Emotional Archaeology

Recent discoveries in the field of my personal, emotional archaeology have unearthed a long-buried spirituality that my rational, intellectual, and industrious mind had only short days ago believed to be non-existent. There’s a very significant shift taking place in my head (and heart) across these depth-of-winter days – one that is seeing me slowly coming to accept the fact that what I’m doing with The Sacred Antinous may not be exclusively artistic and literary – but authentically spiritual as well.

I’m reticent to go into much detail here, mostly because I suspect that much of what I’d end up writing would be unintelligible. Far better, I think, to stick with the programme of developing the site as it was originally conceived, but also begin making minor adjustments here and there to reflect a nascent (and genuinely reverent) awareness of the Divine. Whereas the site was launched with tongue occasionally in cheek, I’m beginning to think that said tongue will, in due course, return to its normal resting place in the centre of my lower jaw.

That’s not to say I’ll be losing my sense of humour: I still expect that a healthy dose of laughs, chuckles, and ironic wit shall ribbon its way through the writing. But I’m not feeling quite so hostile as once I was to the possibility of a bona fide god experience emerging from one’s poetic reading of the texts – albeit an experience that looks and feels considerably different from those prescribed and vetted by the mandarins of organized religion.

In celebration of this increasingly welcome encroachment of spirituality, I’ve composed a new Psalm that reflects my evolving state. Owing to its theme, tone, and intent, I’ve decided to number it as 001, and place it as first among equals (the “Princeps,” if you will) of the Psalms. I imagine that future additions to this part of the site may well occasion more re-numbering as I strive to find the ideal order for the spiritual progression of these little poems. In the meantime, I certainly hope you like the latest, which is entitled, “Now Begins a Bold Interrogation.”

I stumbled onto this site and have been both entertained and touched by it. I wish you luck and look forward to seeing how it develops.

On the point of ’spirituality,’ it may be of some importance both to the development of your story and to a real historical understanding of the divinisation of Antinous to recognize that, in the ancient pagan world, one never knew when one might meet a god.

Do you know the story of Simonides of Ceos? He was a Greek lyric poet of the fifth century BC. One evening after having recited for a dinner party of the tyrant Scopas, Scopas refused to pay his fee, arguing that the poet had devoted too much of his recitation to the praise of the Dioscuri, and not enough to the praise of Scopas. At this juncture, Simonides was called to the door of the house with news that two youths had asked for him. Just as he came to the door, the roof of the dining room collapsed, killing all its occupants. The two young men were, of course, Castor and Pollux.

Such stories, as well as the great legends related by Homer, Hesiod, Pindar, and others, in which the gods constantly interacted with mortals, would have been known by heart to a literate man like Hadrian, as well as all his contemporaries. We can imagine, then, how he must have thought about his time with Antinous. Here was a remarkable young man. I believe your portrayal is quite reasonable; not only did he have beauty of visage, as the many statues make quite evident, but a beauty of mind and spirit attested in the obelisk inscription, where his ‘wise counsel’ was mentioned. There is no evidence that he ever used his position to seek advantage for himself or others – what a relief his company must have been to Hadrian, who like anyone in authority must have been constantly besieged by people wanting something. It must have seemed an unusual blessing.

And when Antinous was no more, bearing in mind the custom of the Egyptians to make local gods of those lost in the Nile, would not Hadrian have been disposed by all that he knew and had experienced, to believe that he had, indeed, enjoyed the fortune (for all too brief a time) of being in the company of a god?

Your presentation of ‘canonical texts’ and the attempt to create a history for them prompts some suggestions. The thought I offer is that such manuscripts might have been amongst the vast trove acquired by Cosimo de Medici from the Byzantines. There they couild be discovered and collated by Politian, whose interest they naturally piqued, and the Greek epistles translated into Latin by him (but not of course published on account of their content). Safely hid during Savonarola’s reign of terror, they passed through several sets of hands (being seen at one point by Michelangelo, whose sonnets to young men they helped to inspire), ultimately as part of the dowry of Catherine de Medici to the circle of her son, Henri III. Scraps of transcripts made their way across the English Channel by persons in the retinue of the French ambassador M. de Mauvissière, and through the murky Catholic underground were discovered by Christopher Marlowe, who drew on them in writing several of his own plays and poems. Italian translations in the fashionable pseudo-Petrarchan mode were made in the first decades of the seventeenth century, and set to music by Rosenmüller (then of San Marco in Venice) for private performance in Rome (where public opera was prohibited by papal decree) before audiences of appreciative cardinals – and so on. One might have almost as much fun with the _apparatus criticus_ as with the texts themselves!

Good luck in any event – I look forward to reading more.

Michael 3.7.08 / 10pm

Shawn Postoff 4.26.08 / 4pm

Michael,

Thanks so much for this fine comment. I hadn’t yet come across the story of Simonides, but it’s certainly a delicious one and perfectly dramatizes that sense of “Poetic Justice” that the Ancients seemed to love so much.

And your speculation as to the possible path of these fugitive Sacred Texts through time and politics is delightful! You’re right — it could make a wonderful story in itself, couldn’t it?

Imagining Antinous

Emotional Archaeology

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