The Plato Papers

by Peter Ackroyd

  rock music: the sound of old stones. This is a condition not previously ascribed to Mouldwarp, but the phrase itself is evidence that some connection was made between ancient objects and musical harmony.

  second in command: the belief in the supremacy of time. All aspects of existence were once governed by this concept, as in second sight, second thoughts and second childhood.

  see red: to see into the fire at the heart of all things.

  sexist: a proponent of the notion that there were only two or, at most, three sexes.

  sleeping car: an example of the belief that inanimate objects, when not being employed or exploited, reverted to a dormant state. See ‘sleeping bag’ and ‘sleeping tablet’.

  solitary confinement: a state of mind, much encouraged in the Mouldwarp period.

  space age: the space between objects was believed to grow old and die; it was a way of assigning mortality, and fatality, to the entire universe.

  stopwatch: a group of trained observers chosen to measure the pace of human affairs and to intervene if there were any signs of delay. There seems to have been a general delight in speed and efficiency for their own sake, with the attendant fear that the world might lose its velocity or even stop altogether.

  sunstroke: the death of the sun.

  telepathy: the suffering caused by ‘television’. It seems likely that television enlarged the organs of vision beyond their natural range and as a result caused mental distress. Efforts were continually being made to increase human perception by artificial means, without any understanding that the conditions of Mouldwarp were still in place—the greater the enlargement, in fact, the more obvious the constriction. The practitioners of television received magnified images of their own shrunken sight and lived in perpetual sorrow.

  third world: unknown. The home of the third person? Hence the location known as the third degree? Doubtful.

  time bomb: the explosion of the Mouldwarp world.

  tin god: an object of their worship.

  town crier: an official who took on the woes of a town, or district, and engaged in ritual weeping to ensure the maintenance of harmony.

  transcendence or trans-end-dance: the ability to move beyond the end, otherwise called the dance of death. The fear of death, in the Mouldwarp period, was part of a greater fear of life.

  travel sickness: the fever which prevented certain people from leaving the sites of their birth or upbringing. It is now known to be a sacred condition created by the earth itself, but in ancient times it was classified as an illness to be purged with drugs.

  underground: the title of a painting of great beauty. It is before you now. Notice how the blue and red lines of light reach out in wonderful curves and ovals, while a great yellow circle completes the design. It is a masterpiece of formal fluency and, although the people of Mouldwarp are considered to be devoid of spiritual genius, there are some who believe this to be their sacred symbol of harmony. It is true that certain spirit names have been deciphered—angel, temple, white city, gospel oak and the legendary seven sisters—but the central purpose of the painting is still disputed.

  wisdom teeth: it was believed that the source of human characteristics or behaviour could be found in various organs of the body. Courage was identified with the heart, for example, and memory with the brain. It would seem, then, that wisdom was located in the teeth.

  word processor: in the old machine culture words were seen as commodities, or items in a line of production. They became a form of manufacture and were, therefore, increasingly standardised; they took on mechanical rather than living proportions, so that they could be widely distributed over the world.

  words-worth: the patronymic of writers who had earned their high position. In a similar context we have Chatter-ton. Many Mouldwarp writers were compared to inorganic substances, such as Ore-well, Cole-ridge and Gold-smith. Some writers were considered sacred, as in Pope and Priestley. Some were feared as Wilde or Savage while others were celebrated for their mournful or querulous style, among them Graves, Bellow and Frost. Unfortunately, no specimens of their work have survived.

  X-ray: a ray that has dissolved or has been terminated. X, also known as ‘the cross’, was a symbol of great power in the Age of Mouldwarp; it was widely used to indicate death, as in X-am or X-it.

  yellow fever: the fear of colour.

  Zero tolerance: the ability to exist in a world without numbers. Since in this period there was no reality beyond the numerical system, it was regarded as an infinitely remote theoretical possibility.

  Zoolog:

  I am being interrupted.

  10

  Apologies, Plato. We have recovered some images from the marshland of the Savoy: powder upon a face, a glass of liquid, a child, a white bar of cleansing ointment, a vehicle upon wheels, a perfume for the hair, a shirt for the male, a basin. We cannot be certain how these details are related.

  Thank you. I will consider these matters before my next oration.

  11

  Very little is known of that ancient race, the American people. Their territory is now a vast and featureless desert, according to the latest report, swept by gales of hot air. Yet we have discovered evidence that, beneath the surface of this wasteland, there may remain the vestiges of a great empire. A sealed casket was removed from the ruined circus of Eros, outside our own walls; it was of course considered to be a sacred object, and lay untouched for several hundred years. But then, after the inauguration of our own Academy of Past Ages, it was removed for examination. The casket itself had been fashioned from some unknown metallic substance, and on its side it bore the still faintly discernible legend ‘E. A. Poe. American. 1809–1849’; when it was opened it was found to contain a text of black type inscribed ‘Tales and Histories’. It was a wonderful revelation, since it was the first relic of that unknown civilisation; unfortunately it is also likely to be the last. If all the earth were glass, as the saying goes, we would still look in vain. The significance of ‘Tales and Histories’ is immense, therefore, as the unique record of a lost race.

  The eminence and status of the author are not in doubt. The name, for example, was not difficult to interpret. Poe is an abbreviation of Poet, and by common consent the rest was deciphered: E. A. Poe = Eminent American Poet. It seems clear enough that the writers of America enjoyed a blessed anonymity, even in the Age of Mouldwarp. The word ‘poet’ is known to all of us, but as there are no chants or hymns in ‘Tales and Histories’ we believe the term was applied indiscriminately to all writers of that civilisation. This particular text has been preserved because of its historical content, not because it was the material for song and dance.

  Certainly E. A. Poet has described the characteristics of the American empire with great precision. Its inhabitants dwelled in very large and very old houses which, perhaps because of climatic conditions, were often covered with lichen or ivy. In many respects the architecture of these ancient mansions conformed to the same pattern; they contained libraries and galleries, chambers of antique painting and long corridors leading in serpentine fashion to great bolted doors. Their rooms were characteristically large and lofty, with narrow pointed windows and dark floors of the wood named ‘oak’. They also included innumerable stair-cases and cellars; the passages were lit by candelabra, although it was customary for the owner of the house to carry a flaming torch when walking upstairs. One eminent family, the Ushers, were fortunate enough to possess vaults in which they could bury their dead without the inconvenience of a church service. Indeed from the evidence of the Poet, the American people had no established or organised religion; they seem to have possessed a great terror of the night and darkness, like many primitive races, but there was an evil deity which they chose to propitiate with elaborate ceremonies and rituals. In one of the Poet’s historical accounts we find a reference to the ‘palace of the fiend, Gin’; this of course is related to Ijin, who, in the stories of the eastern earth, is an imp or demon. We have discovered the name of an essay
by the Poet, ‘The Imp of the Perverse’, which was no doubt a catechism or devotional study. On occasions such as this we recognise, with some distress, how much has been lost to us.

  The greatest fear of the Americans, however, seems to have been that of premature burial. This anxiety was related to the superstition, known as Cry-o-gene, which taught that the soul could be trapped within the confines of its body by lowering its temperature; it was believed that the frozen spirit could not fly out of its nest. No. There is no cause for laughter. The landscape of America was monotonous and forbidding; its seasons of cold were prolonged beyond endurance and there was more ‘night’ than ‘day’.

  This may account, in certain respects, for the striking appearance of its inhabitants. The Americans had pale countenances, with thin lips and large eyes; their hair was generally long and silken. It seems likely, from the evidence of this history, that they were all of distant aristocratic lineage; one of our readers has suggested that they were descended from some original clan or household, which might account for their marked and peculiar characteristics. We are informed by the learned Poet that they were a highly nervous people, who suffered from a morbid acuteness of their faculties. They experienced continually ‘a vague feeling of terror and despair’. They were prone to the most extreme sensations of wonder or hilarity and there seems to have been an unusual amount of lunacy among the young.

  Their fear of premature burial has already been discussed, but it was accompanied by a sense of sin and evil so strong that many believed that they were already damned. All the thoughts of Americans were upon death. Why such a wealthy and aristocratic people should have been so susceptible to morbid dread, and why they chose to live among so many intimations of gloom and decay, are still questions to be resolved. It has been suggested that they suffered from some general and inherited disease that caused them to shrink from bright light, for example, and that kept them enclosed within their mansions. But there may be another explanation.

  May I quote from the Poet’s own words? ‘And then, after the lapse of sixty minutes (which embrace three thousand and six hundred seconds of the Time that flies), there came yet another chiming of the clock and then were the same disconcert and tremulousness and meditation as before.’ Some of you are bewildered. A ‘clock’ was a mechanical system that manufactured this ‘Time’. There may originally have been covered markets from which Time was distributed to the people but, in the period when the Poet wrote his history, the mechanisms were so compact that it could be produced by means of various wheels and dials. There is also mentioned, within the same account, the object known as a ‘pendulum’ attached to this clock. There is even a ‘pit’ where Time itself was stored.

  All the evidence, therefore, suggests that the Americans considered Time to be an indispensable element of their existence. There is in the text a toast or homage to this deity, with the refrain ‘Time, gentlemen, please’. It was also, perhaps, a visible being. I have already mentioned that the Poet writes of ‘the Time that flies’, which suggests that they saw winged or hastening figures; this may also explain the references, on several occasions, to ‘muffled’ or ‘low indefinite sounds’, which we interpret as the noise of footsteps or of beating wings. But at this point we confess ourselves to be intrigued by that passage describing the ‘disconcert and tremulousness and meditation’ which Time instilled within the people. They trembled in its presence and as it ‘flew’ it gave them cause for anxious contemplation. But even though it was by no means a beneficent agency, they believed that it was in some obscure sense part of their own bodies. The beating of the human heart, for example, is compared to such sounds as ‘a watch makes when enveloped in cotton’. A ‘watch’ was that part of the clock which stared at its owner, and was sometimes known as its ‘face’.

  Another paragraph in ‘Tales and Histories’ anticipates the discoveries of a much later period. After the mansions of the American people have been described, it is suggested that these splendid houses ‘moulded the destinies’ of those who inhabited them; they contained ‘an atmosphere peculiar to themselves’ which wielded ‘an importunate and terrible influence’ upon those who dwelled in them. Curious, is it not? This historian of ancient days might easily be mistaken for a prophet! But then we read this: ‘I am heartily sick of this life and of the nineteenth century in general. I am convinced that everything is going wrong.’ Ponder these words, which manifest such a great sense of woe and loss. The conclusion is more poignant still. ‘I will get embalmed for a couple of hundred years.’ There of course is the pathos and also the irony. If the Poet were indeed revived, two hundred years later, the Age of Mouldwarp would still be in existence with all its degraded power. But although it was a barren and oppressive epoch, the work before us confirms that even then there were intimations and gleams of another life which would eventually emerge within the great brightness of Witspell. Thank you.

  12

  Plato: Thank you. Something of a success, I think.

  Soul: It was a fine performance.

  Plato: But was it accurate?

  Soul: As far as anyone knows. I particularly enjoyed your disquisition on time. It always interested me, at least when it existed. You were very convincing, too. And I must say that your gestures have improved.

  Plato: I was taught in the Academy how to summon up the images, but I was a poor student.

  Soul: No. You were different. I noticed it from the beginning. Even as a child you were unlike the others. You preferred solitude. You refused to play with the broken mirrors.

  Plato: I was so ugly—

  Soul: No. You were so afraid. When you were supposed to dance in the maze with the other children, you screamed and ran away.

  Plato: I did?

  Soul: I was always with you. When you used to hide in the ruins of the elephantine castle. When you wept at the death of your teacher.

  Plato: Euphrene. She brought me into the Academy. She showed me the books.

  Soul: Do you remember weeping?

  Plato: I remember that I visited the House of the Dead.

  13

  Welcome, little Plato. Welcome to the House of the Dead. When your teacher approached her end, she came here. Some citizens gently and quietly disappear, while others will lie within their shells for many centuries before fading away. We had once thought that, at the moment of death, all memory and imagination left the body; but recently we have found evidence that there is dreaming among the dead. They lie here and dream of their past lives. We know this because we have listened to their dreams. Why are you weeping, little Plato?

  14

  Soul: Yet you stayed at the Academy.

  Plato: It was my duty. No. It was my choice. I wanted to read all the old books. I was no longer here. I was there, within them.

  Soul: It was a comfortable position.

  Plato: Why?

  Soul: It was a place where you could conceal yourself.

  Plato: You’re wrong.

  Soul: I ought to know.

  Plato: I wanted to find myself.

  Soul: You wanted to find a voice.

  Plato: No. I wanted to find a faith.

  Soul: It was all very distressing. You were certain that you were right and the other citizens wrong. You believed in the importance of the past.

  Plato: Of course. But surely it was you who convinced me that the books were worthy of examination?

  Soul: I may have done. I cannot remember.

  Plato: Souls do not need memory. They are eternal.

  Soul: My apologies. I stand corrected. But when they asked you to take on the robe of orator, I remained silent.

  Plato: That was my choice. I did it because I was afraid.

  Soul: Of what?

  Plato: Of them.

  15

  Plato of Pie Corner, you have assumed the robe and mask of the orator. You will speak at each of the gates of the city. What is your theme?

  I will discuss the first ages of the earth.

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  The Age of Orpheus is the name we have given to the first epoch, when it was truly the springtime of this world. These were the centuries when statues were coaxed into life and walked from their stone plinths, when the spirits of streams could be changed into trees or glades and when flowers sprang from the blood of wounded heroes. The gods themselves took the shape of swans or bulls from the simple delight in transformation.

  Orpheus has become the symbol of this enchanted time because it was he who discovered the powers of musical harmony and, by means of his melodies, made the trees dance and the mountains speak. Yet his delight in the plaintive notes of the lute was far exceeded by his love for a woman, Eurydice, who was the daughter of a river nymph; we have found the nests of nymphs even here, by the Tyburn and the Lea. Eurydice was stung by a serpent of the field while conversing with a flower; she died at once, her eyes closed upon the world, and Orpheus was afflicted with a grief which no music could alleviate. We might say that he ‘descended’ into grief, since the notion of descent is central to the vision of this age.

  She herself had been transformed into a shade and taken to the place known as Hades, a dark subterranean city of which certain ruined fragments have already been found. Its ruler was Thanatos, the son of Chronos, which is to say that death is the child of time. He wore a black gown upon which were woven golden stars, as a sign that the heavens themselves were in turn the creation of time and death.

  So piercing was Orpheus’s sorrow at the loss of Eurydice that he approached the gods of Mount Olympus, situated in Asia Minor, and implored them to grant his wish. Could he travel to the underworld and see her once more? He was warned that any journey beneath the earth would be perilous indeed but, after some discussion over bowls of ambrosia, the gods allowed him to venture below. Almost at once he was transported to the mouth of the cavern; he was about to enter, when a ferocious three-headed dog came towards him out of the darkness. (The bones of a grotesque animal have indeed been found near the site of the ruined city.) Orpheus had no sense of fear, however, and began to play upon his lute; the monstrous dog stopped, licked its paws with its three tongues and settled comfortably upon the floor of the cave. Then it fell asleep. As soon as he heard it snoring and whimpering, Orpheus slipped past and entered the domain of Hades.