Hymn to Zeus
Whoever you are, wherever you are, Zeus, God, I praise you for being
merciless, for not sparing anyone, for not making exceptions for anyone, for
not being concerned of the salvation of anyone in particular, for not sending
any Saviour to anyone.
You are not good. You are even less merciful. But you give each being according to what he can take. You are not just in a human way, giving each the same portion. You are just in the same manner as the scales, where the least weight has its importance. Going forward along the way of your Law, thin as the wire of a tightrope walker, each being tries to keep one’s balance, or to loose it just a brief moment, in a movement that will save him. If the tight walker has overestimated his own strength, and he falls, you don’t work any miracle to save him and you let him crash without pardon.
You are non egalitarian. But much less than one would suspect, because you give invisible compensations. You make the slaves love their chains, the disabled love their disabilities, the afflicted their tears, the humbles their humility. You remove in the equality of death the failures and the faults, because you also remove the triumphs and the virtues. You remove the sorrows and the mourning, because you remove the joys and the ecstasies in the same way. You send back to nothingness the executioners and the victims, the mighty and the weak. Those that die before their time lose less that would appear, because you extend the time of youth that seems to last an eternity, and you shorten the time of old age, that goes by as a shadow.
You are not the reason. You are not the Logos. Because you are the base of reason and reasoning. You are not a mathematician, a geometrician, but you give the mathematicians, the lovers of sciences and games, the ground where they can play.
You are not the Word, not even the Language, or the Signification,
because you are beyond not only the words, but the meanings. You express
yourself in your creatures, but your creation does not mean anything, not
even your glory. You are not intelligible, and you do not seem to appreciate
pure intelligence. But you give to understand according to the needs of
each being. You show yourself in all clarity to those that have eyes to see,
because you are an unintelligible god, but not a hidden god.
You are not Love, but you are even less Hate. You make hatred difficult to those that feel it and love delicious to those that can keep just for one moment a haven of security and intimacy. You force each one to defend himself, to kill to live, to have fangs and claws, to cling to his own domain. But you do not favour violence no more than weakness, and you destroy the violent as well as the one that accept to be aggressed. You only favour the eagerness to live, to hold, to repair, to continue, to resist.
You allow the lie when it is a weapon to survive. You allow the disguise, the mimicry of the predator or the pray, the publicity to attract or to frighten or to confuse. You allow beautiful speeches intended to dazzle. But you do not accept the least trick in constructions and you do not save the ones that sink in boat made of cardboard , or the ones that are crushed by poorly balanced buildings.
I praise you for being indifferent to my praise, just like you would be
to my imprécations.
I praise you for having given me life, and to let me live a moment longer, before you let me die – without last judgement, without reward nor punishment – just like you will let the whole of mankind die and all the living one. At least on this earth that is not promised to eternal life, but that will have been a window on eternity.
Cléanthe (+/- 300 b.c.)
