The Goddes of love stands aloof
Around her life swirls
With the wind of Zephyrus
Colour magnifies beauty
The trees are ripe with fruit
Women are round with life
An allegory
Lacking the beauty of passion and lust
Cupid is blindfolded
Arrows lost in empty breasts
She is frozen in motion as she leads the soldiers in their drunken stupor. According to legend , she is the one responsible for the burning of the palace at Persepolis. The woman is Thais, and the date is approximately 330 BCE, the artist who creates this moment is named Joshua Reynolds.
Why are the men drunk? Why are they following a woman? Because of the man that she travels with: Alexander the Great. Tutored by Aristotle, by thirty Alexander had created the largest empire in the ancient world. Thais (pronounced tah-eess) was a hetaera, or courtesan that traveled with Alexander on his military campaigns. It is not certain whether they were lovers, but one historian states that Alexander ‘liked to keep Thais with him’. Hetaera were women in ancient Greek society who claimed a stronger independence than normal women. Usually they were freed slaves that excelled in music, dance, beauty or intelligence.
The event that precedes this painting is recounted by Diodorus Siculus, a historian writing almost 350 years later. Diodorus tells us that after a successful attack on Persepolis, in modern day Iran, Alexander and his entourage celebrated with a banquet. While Alexander and his men were drunk on wine, Thais is said to have made a passionate entreaty- that Alexander and his men must revenge the destruction of the temple of Athena in Athens by the Persian Xerxes years before. The men, we are told, impassioned with wine, grasp her words and make it their mission. A parade of drunken warriors, dancers and musicians with Thais in the lead make their way to Persepolis. Thais is given the honour of throwing the first torch on the pyre that was the palace of Persepolis.
Is this legend an example of the power of Thais, or is she the scapegoat for the destruction of the palace at Persepolis? Notice that it is only after the men have had too much wine that they agree to destroy the palace that is a tribute to the Persian Empire. It is hard to answer- Alexander’s men have already plundered and killed many in Persepolis- why would this act need an explanation?
Her implication in the destruction doesn’t do her any personal harm. As her life unfolds, she partners up with Ptolemy, one of Alexander’s generals who become King of Egypt. He is also the man who establishes the library of Alexandria, ancestor of Cleopatra. Thais, will never be Ptolemy’s legal wife, but they will share two boys and a girl together. Her daughter will be queen of Cyprus.
As with so many throughout time, her death is unrecorded. A woman who wined, dined and slept with two of the most interesting men in history is lost to history- save for one passionate and destructive act.
The back of the photo states that this is a ‘French Regiment attacking a German trench.’ I would love your feedback. Do you see in the distance a wave of ‘smoke’ creeping in on the top left ? Are these possible Algerians? They did fight in the battle of Ypres. Could this be Ypres?
You breeze past me daily
Oblivious
Numb
To the secrets that I contain
I have become a normal routine
Invisible
But I am golden- gilded
For those with eyes to see,
I contain the memory of forgotten places
Colour rich and alive
I have protected memories for you
The scent of foreign lands
The beauty of a woman in her youth
Flushed with innocent anticipation of the
Life she has yet to know
Memories take form,
Landscapes shift,
And the same woman stands with her grandchild in hand
Face careworn, but content
Life is just enough
And one day you too will be held within my grasp
It is a modern Gothic novel: three elderly sisters lost in the bowels of a decaying castle and a haunting story of love, betrayal and murder. The book is entitled The Distant Hours and it is the first book I have read by Kate Morton.
The castle is aptly named Milderhurst, and the three sisters are the sisters Blythe. Their father was a famous writer who penned a story that was entitled The True History of the Mud Man. During the Second World War the sisters take in a London evacuee Meredith, who finds a connection and a family in the sisters that she fails to find in her blue-color London biological one. She is forced to leave when her father comes to claim her, which severs the connection with the sisters indefinitely.
It is her daughter Edie who re-establishes a connection with the sisters Blythe. She is drawn to the castle-possibly through her mother- and by happenstance, asked by the sisters to write a forward to a new addition of The Mud Man. It is Edie who will uncover the secret of Milderhurst Castle.
The story is not simply a modern Gothic; it explores the relationship between Meredith and her daughter Edie as it evolves over time. After being torn away from Milderhurst castle and the sisters Blythe, Meredith subsumes the part of the free spirit and burgeoning part of her individuality that was being nurtured in the vast castle with the yet – young sisters. Through investigation into the sisters and the mystery of at least one man who went missing in the castle, Edie discovers a part of her mother that has been hidden- a part she can relate to.
While following the many characteristics of a Gothic novel, the ending is certainly a surprise. One of the sisters Juniper Blythe (the younger of the sisters and best friend of Meredith), has escaped to London and fallen in love with a man-Tom. He has asked to marry her, and she has accepted. They travel separately to Milderhurst castle where they intend to meet and tell the remaining twin sisters of their plans. However Tom never makes it. Juniper arrives with blood on her clothing and a confusion of time and place. Did she kill him? Then there is an added complexity- father Blythe has made a clause in the will in which the most gifted artist- the youngest Juniper Blythe – must be able to fulfill her artistic destiny, and therefore if she marries, the castle will go to the Catholic Church. Persephone Blythe, one of older twin sisters, is passionately in love with Milderhurst Castle and therefore a possible suspect in the disappearance of Tom. While the endings of most novels can be hypothesized, it is nice to find a book that has suspense even until the very ending.
The Distant Hours was a wonderful combination of past and present that knows the value of tying up unanswered questions. A great read for those of us that read fiction as a means of escape. The characters, while following typical Gothic stereotypes (aloof, beautiful, haunting and haunted), have a depth that transcends the pitfall of two- dimensionality. I was pleasantly relieved that while there was a love story in the novel, it didn’t dominate the entire book. While this book was long (560 pages including the Epilogue), it was well worth the time. I can’t wait to read another of Kate Morton’s books.
Brushed With Mystery 