The Double Tongue Read online

  If not Ion, then who? There was only one answer. The god. Ask the oracle on your own behalf! Ask the oracle if it existed? What nonsense was that? A paradox, was that what they would call it? The void then. And the hexameters. And now and then the oracle had seemed to work. Mostly it was what Ion called the Escape Clause. There was always something in the answer which could be interpreted in different ways. Even if I was too positive, Ion’s transmission of the words would alter them subtly, toning down the positive and implying an alternative. Oh yes! Between us we were clever. And sometimes we were lucky. If you add the occasional luck to the information service which Ion’s pigeon post shared with all the other oracles, from Siwa to the oracle in the Cassiterides at the North Pole, we were occasionally very lucky indeed. But never as lucky as Croesus with his lamb and his tortoise in a bronze pot! Also the questions were fewer and smaller. So were the presents. We had declined from gold, via the Athenian drachma, to silver. Sometimes we received nothing but a letter of thanks. Sometimes we did not even get that. However, this was Delphi and her riches were legendary. Ion remarked one day that the roof of the hall of the Pythias – the Pythion – needed looking at. The next thing I knew he had a quite famous Athenian architect crawling round on the tiles. Andocides was small, hairy and irreligious. He referred to our temples as ‘god boxes’ and the treasuries as ‘money boxes’. I don’t know how he referred to me behind my back but to my face he was civil enough, even though I was now accustomed to go about with my face bared. After all he was an Athenian where anything goes except dullness. But he was abrupt.

  ‘You’ll have to move out.’

  I looked at Ion.

  ‘It can’t be as bad as that.’

  ‘It is,’ said Andocides. ‘Even Mycenaean work doesn’t last for ever. This place must be a thousand years old. The lead is eaten to pieces and half the stonework worn through.’

  ‘Can’t it just be left as it is?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Andocides sourly, ‘if the Lady doesn’t mind the whole thing falling on her head next winter.’

  ‘Where can I go?’

  ‘I’m your guardian,’ said Ion, ‘you could move in with me at a pinch.’

  ‘I’ ve seen a number of houses here empty‚’ said Andocides. ‘If I’m going to be here long enough to oversee the repair of the roof I’ll need a house.’

  ‘Take your pick‚’ said Ion. ‘They’re abandoned and falling down most of them. You might be lucky.’

  Andocides did set up a temporary home in one of the houses, a very small one. But most of his time he spent on the roof. Then he came down and asked to see us both. He wasted no words.

  ‘The roof must come off and be rebuilt. And quickly. In my view you don’t even have time to wait for summer. It’s a chancy business.’

  ‘Can’t you shore it up for the time being?’

  ‘What! At that height? Where are the trees?’

  ‘Have you any idea of the cost?’

  ‘I could give you an estimate.’

  ‘Please. As soon as possible.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about it up there. I can give you a rough estimate here and now, provided you won’t hold me to it.’

  ‘Speak.’

  Andocides told us. The sum meant little to me. Above a thousand drachmas sums have always seemed the same to me and meaningless. But Ion sat down so carefully I knew he was avoiding doing it with a bump.

  ‘As much as that?’

  ‘I think so. That’s leaving nothing for myself. Call it an offering to the god.’

  ‘But you’re notorious – an atheist!’

  ‘I can’t see a fine old building like this fall into a heap of rubble.’

  ‘We are in a fix‚’ said Ion. ‘You know we haven’t money like that here. I shall have to go to Athens and beg.’

  ‘Try Corinth. That’s where the money is.’

  ‘I’m an Athenian,’ said Ion stiffly. ‘Athens shall have first chance. After all, this is Delphi and all the world will contribute.’

  ‘The sooner you let me know the better‚’ said Andocides. ‘I’ll do what shoring I can in the winter. But with spring the roof must come off.’

  ‘Can’t I do anything, Ion? You know I have some –’

  Andocides laughed.

  ‘Ask the god for a fine winter, Lady,’ he said. ‘If he gives us a bad one the weight of snow on a roof of that pitch – perhaps the weather was better in the early days. Well. I’ll leave you, look at the figures and give you a written estimate. High Priest, Lady –’

  ‘I don’t think I can stand up‚’ said Ion. ‘To think of the time we’ve spent under this roof without even thinking of it!’

  ‘Ion.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘You are going to Athens this winter.’

  ‘It would seem so.’

  ‘Why can’t I come too?’

  ‘My dear Arieka!’

  ‘There’s no reason why not. Dionysus will look after the oracle during the winter. He always does and nobody bothers him with questions. Please!’

  ‘Dear First Lady, what would we do? Think of the, the scandal.’

  ‘That’s foolish. I’m an old woman. Besides, if necessary we can stay in different places. I would like to travel just once in my life.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Think about it – please!’

  ‘Are you a good beggar? That’s what we should have to be, you know. A million drachmas! Do you know what that means?’

  ‘You are going to talk about numbers and give me a headache. I think I could be a beggar – perhaps a good beggar. I’d try.’

  ‘I’ll think.’

  ‘Is Delphi really as famous as we claim?’

  ‘Yes. Yes of course. It’s known from Stonehenge to Aswan. Probably further still by the will of the gods.’

  It was on the tip of my tongue to say that he used not to believe that the gods had any will at all. But I decided to keep quiet.

  Next day Ion said he thought it might be possible for me to go. He had sent a message and the answer was not unfavourable. Athens, or Ion’s contact in Athens, needed a few days to arrange things. Then there might be an official invitation. He guessed that nobody quite knew how to receive a Pythia or even if it was, so to say, theologically possible. A Pythia and Delphi in the common mind were one and the same thing and that might be that: in which case I should spend yet another three months of seclusion in a snowed-up village.

  Two days later Ion said that the answer was a definite yes. Athens, in fact, had thought about it and said the possibilities were simply marvellous! It had never happened before. They were about to send messages in every direction saying that the oracle was coming to Athens and in the tourist season! They calculated on an absolute flood of Romans, let alone Greeks from the East and Egypt. They were arranging a pomp to bring me in and up to the Acropolis and the temple of Pallas. Ion, of course, would be staying with Apollo in his own Athenian temple.

  The last month of summer wore on. It seemed to me that there were fewer people about than usual. We were to meet our conductors at my father’s house down by the sea and I was to travel in the vehicle I had never seen! Ion and I came as near a real quarrel over that as we ever had. I was determined to inspect the vehicle. It was one thing to be moved, shrouded and alone, in some kind of cart for a hundred yards or so. It was quite another to go down that steep hill up which I had been brought so many years ago, and then, if I survived that, to be driven all those miles to Athens. In the end I got my way. The vehicle was wheeled out of one of those Delphian secret or at least secluded buildings with well-locked doors and brought to the hall of the Pythias for my inspection. It was a very interesting object. It had four wheels, and the front two, together with the shafts, could move a little from side to side. It was very big and painted all over. There was nothing of Apollo about it whatsoever and I guessed that it had been made in the days before Apollo took over the cave and the oracle. I say it was ‘made’ in t
hose days; but quite clearly, to anyone who knew anything about farming, it had been repaired a hundred times over. But I also guessed that the painting had been reproduced each time as nearly as possible. So, plain to see was the picture of the python in the cave, the python which Apollo would one day kill, and also our fat Mother Gaia. But from my point of view the cart, for that is what it really was, had been well looked after and I might trust myself to it – indeed it had been better maintained than the hall of the Pythias! I allowed little Menesthia to stand in as the oracle of Dionysus. I said she was not to go into the cave but might sit under the portico and answer any questions there might be. She was a strange child and had some way of deliberately making herself, as she said, ‘feel funny’ and she would do that and answer the question. She also said she would examine the enquirer’s palm because you could tell a lot about his future that way. I asked her if she had ever divined by means of water in a pot. She said no, her mother used to but said it was dangerous. So I was sure the oracle, in so far as it affected Dionysus, was in interesting hands, even if they were not necessarily oracular.

  I cannot say that visiting my father’s old house was very affecting. My brother who had inherited was away – but then he was always away and we should not have recognized each other. His wife was there, fat and frightened of the Pythia I was glad to see, not having ever connected that house with anything but little put-upon Arieka. It was one of the few times I ever really enjoyed the prerogatives of my position. Ion was not so happy and insisted on our spending the night at the house because he had walked down with his horse led by a slave and his feet were sore. Besides, the pomp had not yet arrived. It was coming by ferry and was stuck in Corinth.

  Next morning it arrived and we set off. I must say I think I should have felt safer had we gone via Megara rather than across the ferry; but Megara and Athens at that time were having one of their endless tiffs. It never got so far now that we were subject allies of the Romans, and a Pythia is quite as sacred as the image of a god. No one without the insolence of an Alcibiades would mistreat a divine image! But the Megarans were uneasy, which is why we and our pomp crossed by ferry to Corinth.

  To see a city across water, and certainly Corinth, was magnificent enough. But those buildings, which I in my childhood had taken as the dwellings of the gods, were warehouses built along by the water! Here we were received by our Corinthian friend who was to entertain us. His house, or palace rather, was gross. Nevertheless it was comfortable and guarded by Roman soldiers. Since they burnt Corinth down they have not been popular. Nor have their friends – among whom was ours – and there was a rowdy element in the city. Ionides startled me by saying they were the salt of the earth and I had to question him several times to be sure that he meant what he said. This was a seed blown by the wind that might lodge anywhere. But I do not concern myself with the internal organization of cities. Suffice it to say that our friend contributed handsomely to the fund for the roof of the Pythion. After only one night we proceeded on our way, a long day’s journey, and arrived at Eleusis after dark amid the flare of torches. We stayed here two nights and I must not say much about it. I was greeted with reverence by the mystai and granted certain privileges which I shall not specify, though initiates may well guess what they were and are. Yet I was, in a certain way, disappointed. Delphi and Eleusis are the right and left hand of the god. Or perhaps it would be better to say that while Delphi is the voice of a god, Eleusis is the god’s hands! But I do not specify in these matters. On the second morning after the kiss of peace we went on to Athens.

  Those who have never seen Athens should rest easy. She is as she is claimed to be. There is a whole population of statuary which the Romans have not touched. Athens is a free city, they have declared so, I mean the Romans, in their Senate. Her citizens can carry arms if they want to, though as far as I can see very few avail themselves of the privilege. There are many slaves in the city and many freed men. Women of the better sort go nearly enough bare-faced like us Delphians. We seemed, however, to meet only philosophers and professors and of course writers and poets, though just at the moment they have no one outstanding. They are careful of their speech so that in some ways it sounds old-fashioned.

  Once more we were greeted with courtesy and awe. I do not believe the awe was deeply felt. It seemed more as if these reverend gentlemen were displaying a form of what they thought they ought to be feeling. I had in sudden shyness rather than modesty veiled myself completely.

  It was, however, something of a shock to find that one was to be housed in the Parthenon and in rooms partitioned off behind the colossal image of the goddess herself. When you consider that the Winged Victory she holds in her right hand is life-size you get some idea of how appallingly bad the statue is. To begin with there is no point from which it may be seen standing as it were, at ease. Because the head is right up there it looks too small, and the hand down here is so much larger than life it is gross. The whole sacred image does not give an impression of the holiness and power of the goddess but of the sedulous scurrying of the ants who put her body together. The spear that lies in the crook of her left arm is larger than the mast of a trireme. No Athenian I spoke to admired it. They would draw me to one side and bid me admire some elegant and gesticulating confection in which the stonecarver had achieved impossibilities of representation and complexity. But often I found the colours too bright, being more used to the ancient images of Delphi where time had often dimmed the colours back to what must have been something like the unadorned stone. The paintings in the stoas were another matter. Here you could feel yourself actually present at the siege and burning of Ilium. You could gaze into the furious face of Ajax and admire the hale old age of Nestor.

  But I am indulging myself in the memory of my travels. After all, this was the first time I had moved more than a few miles from the house where I was born and I do not expect ever to travel again. For where is there to go? I have seen Athens and live in Delphi! But it is time I got on.

  We were entertained at banquets. The ladies lay on couches instead of sitting up on chairs and were bare-faced, much as we women are at Delphi. One feels oneself part of an advanced civilization. I, of course, in view of my position occasionally drew my scarf across my mouth, but I think the ladies found this an appropriate and delicate reminder. Even the Archon’s wife. At some point in these banquets – except the utterly exclusive ones – Ionides would speak. This was done in the Athenian way as if by accident. Someone would refer in the course of his remarks to the time his grandfather had consulted the oracle and how impressed he had been by this or that. Then would follow a direct question to Ionides about people he had met at Delphi, which would enable Ionides to give his reminiscences of Sulla the Roman dictator and how he had laughed at the decay of the buildings, saying that Greeks could build but not maintain. And so to the fact that our roof was in danger of falling in. Once a wit interjected at this point, ‘My Dear High Priest, Aeschylus was wise after all!’ When that ice had been broken a far too good-looking young woman – I think she was one of those whom we call hetaeras – confessed that she had wanted to address me but did not dare, because everybody was simply bursting with curiosity to know what it was like. This daring approach would start a truly Athenian conversation, a kind of cross talk of allusions and witty remarks which a stranger would not understand – I did not – but the gods were bandied about. I have lost my thread. These conversations were what I can only call delicately blasphemous. Indeed, one young man with what I can only call a laughing raillery accused Ionides of inventing the prophecies himself. This brought a sudden and, I really believe, shocked, silence. Ionides lied calmly.

  ‘I have never made up an oracle. We are, I think, going too far in our discussion of oracular inspiration, in view of what and who is sitting veiled and silent among us. But let me say I have always passed on what I heard, and where I was uncertain of what I heard I have said nothing. You know that the oracle has sometimes returned to the ancient c
ustom of speaking in hexameters again. I am a channel only. I am no poet and could not invent these verses myself. They come from a mouth that is pure and holy and the god speaks through it.’

  The silence was prolonged. It was in my mind to accuse Ionides of the ultimate blasphemy in his claim. But I did not. How could I? But there was more that kept me silent. Here was the atheist speaking: and I knew him well enough to know that he was speaking in all sincerity. He believed what he said, or I knew nothing about him. So Ionides, cynic, atheist, contriver, liar, believed in god!

  I suppose we all change. I had believed in the Olympians, all twelve of them. How much did I believe now, after years of hearing Ionides inventing speeches for me? How much after years of inventing them myself? How much after years of remembering that the god had raped me, years of part-belief, of searching for a proof that all I had believed in was a living fact and if twelve gods did not live on that mountain, they did in fact, in real fact, live somewhere, in some other mode, on a far greater mountain? It was too much for me. I did not speak out but kept silent, veiling my head completely.