[login]

• // characteristics
• // inspiration trips
• // Spring-Summer 2008 Collection
• // Autumn-Winter 2008 Collection

• HOME >
  • The Collection >
    • inspiration trips

Solea

Everything I know about classical mythology I learnt in a single afternoon. And I haven’t forgotten it. Some neuron, some part of my brain, pressed the “rec” key.

We were all startled when the lift stopped. We collectively held our breaths for a few seconds, hoping it would start again, but that was not the case. Since there was no response from any other button, we pushed the emergency button and a kind voice informed us that we would be rescued within 30 minutes. All we had to do was relax and wait.

“This cannot be happening to me! It can’t be! It can’t be!” She was young, elegant... and hysterical. The young man next to her told her not to get nervous, that it would only be a short while, while he held the hand of the child that accompanied him, who was dressed as a Roman centurion, observing the scene with a frightened look.

“Mind your own business! I have a very important meeting! Do you know what that is?” she answered.

“Look, calm down! We are all in a hurry here and the rest of us are not making a scene,” I said without thinking.

“I’m not making a scene! Obviously you have not had to go to too many…”

“Calm down, calm down, it is normal to get nervous in a situation like this,” said the fourth occupant. He was a tiny, middle-aged man whose skin was almost orange.

“That’s not nerves, that’s bad manners!” I said, unable to hold it back.

“Are you calling me bad-mannered?”

“OK, let’s not panic here, please…” said the orange man in a conciliatory tone. He was smiling and looking at the child, whose eyes were as large as saucers. “Do you know why it’s called ‘panic’?” he asked the child, “because the Greek god, Pan, had the habit of suddenly appearing in the middle of the night; a habit that terrified people.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t talk too much. The lift may be air-tight and we could asphyxiate,” said the young man.

“Don’t worry, there is more than enough air,” I said, trying to sound confident.

“Something that is airtight is also called ‘hermetic’. Do you know why?”. I realised that the orange man was trying to prevent the child from panicking, but I didn’t think that a lesson in etymology was the best way. I felt like gagging him. “The word ‘hermetic’ comes from another god, Hermes. He was the messenger of the gods and he never revealed the content of the messages he carried. That is why things that are as closed as his mouth are called ‘hermetic’.”

It was getting hotter in there. The woman began to bang her hands on the elevator walls, yelling for help. Someone on the outside managed to open the doors a crack, allowing some fresh air in. This seemed to calm down the adults a bit but the child was becoming impatient.

“Dad, I’m thirsty. How long until they come?”

“How could he know? In ancient times, time was not counted like we do now... they needed the sun to tell the time.” He was insufferable but the child seemed interested and nobody interrupted the expert. “When they were as thirsty as you are, they drank mead, a drink made with honey and water. The honey they used was not just any honey, it was honey from the bees on Mount Hymettos, which overlooks Athens. It is said that the flowers that grew there were so beautiful and so sweet, that the snakes that fed on them ceased to have poison and that the bees made a honey from them, so exquisite that they called it the ‘honey of the gods’. We don’t have any mead here, but I do have a piece of mint-flavoured chewing gum. Would you like it? I’m sure that it will calm down your thirst.”

“I don’t like mint, because it is sharp.”

“Of course it is sharp. That’s because it is magical. Before it was a Plant, mint was a beautiful nymph, called Minthe. The god Pluto fell in love with her and, when his wife Prosperine found out, she was so jealous that she turned the nymph into a plant.”

After that, the young boy readily accepted the chewing-gum but, after a while, he began to cry disconsolately. He was tired and his patience had reached its limit.

“Stop! A praetorian soldier would never cry without covering his face with his cloak! Don’t you know that that would augur sad times?” The child stopped crying immediately and asked the man what ‘augur’ meant. The man was a genius!

When help finally arrived, almost two hours had gone by. As soon as the doors opened, the woman pushed her way out and ran off, without saying goodbye, while the rest of us burst out laughing. The young man and the child left almost immediately, hoping to still make it to the child’s fancy-dress party. The orange man asked me if I felt like a beer and I accepted his invitation. I congratulated him on his ability to calm down the small centurion and asked him how come he knew so much about classical culture.

“It’s my hobby,” he answered.

That was funny. How can history be a hobby?

“And what do you do?” I asked, “go to TV contests or to your club to talk about the Trojan war?”

“And what did you say your profession was?”

“I… design shoe collections.” I had offended him.

“Are you serious? Then you must know the proverb ‘let the cobbler stick to his last’. You don’t? Well, it comes from Apelles, the greatest Greek painter in antiquity. He used to exhibit his paintings in a public square, where he could listen to the opinion of the people about them. One day, a shoemaker stopped by to look at the works and criticised the shape of one of the figure’s sandals. Apelles corrected the mistake and took the painting back to the square the next day. When the cobbler saw that the painter had listened to his advice, he felt very wise and also criticised the shape of the leg. That is when Apelles, indignant, told the cobbler to stick to his last and refrain from judging the painting above the sandal —a great piece of advice for those who try to express their opinion on things they have no idea about.”

“Please forgive me. I’m an idiot.”

“Yes, you have already proven that. Do you know what would be good? If you designed some pretty sandals, in a classical style, to remember the great moment when you became aware of your own ignorance. They should be light and strong, appropriate even for Perseus or Andromeda.”

“I don’t know who they were…”

“Right. Perseus was a son of Zeus and he was the hero who finished off Medusa, a monster whose gaze turned men into stone. Helped by Hermes (the hermetic one) he sought out three witches who shared a single eye. Perseus took it from them and refused to return it until they told him how to find the Nymphs of the North, from whom he would obtain a pair of sandals that would allow him to fly, a magic pouch that adjusted itself to the size of anything it held and a helmet that turned him invisible. Hermes gave him and unbreakable sword and Athena a shield that would protect him from being turned into stone. Thus equipped, Perseus confronted Medusa and killed her.

“On the way back, he rescued princess Andromeda (who was about to be sacrificed by a sea monster) and made her his wife. After that, he turned all his enemies into stone and, according to legend, they went to live in Asia, where their son Perses became the king of the Persians; hence their name.”

“You may think that I am making fun of you again... but I think that I will make those sandals.”

“Of course you will! You will make beautiful sandals. All you have to do is imagine them running along majestic temples built of white marble among the caryatids and atlantes…”