Just Myrto

by Laurie Gray

  Lamprocles shrugged, and we both looked to Socrates who was watching us as if we were actors in a comedy.

  Socrates cleared his throat and motioned to Lamprocles to pour him a glass of wine. “As you know, even though the chronology of the stories puts Oedipus the King before the story of his daughter Antigone, Sophocles produced Antigone first and Oedipus over a decade later.”

  As Socrates spoke, Lamprocles poured wine for all of us. “Yes, but how long ago, Father?” Lamprocles asked as he handed a glass to Socrates.

  Socrates drank most of the pour and gave a long sigh. “I was probably close to thirty years old when Sophocles entered Antigone in the tragedy contest at the festival of Dionysus.” Socrates finished the wine in his glass. “Funny thing, though; he didn’t win the contest that year.”

  “What tragic play could be better than Antigone?” I asked in disbelief.

  Socrates shook his head. “I cannot recall the play that actually won that year.”

  “Probably something from Aeschylus or Euripides,” Lamprocles suggested as he poured more wine for Socrates.

  “Not Aeschylus,” replied Socrates. “He was dead by then. Must have been Euripides. Yes, I’m quite certain Euripides won it that year.”

  I was calculating the years in my head. If Socrates was thirty when he saw Antigone and in his early forties when Sophocles produced Oedipus the King, then even the newer one must be approaching thirty years old.

  “How odd that Sophocles never wrote a third play to go with them like most writers of tragedy do,” I commented.

  Socrates eyes sparkled. “And why do you think that Sophocles never completed the trilogy?”

  I looked from Socrates to Lamprocles who could not hide a grin. “I’ve never heard of a third play,” I stammered. “And Sophocles died several years ago.”

  “All true,” Lamprocles interjected. “But now for the most amazing news of all: Before Sophocles died, he did write a play called Oedipus at Colonus, and his grandson will be producing it for this year’s festival!”

  “At Colonus? A play about the events that occurred after Oedipus the King and before Antigone?” I asked.

  Socrates nodded. “How very appropriate that Sophocles ended in the middle, don’t you agree?”

  I didn’t know what to think about the order of the plays, but the desire to attend the production overwhelmed me. I had never known any women to go to the theatre. I did not even consider attending last year with my large, pregnant belly. I walked over to Socrates and placed my hand on his shoulder. “Do you suppose I could go with you to watch the play?”

  “Of course you can come, can’t she Father!” exclaimed Lamprocles.

  “I don’t see why not,” agreed Socrates. He patted my hand reassuringly. “There are often foreign women scattered around the edges of the crowd, so you would not be the only woman present.” Socrates pulled me around and seated me across his lap so that I could face him. “I would be most pleased to have you in the seat on my right and Lamprocles seated to my left.”

  “Then it’s settled!” proclaimed Lamprocles. “Myrto and I will study Oedipus the King and Antigone together just like old times, and then we can all attend Oedipus at Colonus next month.”

  Socrates assured me that Sophroniscus would be fine with Leda and the girls looking after him, so the next morning I once again accompanied Socrates and Lamprocles to the Agora. When we arrived, Plato was there under the laurel tree waiting for Socrates. From the look on his face, I knew he was surprised to see me, but he appeared pleased nevertheless.

  “Good morning, Socrates,” he said, shaking Socrates hand. Lamprocles also received a greeting and handshake.

  “Good morning, Plato,” I said, extending my hand as well.

  Plato reached out as if to shake my hand, but then swiftly lifted my hand to his lips, bestowing a kiss upon it. His lips felt soft and warm against the back of my hand. “Good morning, Myrto,” he said with a smile. I wished that I could tell him how his belief that I could read had led to all of the young girls in our home learning to read. But the words did not come.

  “What’s that you’ve got around your neck?” asked Lamprocles.

  Plato removed the thickly woven cord from around his neck and held up a beautifully decorated wineskin for us to see. “Do you like it?” he asked. “I won it last week in a drinking contest at the Festival of Flowers.”

  He handed it first to Lamprocles, who looked at it only briefly before passing it to me.

  “See the ram with golden horns?” Plato asked, moving closer to me, placing his hands over mine on the wineskin and turning it to display the ornamentation. He followed the swirl of the horns with his finger. “That’s all real gold,” he said. Then he took the wineskin from me and handed it to Socrates. “Please, Socrates, accept this gift from your humble student.”

  As Socrates thanked him, Lamprocles and I excused ourselves and went to find a place to study the plays of Sophocles.

  “Shall we go back to the Graces?” asked Lamprocles.

  I nodded. “That would be fine.”

  We took turns reading, arguing over which three characters were on stage at any given time and who was saying what. Although I enjoyed this immensely, the city did not seem to energize me as it had when we first began studying here. My mind frequently returned to Sophroniscus, wondering if he was playing happily or needing comfort.

  “What’s wrong?” Lamprocles asked, interrupting my thoughts of home.

  “Nothing,” I said. “I was just thinking that maybe tomorrow we could study in the meadow or near the river. Would you mind?”

  “I don’t care where we read,” replied Lamprocles. “I just want you to pay attention to what we’re reading.”

  “Then perhaps Sophroniscus could come with us. We could bring along one of the girls to watch him,” I suggested.

  Lamprocles studied me from my head to my feet. “You know, Myrto, you’ve changed.”

  I laughed. “Me?” I said. “What about you? Your voice has dropped an octave and your beard is as full as any soldier’s.”

  He stroked his shiny, black beard. “It is getting full, isn’t it? And look at this.” He flexed his arms. I watched in amazement how the muscles bulged on command.

  “All of that time at the gymnasium has paid off,” I said, happy to give him a compliment.

  “I do enjoy exercising, but I’d still rather read and talk with you.” He leaned back against a stone and put his hands behind his head, continuing to flex his biceps beyond what it took to support his head. “Do you know what I really wish, Myrto?” He sat up and looked at me in earnest. “I wish we could find another book like that midwifery book to read together.”

  For the first time in nearly two years, my mind flashed back to a book Socrates had shown me before any of the markings could speak to me—the book written by the same hand as the midwifery book. I nodded. “I know what we can read after the festival of Dionysus.”

  24

  THE NEXT MORNING Leda sent us off with enough food to feed a small army, which is what we had become by the time we left the house. When Korinna heard that Lamprocles and I would be studying by the River Illisus, she asked if she and Iris might join us in our studies. Leda suggested that Myrrine come, too, to care for Sophroniscus while the rest of us read the plays of Sophocles. Myrrine was about six months younger than Iris, and everyone expected that Iris would soon be teaching her to read and write as well.

  “What horrible fate,” Lamprocles reflected on the tragedy as we walked. “I can think of nothing more heinous than murdering your father and marrying your mother.”

  “I agree,” I said, “but it seems Oedipus might have avoided this if he had simply followed the Delphic Oracle’s instruction to each of us: ‘Know Thyself.’”

  “Are you saying that Oedipus brought all of this upon himself?” Lamprocles asked in a reproaching tone. “He did not bring the prophecy upon himself. He was doomed before his true parents conceived him. Ho
w could he know that he had been abandoned by the king and queen of Thebes at birth, rescued by a shepherd, and raised by the king and queen of Corinth?”

  “But when he learned of the prophecy, he chose to flee Corinth. If he’d only talked to his parents there about it, they would have told him that he was not their natural son. By running away, he brought everything he feared upon himself,” I insisted.

  Day after day during our reading we talked about fate and the choices we make. As we finished Oedipus the King, I remained firmly convinced that when we try too hard to avoid a fate we bring it upon ourselves and, likewise, when we seek to judge others, we unwittingly judge ourselves. Lamprocles appeared less convinced than I.

  As we read Antigone, we decided it might be entertaining to act out the play. Of course, in the original production all of the characters were played by men. Lamprocles decided that he should be Antigone, and that I should be Creon.

  “But Antigone is a woman and Creon is a man,” I objected. “Wouldn’t it make more sense for you to be Creon and for me to be Antigone?”

  “But Antigone is the main character, and I want to be the main character,” Lamprocles responded.

  “Creon is the main character,” I insisted. “He’s the reason Antigone and Creon’s wife Eurydice and their son Haemon all kill themselves. He’s the only one left living at the end.”

  “You just don’t want to be Creon because you don’t like him,” said Lamprocles.

  “No,” I said. “You’re the one who doesn’t like Creon, and that’s why you want to be Antigone.”

  “Yes,” admitted Lamprocles. “So you get to be Creon.”

  “Fine,” I conceded, “but let’s have Korinna be Antigone and you can be all of the other parts.”

  We asked Korinna to be our third actor, and Iris, Myrrine and Sophroniscus became our chorus. Our chorus required a substantial amount of assistance from our main actors. Sophroniscus did prove to be a good little wailer every time someone died. Lamprocles played the role of Creon’s son Haemon with great passion, both in defense of his betrothed Antigone and in attempting to persuade Creon that the gods would punish him for ordering that Antigone be locked in a cave to die. Though it wasn’t really supposed to be acted out on stage, Lamprocles and Korinna portrayed both the ardor and the deaths of the ill-fated lovers with such fervor that for a moment I would have believed that the two of them had truly fallen in love.

  Creon didn’t appear to feel much remorse for the death of Antigone, but I could feel tears stinging my eyes as I delivered Creon’s final lines:

  “Lead me away! I am the rash man who killed you, my son, and you too, my wife. Alas, wretch that I am, I cannot look on either of you; I have nothing to hold onto. Everything these hands have touched has turned to grief and fate has come down upon my head.”

  I felt genuine sympathy for the man who finally understood that he had brought this sorrow upon himself through his own foolish pride.

  By the time the festival of Dionysus arrived, Lamprocles had decided that Korinna should accompany us to see Oedipus at Colonus. Thousands upon thousands of people poured into the theatre, a semicircular arena built into a natural hollow of the hillside in the Acropolis. From the top of the grassy slopes we could look out over the stage and catch a glimpse of the Aegean Sea. Men dressed as billy goats had already moved the large wooden statue of Dionysus from the temple to the place in the theatre where it would remain throughout the festival.

  Wine flowed freely and the aroma of freshly charred beef lingered in the air. Our bellies were full of meat from the cattle sacrificed in honor of Dionysus. Socrates led us down into the very middle of the theatre where we found room for the four of us to sit on one of the wooden planks. Lamprocles insisted that Korinna and I sit together in the middle with Socrates on my left and Lamprocles on her right. The crowd buzzed with excitement until the drone of a double-piped aulos settled like a cloud upon us.

  Two actors, one wearing the mask of Oedipus and one wearing the mask of Antigone took the stage. Their bodies, clad in long, brightly colored costumes, moved slowly and with great precision. When the chorus finally entered, the fifteen men resembled a single giant octopus with many heads and arms, all moving simultaneously, but with rather awkward coordination.

  Korinna gripped my hand as the chorus chanted for Oedipus and Antigone not to enter the sacred grove outside Colonus: “Turn around! Come back! You have gone too far!”

  During one of Oedipus’ elaborate apologies for his atrocious crimes and exile from Thebes, Socrates slipped his arm around my waist and drew me closer to him. I studied my husband for a moment before returning my attention to the stage. Sitting there with Socrates, I began to see Oedipus in a new light. In the end Oedipus always defended his own actions as honorably intended, claiming he killed his father in self-defense and blaming the city of Thebes for offering his mother to him as a wife.

  The chorus wailed, bemoaning life and glorifying death, “Not to be born is the condition that surpasses all others. But once man is born, the next best thing is to return with utmost haste to where he has come from.”

  Indeed, I had the sense that if Oedipus somehow had it all to do over again, he would do nothing differently. Even as death drew near, Oedipus blessed his daughters for standing by him and cursed his sons for banishing him to a strange land. Both his blessings and his curses brought suffering and death.

  The crowd around us seemed drawn together in the fear of impending doom, yet I felt strangely separate. Korinna and Lamprocles appeared completely mesmerized. When I turned to Socrates, he smiled. “It’s a tragedy, you know,” he whispered in my ear.

  I nodded. “Haven’t we all suffered enough tragedy in our own lives?”

  “Suffering naturally seeks companionship,” he whispered back.

  “I find the whole elaborate production much more troubling than natural,” I confessed.

  “Perhaps you would better enjoy a comedy,” replied Socrates. “It’s the same collective foolishness, but without the pretense of public virtue.”

  I shook my head. “I think I prefer reading books.”

  Socrates nodded. “Reading is good. Especially when it leads to contemplation and dialogue.”

  As we journeyed home that evening, Socrates and I walked behind Lamprocles and Korinna listening to them discuss the lives of Oedipus, Antigone and Creon. They extolled Antigone’s devotion to her family and her respect for the gods. They decried Creon’s stubbornness and shortsightedness. They remained quite baffled by Oedipus and his fate, well-persuaded that he suffered his deeds more than he committed them.

  25

  AFTER THE FESTIVAL of Dionysus, Lamprocles and I began studying the other book of Theano entitled The One. Her words spoke directly to my soul inspiring the purest sense of awe I had ever experienced. She wrote that the genesis of all life, light and dark, male and female, is one. There is only one and the perceived absence of one, which is an openness full of potential also known as nothing. The energy of life pulsates like our own heartbeat. The one contracts, then opens to refill, contracts, and opens again.

  All that ever was, all that is now and all that there ever will be exists within the pulsating energy: O1O1O1O1O1. The one encompasses all being, and the openness encompasses all potential for becoming. As Lamprocles read, I placed my hands over my heart and closed my eyes, feeling my own heartbeat. My ears filled with the dark mystery of rushing blood, and my eyes beheld a new inner light. I felt the breath of the universe within me.

  Theano told of those who traveled far to the East and returned with an image of the one as a circle and the source of becoming within. This powerful symbol of light and darkness, male and female, being and becoming appears as a circle with a river winding through the center. On each side of the river exists a single large droplet of water, one white and one black. In the center of the white droplet is planted the seed of darkness, and in the center of the black droplet is planted the seed of light.

  Th
e travelers demonstrated for Theano and other Pythagoreans the dance of the sun’s light and the earth’s shadow that created this image. They erected a pole measuring slightly less than two and one-half meters perpendicular to the earth’s surface and recorded the shadow images over the course of a year. The shortest shadow occurred on summer solstice and formed the tip of the black droplet and the source of the river dividing the droplets. The longest shadow occurred on winter solstice and formed the tip of the white droplet and the mouth of the river flowing into the surrounding circle.

  The travelers called the darkness yin and the light yang. Yin is born at summer solstice, and yang is born at winter solstice. Together yin and yang represent the unity and equality of light and darkness, male and female, coexisting in balance and harmony. This is the order and pattern of the universe, the path to prosperity and flourishing. Neither yin nor yang is superior; neither exists apart from the other. Any attempt at hierarchy or domination disrupts the natural flow creating disaster and destruction.

  “Lamprocles,” I asked, “do you suppose that it is the domination of men that has caused continuous war and the plague?”

  Lamprocles shook his head. “It does not stand to reason,” he replied. “States go to war over land and resources.”

  “Or a woman, such as Helen of Troy,” I added.

  “Yes,” said Lamprocles, “but recall that the Amazon women also fought in the Trojan War.”

  “A nation of women warriors is still a nation without balance between men and women,” I replied. “Do you suppose that there exists anywhere a state where men and women live together in perfect balance?”

  “Maybe that is what the Pythagoreans intend,” said Lamprocles. “Still, their society is so secretive and mysterious that it is hard to say.”

  “This book we’re reading does not feel like the words of a man or the words of a woman,” I told him. “It feels like a greater truth. It feels like wisdom.”

  “I don’t know,” Lamprocles said. “It’s just so different than the mathematical calculations and geometrical proofs that I’ve always associated with Pythagoras.”