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| Empedocles |
EMPEDOCLES
Supposed God
by Marcel Schwob
No one knows in what manner he was born or how he came upon the earth. He appeared near the golden banks of the river Acragas, in the good city of Agrigentum, a little after the time Xerxes had the sea beaten with chains. Tradition tells only that his grandfather named him Empedocles; nothing more is known. Undoubtdly he was said to be self-conceived, for he was admittedly a god. His disciples were sure that before visiting in his glory the Sicilian lands, he had already passed through four existences, having been plant, fish, bird and girl. He wore a purple mantle with his long locks falling over it; he had a fillet of gold around his head, on his feet were brazen sandals, and he carried a garland of fleece and laurel intertwined.
By the touch of his hand he cured the sick, or, mounted on a chariot, he would recite verses in the Homeric style, with pompous accents, his head raised toward the heavens. Great troops of people followed him, prostrating themselves before him as they listened to his poems. Under bright skies shining over fields of grain, men from all parts came to Empedocles, their arms filled with offerings. He held them spellbound, singing of a divine crystal vault, the mass of fire we call the sun, and the love that envelops all like a vast sphere.
All beings, he said, are no more than disjointed fragments of this sphere of love, though hate has been insinuated into them. And that which we now call love, he contended, is our desire to unite ourselves one unto the other, to merge and be lost as we once were lost on the breast of this great sphere-god whom discord has alienated. He invoked the day when the old divinity should rise again after the transformation of souls. For, he said, the world we know is a product of hatred and its dissolution shall be the work of love. In this manner he chanted through the towns and through the fields, the brazen sandals of Laconia tinkling on his feet while a sound of cymbals went on before him. Meanwhile from Etna’s crater rose a black smoke column casting its shadow over Sicily.
Like a king of heaven, Empedocles was robed in purple and girdled with gold, while the Pythagorians wore thin linen tunics and shoes of papyrus. He knew how to drive away rheums, they said, how to heal sores and how to draw the evil from afflicted limbs. They begged him to make the storms cease, so he conjured with tempests from a crest of the hills. At Selinus he turned two streams into the bed of a third and stemmed a flood; then the people of that place adored him, raising a temple in his honor and striking coins on which his image appeared face to face with the image of Apollo.
Others pretended he was a wizard instructed by Persian magicians; that he possessed the power of necromancy and the science of those herbs which render men mad. One day as he dined with Anchitos, a madman rushed into the hall, sword upraised. Empedocles stretched out his arms, chanting the Homeric verse on the nepenthe of forget¬ fulness, and a spell descended over the madman until he stood there rigid, blade in air, forgetting his dementia as if he had drunk sweet poison mixed with sparkling wine.
The afflicted came to Empedocles outside the cities, where he was often surrounded by a crowd of miserable folk. Women mingled in the following and kissed the hem of his precious mantle. One of those women was called Panthea, daughter of a noble of Agrigentum. She was to have been consecrated to Artemis, but she fled the cold statue of the goddess, vowing her virginity to Empedocles. No one ever witnessed their affection, for Empedocles preserved a divine detachment, speaking always in epic meter with the dialect of Ionia, while the people of Agrigentum knew only the Dorian. All his gestures were sacred; when he met with men it was to bless or cure them. Usually he remained silent. None who followed him ever saw him sleep; they knew him only as a majestic being.
Panthea dressed in fine wool and gold, her hair arranged after the rich mode of Agrigentum, where life ran smooth. A red strophe supported her breasts and her sandals were perfumed. As for the rest of her, she was tall and fine and her color was desir¬ able. It is impossible to be sure that Empedocles loved her, but he pitied her. Soon a breath of Asia brought the plague to those Sicilian fields. Many were touched by the black fingers of the pest, and fallen beasts strewed the edge of the prairie where they could be seen beside the carcasses of sheep, dead with their mouths gaping toward the heavens and their ribs sticking out white and dry through their sides. Stricken by this malady, Panthea fell at Empedocles’ feet and breathed no more. Those who were near raised her stiffening limbs to bathe them with spirits and aromatics. They loosed the red strophe from her young breasts, winding a funereal band in its place. Her mouth, lips slightly parted, was sealed by a tight bandage. Her deep eyes no longer mirrored the light.
Empedocles gazed down at her where she lay. He took the golden circlet from his forehead and he touched her with it. He placed the garland of prophetic laurel on her breast, chanting unknown verses of the soul’s migration. And three times he commanded her to rise and to walk; then the people w'ere filled with terror. At his third command Panthea left the kingdom of shadows, life came into her body and she rose to her feet, all swathed as she was in the cloths of the tomb. And the people saw that Empedocles had power to recall the dead.
Pysianactes, father of Panthea, now adored the new god. Long tables were spread under the trees of his estate, where a feast of wines and viands was offered. By the side of Empedocles slaves held up great torches, while heralds proclaimed him—as did the solemn mystery of his own deep silence. Suddenly, at the third watch of the night, the torches sputtered out and darkness enveloped the worshipers. Then a strong voice called, “Empedocles!” When the lights burned once more Empedocles was gone. Men never saw him again.
A frightened slave told how he had watched a red flare cut the night near Etna’s summit. At the first dull gleam of dawn the worshipers climbed the sterile slopes of the mountain. Jets of fire were still darting like tongues from the volcano’s crater. In the porous lava on the brink of the burning abyss, they found a brazen sandal writhen by the flames.
Marcel Schwob
Imaginary Lives
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