Dialogue Between a Young Faun and a Knight
or On the Superabundance of the Inner Life
A knight who had travelled over most of the earth, and had lived in many different lands, found himself one day walking by a creek in the heart of a forest.
Since he had been riding his horse for quite some time and since he felt rather tired, he decided to take some rest under the shadow of a big tree and eat some of the provisions he had collected at a nearby village the night before.
He was reflecting on the words of a fellow traveller he had met at the tavern a few days earlier, when the chirping of the birds and the rustling of the creek were broken by a not so distant sound, the same sound rocks make when they are thrown into the water.
Quickly, he takes the bow and the arrow and cautiously turns left and right to see if there was any looming danger, or perhaps an animal that he could hunt and cook in the evening. He moves in the direction of the sound coming from the bank of the stream, which was beyond some bushes.
Soon he catches a glimpse of the paw of some animal, appearing like the one of a goat.
“I’ll make a good roast with it tonight!”, he thinks to himself.
As he drew near to it and was ready to shoot the animal with his bow, he was surprised to find that what he had thought was a goat was actually a young faun.
For its part, the faun seemed little surprised to see the knight, and not at all afraid of the bow and arrow he carried with him.
“Young faun, what are you doing sitting there all alone, have you lost your herd?”, asks the knight.
The faun had not paid too much attention to the knight and before the latter had finished speaking he had already turned his head and started throwing large pebbles into the stream again.
“Young faun, it is despicable for a young fellow like you to disregard an older man who has just asked you a question. Answer me, and also tell me why you appear to be so despondent!”
The faun continues to throw stones into the stream and in a faint voice replies, “Dear sir, it is not my intention to disrespect a man of your age and rank, and I beg your forgiveness if I hesitated to reply. I have not lost my herd; indeed, I have come here on purpose, just like I do every day, to be with myself.”
“I too like to spend time with myself, but to think about the universe of ideas, what is and what is not, and not to throw pebbles into the water. I often wander alone and reflect a lot on how to seek happiness, the highest and most valuable of the pursuits, as well as other virtues. The constant pursuit of truth is my only desire in life, so much that my court is known in the whole kingdom for the calibre of its philosophers and scientists. Among those there is one from Athens, the chief of all maybe, who says that the unexamined life is not worth living. And so, we spurn the masses and live among ourselves to arrive at axioms and irrefutable truths. But God forbids, says another of our court philosophers, that to philosophize should mean simply to learn a number of things and discuss the arts. This is why I so often wander in the forest and travel to the many villages of kingdoms near and far to play tournaments and tend to the affairs of my father, and in so doing to better understand the nature of men and thus inform my theories about the best conduct of life. But I do wonder what a half-man like you has to think about…So, tell me what makes you so sad. And unless you are speaking to yourself or to someone inside your throat, raise your voice and pronounce your words more distinctly. If you go mumbling between your teeth I shall never understand you.”
The little faun turned towards the knight and started speaking in a calm yet firm tone.
“It seems to me that most of you people forget that human beings are just animals who have been endowed by evolution with an extremely developed, complex brain. This, which I’m confident to say happens to your own disadvantage, pushes you outside your body, to seek a transcendental truth that does not exist. There is no grand prize at the end of the journey for all the efforts. You are thrown into this world because your parents felt the animalistic need to continue the propagation of your species. And you just go and seek honors and titles and accolades that can make you a better candidate for someone of the other sex to pick you and continue this cycle.”
“Young faun, you speak like an old fellow from Samos that for many years has been in my father’s house. He was made court poet thanks to his eloquence rather than the utility of his words…”
“I shall use more direct words then. I believe you are not dissimilar from the deer and rams I play hide and seek with in the forest. Or I should rather say, you are not dissimilar from the peacock that often comes picking up the crumbles of bread we leave on the ground. Whenever you seek to conquer lands or build castles, aren’t you just spreading your feathers to appear more powerful and thus have more chances to marry the most beautiful girl in the whole kingdom? And don’t you participate in those tournaments to prove how strong you are? These seem to me all examples of things your species does to signal to the other sex that they should pick you as a partner if they want to have smarter, faster children, checking that instinctive evolutionary box of yours which is nothing more than an animalistic need!”
The knight was for a second taken aback by the articulateness of the faun, which he definitely was not expecting, and was not able to formulate a response before the faun started again with his harangue.
“There is then a part of this species, which you are probably part of, that goes into the world trying to escape their finite, animalistic condition. And as they try to touch the universe of ideas, to find truth, they are both elevating and condemning themselves to a life of misery, a condition that is amplified in those sensitive beings who feel more deeply, who expect more from the brutal simplicity of life. I, being part human and part animal, am particularly inclined to feel this. Sometimes I just feel like all I want to do is to run in the forest and drink water from the creeks; other times instead, when my human nature takes over my animalistic one, I feel I am compelled to search for higher, loftier pursuits. For animals, life is all there is; for men, life is a question mark, an irreversible question mark, for men will never find any answers.”
At this point the faun was just looking at the ground, frowning. It then dawned on the knight, who had started to take a liking for the young faun, that the fellow he had met a few nights before at a tavern was speaking in similar terms and of ideas that resembled what the faun had just exposed.
“Little faun, you remind me of a fellow I met at the tavern a few nights before. He was a short man, and although he appeared very young, he had already developed the hunchback of a septuagenarian, although what he lacked in physique was more than compensated by the eloquence of his words. He spoke so vividly that I asked him to slow down while I took note of the words with the feather of a hawk and what was left of a little flask of ink that I found in one of my pockets. I’m going to read it to you.”
The knight fishes into one of his pockets to find the piece of parchment where he had jotted down the words. He unrolls it and holding it with both hands starts reading: “The superabundance of the inner life always pushes the individual outwards, but at the same time has the effect that he does not know how to engage with what is outside himself. He embraces everything; he would like always to be filled; yet all objects elude him, precisely because they are smaller than his capacity. He demands even of his slightest actions, his words, his gestures, his movements, more grace and perfection than it is possible for a man to attain.”
“And so it is,” said the faun. “The discomfort in the sensitive souls comes from this realization: that what they have inside will never be met by an outer world capable of embracing it, a comparable force of the same magnitude. But what cannot find fulfilment in the world as is, needs an outlet that is therefore often met in the act of creation. And so many of the most sensitive become artist, writers and try to use whatever medium to put what they have inside into the world.”
“Our conversation is now taking a different route…but do not despair, young faun, for melancholy is the price for intellectual honesty. Now let us continue until the end of the forest together, and we will chat as we go along and I will try to lift your spirit.”
