Aithiopika by Heliodorus

Advice for creative writers is so plentiful it practically grows on trees. The problem is that, depending on where you go and who you listen to, it frequently contradicts itself. For example, some teachers advise novelists to begin a story when the action of the tale begins, whereas others insist that we begin stories in medias res - in the middle of everything. Well, if seniority has any bearing on whose advice you take, here's a demonstration from not less than 1600 years ago in which, at the start, a group of pirates run across a richly laden cargo ship on the Egyptian coast, surrounded by several hundred corpses. This is in medias res in spades; we don't learn until about halfway through the piece just who these dead men are or how they got to the state in which they're found.

Fortunately, among the dead are two living humans, a young man and young woman, so our story can proceed. Our narrator does a pretty good job of moving his tale forward while at the same time providing enough flashbacks so that the reader can catch up. Our heroes are Theagenes and Chariclea. It seems that these two extraordinarily beautiful youngsters from the Greek empire, previously uninterested in marriage, met at an important religious ceremony and got a look at each other for the first time. I don't have to spell it out for you, do I?

Everyone who meets these two falls head over heels in love, or maybe in lust, with them, which does these would-be lovers no good at all. Theagenes and Chariclea, in addition to being physically stunning, also seem to have a truly astonishing sense of virtue and discipline about them, to such an extent that Theagenes manages to control his urges even when left alone with Chariclea for long periods of time. Good for him, and for her too. If only the miscellaneous pirates, slaves, kings, queens, and ordinary citizens they encounter had the same self-control. Since they don't, Theagenes and Chariclea have to run. And run. And run.

While all of this is going on, and the two of them make their way up the Nile, assorted characters pop out of the woodwork to tell each other what they know about the couple's history. Pretty often, such a flashback gets interrupted by another, earlier flashback. You get the idea - in the midst of one such flashback, the teller says "And then I met so-and-so, and he told me the following tale..." I seem to remember that on at least one occasion these flashbacks go three deep, but at that point I was so desperate to keep the stories straight in my own mind that I lost count.

In any case, our author was skillful enough to suggest several times that Theagenes and Chariclea have reached safety and peace, only to pull the rug out from under us. I'm thankful at least that the gods don't suddenly show up and turn them into chickens or something like that; the number of times Chariclea bemoans the "evil genius" (by which she means an evil spirit, or the anger of a god) hovering over her and Theagenes, I worried that said "genius" might actually appear.

Instead, we get a fairly standard, well-told tale of star-crossed lovers with some interesting technical narrative tricks thrown in. What's more, however unrealistic it might seem, it's kind of sweet to see how devoted these two remain to each other, when it would obviously be a lot easier (not to speak of healthier) if they just forgot the whole business already. Despite the tangled narrative, witchcraft, lost children, competition for money and laurels and sex, and the occasional cliche (which probably wasn't a cliche when this tale first came out), this is actually a rather inspiring story.

As is often the case with ancient literature, not too much is known about the story's provenance. It's dated somewhere in the second or third century C.E. and attributed to one Heliodorus. No other work is known to be his. At the close here, he identifies himself as a Phoenician, but for many years a legend identified him as the Christian bishop of Trikka in Thessaly, a man who had the same name. It was said of him that after writing this piece, he converted to Christianity. When his superiors learned about this work they demanded that he either renounce it or resign from his post, and he chose to resign. Alas, it's not true, but if it were, I'd say Good for him. Like Theagenes and Chariclea, you gotta stand up for yourself.

Benshlomo says, Here's to characters whose lusts and appetites don't lead them around by the nose.