Glory and the Lightning (44 page)

She had a round pink face and full red lips, a small impertinent nose and gray eyes fringed with lashes the same auburn tint of her hair, which, in the sun, turned to the color of copper. She could laugh like a jovial man, and usually did. When she discovered that Pericles had become sensitive over his towering brow she suggested the nobility of a helmet to be worn in public at all times. She laughed when he did so, for her suggestion had been half jest. It was her spontaneous kindness and her handsomeness which made Pericles adore her, and her intellect, untainted by the insistences and haughty fretfulness of his mother. She taught medicine to young men as well as practiced it and had her own infirmia, left to her in the will of the one man she had truly loved. Her friends were devoted, her enemies, fierce—the latter did not distress her for she was courageous, and neither sought good will nor placated a foe. Though only the age of Pericles she had something endearingly maternal about her. To the women of Athens, with her freedom and her free ways, she was a revolting scandal, a fact that did not disturb her. Her only female friends were the hetairai.

“One day,” she said to Pericles, “intelligent women will not be classed with whores as they are now, but will be respected and honored. And you, my beloved, will help to advance this felicitous state of affairs.”

“And you shall be the first to be honored,” he said in answer.

He went to her one night saying that exigency and his mother’s prayers and arguments had induced him to enter into an engyesis (giving of a pledge into the hand) between himself and his cousin, Dejanira, through the offices of the Archon, Daedalus, her father. (Rather, it was a pledge between two men, the suitor and the kyrios, the father, if still alive.) “She will bring me a handsome dowry from both Daedalus and her unlamented husband,” he told Helena. “Better still, she will bring me influence and power through her father, and I have no time to waste.”

Helena’s full face sobered and she gazed at Pericles with unusual intensity, her gray eyes flickering with thought. “I have seen Dejanira in wedding processions,” she said, “and in her litter, when accompanied by her father.”

“She is, undoubtedly, not beautiful,” said Pericles, making a face. “Nor can she claim that Athena ever gifted her with a touch of intelligence.”

“Ah, well,” said Helena, shrugging her plump shoulders. “I suppose a man must marry, to continue the line of his fathers, and I hear that Dejanira is a matron of many virtues and is assiduous in the managing of a household. Also, though you are rich, my Apollo, more riches are not to be despised.”

“I agree that a married man can ask no more,” said Pericles. “I had hoped, however, to escape marriage entirely and devote my life to my country.”

“It has been my observation that married men do not loiter about their households with any zest,” Helena said with a smile. “They leave such things to their wives, and wives can be useful in many ways. You could do worse.”

“At least she will have to take the ritual bridal bath,” said Pericles.

“Do not be unkind, O Apollo. Order your slaves to sprinkle the nuptial chamber with nard.”

She had spoken lightly, but she was perturbed not only for Pericles but over Dejanira also. She had heard of Dejanira’s stupidity and her other defects of character, and she knew that Daedalus went to the brothels not only in what he considered complete secrecy but as one went to a physician with a serious disease, hating the necessity and almost hating the healer for that necessity. His wife was a woman singularly like her daughter. Helena would have pitied him had he not been so coldly contemptuous and condemning of those who lacked his own dedication, sincere and passionate and without hypocrisy, to public and private rectitude. “He detests himself for what he cannot help possibly more than he detests others with fewer or no qualms,” Helena would say. “He is like one who resents the actions of his bowels but must drive himself to a latrine, holding his nose against the smell. One understands such men, but one cannot forgive them for their harshness towards others, and their vindictiveness. In castigating their fellows they castigate themselves and suffer larger pain.”

Pericles was less charitable towards Daedalus, whom he found repellent. ‘He is as lean as a skeleton and has a skull-like face and a mouth like a dried date, without its oozing sweetness. When I shook his hand at the time of the engyesis it was like shaking fingers formed of brittle parchment, so little life does it have. His whole power lies in his voice, which is like a horn, and his manner which expresses civic virtue. He is also honest, which is a rarity among us Athenians, and actually believes what he says. His word needs no oath to seal it, and I suppose that can be counted in his favor. How my beautiful mother could have such a kinsman is one of the seven extraordinary wonders of the world.”

“I have seen him, alas,” said Helena. “My unfortunate Pericles! Yet, I believe this marriage to be advantageous to you, and there are always consolations, are there not?”

Pericles’ pale eyes shone on her with such ardent tenderness that she embraced him, sighing while she smiled. She wondered why she could not love him and had only a deep affection for him. Was he not the most desirable man in Athens and did he not possess attributes of mind and character to enthrall any woman, and was he not virile and gentle and considerate in her arms? But she had loved once and could not bring herself to love any other man, no matter how illustrious. As if in extenuation she ate alone with him tonight in her beautiful little house, and arranged that her dinner table held only his favorite dishes and the best of wines. While they dined she would talk seriously of nothing, but amused him with naughty gossip of the city and new raucous jests she had heard.

Pericles secretly hoped that something dire would happen to prevent his marriage to Dejanira. But the winter day in the month of Gamelion dawned crisp and especially bright and vigorous, which Agariste said was a good omen, but Pericles considered it disastrous. He had seen Dejanira at family festivals, when her husband was still alive, and he had had the heartiest, if derisive, sympathy for him. He remembered that Dejanira had never had the slightest prettiness even as a child and young girl and now, as a widow, she seemed particularly abhorrent to him. Before her marriage she had had, at least, a slender figure and kept herself reasonably hygienic with the help of slaves. Even these had departed.

Ah, well, he said to himself on this day Agariste proclaimed was auspicious, I suppose worse things can happen to a man than marriage, though at the moment I do not believe it. He had chosen Anaxagoras as his parochos (best man) to the fury of Agariste, and she was further incensed that his wedding party was “composed of all the ragamuffin philosophers from the dirtiest of the arcades,” and not the men of distinction Pericles ought to have chosen. She had never liked Zeno of Elea at the best of moments. He was another of Pericles’ attendants. She was convinced that her son had done these things to vex her. Only the fact that her brother had dubiously informed her that these “ragtags” were bringing fame to Athens could mollify her anger. She admitted that they had intellect; however, were they not very poor and wore coarse garments and, if they possessed shoes, did they not wear them only to dinners in order to preserve them as long as possible? On hearing this Pericles said, “Better bare of feet than barren of brains.”

Coldly, and to annoy his mother more, he insisted on hearing the details of Dejanira’s purificatory ceremony the night before the wedding which Agariste had attended. The women of the bride’s house, and her female relatives, had formed a procession to obtain the water from the fountain called Callirhoë. They had all carried torches, and there had been two flute-players, instead of one, leading the woman who carried the special buckets for the water—the loutrophoras. The bride, in the women’s quarters, was then ceremoniously undressed—“What a delectable sight that must have been!” said Pericles with gloom. She had been rubbed and cleansed with perfumed oil then clothed in pale linen, and, with her relatives and bridal attendants, had appeared at her father’s side where the sacrifice was offered up to Zeus, Hera, Apollo, Artemis and Peitho. (Gamelion was considered to be particularly a choice month in which to be married, as it was the month of Hera, goddess of marriage.) For the second time—as though she were a virgin bride—she had offered up her childhood toys and her dolls. “Alas, that she could not offer up her son!” said Pericles, to his mother’s wrath. “I thought such a ceremony was only for a virgin. Is it possible that she never lay with her husband at all but produced her son—who resembles her remarkably—by some parthenogenesis?”

Agariste, too outraged to reply to this, went to supervise the decorating of her house with garlands of olive and laurel leaves, as the house of Daedalus was being decorated on this bridal morning. The bridal chamber, which Pericles refused to inspect, was also being garnished with olive and laurel leaves and flowers. As the weather was shiningly cold, braziers stood in every room and curtains were drawn over windows and lamps were lighted, though the sun outside was brilliant. Pericles, who was never restless, was restless today, and he strolled outside to breathe the sharp chill air and look down on his beloved city. He said to it, “I am doing this for you. I am offering myself as a sacrifice.” He stared up at the great bronze statue which Pheidias had created and murmured to it, “Athene Parthenos, my patroness, grant that what I am about to do will enhance your glory.” The statue on the acropolis gazed sternly to the east and the morning light glittered on her mighty and severe face. But her face was no more stern than was Pericles’ and his light eyes had the blind look of a statue, a phenomenon that many found disconcerting. Like Athene, he wore a helmet which concealed the extraordinary height of his brow and head. He shivered in the blazing cold and wrapped his cloak more tightly about him. He decided to get drunk, though as a rule he was careful in his drinking.

By noon he was sleeping in his chamber, snoring, and though Agariste, on hearing this, tightened her mouth, she had to admit to herself that perhaps he had reason, considering Dejanira, about whom she had no delusions. But Dejanira was rich and her father powerful, and a man could do worse than marry her, especially an ambitious man like Pericles.

As Pericles slept in an aura of sour wine he dreamed again that the beautiful little figurine Pheidias had presented him enlarged to the height of a tall and slender woman, and that again she bent over him. But this time she kissed his lips and laid her hand tenderly against his neck and whispered, “I am coming to you, O my beloved!” He felt the warmth of her mouth; it was as fragrant as a lily, and soft as a feather, and her hair, silver-gold, fell over his throat and his shoulders and hands. Her eyes, so close to his, were as brown as choice autumn wine, tinted and flecked with gilt and sparkles of changing light. She seemed radiant to him and vital and she smiled. He came abruptly awake, searching for her in the dimness of his chamber, his eyes strained and enlarged, so real had she appeared, so imminent. He was certain that he could smell the odor of lilies. He turned on his side, his heart beating fiercely with yearning for what was only, surely, a dream. He was as desolate as a man newly deprived of his loved bride before even the consummation of marriage. The thought of Dejanira now was unbearably repugnant to him so that he had to restrain himself from rising and fleeing his house and the city of Athens, itself, to roam the world for the vision he had dreamed. At length, groaning, he put the figurine against his lips and kissed it, then placed it under his pillow and slept again until almost sunset. When he awoke he felt dulled and numb and without feeling, which, he thought, was fortunate. Then he laughed at himself. What was marriage after all but a convenience to produce sons? He was taking this matter too seriously and was not Helena always admonishing him that he did so in all things?

“There are only two things worthy of solemnity,” she had said, only three nights ago. “Birth—and death. Between them, if one is wise, lies hilarity, for is not life hilarious, even when tragic?” Pericles did not answer this. There were occasions when he suspected that Helena, despite her wisdom, could be light-minded, and so, on that night, he had been so surly with her that she had dismissed him in exasperation, and, unpardonably, had advised him to go to his espoused bride.

At sunset he was his apparently calm, stately and rigidly dignified self. His face, under his helmet, was so without expression that it appeared less flesh than white stone. This was due not to his dread of marriage to Dejanira but to Anaxagoras’ teaching that at all times a true man is self-disciplined, especially during acute events or under stress. “Disorder of mind,” he had said, “is unpardonable.”

“Zeno of Elea thought I was too self-controlled,” Pericles had replied to this.

“Ah, there is a subtle but profound difference between an appearance of self-control and the physical and mental effort and anguish this involves, and the true self-discipline which orders the emotions within and the appearance without. The latter produces peace of mind, for it is absolute dominance of one’s self. The first produces, at the end, physical and spiritual collapse, for nothing is more deadly than lack of command over one’s own weaknesses. Composure is in the mind, if one has dominion of his thoughts. Without such, a man is a victim of random emotions which come and go and can destroy him, and are wild and savage and animalistic.”

Anaxagoras had smiled kindly at the young man. “You have extraordinary serenity and steadfastness of appearance. But this must seep into your mind and your emotions. When I was attacked on the streets by howling and disheveled young men who violently disagreed with my theories I felt no fear or anger or heat at all, and certainly no indignation! I knew they were only echoes from our primitive and chaotic past and were of no consequence.”

On this, his wedding day, Pericles reflected on what Anaxagoras had said: Objective and apparent emotions could be used deftly by a politician to impress voters—if one cared for public office. However, thought Pericles dismally, I am only flesh and blood and true serenity is far from me. Was it better, in this appalling world, to resemble marble within and without than to feel passions? Or, was marble alive, as Pheidias had said? (Zeno had once remarked that all things have being: To be is to feel, and stone, itself, grew and therefore had sentience.) Pericles felt more than a slight confusion in his mind. It came to him, with no originality, that life was very perplexing and dark and enigmatic, and not, as Helena had said, hilarious, unless one found earthquakes humorous and mysteriously tormented humanity infinitely ridiculous and mirthful. Anaxagoras had declared that a true man did not just rise above calamity. He remained impervious to it. Pericles shook his head. There were occasions when a man must weep or die. Blood was blood, no matter what the philosophers said. A man could not escape himself, nor his human heritage. Perhaps even God was the Victim of His own Nature. Alas, thought Pericles, what of us mere mortals, if that is so? We must all deal with tangibles, God or man, even if they are not of our own making. Reality confronts us all. Unlike the east, the west is pragmatic.