Just Myrto (8 page)

“Your teachers started with
The Iliad
and
The Odyssey
because they were stories most boys had already learned by heart,” said Socrates.

“It's true,” agreed Lamprocles. “We were only half reading and half reciting.”

“Every young boy loves the stories of the mighty warrior Achilles and the crafty adventurer Odysseus,” said Socrates. “But I wonder if that is the place to start with a young woman. She is ready not just to read, but to think and discuss as well.”

“I have it,” said Lamprocles. “Let's start at the very beginning with how the world came to be.”

“With
Theogony?”
asked Socrates.

“I'm sure you can find a copy of that in the marketplace,” said Lamprocles.

“And I'll look for something by Thales, too,” said Socrates. “That should keep you busy for some time.”

Lamprocles proved to be a kind and capable teacher. Within days, the lines and squiggles on the paper before me turned into words and sentences filled with facts and ideas.

I read all about the creation of the Cosmos and genealogy of the gods in Hesiod's
Theogony.
My reading was slow and arduous at first, but Lamprocles remained patient. Before long, he would close his eyes and recline in the shade while I read aloud.

Sometimes I would purposefully struggle or make a mistake to see if he was even listening. He would sit up abruptly and say,
“What was that?” If I would repeat my error, he would say, “Spell it!” And then we would sound it out together.

Finally, one morning I reached the last sentence. “But now, sweet-voiced Muses of Olympus, daughters of Zeus who holds the shield of protection, sing of the company of women.”

“That's it!” I shouted, and Lamprocles jumped to his feet.

“What?” he cried. “What happened?”

“That's the end of
Theogony.
I read every word!”

“Don't you think I already know that?” Lamprocles chided me. “I listened to every word, you know!”

“Well, you didn't look like you were listening,” I retorted.

“I was listening,” Lamprocles insisted, “but I was thinking, too.”

“About what?” I asked.

“I think I know why Father wants us to read Thales next,” said Lamprocles.

“Why?”

“I just realized that in
Theogony,
everything comes from absolutely nothing at all,” explained Lamprocles. “But Thales says that everything comes from water.”

“From water?” I asked. “How can everything come from water? What about fire? Does Thales think fire comes from water?”

“It can't really,” agreed Lamprocles. “But just the idea that everything has to come from something, whatever that thing is, makes sense, doesn't it?”

“Everything comes from the gods,” I said. “That's what we just read.”

“Yes, but where did the gods come from?” asked Lamprocles. “Hand me that book.” He laid the text on his lap and ran his
fingers lightly across the words. “Here,” he said. “In the beginning, Chaos came to be … then the Earth and then Eros, god of love.”

“Everything came from Earth and Eros,” I said. “Earth and Eros came from Chaos.”

“But what was before Chaos?” asked Lamprocles. “Before Chaos came to be?”

“Nothing?” I asked.

“Maybe,” said Lamprocles. “Or maybe something else.”

E
ACH
DAY
BECAME
a new adventure, reading to Lamprocles in the Agora. Lamprocles whittled small figurines from wood as I read and while we talked. My affection for him grew quickly beyond that I had known for my own brothers. We enjoyed the lessons and looked forward to our conversations with Socrates as we walked to and from the Agora each day.

I avoided Xanthippe easily and completely. Every evening I sat by the lamp reading the text for the next day. Leda or one of the girls would bring me my meal. Sometimes they would linger, looking with wonder at the book in my hands. I would read aloud to them until they remembered their duties and scurried away.

“You just call me if you need anything,” they always said. And sometimes I would call, just to let them come back into the room and hear a little more.

I felt as though I'd been carried away to the Isles of the Blessed. My reading improved until my eyes stopped seeing letters with sounds. My mind immediately grasped the words and ideas.

I read every night until Socrates came to bed. Then I turned out the lamp and nestled in beside him to talk more about what I had read that day and what I would read to Lamprocles the next. And
sometimes, while we lay in bed talking, Eros would join us, sharing with us the secret pleasures of love.

Socrates became my favorite dream. When I was with him, it didn't matter whether I was awake or asleep. I had no fear of flying, no fear of falling and no fear of dying.

Even my fear of losing Socrates subsided. With the spring came General Thrasybulus who had been exiled in Thebes. He brought many allies to overthrow the Tyrants and restore democracy in Athens. Plato's uncle Charmides and cousin Critias did not survive the coup.

I often saw Plato in the Agora. He went to great lengths to make eye contact with me, but never spoke to me directly. My heart recognized a suffering in his eyes that all of the money and all of the books in Athens could not console.

Nor could I offer comfort. It was almost as if our souls had swapped spirits. My journey was from suffering to joy, and his from joy to suffering. As Heraclitus wrote, “The road up and the road down are one and the same.”

We read Heraclitus after Hesiod and Thales. Like Homer and all of the poets, Hesiod invoked the Muses to inspire his words. Thales did not. He observed nature and tried to make sense of what his five senses perceived. How he concluded that water was at the heart of everything still mystified me, though. Earth, wind, fire, water … how could any one of them be all?

Heraclitus was making more sense. He wrote that the only constant is change. All things flow together in a constant stream, but we can never step twice into the same stream. I was no longer stepping in the stream, fighting the current. My life was a boat floating effortlessly down a river to the sea of happiness.

My body was changing, too. My belly and breasts swelled with the joy of a new life. Socrates was the first to know. Lying in bed one night he placed his hands on my slightly protruding tummy and announced, “Myrto, we are no longer alone.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

He leaned forward and kissed my belly. “Our child,” he said.

I placed my hands on his. Tears of joy filled my eyes as I experienced my very first moment of truth. There were no words. No fear. Only love.

That night I dreamed of my mother. We were planting myrtle in celebration of my birthday. Suddenly, she disappeared and I could not find her. Where we had planted myrtle, there were only ashes. I scooped up the ashes and pressed them to my heart.

When I awoke, Socrates was holding me. “What is it?” he asked.

“Just a dream,” I said. I buried my head in his chest and cried. He stroked my hair and let me cry.

After the tears passed, he asked, “What are you afraid of?”

I shook my head. “Nothing. Everything. I don't know.”

“There is no shame in feeling fear,” said Socrates. “The courage that I felt when I joined the infantry and girded my body with the heavy armor of a hoplite vanished during my first march into battle. Fear grabbed me by the chest and shook my whole body. I could barely keep step.”

“And what were you most afraid of?” I asked.

“That's the thing,” said Socrates. “I was suddenly afraid of everything or nothing at all, like you just said. I did not try to pretend that I was not afraid. Instead, I asked myself—what am I most afraid of?”

“And what were you most afraid of?” I asked again. “Death?”

“No.” Socrates shook his head. “I did not wish to die, but I did not fear death.”

“Pain?” I asked.

“I thought that might be it,” Socrates admitted. “But the stronger the pain, the shorter it endures. No point enlarging it by trying to imagine it, right?”

I nodded.

“I decided I was most afraid of dishonor,” said Socrates. “How odd that the thing most likely to bring me dishonor was my fear of dishonor! When I realized the foolishness behind it, fear released me, and I was able to proceed with honor. I never once faced a soldier more terrifying than my own fear,” confessed Socrates.

I sighed and kissed my husband's forehead. “Childbirth is a woman's battlefield, is it not?” Images of my mother's blood-soaked bed and death in labor remained vivid in my mind.

“You are not marching into battle alone, Myrto. I will be right here with you,” Socrates promised.

“What midwife would allow the father in the same room during childbirth?” I asked.

“My mother was a midwife. When I was young, she allowed me to assist her during the birth of many babies,” said Socrates. “If it comes down to me or the midwife, who will you want to stay?”

“You, Socrates,” I answered. “You put the baby in there. You may as well be the one to get it out.”

I
AM NO
longer just Myrto. Another life, another soul grows within me. Part of me is constantly aware of this truth; part of me cannot begin to fathom it.

I find myself watching Lamprocles, imagining him a tiny seed growing in Xanthippe. He has Socrates' feet, hands and strong shoulders. But Lamprocles' facial features are much finer; and there's no mistaking the piercing, dark eyes of Xanthippe beneath his brow.

I became obsessed with Xanthippe. The day was surely coming when I could no longer go to the Agora with Socrates and Lamprocles.
What will Xanthippe say, what will she do when she learns that I am expecting?

I will not expose my child regardless of gender, nor will my child be raised as a slave in this household. Socrates did nothing to protect me from Xanthippe. Will he protect our child? How many years will Socrates live? Surely Lamprocles will find it in his heart to love his brother. And Xanthippe loves Lamprocles most of all.

But what if my child is a girl? Will Lamprocles love a sister?
I nearly drove myself to madness in this sea of torrential thoughts.

Another moon reached its fullness and passed, but I did not speak to anyone other than Socrates about our child. I did not tell him of my fear of Xanthippe. My fear of childbirth sufficiently occupied our conversation for the time being. And if I didn't survive
the birth of our child, that would certainly resolve my fear of Xanthippe.

Socrates gave me a book that Aspasia had given him decades ago. “For both my mother and me,” he said.

I took the book from him and began to unroll it. “Your mother could read?” I asked.

“No, I read it to her,” said Socrates.

“It's all about midwifery,” I said. I sat down and spread the book open on the table before me.

Socrates nodded. “I told you. My mother was a midwife,” he said, “and an excellent midwife at that.”

“And you are a midwife, too?” I asked. I had never heard of a man practicing midwifery.

“I don't usually deliver actual babies,” Socrates admitted. “But I'm a philosophical midwife. People conceive ideas in their minds, and I help bring those ideas to light.”

“How do you do that?” I asked, still studying the book. Socrates pulled up the other chair and sat beside me.

“By asking questions,” replied Socrates, “and making people think.”

“Is this the book that you showed me several months ago?” I asked. “The one that looked like nothing but lines and squiggles?”

“No,” said Socrates, “but you have a keen eye and a powerful memory. That book was written by the same hand as this.”

“Who wrote this book?” I asked. There was no name given at the beginning, just the title,
Midwifery.

“Theano, wife of Pythagoras, wrote the book, and their daughter made numerous copies for distribution,” replied Socrates. “A former Pythagorean student sold this and many other books to Pericles. Aspasia read them all and gave two of them to me.”

“May I see the other one?” I asked.

“You've seen the other one,” Socrates replied. His eyes smiled like those of a boy dangling an apple just beyond the horse's mouth. I moved to his lap and wrapped my arms around his neck.

“Yes, but I couldn't read then.” I pressed my forehead to his. “I want to see it again now that I can read.”

“But you have this book to read first,” Socrates placed a hand on my belly and held me close. “You are ripe for the subject of midwifery.”

“What is the other book about?” I asked.

“What is it that you want to read about?” Socrates asked.

“I want to read about everything!” This was true. I was so enamored with reading that I would have spent all day reading lists of army supplies if those were the only words available to me.

“And so you shall,” responded Socrates. “But you can't read everything in one night.”

Socrates motioned toward the bed. My mind wanted to spend the whole night reading, but my body agreed with Socrates. I rolled up the book knowing that it would be there for me tomorrow. As I nestled myself into bed, Socrates extinguished the lamp and joined me.

Neither Socrates nor I mentioned the book the next morning. Lamprocles and I were reading Parmenides' poem
On Nature,
so we discussed that with Socrates as we walked to the marketplace.

“I had the pleasure of meeting Parmenides when I was a very young man,” Socrates told us. “He was in his mid-sixties, about my age now, when he journeyed through Athens.”

“What was he like?” Lamprocles asked.

“Very handsome and very distinguished,” replied Socrates. “He arrived in time for the great festival of Athena. Amidst all of the
noise and confusion, people and animals everywhere, he maintained that all is one.”