Chapter Six

Second Step

SEEKING SANCTUARY

A sanctuary awakens a response in us.
Socrates quoted in MEMORABILIA, III. viii. 10

WHEN HE WOKE NEXT MORNING HE REALIZED HE WAS NOT serious, or so we imagine. He left his house, and walked down to the agora, kicking himself for impulsively asking her to teach him and then agreeing to go with her to a sanctuary somewhere on a mountain north of Athens, for heaven's sake. He must have been out of his mind. He had too much going on to go anywhere. Now was not the time. Maybe he could sit down with her in a few months or next year when he felt calm enough. Surely it was better to be calm and collected before embarking on this kind of venture?

The idea of leaving Athens for several days for a sanctuary was undoable, disagreeable, and, though he would not admit it, deeply frightening. He had never done such a thing. He had studiously avoided Eleusis and the mysteries practiced there for a simple reason – he just wasn’t the type. Let others go into the darkness and meet "a light that moves to meet you, pure meadows that receive you, songs and dances and holy apparitions," not to mention throngs of other men and women on their way to their initiations. Thank you very much, but he preferred the stones of Athens under his feet and conversation between rational adults illuminated by the light of reason.

Though in all fairness, Diotima had said nothing about an initiation or rites or even about a sanctuary. She had merely said that if he wanted to learn he would need time and a place where he could focus. He had assumed a temple since she was a priestess, though her delight in reason suggested she differed from his perhaps stereotypical view of priests. Nor, he remembered, had she pressed him to come. She had been measured in her estimation of what she could teach him. She had, he thought, underestimated what he could learn. Listening to her an observer might have concluded she was doubtful he would be able to learn anything much, but standing and gazing into her eyes he had taken her remark "you might be able to learn something" as a sign of confidence and hope.

Last night he felt she understood what it cost him to say that he wanted and needed to learn. This morning his admission that he had something to learn made him feel excrutiatingly vulnerable. Even when we are very young we are judged on what we know – have we learned how to tie our sandals, have we learned our letters, do we know how to tell time. We are criticized, and often humiliated, for not knowing. Our sense of who we are, our acceptance by others, and sometimes our survival are bound up with what we know. To be told you don’t know can make us feel not just inadequate but on the verge of being annihilated. We prefer to feel there is nothing we need to learn, or to pretend that what we do not know is not worth knowing

Last night he had been able to say I'd like to learn, and it seemed to him she had received his words with caritas, with a gleaming look that thanked him for his fearlessness. This morning he thought she had not acknowledged or understood any such thing but had been triumphant at his confession of need. He wished he had never spoken. The implication that he needed to learn something from a woman struck him forcibly and unpleasantly.

And who was she to teach him? She was an Arcadian, of a country and people known merely for hunting and raising cattle, worshipping Artemis and Pan, and playing music. Their love of music they apparently obtained from Hermes, the messenger of the gods, who was reputedly born in Arcadia, and had invented the lyre when he was a few hours old. By Athenian standards it was a short list of accomplishments.

Standing unseeing in the market, he saw her with his mind's eye. Standing quietly in the torchlight Diotima seemed to possess the shining gift the old stories associated with those touched by the gods. Never mind that she had stunned him with her use of elenchus. With devastating skill she had rained on his head the shining arrows of her logic, but she had not triumphed over him. Instead she had given him the feeling they were pursuing truth side by side.

All well and good, he told himself, but there is nothing she can teach me about elenchus, and I do not believe the Ethiopian’s insistence that Diotima can teach me about areté. He had made up his mind. He would not go. To leave Athens and place himself in someone else’s hands – someone he hardly knew – the idea made him feel alone and exposed. What would happen at the mountain where she had suggested they go? She would try to change him, and he did not want to be changed. He was accustomed to the life he knew and the person he knew himself to be, and he liked himself even better now that he felt threatened with the idea of upsetting his settled ways and risking something new.

But curiously the daimonion had nothing negative to say. He had hoped it would scuttle the plan in its usual no-nonsense way, but no, the daimonion was silent, and gave not the smallest sign of opposition. Its silence was not, of course, an endorsement, but the daimonion's lack of opposition did give him pause.

He remembered his enthusiasm when he and Diotima spoke, how he had been swept up by the idea, which seemed to spring into shape before them without either of them deliberately creating it. Entheos. He steered hurriedly away from the word, which referred specifically to inspiration by or even possession by a god. He had not been enthusiastic. He had been overly tired. He had not been thinking clearly.

Really, he felt not just tired but unwell. That settled it. He was not going to travel into the wilds of Attica with an unknown gang of Arcadians when he should go home and tuck himself into bed.

But as soon as he had reassured himself that he would not go, a terrible longing rose up inside him like hunger. If only he and Diotima could speak about areté. If only he could grasp the beautiful idea that eluded him, and left him gasping and thirsty. His hope of connecting with areté, and touching happiness was like food and drink to him. To eat when he was so hungry. To drink when he was parched. For a few seconds he imagined how good that might be.

But seeing so darkly through his fear he knew it was a delusion. Yes, regrettably, a delusion.  

Two days later Socrates found himself with Diotima and her company on the road out of Athens. He had no postive reason for going, none at all, and would have been surprised if anyone had suggested he was following a trail. His reason for going was purely and compellingly negative. As soon as he had assured himself that he would not go and did not have to go, he saw where he stood. He stood at a dead-end with no way forward. He had failed to define areté. He had not been able to discover what made life worth living. He had no reason for continuing to live. He was filled with despair. He was taking the second step on the trail out of despair.

The second step on the trail is deciding to go. Obvious as this step is, it may be the hardest of all the steps. We may underestimate the difficulty of stepping outside the life we know, and putting it on hold for even a brief period of time. We may be stopped by emotional reasons masquerading as practical ones. We may be too proud, particularly too intellectually proud. We may have so cleverly and ingeniously concealed our frightening need and desire to take the trail that our pride stands between us and the second step like a wall, like a locked gate guarded by wolves. Taking the second step out of despair is not a bad reason for taking it, nor uncommon, and it will place the person who does in some of the best company in the world.

There were five in Diotima’s company, including the Ethiopian, who looked at him with surprise when he joined them with his travelling bag, and whose name he learned was Melissa. She hovered over him like a bee examining a large blossom, and made sure he was kitted out. Diotima smiled, welcomed him briefly, then spoke to an old man whose intelligent, peaceful eyes were just visible under the broad-brimmed travelling hat he wore. Minus the wings, the hat was very like the one seen on statues of the messenger god Hermes. One of the two young men in the company saddled a horse for Socrates, and gave him a leg up.

He was the sixth in their midst, and he rode awkwardly but strongly. Outside the city they turned north and east. They left the sea behind, and moved toward the forested mountains of Attica, to a sanctuary “remote from traffic.” 

As they rode, the northeast wind that cooled the city met them. Diotima's hair blew under her veil, lifting off her shoulders, and clouds swept the azure sky, reminding him of Xenophanes of Colophon, who believed that clouds came not from a god but from out of the sea. They passed country houses with sheep and fields where wheat had been harvested, the stubble blazing white under the sun, and farmers loading sheaves for market. They rode on, stopping only to water the horses, and to eat and drink sparingly.

It was not a time for talking. He was unused to riding, and when they stopped in the heat of the day to rest, he fell promptly asleep, and was sorry to be awakened, and pushed up like a stiff and aching piece of wood on his horse. By then they had left the plain behind. Underfoot the ground grew rocky. Cart tracks scored the stone, and they rode between groves of olive trees in a shimmering quiet, the wind gusting at the outer ranks of trees.

Meanwhile he had exchanged only a handful of words with Diotima and her companions. The old man, Nestor by name, pressed fiercely on, determined to reach their destination before dark. His sons rode escort. Socrates rode behind Diotima in something like a daze, wishing he had never come. He was unaware that taking the second step sometimes requires taking it more than once.

They left the olive groves behind, and began climbing on foot, leading their horses up through the mountain's Aleppo pines. The pines heaved in the wind, and he saw underfoot the seashells that Xenophanes had written about "when the sea rose in a catastrophe, and embedded shells in the hard rocks of mountains." Nestor walked lightly ahead of him. He carried a staff, but he walked like a much younger man. Diotima and Melissa moved lithely. It seemed only his legs were wobbly from riding, and his stomach, in a rebellious state. Hatless, he wiped sweat off his face.

The plain dropped far away below them. The pines gave way to towering firs, tinging the air with resin. Nestor, followed by his sons, led them far along the spine of the ridge, then dropped down into a sheltered valley.

High overhead flew the Short-toed Eagle. There on the mountain, but presently invisible were the Peregrine Falcon, the Griffin Vulture, the Eagle Owl, and the nightingale. The predators noted the advance of the four men and two women into their wild sanctuary as dusk fell, but only the male Eagle Owl spoke, a softly ominous oohu-oohu-oohu.

Socrates heard him, a ghostly sound as they stopped in front of the old hungting lodge that emerged darkly from the trees. There were no torches to meet them, nor any sign of life as he followed his travelling companions through the lodge's old gate into the twilit court. Diotima and Melissa disappeared inside. Nestor gravely asked him to help stable, feed, and water the horses. Someone had made arrangements for fresh hay, but the water had to be carried by bucket from a spring-fed pond outside the gate, a tedious business, Socrates thought, at the end of a long day. At last they were done. The horses now eating serenely and steadily in their stalls had been brushed free of dirt and sweat, and their hooves had been scraped clean. Seeing the glow of torchlight inside the lodge, Socrates prepared to take his saddlebag in and find a hot bath, but Peisistratus laughingly told him his bed would be in the stable with the horses, and he could bathe in the wood-spring outside.

Feeling nettled, Socrates nodded, and crossed the court in the fast-falling dark. With this kind of inauspicious beginning what would dinner be like, he wondered. Telemachus patted his shoulder, and both boys stripped and plunged into the pool ahead of him. Dimly he saw them rise, shoulders flashing with water, shaking their heads. It took him a minute to join them, and when he did the cold water covered his head before he shot to the surface sputtering.

"Whose place is this?" he asked when he had caught his breath.

"Ours," shouted Peisistratus.

"Our father's," said Telemachus.

They left the pool as swiftly as they had entered it, and ran back to the hunting lodge. Socrates bathed carefully, then pulled on a clean tunic from his saddlebag. Walking back to the court he found they had set up an altar. Diotima and Melissa were dressed in fresh ankle-length khitons, and mixing a bowl of wine. Under the pale light of the stars, Melissa prayed, and poured a libation. The prayer ending, and the dark wine flowing into the earth, the men followed the women into the firelit hall hung with old bows and hunting spears, and prepared to eat.

Unlike sophisticated Athenians who lounged at table on couches, they ate sitting up, in the old way, as the ODYSSEY describes. A meal for Pericles and his set might have included roast quail, suckling pig, seafood, ‘Athena’ pies made with cheese, figs, grapes, and wine. Socrates and his companions ate a meal of bread, venison, and olives, and drank wine. He was ravenous. He had finished his first serving, and was looking around for seconds when Melissa crossed the firelight, carrying in her arms the two curving arms of the lyre.

She sat down, and played. She played beautifully, he thought. Telemachus, who was the younger of the two sons, passed him venison. What remained seemed dismayingly small, but Socrates took it with a nod of thanks, and ate.

"In Athens you told me that Eros was a great spirit," he called out to Diotima during a pause in Melissa's playing. “I asked you then, if Love really is a spirit, what are its powers and who are its mother and father?" He noticed Nestor shooting him a keen look, and he grinned. He didn't think Diotima could answer his question, but he wanted to hear her try.

"That is rather a long story," Diotima replied. She hesitated.

"Are you sure you know it?" Socrates asked mockingly.

Melissa stood up, and smilingly deposited the lyre in her arms. Diotima plucked the strings with one hand, and looked down at the lyre as if wondering what she would say. He was feeling a little sorry for her, when her hand swept the strings in a mock, heroic opening, and she looked directly at him and sang, “When Aphrodite was born, the gods had a great feast, and invited many guests. Among the guests who came to celebrate Aphrodite's birth was Resource, the Son of Cunning."

As she mentioned Resource, Diotima played a song on her lyre that evoked an effortlessly handsome and enterprising man who emerged victorious from every escapade. Resource was obviously a brilliant guy who enjoyed life and ate and drank with gusto.

Diotima looked down at her lyre, plucking the strings and smiling. Clearly she was enjoying his challenge. She began to play another song with a haunting melody that made him suddenly feel on the verge of tears. "Poverty also came to the feast," she sang. "The gods had not invited her, but she hung around the gate in the hope someone would give her something to eat." Socrates nodded. He knew the feeling.

“Resource was drinking nectar since at that time the gods had no wine." She flashed a look at Socrates, sure he would get the joke, and sang in her lovely, lilting voice, "The nectar made him so tipsy he staggered out into the garden of Zeus and was overcome with heaviness, and fell asleep.” As Resource fell asleep, the song she played slowed, and became a lullabye. Into the quiet hall entered a bewitching variation on Poverty’s melody. Her voice whispering like leaves, Diotima sang, “Poverty came into the garden, and saw Resource sound asleep. He looked so beautiful to her. Poverty had nothing. She was resourceless. But she had an idea."

Socrates listened intently as the fire died down, and the hall grew darker. There was something wonderful about Poverty having an idea. He tried to think what it could possibly be as Diotima played the lyre.

Suddenly she smiled at him, that wry, thrilling smile that seemed to speak of people and things he had never seen, and sang, "Poverty looked down at Resource, and had a beautiful idea. She lay down by his side, and conceived Love." 

The end of the story hit him like a wave. He was gasping as Diotima wove together the songs of Resource and Poverty so they became Love’s song, beauty woven with longing. “Like Poverty, Eros always lives with want and desire. He is not beautiful and tender, but hard and parched, shoeless and homeless. He lies on the bare ground, and takes his rest by the side of roads, always desiring what he does not possess. But like Resource, Love is also brave and impetuous. He is forever pursuing the good and the beautiful. He is an intelligent and a courageous hunter.” And there, while he was still trying to catch his breath, she stilled the strings, and ended her song.

Telemachus and Peisistratus gave a cheer, and left the table. Socrates sat silently, trying to pull his thoughts together.

“How are you feeling?’ Diotima enquired.  She sat relaxed in her chair, the lyre across her knees. 

He shrugged, and looked into the fire. He would not admit his feelings.

The fire was turning to ash. He knew that Diotima was waiting for him to speak, but he felt irritable. He felt like Eros, poor and hungry, but full of inner resources if only he could apply them. 

“I do believe that Love pursues the good and the beautiful,” Diotima said, and her hand touched the strings so they cried out. “But if that is true, if Love does pursue the good and the beautiful, what are Love’s methods? How does Love hunt?”

He pondered her question. He had no ready answer, no answer at all, but it was exactly what he wanted to know.

 “Would you travel where you have never been to find out?” Diotima asked him.

He was silent. A part of him resisted, and stalled.

Hesitation is natural, and Diotima waited for him.

Finally, “Yes,” he said.

“Are you sure?” she asked him. “You can’t make this journey unless you want to go. The way is not easy. It may be very hard.”

“I want to go,” he said.

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©2006 CATHERINE GLASS