Book 4, Letter 10, to my Father. Two weeks have passed since your death.

Hey Dad,

It's Tuesday so I'm back at your place. I'm cooking the food you left for me, a chicken and corn dish which is simmering while I write. I'm drinking your wine. Wren is playing solitaire on your computer, he sings as he plays, music pouring out of him, just like it always poured out of you. The house still smells like you, my hands smell like your hands. The dust still holds your finger prints and the wine glass still holds the memory of your lips. You are here with me, in me.

I saw your next door neighbour. She said that the last time she spoke to you, perhaps a couple weeks before your death, you said to her that you were happy with your life, happy with your home.

I am happy with your life. Sitting at your kitchen table as I write, I am crying, unstoppable tears. Your wine is sweet. My grief is sweet. You gave me so much in life, and you continue to provide me with all the necessities of life. You have given me your home, the very seat of your kingdom and all the mementos I could ever ask for.

Wren and I will sit down with dinner to watch the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie. We watched the first two with you before you left us, so we have returned to finish the series, and to continue our life with you, despite your absence.

I thought I was fine. I thought my grief may have been fleeting, but of course, it will last the rest of my life. It is your lasting gift to me, this bottomless well of emotion from which I may draw. The water of your love, Dad, I will drink it deep. I will quench my thirst for life, I will live as you hoped I might live: with passion, music and love.

Thank you today. Thank you tomorrow. Thank you forever.

With gratitude and respect.

Your loving son, Morgan

PS. I have been reading the book you leant me, The Jungle and the Sky by CS Forester. There is a passage I would like to share, since it seemed you must have had this in mind when you suggested I read the book. It concerns a drummer playing his drum in a village in the jungle...

Tali had perfected the rhythm he gad been striving for. There was a neat series of beats, and then a hesitation, like a man stumbling, a recovery, and then another stumble. A man could hardly keep from laughing when he heard that rhythm. It was a good joke, something really funny, catching and captivating. The dancers were grinning with pleasure and excitement. They had formed round Tali in a semi-circle, and the dance to suit the rhythm rapidly evolved itself. They closed slowly in on him with mock tenseness and dignity. Then a sudden quick interchange of places, a backward swirl, and they were ready in the nick of time to begin the cycle again. It was an exciting and stimulating dance, amusing and yet at the same time intensely gratifying artistically. People came swarming from all points to join in, and the semi-circle grew wider and wider. Soli...leapt into the centre.

'Hey!' he shouted. 'Hey, hey, hey!'

He was up on his toes, posturing picturesquely. He reeled to one side, he reeled to the other side, while behind him the crowd neatly shifted in time with him, interchanging in a geometrical pattern vastly gratifying. Tali thumped and thundered on his drum. His eyes were staring into the vacancy over the heads of the dancers. He touched the side of the drum with his elbow to mute it, and it's tone changed from loud mirth to subtle mockery.

'Hey!' shouted the crowd.

Tali introduced a new inflexion into the rhythm. He made no break in it ; perhaps not even a metronome could have measured the subtle variation of time. But now the drumbeat told of his tragedy, of vivid drama. Soli in the centre caught the change of mood and found words for it.

'The tall tree totters!' he intoned. 'Run, men, run!'

The drum thundered, the dancers interchanged.

'Run, men, run!' roared the crowd, catching the final beats.

'It hangs upon the creepers,' sand Soli in his nasal monotone. 'Down it falls!'

Beat – beat – shuffle – shuffle.

'Down it falls!' roared the crowd... … …

Thanks for the book Dad, it's great.   I'll let you know when I finish it.

Book 4, Letter 9, Part 2 of 2 To Cicero, On the Orator

A few months ago I bought An Introduction to Roman Law, by Barry Nicholas (1962) with the expectation that its dry subject matter would help me get to sleep in the evening. Oh my foolish heart! I have seen the clock tick past midnight many times while holding this book upon my lap. I had no idea that I would find in it the same enticing stories of human trials and triumphs that excite me in many other books on history. But you know all about that don't you Cicero.

There is also another thing which makes it all the easier to learn and master the law: though most people find this hard to believe. For the fact is that legal study is so utterly fascinating and absorbing!... ...Once he has embarked upon that line, the whole range of law and our priestly chronicles and the Twelve Tables will give him a remarkable picture of what ancient times were like. For one thing, these records provide invaluable evidence about primitive linguistic usage; and, besides, some of the types of legal action they preserve are extremely informative about our ancestors' customs and ways of life. (On the Orator: Cicero)

I am always fascinated to read about the ancient people's attitudes to their own ancient past. I live in such a peculiar time (I suppose that everyone considers their own era to be peculiar...Thucidides certainly did, and I am grateful...), wait...where was I...oh yes. I am interested in both ancient history, as well as far reaching futuristic science fiction, I feel that I am living in an era subject to an equal influence between these two poles of influence. I can feel the stratified layers of history beneath my feet, and also the atmospheric pressures of speculative thinking drawing me forward.

But I wanted to talk about Roman Law....

Divorce. Since Roman marriage depended for its existence merely on the parties' living together wit the intention of being married, it could equally be brought to an end by the free will of either or both. And just as no formality was needed for the beginning of a marriage, so also none was needed for its termination...Until the later years of the Republic this total freedom of divorce was kept in check by public opinion and by the Roman habit of consulting a family council before making any important decision. ... By the last century BC, however, divorce had become a matter of course, at least among the upper classes, for whose habits alone we have any evidence. The respectable Cicero put away his wife after thirty years of marriage in favour of a young and wealthy bride, and Cato of Utica had no compunction in remarrying his divorced wife when she was left a wealthy widow by her intervening husband. ... Seneca remarks that women reckon the years not by the names of the consuls, but by those of their husbands. (An introduction to Roman Law)

It is easy to think of women's rights as being a 20^th Century concept, but it seems that throughout the development of the Roman Empire, greater and greater protections were granted to women in the case of divorce, securing their social and financial security against divorce. Laws were put in place to prevent the mismanagement of a wife's dowry, and to insist on the full return of all lands owned by the wife prior to the marriage. Since children were by law, the property of the husband, upon divorce, a percentage of the dowry could be kept by the husband for the maintenance of those children, but later changes to the law under Justinian, abolished this right.

I'm not particularly interested in divorce law, other than that is bears relevance to my own life. My parents divorced in 1992 when I was twelve years old, and my mother was shunned by the Catholic Church to which she had belonged for most of her life. As a child I was subject to visitation laws, as well as the problems of a restraining order put out against my father, preventing him from stepping foot on the same street as my mother's house. Along with my two sisters, I had to walk with my bags to the end of the street to be picked up by my father for weekend visits. My father had been violent towards my mother, so I understand her fears, and the reason for the restraining order, but I also remember the shame and confusion I felt each time I walked with my bags in hand to meet my father, waiting in the car.

Of course, my mother possessed no dowry, but there were child support payments, and the division of mutually held property, and for five years my parents struggled through family court, with many fights and accusations.

I have been lucky, or perhaps I just learned the lessons from my parents divorce, that since separating from my own first wife, we have maintained a 50/50 split of custody of our son, and have shared the expenses of his upbringing. My marriage was like the Roman custom, in that it was a marriage not sanctioned by any government documentation, but rather a mutual agreement. We were in fact re-married each year on the 31^st of October in a private Handfasting ceremony, which for us meant a promise to remain together for a year and a day. We continued in this way for seven years before our promises came to an end. Our initial Handfasting Ceremony was presided over by a pagan priestess, and took place on a Sunday in the middle of a public marketplace in a small country town. Our friends and family gathered in a circle around us to witness the ceremony, which took less than five minutes. Afterwards we shared a potluck feast with everyone present, we drank mead, we danced to a funk band that showed up uninvited, we were entertained by a belly dancer friend, and the children were thrilled by the performance of The Amazing Drumming Monkeys, a puppetry and music duo who played African drums and sang songs about eating fruit and doing monkey yoga.

I don't know why I'm telling you all of this, Cicero, but it is easy to talk freely with you, so I will not judge myself harshly for this digression. It is actually pleasant, seven years having passed since my divorce, to reminisce about our wedding day.

No one knows why you divorced your wife Terentia. People speculate that it was over a breach of trust concerning money, that your wife may have stolen from you, but really, the truth is not visible in either your letters, or in the accounts given by later historians. Your divorce from your second wife Publilia is better understood; she did not seem to approve of the doting manner of your love for your daughter, Tullia. Whatever the truth, your life, and the whole Roman Republic was a mess at the time, and bad decisions were being made by everyone. I do not judge you. Even if you only married Publilia for her money, I don't really care. You paid back the dowry when you divorced, in accordance with the law, so all's fair in love and war, I guess.

I don't know where I'm going with all this. It's just a rambling letter. Every day I read, and every day I think of things I would like to write to you about.

With gratitude and Respect

Morgan.

*

PS. I'm not your only fan...

The Oration against Catiline - read by an Australian.

https://youtu.be/NZg1PzU9fqw?list=TLPQMDkwNTIwMjDXe7-Js65O7A

Book 4, Letter 9, Part 1 of 2, To Cicero, On the Orator

 

Dear Cicero,

Another day, the world is ending, my coffee tastes the same. My coffee tastes good. My Father died last week, the result of Diabetes, and though I am grieving as any son who loved his father would, it is not with pain or sadness, but with some new kind of agonising joy that I find myself crying. It is good that children should bury their parents, it is natural, and I am grateful to have the opportunity to live in a peaceful part of the world where this is possible. The present conditions of the pandemic prevent any sort of family gathering for a funeral, but that is not such a heartbreak as one might imagine. I have time to write the eulogy. I have time to sort through the legal and financial procedures.  I have time to grieve on my own terms.

I wrote a letter to my father, Cicero, which you may read here if you wish. 

Despite this current calamity, I have been reading your book, On the Orator, a very modern translation (2012). You come across as a little pompous, but I suppose that you are a little pompous. It seems to be the Roman habit, an ingrained belief in the absolute superiority of Romans, particularly those living in the city itself. It comes across a bit pig headed these days, like this declaration that you put in the mouth of Lucius Licinius Crassus:

Compare our laws with those of other communities; with the laws of Lycurgus and Draco and Solon. You will find them extremely easy to understand why our ancestors surpassed every other nation in the world in wisdom. For the laws of all other countries are incredibly disorderly; one might even call them ridiculous. This, however is a subject that will be familiar to you from my daily conversation, since I am always repeating how much wiser we Romans are than the Greeks and everyone else.

You lived on top of the world.

Seneca reminded me today, as he so often does, that there are not many in Rome who have achieved greatness, who were not also brought low by the same fortune that made them soar. I bring this up I suppose because I have been relinquishing my own ambitions, finding instead that contentedness with small joys, is a far better path to tread. I am content with my family and home, I am content with my music, with my art, and with my work. This contentedness is not static, rather it is lively and swept up in a great spirit of innovation. I have been spending a lot more time at home with my kids, gardening, or watching movies, reading books, playing games. There is a plague, you see. Nothing like the Athenian Plague, but still, the whole world is affected, and many people are spending a lot more time at home.

I am breathing out, and as I said, relinquishing my ambition. Holding myself up to my own impossible standards was exhausting, and ultimately defeating. My goals are always shifting, I am unable to enjoy the triumphs as I strive for recognition, as I strive for a voice in the crowded atmosphere of art, music, writing.

You didn't let go, Cicero.

You didn't let go.

Are you a brave man or a fool?

Whatever mixture of virtue and vice that you possess, you are are terrific writer. I am racing through On the Orator, laughing and reading passages to my partner, underlining all my favourite sections so that I could write about them to you.

For the fact is that there is no earthly reason why a man should limit himself to the knowledge of one art and one only. Neither nature nor statute nor usage demand any such restriction. Pericles, for example, although he was the most eloquent man in Athens, also directed its national policy for very many years...

You also make reference to the Greek physician Empedocles being a good poet, and of Socrates, not only being a master of philosophy, but also of geometry and music. I bring this up because it reminds me of a quote from another author on a similar topic.

“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”

― Robert A. Heinlein, from 'Time Enough for Love'

I read this book when I was about twenty years old, (I am forty now), and the above passage has subtly influenced the ebb and flow of my entire adult life. I know that the passage I quoted from you Cicero, is not quite pointed in this direction, you were making a different sort of argument, but you know how one thing leads to another, and cross disciplinary study produces unique fruits. Heinlein may have been a science fiction author, but I have long supported notion that Fiction contains as much truth as Non-Fiction, and that often the most profound philosophical maxims are best delivered through the mouths of imaginary characters.

Considering that your book, On the Orator, is a sort of philosophical/historical fiction, presented in the same manner as Plato's Socratic dialogues, or Xenophon's Cyropaedia, it seems that we are on the same page.

*

PS. I have been watching for you in the movies....

Cicero in the movie Cleopatra

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KvR9ksDJlM

Book 4, Letter 8, To My Father, Peter Taubert, Two days have passed since your death.

Dear Dad,

You died on Tuesday morning. You were having another seizure. I came to see you in the afternoon and I found your body in your bed. Cold. Stiff. You were long gone. The body seemed empty. I tell you this in case you are currently a wandering ghost, lost, confused. I know how the seizures disoriented you. When I found your body, I called out to you, I reached out and touched your cheek. I held your shoulder and shook you, but you did not wake.

I stepped outside and called 000

Wren was with me, waiting in the car, reading. I sat with him and told him that you had died. We cried for a while, talking a little bit, then Wren suggested we listen to the song “My Grandfather's clock”, so we sat together, listening in silence, waiting.

After so many years of waiting for this moment, it still came as a surprise. There was no lingering hospital bed decay, no dramatic last moments for us to say our goodbye's. On Monday you were here, vibrant, laughing. On Tuesday you were gone.

It's Thursday night as I write this. I have cried a lot, caught unawares by sudden outpourings of emotion. I don't have words to describe these waves of salt water that pour out of me. Grief, I am learning quickly, is a complex mixture of feelings that command the body, mind and heart. I don't know what's really happening to me, but I am changing.

Your sudden departure is like a magnesium flare, and our lives are illuminated in the light of your now complete life story. I have your private journal, 600 pages of diary transcripts and personal notes. I have your collected poetry, 78 pages of previously unread verse. In just two days I have already learned things that you never spoke about. Our secrets have secrets. Father, you and I are so alike.

I can't write more today. My heart still races and my thoughts are crowded, cluttered. I love you. I I love you today, I loved you yesterday, and I will love you tomorrow. Wherever you have gone, I wish you well.

I will write again soon.

With gratitude and respect.

Morgan

Book 4, Letter 7, Part 2 of 2, To Cicero, On having the courage to fight a losing battle

Your life contains many lessons, Cicero, and it seems that with every page, there is something vital and worthwhile to learn. But, you're not the only one on my reading list; that poet, Publius Syrus, (who you didn't like) is remembered for some rather wise words as well, and I, seeker after wisdom, will drink from whatever cup is offered, if it contains the wine of truth.

Even calamity becomes virtue's opportunity

You, Cicero, lived to see great change, you were required to make great choices, influenced as you were by your culture, your history, and all the philosophy you studied. You made the choices that reflected and expressed yourself as a human being in the centre of a nexus of powerful forces, not the least of which was your sense of conviction. You believed in yourself Cicero. All those letters expressing your doubt, to me, are proof of your conviction, for you felt driven by contrary winds, yet you always chose what seemed right to you.

In light of these thoughts, whilst reading the biography of Samuel Johnson, written by James Boswell, of Scotland, 1791, this passage struck me as something I should share with you.

Every man naturally persuades himself that he can keep his resolutions, nor is he convinced of his imbecility but by length of time and frequency of experiment. This opinion of our own constancy is so prevalent, that we always despise him who suffers his general and settled purpose to be overpowered by an occasional desire. They, therefore, whom frequent failures have made desperate, cease to form resolutions; and they who are become cunning, do not tell them. Those who do not make them are very few, but of their effect little is perceived; for scarcely any man persists in a course of life planned by choice, but as he is restrained from deviation by some external power. He who may live as he will, seldom lives long in the observation of his own rules.

Now that I think of it, a conversation between yourself and Johnson, would be entertaining in the extreme. Ahem...I digress.

                                           Samuel Johnson

Cicero, those who would accuse you of inconstancy or cowardice, do so from the peculiar belief that the unbending hubris of your contemporaries represents an admirable trait. While you were human enough to be flexible (to a point...), others were fixed, and thus were cut down by the storm.

However, you really stuck your feet in the ground when you took on Antony, so what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object? Well, you lost your head and your hands for it, but let's not dwell on the details. Although, Mark Antony had a rather unpleasant end as well...

Returning to the point, dear Cicero, there is much in the above passage from Johnson that offers opportunity for sophistic revelation. Life has no rule-book, it is not governed by the turns of phrase we use to guide our choices, and fortune blows us in unexpected directions. Men who live rigidly by the codes of their conviction, are often swept away, right or wrong. Men who turn with the tides, men who are flexible, are subject to the same vicissitudes, and are led just as often to the same fate.

Which is to say, life is a roll of the dice.

So it's all about how you roll, to borrow from the modern vernacular.

You, Cicero, rolled with the philosophers, and you were better acquainted with them than I will likely ever be, but so often I gain my introductions to these eminent friends of yours, through your books. I have been reading The Tusculan Disputations, (Book 5) and, distillations of worldly wisdom that your many books are, I find this tome no exception. I find, in fact, the very advice which I might have given you:

Folly, even after it has attained what it was seeking for, is still never satisfied. But wisdom is invariably contented with what it has got. It never has anything to feel sorry about.

Taken on face value, Cicero, it would seem that you did not take your own advice, and that even after achieving all the glory that civil service in Rome could grant, you persisted in your eager pursuit of both fame and justice. So, the above quote, (taken out of it's context), seems to suggest that you were not wise enough to know when to be satisfied, and to step away from politics. However, if I include the preceding paragraph, something of your true nature becomes revealed to us.

If moral goodness is sufficient to guarantee a good life, it follows that the same quality is also sufficient to guarantee a happy one. Now, one aspect of moral goodness, quite evidently, is courage; and courage is merely another word for the superiority of character which makes it impossible for a person to feel afraid or worsted by setbacks. No one, then, who possesses these qualities will ever have any regrets about anything, or feel the absence of anything, or find anything getting in his way. Instead, his entire life will be rich, complete, successful – in other words, happy.

Courage, Cicero, that one quality which you are so often accused of as lacking, I find that you possessed in great quantity. You were happy to risk your life to defend the Republic, happy to devote yourself to opposing Antony, knowing that every word you spoke against him brought you ever closer to death. And if Cassius Dio's description of your last moments is true, it seems that you recognised the virtue of a courageous death, and faced your execution with gravitas and a poetic spirit.

With Gratitude and Respect

Morgan.

• For my letter on the Philippics (The speeches Cicero gave against his enemy Marc Antony, during the last year of his life), see Book 2, Letter 4

Book 4, Letter 7, Part 1 of 2, To Cicero: On having the courage to fight a losing battle

Dear Cicero,

There are many reasons why I identify with you, why I call you my friend. Perhaps I am projecting, perhaps I am seeing what I want to see in you, in the hope that it justifies my own life choices. I think that you believed in peace even in the middle of civil war, you tried to dissuade your political associates from fighting until it became impossible.

So I would like to share a poem of my own...

Middle Ground

April 2020

When I'm fighting for the middle ground,

it's a fight I can never win.

The two opposing sides will always see me as the villain

for siding with their enemy,

while all I can see are potential allies

Allies who remain ignorant of the true virtues or vices of their opponent

because half-real illusions and half-justified injuries

dominate their vision.

While I'm stuck in the middle

fighting half-heartedly for a lost cause.

When I am unable to make peace

I must find satisfaction in war,

or at the very least,

in sacrifice,

as I find that

keeping my silence

is the only way

to win at all...

and that is no kind of victory for anyone.

*

I have throughout my life often been a family peace-maker, a chairperson of committees, a messenger, a middleman – the communicator. It doesn't always go well for me. Trying to prevent conflict rarely ends well for the one in the middle, and I have failed to prevent conflicts often enough that I have developed a terrible nervous reaction to any sort of contest of wills. I have found myself forced to choose between two kinds of betrayal, and ultimately, have ended up betraying myself. I fold before I bluff, I am a terrible poker player, and though I find myself frequently caught between disagreeing parties, it seems that either I have learned nothing of the gentle arts of peace making, or that the position itself is one doomed to failure.

And so I find that keeping my silence is the only way to win.

Oh Cicero, if only you had kept your silence. If only the Republic you believed in had really existed. If only... it's a stupid phrase really, if only. It denies the reality of the situation, and the reality was that the Roman Republic was long dead, and your efforts, well intended though they may have been, were ultimately futile. You lived in a tyranny, but you thought you were fighting for freedom. In the end, it was a battle to save your own dignity. While all those around you were being murdered, or bribed, or exiled, you were busy writing your own glorious epitaph; a collection of books and speeches that have taught the world many lessons.

I quote now from the Harmsworths Universal Encyclopaedia, 1921

(Cicero was...) Naturally of conservative leanings and believing in the possibility of reform within the machinery of the old constitution, he chose the aristocratic or senatorial party. But he was no consistent supporter of this party, and severely criticised some of its members, while the aristocracy had no particular affection for one whom they considered a parvenu, although they regarded his oratorical powers as a valuable party asset.

...

After the murder of Caesar, in which he had no part, he reappeared in public life, delivering violent speeches against Antony. When Antony became master of the situation, Cicero was a marked man. He might have found safety in flight, but with the words “Let me die in the country which I have often saved,” resigned himself to meet the emissaries of Antony, by whom he was killed, Dec 7^th, 43BCE

Cicero's reputation as a statesman is marred by his fatal lack of decision, and it is as a man of letters that his fame rests on the surest reputation. “Cicero's unique and imperishable glory” is that “he used the latin language to form a prose style which twenty centuries have not displaced, and I some respects, have scarcely altered.” (Mackail). In addition to over 5o extant speeches, Cicero found time to write on oratory, philosophy, law and politics. Many books of letters also survive, his chief correspondent being his life-long friend Atticus. In these letters the real Cicero is revealed as ambitious, vain, vacillating, yet with his own ideals, kindly, and essentially loveable.

What might have happened if you had kept your silence and faded into old age in peaceful retirement in Greece with your son? What might have happened to your books if you had decided to save yourself, rather than to try, and fail, to save your country? Is your fame made greater because of the bright flare of your final struggle and violent death? Would Tiro have preserved your letters if you had peacefully faded from history?

I don't know.

The truth is that you fought to the death for a failed cause, and whether or not it was a noble cause, I cannot say. If I lived my life in your time Cicero, I probably would have been one of the urban poor, or even a slave musician or scribe. I would probably have lamented the bloodshed, but have resigned myself to being a person of very little influence. I might have mourned your death, I might have cheered at the loss of the Republic's loudest defender, glad that at last a populare leader was taking over.

I probably would have been happy as long as free bread continued to be offered, regardless of who was in power.

I don't know.

You fought, and you lost. Perhaps it is that fact which makes me identify with you and admire you as much as I do, for life is fully of failure. I don't know, today I vacillate between pride and shame, hope and despair, confidence and anxiety.

Tomorrow?

Book 4, Letter 6 To Euripides – on Medea, music and grief.

Dear Euripides,

My daughter studied your play, Medea, recently, and so I read my 1952 Edward P Coleridge translation, to get my mind around what she was expect to present in her high school drama class.

So, first up, wow. Grim. I've heard it said that the ancient Greek playwrights show us an unparalleled insight into the lives of women from that era. No other historical writers describe women like the playwrights, and despite their fictitious nature, these descriptions are in a large way, all we have to go on to understand what life was really like for women.

This play, Medea, is the first ancient play I have ever read, having devoted my study thus far to reading primary historical sources. I have read about the plays from a few modern historians, and also from some ancient writers who refer to these plays in order to illustrate some point, and with this as my starting block, I can see already why your work is still in print, still studied, and still performed on stages around the world.

You're obviously a very talented writer, and I have begun to trace the line of influence backwards from Shakespeare, to understand something of the development of dramatic writing. I have discovered that Shakespeare studied the tragedies written by Seneca, and that Seneca would have undoubtedly studied plays like yours. In fact most of the ancient Roman writers would have studied your work, or that of your contemporaries. Cicero makes reference to many plays in his letters (though I could not tell you which ones right now...), but it all boils down to this:

Dramatic thought, creative story writing, and fiction in general, seems to have been a very refined art by the time you were writing Medea. In the modern world, a lot of writing makes use of continual cultural references to communicate otherwise complex ideas that would take a lot of unnecessary exposition. For myself, having read some of Tacitus (the Roman Historian), I can see right away that the trope of the scorned woman is as old as the hills, as is that of the female poisoner, and Medea sets out these two as core themes. I offer no critique, nor criticism, I am just tracing ideas.

But it is not those major themes that I wanted to write to you about today. Being a musician, I am of course always fascinated by any expressions from the ancient sources regarding music and musicians, as well as dancers and other artists. So, it's the following little passage that I wanted to discuss.

Wert thou to call the men of old time rude uncultured boors thou wouldst not err, seeing that they devised their hymns for festive occasions, for banquets, and to grace the board, a pleasure to catch the ear, shed o'er our life, but no man hath found a way to allay hated grief by music and the minstrel's varied strain, whence arise slaughters and fell strokes of fate to o'erthrow the homes of men. And yet this were surely a gain, to heal men's wounds by music's spell, but why tune they their idle song where rich banquets are spread? For of itself doth the rich banquet, set before them, afford men to delight.

This passage, uttered by Medea's nurse, is so loaded with cultural ideas that it is a challenge to know where to begin my dissection, or even if dissection is what I want. So, rather than opine of my own storehouse of experience and thought, I shall share what Plutarch has said that might offer some insight.

Why cannot music soothe that hated grief...whence arise slauhters and fell strokes of fate...?

...Epicurus saith, when he pronounceth in his book called his Doubts that his wise man ought to be a lover of public spectacles and to delight above any other man in the music and shows of the Bacchanals; and yet he will not admit of music problems or of the critical inquiries of philologists, no, not so much as at a compotation. Yea, he advises such princes as are lovers of the Muses rather to entertain themselves at their feasts either with some narration of military adventures or with the importune scurrilities of drolls and buffoons, than to engage in disputes about music or in questions of poetry. For this very thing he had the face to write in his treatise of Monarchy, as if he were writing to Sardanapalus, or to Nanarus ruler of Babylon. ... Had the great Ptolemy, who was the first that formed a consort of musicians, but met with these excellent and royal admonitions, would he not, think you, have thus addressed himself to the Samians:—

O Muse, whence art thou thus maligned?

For certainly it can never belong to any Athenian to be in such enmity and hostility with the Muses. But:

No animal accurst by Jove

Music's sweet charms can ever love.

(Pindar, "Pythian," i. 25.)

So it seems that Plutarch was not a fan of Epicurus, especially considering that the above quote is taken from his essay entitled: That it is not possible to live pleasurably according to the doctrine of Epicurus.

I have yet to read any of Epicurus' actual works, but I have found a lot of people who don't like him and his ideas, everyone so far except for Seneca, who although he is considered a sort of king among the Stoics, makes continuous reference to the wisdom to be found in Epicurean philosophy, but I digress. It is Plutarch's quote from Pindar that I find interesting.

No animal accursed by Jove, (aka Zeus), music's sweet charms can ever love. He who is cursed by God cannot love the sweet charms of music. Or, to re-word your passage Euripides, He who feels hated grief, cannot be soothed by the charms of music. For who may be said to be cursed by God, other than he who is driven to hated grief? Or to put it another way, he who allows hated grief into his heart, is thus cursed by God, and therefore can no longer be charmed or soothed by music.

So it is not that music cannot soothe grief, for I believe that of all the cures proscribed for emotional ills, music is perhaps the most universal, it is that he who allows grief to overcome his heart, thus removes from himself the receptacle into which music might be poured. Or perhaps, that his heart thus filled with grief, cannot take on the healing medicine of music.

He whose cup is full, cannot have more wine poured into it.

Or as Epictetus puts it, a man cannot learn what he thinks he already knows.

A heart full of grief cannot receive any medicine, no matter how potent. The grief must be allowed to drain away this poison before any medicine can be administered. But what allows the heart to drain away its grief?

Time? Cicero laughed darkly at the useless of the adage that time would heal his grief, for it is not in the future that we live our lives, but in the present, and the present is sometimes so painful as to make life impossible. Yet, what else is there but to wait for a poisoned heart to relinquish its hold on the harmful fluid of grief? What tools can the mind grasp and use that can convince the heart of anything that it does not wish to accept?

For Medea, it seems, there were no solutions, and her hated grief, did produce great slaughter.

So, thank you Euripides. Your book now opened, must be read more fully, to the benefit of myself, and to many others.

With Gratitude and Respect,

Morgan.

PS...