Hadrian's Memoirs: The Works of Mary Renault

Author: Marguerite Yourcenar (French)
Publisher:
Publishing Date: Not available
Features: Cynical scholars and moralists consistently classify the joy of love as a vulgar pleasure between the pleasures of eating and drinking, claiming that the joy of love is not as indispensable as the pleasures of eating and drinking. They assert with certainty that people can abandon this joy of love. I am not surprised by the moralists, but I am utterly astonished that the cynics have made such a mistake on this point. Let us assume that both fear the magic of the joy of love, either resisting it or indulging in it, and that both try to suppress their joy in an attempt to deprive it of its almost terrifying power that crushes them and the strange mystery that makes them lose themselves. The day I see a gourmet weep with joy as a lover leans over the fair shoulder of a young mistress, I will believe in the assimilating effect of love with pure physical pleasure (assuming such pleasure exists). Among all our games, this is the only one that can shake the soul, and the one in which the player is inevitably immersed in immense physical pleasure. The wine enthusiast need not abandon his principles, but the lover who defends his principles does not always faithfully obey his God. In any other case, abstinence or indulgence only involves one, except in the case of Diogenes. His reasonable and unavoidable limitations and characteristics reveal themselves through these very limitations and characteristics. All carnal acts place us before others, involving us in the demands and obedience of the chosen person. As for other situations, such as when a person melts away for more simple and irresistible reasons, and the chosen object more accurately reflects his entire joy, or when those who appreciate the real thing have more opportunities to judge the naked object, I do not know. According to a naked body as dead as a corpse, according to a humility that transcends humility beyond collapse and prayer, I am often amazed to find that the complex relationships of refusal, responsibility, and devotion, clumsy emotional expressions, and fragile lies, the passionate compromise formed between my joy and others' joy—all these inseparable yet extremely quickly torn apart connections—recombine. The mysterious game from loving a body to loving a person once made me think that dedicating a part of my life to it was quite beautiful. Words are deceptive, for words that express joy conceal various conflicting realities, both encompassing concepts like warmth, sweetness, and physical intimacy, and also containing concepts like violence, struggle, and screaming. I have seen you write the obscene verses of Posidonius in your exercise book with the devotion of a child, no more clearly defining the phenomenon of love than the miracle of the sound produced by your fingers on the strings of a lute. This remark does not insult sensuality, but the very body itself, this instrument composed of muscles, blood, and skin, this red cloud where the soul shines. My growing reputation gave my second stay in Rome a certain joyful hue. Later, during the years of my good fortune, I felt this joyful hue even more...