Aristotle and the Secrets of Life by Margaret Doody

Author:Margaret Doody [Doody, Margaret]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
Published: 2003-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

XIII

Storm at Sea

I was hoping desperately to have a chance to talk with Aristotle alone. On the way down the hill, when our two mounts drew level, I thought it a good opportunity to speak with him.

‘I wonder how Aristodamos will–’

He cut me off short. ‘Wonder nothing, Stephanos.’ There was a silence as he seemed to gather himself together. ‘Say nothing about anything more weighty than the view,’ he warned me. ‘You don’t know where there are ears to hear—passers-by, field slaves, shepherds. All have ears. We may talk of the illness of Parmenion, and how that is driving us forward in a hurry so that the sick boy can be taken to his father.’ He looked solicitously at Parmenion, who had again taken on that pallid weary blanched look of former days. Like a marble kouros riding on an ass. I shivered. A marble kouros was often a commemorative gift to the gods in memory of a young man who died. I thought of the broken marble man lying so peacefully in the leaf-shadow spangled orchard . . .

It struck me after Aristotle’s warning that one of the pairs of ears ready to hear was Doris. Of course she was frightened too—at the prospect of being taken for a witness. Soon too was Phokon, pressing onward, anxious to escape from Naxos. And if these two were tortured as witnesses, things would not go well with us either. Their statements would surely lead to our being returned to Athens in chains. The trial would have to take place in Athens. Two citizens of that city—no, one citizen (me) and one metoikos—taken to be tried for the murder of one of the citizens of Athens from Peiraieus. Or the Naxians might forget to oblige Athens in this way, and stimulate a mob to kill us on the spot. Such a solution puts an end to the tedium of legal procedures. It also cuts short the humiliation of a city guilty (however ignorantly) of harbouring murderers. Official apologies, statements of regret for killing another city’s citizens in a tantrum of justice, are easy to manufacture after the event.

At least, I thought, we were making good progress towards the port of Naxos, and might get away in time. There too we would be able to get rid of the irritating Doris, who would want to keep her mouth closed for her own sake. I hadn’t quite realised the difficulties that we might run into on our arrival at the port. We had hardly been long enough to draw breath in the place than we met one of the sailors, the nautes who had talked to me so enthusiastically of Poseidon. I didn’t know what to say, but Aristotle handled the matter as adroitly as possible. ‘I am sorry,’ he said, ‘as I know you were going to be employed in transporting the statue. But my protege here is becoming ill. I am anxious to take him to Kos as soon as possible. We should like to set off today.

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