PISOPOGON

 

It was the anniversary of the crowning of Admiral Romanos I Lekapenos as co-emperor of the underage Constantine VII. I was recalling a lecturer at university pronouncing Lekapenos as Lekapenus, with the emphasis on the penultimate syllable, causing my classmates to giggle in a most refined fashion. The reason why still remains a mystery to me. Of similar mystification is why, when I pointed out that this son of the remarkably named Theophylact the Unbearable (ὁ ἀβάστακτος), as far as emperors went, sucked, the whole class erupted in laughter. I was musing on this, when the phone rang.

On the other end of the ether was a friend who is into mindfulness and self care.

He believes that his particular (curated, as he calls it) philosophy which combines what he terms Ancient Greek philotimo with veganism and yoga provides a plausible alternative way of life that is eminently marketable to the Greeks of the motherland and is projected to make him and his prospective investors a good deal of money.

“How are you?” I enquire, disinterestedly as, for wont of anything better to do I am trying to read Ioannis Vilaras’ demotic translation’s of the Batrachomyomachia, an ancient parody of the Iliad.

“I don’t know,” came the response. “I’m kind of sore all over. My skin is covered in these red welts.”

“Sounds fishy,” I commented.

“No, I’m on this guava only toxin cleanse. I must be allergic or something.. Nothing to do with fish.”

It actually does. The word sardine derives from the ancient Greek word σαρδῖον, the word for carnelian, denoting 'red,'  as according to our venerable ancestors, the flesh of some sardines is a reddish-brown colour similar to some varieties of red sardonyx or sardine stone.

“I’m burning all over. It’s like someone is roasting me with a blow-torch,” he complained.

In order to divert him, I saw fit to refer to mention Palladius’ narrative in the Lausiac History, where he refers to one Heron,  a young monk of Scetis who, ‘being on fire’, left his cell in the desert and went to Alexandria where he visited a prostitute. According to the historian:  “An anthrax grew on one of his testicles, and he was so ill for six months that gangrene set into his private parts which finally fell off.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better? By the way, I’ve found a solution to your problem.”

“Which one?”

“You know how you keep complaining that you can’t grow a beard? I’ve found this aryuvedic remedy involving fermented Banyan seeds…”

It is true that I cannot grow a beard. It is also true that I have lamented this fact, for not being able to grow a beard automatically disqualifies one from being a candidate for the Byzantine throne. This is a complex that as engendered in me by a particularly malevolent and most likely heretical Greek-school teacher in my teens, who, noticing my lack of facial growth compared to my fellow adolescents, granted me the soubriquet: Constantine Pogonatus, the nickname ascribed to Emperor Constantine the bearded, presumably to highlight my lack thereof.

He was also responsible for informing me that while the word adolescent is said to derive from the Latin: ad- ‘to’ + alescere ‘grow, grow up, there is the homophonous ancient Greek word ἀδολεσχία, (adolescia) which refers to talking nonsense non-stop for an inordinate period of time, considered a sign of immaturity most likely to be found in adolescents by the ancients.

It is a recognised phsyco-linguistic phenomenon prevalent among Greek-Australian associations and clubs, whose Peter Pan-like presidents, refuse to grow up and who generally, do not sport beards, at least since the downfall of PASOK.

 

In the Homeric epics, having a beard had almost sanctified significance, with a common form of entreaty being to touch the beard of the person you addressed. I have largely become resigned to my beardless fate, regardless of the opprobrium that this causes me. I once managed to grow a goatee after six months of trying, but my wife compelled me to shave it off, claiming that rather than looking imperial, I resembled instead, a benevolent Trotsky, a prospect that she would not countenance though I suspect that her ulterior motive was, once learning that the Spartans curled their beards with heated iron rods, that I did not compete with her for the curling tongs. Thus, I remain beardless, content that what I lack in facial hair, I make up in the knowledge that Orthodox paraliturgies have been composed to describe those such as I.

 

Enter the Liturgy of a Beardless Man, a twelfth century scatological parody of the Orthodox liturgy. In commenting about it, scholar Barry Baldwin opines: “Alas, I like a good piece of humour as much as the next, but the limited and endlessly repetitive invective of the work makes it the sort of thing that gives pornography a bad name,” a criticism that has been levelled against the Diatribe, from time to time. Just how the scatological becomes tiresome can be evidenced below, in the section that purports to parody the hymn: “O the paradoxical miracle.”

“Verse: From the depths hast thou cried out, that thou mayst be granted a beard; and thy prayer was granted not.

O strange marvel, if you should meet a beardless man, fart on his moustache, pluck his beard, and favour him with a kick, that sconehead and skinhead. And say thus to him, most evil: O thou wood-throat and savage-moustache, evil beardless man, be gone, be crushed, most evil beast.”

Nay, like Alexander the Great who ordered his men to shave off their beards, I revel in my lack of ground cover, and if I could, I would pen, as Emperor Julian the Apostate, a missive such as his Misopogon, ( the Beard-Hater, where, under the guise of mocking both himself and the philosopher's beard he sported in an era of clean-shaven manly men, he unleashed his deep resentment and frustration toward the people of Antioch. No one hailing from that city offends me, so I will unleash upon those of Melbourne instead, having tired of social media, ever mindful of the fact that the Emperor Domitian had the hair and beard forcibly shaven from the philosopher Apollonius of Tyana as a means of punishment for anti-State activities. Byzantine Emperor Theophilus on the other hand, prefers more invasive means that penetrated further than skin-deep: he branded iconoclastic verses on the foreheads of the iconodule monks Theodore and Theophanes who were henceforth known as γραπτοί. The verses were deliberately metrically irregular, to heighten the shame. Notably, however, they were not shorn, for to do so, in the Greek vernacular, signifies laicisation and expulsion from the Inner Party.

Theodore Prodromos, in his twelfth century satire: “Against on Old Man and his Beard,” warned against beards conferring authority upon those who would dominate us: “He said this, and we admired him, praised him and called him fortunate indeed, and we were all ears when he taught, because the man is a terrific speaker, and we trusted in his appearance. For his beard fell down to his knees and his neck was bent, his eyebrows were drawn together, and ochre was all over his face and, generally speaking, his look indicated that he was a philosopher even to those who did not know him. But yesterday, my dear, unveiled the drama and took away the skene and revealed the truth.”

“Well, the aryuvedic remedy is not what I’m calling you about,” my friend intruded upon my contemplation. “I’m setting up my website, in English and in Greek.  How do you say self-love in Greek? Is it αυτοαγάπη?”

”It’s αυνανισμός,” came my response.

 DEAN KALIMNIOU

kalymnios@hotmail.com

First published in NKEE on Saturday 11 January 2025