Lords of Heaven and Hell

Two rival ancient Roman women. A Latin (left), a Romano-Celtic (right). Alma Tadema, 1893

Giorgio was bewildered. His dreams were turning into hallucinations, clear evidence of cerebral derangement, which hit him not only during sleep but also in the course of his most precious daily rite: his morning shower.

The bathtub space in his bathroom being too small (57x26 inches) he had opted for a large shower booth (instead of a small tub) which thanks to modern technology afforded a few of the conveniences an ancient Roman thermal bath (see the painting below) offered to those antique folks.

An ideal place for him to pursue gymnastics and meditation - his shower sessions of course seldom lasting less than 1 hour (to the consternation of his entire family).

Whatever he did (or wrote) during the day was nothing but the result of such start-of-day thermal occupation, it being well known how solutions pop up when we are relaxed rather than when we're actively striving for them.

A women's Roman thermal bath. Alma Tadema 1890

Now it turned - during one of the coldest days of 2011, while he naked and wet had just got out of his sacred booth, the heating off (and the bathroom window ajar) - he stopped as if he was struck by paralysis in the middle of the bathroom.

How long he had remained like that in that weird posture, he couldn't say. All he knew though was that his mind was flying, flying high over that peculiar and almost alien world: 6th century CE Britannia.

Piazza della Suburra in the Monti rione, once the crossroads of Subura

Two days later he called Massimo late at night. His ex-student was strolling in piazza della Suburra (see a daytime picture above), in ancient times the main crossroads of Rome's lower-class district, a role suppressed by the construction of Via Cavour at the end of the 1800s, a noisy arterial road that was like a wound (or a deep welt) on the flesh of the city's ancient heart.
 
Giorgio: "It's crazy! I later fell heavily over the washbasin and injured my right eyebrow which caused bleeding over the bathroom floor. If Flavia didn't arrive I would have caught pneumonia. I am brought to distraction Massimo. And as if my eerie night ghosts weren't enough, my head has been spinning in day time as well: at the table, in front of the TV and so on. Like a drunken stupor that scared Flavia to the extent that she called Francesco Ghini, you know, that shrink you also … after she..."

Massimo snapped: "Got it."

Giorgio: “Ok. And while glued to the TV following the Japanese nuclear tragedy, the living room started to spin like a merry-go-round and I collapsed on the sofa. Then I saw them again.”

Massimo's tone was casual: “The bunch of friends?”

Giorgio: “Them! A lot has happened since I last told you about these ... creatures from my imagination, this being my idea at present. As soon as I got back home from the hospital I sent you a fully-detailed e-mail about these Romano-Celtic - how they finally reached their destination and all. One thing, that Greek you know...”

Massimo's tone now had some weight: “The Greek called Pavols?”

Giorgio: “Hey, you're now taking my stuff seriously right when I'm thinking it's all mind chicanery? Yes, Pavlos who was standing on a strange mound towards sunrise, shrouded in the fog with birds trees and marshes all around, looking in the distance as it is his custom as if he had come from the seas and there he was bound to return, well, his Greek chlamys worn sideways-on with a clasp at the shoulder, he was surrounded by the buddies who seemed like a court around their enchanter.

The writer imagined this to be a sunrise on Britain's The Wash. Click for attribution and to enlarge

What a beautiful land! The men wore Roman tunics, and the women, I'll hide no detail, wore similar tunics so soaked with rain they adhered to their healthy young bodies.

The weirdest thing though, Pavlos kept repeating two sentences several times in his melodious language. Several times a Ma' !!"

Massimo began to shout to rouse some reaction from his Prof, his voice tone having though at the same time become more alert:

“ARE YOU NUTS PROF? What the hell did your darn Greek say ok? Will you lemme understand ok? Willya?”

Taken aback and needing a deep breath Giorgio finally said: “Ok a Ma'. Two sentences, that Pavlos pronounced clearly over and over, the buds repeating them as in a choir, or in a sort of Neoplatonic cabbala frenzy [the writer: I'll draw a veil on their mad dancing this time]."

Hermes Trismegistus, via Wikipedia

 The Greek thus well articulated:

“ὁ τού σώματος ὓπνοϛ τῆϛ ψυχῆς νῆψιϛ,

καὶ ἡ κάμμυσιϛ τῶν ὁφθαλμῶν ἀληθινὴ ὃρασις”

The overall meaning is not entirely clear to me:

the sleep, ὓπνοϛ, of the body, τού σώματος, now 'νῆψιϛ', well, escaping me... of the soul, τῆϛ ψυχῆς, and the shutting, κάμμυσιϛ, of eyes, τῶν ὁφθαλμῶν, the true, ἀληθινὴ, sight of the mind, ὃρασις”

Massimo: "νῆψις is a term used by Poimandres, a sort of intelligence attribute of God - thousands of years old Egyptian wisdom stuff. νῆψις means sobriety but in this context should signify sober watchfulness."

Never amazed enough by the way the pupil was getting progressively superior to the master, Giorgio had though an instant of perplexity: why Massimo was now into Hermetica? All he knew was that Massimo had gotten into the depths of Cybernetics, and was considering how Pythagoreanism could enter the equation a bit, but nothing more. He drove away like a mind shadow and exclaimed:

"Bravo. So what Pavlos said now makes more sense:

"The sleep of the body is the sober watchfulness of the soul; 

and the shutting of eyes the true Sight of the mind."

And right there he was hit by the same words he'd just said. His anxious silence was more eloquent than any word. 

Then Massimo, his voice colourless, uttered:

“Yes Prof, Pavlos appears to be warning you that the 'ghosts' you're (day) dreaming about are real people and no mind chicanery. More importantly, although so far totally incomprehensible, you seem to be the trait-d'union between two worlds ...”.

A weird pause followed.

The chatting (and rowdy) Romans filled the Monti streets with the clamour of youth. Roman streets & piazzas offer movida day and night but after 1-2 AM it's mostly the young who crowd bars squares and church steps.

“I want you to know, - Massimo resumed the conversation - that it is a few days now that I got 'interested' in your … problems. Btw, I saw her again at Finnegan's you know (see picture below), that Welsh-Irish cutie I told you about, her name's Deirdre.”

"The Nordic wench you met in a chat room? A Celtic? Why are you telling me this right now ..."

“She unfortunately .... No time to explain! - Massimo snapped - Gotta rush home, Ciao Gio'.”

ψ

Switching off his phone and hurrying along the via Leonina (see the satellite view below) he reached his apartment on the third floor of the central building in piazza Madonna dei Monti, civic 6 (see picture following the satellite one). After rummaging through his pockets and finally succeeding in opening his apartment door he rushed to his Linux box and switched it on.

Massimo's Suburra. Click to zoom into Massimo's world.  Disclaimer: Massimo
(and Giorgio) are fictitious characters. Altho the Finnegan exists Massimo being a ghost from MoR's
mind how could he live in the bulding indicated in the Piazza above, in rione Monti Google maps?

He needed his faithful companion, Backtrack Linux, to make a few checks. He knew what he was doing wasn't right but the stakes were too great. Such a sophisticated weapon, totally free and a real must for top computer jocks, deep in his heart he hoped it wasn't about to uncover what would have aborted the tiny buds of hope in the context of an after all contemptible life.

When he was with Deirdre at the pub, after an hour of sheer delight and deep emotional exchange, he had been chilled by a couple of sentences she'd said.

The inner purity of her soul seemed beyond any mendacity, and she was so terribly attractive, her tight jeans showing perfect curves and long, well shaped legs. But it was that angelic face of hers (God and gods!), so pale blue-green-eyed & freckled and expressing like an exotic blend of the mystical, the sensual and the innocent - something he absolutely had no defence against.

Massimo's building is central in piazza Madonna dei Monti

All had happened so fast. He had found her in an IRC chat room a little more than a week ago. She typed very slowly for an English-mother tongue person, he had thought, but her words had an ol' time patina. Soon after they had met twice at Finnegan's, the Irish pub located at the Salita dei Borgia (have a look here).

Like most things in down town Rome the Salita underpassing the so-called Borgia palace corresponded to vicus sceleratus (or 'wicked street') so named since the time (535 BCE) when Tullia - the Roman king Servius Tullius' perfidious daughter and future (and forever cursed!) last Queen of Rome -  had driven her chariot right over her father's body on that very road.

"Lords of Heaven and Hell!" Massimo was now praying (& cursing) in the deep of his soul.

(Tullia and his ex wife Giulia at one end were now one in his imagination; mysterious  - and dangerous? - Deirdre being instead at the other end of that long line that separates / connects good and evil).

This Subura thing - he thought - and his whole new life since he'd been dumped - all now appeared to him so funereal and gloomy.

Linux Backtrack 4 R2. A dark, powerful jewel in the hands of a good hacker

He then thought about Giorgio. Once a solid structure he was about to disintegrate to the point that he didn't recognize him any more. Not that Giorgio didn't have reasons to suffer a break down. "Something is brewing" he had once said. But what? He felt a pang in his heart. All he knew was that he owed him so much, he having been like a father after all to him.

Massimo's ideas had started fermenting the day he had met his Prof lecturing a group of students in the Forum Romanum.

It was a rainy day. Rome is so smelly when it rains. Giorgio was younger and Massimo was terribly hit by Giorgio's passion and clarity. After that crucial encounter which happened 15 years ago, the Prof had become his mentor and special friend. He basically passed unto him this love, hard to phrase it, this hedonistic craving for knowledge that had never since abandoned his soul and which comforted him in all his sorrows.

The thought went again to Giulia, that self-centred, ambitious slut who had dumped him since she deemed him a loser (and probably she was right).

ψ

Loser or not, he felt it was high time to help his Prof now that he was sinking. Well, now that they were both sinking.

A sudden wave of energy pervaded Massimo, once a great soccer player, now a nobody. His name meant 'the greatest' in Latin. Ok, not the greatest of course, but finished, ah not yet, he having not many doubts about it either.

ψ

He started his trace GSM locations software on his Backtrack box and soon realised Deirdre would be home in no less than 20 minutes.

He had all his good time to calmly read Giorgio's mail on that crazy bunch that had just landed in Albion, the land of faeries (and of rebel queens).

He began reading, his mind focusing, sharper than ever.