Cleanthes

 

Cleanthes

 

 

Draw near my friend – you must hear what I say.

 

Be of good cheer.  I am old – soon to depart.

All that was made is created again.

Green grapes grow into clusters of ripeness,

afterwards raisins.

 

I have worked, I’ve worked hard

for wisdom and knowledge come hard to a striver

like me.  Once I was strong and knew how to fight

but now I am ready to stop, to welcome the rest.

I haven't been eating.

 

The soreness improved

after fasting – they told me to eat again

but as I have travelled most of this road

I won’t retrace steps.

 

He has his wish,

whose wish is to have enough: I desire nothing,

only to have what is meant to be.

There is no need for me to make changes, so

I will stay fasting.

 

Each step is a change,

not into what is not, but that which is yet to be.

Dear brother, give me your smile. Farewell

to this life. My fire will find new fuel.

Don’t be distressed.

 

Your pain is yours

you make yourself, so you hold the power

to extinguish it.  I have no pain. Now

you have heard the voice of one

who for a moment lived.

 

 

 

I hadn’t heard of Cleanthes until I set about learning a bit more about Stoicism.

I discovered a fascinating man. Born around 330 BC, he would seem to be one of the last people you’d expect to lead a major school of philosophy.  Of course, you too can google him, but essentially the story is of a young man who was a boxer*, who becoming interested in philosophy studied during the day and earned his living by carrying water at night.  His nickname of The Ass may have referred to his broad back and his ability to carry whatever load was put upon it, but perhaps it also described a certain slowness. Whether he was clever or not, and whether it matters, this autodidact with his natural humility, led the Stoics for a long time, until his death at the age of 99.

I can’t but admire his stoic attitude to his ulcer, as he recognised its resistance to healing and the inevitable result; my poem uses his reported words, leaving us in no doubt that the old fighter practised what he preached.

Although it’s now over two thousand years ago that a particular nonagenerian stoically decided to let nature take its course, the life in his message speaks to me with honesty, immediacy and intimacy.

I hope my poem shows how attractive I find much of his philosophy, and the man Cleanthes admirable, leaving me with little more to say.

 *I really like the broken nose in this image which, while it may just be the sort of trauma that a Greek statue experiences over the centuries, is so right for a boxer...