Ardor (35 page)

The
ṛṣ
is
, tireless speculators, thought they could make a pact with Death. They had to find a way of going beyond the Sun—therefore beyond Death. How? Thanks to the
agnihotra.
They had to play on the relationship between fire and light, between Agni and S
ū
rya. And so they established a cyclical sacrifice, where Agni and S
ū
rya are alternated in the offerings, fire is offered in light and light is offered in fire—at the beginning of each day, at the beginning of each night, forever. They said: “In the evening he offers S
ū
rya in Agni and in the morning he offers Agni in S
ū
rya.”

Everything, as always, went back to an episode at the very beginning. Agni, “as soon as he was born, tried to burn everything here: and so everybody tried to get out of his way.” Those who existed at that time considered him an enemy. And so, “since he was unable to endure this, [Agni] went to man.” And he proposed an arrangement: “Let me enter within you! Then, after having reproduced me, maintain me: and, as you will have reproduced and maintained me here, so then will I reproduce and maintain you in the world yonder”—“the world yonder” meaning the celestial world that is reached
beyond the Sun.
Man accepted:
agnihotra
is based on this agreement, and in this agreement man finds the only possibility of going beyond Death: using Death as a steed, making it possible to climb on its back, like a circus acrobat. And so in both daily libations of the
agnihotra
, at dawn and at dusk, man has to mount firmly on Death: in the evening “he mounts firmly on Death with his toes”; whereas in the morning “he mounts firmly on Death with his heels.”

Implicit is the thought that Death is a cycle. What destroys is the simple passing of day and night. The new day means the destruction of the night. The new night means the destruction of the day. Together, they signify the destruction of the works carried out during the day and during the night. How can we escape from the cycle? By rising above it, looking upon it from on high, standing upright on the back of the sky: “In the same way as, when standing on a chariot, one looks down from above at the wheels that revolve, so he looks down from above at day and night.”

But who can lift us up? The
agnihotra.
Then the Sun, which is Death, can allow us to be lifted onto his back, so we may see what lies beyond the Sun and are no longer touched by Death. How is it done? To escape Death, the feet have to be mounted firmly on Death. Then the journey begins. The Sun rises and carries us with it. Just by standing on Death—and only if Death helps us by carrying us on its back, as if it were a huge animal, without shaking us off—we will see the world that opens up beyond Death.

*   *   *

The Sun’s first name was M
ā
rt
āṇḍ
a, Dead Egg. It so happened that Aditi, the Limitless, had given birth to seven children, who then became the main gods, the
Ā
dityas. But appearing from her womb immediately after was a formless being, “as broad as it was high”: it was M
ā
rt
āṇḍ
a, the Dead Egg. The gods decided not to throw it away because, they said: “that which is born after us must not be lost.” And they began to give it form. When we think of the Sun as the origin of life, the image is mixed with the memory of a formless being, “a mere lump of bodily matter.” Death and formlessness, which haunt life at every moment, are there from its very origin. Indeed, they are the foundation on which Vivasvat, the Radiant One, the Sun, rests, dazzling us with his light, who conceals first of all himself.

If the Sun is Death, what is night? Once the evening libation has been performed, the vast expanse of darkness opens up. But, once again, points of reference are reversed. The darkness appears “rich in lights,” for the ceremony has lit it with the embers of Agni: “‘O you, rich in lights, may I safely reach your end!’ [the sacrificer] murmurs three times. She that is rich in lights (
citr
ā
vasu
) is without doubt the night, since, in a certain way, she rests (
vas-
) after having gathered the lights (
citra
): so one doesn’t see clearly (
citram
) from a distance.

“Now, it was by means of these words that the
ṛṣ
is
safely reached the end of the night; and because of them the Rak
ṣ
as did not find them: because of them he too [the sacrificer] now safely reaches the end of the night; and because of them the Rak
ṣ
as do not find him. He murmurs this while standing.”

Long before the song of the Swiss Guards (“Notre vie est un voyage / Dans l’hiver et dans la Nuit, / Nous cherchons notre passage / Dans le Ciel où rien ne luit”), which Céline used as an epigraph to his
Voyage
, the
ṛṣ
is
had been murmuring very similar words—and every sacrificer since them. Ever at risk of ambush, moving forward in the darkness: this is the tension underlying every ritual scene: “Dangerous indeed are the paths between sky and earth.” What we see is of little importance compared with the invisible maze, where the Enemy lies in wait, where the celestial waters open. The
ṛṣ
is
entered it, troubled and uncertain, like Céline’s Bardamu, clinging to ritual words that showed them the route.

*   *   *

Socrates spent his last day—from the moment the prison gates were opened until dusk—talking with his disciples about how easy it is for a philosopher to die. Unlike the gods, who find it easy to live. He also talked about an “obstacle.” He said: “The festival of the god has delayed my death.” Athens, in obedience to a vow to Apollo, forbade anyone to be executed by the state during the period of the annual pilgrimage to his sanctuary at Delos. And Socrates’ death sentence had been pronounced a day before the ship’s departure for Delos. So he had spent his time during this period—a month, according to Xenophon—composing a hymn to Apollo and adapting some of Aesop’s fables. Everyone wondered why. And Socrates replied that he had been urged in a dream to “compose music.” A dream that had recurred through his life, which he had always interpreted as an encouragement to practice philosophy, since “philosophy is the greatest kind of music.” But now, in that time of suspension before his death, Socrates had come to a different conclusion: perhaps the true meaning of the dream was its literal meaning. It would be “safer” to obey the dream without adding any interpretation to it. And so he had composed a hymn to the god whose festival was being celebrated (and, later the same day, he would also reveal that Apollo was
his
god). And so also—“since a poet, if he is really to be a poet, has to compose myths and not reasonings (
m
ý
thous all’ou lógous
)”—he had devoted himself to those myths that were “ready to hand,” the Aesop fables. Spoken on that day and with such tranquillity, they were words that would amaze his disciples—as well as the curious and spiteful Sophists. Socrates, as everyone knew, had spent his whole life elaborating discourses, reasonings, arguments:
lógoi.
Why should he now, at this moment, devote himself to
m
ý
thoi
, which he had always treated with a certain disdain? Socrates had no wish to reply; instead he spent the whole day composing
lógoi
, no more or less striking than so many others that his disciples had heard in past years, in response to a question from Cebes, his most cautious disciple: “Why do you say, Socrates, that a man ought not to do violence to himself and, on the other hand, the philosopher does not want anything more than to follow someone who dies?” The question was well put. If the philosopher is so willing to die, why should he condemn suicide? Socrates’ reply was a series of
lógoi
, but this time interspersed and subtly interwoven with terms and formulas of quite another kind: that of the Mysteries. And he immediately cited a
lógos
, but in the sense of a “formula” that is pronounced
en aporr
ḗ
tois
, “in the unnameables” (a traditional way of referring to the Mysteries). Socrates gave it as an example of “mythologizing about the journey yonder,” which he proposed as the best way “of passing the time between now and sunset.” It is as though his thinking, in this last dialogue, swerves in a way that exposes it to a bright light of indiscernible origin. But all now appears transformed.

This is the formula of the Mysteries: “We men are in a sort of garrison post (
phrourá
) and must not free ourselves or run away.” Highly enigmatic, Socrates immediately recognizes. But he adds: “It is a sound way of expressing the fact that the gods are our guardians and that we men are part of the property of the gods.” A brutal as well as pious definition: someone committing suicide would consequently be taking from the gods part of their property. Man is therefore
in debt
to the gods for his existence. This is the point that comes closest, in the West, to the Vedic doctrine of the four “debts,”
ṛṇ
a
, that make up man. And here the differences between Plato and the Vedic ritualists become all the more apparent. What for them was a clear and binding doctrine is presented by Socrates as a doctrine that is secret and extreme, suitable for the “composing of myths” with which he wants to occupy his last hours.

Even though, a little later, Socrates would go back to reasoning with his disciples, as he had done so many times before, the halo of mystery over that initial formula would envelop his “hunting for that which is,” as he described then his philosophy. And it would bring him as close as possible to a
katharmós
, a specific term used to describe the purifying transformation that took place in the Mysteries. To the point when Socrates goes as far as stating that “thought (
phrón
ē
sis
) can itself be a
katharmós.
” Never as in that phrase did Socrates’ doctrine coincide so closely with the unrevealed, unrevealable doctrine of the Mysteries. Perhaps it was this—much more than arguments over the immortality of the soul, which are always open to doubt—that Socrates wanted to leave as his legacy to his disciples.

But the relationship between his philosophy and cult—in the Mysteries or in any other form—concealed some more secrets. Socrates’ last words have been debated over the centuries—up until Nietzsche and Dumézil. “Crito, we owe a cockerel to Aesculapius. But pay the debt, don’t forget it.” Words in which he talks once again about
debt.
In their enigmatic exchange (“‘It shall be done,’ said Crito. ‘But have you anything else to say?’ The question remained unanswered”), these words have distracted attention from Socrates’ last
gesture
—which had no less weight.

When an official of the Eleven appeared with the hemlock, Socrates asked him a question, “looking up at him from below, as was his custom.” He wanted to know whether he was allowed to use some of the drink to pour a libation. “We prepare just enough for it to be drunk,” answered the official. Meaning: it is exactly the amount needed to kill. Socrates nods—and says that he will confine himself to offering a prayer to the gods “so that the change of residence from here hence may go well.”

The implications of the scene are endless. Deep down, Socrates wants to preserve the sacrificial practice, which required part of the drink to be offered to the gods before being drunk. An established custom that went beyond practices of faith and was respected at every symposium. It was the gesture of giving way to the invisible.

At the same time, by doing so, Socrates sought to offer a deadly poison to the gods. All that would be written in future centuries about him being corrosive and disruptive is anticipated and underlined by that gesture. And the official, by declaring that the potion had been prepared with the exact amount needed to kill him, showed that state law contravened the age-old rule requiring a part of any drink to be poured off, to be destroyed as an offering to the gods.
“Speísas kaì euxámenos épie,”
“When he had poured a libation and prayed, he drank,” says Xenophon, describing Cyrus. But the expression already appears in the
Iliad.
And every Homeric formula is firmly rooted in Greek life. The underlying principle: there is no prayer without libation, there is no libation without prayer. That was the most solid alliance between gesture and speech, in addressing the divine.

Thus the death sentence turned out to be murder. All that remained for Socrates was prayer, speech. But for the whole Athenian civilization it was assumed that speech and libation went together. One required the other. Whereas now there were only those spare words of hope for a peaceful “change of residence,”
metoík
ē
sis
, fitting for a philosopher. Whose final wish had been refused. A pious yet blasphemous desire: offering a libation, sharing a poison with the gods. When the official of the Eleven refused to grant Socrates’ request, the last wish of a man condemned to death, the link between gesture and word had, for the Greeks, been broken. From then on, the word stands alone, self-contained, orphaned and sovereign.