Simone Weil (1909–1943),

a French philosopher,

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Today’s sharing from the Blue House of Via-HYGEIA, is the eight part of our sampler, dedicated to the memory of French Philosopher Simone Weil, with the subject of the ‘Zeus and Prometheus‘. Our excerpt is from ‘La Source Grecque‘-Editions Gallimard, Paris 1953-and is Simone Weil’s commentary of a passage in Aechilus’ ‘Agamemnon‘, verses 160 to 183. From page 43 to 46. A Via-HYGEIA English translation from the original French.

This chorus passage is among the most philosophically charged and theologically profound sections of the ‘Oresteia’ trilogy. It weaves themes of divine justice with human suffering and the paradoxical nature of learning and wisdom. It is a theological meditation on the nature of divine rule, human suffering, and wisdom. It acknowledges the limits of reason, the mystery of divine will, and the brutal yet enlightening path through suffering.

Zeus, as a symbol, represents not just power but also the inscrutable, often harsh logic of the cosmos. Grace and justice, in Aeschylus’ vision, do not descend gently—they come with violence, purification, and transformation.

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Original Greek

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Text translated by

Richmond Lattimore

Zeus- whatever he may be, if this name
pleases him in invocation,
thus I call upon him.
I have pondered everything
yet I cannot find a way,
only Zeus, to cast this dead weight of ignorance
finally from out my brain.

He who in time long ago was great,
throbbing with gigantic strength,
shall be as if he never were, unspoken.
He who followed him has found
his master, and is gone.
Cry aloud without fear the victory of Zeus,
you will not have failed the truth:

Zeus, who guided men to think,
who has laid it down that wisdom
comes alone through suffering.
Still there drips in sleep against the heart
grief of memory; against
our pleasure we are temperate
From the gods who sit in grandeur
grace comes somehow violent.

Source of the text in Greek: Aeschylus, The ‘Agamemnon‘ of Aeschylus: A Revised Text and a Translation, by William W. Goodwin. Boston: Ginn & Company, 1906, pp.13-15.

Source of the translated text: Aeschylus I: ‘Oresteia‘, Translated and with an Introduction by Richmond Lattimore. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1953, pp. 39-40.

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Simone Weil’s

own French Translation

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Simone Weil’s

Commentary

This passage from the chorus in Aeschilus’ ‘Agamemnon‘, which is already not an easy read in Greek and almost impossible to translate into other languages, is interesting as an example of those passages in which the doctrine taught to the initiates of the Mysteries, the Eleusinian rites in particular, is evoked. Aeschilus’ tragedies are visibly impregnated with this doctrine. Zeus seemed to be  considered the supreme God-which means The Only God-And being in the excellence of His essence the God of measure and of punishments that chastises excess (hybris, Ὕβρις) in all of its manifestations.

To understand is presented as a supreme end and with this we mean, of course, the relationships between Man and the universe and men between themselves and Man with himself. According to this passage, suffering was considered as an indispensable condition to reach such a knowledge, and valuable for this purpose, but only for that. The Greeks never did attached any value to suffering itself, unlike some sick people do nowadays. The chosen word to designate suffering is παθς, pathos, evoking more the idea to bear more than the idea of pain.

Man must bear what he does not want; he must find himself submitted to Necessity (Ἀνάγκη, Ananke). Trials and misfortunes leave wounds that bleed drop after drop while we are sleeping; and slowly they rise Man through violence and pre-dispose him, in spite of himself, towards receiving wisdom-which is often defined by its moderation. Man must learn to think of himself as a limited and dependent being; only suffering teach him this.

Τω παθει παθος (to pathei pathos, he suffers from passion) is obviously a consecrated formula found with the adepts of the esoteric doctrine Aeschilus is echoing and which probably is Orphic in nature. The resemblance between the two words, παθει (pathei) and παθος (pathos) makes of this formula almost a word play. The Greek initiatory environment was fond of similar formulas; for instance, the σωμα σημα (soma sima, the body is a grave) of the Pythagoreans. Further on, the same chorus says: ‘Δίκα τοῖς μὲν παθοῦσι παθεῖν ἐπιρρέπει.‘ (Dika tois men patousin pathei epirrhepei, Justice befalls understanding to those who have suffered. Δίκα (Dika) = Justice, ἐπιρρέπει (epirrhepei)= To befall, to grant).

I’d rather write: ‘those who have borne‘ than ‘those who have suffered‘ to clearly mark that those who know, are those who have borne misfortune, not those who torment themselves at will in some sort of perversity or by a twisted romantism. ἐπιρρέπει (epirrhepei) indicates that only those who have suffered are able to share the possibility to know, if they use such a possibility; this formula does not say, of course, that suffering grants automatically wisdom.

By it color, its singularity, this passage reveals in an obvious manner the origin of Aeschilus’ inspiration: the Mysteries.

He who in time long ago was great,
throbbing with gigantic strength,
shall be as if he never were, unspoken.

He who followed him has found
his master, and is gone.
Cry aloud without fear the victory of Zeus,
you will not have failed the truth

The two divinities mentioned above and that have been cast away, are not as the unfortunate note of a professor teaching at the Sorbonne University affirms: ‘those of an hesiodic and orphic genealogies‘, but false gods prior to a revelation that probably occurred for the Helens when they encountered the Pelasgians, the Phoenicians and the Egyptians.

In conclusion, our excerpt (verse 160 up to verse 183) contain the reliable and sufficient method of perfection: To keep our thoughts turned with love towards the true God, the one who does not have a name.

‘Painful memory‘ is the reminiscence of Plato, the souvenir of what the soul has seen when it was ‘on the other side‘; this painful memory that distillates itself during sleep, can be compared to ‘the dark night‘ of Saint John of the Cross.

If we compare these verses to those of Aeschilus’ ‘Prometheus‘, the similarity is is obviously sticking. Prometheus is the instructor of men and have taught them everything; here we say it is Zeus. For us, it is the same thing. These two are in reality but one. It is by crucifying Prometheus that Zeus has opened humanity to the path of Wisdom.

Therefore, the law: ‘Through suffering comes Wisdom‘ can be compared to Saint John of the Cross’ thought, in which he says that: ‘Only the participation to Christ’s suffering on the Cross allows to penetrate the depths of divine Wisdom’.

On the other hand, if we compare the first verses said by Prometheus and those of the ‘Book of Job; we can clearly see that the two texts make the same mysterious connection between extreme physical pain alongside a great distress of the soul & the complete revelation of the beauty of the world.

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Source

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