Being Chapter Headings and Topic-titles, sole remnants from the otherwise lost: ‘THE NEW MEDITATIONS: MEMOIRS OF A STOIC PIRATE, PHILOSOPHER AND PAPAL GHOST-HUNTER’, BY ADMIRAL SLOVO OF CAPRI, ROME AND ELSEWHERE.
The Year 1525
‘How did I get to here from there and was it really worth all the trouble? The consolations of flesh and philosophy.’
In the year 1525 yet another European nation – Denmark – discovered the joys of Lutheranism and the ex-friar Luther discovered the joys of matrimony (with a former nun). At the same time, Admiral Slovo, Lord of Capri, Papal Knight, sometime Gonfaloniere (banner-bearer) of His Holiness’s armed forces and subject of ‘death-on-sight’ notices in Venice, Geneva and sundry other places, decided it was time for his bath.
True, the sunrise was beautiful, the sound of his little children playing most diverting, but they were no longer sufficient to delay him. That bath, so long put off, now seemed overwhelmingly attractive. Gathering his heavy black gown about him he hobbled down from his seat on the hill and into the grounds of his villa. The gardens were quite superlative, not a bloom or blade of grass out of place. It was, in fact, that one day of the year that comes to all well-kept gardens when there is not a thing left to be done and perfection hangs in precarious balance. An auspicious time for my ablutions, the Admiral thought.
Inside, he smiled at the antique statue of the Roman Emperor, he smiled at the handsome grooms and pretty maids who comprised his household staff. Had she chosen to show herself, Admiral Slovo would even have smiled at his young wife but, as ever, she was keeping out of his way.
The bath was sunken and made of the whitest marble. His love of antiquity had made him lavish vast sums on it to recreate the old Roman bath-house style, but even all that gold had captured only the shape, not the spirit, of the thing. The whole concept had turned out to be a disappointment, like so much else.
Whilst painted lads and lasses hurried with steaming water at his command, Admiral Slovo limped about to check that he had all that he would need. There within easy reach was the sponge, the strigil, the tub of cleansing grease, a towel. Beside these was his writing tray with vellum, quill and inkpot (in case inspiration should strike) and the special wax-treated, steam-and-water proofed, bath-time copy of the immortal Meditations that he’d had made.
‘No, not today, thank you all the same,’ said the Admiral to the implicit query of the Tuscan brother and sister who’d poured the last great terra-cotta amphora of water into the brimming pool. This was one occasion when company, for whatever purpose, would be inappropriate.
When these two had left the chamber, Slovo stooped down and placed the one remaining necessary item beside all the others. It was vital that there be a razor to open his wrists.
Before immersing himself, Admiral Slovo recalled the bottle of Falernian he had spent a prince’s ransom on some years before and which had been recovered from a shipwreck of the Imperial Age by sponge divers off Carthage. A Castilian middleman had known enough of the Admiral’s tastes to seek him out and earn the means to retire. The seal was good, the contents unblemished (so far as could be told) and Slovo was unable to resist the temptation to partake of a vintage such as Horace or even the divine Marcus might have known. To enjoy it now seemed happily in accord with the moment.
In the event it was disgusting. The bouquet that escaped the bottle’s fifteen hundred years of meditation could have stripped the villa’s walls of their painted murals; the contents seemed capable of dissolving the bricks behind them. The appropriate response to the Judas concoction would have been to dash it to the floor but, now more than ever proof against the storms of emotion, Admiral Slovo merely placed it down and wandered off, naked, to fetch a flagon of rough Capri red.
At the bathroom door he came face to face with a stranger and knew straightaway that all his plans, his bath, his dignified exit from the world, were now postponed.
Because of all he had done and the causes he had served, Admiral Slovo’s home was surrounded and penetrated by subtle security. Cold-eyed soldiery supervised every movement in and out of Villa di Slovo. There was even an outer band of vigilance based in Naples Harbour, monitoring access to Capri itself. However, this man in black had walked through them all and thus whatever he might have to say demanded respectful attention.
Admiral Slovo did not fear for his life since he had been about to take that himself. Anyway, the visitor did not appear in the least malign but merely curious. Peering past Slovo’s head at the scene behind, his gaze was caught by the utensils laid out by the bathside.
‘It seems I’ve arrived just in time,’ he said, his voice betraying only indifference at this turn of fate. ‘Our calculations suggested events would not be so far advanced …’
Admiral Slovo, knowing full well who this man was although they had never met before, felt relieved that here at the close of play, one short step from boarding Charon’s ferry, he was not so much a puppet as to be entirely predictable. ‘As you can see,’ he said politely, ‘I am about to embark on a journey. If you have further work for me you’ve left it too late.’
The man held up his hands to express exaggerated horror at such a misunderstanding. The sleeves of his cowl fell back to display, to the Admiral’s surprise, the cold pale flesh of the northern barbarians. ‘Goodness no!’ The man spoke as before in impeccable Italian. ‘I should not wish to disturb you by suggesting that you can be of any further use to us.’
‘Just as well,’ said Slovo, turning back to the bath. ‘My days of doing are done.’
‘And so they should be. You have achieved so much for us, our Masters could hardly ask for more.’
‘Your Masters,’ corrected the Admiral. ‘I was never more than a jobbing-contractor, a mercenary in their service – nor wished to be.’
The visitor plainly disagreed, but hid the spirit of discord from his unkind blue eyes. ‘Let us not quarrel today of all days,’ he said. ‘It would not be seemly to part on bad terms. My superiors would not lightly forgive me for that.’
‘Forgiveness hardly being one of their principal traits,’ said Slovo, matter of factly.
‘No,’ the man concurred. ‘Or yours, come to that – from what I’ve read.’
Slovo shrugged, accepting the charge lightly.
‘Your present nakedness doesn’t inhibit you, I note. Does that also stem from your admiration for Romano-Hellenic culture – along with the Stoicism[1] and all that?’
‘Yes,’ answered the Admiral, with the mildest of grimaces. ‘Along with the Stoicism “and all that”. Besides,’ he added in acid tones, ‘in all the cultures I’ve ever encountered, it is customary to disrobe before bathing. Is that not the case in your … England?’
‘Wales, actually.’
‘Same thing.’
‘I beg to differ. Look, Admiral, I appreciate that I have interrupted a matter of surpassing importance to you but my purpose is not an idle one. Realizing that you were likely to soon depart, our Masters sent me to convey the gratitude that I have hinted at. I am entrusted with a final message as to the warmth of their sentiments for you.’
1
Ancient philosophy placing an emphasis on life lived in accordance with
the awesome order perceived in Nature, on restraint and
self-containment, and virtue as a duty and its own reward. In the Roman
context, and indeed to the present day, it is associated with a certain
stern-mindedness and what might be termed the ‘republican virtues’. Its
appeal seems to rest upon the opportunity for a rational ordering of
life, and an escape from the pointless storms of human nature. ‘…
whenever the virtues begin to lose their central place, Stoic patterns
of thought and action at once reappear. Stoicism remains one of the
permanent moral possibilities within the cultures of the West.’
(Alasdair MacIntyre,
On the other hand, the great classicist Professor E. Griffiths brutally dismisses it as ‘the shield of the despairing; mere gift-wrapping round the death-wish.’