Soliloquy by the sea

I love the sea. I love it as a place of exile. Because it crosses any age. It is part of any century and holds many memories. There is something excruciatingly beautiful, able to intimidate the worst lucidity, in the clarity of the morning burned off by the sun.

Experts frown when faced with the predictability of human desires, but as Byron said: “any time is good when it becomes ancient.”

Back in his time, Aristotle was blamed for impiety. The method used by the courts then was the same used often in our times: sentences taken out of context, in which irreverent meanings were found.

"I do not want Athens to be guilty for a crime against philosophy” said Aristotle while fleeing the city.

In the epitaph dictated, shortly before his death, and to be placed on his grave, Aeschylus said that the bushes at Marathon and the Persians knew him well. Nothing else. Not a word about his work as a playwright!

When Sophocles son, fearing his father would disown him in favor of a bastard brother, sued the playwright declaring him senile, the Greek bard thanked the judges, and asked them if he could read a scene off the tragedy he was working on, Oedipus at Colonus. The judges not only dismissed the case but also accompanied him back home as a sign of respect.

I find this kind of modesty and excellence extinct today as the thirst for glory has embodied forms of dementia.

But, I would not want to be perceived as more naive than I really am. I know that ancient time was no better than today. The romantic, dramatic take on life or the inconsolable love, the same that caused at some point Don Juan’s laughter, had found no more respect in ancient times than it does today.

Mythology, as well as history, reveals areas of less than perfect love. Adonis was born out of incest. Ajax mounted Cassandra in the temple of the goddess of wisdom, Agamemnon was murdered by an adulterous wife, Helene ran back in Menelaus arms after having caused the disaster of Troy, Artemis, insensitive and frigid, punished those who tried approaching her.

It obsessed me throughout my life that while Ovid initially refined Rome's elite in the "art of love" he learned in exile, the bitter taste of hate and perfidy, cajoling the emperor through hypocritical letters sent to friends, desperately hoping that his words will reach the ears of Augustus and draw forgiveness. It is not hard to imagine how Ovid, unlike me, looked with distaste at the waters of the Black Sea. Especially in the winter. While blizzards swept over the land, accompanied by the howling wolves, Ovid, most likely was dreaming, with a poisoned heart and crippling sadness, of the parties Rome spoiled him some time ago.

Twenty-five years spent among weird, bearded locals was certainly a long wait, interrupted from time to time, by despair and disappointment as none of the ships sailing in the harbor brought the news he wanted.

And he suffered, I think, more than cold as life continued flawless without him.

Should we still believe in love, modesty, excellence, and justice? Simple. Yes.

I look at it as I can choose from history only what I like, like in a library in which I keep only books that interest me. My reveries are not required to support any neighborhood I dislike. Perhaps they look like murky marshes formed after rain.

Whenever I look at the sea, I feel a lump in my throat at the thought that, someday, I will not understand it as well as I do now.