6. Galatea
From 'Passages' by Jean de Lier
With that total lack of sentimentality that was one of the hall marks of their civilisation, the Romans tended to number their children. Septimus Septimus, as his name implied, was the seventh son of a seventh son. The Auspex had declared this to be most fortunate and indeed his life had been calm and even, unmarked by strife or illness, or personal unpleasantness. He was immensely wealthy, a bon-viveur, Senator of the Republic, a good host and an intellectual patron of the arts. He was popular, had held elected office, and since the death of his noble wife and of a much loved and cherished concubine, he had largely retired to private life. He was getting old gracefully. Most days he still walked to the Forum, largely from habit, partly from lack of much else to do, accompanied by his loyal freedman. He would put a few pinches of incense at the foot of this or that deity as propriety and the feast days demanded, but he was not regarded as in any way excessively pious. The Gods smiled on him and he was able to smile back.
Thus it was that one day a very beautiful young lady came to his attention, wandering among the market stalls. He rightly thought that she was the most beautiful thing in the world, the most beautiful woman he, in his long life, had ever seen and he had seen a great many very beautiful women. Clearly some goddess had descended to lighten his day and dazzle his sight with beauty and joy. It would not have occurred to a Roman nobleman that there might be anything sinful about being dazzled by a beautiful girl or that she might be put on earth to ‘tempt’ him. The sin, if any, would be to fail to appreciate the favour done by the sight of something so lovely.
But she was not a goddess, and though she certainly noticed his regard, she paid no attention to him at all, because she was young and proud and he was old and alone. For his part, just because he did indeed live alone, because his children had establishments of their own, he was able to think of her night and day. He quickly found out who she was, that she was neither married not attached to anyone, not mistress nor concubine, was not even a slave girl that might have been bought but the daughter of a perfectly respectable rather minor official. He also ascertained that she was well known to be proud and difficult, haughty and arrogant. She made her minimal religious offerings with disdain and ill grace.
He thought of her when he was in bed and he thought of her when he awoke. Twenty years earlier he might have tried to storm the fortress, or perhaps made an impassioned plea to her, or tried to bribe her direct or her father, or threatened her or him - he was a powerful man in the Republic. But though he loved her truly, he no longer felt it was worth fighting for what the Gods did not favour. Trust in the Gods. He had always been observant so it might be better try to get a God to help, and at the same time avoid making a fool of himself.
He owned a finely carved red urn of Egyptian porphyry for his offerings which had come down to him from his maternal grandfather, who had fought in Nubia. And since the lady would not come to his private temple to receive anything where his influence might have been more powerful, he took the urn and placed it in the street where she walked, beneath a small shrine to Venus. And nearly every day, unwittingly, she did sprinkle some few pinches of incense, of aromatic spice, into his sacrificial receptacle. Each day he took it home in the evening and placed it in his private shrine and was as happy as he could be. He prayed.
One day she saw him take the urn away and guessed that he was using her offerings as a charm, not exactly against her perhaps, but to his own advantage. She was not prepared to let him have anything of her, not so much as a pinch of snuff, though as for that she rejected all suitors, who were anyway getting thinner on the ground by the day. In fact, though still beautiful, her hard heart was beginning to affect her and she was beginning to look a little pinched and bitter. Septimus, older and wiser and more used to the effects of age and celibacy, loved her as before which somehow made her even more angry. In rage and pique the very next day she took up his beautifully wrought urn, dedicated to the Goddess of Love, and buried it deep in the municipal rubbish pile, an act both unkind and impious. She went home and stayed indoors.
When Septimus returned that evening the lady was not there and the urn was not there. He guessed roughly what had happened, or at least that it had something to do with her, with his love and his loved one that had given him at least a small measure of vicarious happiness for over two years. He was sad, because his happiness had cost her nothing and he went home grieving alone as if he had lost a lover, not just a pot.
The gods took pity upon the old man who had always done them much honour and the trash heap spoke to the fine red urn Let us be put side by side for that lady, whose mind is trash and whose heart is stone: Let her body also be turned into stone. And on the instant she became a statue of the most great and rare beauty, whitest of white marble, discovered to general amazement on the town trash heap next to a fine porphyry incense bowl. The statue and bowl were placed on a black granite plinth on the boulevard close to the Forum. The statue was magic but the black granite was bought and paid for by Septimus who realised pretty fast what had happened. He had the base so carved that the urn fitted snugly beneath her feet, and he was now able to come each day to admire her as he had done before. He was especially pleased because he now saw her quite naked which he had never been able to do before. She, on the other hand, was unhappy because she was afraid that he would touch her in her private parts, which in fact he did, every single day. But he still always put a little incense into the urn which did her honour. At first a few other people came to look at the wonderful new statue but as they aged and she weathered a bit, they dropped away, till no one was left to admire and worship her except the faithful old man, who lightly touched her breasts and crotch with incense covered fingers. It became common knowledge that she had been his wife, but it was not at all true. He had honoured his wife who had borne him many fine children but he had not really loved her. He had discretely loved several women in his life, and kept a kind and loving concubine in his older years, so as to arouse no scandal. This was permitted by long custom and graciously accepted by his wife. But this love, in the eve of his days, was to be preserved for eternity.
She still pretended to despise him as she had always done, but she was pleased that someone still paid her honour and when he could not come she was unhappy; but she did not move because she was made of stone. The old man lived to a great age and he honoured the statue whenever he could, although he became increasingly infirm. When he died his ashes were placed in a family tomb beside his wife but he had also so arranged it that he was set up in equally fine marble and on an identical plinth, as a statue of himself as he had been in his youth, next to his last love. She had of course never seen him like that, and as the years passed she began to see the error of what had been her ways. And so they might have stood naked side by side for all eternity with not so much as a fig leaf between them till rain and shine and the insults of birds had worn them to oblivion.
But the Roman Empire fell and they were separated and they have never seen each other again. She is very much admired for her exceptional but, some say, rather frigid beauty. She is displayed in a museum in the Middle Western USA as ‘Venus, perhaps after a Greek original’, but it is commented that no other version is known. Indeed not.
She is in truth not far from Septimus. Once only, when her leg was broken, was it placed for a while in the same box where he lay in wretched fragments. Side to side, toe to toe for a while, almost inter-twined, writhed, which they had never been in life, the cold marble fragments nevertheless generated a tingle of frozen amity, of passionate energy which was patently audible, but only to bats who can hear the high frequencies of ancient love.
No one knew. He has since been repaired too, but they have never been that close again. He faces west in one room, she south in a corridor. But they can still just call to each other across the centuries, unheard and unbeknown by others.
In all those two thousand years no one, except a passing bat, has divined the nature of their love, nor even suspected their secret relationship.
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