The 4th century BC was the first great age of Greek theatre construction. In the 5th century BC, actors performed the tragedy of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides in a modest open-air theatre, the theatre of Dionysus, on the south slope of the acropolis. In its original form, the theatre consisted of a round area called an orchestra (meaning Dancing floor) where the performance took place, and a seating area on the natural curve of the slope above. Some seats were made of wood. Behind the orchestra, a small wooden building provided scenic backdrops, a place to change costumes, and doors for dramatic entrances. Between 338 and 326 BC the theatre of Dionysus was rebuilt on a grand scale in stone, with a rising fan of stone seats on the hillside, a roughly semicircular performance area, and a permanent stone stage building. .
This in depth description of the open air theatre of ancient repute, the epitome and culmination of Greek arts and architecture was delivered by Professor Ellison. Professor Ellison is a scholar in classical literature and history. An outstanding and astute person who has garnered unprecedented fame and recognition on campus for his impeccable and flawless and monumental knowledge of bygone ages buried in the deep recess of time.
The area which had an almost overpowering and uncontrollable sway over the professor of ancient grandeur was the myths and legends of the ancients. As I was later to learn, it was the various stories of perseus and Poseidon, Hercules and hera Cerberus and centaur that attracted him and through deep and unrelenting research, he was able to link the various myths propounded by the ancients to reality, but jovial and carefree that he is, he is never free from eccentricities
Going to professor Ellison’s quarters is like ascending a hill to the acropolis. And when one enters his room which he has converted to a miniature library, it is like entering the pantheon of old or the sacred precincts of the oracle of Delphi.
His writing desk is strewn with sculptures of the Caesars, Aristotle, Plato and Socrates. He has created a special niche in which he keeps his two favorite books. The epics of homer. The Iliad and the odyssey. I was dumbfounded. How a modern day professor could dedicate his life, works and ideals to Greek culture and philosophy is something else. Is it the creation and practice of democracy that attracted him most or what? Yet Professor Ellison is no political theorist. Though the communist manifesto and the prince by Machiavelli is one of his books that he reads most often his interest in politics is not very deep or dedicated.
I concluded that the very nature of Greek civilization which in its genesis incorporated myths and legends in the social fabric and the psyche of the people. The elaborates pantheon may have attracted him.
Yet Professor Ellison can display unprecedented brilliance when it comes to Greek literature too.
When I entered the premier university, philosophy was one of the courses I never dreamt of pursuing. In fact I followed the naive generalizations of students that it is an area of never ending arguments on god and the universe. Struggling piteously to understand the incomprehensible, I was under the spell of the charms that continue to hold less intelligent students in darkness. I was not prepared to lose my hard won faith to an area of learning that eventually would only earn me a degree, a job and accommodation and some few privileges. I said with a firm conviction and revolutionary fervor that can be displayed only by a vandal under the vicious influence of the fiery chariot of Bacchus to invite vicious scandals.
So I decided to read literature after the manic hesitation during my intermediate period. Even though one of the lecturers was very concerned about how philosophy as a discipline and one of the most challenging and engaging field ever dealing with almost all spheres of human thoughts and actions demeaned and denigrated by some students of Legon. How can you jeer at the noble pursuit, the pursuit of knowledge, the love of wisdom? Why must some students discourage others from reading philosophy? Have you all forgotten that all other disciplines emerged from philosophy? As students of this great institution we should not harbor such notions here, we should not even conjure such a preposterous and laughable misconceptions here. It makes the learning towers a laughing stock. Philosophy is broad and one of the most illusive areas of human pursuit that needs special attention and research. Balme library is there, the book shop is bulging with modern books of philosophy. Those of you who are harboring demented ideas about the noble subject relegating it to the abysm of smallness can troop to Balme or the bookshop or even book trust to get books on philosophy so that things would be properly explained and clarified to them. The haunting aura of Thales, Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. Carl young and jean Paul Sartre are still haunting the libraries. Even the bearded lecturers even if atheists or vile agnostics or nihilists of the worst stock, you can still approach them and they would prove wonderful despite their manic pagan biases on some religious systems. After all the summa theologica of Thomas Aquinas was a concatenation of both pagan and Christian philosophy.
The professors unparalleled exaltation and elevation of philosophy to the highest peak of human endeavor though logically speaking was accurate and indisputable, it failed to convince me to join the class.
Reading literature means reading Greek literature. Moreover, the myths and legends are naturally intertwined that I was forced to delve deep into the mythology of the philosophers. That is, the philosophical stance or the position or idea a particular philosopher affirms or holds. Gradually, quite naturally, the veracity of the pronouncements of the professor of philosophy became apparent. As he said when he realized that I have become a devotee of that field of studies. Initially, my arguments and support of the course sounded metaphysical, but now it seem my stance sounds logical.
One iconographic figure I find interesting and yet solemn and majestic in all his ways is the philosopher Socrates. I drew much inspiration from him and as a poet the only pearl worth giving is to compose a poem about him. And that was how I met the modern day Socrates. Professor Ellison.
Three weeks after my poem entitled Socrates appeared in the legonite, I was in my room reading when a friend of mine burst in to my sanctum and said in a huffy voice that Professor Ellison would like to see me urgently.
I was bewildered. How on earth. What does he wants from me. Well, it may relate certainly to academics because I am notoriously known on campus to be an invisible man and I have read Ralph Ellison is the invisible man and I am on my way to meeting professor Ellison.
When I reached the professor’s quarters, the classic aura around the place inspired me a lot. For I felt like penetrating the very depths of the beginning when the earth was uncorrupted and ancient knowledge and wisdom reigned supreme. The school of Athens, the academy. For that gave early men the very idea of higher education. The master and the apprentice; the professor and the student.
When I reached Prof Ellison’s quarters, he welcomed me in Greek. I was stupefied. I am Shakespeare sir; I have less Greek and little Latin. The professor laughed and said that was an ingenious anecdote.
Sit down young man he said.
I am much obliged to be at your service sir.
I said with an imperfect British accent but my effort proved futile as much obliged sounded more like a trumpet than human voice.
I learnt you are a poet and a classical poet as such. I was amused. I was quick to notice what the professor was referring to.
Socrates.
I said.
How many days did it take you to compose such a grand piece.
Professor Ellison brought out that edition of the legonite and recited it as if he was there when Socrates drunk the hemlock
SOCRATES
Amid the despairing noises and monotony
And futility of our existence - racks and tortuous
Incisions haunt our lone furnace
We walk in the labyrinth of silent echoes uncomplaining
Burdened yet indifferent - we succumb with
Trembling hearts and reverent lips and pay
Homage to the denizens of above.
Eternal servitors and devotees eager
To serve and please and be at peace.
We haunt the open-air theatre for entertainments
And the mystic temples.
We trudged the metropolis deafened by
Despairing noises. Elbowed, jostled relegated
To the background, outwitted, defrauded.
Warfare we try to avert yet it was inevitable as it was death.
We thought of focusing on philosophic principles
To aid us invent and discover when he appeared.
An aged man in tatters of ruins - a man goat - hideous
He was an intelligent man and avowed thinker.
He soon got humble followers who were
Bewildered and unsettled by his strange
Teachings and impeccable reasoning.
.He was hoary, simple, and possessed
An unusual heart that made him endure
Anything that happened to him.
He was full of questions than answers
And his fame which was wreathed with
Mystic aura spread like wild fire in the city-states.
We always gathered around him for
Enlightenment undreamt of.
We were appalled by his strangeness.
He was bald and had large bulging eyes
Which were frightening and horrifying to behold?
All in all he was harrowing. he said.
What is the meaning of beauty?
We were baffled and bewildered.
Why do we suffer? why do we die?
Now to the issue of beauty.
Once there was an ugly lady,
She was so ugly that her own image frightens
Her when she looks into a mirror.
She stood in front of her mirror one day
And cried. I am not beautiful, I am really ugly. Why?
What the lady refused to discover and utilize
Is the energy, the power inherent in her?
She was fond of outward appearance only which
Is illusory, transient. The true meaning of beauty
Is ability and ugliness inability.
The open air theatre, the temples and the amazing
Discoveries will stand the test of time and
Those who made it, the primal architects will be inherent
In it till the end of time,
Questions of this sort were heaped on us
Each passing day and then analyzed to
Reach a spellbinding answer,
He got a wide following and people
From all walks of life begun to appreciate
His impeccable reasoning,
Then came a devastating warning,
He was accused of corrupting we the Athenian youths
By teaching strange and alien doctrines which
Defied the rules and regulations stipulated
By the oracles and the Olympian Titans,
He was asked by the leaders to stop teaching us
Or will suffer gravely for it. He refused to comply
He continued to teach us until he was condemned to death,
We urged him to run but he refused
He unflinchingly stated that the laws of the state must be obeyed.
The repercussions of the hemlock
Truly wounded our hearts,
Tears filled our eyes when in his tatters he
Patiently, humbly drunk his mortal enemy
As if it was a drink of blessing from the gods,
And why do we have to desert the treasure
Of the extraordinary man and heed the despairing Noises of the crowd?
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