Copyright: Jordi Rodríguez-Amat

This text has been registered in the Register of the Intellectual Property of the Department of Culture of the Generalitat of Catalonia.

 

FATE’S DREAM

For J. P. R.

The long, winding path was stony, full of vipers, scorpions and lizards but my spirits were high. Along the route, following Hermes's lead, I found shepherds, wizards, crazy people, temples, Gods and Goddesses. Aphrodite, rising from the foam of the sea, gave me her hand and accompanied me on a stretch of the journey, instructing me in the arts of love along the way. Later Aeolus, Keeper of the Winds, appeared. Together with Ulysses, arm in arm, they brought me to Ithaca. On the journey my voluptuous imagination carried me to places of light and grace.

Walking, the breath of the path illuminated my sweating face, while Helios, at the zenith, burnished it softly. I pause, enjoying the dream that perhaps I may, finally, find the oracle.

In front of me, solid and radiant, stood the peak of the Parnassus. My spirit sang with the lyrics of the many, many poets blessed with divine inspiration. Softly, the dream invaded me again and left me surrounded by Apollo and Dionysus. The light faded and their images appeared diaphanous. Now clasping hands, now separating and dancing each of them to different rhythms, it was like a marvelous game of a dance, now rhythmic, now frantic. Between laurels and olive trees, in concert harmonic with the muses, Apollo moved beautiful and well planted. It was a triumph of calm beauty, and balance, of control of body and mind. Dionysus, shaking body and soul, surrounded by satyrs and bacchantes, pranced with violent gestures in a crazy, orgiastic dance weaving around. Then I opened my eyes and, around me, found nymphs and muses dancing to the rhythm of my heart.

I crossed the Gulf of Corinth and, near the isthmus, south of the Parnassus, appeared, majestic, the city of Delphos. I went back to sit, this time on a bank of dark stone beside the Goddess Gaea. She was sad, and thinking of Uranus. From here I could see the imposing and splendid temple of Apollo with its Doric style and the peristyle and drums of the columns without base. Not far away a group of charioteers practiced for the games.

Approaching the temple I perceived Apollo. Seeing me, he left the lyre and received me on the threshold of the door. His bow and arrows were somewhere in a corner of the temple. What beauty! Music and poetry radiated from his body. He asked me to sit at his side and instructed me in hunting, medicine, poetry and music. He told me of Zeus, his father, and of Artemisia, his sister, twin and virgin and, in the ghost of the fiction, we initiate a long journey through different places of Hellas. We met Odysseus and Homer and Orpheus, with his zither. We went down to Hades and to Mycenae. There I fell in love with the beauty of Helena. For moments I thought I was Paris and the wish to kidnap her invaded my heart. In Trojan, I dreamed of being Achilles and I killed Hector. Finally, I went into the city in the horse.

Awakened from the dream, Apollo took me by the hand, helped to raise me and entered with me into the temple. It was there where, in a clear light, I could contemplate a group of ecstatic Sibyls. Going down to the underground, in a dark light, we saw a woman, in her fifties, well proportioned, slim and powerful at the same time. At her feet was Python, the dead snake. She was Pythia, the priestess. Apollo, without asking me, indicated that she should tell me my fate. She began at once to chew leaves of laurel and, from gaps in the floor, sulfuric emanations seeped. A few minutes later, her body began to tremble and shake and at the same time she spoke words we couldn’t understand. The frenetic movements continued until tremors invaded her from head to foot.

Some minutes later, she approached me and nervously, but with powerful voice, told me my fate.

Jordi Rodríguez-Amat

 

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