We have left the land and have gone aboard ship! We have broken down the bridge behind us, — nay, more, the land behind us! Well little ship! Look out! Beside you is the ocean; it is true it does not always roar, and sometimes it spreads out like silk and gold and a gentle reverie. But times will come when you will feel that it is infinite, and that there is nothing more frightful than infinity. Oh, the poor bird that felt itself free, and now strikes against the walls of this cage! Alas, if homesickness for the land should attack you, as if there had been more “freedom” there, — and there is no “land” any longer!
Friedrich Nietzche, from The Birth of Tragedy
Our encounter with the Sublime begins with a 1st Century Greek literary critic who wrote what is the first known text on the Sublime as a philosophy, a concept – through the lens of mostly Homerian literature. Longinus (or more aptly pseudo-Longinus as the identity of the author is unknown) wrote Περὶ Ὕψους (Perì Hýpsous in ancient Greek), now in fragments, focusing on language as the earthly expression of the Sublime.
In modern Greek, Ὕψους has become Υψηλό meaning great height, loftiness, something superlative to height. Often, another word is used, Υπέροχο with an equally compelling entymology. It means beyond - υπερ - what i own – έχω.
A confrontation with the Sublime surpasses our ability to perceive its entirety, and it becomes unbearable. It provokes physical revolt, paralysis. An immensity which becomes suddenly, shockingly, shudderingly vivid. Standing before the void, unable to step away from the edge. Standing before the void, unable to jump.
On a brighter and warmer than usual October morning in Hydra, my friend “H” and I went for a very long hike – a 6 hour trek across, up, down, around and back over the jagged island. We met near the port and climbed up the long stairs of “donkey-shit-lane” to the house shrouded in the blue tarp. We turned up to four-corners where the grocer was just opening for the day, and who returned our, “kalimera!,” with a long, silent stare.
We ascended through the village’s tangle of alleys and stairs, up through the stacks of houses that grow more crippled further from the port, they slant and lean onto each other or fall into ruin. We pass one house where someone, a woman, is always crying. Perpetual crying. We hurry past.
The paved path ends in a few, final, unfinished steps that dissolve into the rocky edge of a mountain, and here the high road begins and the village ends. Before us a narrow, steep, goat path winds up and down the jagged center of this island. Abruptly, the path descends the desolate, dry mountainside and pushes us into a troubling pine grove where the wind blows viciously even on the stillest days. H says it feels mythological here, and we revere the ruthless and spiteful descendants of the Anemoi, the wind gods.
Nearing the crest of the highest ridge where the “other” side of the island comes into view (a reward), a young hunter was resting, seated on the ground against a boulder. His khaki shirt was unbuttoned to the waist revealing his tanned chest with a single tuft of curled black hair damp with sweat. His jeans and boots were stained with dry red earth. A hunting rifle lay across his lap. His dog, beside him, lazily lifted his head to acknowledge us, but the hunter did not even open his eyes. We passed him, then stopped and turned back to savor the vision - a setting and model of a Tsarouchis painting.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to The Hydra Book Club to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.