Th is is m y belove d s on , in wh om I am well ple ase d If killing a child was the answer, what was the question? Michael Fontes makes suggestions THE STORY OF IDOMENEO comes from The Adventures of Télémaque, an allegorical novel by the astonishing Archbishop Fénelon of Cambrai (1651-1715). One of the most widely read and influential books of the 18th century, Télémaque inspired many imitations, including l’Abbé Jean Terrasson’s Sethos, itself the inspiration for The Magic Flute. Fénelon wrote his book primarily as a work of instruction for his pupil, the Duke of Burgundy, Louis XIV’s grandson, and second in line to the throne. Full of lively narrative and surprisingly republican sentiments, it trickled out, in rogue editions, in 1699, became enormously popular, and caused the witty archbishop to be permanently exiled to his diocese, a sentence deemed worse than death by the typical French courtier of the time. The Adventures of Télémaque presents Idomeneus, the fearsome Cretan warrior-king, as an infanticide. He murders his son as a sacrifice to Neptune because of his dangerous vow. Idomenée stands for Louis XIV in Fénelon’s book, and the story serves as an example to the young prince of how foolish it may be for a king to make a rash promise. Mozart wrote home to his sister from Bologna when he was fourteen saying that he was reading Télémaque, so the story would have been familiar. So would Fénelon himself, for Mozart’s father, Leopold, was a great admirer of the archbishop, and took young Wolfgang to Cambrai to visit Fénelon’s tomb in 1766, when the boy was ten. Many myths, fables, and religions present accounts of child sacrifice. However distasteful and disgusting it may seem, as an idea it clearly appeals to something profound in man. What was the question to which killing a child was the answer? Some have sought an explanation in the worries of primitive agricultural man in the face of natural phenomena, acts of a seemingly quixotic and angry god, like floods, thunderstorms, disease, earthquakes, and particularly in the face of his biggest recurrent problem, winter. Dependent on the land to provide all his needs, early man feared that when winter came it might stay, that
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warm days would never return. David Hume argues that we cannot be certain that spring will follow winter, the way we can be that a bachelor is unmarried. The fact that we’ve always known it happen doesn’t mean that it’s bound to happen next year. Early agricultural man, reliant on renewed light and warmth to bring back greenness and food, worried about this. His life depended on it. For all that the modern food industry has abolished the seasons - we can buy asparagus and strawberries at Christmas - our lives depend upon it too. Greenness brought food and was, therefore, special, magical. We still have pubs called The Green Man to remind us of the time when a young person from the village was sent into the woods and told to return dressed in green, symbolizing the budding spring, as if by turning on all the lights in the streets we might make the day dawn more quickly. Each year we are reminded of our veneration for things green by our habit of bringing an evergreen tree into the house at Christmas, so that its ability to preserve its greenness, to defy winter, may transfer strength and prosperity, and apparent ability to withstand cold and darkness, to us, our house, and our family. The holly and the ivy, symbols of men (‘the holly bears a prickle’) and women, are both associated with Christmas, both evergreen, and both common in English woods in winter. Green became the colour of magic. The folk imagination saw Robin Hood as a magic figure, dressed traditionally in Lincoln green, ready to protect the poor people of Nottingham. In the story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the Green Knight has his head chopped off by Sir Gawain at the Christmas Feast. He picks up his head by the hair and mounts his horse. Then the detached head speaks. There’s magic for you! Early peoples clearly and understandably associated the greenness of the trees and the grass with vigour and fruitfulness, and the magic of renewal and fertility. Psychologists tell us that light deprivation causes depression, depression that would have aggravated the