Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Athens of old, Athens of new
A woman being raped by a centaur - her foot falls away from the half-man half-beast - thrust out from the frieze - attempting her desperate escape for eternity - each delicately carved toe thrust now into this museum up on the Acropolis, where tourists touch statues they shouldn't, and take flashing photographs of each other's poses. Attendants shout at them to stop that all the time.
Another room, and twelve Athena's in a circle. Different sizes and different smiles. Twelve elevated eyes, staring from the same stone woman, sensuous and spinning around - asking which is the true Athena, under which toga is she, deity of the city, alive eternally, which is she, she who gifted this ground its first olives, goddess of wisdom, perfect, setting two thousand years later an impossible puzzle for a man in her midst - which is truly her? And - "some really old stuff in here, huh," remarks an American to his buddy taking a rest on a bench, as on cue as a deflating balloon parping around the end of a party in the hangover of morning.
Even if, cast in scaffolds, the columns up on the hills of Athens still perform their usual duty: to rule the mind and the fist by visible beauty, literary stereotypes of the lies of monuments and the flaws of eyesight don't do here. Here amidst the remnants of a sensuous religion. Where the colours of the statues have flaked and faded from whatever they once were, where one imagines what one can't ever imagine, of life and of colours gone. But still, the occassional flash of a once-bright red on the side of a shield still exists. A tiny spot of green in the middle of a huge length of snake. A three hundred and sixty degree frieze of a war: a battle scene here on one side, a fleeing village there - whilst the gods spectate from one whole side, but have started to lose their bodies. A nose missing here, there a leg, or arm. Elemental flesh, falling apart. Then the face of Zeus, emptied of its features by time. And by the passing of practice, belief, ways of life, of civilisation. Everywhere, ancient gods have faded to faint modern ghosts. But the life one must have felt with culture like this.
"Pretty woman," croons some guy ineptly and loudly to his girlfriend as they stroll back down to the modern city. "Walking down the street! Pretty woman!" The couple cut across the dusty ground between one path over to the next - where an older guy tells him to please shut up and keep to the path. Girlfriend takes a few paces back, hand to forehead, obviously knowing what's coming next. "I am a Greek citizen, I have right to be here! Where are you from? Finland? So what! This is mine. I don't care if you are here to research, you are not my father! Do not, sir, tell me what to do! If you think I have committed a criminal act, there is Police Station at the bottom of this path! But do not tell me what to do, I am a Greek citizen!"
Their exchange of shouts echo back along the path for a few minutes more. A pointless personal battle, with is pitiful rhetoric and pathetic pride, and then a bit of pushing. I take a rest on a bench, survey the sprawl that is the living city limping along below. It is said the gods departed Greece when they became too disappointed with humans, lacking presumably our self-congratulating facility for sarcastic observation, or the consolation of movies on DVD. Yet, still, their powers of war storm the whole of the earth every day once more, let loose from Olympus, crashing throughout a complex and confused world. A world where it is said, or maybe it's a myth, that some still seek like archeologists things that ought be preserved, or even brought back to whatever life remains possible.
Another room, and twelve Athena's in a circle. Different sizes and different smiles. Twelve elevated eyes, staring from the same stone woman, sensuous and spinning around - asking which is the true Athena, under which toga is she, deity of the city, alive eternally, which is she, she who gifted this ground its first olives, goddess of wisdom, perfect, setting two thousand years later an impossible puzzle for a man in her midst - which is truly her? And - "some really old stuff in here, huh," remarks an American to his buddy taking a rest on a bench, as on cue as a deflating balloon parping around the end of a party in the hangover of morning.
Even if, cast in scaffolds, the columns up on the hills of Athens still perform their usual duty: to rule the mind and the fist by visible beauty, literary stereotypes of the lies of monuments and the flaws of eyesight don't do here. Here amidst the remnants of a sensuous religion. Where the colours of the statues have flaked and faded from whatever they once were, where one imagines what one can't ever imagine, of life and of colours gone. But still, the occassional flash of a once-bright red on the side of a shield still exists. A tiny spot of green in the middle of a huge length of snake. A three hundred and sixty degree frieze of a war: a battle scene here on one side, a fleeing village there - whilst the gods spectate from one whole side, but have started to lose their bodies. A nose missing here, there a leg, or arm. Elemental flesh, falling apart. Then the face of Zeus, emptied of its features by time. And by the passing of practice, belief, ways of life, of civilisation. Everywhere, ancient gods have faded to faint modern ghosts. But the life one must have felt with culture like this.
"Pretty woman," croons some guy ineptly and loudly to his girlfriend as they stroll back down to the modern city. "Walking down the street! Pretty woman!" The couple cut across the dusty ground between one path over to the next - where an older guy tells him to please shut up and keep to the path. Girlfriend takes a few paces back, hand to forehead, obviously knowing what's coming next. "I am a Greek citizen, I have right to be here! Where are you from? Finland? So what! This is mine. I don't care if you are here to research, you are not my father! Do not, sir, tell me what to do! If you think I have committed a criminal act, there is Police Station at the bottom of this path! But do not tell me what to do, I am a Greek citizen!"
Their exchange of shouts echo back along the path for a few minutes more. A pointless personal battle, with is pitiful rhetoric and pathetic pride, and then a bit of pushing. I take a rest on a bench, survey the sprawl that is the living city limping along below. It is said the gods departed Greece when they became too disappointed with humans, lacking presumably our self-congratulating facility for sarcastic observation, or the consolation of movies on DVD. Yet, still, their powers of war storm the whole of the earth every day once more, let loose from Olympus, crashing throughout a complex and confused world. A world where it is said, or maybe it's a myth, that some still seek like archeologists things that ought be preserved, or even brought back to whatever life remains possible.
