The Etruscan (2 page)

Nevertheless, something is retained in objects which have been used and loved by people for a long time and which are associated with good or evil. Something beyond the object itself. But all this is vague and dreamlike and fully as illusory as it is true. In the same manner a man’s senses mislead him if they are fed only by his lust, the lust to see, to hear, to touch, to smell, to taste. No two persons ever see or taste the same thing in the same way. Nor does the same person hear or touch the same thing in the same way at different times. Something which is pleasing and desirable at this moment may in a short time be repulsive and worthless. Therefore a person who believes only in his senses lies to himself throughout his life.

But as I write this I know that I do so only because I am old and worn out, because life tastes bitter and the world offers nothing for which I yearn. In my earlier years I would not have written thus, although whatever I would have put down would have been equally true.

Why, then, should I write at all?

I write to conquer time and to know myself. But can I conquer time? That I will never know because I do not know whether writing which has been erased can survive. Thus I shall be content to write only that I may know myself.

But first of all I shall take in my hand a smooth black pebble and write how I had my first presentiment of what I really was, rather than that which I merely believed myself to be.

It happened on the road to Delphi amidst gloomy mountains. When we had left the shore, lightning had flashed in the distant west above the mountain peaks, and upon our reaching the village the people warned the pilgrims against continuing the journey. It was autumn, they said, and a storm was about to break. Landslides might close the road or torrents sweep away the traveler.

But I, Turms, was on my way to be judged by the oracle at Delphi. Athenian soldiers had rescued me and granted me asylum on one of their ships when the people of Ephesus for the second time in my life had tried to stone me to death. Thus I did not stop to await the passing of the storm. The villagers lived off the pilgrims, stopping them coming and going under many pretexts. They prepared good food, offered comfortable beds and sold keepsakes of wood, bone and stone that they had made. I did not believe their warnings, for I was not afraid of storms or lightning.

Driven by guilt, I continued my journey alone. The air cooled, clouds rolled down the mountains, lightning began to flash around me. Deafening claps of thunder echoed ceaselessly through the valleys. Lightning cleft the boulders, rain and hail beat my body, squalls almost swept me into the gorges, stones scratched my elbows and knees.

But I felt no pain. While the lightning blazed around me as though to reveal its awesome strength, ecstasy gripped me for the first time in my life. Without realizing what I did I began to dance along the road to Delphi. My feet danced and my arms moved, not in a dance that I had learned from others, but in a dance that moved and lived in me. My whole body moved in joyous ecstasy.

Then it was that I knew myself for the first time. No evil could befall me, nothing could do me harm. As I danced on the road to Delphi the words of a strange language burst from my lips, words that I did not know. Even the rhythm of the song was strange, as were the steps of the dance.

Beyond the mountain wall I saw the oval valley of Delphi blackened by clouds and blurred by rain. Then the storm ended, the clouds rolled away and the sun shone upon the buildings, the monuments and the holy temple of Delphi. Alone and without guidance I found the sacred fountain, laid my pack on the ground, divested myself of my muddy garments, and dived into the purifying waters. The rain had made the round pool murky, but the water pouring from the lions’ maws cleansed my hair and body. I stepped naked into the sunlight and the ecstasy still lingered, so that my limbs were like fire and I felt no cold.

Seeing the temple servants hastening toward me with fluttering robes and heads bound with sacred ribbons, I glanced upward. There, towering above everything and mightier even than the temple, was the black cliff over whose edge the guilty were flung. Black birds hovered over the gorge in the wake of the storm. I began running up the terraces toward the temple between the statues and monuments, disregarding the sacred way.

Before the temple I laid my hand on the massive altar and shouted, “I, Turms of Ephesus, evoke the protection of the deity and submit to the judgment of the oracle!”

I raised my eyes and on the frieze of the temple saw Artemis racing with her dog and Dionysus feasting. I knew then that I had farther to go. The servants tried to stop me but I pulled away and ran into the temple. Through the forecourt, by the giant silver urns, the costly statues and votive offerings I ran. In the innermost chamber I saw the eternal flame at a small altar and beside it the Omphalos, the center of the earth, black from the smoke of the centuries. On that sacred stone I laid my hand and surrendered to divine protection.

An indescribable feeling of peace emanated from the stone, and I looked around me, unafraid. I saw the holy tomb of Dionysus, the eagles of the great deity in the temple shadows above me, and knew that I was safe. The servants dared not enter. Here I would encounter only the priests, the consecrated, the interpreters of the divine word.

Alerted by the servants, the four holy men came in haste, adjusting their headbands and gathering their robes around them. Their faces were wry, their eyes swollen from sleep. They lived already on the threshold of winter, and they expected few pilgrims. That day, because of the storm, they had expected no one. Thus my arrival had disturbed them.

So long as I lay naked on the floor of the inner shrine with both arms around the Omphalos, they could not use violence on me. Nor were they anxious to lay hands on me before they had learned my identity.

They consulted one another in low tones, then asked, “Have you blood on your hands?”

I said quickly that I had not, and they were obviously relieved. Had I been guilty, they would have had to purify the temple. “Have you sinned against the gods?” they asked then. I deliberated for a moment and replied, “I have not sinned against the Hellenic gods. On the contrary, the sacred virgin, the sister of your deity, watches over me.”

“Who are you then and what do you want?” they demanded querulously. “Why do you come dancing out of the storm and dive into the holiest waters without permission? How dare you disturb the order and customs of the temple?”

Fortunately it was not necessary for me to reply, for at that moment the Pythia entered, supported by her attendants. She was still a young woman, with a bare and direful face, dilated eyes and a swaying walk. She looked at me as though she had known me all her life, a glow suffusing her face as she began to speak.

“At last you have come, expected one! Naked you came on dancing feet, purified by the fountain. Son of the moon, the seashell, the sea horse, I know you. You come from the West.”

It was in my mind to tell her that she erred badly, since I came from the East, as fast as oars and sails could travel. Nevertheless, her words moved me.

“Holy woman, do you really know me?”

She burst into wild laughter and drew still nearer. “Should I not know you! Arise and look into my face.”

Under the compulsion of those eyes I released the sacred stone and stared at the woman. Before my eyes she changed into the rosy-cheeked Dione who had carved her name on an apple before tossing it to me. Then Dione faded and gave way to the black face of the statue of Artemis which had dropped from the sky at Ephesus. Again the face changed to that of a comely woman of whom I had only a dreamlike glimpse before she faded into the mists. Then I was staring into the violent eyes of the Pythia once more.

“I also know you,” I said.

She would have embraced me had not the attendants restrained her. Her left hand reached toward me, touching my chest, and I felt strength flow into me from her hand.

“This youth is mine,” she declared, “consecrated or not. Do not touch him. Whatever he may have done he has done in fulfillment of divine will, not his own. He is guiltless.”

The priests muttered among themselves. “These are not divine words, for she is not seated on the sacred tripod. This is a false ecstasy. Take her away.”

But she was stronger than her attendants and began to rage defiantly. “I see the smoke of fires beyond the sea. This man came with soot on his hands and face and with burns on his loins, but I have purified him. Hence he is pure and free to go and come as he wishes.”

That much she spoke clearly and intelligently. Then she lapsed into a convulsion, foamed at the mouth and fell unconscious into the arms of her attendants, who carried her away.

The priests gathered around me, trembling and alarmed. “We must discuss this among ourselves,” they said. “But fear not. The oracle has freed you, and obviously you are not an ordinary human since she went into a sacred ecstasy at the mere sight of you. However, because she was not seated on the sacred tripod, we cannot record her utterances. But we will bear them in mind.”

They took laurel-wood ashes from the altar, rubbed my hands and feet with them and led me out of the temple. Servants meanwhile had brought my muddy clothes and pack from the edge of the fountain. When the priests fingered the fine wool of my robe they realized that I was not a lowly person. They were even more reassured when I handed them a purse rilled with the lion-headed gold coins of Miletus and some silver stamped with the Ephesian bee. And I gave them also the two sealed wax tablets containing testimony on my behalf which they promised to read and thereafter question me.

So I spent the night in a sparsely furnished room and in the morning the servants came to me and advised me how to fast and purify myself so that my tongue and heart would be pure when I again confronted the priests.

As I ascended to the deserted stadium of Delphi I saw the flash of a javelin, although the shadow of the mountain already lay heavy across the field. Again it flashed, rising into the air like an omen. Then I saw a youth, no older than myself but sturdier, running lightly to retrieve it.

I watched him as I ran around the track. His face was sullen, his body bore an ugly scar, and his muscles were knotty. Yet he exuded such an air of confidence and strength that I thought him to be the handsomest youth I had ever seen.

“Run with me!” I shouted. “I am tired of competing against myself.”

He thrust the javelin into the ground and ran to join me. “Now!” he cried, and we set forth. Being lighter than he, I thought that I would win easily, but he ran effortlessly and it was all I could do to win by a hand.

We were both breathless and panting, although we tried to conceal it. “You run well,” he conceded. “Now let us throw the javelin.”

He had a Spartan javelin, and as I balanced it in my hand I strove not to show that I was unaccustomed to its weight. I gathered momentum and threw the javelin better than I had ever thrown before. It flew even farther than I had hoped, and as I ran to retrieve it and mark the throw I could not restrain a smile. I was still smiling when I extended the javelin to the youth, but he threw it effortlessly many lengths beyond my mark.

“What a throw that was!” I said admiringly. “But you are probably too heavy for the broad jump. Will you try?”

Even in the broad jump I surpassed him by only a hair’s breadth. Silently he held out a discus. Again his toss swooped far beyond my mark like a hawk in flight. This time he smiled and said, “Wrestling will decide it.”

Looking at him, I felt an odd reluctance to wrestle with him, not because I knew that his would be an easy victory, but because I had no desire to let him encircle me with his arms.

“You are better than I,” I conceded. “The victory is yours.”

After that we said nothing, but each pursued his own games in the empty stadium until he was sweating. When I went to the edge of the swollen brook he followed me hesitantly, and when I began washing and scouring myself with sand he did likewise.

“Will you rub my back with sand?” he asked.

I did so and he did the same for me, rubbing so hard that I pulled away and splashed water in his eyes. He smiled but did not stoop to indulge in such childish sport.

I pointed to the scar on his chest. “Are you a soldier?”

“I am a Spartan,” he said proudly.

I looked at him with renewed curiosity, for he was the first Lacedaemonian I had ever seen. He did not seem brutal and unfeeling as Spartans were said to be. I knew that his city had no wall, boasting instead that the Spartan men were the only wall needed. But I also knew that they were not permitted to leave the city except in troops on their way to battle.

He read the question in my eyes and explained, “I also am a prisoner of the oracle. My uncle. King Cleomenes, had bad dreams about me and sent me away. I am a descendant of Herakles.”

It was in my mind to say that, knowing the character of Herakles and his wanderings throughout the world, there were undoubtedly thousands of his descendants in various lands. But I looked at his rippling muscles and stifled the impulse.

Unasked, he began tracing his descent, then said in conclusion, “My father was Dorieus, recognized as the fairest man of his day. He likewise was disliked in his homeland and set out across the sea to win a new homeland for himself in Italy or Sicily. He fell there many years ago.”

Frowning deeply, he suddenly demanded, “Why are you staring at me? Dorieus was my real father and now that I have left Sparta I have the right to use his name if I so choose. My mother used to tell me about him before I was seven and she had to give me up to the state. Because my legal father was unable to produce children, he sent Dorieus in secret to my mother, as in Sparta even husbands may meet their wives only by stealth and in secret. All this is true, and were it not for the fact that my real father was Dorieus, I would not have been banished from Sparta.”

I could have told him that, since the Trojan War, Spartans had had good reason to suspect men and women of excessive beauty. But this was undoubtedly a matter of great sensitivity to him which I understood well because the circumstances of my own birth were even stranger.