JOURNEY TO EGYPT

JOURNEY TO EGYPT

March 20, 2023. As the day progresses and the sun begins to shed more light on the earth, we also begin our own journey. Destination Egypt.

The fairy tale of the sleeping beauty of childhood, the love of ideals in adolescence, the quest for them in adulthood, the study, and the research, led us to Homer’s Helen, called the Beautiful Helen (Helen of Troy). She inspired us to seek our own “Helen”. Who and in what place is…

Eleni (Helen) means brilliance, brightness according to the ancient Greek root of the word. Many philosophers have tried to give a definition of the concept of beauty. Eleni is beautiful, the beauty. In his aesthetics, Kant tells us that there is also the wondrous as a category of beauty. Wondrous is that which is a higher form.

Plato differentiated it into two categories. Pulchritude as harmony and analogy as he presented it in the Timaeus and pulchritude as brilliance, an autonomous primary, and essential existence as he presented it in the Phaedrus.

Homer named Eleni the daughter of Zeus and sister of Dioscorus, Castor, and Polydeuces. Through the mouth of the old wise man Priamus, full of prudence and human wisdom, he tells us about Eleni (Iliad, Rhapsody C, 156-8) “Hallali (Worth it), so many hassles for such a woman… with the immortal goddesses horribly similar in appearance”.

The lyric poet Stesichorus talks about Eleni “… The Zeus-born, the daughter of Zeus! The Goddess!! That Zeus gave birth to her like a beautiful swan with a lyre, down there in Eurotas! This wondrous woman, the unsurpassed model of beauty…”.

Euripides in his tragedy “ELENΙ” tells us where to find her.
When Paris-Alexander tried to grab her to take her to Troy, the goddess Hera, who loved the king of Sparta Menelaus, intervened. “Hermes took her in the folds of the ether, while she was covered in a dull cloud and he led her to Proteus’ houses.” He sent the real Eleni to Egypt, to the palaces of King Proteus there at the estuaries of the Nile Delta. He assigned the king to keep her in the palace until one day her husband Menelaus would come to take her away. “Here is the Nile with the beautiful fairies, who, and not the rain of Zeus, soaks the plains of Egypt when the snow melts. Here reigned Proteas, the ruler of the country, while he lived, on the island of Pharos, dwelling.” He put the reflection of Eleni in Paris’ arms. Eleni waited pure, undefiled for ten whole years. In Troy, Menelaus was fighting for her reflection. Since Menelaus did not find Eleni in Troy, he came to Egypt as a castaway to look for her. “Which is this country? Which palace? -Egypt and the house of Proteus… – Egypt? Where have I gone, the poor man! – Your wife is lost, flying through the ether, she ascended to the heavens and she left the cave empty that we had her in.” Eleni meets Menelaus. “So long time, beloved, and now just joy for me. My friends, here, I happily embrace my husband, after the light-giving sun has made many circles…”. The oracle Thenoe helps Eleni and Menelaus to return to their homeland. “Go forth thou to give me light and, according to the proper custom, blow the sulfur into the ether, so that the breaths of heaven may come clean ̇ with the fire, clear the way…”.

Ω!!! Eleni, thousand times sang from Elytis to Seferis, how you remind us of our feathered soul!!! We struggle in the cave of our existence in a search of a reflection. Now the poetry, the myth inspires us to seek you in Egypt!

Egypt and Greek mythology speaks of this country. Hesiod mentions that the Nile is a god, the son of the Titan Oceanus. One of the daughters of Nile was Memphis who married Zeus’ son, Epaphus… and the genealogy continues! The most preserved temples of Egypt were built in the Hellenistic period by the Greeks-Ptolemies. Temple of Isis, Temple of Sobek-Horus, the temple of Horus, Temple of Hathor-Anubis in Karnak – a sanctuary dedicated to Alexander the Great. On the walls of the temples, the hieroglyphics and the murals speak. They silently whisper in the mind and the heart of the visitor where he will “find” his own “ELENI”. The magnificence of the Library of Alexandria lies not in the architecture of the building and the volumes of books but in the memory of the knowledge in papyrus that it has hosted since the Hellenistic years for centuries!

Revelation the SIWA desert!!! There every mind and heart, regardless of origin and race, guided only by VIRTUE as Alexander The Great said, will be informed by Pythia, where his own Beautiful Eleni has been hidden and how it will “find” her.

The senses in Egypt penetrate all levels of existence, as mentioned in Plato’s work “ALCIBIADES”. First, you admire the natural scenery!!! The golden sand of the desert, the majesty of the Nile, the simple images of the daily life of the people, the tranquility that characterizes these people, the tender faces of the carefree children singing in the river, the flavors, the music, the imposing sanctuaries, the oases, the feluccas that cross the Nile, the Nubians, etc.

How simple life is! Human explores their inner world and he looks for correspondence and expressive means of mental states in the natural environment. Western civilization with so many “goods” that it offers us has made us happier and more carefree than these people? We observe them smiling with little things, being in solidarity… Maybe we should reconsider our beliefs about what makes us happy? Could it be, after all, that our greatest fear is not having as much as we think we need? What if it’s time to put an end to the search for the reflection in Ilion (Troy)? How comforting is the thought that it is our choice to diversify our beliefs and lifestyle!!! Then, the mind with the sighting of the open papyrus of knowledge in the temples, the experience inside the great pyramid of Cheops, the visit to the library of Alexandria and the temple of Amun Ra- Zeus at Siwa, comprehends, “philosophizes” and it has another perspective of everything that is within. Rejoice!!!! There the soul flies, it assumes that it sees the Beautiful Eleni and it cogitates. Is it a myth the feathered soul in Plato’s Phaedrus? Is it a myth that the beautiful Eleni hid in Egypt and she is waiting for her husband Menelaus as another Penelope? Each one gives his own exclusive answer to the search for his own Beautiful Eleni.

Elytis for Eleni “….white jasmine and mi and mi and my secret evening star take me, take me to Crete and don’t and don’t ask me why”.

The journey to Egypt is beyond words! It is experienced by the mind and the heart!

Note. This article touches infinitesimally on major fields of knowledge. Aiming the skepticism.