Gyges

Somehow I keep returning to a topic that has interested me for many years. That of the “link” between cause and effect; or, you reap what you sow; or, more colloquially, what goes around comes around.

This is more accurately stated in what is, I believe, a Spanish proverb, “Take what you want from life,” says God. “Take it, and pay.”

It is a common human failing for people, particularly those in high office, to assume that they can control events. But then we all like to imagine that we can, and have, control over our lives. This hubris is always, always, fraught and always, always, results in unforeseen consequences, good, bad or indifferent.

Because the “effects” are not always immediately apparent, this is something we tend to ignore, forget or consider of little importance.

What follows is an old tale, from ancient Greece, that is I think as relevant today as it ever was. 

In ancient Lydia (now part of Western Turkey facing the Aegean Sea across from Greece) about 3 000 years ago there was a king called Candaules. This king was greatly in love with his wife. In fact obsessively so – he thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world. 

Now Candaules had had a favourite bodyguard called Gyges with whom Candaules was in the habit of sharing is inner-most thoughts. Candaules suspected that Gyges, while having to agree with him, didn’t really believe what he said about his wife. So he proposed that Gyges hide himself in their bedroom so that he could see her naked and thereby affirm that the queen was, indeed, the most beautiful woman in the world. There would be moments when Gyges could slip away undetected.

Gyges was horrified at this proposal and feared for the consequences if the queen saw him. Candaules persisted with his plan and so it eventuated. The queen, however, did see Gyges as he slipped away but made no comment. She knew, immediately, that this was the work of her husband and determined to make him pay for the outrage and her humiliation of being seen naked by another man. 

The next day she called the unsuspecting Gyges and told him what she suspected and that someone had to pay for what he did. Her proposal was that either he, Gyges, would be killed there and then, or he was to kill Candaules, marry her, and so become king himself.

Dumbfounded by being found out and by the queen’s proposal Gyges decided to live and with the queen’s connivance, killed Candaules and so became king of Lydia.

The populace was stunned and outraged at such a violent change in leadership. They agreed, however to consult the Oracle of Delphi. If she agreed then Gyges would be king.

And so it was, with the warning prediction that retribution would be visited upon the fifth generation of Gyges’ descendants. Over the years this was forgotten. The prediction was however fulfilled when the fourth descendant was killed and the Lydians defeated, when they were attacked by the Persians under Cyrus the Great.

Hubris seems always to invite Nemesis, the Goddess of retribution and undeserved good fortune and who is implacable in her pursuit of tracking every wrong back to its doer. 

Whatever course of action is started must be completed, no matter how long it takes. 

“Take what you want from Life,” says God. “Take it, and pay”. 

Indeed!

Love - the greatest gift of all

I know that I have written on this subject before but it is still something that, as I get older, is of interest – grief, mourning and the cause. There is after all only one end to life. But this subject, for some reason, is studiously avoided. So while I’m not sure how to introduce this I find that grief has many facets and is very puzzling. We are, after all, mortal beings. Trying to make sense of death, however, is very hard. We will all, at some stage of our life, have cause to grieve and mourn. 

There was, in my case, the death of my wife Magucha whom I dearly loved.

Then there is, now, the harsh reality, still not fully absorbed, that my life will never be the same. Her love, her intelligence, her insight, her emotional support, her wonderfully infectious laugh, her mischievous quirky humour – is now all gone.

Then, now for me, there is the settling into a new way of life that is part acknowledgement of her memory and the way we used to do things together and part acknowledgement that from now on I’m on my own without her at my side. This is still a work in progress.

Then there is most difficult part of my day, not so strange really I suppose, difficulty in actually going to bed. I defer this necessary function until the last possible moment – 12 mid-night, even 1am. Then I might read for a few minutes before I “crash”. Once asleep I sleep well. It’s just getting the “courage” to actually go to bed. Bed is not the same now, you understand.

Then there are my own questions. But I do believe in something that is above and beyond us all to which we are “attached” by the essence that common to all living things - Life itself. Call this God if you like.  And then where did my Life come from – the same place it will return to? It makes sense to me, that death is a “transition” from this life to the next – just as a birth transitioned me from “that place” to this. This is a subject we, all of us, usually avoid, ignore or change the subject when it is introduced. Why?

Then there is the problem that we humans are unable to imagine “God”, or conceptualise “God”, so we bring “Him” down to our level and imbue “Him” with human attributes that we can understand – passion, hate, vengeance, anger, jealousy and such like. Reduced to this level we now need to propitiate “God” and get “Him” to agree to our point of view – hence the requirement for sacrifices (hopefully symbolic). Is this because humans are all supposed to be born sinful (because of Adam and Eve)? With a sacrifice, it is posited, we can attach our “sins” to whatever, or whoever is sacrificed, and so be absolved of “sin” and be “cleansed”.  

Surely, surely, any God who can be “altered” by anything men do or say, or by the sacrifice of an animal or human (even if symbolic) cannot be a perfect God? God, surely, doesn’t need a reward? God, surely, cannot be bribed? Why load, even symbolically, some poor animal or human (that God created in the first place) with the wrongs that we commit?

But personal sacrifice is a different matter. Is this what grief is – a form of personal sacrifice? That the more we love the more we grieve?

I believe there is a Spanish proverb that goes something like this: “Take what you want from Life, says God. Take it, and pay.”

And so it should be – we reap what we sow! The Law of Cause and Effect applies to all. This is justice and by my book, this is Love – maybe tough love – but Love none the less.

I like to think that this place, this planet Earth, is but a school for what comes next. We all need this school, to learn to Love – and to forgive.

All this, of course, gets me no closer to understanding what Life is; that “essence” that is present when something is “alive” and is absent when something that was “alive” is now “dead”.  

To me “God” is pure Love and understanding - this is “His” greatest gift of all, even if it is the most difficult to accept.

This is all rather circular and brings me back to the point where I started. I still grieve.

We are the Pilgrims, master; we shall go

    Always a little further; it may be

Beyond that last blue mountain barred with snow,

    Across that angry or that glimmering sea,

White on a throne or guarded in a cave

    There lives a prophet who can understand

Why men were born; but surely we are brave,

    Who take the Golden Road to Samarkand.

                                                            James Elroy Flecker