saronica and the island of Salamina, which are turning blond in the sunlight. I don’t want to miss a single particle of my quietude or my delight. Remain with me, sweet friend, give me your hair, as curly as parsley, to stroke, and listen to me.
“You recall that yesterday we were scarcely miserly in according ourselves amorous joys. As I left your house, therefore, I observed so much languor and felicity in myself, such an affluence of contentment, and, at the same time, such an absence of new desires, that I became anxious. My being had attained the perfect equilibrium, the extreme appeasement that is united, by I know not what intimate juncture, with the idea of death. And I remembered those two fortunate young men whose story Solon narrated to King Croesus. They had been victorious at the Olympic games, and they entered Argos, their native city, acclaimed and triumphant. When they were at the temple, their mother, who knew them to be sensate and prudent, prayed to the divinity that they might be accorded the best that a man can obtain after a victory. Then the two ephebes, bathed by the memory of their triumph, slipped into a durable and eternal slumber. From happiness they passed into death. And I was affirmed in the idea that after a life of plenitude and sagacity, nothing is more enviable than a rapid death in tranquility.”
“But perhaps existence still reserves happy days for you, Polemon.”
“They would be uniform, Naïs, and time would wear them away and diminish them, like old and obsolete coins. Days are happy when they furnish us with the new. Now, I can say that nothing of that remains for me, at least on this earth. During my life, which was attentive and perfectible, I strove to choose and appropriate that which exist of the divine in this world. I enjoyed everything sensibly, I assimilated as much as I could the marvels of measure, beauty and rhythm. But for some time, knowing that I had advanced and progressed as far as possible on the road of wisdom, I have counted on detaching myself discreetly from this uncertain life.
“Your amour, by giving me one last and vivid felicity, permitted me grave thoughts. I resolved to close my book on that pleasant and culminating page, without trusting any further in the diversities of fortune. When one has exhausted all curiosity and strung out the attractions of this world, the natural thing to do is to leave it, in the same way that when one has seen and admired the paintings in one of the galleries of the Acropolis, one has nothing to do but pass into another.”
“But death is frightful!”
“Not for the sage, O Naïs! If you do not accept that at this moment, it is because, fortunately, you are still assisted by the two habitual companions of life, Desire and Ignorance. One lives while hoping for a surprise and regretting a memory. But one does nor experience either hope or regret if one has fully mediated and penetrated the monotonous play of things. In any case, either death is a passage and I shall go to participate beyond it in the society of Aspasia and Socrates, which would be new and profitable for me, or it is the entry to annihilation, and then it is rationally not worth the trouble of thinking about it or fearing it.”
“There is still time, Polemon, to go back on your decision. In spite of yourself, I want to save you.”
“I took the poison before you arrived, Naïs. And that poison, which comes from a physician of Pontus, is a proven and reliable friend, which never fails. Rather open the window, in order that I can hear the birds singing and that I can see the sea. Cease to beg me and to agitate yourself. I summoned you because I would like to die in your arms and attain the unknown door in the midst of pleasures. I offer you the final hours on my life, the last strength of my heart, and I want to give you as well the example of my death.
“I remember having spoken to you the other day, inexactly and conceitedly, about wisdom. In truth, wisdom consists of living one’s day, without the great illusion of tomorrow, without caring about the day before, uniquely occupied in crowning with flowers the passing moment. I have had the weakness to want to differ from my fellows by means of virtue, which is as presumptuous as desiring to surpass them all in vice. You have made me repent of that error. You will recall sometimes the brief hours that we spent spinning amour together. In the midst of moderate pleasures, far from violent instants, while savoring a fine fig or seeing the blond hair of an ephebe, be sensible to my memory and think of me with benevolence. Such is my prayer, O Naïs!”
And to hide my emotion I asked him: “Why have you come to die here rather than elsewhere, Polemon?”
“Because the landscape is tranquil, and people scarce. One needs to withdraw into oneself and to review existence before desisting from all thought. Then too, I like the sea and fear the care
ss of the Athenian sun, which is a sorcerer and attaches one to life.”
On his instruction, the table was served in order that we could take a last meal together.
“I ordered for today a eel, a fish that has always had my preference but which brings about unfortunate perturbations in my organs. Now I can eat my fill of it, sure that the eel will not reserve me a bad tomorrow.”
He ate with a very good appetite and drank valiantly.
“I can say, like the soldiers of Thermopylae, that I shall sup with Pluto tonight; but I prefer to believe that I shall not sup anywhere, which is more dignified and better.”
We each savored the intimate thoughts that the time brought us. Polemon said: “It’s necessary not to offend human measure by feeling joy too intensely. Yesterday, in your arms, I drank sensuality in great gulps and without restraint. I therefore owe it to jealous Nemesis not to survive.”
With those words, Crates and Crantor, his two best friends, came in. They came to see Polemon. He had summoned them. They did not say anything, but approached him and kissed him on the lips.
“I acted ingrately in distancing myself from you,” the philosopher apologized, “but I had to. You will forgive me when I tell you that for the first time, I have the certainty of happiness. For, as Solon thought, one cannot believe oneself advantaged by fortune so long as one has a future before one. I have summoned you to inform you that the passage to death is devoid of encumbrances and torments, and that Mercury, the Conductor of Souls, comports himself as a welcoming divinity.”
“Do you not think that exiting from life is an incalculable action, Polemon?” said Crantor. “The most elementary prudence ought to forbid it to you.”
“On the contrary, I hold death to be the most insignificant of gestures, the only one denuded of consequences. It has no tomorrow and it entails fewer perturbations than the fall of a pebble into the sea. To live life, that is what is incalculable. And as I think sanely, I prefer to exit from existence of my own accord that to perish by some stupid accident, by means of a tortoise that one receives on the head, like Aeschylus, or a grape-seed that catches in the throat, like Sophocles, or an excessive burst of laughter, like Anacreon of Ceos. The only death that I would have preferred to mine would be that of Laïs, who died of pleasure, seized and felled in her bed by a gripping and frenzied sensuality. But such a grave and sweet death is not given to all mortals.”
“On looking at funerary marbles,” sad Crates, “it is difficult to judge which of the individuals represented thereon possessed felicity. Is it the one who is seen on his feet and who goes still struggling and charges with dolor in life, or the one who remains seated and who has already entered into repose.”
“Whoever knows that life is a shadow can only exit from it without joy and without dolor, in the insensibility of the infant born into it,” replied Crantor.
“I have only to confess one sole regret in quitting life,” murmured Polemon, in a feeble voice. “That is that I am departing without knowing pertinently whether the gods exist. In the epoch of Socrates, people were almost sure of it, but since then we have made too much progress in reverse.”
“Do you not believe that the dead know more about it than we do?”
“I don’t believe anything,” replied Polemon.
Then, after a few moments of meditation, he said: “The things that made the most impression on me during life are rare, I can only count three. Firstly, a sunset over the Mediterranean in the vicinity of the Echinades, seen from a ship that was taking me to Sicily; secondly, the strophes of a chorus of Oedipus Rex at the theater of Dionysus; and lastly, Naïs’ breasts, which quivered and colored under caresses and gave me the illusion of being a creator. But I am wise enough not to believe that one can resuscitate and sense again any of the pleasures of the past.”
Afterwards, smiling, he drew our attention to a sailing ship that was rounding the island of Salamina and passing into the Aegean.
“We are equally uncertain of our destiny, that ship which is confronting the open sea, and I, whom am abandoning myself to death. But I still have more probabilities than it has of entering into a port.”
He requested that flowers be brought to him, and also strewn on the floor. Then he ordered that a Sicilian pastor hidden in the garden should begin playing his flute.
“I didn’t want to summon auletrides because their songs are tumultuous. But I will hear with pleasure the Sicilian tunes with which my mother once lulled me, and which awaken distant and naïve memories in me. In that way, perhaps I shall confound my death with my birth, and I shall not know through which of the two contrary doors of life I am about to pass.”
He listened to the simple tune while closing his eyes and smiling. A pallor was already tarnishing his face.
“I feel light! Come closer to me, Naïs. I feel light, but it is because my legs are quitting me. They have departed mysteriously and know already what the rest of my body still does not. Life is going away; it is in haste. One would think it were a fickle bird impatient to attain space and liberty.”
“Would you like a drink?” asked Crantor.
“No. I shall be drinking the waters of the Cocytus in a few moments. Adieu, my friends. I would love to quit you, like Socrates, assuring you of immortality, but I do not have the courage. Dying in uncertainty myself, I do not have the effrontery to affirm anything. But if you want me to have a happy end, Naïs, read a few verses of this papyrus, covered with silk and very fatigued, in which I transcribed during life the best I have looted from the works of the poets.”
I took the book and, in accordance with his choice. I read him, through my tears, the adieux of Andromache to Hector and the prayer of Ipihigenia to the light of day. The verses were so beautiful, those sublime fictions equaled so closely the solemn reality of death, that my voice failed and the last harmonies of Euripides emerged from my lips like a breath.
“There is the genius, vanquisher of death,” said Polemon. “Those Olympian accents sometimes make me believe that human beings are superior to their poor destiny. It might be, in sum, my friends, that a God exists, since the poets draw from their hearts chords so elevated and so proud. Tell us now, Naïs, something more cheerful, to make us laugh. Seek, if you like, the gracious anecdote of the kiss that Sophocles gave the handsome cup-bearer of Samos...”
But I saw that our friend’s eyes were veiled as if by a mist. The expression of his face undulated, obfuscated, and then brightened like a flame on the point of extinction.
I wanted to aid him to lie down, but he took my hand and squeezed it.
“I can hardly see any longer. Is that you, Naïs? Uncover your breasts, my love, in order that I might collect a beautiful image for eternity.
We were leaning over him, flowing that intimate and troubling mystery, that venerable contest of life and death, ever recommenced, ever pathetic, which, since the origins, cleans, polishes and renews the worlds.
Polemon raised his hand slightly, as if to enunciate and affirm, and was then seized by a long spasm.
“Undoubtedly,” he stammered, “the Gods...”
But he interrupted himself and we never grasped what he was trying to formulate. Then he commenced against the verse of Sophocles: “Sweet light...”
His hand gripped mine more forcefully; his body stiffened.
He was dead.
And immediately, upon his face, the livid shadows and the spirits of fear descended as if they had been waiting nearby, as if they were omnipresent and nothing could resist them...
While still remaining near us, our friend was already lying in the unfathomable.
Dusk fell. There was no longer anything but a long violet peplos extending majestically over the Sea of Salamina.
Thus exited tranquilly from life the singular man that I had understood poorly but loved very much, and who left me a memory mingled with sensuality and sadness.
In accordance with his desire, we laid him down to rest near the promontory of Sunium, i
n order that he might be lulled eternally by the waves, and that he might be the first to perceive the beautiful ships that would bring new philosophies, young religions and as-yet-unexperienced evils to his beloved Attica.
He is buried now, but his shade floats amicably around my house, haunting me and visiting me...
And for the first time, since the distant days of my childhood, I surprise tears on my eyelids.
Adieu, dear Polemon.
XVII
Twice I went to Laurium to make libations and to spread violets on Polemon’s tomb. In memory of him I refused all caresses for long months, and my door and my bed were closed to nubile young women as well as to young lovers.
Like the Arrephores weaving the veil of the goddess for the Panatheanaia, I remained chaste and suffered from my chastity. I even thought of consecrating myself entirely to the memory of my friend and, repressing my deprived and gluttonous desires, I read the dialogues of Plato, which I had bought for a price of gold in the hope of understanding them. But in vain I meditated the Phaedo and tried to imagine Polemon immortal. The subtleties of the Academy did not penetrate me. I can only hear the truth, it seems, spoken by a fleshy mouth, alive and ready for the kiss.
Eventually in recent days, I weakened, for, stopping by chance in the Ceramicus, I saw my name written on the part of the ship-owner Theodorus, with a offer of five mina.
I dared not disdain that regal proposition. Chances sometimes come along so exceptional that one would seem to be insulting fortune by refusing them. No consideration can permit the refusal of Prosperity. I therefore received Theodorus, who departed drunk on my embraces and will come back again this evening. He has the vigor of the prime of life. Although ugly, he charms by speaking eloquently of the lands he has visited, the hyperborean countries that extend beyond the Pillars of Hercules. He knows and frequents, so he says, thick-lipped women rouged to equal vermilion, others who consider virginity an opprobrium and others who, when married, are held in honor for regaling strangers with their bodies.
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