Pilgrimages and Progress

A RECENT review in these pages of Electra at London's Royal Opera House asserted that because of the austerity evoked in this production, only the rich apparel of the palace residents suggested there might have been an alternative lifestyle on offer inside the House of Atreus.

Well of course there was. How Atreus got such a bad name is a rather disgraceful story in itself everybody knows the occasional slayings and unhealthy sexual carry on were wildly exaggerated for their own dramatic purposes by Sophocles, Euripides, Strauss and a hundred others all the way up to Eugene O'Neill.

There is good evidence that Electra, Clytemnestra, Orestes and the rest of the crew were very much into the alternative lifestyle - vegan diet, early morning aerobics, colourful handmade clothes, communal chanting, spiritual cleansing, non aggression, mutual toleration and all the rest of it, before it became popular or profitable. Violence was anathema to them. They just got caught up in things, which parabola-ed beg pardon, spiralled, out of control.

It was good to read too that the production also emphasised sisterly affection between Electra and Chrysothemis. Affection is a great base for joint enterprise, especially when such enterprise is going to involve killing your mother.

There is much to be said for the view that the real trouble only started after Electra married Pylades, a committed carnivore who abhorred salad, and who greatly upset his wife's family by describing them as fetaverdfagoi, or quiche-eaters.

And Agamemnon was only in it for the endorphin rush.

Right. I read that a service was held the other day at Canterbury Cathedral to mark the 1,400th anniversary of the arrival of Saint Augustine in England.

Among the attendance were 50 pilgrims who travelled from Rome. One was Lucretia Balatri (21) a student from Florence, who said: "It's easier to be a pilgrim in 1997. Saint Augustine was very fearful because he did not know what sort of reception he would get when he arrived. We have had a warm welcome wherever we have gone."

It is true to say Augustine was fearful when setting out for Kent. In fact, Gus and his companions were scared witless at the thought of coming face to face with "a barbarous, fierce and pagan nation."

Halfway through Gaul, Gus went back to Rome to beg the Pope to call it off. But not a hope: Pope Gregory did not come to be called Pope Gregory the Great by caving in to weaklings. He told Gus not to start what he couldn't finish: "... it is better never to undertake any high enterprise than to abandon it once begun. So with the help of God you must carry out this task which you have started."

As it turned out, Gus got quite a decent welcome when he arrived in Kent, not least because of the work already done spreading the faith in the north of England by our own Saint Columba.

But Ms Balatri, the pilgrim student referred to above, is not necessarily correct in suggesting it is easier to be a pilgrim in 1997. Right now, 250 people, on three separate routes, are in the process of crossing England and Scotland before a planned meeting in Derry on June 9th to mark St. Columba's Day.

Their luggage is being taken by coach - but the pilgrims are obliged to walk up to eight miles per day.

As for cost, Ms Balatri and her companions paid £300 each just to cover their coach trip from Rome to Canterbury and back.

It took Saint Augustine a year to make the same trip; he obviously appreciated the truth of the observation that it is better to travel than to arrive. And travelling for a year at the Vatican's expense can hardly have been all misery.

It is not necessary to read Chaucer to appreciate the fun of pilgrimages. The heyday of the medieval pilgrimage saw hundreds of these events annually (nor were they confined to Christians), many of them, by all accounts, resembling a travelling Fleadh Cheoil, with music night and day, and endless entertainment with all tastes catered for. Accommodation costs were negligible as the relic trails were usually littered with cheap hostels and hospices.

The ultimate proof of the enjoyability of pilgrimages was the fact that the clergy took a very dim view of them.