ROAD RAGE

My tresses having acquired the consistency and style of an over-excited hedgehog, it was that day that I chose to traipse down to the Russian hairdresser near my office, only to be brusquely informed that she is no longer accepting appointments: “Be like Tolstoy,” she growled. “Grow a beard. Write a novel.”

“I prefer Zoshchenko,” I opined.

“Zoshchenko Soviet rubbish,” she snapped. “No facial hair.”

In his Sportsman's Sketches, Russian literary giant Ivan Turgenev deliberately subverted the ancient Greek pastoral genre in order to make scathing commentary about social inequality in Russia. He had taught himself Greek as a child and was fluent in the language. His beard, I observed, while not as long as Tolstoy’s was luxurious and perfectly coiffed.

“Turgenev western decadent rubbish,” she snarled. “Come back when you have beard and book.”

Searching my brain for a response, I was interrupted by a telephone call, which illustrated to me why thinking in Greek and translating in English when your significant other derives her origins from outside the tribe, can lead to infinite misunderstandings:

 “I’ve arranged for you to give your aged aunt a lift to the doctors. She is waiting. Where are you?"

"I’m sure you haven’t told me.”

“You should already know. She has an appointment every Thursday.”

“How was I supposed to know? By smelling my fingers?"

What?"”

Θα μυρίσω τα δάχτυλα μου, actually comes from the Olympic Games and the Greek precursor to the TAB. Punters betting on the outcome of certain events would seek tips from Oracles. The priests would did their fingers in laurel oil and smell them in order to inhale the fumes. They would then fall into a trance and predict the outcome of the event, a practice only discontinued when Plutarch wrote: “Seeing a Greek of nowadays trying to emulate his noble ancestors is ridiculous, like watching a little boy trying in his daddy’s boots and putting on his daddy’s garments.” This is because Plutarch never met my good friend, pagan archpriest Savvas Grigoropoulos.

Hellenisms constantly impinge upon my spoken English. Many is the time when my wife will turn to me and say:

“I want to go to the shops.”

“No stress. Do whatever you want. Cut your throat.”

What?"”

«Κανε ό,τι θες, κόψε το λαιμό σου,» sounds a lot more innocuous in the village Greek that constitutes my mother tongue, as does « Πέταξες την πορδή σου» instead of “You threw your fart,” (or you cast your fart, for increased dramatic effect), «Είσαι ανάμεσα στα πόδια μου», instead of “You’re in between my legs,” and «Ο κόσμος το ‘χει τούμπανο κι εσύ κρυφό καμάρι,» instead of “The world maintain it as a drum and you as a secret pride.” In like fashion, when seeking to indicate that something that has just been uttered causes you to care not a jot, use of the literally translated “I will make my cat cry,” (θα βάλω τη γάτα μου να κλάψει) does tend to diminish the dramatic intensity of the situation and exposes one to the risk of having the RSPCA called upon one. When all is said and done, it is best not to open up one’s mouth at all, lest one be labelled uncouth, boorish and downright barbarous.

Two choices immediately presented themselves to me. I could attempt to bribe my way out of my transgression by the offering of weregild, compensation for murdering my wife’s painstakingly constructed impression of my reliability. The Emperor John III Doukas Vatatzes once presented his wife with an imperial crown purchased via revenues generated from the imperial chicken farms.  Though my temperament does share an affinity with that of my fowl friends, I am possessed of insufficient means to husband their resources to such glorious effect.

My favourite Byzantine Leo Choirosphaktes, on the other hand, whose name means pig-slaughterer, an official, scholar and writer, who rose to high office under Emperor Basil I the Macedonian and served as an envoy under Emperor Leo VI the Wise to Bulgaria and the Abbasid Caliphate, was the first Byzantine official to exploit his position in the public service in order to open up a lucrative side trade in gourmet cumin and fennel sausages which cornered the Byzantine market, introducing ἀγρόν to τρύβλιον or χωράφι to πιάτο centuries before Neil Perry was even a twinkle in his Varangian ancestors’ eyes.

Sighing, I raced to the car, hoping against hope that I could beat the traffic and make it on time without causing an accident. Oedipus Rex of course is the first recorded story of a tragedy caused by road rage. Productions of Sophocles’ “Oedipus Rex” were of course banned in England until 1910 on the basis they might “prove injurious” and lead “to a great many plays being written... appealing to a vitiated public taste solely in the cause of indecency.” Spectacular pile-ups in which chariots were destroyed and the charioteers and horses were incapacitated were known in ancient times as a ναυφραγία, (a "shipwreck"). There was no danger of that happening on my route, given that our elected dynasts’ explosion of infrastructure construction has resulted in slowing anything moving within their jurisdiction, to a languid crawl.

It was while remaining stationary in my vehicle for over twenty minutes that I received notification of my success in securing a rare book I have been seeking for an age in order to complete my compulsory annual Continuing Professional Development Accreditation: a French 1714 law book intended for edification on the juridical aspects of impotence, along with an assurance that I had entered the process of imminent delivery. Emitting a triumphant ululation, I decided to share my good fortune with my wife who, listening in silence, curtly referred me to Lucian of Samosata and to the poet Mnesimachos, before urging me to make haste as my aged aunt had begun to open all the drawers in the saloni, ostensibly as part of an offer to cpolish our non-existent silverware.

In his: “On the Ignorant Book-Collector,” Lucian had this to say about people of my own ilk:

“Once a dog has learned to chew leather it can’t stop. Another way is easier: not buying any more books. You are sufficiently educated, you have enough wisdom. You have all of antiquity nearly at the top of your lips.

You know all of history, every art of argumentation including their strengths and weaknesses and how to use Attic words. Your abundance of books has given you a special kind of wisdom and placed you at the peak of learning. Nothing stops me from messing with you since you enjoy being thoroughly deceived.”

Mnesimachos is responsible for my favourite expression to denote would-be, know it alls with delusions of grandeur: «φασιανὸς ἀποτετιλεμένος καλῶς», that is a well plucked-pheasant. I began to crave roast pheasant, a dish that I have only ever seen in Robin Hood movies, speculating as to what artifices must be employed in order to prevent it from drying out in the oven. The trick, as in everything that pertains to the organised Greek community, must be in the basting.

Of course, I ascribe the inability to express joy at such a fortuitous happenstance to envy, a multi-faceted emotion, given that the divine Aristotle distinguishes between multifarious models of the product:

τὸ νεμεσᾶν is the pain felt at someone's undeserved good fortune.

φθόνος is the pain we feel because someone possesses something good, not because we necessary want that thing but because they have it. Ἐπιχαιρεκακία on the other hand, comes not from pain but from pleasure felt at another's misfortune.

It could be worse of course. Envy is one thing, but downright malice quite another. Take Hecuba of Troy on Achilles after the death and desecration of Hector, as narrated in the Iliad:

“I wish I could set my teeth in the middle of his liver and eat it.” This is one Greek expression that loses nothing in translation and one that I was close to appropriating for myself when I finally arrived home after an hour, only to be informed by aged aunt that the appointment was actually for the week after next, but not to worry, we have all had a lovely time.

“Some guy came to the door with a package.  A book or something,” she informed me. “But I sent him away. He was probably a burglar trying to gain entry. Never let a ξένο into your home.”

I glanced at her enormous hands, clasping her souvenir Koala key chain from the Sydney Olympic Games, remembering that Koalemos, son of the goddess Nyx was the Greek god of stupidity and foolishness.

«Τρεις λαλούν και δυο χορεύουν,» I muttered, as I sat down to write, toying with the idea of penning a Greek version of Crime and Punishment, only to dismiss it sure in the knowledge that my Russian hairdresser considers Dostoyevsky a dissolute reprobate.

“What did you say?” my wife asked smiling.

I did not bother to translate.

DEAN KALIMNIOU

kalymnios@hotmail.com

First published in NKEE on Saturday 29 June 2024