Who Was Oreithyia?

By Vincent Gray

This novel is the second book in The Barracuda Night Club trilogy. The entanglement of the lives of Aaron and Geraldine grows more complex. progressing inexorably to the inevitable crisis which sets them onto the journey to the Barracuda Night Club.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Vincent Gray
• Release date: Jul 20, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370240630

Vincent Gray

As a son of a miner, I was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. I grew up in the East Rand mining town of Boksburg. I matriculated from Boksburg High School. After high school, I was conscripted into the South African Defence Force for compulsory national military service when I was 17 years old. After my military service, I went to the University of the Witwatersrand. After graduating with a BSc honours degree I worked for a short period for the Department of Agriculture in Potchefstroom as an agronomist. As an obligatory member of the South African Citizen Miltary Force, I was called up to do 3-month camps on the 'Border' which was the theatre of the so-called counter-insurgency 'Bush War'. In between postgraduate university studies I also worked as a wage clerk on the South African Railways and as a travelling chemical sales rep. In my career as an academic, I was a molecular biologist at the University of the Witwatersrand, where I lectured courses in microbiology, molecular biology, biotechnology and evolutionary biology. On the research side, I was involved in genomics, and plant and microbial biotechnology. I also conducted research into the genomics of strange and weird animals known as entomopathogenic nematodes. I retired in 2019, however, I am currently an honorary professor at the University of the Witwaterand and I also work as a research writing consultant for the University of Johannesburg.

Book preview

Who was Oreithyia?

The Barracuda Night Club Trilogy. Book No. 2

By

Vincent Gray

Copyright © 2017 Vincent Gray

Smashwords Edition

This book is a work of fiction. All the characters developed in this novel are fictional creations of the writer’s imagination and are not modelled on any real persons. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.

All rights are reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the author.

ISBN: 9781370240630

Author Biography

As a son of a miner the author was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. He grew up in the East Rand mining town of Boksburg during the 1960s and matriculated from Boksburg High School. After high school he was conscripted into the South African Defence Force (SADF) for compulsory national military service at the age of seventeen. On completion of his military service he studied courses in Zoology, Botany and Microbiology at the University of the Witwatersrand. After graduating with a BSc honours degree he worked for a short period for the Department of Agriculture in Potchefstroom as an agronomist. Following the initial conscription into military service in the SADF, like all other white South African males of his generation, he was then drafted into one of the many South African Citizen Military Regiments. During the 1970s he was called up as a citizen-soldier to do three-month military camps on the 'Border' which was the operational theatre of the so-called counter insurgency 'Bush War' during the Apartheid years. Before and in between university studies he also worked as a wage clerk on the South African Railways and as a travelling chemical sales representative. The author is now a retired professor whose career as an academic in the Biological Sciences has spanned a period of thirty-three years mainly at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. Before retirement he lectured and carried out research in the field of molecular biology with a special interest in the molecular basis of evolution. He continues to pursue his interest in evolutionary biology. Other interests which the author pursues includes radical theology, philosophy and literature.

eBooks by Vincent Gray also available on Smashwords as Free Downloads

The Girl from Reiger Park -The Barracuda Night Club Trilogy. Book No.1

Who was Oreithyia? -The Barracuda Night Club Trilogy. Book No.2

The Barracuda Night Club Mystery - The Barracuda Night Club Trilogy. Book No. 3

The Girl from Germiston

The Tale of the Sakabula Bird

Rebekah of Lake Sibaya

Segomotso and the Dressmaker

Devorah’s Prayer

Farewell to Innocence: The full uncensored saga of Hannah Zeeman

Send Him My Love (Short Story)

Three Days in Phoenix (Short Story)

The Soccer Player (Short Story)

Raghavee: The Immoral House Keeper (Short Story)

Waterlandsridge (Novella)

The Man with no Needs

Hotazel: Journal Writings of a Lipstick Lesbian

The Wind Blows and the River Flows (Novella)

Metamorphosis (Novella)

The Black Maid from Ikageng: An African Novella

The Model from Senegal (Novella)

To Melodie and Ruth

1

Sitting at her desk, she turned her head and glanced over her shoulder at the clock next to the lamp on her bedside pedestal. It was almost 9.00 pm. It was yet another typically hot and dusty February evening. Both bedroom windows were wide open. Now that the season was approaching the autumnal equinox, the nightly anuran chorus had faded to the single odd unseasonal croak of some lone frog on the shores of Cinderella Dam. Outside her window, in the flowerbed, a single cricket chirped. She waited for the frog to start again. Instead, a lone tettigoniid perched on some leafy branch started its distinctive high-pitched trill. She learnt from Aaron that tettigoniids or long-horned grasshoppers were bright green grasshoppers that had a leaf-like appearance and belonged to the family called the Tettigoniidae. Aaron could identify an insect or a frog from the sound of its chirping or croaking. Now she could also tell the difference between the chirping made by a cricket and a long-horned grasshopper. Both made their distinctive chirps through the process of stridulation.

More than a year had already passed and yet it felt like just yesterday that she had asked Aaron who Oreithyia was? The nocturnal sounds of the crickets chirping and the frogs croaking always made her think of Oreithyia. After she and Aaron had skinny-dipped in the moonlight, they had sat in his car listening to the night sounds. The chirping of the crickets and the croaking of the frogs grew louder and louder, the recollection of the sounds of courtship that night was still registered vividly in her mind. She had just finished high school. She was standing on the threshold of a new life. She felt so free that night.

It was an awesome December night. They had come so close to making love. She looked up from her philosophy study guide which lay open on her desk and wondered what it would have been like if they had made love in the moonlight on the grassy shores of Cinderella Dam.

2

Who is Oreithyia?

Her question came unexpectedly out of the blue. While he was treading water in the channel by the beach, she had heard what he had said. It struck her now that it had been quite a strange thing to ask.

In Greek mythology, Oreithyia was initially a mortal princess, he later told her.

She was intrigued.

What happened to Oreithyia?

Oreithyia was abducted from the banks of the Ilissus by Boreas. The Ilissus is a stream outside the city of Athens. While Phaedrus and Socrates were walking barefoot in the Ilissus in the heat of the midday sun, they arrived at an idyllic grassy pastoral setting close to some tall plane trees growing on the banks of the stream. Phaedrus thought that the spot was an eminently suitable place where they could sit and talk. He also thought that the spot was close to the place where Oreithyia had been abducted.

Geraldine listened while resting her head against Aaron's shoulder.

An idyllic grassy pastoral setting close to some tall plane trees, that is a description which sounds a lot like Cinderella Dam she chuckled softly.

"Yes you're right; Plato’s Phaedrus is unusual in that he had gone to some trouble in providing a really vivid description of a pastoral scene or an arbour or of a bower, if you like, as the dramatic background for the encounter between Phaedrus and Socrates."

What do you mean by an arbour or a bower?

A clump of trees surrounding an open space could function as an arbour or a bower. The shelter of the blue gum trees behind us can work topographically as an arbour or bower for us tonight if you wish? Aaron smiled.

"Oh that is so romantic, a blue gum tree bower for lovers on the shores of Cinderella Dam under a perfect full moon, nogal (on top of everything else)."

Nogal? Aaron repeated with a chuckle.

‘Yes, my Afrikaans has improved. I live in a Coloured ‘location’, you know."

Is Reiger Park a location? He asked rhetorically.

I would say so, she replied, smiling at the irony of her admission.

Isn’t there also a bird called a Bower Bird? she suddenly remembered, changing the subject.

Yes you are right there is such bird, he answered.

And the male builds a kind of decorated structure to entice the female if I am correct? she said.

That’s right, he replied.

They sat in silence for a while. She had a soft dreamy look on her face.

Tell me about the abduction of Oreithyia.

"In Plato’s book the Phaedrus, Socrates first informs Phaedrus that Oreithyia was abducted at another spot further downstream."

What happened?

Well, Phaedrus was also interested in the tale about Oreithyia’s abduction. He wanted to know whether Socrates believed in the tales of her abduction.

What did Socrates think about the tales?

He had a rational explanation for the incident. He said that the North Wind blew Oreithyia off the rocks while she was playing with Pharmaceia and that her dying in this way was the origin of the legend that she was abducted and raped by Boreas.

Who was Pharmaceia?

Pharmaceia was a nymph living in a poisonous stream or rock pool near the river Ilissus. Boreas was a kind of god, the god of the North Wind. He was the god of the icy North Wind that in winter blew down the northern mountains. I think the Ilissus was renowned for its purity, or maybe I am guessing, I can’t remember.

"What else did Plato say in the Phaedrus?"

"Well, Plato’s Phaedrus is essentially a dramatic dialogue between Phaedrus and Socrates that was prompted by a speech on love which had been composed by a person called Lysias, who was a visiting sophist. The focus of Plato’s Phaedrus was the meaning of love or passionate love in the form of the Greek idea of Eros. The Phaedrus addresses other related topics as well. Another great dramatic dialogue on love occurs in Plato’s Symposium. In fact, the dramatic dialogues on love in the Symposium were also prompted by Phaedrus. It was ironical in the way that Socrates claimed to be an expert on the topic of love," he elaborated.

"So Plato’s Symposium and Phaedrus are books about love?" Geraldine asked.

"Yes in a fashion both books were written as a celebration of love or Eros. Generally, it has been recognized that Plato’s Phaedrus stands supreme in the canon of Western Literature as one of the most sublime discourses on love ever composed."

"What about Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet?" She asked.

"Together Romeo and Juliet and the Phaedrus stand supreme in the canons of Western Literature on Eros and love."

"Well, what did Plato say about love in the Phaedrus?"

"Unlike the story of love in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet both Plato’s Phaedrus and Symposium involve dramatic dialogues on the meaning of love that culminates in the celebration of a kind of heavenly de-eroticization of Eros. Apparently, the ultimate goal of Eros involves the pure contemplation of the Form or Idea of Beauty. But the attainment of this goal necessarily involves the denigration of the body as a condition for the liberation of the soul."

De-eroticization of Eros! Denigration of the body! Why? How can there be love or Eros without a body or mind without a body? How did you get to know all this stuff about Plato, she exclaimed, raising her eyebrows in wonder.

"It is a long story with many twists and turns. I know it sounds weird to talk about Plato, but my interest in Plato started by sheer accident. First, my sister and her friends started talking regularly about Plato in a light-hearted manner, but even though their banter was funny, it was intellectually challenging and got me interested. And then when I was in standard six we began to learn about the ancient Greeks in our history class. I became intrigued with Socrates when we were told that he was sentenced to death by drinking hemlock for corrupting the youth of Athens and for impiety. After school, I went to the history teacher and told her that I was interested in finding out more about Socrates. She was very surprised when I pitched up wanting to know more about Socrates. It was the first time in her teaching career that a pupil had come to her after school expressing an interest in Socrates. She was thrilled and immediately started talking enthusiastically about the Greeks, Plato and Aristotle, and so on. She said that Plato was one of the greatest philosophers and Socrates was his teacher. She said I should go see whether the Boksburg Library had any books on Plato. So after school, I went straight away to the library in Leeupoort Street which was on the way home. I searched the catalogues and the shelves. There was nothing by Plato on the library shelves. I then went to the librarian and told her that I was interested in books by Plato. To my surprise, she began to phone other municipal libraries. After a few calls, she put down the telephone receiver and announced she could get two titles for me, Plato’s Phaedrus and the Symposium. So my reading of Plato and Greek philosophy started with those two books."

My father is always harping on that we need to study and learnt stuff that is practical and useful. Do you really believe that is worthwhile in this modern-day and age to study Plato? What possible relevance could Plato have now in 1965 in Boksburg? She asked with a teasing and mischievous look on her face.

Well, why should anyone study Plato? The answer to that question is the same as the answer to why should anyone want to study the Bible in 1965, especially when it was written more than 2000 years ago. We study the Bible and we study Plato so that we can improve our lives, Aaron replied.

After a moment of reflection, he added:

Reading Plato has actually enriched my life, just like learning to do the Tango has enriched my life. I don’t think I will ever stop reading Plato, nor will I ever want to stop dancing the Tango with you.

Studying Plato and dancing the Tango, I like that, it appeals to me, she said.

I can understand wanting to dance the Tango over and over again forever, but how can anyone in their right mind want to read the same book over and over again, she laughed.

Well don’t we read the Bible over and over again? He asked.

Oh, I didn’t think of that. You have a point; maybe there are some books that no one can ever finish reading. I agree that the Bible is inexhaustible because it is the Word of God and because it is the Word of God, there can never be a final reading or a consummation of reading. Are you saying that as the Bible there is also no end to the reading of Plato and that one can never get to the bottom of what Plato is saying because his work is also in its own way inexhaustible? She asked.

That is exactly what I am saying. Moreover, this idea can be applied not only to the writings of Plato or the Bible but to all writing, especially if it is good literature. All good writing is inexhaustible. This is what makes literature different from mere pulp fiction. With good literature there can be no end to the reading of a good book, there can never be a consummation of reading if it happens to be a book of great literary merit, and so there can be no final reading of any good book as you put it. And it is also true that there can be no final reading of the Bible, which means we can never really know what the Bible or Plato has to say about what is ultimately sayable in all of its finality, he said.

What do you mean by pulp fiction? She asked.

In the 1930s and 1940s in America, with the increasing levels of literacy, there was a massive proliferation in the production of reading material in the form of popular fiction, magazines and comics that were printed on cheap pulp paper, he answered.

So the paperbacks sold at the CNA and cafés are also pulp fiction? She asked.

I suppose so. During high school, I was addicted to pulp fiction. I must have read two books a week. I read everything that was available, all the detective stories, westerns and James Bond books, everything I could get my hands on I read. But I would never dream of reading any of those books more than once. I would never study those books by carefully re-reading them because they are pulp fiction and not genuine literature, you can’t re-read them, there is nothing to gain from re-reading them, they were not written to be re-read by the same reader, he said laughing.

What makes a book genuine literature? Geraldine asked.

It becomes genuine literature when the reading of its writings is inexhaustible and you feel compelled to re-read the book and study it, especially when you realize that there is a bottomless depth to good writing, like with Plato or the Bible, so for some books there is no end to their reading, we can read the same book a thousand times, and still never get to the bottom of it, he answered.

What was it that you wanted to say about Plato’s dramatic dialogues? She asked, realizing that they had drifted away from their initial topic of conversation.

"I wanted to say that the interpretation of everything that was said in the dramatic dialogue that took place between Phaedrus and Socrates represents a good example of writing that is practically inexhaustible with respect to the meaning of each word and each sentence. It seems that the interpretation of Plato’s Phaedrus will never be finalized; it will go on and on forever. Each new reader will read something different, will find something different and possibly even something new. This is what makes Plato such a genius. Take for example the opening line of the Phaedrus. When Socrates sees Phaedrus he asks, ‘Where have you come from, my dear Phaedrus, and where are you going?’ You can write several pages on interpreting the meaning of this apparently simple question."

Well where was Phaedrus coming from and where was he going? Geraldine asked.

He had spent the whole morning listening to the speech that Lysias had written and when Socrates saw Phaedrus walking through the streets of Athens, Phaedrus was on his way to take a walk in the countryside outside the city walls so that he could read the speech aloud to himself. He had obtained a written copy of Lysias speech.

And who was Lysias? She asked.

Lysias was a famous professional speech writer or logographer and sophist who lived in the time of Plato. As logographer, he wrote speeches for clients, speeches for orators and possibly also for litigants, who would use the speeches in court trials.

What is a sophist?

"In terms of my understandings sophists were men who made a living by teaching the skills, techniques and methods for formulating persuasive or convincing arguments. They were dialecticians and rhetoricians, that is, people who taught rhetoric and dialectics. A man called Protagoras was one of the most famous sophists. Plato’s book called the Protagoras is a good book to read to get some ideas about what sophists do."

I am going to drive you mad tonight, what are rhetoric and dialectics? She asked.

"Rhetoric is the art and technique of persuasion and dialectics involves the application of reason and logic to resolve conflicting points of view in an argument. Dialectics involves the application of reason in developing concepts, in this sense dialectical reasoning is different from inductive reasoning and deductive reasoning. In the Phaedrus, Socrates refers to a person who practices dialectics as a dialectician. Socrates describes a dialectician as someone who is able to perceive which individual entities share similar properties and which can therefore be grouped naturally together on the basis of their similarities into the same class or set which he calls the ONE, and the class or the ONE can, in turn, be divided into its many different members or elements which may be referred to as the MANY. So I suppose dialectics deals with the relations between the ONE and the MANY. So in this sense dialectics involves the application of reason in developing the concept of something, which can also be likened to developing the idea of the essential nature of something, this is what dialectics involves and that is why dialectics is involved in resolving the problem of the ONE and the MANY. The MANY are the species or elements and the ONE is the class or set containing the species or elements, respectively, depending on how you want to look at it. "

So both rhetoric and dialectics are persuasive methods of argumentation that are used to persuade or convince? She asked.

Yes, I suppose so, that is sort of what they involve, more or less. I don’t think it is inaccurate to say that they both involve similar methods of persuasion. Dialectics involves arguments that appeal to reason whereas rhetoric uses arguments that appeal to the emotions.

I take it then that the purpose of Lysias' speech was about persuasion?

Yes, Lysias' speech according to Phaedrus’ opinion apparently contained a very persuasive and appealing argument for the acceptance of the most bizarre proposal imaginable. It is the kind of speech that would definitely appeal to the most unscrupulous pickup artist who disguised in the clothes of an ordinary schoolteacher prowls the ancient streets of the city of Athens in search of sex with beautiful adolescent schoolboys who may be in need of a mentor or a teacher. Phaedrus was obviously more than just a bit tickled by the sheer calculating audacity of Lysias’ speech.

Geraldine looked puzzled.

I don’t understand, she said.

Lysias’ speech is about how to persuade a boy to surrender sexual favours to an older man, possibly someone who would be a mentor and teacher of boys. If the speech was sufficiently persuasive then on hearing the speech, sexual favours would be surrendered by the boy without any strings attached, that is without the emotional complications associated with the reciprocal intimacy of genuine love that is normal for a meaningful romantic entanglement, in other words, the point of the speech was to persuade the boy with apparently compelling arguments and reasons to participate in unfettered-unromantic-loveless sex with an older man. In other words, consensual sex with no strings attached no obligations, no expectations.

Is this a sick joke? Are you having me on?

No not at all, I am as serious as ever, Aaron, said, failing to suppress a grin that felt as uncontrollable as a yawn.

I can see from that broad grin on your face that you are not serious.

"No honest, I am very serious, you will see for yourself, I going to give you a copy of Plato’s Phaedrus, you can read it for yourself and come to your own conclusions about whether my interpretation is right or wrong," he said.

"As you will find out for yourself when you read the book, Lysias in the speech that he composed does in fact make a very strange and possibly indecent proposal. The purpose of the speech can be construed as a manual on how to succeed in carrying out a loveless act of seduction for the sake of physical pleasure without attachments or obligation but based on reciprocal consent between the two partners. In reality, this kind of speech would probably have been written for a paying client who would read the speech in some appropriate situation in which he would want to influence some kind of beneficial outcome in his favour. We can imagine that in Plato’s Phaedrus the speech could have been written for an older man who would use the speech to seduce a beautiful boy in a pedagogical setting of teaching and learning. In this situation there would be an erotic dimension to teaching and learning," Aaron said smiling

Well, that is a new one for me, who would have thought that there could be an erotic dimension to teaching and learning. OK so tell me about Lysias’ speech I am listening, with all ears, erotic ears, she said, laughing.

3

Before Aaron could reply, she interrupted him.

But first I want to know whether these kinds of relationships between men and boys were normal in ancient Athens. How prevalent was this kind of thing? Did it only happen in ancient Greece? I have never heard of this kind of thing before. I can’t imagine any kind of arrangement in the modern world whereby men can have sex with adolescent boys. It is illegal, I am sure of that. In South Africa, if a man is caught having sex with a boy he will go to jail. I am sure that this applies to any other place in the world. I don’t think it is allowed anywhere in the world, it is not natural, it is sodomy, she said.

OK before we speak about Lysias’ speech and Socrates’ response to the speech we need to know something about the kinds of romantic relations that were quite prevalent in Athens during those times, and viewed as normal. Sex between men and boys was considered normal in ancient Greece. Romance in ancient Greece was very different from the kinds of romantic relationships that we read about in Shakespeare or in Mills and Boons, for that matter, he said.

What do you mean?

"In ancient Athens sexual customs were very different compared to what we consider normal today. It was pretty much normal for many male members of the Athenian social upper classes to have sexual relations even when