The Ilion Mystery – Part 1
When one approaches Sri Aurobindo’s poem Ilion, one may be captivated by the poem’s epic breath, by its particular musicality, or by some mysterious inner resonance. Indeed, the subject of the poem is the last day of the Trojan War sung almost 3000 years ago by the Greek poet Homer in the Iliad. Although one may be more captivated by the adventures of Odysseus in the Odyssey, the various attempts to end a conflict given the psychology of the characters and the interventions of outside forces can keep one on the edge of one’s seat. Or, if the reader is a poetry enthusiast, he may be surprised by a musicality and rhythm unfamiliar to English poetry, that of ancient Greek poetry. Or he may sense that this poem is not only about a war of the past, relatively modest and usual after all, but also about the uncertain present time, especially since Sri Aurobindo makes many unexpected references to it.
But a multitude of questions arises that confront the reader.
- Why did Sri Aurobindo compose a poem of nearly 5000 lines in dactylic hexameters, a versification also known as quantitative metre and used by ancient Greek poets such as Homer?
- Why did he leave it unfinished, as he himself stated in a note when the first extract of 371 lines from Ilion was published in 1942, devoting most of his time to Savitri and his correspondence with his disciples?
- Why did he choose as the theme of the poem the last day of the Trojan War, sung in the Iliad by Homer?
- Why did he devote so much time and energy to this poem when he knew that no one would understand its meaning for a long time?
- And above all, why did he never give the slightest indication of its deeper meaning?
After 30 years of study devoted to the interpretation of Greek mythology in relation to the writings of Sri Aurobindo, I am willing to share some answers in this and the following articles.
We must first recall Sri Aurobindo’s relationship with European culture and his Greco-Latin roots. Sri Aurobindo’s father, Dr. Ghose, wanted his sons to be raised as perfect Englishmen. At home, only English speaking was allowed, and Sri Aurobindo had to relearn his native language on his return to India. Dr. Ghose also wanted high positions for them. To this end, he sent his sons to England for their studies when Sri Aurobindo was just seven years old. Sri Aurobindo first received his education which included Latin from the couple to whom his father had entrusted them. Then, in 1884, at the age of 12, Sri Aurobindo was admitted to St. Paul’s School in London. The headmaster was so pleased with his mastery of Latin that he took it upon himself to teach him Greek and then pushed him rapidly into the higher classes of the school.
Afterwards, Sri Aurobindo joined King’s College in Cambridge. In June 1890, when he was not even 18, he took the Indian Civil Service qualifying examination and scored record marks in Greek. Thus Sri Aurobindo had developed early on a perfect command of the so-called Classics which traditionally refers to Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Sri Aurobindo could read Greek in the original and even composed poetry in Greek poetry being a subject of special interest to him since a young age.
But could this passion for poetry alone justify writing a poem of nearly 5000 lines in dactylic hexameters? It is certain that Sri Aurobindo admired the rhythm of the ancient Greek and Latin poets. He himself said: “The rhythm that was so great, so beautiful or, at the lowest, so strong or so happy in the ancient tongues, the hexameter of Homer and Virgil…” (CWSA 26: 322). But he had found that all attempts to transpose the ancient rhythms to the English language had failed. Thus, in his essay On Quantitative Metre, we read:
A definitive verdict seems to have been pronounced by the critical mind on the long-continued attempt to introduce quantitative metres into English poetry. It is evident that the attempt has failed, and it can even be affirmed that it was predestined to failure; quantitative metre is something alien to the rhythm of the language… Accentual metre is normal in English poetry, stress metres are possible, but quantitative metres can only be constructed by a tour de force. (CWSA 26: 317)
A poet trying to naturalise in English the power of the ancient hexameter or to achieve a new form of its greatness or beauty natural to the English tongue must have absorbed its rhythm into his very blood, made it a part of himself, then only could he bring it out from within him as a self-expression of his own being, realised and authentic. If he relies, not on this inner inspiration, but solely on his technical ability for the purpose, there will be a failure; yet this is all that has been done. (CWSA 26: 321)
Sri Aurobindo took up the challenge, achieving this tour de force. He mentioned that it was one of his Cambridge contemporaries, H.N. Ferrar, who had first given the clue to the hexameter in English by reading out a line from Arthur Hugh Clough. Sri Aurobindo was thus the first to successfully adapt this very ancient Greek quantitative metre to the English language. But was it necessary for him to write a poem of nearly 5,000 lines to demonstrate this? The ten or so short poems at the end of his essay would probably have been sufficient.
We must then examine the purpose of writing this poem when Sri Aurobindo knew full well that no one would understand its meaning for a long time. In fact, no study on the meaning of Ilion has been published since Sri Aurobindo left his body over seventy years ago. Those who have studied Sri Aurobindo’s works to a minimum will no doubt agree that he never wrote anything without a reason and that all his writings were the result of inner experiences. Sri Aurobindo himself stated that: “I am supposed to be a philosopher, but I never studied philosophy – everything I wrote came from Yogic experience, knowledge, and inspiration. So too my greater power over poetry and perfect expression was acquired in these last days not by reading and seeing how other people wrote, but from the heightening of my consciousness and the greater inspiration that came from the heightening” [Nirodbaran: 62]. There is no reason why Ilion should be an exception. Indeed, it seems absurd that Sri Aurobindo should have expended so much energy merely to replace an ancient lost epic poem dealing with the deeds of the heroes of a war that may have taken place over three thousand years ago. This lost poem followed immediately after the Iliad in the suite of epic poems about the Trojan War, a suite that the academics call “The Trojan Cycle”. Of the eight poems in this cycle – The Cypria, The Iliad, The Aethiopis, The Little Iliad, The Sack of Troy or Iliou Persis, The Nostoi (The Returns), The Odyssey, and The Telegony – only two have survived, The Iliad and The Odyssey, attributed to Homer.
The subject of the Iliad concerns the last days of the last year of a war that lasted ten years. With Ilion, Sri Aurobindo began to compose a poem that recounted the events following those described in the Iliad. He took up the theme of the Aethiopis composed by Arctinus of Miletus in the eighth century BC. According to the surviving summaries of the Aethiopis, the poem opened shortly after the death of the Trojan hero Hector with the arrival of the Amazon warrior Penthesilea who had come to support the Trojans. She had a moment of glory in battle, but Achilles killed her. The poem Posthomerica of Quintus of Smyrna, dated 3rd century AD, also begins with the arrival of Penthesilea. Sri Aurobindo however does not relate the death of this Amazon queen because he completed only eight songs out of the probable twelve or even twenty-four that were to constitute the poem Ilion according to tradition.
Let us look at the history of the composition of the poem. According to Sri Aurobindo himself, Ilion, whose title was then “The Fall of Troy : An Epic”, was “commenced in Jail, 1909, resumed and completed in Pondicherry, April and May 1910” [CWSA 2: 707], so a few years before he started Savitri. The first known manuscript of Savitri is dated 1916.
It is not known whether, lacking the means to write in prison, he “entrusted it to his memory” as he said he had done with other poems, writing it down only after his release. Sri Aurobindo did indeed have an extraordinary memory, as many accounts attest.
We need to emphasise an event that occurred during his internment, as he himself tells us: “A moment’s illumination in Alipore jail opened my vision and since then I have understood with the intuitive perception and vision” [CWSA 35: 264]. It is therefore logical to consider that this moment opened the doors to an understanding of the profound meaning of Greek mythology, of which he already knew all the themes in depth. Having solved the problem of versification and the problem of the hidden meaning of Greek myths, he was able to continue the work of the ancient Greeks who, as we shall see later, translated into stories the spiritual path up to the yoga in the depths of the vital.
Between 1910 and 1917, Sri Aurobindo transformed these early verses into an epic poem comprising several books, while giving priority to the monthly magazine Arya. In the ‘Notes’ of the volume of his Complete Works titled Collected Poems, we read:
During the twenties and thirties, Sri Aurobindo worked on Ilion from time to time. Even up to 1935, he complained, not without humour, that he could not spare even an hour a day from his correspondence: ‘In three years, Savitri, Ilion and I don’t know how many more would be rewritten, completed, finished to perfection’” [CWSA 2: 708]. He in fact never found time to complete Ilion, but in 1942 he revised the beginning of the first book that was to serve as an illustration of the quantitative hexameter in “On Quantitative Metre” an essay that was published in Collected Poems and Plays in 1942 and also in a separate booklet issued the same year. This revised passage of 371 lines was the only portion of Ilion to appear in print during his lifetime. The full text was transcribed from his manuscripts and published in 1957. A new edition, corrected against the manuscripts and with the addition of the opening of the fragmentary ninth book, was brought out in 1989. [CWSA 2: 708]
Although Sri Aurobindo had intuited the deep meaning of Greek mythology, but he explained absolutely nothing about Ilion. If he had to explain the deeper meaning of Ilion or even suggest that it had a hidden deeper meaning, he would have had to reveal the symbolic content of the whole Greek mythology, which would have taken him far too long. Refusing to give any explanation about Ilion, Sri Aurobindo knew that it would probably be decades before this poem would be understood. However, Sri Aurobindo never completely abandoned Ilion, a sign that he considered the poem to be of great interest to future humanity.
Lacking this intuitive understanding of the symbolism of Greek mythology, and without any explanation by Sri Aurobindo, the author of this article took over thirty years to discover the hidden meaning of this mythology, gradually uncovering the coding keys. The full interpretation was published in French in three volumes under the title “Mythologie Grecque, Yoga de l’Occident” (Greek Mythology, Yoga of the West). It is available in its entirety on the website greekmyths-interpretation.com where it is updated regularly.
The symbolism underlying this episode near the end of the Trojan War covered only a specific moment in the spiritual path related to the great reversal of Yoga from the heights of the Spirit to Yoga in the body. Sri Aurobindo could not, therefore, include the totality of his infinitely wider vision and experience. That is probably one of the reasons why he turned his full attention to his poem Savitri. Moreover, the original legend of Savitri and the Indian mythology were relatively more known and accessible.
Greek mythology as a pictorial description of the spiritual journey
Before turning to Ilion, we need to understand the context in which the poem is set, and in particular, the position and symbolism of the Trojan War in the spiritual journey. It is not the intention here to give an exhaustive interpretation of the meaning of the Greek mythology, which, as has been said, can be found on the website greekmyths-interpretation.com, but only what is essential to approach the poem Ilion.
Greek mythology is built around genealogical lineages. The evolution of animal consciousness is described in the lineage of Pontos. The evolution of human consciousness is described in the lineage of Ouranos and his children, the Titans. The Titans do not have the meaning that Sri Aurobindo gives them, namely, powers of darkness working for division. In Greek mythology, they are the powers of creation arising from the infinite Consciousness symbolised by the starry sky, Ouranos. The children of the Titans represent the powers and processes that govern the world of forms, including gods and deities of all kinds. They may also begin the evolutionary lineages.
Among these evolutionary lineages of Titans, two are of particular importance because almost all the myths are in their progeny. The first lineage is that of the Titan Japet, whose name evokes the idea of a link or bridge. It corresponds to the process of ascending the seven planes of mental consciousness as described by Sri Aurobindo, from the physical mind to the overmind. This Titan has three children: Atlas, Prometheus, and Epimetheus. Atlas, condemned by Zeus to carry the sky on his shoulders, is the symbol of the force that separates spirit from matter but must also connect them. Although Atlas is not a Titan, the ancients gave him this title because he is a truly gigantic force. Atlas cannot be released from his burden until the adventurer of consciousness – and humanity after him – has ascended the seven planes to the overmind and completed the corresponding purification/liberation. The seven planes of mental consciousness are represented by the seven Pleiades, the children of Atlas, and in their progeny are the corresponding realisations. Prometheus symbolises that which in the spiritual seeker puts his quest first. In his progeny are the myths that describe the experiences, obstacles, challenges and mistakes of the seeker in this ascent. Epimetheus symbolises the part of the seeker that remains on the surface of things, that acts in reaction to the external world.
The second major lineage is that of the Titan Oceanos which corresponds to the evolutionary process of purification/liberation. In his descendants are the currents of consciousness/energy that participate in this evolutionary process as well as the great heroes who symbolise the victories that must be won and the steps towards equanimity. Thus, for example, Perseus achieves the victory over fear symbolised by the Gorgon; Heracles achieves the victory over desire and ego; Achilles achieves the purification of the depths of the vital.
Other lineages from the Titans concern the gods (Kronos), the principles of evolution (Crios), the psychic being (Koios) and the supramental (Hyperion whose son is Helios, the sun, the symbol of light or supramental consciousness).
Some other lineages that the ancients did not clearly connect to the Titans or the gods describe:
– What directs the spiritual quest in its beginnings: the lineage of the kings of Athens;
– The lineage of aspiration in the descendants of Tantalus;
– The lineage of the four great monsters or Asuras.
The ancients tried to establish bridges between the two major lineages in order to determine which progressions in the ascension of the planes of consciousness are necessary for which realisations in the process of purification/liberation and vice versa. To this end, they mention visits or friendships between heroes in the two lineages respectively. But this can only be in the early stages of the path, as very soon the correspondences become impossible to establish as the spiritual teachings and individual paths are so different.
The elders did, however, agree on a limited number of abilities that were indispensable for certain stages of the path, with each master reserving the possibility of adding others. Thus, all authors have a common list of a dozen names of heroes for the conquest of the Golden Fleece, each name representing a quality. But some authors give a list of more than fifty names.
Homer is the only one to have given a list of the abilities and accomplishments required for the great yoga reversal represented by the Trojan War and the proportion of their achievement.
Spiritual Progression up to the Trojan War
It seems clear, then, that no single pattern of progression valid for all can be established in the processes of ascension and liberation. Indeed, not only does each seeker follow his or her own path, in a particular way, but also many realisations are very progressive, such as the overcoming of illusions, the victory over fear, desires, and the ego. Therefore, the myths describe either a final achievement or ‘realisation’ in a particular area, or a description of the experiences and obstacles that have to be overcome for a given phase of the path.
In the first category are:
- The myth of Perseus illustrates the victory over fear. This hero is the great-grandfather of Heracles (Hercules), which indicates that the famous “labours” cannot be completed if the corresponding fears have not been overcome first;
- The expansion of consciousness with the myth of Europa;
- The twelve labours of Heracles, which begin with the victory over the ego and desires (the Lion of Nemea and the Lernaean Hydra) and end with the perception that the acquisition of Knowledge is an infinite process (the Golden Apples in the Garden of the Hesperides) and the discovery of that which prevents the transformation of the body into a divinised body (Cerberus, the dog that guards the entrance to the realm of Hades, of the bodily unconscious).
In the second category are the myths that illustrate the progressions that must be made in a given phase of the path. To help us order them, the ancients have left us a major clue: such and such a myth occurs so many generations before the Trojan War.
The beginnings of the path are illustrated by the myth of Jason’s conquest of the Golden Fleece with his Argonauts. It represents an expansion of consciousness equivalent to a development of sensitivity symbolised by the Golden Fleece of the ram. This myth continues through to the first great spiritual experience of enlightenment, psychic openness or a mixture of both. It includes in particular:
– The prerequisites before embarking on the spiritual path, among them the building of a solid, well-embodied personality;
– The description of a number of mistakes or dead ends that seem difficult to avoid for an ordinary seeker;
– The encounter with the Master or the personal path;
– The confrontation with death and karmic memories.
Then comes the delicate period that Sri Aurobindo calls “the crossing of the intermediate zone”. It warns of a possible fall resulting from a lack of humility. It is illustrated by the myth of the Minotaur locked in a labyrinth, an image of a seeker who builds, from his first experiences, a mental fortress in which he locks himself and often his disciples with him.
Then comes the very long period of purification of the centres of consciousness or Chakras symbolised by the two wars of Thebes led successively by Oedipus’ children and his grandchildren.
Finally, we come to the Trojan War. At this point, it is no longer an ordinary seeker but an adventurer of consciousness who has already achieved what Sri Aurobindo calls psychic transformation and largely spiritual transformation. In other words, this is the pinnacle of the spiritual experience of the ancient yogas, the highest individual realisation which is liberation in Spirit, the realisation of wisdom and holiness.
But some adventurers, such as Homer and Sri Aurobindo, did not want to settle for an individual realisation that left humanity unchanged, for what they sought was liberation for all humanity. This led them to understand that this required an ultimate liberation, the liberation of Nature, a step that Sri Aurobindo calls “supramental transformation”.
At this stage, the path is no longer clear. The only thing that seems certain is that it is no longer a question of perfecting the mental man but of something totally new which requires descending into the memories of evolution, into the body, into the realm of the corporeal unconscious, that of Hades (Pluto). But it takes a long time for the seeker to effect the reversal because everything clings to the past and the resistance to the New is enormous: as Satprem says, “the best of the old is the greatest obstacle to the New”. The best of the old is exemplified by the Trojan line, headed by the ‘divine’ Hector. And this best is convinced that the evolutionary truth represented by Helen is a continuation of the old with some improvements.
But Helen was not born a Trojan. She was abducted by the Trojan Alexander (also known as Paris). The Trojan War, which sees two coalitions of the same empire confront each other, is therefore the symbol of a great internal spiritual struggle. Both coalitions search for a while for compromises that would bring peace without major destruction. It takes the seeker 10 long symbolic years to realise that no improvement in the old structures and processes of Yoga can bring about the New and that they must be abandoned without a backward glance: the city of Troy, formerly called Ilion, must be razed to the ground and its inhabitants put to the sword.
This reversal is so difficult, so much so that everything in us clings to the old, that Sri Aurobindo found it necessary to devote a poem of nearly five thousand lines to it. The story takes place on the last day of the war: it concerns the ultimate resistances to the overthrow, the most difficult to overcome, because it is a question of renouncing the highest masteries, symbolised by the Amazons, which give access to spiritual ecstasies.
But Ilion is not only for the adventurers of consciousness. Indeed, this poem can be approached from different angles.
- From a purely poetic angle, in its musicality;
- To discover the secret of the transposition of the Greek metre into English. For this, the reader should refer to the works of Sri Aurobindo The Future poetry and more particularly to On Quantitative Hexameters;
- To replace, without any will of interpretation, the lost poem of Arctinus de Millet, the Aethiopis, composed in the eighth century BCE or to develop that of Quintus of Smyrna, Posthomerica, probably written in the 3rd century CE.;
- For the adventurers of consciousness who are ready for the reversal of consciousness and must understand and integrate its meaning;
- For the whole of humanity, which is experiencing not only the end of a civilisation but also a major reversal in energies.
***
A glimpse of the hidden meaning of Ilion is given in a documentary made by the Ilion-Auroville team, which can be seen on YouTube: https://youtu.be/y-Us4F_RVUw
References
Nirodbaran, Nirodbaran’s Correspondence with Sri Aurobindo, Vol 1, Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1984.
Sri Aurobindo, Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo (CWSA), Vols 1-36, Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department, 1997-2017.