Chapter Ten

Sixth Step

INTO THE LIGHT

Your next step is to see the beauty of souls...
Diotima to Socrates, SYMPOSIUM, 210b-c

HE FELT THE ELATION OF A CHILD, AS IF HE WERE STEPPING
into the dawn of his own beginning. He felt as if he had found himself. He opened his arms to bird and moon and freshening evening breeze, and laughed out loud. The stones had been so much a part of him he had not known he was carrying them. Now the deadening weight was lifted, he felt thumos, a passionate synergy of feeling and thought, desire and will, physical energy and inner spirit. Doing a little dance of triumph, he was brought up short by his swollen foot. Right, well, his foot would heal.

He turned toward the hunting lodge, and saw smoke slanting away above the roof and the fiery glow of a fire in the court. He looked forward to seeing Nestor, and discussing the events of the day.

Socrates had faced the stones, and in the tradition of the trail had named them to a guide who was a person of integrity. Exceeding the purview of most guides, Nestor had been both his guide and champion. A guide usually listens without comment to the naming of stones. Socrates' powerful intellect and resistance had made Nestor's intervention necessary. Yet even a champion can do only so much. In the end everything depended on Socrates being willing to speak.

He had made a good beginning, but while it is generally true that only the person who wants to be rid of his stones will name them, it is also true that the person who has named his or her stones remains free to keep on carrying them.

Socrates had made the decision to destroy them in the physical way suggested to him. He had hammered his stones into rubble, and his whole body and mind felt the effect of that exercise, as if by hammering the stones he had carved into his mind and body the words chiseled into the stone sanctuary of the god at Delphi, Know thyself.

He saw that his intellectual arrogance had splintered under the blows, despite and because hammering stones was just the kind of thing his mind loathed, and tried at all costs to avoid. His intellect detested lack of control. It liked to dominate every decision, even those for which it had no particular expertise. With sudden clarity Socrates saw that it was impossible to think clearly and powerfully while enslaved and that to be dominated by the stones, including the stone of intellectual arrogance, was to be enslaved.

Yes, he was thrilled he had demolished the stones. Looking back on the day he felt quite pleased. He had completed the exercise brilliantly, if he said so himself. Nestor had suggested success would be a matter of life or death, but he had sailed through the dangerous strait, and avoided both Scylla and Charybdis. With this satisfying thought he swung his cloak around his shoulders, and headed through the open gate, into the lodge court.

He saw them immediately, dark figures lit by the flames, standing silently around the fire. Diotima, slender in silver white with a low belt worn just above her hips, was holding a cup between her hands. Nestor stood between his two sons, and gave him a brief nod of welcome. Melissa completed the circle. Feeling uneasy Socrates stopped beside Melissa. "We are being invited to name something we have done that we regret, and throw it into the flames," Melissa said in a low voice as he joined the circle.

Diotima poured a libation of milk and honey and a second libation of sweet wine. She walked round the fire, and stopping beside Peisistratus, bent her head, listening as he named in low tones the action he regretted and wanted consumed by the cleansing flames. She alone heard him, and when he was finished, she spoke briefly and he left the fire with a light and easy step. Diotima moved on, and stood beside Nestor, bending her head and listening. When he had finished – he did not speak long – Nestor left the fire with a firm and steady step.

But Socrates stood stone-still in revulsion and paralyzed rebellion. He knew quite well what he regretted, but he did not wish to say anything about it, especially he did not wish to speak of it to Diotima. Crushed by his pride, burning with shame and fear, he stared into the flames.

He saw Diotima listen, and speak a few words, and Telemachus leave the fire with swift and confident steps and stride toward the lodge. Diotima had reached Melissa. He heard the murmur of Melissa's voice, and a sigh, then Diotima bidding her throw her regret into the purifying fire. He saw Melissa extend her arms in a gesture of release, and turn away with happy relief, and then Diotima stood beside him, and he stared into the flames, and would not or could not speak. He felt as if he were dying.

A terrible vision of the House of Atreus rose up in the fire. He saw Tantalus killing his son, Pelops, cutting him up, and feeding him to the gods. In his hubris Tantalus imagines the gods will not know what he is serving them, but the horrified gods know – all but the distracted Demeter who is grieving for her daughter – and are enraged. They put Pelops back together, giving him an ivory shoulder for the missing shoulder that Demeter absentmindedly ate, and cast Tantalus into hell, leaving him forever dying of hunger and thirst while tantalized with the water and food just out of his reach. But this was not the end of the family's pride or the crimes Socrates saw in the blood-red flames.

Tantalus' son Pelops, who gave his name to the Peloponnesians, had two sons by the woman he married after killing her father. These two sons, Atreus and Thyestes, vied for the throne of Mycenae. When Thyestes seduced Atreus' wife, Atreus killed and cooked Thyestes's children, and served them to the unsuspecting father at a banquet. The horrified and agonized Thyestes staggered out of the feast. Depending on which story one heard, he escaped with his infant son Aegisthus tucked under his arm, or in a darker version raped his own daughter to produce Aegisthus, the son who would revenge him on the House of Atreus.

After Atreus' death his sons Agamemnon and Menelaus ruled Argos and Sparta, but their hubris drove them to conquer Troy. Agamemnon killed his daughter to obtain a good wind for his becalmed fleet, and destroyed a generation of young men on the plains of Ilium. While he was gone, Aegisthus arrived in Argos, and became the lover of Agamemnon's bitter wife, Clytemnestra. These two butchered Agamemnon on his return from Troy, and were in turn killed by Agamemnon's and Clytemnestra's son, Orestes, who had been told by the god to avenge his father's death.

Staring into the fire Socrates saw how one act of overweening pride and violence led to another. Fathers and brothers, mothers and children were chained to each other, slaves in a horrific dance that ended only when Orestes was willing to bear witness to his crime before the citizens of the Areopagus, and receive their judgment.

Socrates, who had known the story ever since he was a child, marvelled at the series of evils into which the House of Atreus had fallen with what seemed an almost extravagant absence of rational thought. In his trilogy Aeschylus had asked Athenians if there was to be no end to Orestes' dilemma except the ancient code of blood revenge. The remarkable answer established by the Athenians, and articulated by Aeschylus, was Athenian justice.

But this was not the question the story posed for Socrates, and he knew it. The question he faced as he stared into the fire was whether he would carry the stone of hubris as long as he lived and wherever he went. The question was whether he would respond to every person and event in his life with the heaviness and sorrow and blindness of a man dragging the stone of pride.

To speak, perhaps to die. To refuse to speak, and live abominably. He stood by the fire, wrestling with the question, and Diotima stood beside him, a quiet, confiding figure.

It was pride that had urged Tantalus to commit his unspeakable act, pride that had urged his grandson to slaughter his brother's children, pride that had urged Agamemnon to go to war, and commit a whole series of profane acts, including the sacrifice of his daughter. Orestes alone had acted not out of pride but in obedience to the god, if indeed his account was true. If it was, a question must certainly be addressed to the god, but Socrates had no time to be distracted from his personal dilemma. Questions for the god could wait. He had his own question to answer.

He was not one of those who could palm himself off with a soft, slick lie. He understood the stakes: To be crushed, or to speak. Turning in one lunging movement toward Diotima, he spoke, telling her briefly what he had done. She listened quietly, and said a few words of sense and solace.

But her solace sickened him. Stricken, he turned back and stared into the flames. He had not spoken the whole truth. He had tried to pretend that the wrong, ugly action he had taken he had taken only once, and under pressure, but this was not true. He could not leave the fire with the glad and energetic step of the others, and join them in the hall. His omission of the truth was as terrible as an outright falsehood. He had turned himself into stone.

He stared at the flames in despair, and Diotima did not leave, but stood quietly beside him. He felt no judgment from her. Instead, to his surprise, he felt her standing beside him like a trusted companion, someone he could count on.

Turning under the crushing weight of the stones, he forced himself to face her, his eyes narrowed as if against a blow. Her eyes gazed into his.

Once again he looked into her eyes and saw himself as she saw him, as he truly was despite the stones, and as he longed to be, beautiful, brave, true, and free. He saw himself in her eyes, and gravely, calmly, unflinchingly he spoke the whole truth to her.

The stones rolled away. He felt air rush into his lungs, and his great heart expand and his hands, so cold with dismay, grow warm.

And she said nothing, only smiled, radiant with happiness. He had never seen anyone look so happy on his account. In his exuberance he lifted her by the waist and swung her round him, hearing her startled, lilting laughter before setting her two sandaled feet gently on the ground.

Surprised by the unexpected loveliness of her waist, which he could feel even in his blistered hand, he stared at her, at a loss for words.

With one bright look she turned away, and began walking to the lodge.

"I thought I had hammered hubris," he said ruefully as they crossed the porch together.

"You did," Diotima replied. He heard the smile in her voice as she added, "But hammering has little value until you take the next step."

Right, he thought, it's a little late to be telling me that now, but he forgot what she had said when he entered the hall. Melissa, Nestor and the young men greeted him with enthusiasm. Libations were poured, dinner was served, and the fire burning on the hearth spread the fragrance of split cedar and citronwood.

He ate his fill, enjoying the bread and meat and the honey-hearted wine, surprised that his attentiveness to the meal intensified his pleasure in it while reducing his desire to eat more. When he was done and Nestors's sons were leaving the hall with their dog he decided to ask Nestor the question he had set aside earlier: "Was it just of the god at Delphi to demand that Orestes kill his mother to avenge the murder of his father?"

His eyes on his departing sons, Nestor turned, and looked at him thoughtfully. "You know what the court decided," he said.

"A sophistical argument," Socrates said bluntly. "To argue that Orestes did not kill a true blood relative because the mother is not the real parent, but only the father who planted the seed in her womb. How then can the hero Achilles be acknowledged as the son of the goddess Thetis? Besides, that doesn't answer the question: Was the god just in demanding Orestes kill his mother?"

Nestor nodded. "I consider my sons their mother's sons as well. I can see her in them," he said simply, and something in his voice told Socrates he loved to see her in his sons. "Your question," Nestor said, "must first be, 'Did the god so advise?' The story says yes, but I am not convinced the story is true. If everything I heard about the gods were true, they would be monsters. Pity the god who is known only by what misinformed men say about him."

Socrates was, to put it fairly, nonplused. Nestor made a good point, but if the stories about the gods were not true, he knew nothing about the gods. He glanced at Diotima who was listening to their conversation with her chin in her hand, and at Melissa, who was oiling a bow.

"Tell me what you know of the gods," Socrates demanded, but Nestor shook his head. "I know nothing I can tell," he said quietly. "This is a subject too deep for words." He rose. "We make an early start tomorrow," he said, and nodding to Diotima he left the room with Melissa, who carried her bow and quiver of arrows with her.

Diotima lifted her lyre into her arms, and began to play. Socrates flung himself back down in the studded chair. He felt baulked and irritable, until it suddenly occurred to him that Diotima was the person who would answer his question. Surely a priestess could tell him something about the divine.

"So tell me about the gods," Socrates said.

"Why not find out for yourself," Diotima suggested.

He frowned, wondering what on earth that was supposed to mean, but as she played her lyre he relaxed. She sang, "First you must love one person in the flesh, and create a beautiful exchange of thoughts and words with that person."

Remembering the surprising loveliness of her body in his hands and her lilting laughter he looked at her from under lowered eyes.

"And after this," she sang, "look for the beauty belonging to all, for there is beauty in every body, and it is the one and same beauty that shimmers in particular beauties."

He doubted this, but he listened as she sang, "And after this, consider the intestimable value that is the beauty of souls. Look for the beauty in each soul, no matter how small that flower of beauty appears to you to be. Gaze attentively at that inner beauty, and love and cherish it."

He sensed rather than understood what she meant by soul. Closing his eyes and breathing deeply he followed Diotima in what appears to be one of the earliest guided visualizations in the historical record.

He heard Diotima ask him to expand his awareness from a single beauty – the beauty of a particular child or person or occurrence – and gaze upon the beauty that can be found in every person and everywhere. Still following her he gazed on "the ocean of beauty," and found himself in a small boat. He saw the beautiful, rippling sail above and the shadow of the boat below moving effortlessly across the beautiful deep. Blown by the beautiful, unseen wind, and quite untroubled by questions of navigation, he felt the warm, sunlit wood clasp him in the brimming beauty of the sea. A wave leapt, and kissed his face, and he felt the cold beauty of water and tasted the solitary beauty of salt.

He experienced a heightened awareness of the strength, excitement, and wholeness all around him, and deep inside him, in that place deep inside each of us where there are no stones, but a kosmos full of light. And in that light, in the quiet beyond Diotima's voice, he experienced something else. He experienced a presence he could not identify, a something or someone present, but no divinity that he knew and no god he could name. He sat in the small boat, and haltingly tried to understand the presence he felt.

The light disappeared. The sea went dark. One thought remained, glimmering like a ship's wake in his mind-heart. NEXT »

©2006 CATHERINE GLASS