Phoenician Myths by Zeljko Prodanovic (great reads .txt) 📕

he saw me, he said that I reminded him irresistibly of Mephistopheles, the devil from his story. He offered to employ me as an advisor and I had no reason not to accept. My job entails visiting him from time to time and talk to him, so that he could describe this enchanter as convincingly as possible.’
‘If I understood you well,’ the composer said, ‘you are in fact – the devil.’
‘Well…’ the satyr replied. ‘Goethe maintains that I am part of the dark force that always wishes to do evil, but always does good. Whether this is true or not, you can judge for your- self.
‘But let us start from the beginning. One day some bedouins arrived in the deserts south of Phoenicia, bringing with them an absurd story about a promised land and the chosen people. The Phoenicians named them ‘Judeans’, which simply meant the bedouins from the south. It was in the primitive minds of these nomads that the story of the devil emerged for the first time. And its heroes were, believe or not, our friend Phoenix and I!
‘Being unable to comprehend the story about Phoenix – the one who is always reborn – the Judeans began saying that he was not a man but Satan, ‘the one who deceives’ or, if you like, a liar and a cheat.
‘Nevertheless, I liked this ridiculous story very much. As I was already a little bored with the role of a satyr and secretly always wanted to be Phoenix’s shadow, I seized this unique opportunity with both hands. And so I became Satan, a liar and a cheat, the angel of evil and the prince of darkness.
‘Centuries passed and I wandered through Phoenicia, frightening bedouins and amusing the Phoenicians. Then I became bored with that as well. So, I went to Greece and asked Hephaestos, the god of fire and blacksmiths, to employ me, but he refused, saying that he himself was ugly and lame and that he had had enough of his own shadow.
‘For a while I roamed the Greek islands and then I had the incredible luck to meet Dionysus, the god of wine and musicians. He gave me the job of advisor for drunkenness and debauchery, and I can say that it was the happiest time I spent under the sun. And then the Christians arrived.
‘The long forgotten story of Satan was resurfaced and, not wasting a moment, I went back to Phoenicia. So, I became the devil again, and my fame spread through the world at the speed of lightning.
‘But, as we talk about the Christians, I must tell you something else. It is about him, who, through no fault of his own, laid the foundations of the biggest delusion in the history of the world – the Aramaean from Nazareth.
‘One day a young man on a donkey arrived in Jerusalem. ‘I am a shepherd,’ he said, ‘tell me where my flock is!’ But the Romans arrested him on the charges of preaching a new faith and condemned him to death. Soon after they crucified him and that is the end of the story.
‘Later on, however, some suspicious characters appeared, claiming that the Aramaean had been their teacher and that he was crucified to redeem the sins of all people. And that his last words allegedly were, ‘My god, my god, why have you forsaken me?’
‘Since I have the divine gift to travel through time and in order to find out what really had happened, I decided to go back to that shiny morning. And here is what I saw and afterwards wrote down as well:
‘ ’Oh heavenly eye, the great spring shining upon my face for the last time!’ the Aramaean cried out. ‘You are the witness that I, the son of the shepherds from the Aramaic fields, guardian of winds and player on the flame, am dying – not knowing why. Sunshine, sunshine, why are you forsaking me?’
He closed his eyes and a flock of young cranes flew out of his heart.
And I, who know the secrets of earth and the secrets of heaven, guardian of poets and young cranes, have owls from Lebanon and crabs from the Orontes for witnesses , that all I wrote down, really had happened – in the year 666 after Orpheus’s death.’
‘This manuscript, titled The Gospel According to Satyr, exists even today and can be found in the library of Baalbek.’
The satyr fell silent and Mozart blinked his eyes and whispered, ‘This is really exciting!’
‘A few centuries later,’ the satyr went on, ‘the prophet from Mecca arrived and gave me the name Eblis, which is Baal-isa or Baal’s apostle. And here is what he said about me.
‘When Allah created the first man all the angels allegedly fell down in adoration before him, except me. When Allah asked me why I too was not paying reverence to the one he had made with his own hands, I answered, ‘I am better than him. You have created him from mud and I was made from fire!’ Then Allah banished me from heaven and now I drift through the world deceiving people. And you know, of course, that this is all utter nonsense.’
Mozart blinked his eyes again.
‘But before I leave,’ the satyr said, ‘I want to tell you one more thing. A hundred years after your death, a man will be born who will describe me in a brilliant way – Mikhail Bulgakov or Baal-gakov, that is, ‘the smiling tear’.’
‘But how can you know,’ Mozart interrupted him, ‘what is going to happen in a hundred years time?’
‘Well…’ the satyr said. ‘You certainly know that time is round. More precisely, it has the shape of an infinite circle. As I have been enclosed in this magic circle for centuries, over time I have developed a perfect sense for space. And as your fingers glide so easily from one key to another, so I, too, fly with ease through centuries.
‘So, what is going to happen? When you die, your soul will go to Baalbek and spend one century there. Then the cranes will take it to the north and in 1891, in Russia, our new friend Bulgakov will be born. So, he will have your soul and, remembering our encounter, he will transform it in a brilliant way into an exciting story.’
‘But, satyr,’ Mozart said, ‘we are now in November 1791. Does it mean that my time has run out?’
‘Unfortunately yes, my friend. But you have quite enough time to write the requiem.’
‘But I am only 35 years old,’ Mozart whispered.
‘My friend…’ the satyr said. ‘I have already told you that time is only an illusion. It does not matter at all how long you have lived, but what you have done. And you played your role in the universe brilliantly.’
He stood up and out of his right, black eye, dropped a tear. ‘So, my friend, goodbye…’ he said and as silently as he had come, he vanished into the night.
One month later, a little after midnight on December 5th 1791, Mozart interrupted his work on the requiem for a while and lay down to have a rest. And only a few minutes later there was a joyful cry of cranes over the roofs.
‘Oh satyr, satyr…’ murmured the composer, smiling, and one crane flew down onto his shoulder. ‘Let’s go, maestro,’ the crane whispered and dropped a tear, and then they all flew to Baalbek together.
And one hundred years later, as I said, the great Phoenician writer Mikhail Bulgakov was born, who, in his novel The Master and Margarita, gave his version of the story of the famous satyr from Phoenicia.

Thus Died Zarathustra

One sunny day young Johann von Aachen was sitting on a bench beside Goethe’s monument in Weimar reading Thus Spoke Zarathustra, a book by the Phoenician poet and philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. ‘It is a pity,’ he thought, ‘that this exceptional man had met with such a tragic fate.’ He knew that a few years before Nietzsche had lost his mind and had never regained it.
As von Aachen sat there reading, a man with a large moustache came and sat down beside him. The youngster looked at the man and could not believe his eyes – it was Friedrich Nietzsche, in person.
‘You are reading Zarathustra…’ he spoke.
‘Yes,’ the youngster answered.
‘Zarathustra was an exceptional man,’ the poet said, ‘and one of the most beautiful secrets in the universe. In fact, he was ein Übermensch, one who arose above good and evil.’
‘But how is this possible?’ von Aachen thought. ‘Did Nietzsche not go mad?’
‘You are mistaken, young man,’ the poet said, ‘I am not Nietzsche. Moreover, Nietzsche did not go mad, but went to Phoenicia.’
‘May I…’ the youngster began, but Nietzsche interrupted him.
‘You want to ask who I am,’ he said. ‘I am his shadow! You can call me Elagabalus – the shadow of sun’s disk. Believe me, young man, Nietzsche burnt like a torch and like the sun’s disc.’
The youngster looked at the large-moustached man and blinked his eyes.
‘You see,’ the poet went on. ‘Nietzsche spent his life on a string stretched between two stars. He walked so from one star to the other and then he happened to lose his balance and he fell down. And they quite wrongly said that he went mad. What really happened was that he went to Phoenicia and I stayed here, roaming around Weimar as his shadow.’
‘I am sorry,’ the young man said, ‘but I don‘t understand.’
‘You see,’ the poet explained. ‘While Nietzsche was here, they did not understand him at all. And now the same thing is happening – they do not understand me either. But I will explain to you what is going on here.
‘You see… When the great all-seeing eye dropped a tear, everything on earth was created from her. But, as if the tear had split into two halves, two worlds arose out of her – both good and evil arose on earth. Wisdom arose and stupidity as well. The Phoenicians arose, the ones who walk on the string and pull the world forward, but also the bedouins, who don’t understand the Phoenicians, who envy and despise them. The grasshopper arose and so did the ants.
‘Oh, I must tell you what happened to me recently. I was hovering over the roads beside Weimar, when from somewhere I heard the sound of the violin. I went after it and in the shade of a cypress tree, where he had taken shelter against the hot sun, I found his majesty, the grasshopper. He was playing the violin and singing, and the cypress tree above him danced like a girl.
‘ ‘How are you, maestro?’ I asked him, and he laid the violin aside and gave me a sad smile.
‘The world is unjust, sir,’ he said. ‘Tell me,