Baucis and Philemon: The Oak and the Linden

To Learn to See

Perhaps to love is to learn
to walk through this world.
To learn to be silent
like the oak and the linden of the fable.
To learn to see.
Your glance scattered seeds.
It planted a tree.
I talk
because you shake its leaves.
                                        —Octavio Paz

Long ago, Zeus, king of the gods, and Hermes, their messenger, heard in the House of Rumor that in the hilly land of Phrygia, the laws of hospitality were being blatantly ignored. Wanting to test the villagers of this indifferent land, Zeus and Hermes disguised themselves as poor peasants and appeared in Phrygia on the night of a terrible storm. Wet, tired, and hungry, they went from door to door asking for food and shelter but to their dismay, every house they visited kept their doors shut.

After a couple of hours, the gods decided to leave Phrygia and return to Olympus where, they decided, they would spend some time deliberating on the appropriate punishment for such a discourteous land. But as they climbed out of the valley where the village lay nestled, they saw a humble hut perched on the side of a hill. It was the home of Baucis and Philemon, an elderly couple who’d lived just outside of Phrygia all their lives. They had nothing to their name except for their small hut and a goose who guarded it zealously. Yet, though they had so little, Baucis and Philemon never complained, finding their fulfillment in each other and their simple lives.

Zeus and Hermes knocked on the door of the hut. Through the window, Baucis saw the two strangers and she quickly hobbled over to the door and welcomed them in. Philemon stood up with difficulty from the rickety chair he’d been resting in and offered it to Zeus—clearly the older of their guests. Then Philemon went into the tiny bedroom he shared with his wife to fetch a stool.

“Baucis, please serve our guests some wine,” he told his wife as he put on his cloak. “I’m going out to our garden to get some vegetables for soup.”

With an arm over his head to protect himself from the lashing rain, Philemon went out to pick a few carrots, potatoes, and peppers from their small garden. Baucis shuffled to a cupboard tucked away in a dark corner, and from it she took a bottle of wine she’d been saving for years. With the sleeve of her shirt she wiped the dust off and brought it to her guests with a couple of chipped glasses. She filled them to the brim and offered them to the peasants, who took them gratefully. Then she busied herself in the kitchen, chopping up garlic that she dropped in the broth along with the last bit of pork she’d also been saving.

When Philemon came in with the vegetables, she made him take off his cloak at the door so he wouldn’t track mud and water into the room where their guests were sitting. She took the vegetables her husband gave her and expertly cut them into small pieces. When the water boiled she added the potatoes, then the carrots, and finally the peppers. She scrounged around in her cabinet for salt and some spices, and added them to the soup. The broth was thin, she could see, but it would have to do.

Philemon dragged their one table to the center of the room so the four of them could sit around it to eat. One of the legs was short and made the table wobble, but Baucis had handy a piece of tile she always used to bolster the short leg, and in a moment she had it perfectly balanced. Carefully she ladled the soup into four wooden bowls, hoping that her guests would not want seconds. Then she reached for the bottle of wine to replace it with a jug of water, but to her surprise she found the bottle was full again.

Baucis looked at her guests, searching their faces, but they just gazed back calmly at her. She mumbled an excuse and got Philemon into the bedroom.

“Love,” she said to her husband, “these are not ordinary men we’re hosting. They must be gods from Olympus. We cannot feed them only this weak soup. Go fetch our goose, so we may give these gentlemen a proper meal.”

Philemon nodded. “I’ll do as you say, my dear. But please distract our guests as best you can. It’s not proper that gods hear our poor goose’s death cries.”

Philemon put on his cloak again and went out into the pouring rain. Baucis returned to the main room and in a loud voice began to tell her guests the story of how she and Philemon had met some fifty years earlier when Philemon was caring for Baucis’s father’s sheep.

Outside, Philemon chased their goose back and forth on the path from hut to garden, the animal’s honks loud enough that not even the rain could drown them.

“My dear woman,” Zeus said, standing up from his seat, “it is not necessary for you to kill for our sake this animal that you love so much. You have more than shown your generosity. Now call your husband and come with my son and I.”

At Zeus’s words the rain stopped, and the four of them made their way to a steep ridge overlooking the valley, Baucis and Philemon struggling behind the two gods. When they reached the top, the old couple turned to look at Phrygia, but to their surprise they saw only a dark lake where all the houses had been.
“Phrygia had to be punished,” said the mighty Zeus, now wearing a flowing white robe threaded with gold. “Only the two of you were spared, because of your generosity. Come now, make a wish, and I will grant it for you.”

Baucis fell to her knees and said, “Oh great Zeus, please turn our humble hut into a temple, that we may worship there for as long as there is life left in us.”

“It is done,” Zeus said, bowing his head. Then he turned to Philemon. “Another wish!”

Philemon looked at the ground, and spoke softly. “Mighty Zeus, please allow us to die together, that neither one of us may suffer at the other’s absence.”

“That too has been granted,” said Zeus, and before the old couple could say another word, he and Hermes disappeared.

For another decade Baucis and Philemon lived and worshiped in a beautiful golden temple on the site of their old hut. Their goose, which was still with them, grew old and fat from the plentiful food they now had.

One morning, the old man was digging in his garden just after sunup when he heard his wife calling him. She was standing outside the temple, staring at her feet. Philemon limped to where she was and saw that his wife’s toes had taken root in the soft earth and brown bark was slowly spreading up her shins and thighs. He took a step closer and put his arms around her waist. She smiled and encircled his back.

As they held one another, they could feel buds sprouting from the tips of their fingers and leaves growing from the crowns of their heads. As the bark spread slowly up their necks, they gazed into each other’s eyes and together said, “Goodbye, my dear. Goodbye.”

They say the temple is long gone now, but the lake still stands where it did so many years ago. Beside it are two trees, an oak and a linden, their branches entwined as though they’re embracing. And from every bough and every branch hang ribbons—gifts left by scores of passing lovers.
 
Perhaps to love is to learn/to walk through this world,  says Paz in the Coda to his "Letter of Testimony." Perhaps to love is to walk the way of wonder, humility, and reverence. To learn to be silent/like the oak and the linden of the fable. The Spanish original actually says "to be still like the oak and the linden of the fable." So perhaps to love is to learn to be still like the maple and the flamboyan and the river rock, and the sky streaked with clouds moments before a rain storm.

Perhaps to be silent is to know that even the best words, the most beautiful or most appropriate words, can only point the way to closeness, while true intimacy can only be reached in silence. Perhaps to love is to know ourselves as we truly are: indivisible.

*Photo by Sven