Aristageles: Caro, I heard about your cousin’s death. My sympathies are with you and your family.
Caro: Thank you, Aristageles. Xanthus and I were quite close, even though he was younger than me. I’m sorry for my glum looks but I’m still very much grieving and in shock.
Aristageles: Of course.
Caro: I have spent the past few days shut up indoors, not wanting to brave this beastly world or speak to anybody. But Torcus, my father’s slave, pleaded with me to go for a walk for my health and sanity. He said it was possible to die from sadness and it made no sense to join Xanthus in Hades’ company. So here I am, as needs must.
Aristageles: Grieving is very hard on the soul, dear friend.
Caro: Yes, it is. My mind is tormented with questions I can’t answer, Aristageles.
Aristageles: I understand. We are but mortals, after all, up against the great Mysteries.
Caro: He was only 17. Did you know that? Just 17 and he had everything before him. Intelligent, brave, athletic; he would have had a fine career in any number of fields had he ripened to a proper age.
Aristageles: And he died after being thrown from his horse? Forgive me for asking.
Caro: Yes, the grey mare. He was riding alone to Marathon, which he’d done many times before. Some passing merchants found his body, with the horse grazing nearby, and said it may have been scared by a rabbit or some other animal and bolted. Judging by where his body lay, he probably hit his head on a rock when he fell.
Aristageles: Sad indeed.
Caro: Yes. But you must answer one thing for me, Aristageles.
Aristageles: If I can. I am better at asking questions than giving answers.
Caro: Was Xanthus fated to die? Perhaps Zeus or another god was angry with him for some reason and sought vengeance. Or do you think his death was pure misfortune? He knew that road well and it is not dangerous; a few more strides by the mare and he would have likely been thrown well clear of the rock and lived.
Aristageles: I can’t provide an adequate response.
Caro: But surely philosophy would guide us in answering this.
Aristageles: Philosophy is a guide, but it affords no certainty.
Caro: Then what can you say, Aristageles? Nothing?
Aristageles: I could say that the death of Xanthus was occasioned by the Fates and by chance, and neither.
Caro: I don’t understand.
Aristageles: Well, let’s firstly look at fate. Is it not about the exercise of will – human or the higher will, the will of the gods? When a man consistently drives his chariot fast and recklessly, we say he is fated to have an accident and hurt himself. And behold, it happens! The higher will of the gods is harder to figure because we do not have their knowledge or power. Someone dies and we say Zeus willed it – but why? Why should it be so? Why was your cousin taken so early? The ways of the higher powers are a mystery. However, the wise tell us that we and the gods are kin and that we can open ourselves to them, through reverence, prayer and patient listening, and become true servants of their will. We can live so that everything makes sense, so that fate speaks to us – not by the typical everyday mode, but in a deeper way.
Caro: I can see where your words lead. After Xanthus was brought home and laid on his bed, I sat with all the relatives around him, and amid the wailing and moaning I had the feeling that his soul was hovering above his body, and that he was being called to service in other worlds. Just in that brief time I understood. Then it passed and everything was black and incomprehensible and infuriating again.
Aristageles: It would not be the world if it were not blissful and hellish at the same time.
Caro: But you say chance played a role in Xanthus’ death as well. How is it possible for both fate and chance to be present at once?
Aristageles: Well, they are not mutually exclusive. Did you not say yourself that had the horse taken a few more strides Xanthus would likely still be with us?
Caro: Yes.
Aristageles: I’ll give another example. In walking here from your house today you must have passed many people. What was the significance for you in each individual who came from the opposite direction?
Caro: I don’t know. I passed no-one who was familiar to me.
Aristageles: Exactly. Then would you say that every incidental fact of life has meaning?
Caro: I suppose not.
Aristageles: Life proceeds in a glorious array of multiplicity. Perhaps the gods are responsible for every minute detail, or maybe they oversee the general sense of it all and allow the spirit of life to proceed as it will under their watchful gaze.
Caro: But last month as I walked the same way I met Ariston, a friend from Megara whom I hadn’t seen in years, and he invited me to visit and be in the company of Demetrius the sophist, as it turns a close friend of his.
Aristageles: Ah! So here meaning arrives and fate and chance are clearly working in hand in hand. Whatever the circumstance – good, bad or indifferent – we are presented with the opportunity of learning, improving ourselves and the lot of others.
Caro: But you said earlier that neither fate nor chance was also at work – how does that hold?
Aristageles: Well, do you see that dog over there scratching in the dirt?
Caro: Yes.
Aristageles: Do you think it cares anything about the discussion we’ve just had? Whether one thing is just so, or another thing something else?
Caro: I don’t expect it to – it’s an animal. It doesn’t reason like we do.
Aristageles: Yet we can still learn much from it. When reason ceases its labours and sits down in the dust to scratch fleas off itself, what are we left with?
Caro: I don’t know.
Aristageles: Nothing, and everything. That is, all as it really is; the hum and the clamour of the universe.
Caro: I don’t understand.
Aristageles: Simple living, simple gratitude for all that is just as it is without concern or striving.
Caro: I am very puzzled.
Aristageles: The wise say that true knowledge begins with utter confusion.
Caro: And will you leave me in such a state?
Aristageles: I leave you so blessed.
Caro: Goodbye, Aristageles.
Aristageles: Goodbye, Caro, and may your grieving from now on be light.
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