Chapter Nine

Fifth Step

HAMMERING THE STONES

I am not yet able to follow the Delphic command to know myself.
Socrates quoted in Plato's PHAEDRUS, 229e

NESTOR CLAPPED ON HIS TRAVELLING HAT WITH ITS BROAD brim, and led him out to the courtyard. There he showed him the five large stones Socrates had noticed earlier and a sledgehammer. "These are the symbols of your stones. You will destroy them with the hammer," Nestor said, and looked at him intently. "Are you willing to do this?"

Socrates looked at the large, grey stones. These were certainly limestone, not the beautiful, white Pentelikon Marble used in the Parthenon or the Pink Marble of Epirus, which was yellow with red veins, or the Red Marble of Eretria, which was hard and easy to polish and used indoors for decoration. What he was seeing here was coarse-grained stone, useful, he supposed, as gravel when crushed, and containing if he was not mistaken, some pieces of shell.

"I see," said Nestor drily, "that you have learned attentiveness. Keep in mind that attentiveness to a frivolous subject can be a distraction from what really requires your focus."

"You want me to smash these stones as if I were Hephaestus releasing Athene from Zeus' head by hitting him over the head with a sledgehammer?" Socrates asked. His tone was sardonic. "I think it's an idiotic idea."

"And what particular stone inspires your remark?" Nestor asked. "The stone of tyranny or the stone of hubris?"

It was an excellent question, he had to admit. He glared at Nestor and said, "There are only five stones here. I named six."

"I'm glad you noticed," Nestor said gently. "Shame is both a stone and a shield. Supposing you truly believe in arete´, shame is a shield since it is a painful emotion that protects us from doing something that will dishonor us. Shame will protect us from what is morally disgraceful, so long, of course, as we believe there are morally disgraceful actions. Shame is a stone when we are ashamed of circumstances entirely beyond our control, such as the body given us at birth or our parents' economic status. Shame may also be a stone if we believe our conduct offends against something the world considers proper but which has no moral standing." Nestor peered keenly at him from under his hat brim. "Do I make myself clear?"

"You do," he said, and brushed away the bead of sweat trickling down his face. It was an interesting idea.

"Given these complexities, we feel that shame will be handled by the stones you face here – hubris, trying to please, narcissism, tyranny, and fear."

"I see," said Socrates, but he felt blinded by a moment of pure rage at the mention of his stones.

"Do you?" Nestor asked. "Do you truly see how your stones blind you? Do you truly want to destroy your stones and see?"

"How can I see that they blind me if I cannot see?" He stared insolently at Nestor.

"Yes," the old man cried, "I recognize your sophistry, and I think it would be better if you had been crushed by the stones. Harder for you, but better, because if you had been crushed you would truly understand they are destroying you, and you would want to destroy them, and live!"

He stood, silent and stubborn, resisting Nestor's appeal, knowing his resistance harmed only himself, but unwilling to face his stones and pick up the sledgehammer.

"Have you forgotten the truth you spoke?" Nestor asked wonderingly. "Have you forgotten that you can only escape death if you face your fear?"

And still he did not reply. In his aloof and tryrannical solitude he felt a patronizing pity for the old man.

"Have you forgotten your love of arete´?" Nestor asked.

He stumbled backward. He felt the sword of Nestor's question pierce his defenses, and plunge into his heart. Unbalanced, he fell down on knee, in misery and shame.

He felt her before he saw her. Diotima had entered the court. She stood at some distance regarding him. He saw only her, her face and her eyes, her eyes meeting his. He felt her moving toward him, rejoicing in the light she saw within him, which he saw reflected in her eyes, even the light shrouded by stones.

He saw his true self in that moment, and he was already on his feet. He crossed behind Nestor to pick up the sledgehammer. His determination had become a force. "I'll start with fear," he said.

He stood over the largest stone, and gripped the sledgehammer with both hands and brought his arms high above his head, and brought the sledgehammer down. The crash resounded through his body and fled away through his arms, but the great stone was hardly dented. It was harder than he thought. He took the sledgehammer between his hands, and raised his arms, feeling his chest widen, and brought it thundering down. Better. He saw a small fissure appear in the stone. This is fear, he thought, the fear that turns me to stone and makes me prefer the unhappiness I know to the happiness I do not know. He brought his arms up and the hammer down and the stone shuddered but did not break. This is my fear that I cannot do what I want to do, that I will never know arete´, that I will never know the friend of my heart. And again he brought the heavy hammer high over his head, and down, and the crack in the stone widened. This, he thought, is the fear that makes me hesitate, that makes me care what others think. And he brought the hammer smashing down. This is the fear that criticizes others before they criticize me. The rock split in two, and he lifted his arms up, sweating now, breathing hard, because the rock had to be crushed. This the fear I will not be able to destroy the stone! With each blow he felt he was striking a blow for his freedom. With each blow he felt fear flee from his body. He was no longer thinking, only bringing the sledgehammer up high above his shoulders and braced legs. The stone was yielding at last. His smashing blows ground it into gravel.

The echoing courtyard fell still. He wiped the stinging sweat from his eyes, and noted with pride the pile of loose gravel at his feet. He considered he had done an excellent job. He turned to show Nestor, but the old man was nowhere to be seen. He was alone. Ah.

To take pride in having demolished a stone he wished he had never had in the first place was a kind of blind pride very close to hubris. However, as he stood sweating over the large stone that was pride, and lifted the sledgehammer above his head he felt certain there was nothing wrong in feeling satisfaction at a job well done. The hammer fell and slid off the stone without effect. The problem, he thought, lifting the hammer doggedly above his shoulders, is becoming smug with satisfaction. The real problem is in feeling superior, and letting satisfaction divide me from others. The blows rocked into the stone and back into his hands, but seemed to make no real impression on the stone.

He focused on the vaunting hubris that made him believe I alone know something worth knowing, and felt himself shiver inside as the blow struck home. Of course I have no friends, he thought grimly. How could I when I hold myself apart as if I alone am special. He brought the sledgehammer down with a splintering blow that struck the stone into four pieces. He was panting now as he raised the sledgehammer, and brought it down.

To his dismay he found each quarter was twice as hard as the original stone. There are aspects to hubris I have not recognized, he thought. Homer described the hubris of the suitors camped out at Odysseus' house, who felt entitled to grab anything – his food and house and wife and women servants. They never dreamed they would be held to account. It was part of their insolence. It was part of mine, he thought, and felt the sledgehammer shudder in his hands. He brought it down, remembering how hubris had driven his lust and greed and recalling the violence he felt when his ideas were thwarted. A man with hubris was capable of anything, would excuse himself of anything, would eat others alive to feed himself.

His shoulders were aching. His raw left hand was on fire as he attacked the last quarter. Hubris was most hated by the immortals, for just as hubris separated a man from other men it separated him from the gods. But he felt little but a residual awe for the gods. He had no affection for them, and no interest in being close. His feelings were closer to contempt. His blows split the last piece of hubris into four smaller pieces, but made no further impression. It was as if the last quarter had been reduced into its most adamantine parts.

He shook the sweat from his eyes, and felt a hand on his arm. Melissa had brought him a cup of wine mixed with water, and a cold, damp cloth. He wiped his face with the cloth, and took a sip of the wine, and she looked down at the pieces, and said, "Go on to the next stone."

He started to argue with her. She looked at him silently with one arched brow, and he grinned and picked up the sledgehammer, and attacked the stone that was his tyrannical need to control. The rock fell to pieces easily. He wondered if it was made of the same stone. Another blow, and the dust convinced him it was not. He wondered whether the experience of crushing his need to control was the experience he was supposed to have, and how he could make sure it was, and whether he should have taken Melissa's advice, or finished off the small hard remaining stones of hubris. He was so busy thinking all this through that he lifted the sledgehammer high up and brought it down hard not on the crushed remains of the stone but on his foot.

He whirled in pain, flinging the hammer away, and biting his lip hard so he did not scream. When the agonising waves subsided, he saw he had not permanently injured his foot since an instinctive reaction just before the blow landed had him jerking his foot to one side. The blow had been heavy, but glancing. It was almost too perfect a lesson, he thought wryly, and one he would remember on future occasions, since it had, of course, occurred to him that crushing a stone might not finish it off for all time. He might have to crush it again.

He took a second, very small sip of the watered wine. He felt tired, but determined to finish. He retrieved the sledgehammer, and attacked the stone of trying to please. Surely this stone was the child of fear, and the child of wanting to belong, and he could see how useless it was. Yet it was possible – he held the sledgehammer above his head while he thought – that even now he was hammering away to please Nestor and Diotima and Melissa. He brought the hammer down slowly, and without effect. There was something about this stone so intertwined with the child he had been that he stood for some time looking down at it thoughtfully.

Surely it was not odious to please another. Surely it was odious if the only reason to do so was fear of authority or fear of displeasure or hope of gain. He began hammering the stone hard. Who was the person who felt compelled to please? He was no one, for the stone kept him from his true self, and those he tried to please knew it. They saw the invisible stone hanging round his neck, and bowing his head. He hated this stone. He hated what it did to him. He finished it off in no time flat. It was a small heap of gravel, grinding under his foot, as he turned to the last stone, the stone that absorbed so much of his waking life, the stone of narcissism.

He suddenly felt unspeakably weary and bored. The sun had grown hotter as the afternoon advanced. The air in the courtyard felt so warm and still he longed for the coolness of morning. He wiped the sweat off his face, and looked down at his foot, which appeared to be swelling and throbbing. Crushing stones is a disagreeable task, he thought. It is certainly educational, but I am sick of it. There is nothing beautiful, exalted or heroic about it. He looked at the four small heaps of gravel in the court, and felt a fool. The rock that remained looked enormous. "I've had enough," he shouted, and his voice echoed back to him from what suddenly seemed an empty compound. "I've had enough." Where was everyone? He stalked to the door of the lodge, pulled it open, and shouted Nestor's name. No one responded. The lodge was deathly quiet.

He cursed under his breath, and limped back to the stone. As he stared at it, the stone became huge, blocking out the light, overwhelming him with its darkness and size. His absorption in his self to the exclusion of all others would smother him unless he resisted it, but he believed himself too tired to resist, and injured besides. He could not see. He could not stand. He sank to his knees.

He did not know how long he spent in the comforting dark. He noticed a small breeze riffling his wet tunic and cooling his skin, and at the same instant was seized with loathing for the suffocating stone. Still on his knees he lifted the sledgehammer and swung. The blow was weak, but the act of swinging gave him strength. He ground his knees into the gravel, and lifted the sledgehammer again, and swung it down hard on the stone, and again, harder, and again, harder, the blows lifting him to his feet. He was swinging down relentlessly at the stone of narcissism that was also the stone of lies and masks, for narcissism requires lies and masks to hide what it is afraid to show. His hurt foot forgotten, swept by his holy anger at the stone that separated him from life, he lifted his arms and aimed his blows, and crushed the stone.

He set the sledgehammer back in its place, and strolled away from the piles of gravel, and left the court. He bathed in the cold spring, and changed his tunic. The lodge was silent, and clouds darkened the sky. The moon had risen. At the sound of wings he threw back his head, and watched the great bird soar. Standing at ease he had a sensation of freedom and joy he had never experienced before. NEXT »

©2006 CATHERINE GLASS