2 Regarding Vizyenos’ somewhat disputed date of birth, see Sideras, A., ‘Νέες μαρτυρίες γιά xò ίτος γεννήσεως τοϋ Γεωργίου Βιζυηνοΰ’, Ήέα ‘Etnia 142 (1997) 1252-9Google Scholar.

3 Ή φιλοσοφία τοϋ καλον ποφά Πλωτίνφ, first published in Athens in 1884. A second edition, supplied with an Introduction contributed by myself, appeared also in Athens in 1995. All references given here are to this new edition, quoted as ‘H φιλοσοφία τον καλσθ. Regarding Vizyenos’ studies in Göttingen, see P. Sidera-Lytra, ‘O Γεώργιος Βιζυηνος φοιτητης στο Πανεπιστήμιο της Γοτίγγης’, Ό Παρατηρητής 23–24 (1993) 116–40.

4 Already by Palamas, K., in his early assessment of Vizyenos’ works (‘To έλληνικον διήγημα: A’. Βιζυηνός’ (1895), in Та πμώτο. κριτικά (Athens 1913) 138)Google Scholar, but also by numerous other critics. It constitutes the basis of V. Athanassopoulos’ study Ol μύθοι της ζωης каі τοϋ ëpyon τοϋ ľ. Βιζυηνοϋ (Athens 1992) 15-18 et passim.

5 Originally published in the journal ‘Etnia in January 1884. Henceforth I shall refer to it by the page numbers (in brackets and marked by ‘M’) from Moullas, P.’ edition (Γ. Βιζυηνός, Νεοελληνικά διηγήματα (Athens 1980, reprinted 1994) 104-67)Google Scholar, while quoting from the translation by Wyatt, W. F. Jr., ‘The Consequences of the Old Story’, in My Mother’s Sin and Other Stories by Georgios Vizyenos (Hanover and London 1988) 99–152 Google Scholar (page numbers marked by ‘W).

6 A detailed account of such references is given by Sidera-Lytra, P. in her study ‘Πρόσωπα και πράγματα άπο то διήγημα τοΰ Г. Βιζυηνσυ Al συνέπειαι της παλαιας Ιστορίας’, Ό Παρατηρητής 23-4 (1993) 93–115 Google Scholar. See also idem, ‘Georgios Vizyinos, Die Folgen der alten Geschichte: Übersetzung und Erläuterungen’, Greek Letters 9 (1995-6) 113-75.

7 The historical and theoretical reasons that probably prompted Vizyenos to become engaged with the aesthetic theories of Plato and his followers have been summarily discussed in my brief Introduction to the new edition of his essay: see Vizyenos, ‘H φιλυσοφία τοϋ καλον, 11-20.

8 The symmetry connecting the figures of the narrator and Paschalis is acknowledged as of central importance by Chryssanthopoulos, M., Γεώμγιυς Βιζνηνός: μεταζύ φαντασίας καί μνήμης (Athens 1994) 95-6Google Scholar. See also Tziovas, D., To παλίμψηστο της έλληνικής άφήγησης (Athens 1993) 73-4Google Scholar, who remarks that such symmetries and analogies ‘indicate [to the reader] the inexorable consistency [of the narrative] and impose on him its ineluctable logic’. Cf. further Alexiou, M., ‘Writing against silence: antithesis and ekphrasis in the prose fiction of Georgios Vizyenos’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 47 (1993) 263-86CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at p. 271; however, Alexiou also stresses the antithetical traits distinguishing the two characters, thus rendering them ‘polar but complementary opposites’.

9 As we know, later in his life Vizyenos became involved in some kind of metallurgical enterprise in Thrace, near the area where he was born. As noted by Athanassopoulos, Οί μύθοι τής ζωής, 54, for Vizyenos ‘the mine becomes a point of fusion between reality and its myth, the magic gate through which the poet can miraculously pass into utopia’. Cf. also ibid. 310–12, and Rassidaki, A., ‘Συνέπειες τοϋ ρομαντισμοϋ: To διήγημα τοΰ ΒιζυηνσΟ “Al συνέπειαι τής παλαιας Ιστορίας” ώς χρονικο μελαγχολίας’, Νέα Έστία 161 (2007) 1035-41Google Scholar, which provides interesting parallels from German romantic literature, where usually ‘the mine (...) is presented as a place where the individual (...) comes face to face with the primeval, unsubdued forces of nature’.

10 One is reminded of the famous ‘monologue’ of Nature in Plotinus’ Enneads, III 8.4.2-14 (here, as elsewhere, I shall be using A. H. Armstrong’s translation from the Loeb edition of Plotinus: see Plotinus with an English translation, by A. H. A., , 7 vols (Cambridge, MA and London 1966-88))Google Scholar, where she describes how she produces the forms of sensible reality in an act of contemplation ‘as geometers draw their figures while they contemplate. However, I do not draw, but as I contemplate, the lines which define bodies come to be as if they fell from my contemplation.’ Vizyenos knew this passage well, as we can see from his ‘H φιλοσοφία τοϋ καλοϋ, 167 and 188-9.

11 According to Vizyenos, recollection plays a most crucial role in both Plato’s and Plotinus’ aesthetic theories, as well as in that of his teacher Lotze. See Vizyenos, Ή φιλοσοφία τοϋ καλοϋ, 111-13 and 84-6, and cf. Plato, Phaedrus 249c-251b.

12 Sidera-Lytra, ‘Πρόσωπα καΐ πράγματα’, 96, note 16, believes that the initial H*** must refer to Professor K. E. Hasse (1810–1902), who had indeed taught Vizyenos in Göttingen. However, the fact that Professor H***’s death is said to have preceded the time when the story was written speaks against this identification. On the other hand, Chryssanthopoulos, Γεώργιος Βιζυηνός, 26, seems prepared to identify this character with Lotze, but notes that the latter is ‘presented as being already dead at the time of the events [in the story]’. This is based on a misunderstanding: for what the narrator actually says (M105=W100) is that ‘the late Professor H. Lotze’, was dead by the time the story is related, that is, presumably, before 1882-3, when it was composed. Therefore there is no discrepancy, since Lotze died in 1881. Alexiou, ‘Writing against silence’, 273, note 41, sees this correctly.

13 It seems that Wundt wished to overcome Cartesian dualism without falling into some kind of materialistic monism, and this is why he insisted on the non-reducibility of psychological events. He advocated a sort of psychophysical parallelism, where the events in the one sphere of reality do not interfere directly with those in the other.

14 In what follows, quotations from the Phaedrus are given in the translation by Nehamas, A. and Woodruff, P., contained in Cooper, J. M. (ed.), Plato: Complete Works (Indianapolis and Cambridge 1997) 507-56Google Scholar.

15 This reminds us of Alcibiades’ proclamations of his love for Socrates in Plato’s Symposium, 222b1-c3.

16 ‘Über allen Gipfeln’: the German original makes the association with the ‘ύπερουράνιος τόπος’ even more striking.

17 Alexiou, ‘Writing against silence’, 267 and 282.

18 Cf. Palatine Anthology, IX 229, 2–3: εϋλαλε, πρηΰγελως, εϋστομε, μακροφάμυξ, (...) λάγυνε.

19 Cf. on this point Clement of Alexandria, Stromata V 8, 51.3 etc.

20 Cf. Plotinus, Enn. IV 4.32.4-25.

21 Alexiou, , ‘Writing against silence’, 272, n. 37 Google Scholar, compares Clara’s depiction with that of ‘angels in heaven’, but there are some distinctive details, such as the green colouring of the carpet covering the floor and the ‘barely visible’ buttons which, like stars, are scattered all over the ceiling, holding its blue covering in place, that give it a wider cosmic significance. An interesting detail here is that, as in Vizyenos’ description of the room, in Plato too the middle rim of the revolving whorls, i.e. the third, is also ‘the whitest in colour’ (Plato, Republic 617a3).

22 Cf. on this point the description of Nature’s productive activity in the passage from Plotinus mentioned earlier: ‘But how does Nature possess contemplation? It certainly does not have the contemplation that comes from reasoning: I mean by ‘reasoning’ the research into what it has in itself. But why should it not have it when it is a life and a rational principle and a power which makes? Is it because research means not yet possessing? But nature possesses, and just because it possesses, it also makes. Making, for it, means being what it is, and its making power is coextensive with what it is’ (Enn. III 8.3.11-8). For Plotinus Nature is the offspring of the World Soul, but Vizyenos usually conflates these two into one. See, e.g., Vizyenos, ‘H φιλοσοφία τυϋ καλον, 111.

23 The fourth variety envisaged by Socrates in the dialogue, ‘telestic’ or ritual madness, is closely associated with divination, for they both used to serve cathartic purposes. See Dodds, E. R., The Greeks and the Irrational (Berkeley, CA 1951) 75-8Google Scholar.

24 Even though Prof. H*** characterizes it as ‘poetic’ in a somewhat ambiguous passage (M109=W104).

25 See Vizyenos, ‘H φιλοσοφία τοθ καλαν, 189, where there is a reference to a passage in the Enneads (IV 8.8.15-6), where Plotinus is actually quoting Aristotle’s remark, according to which ‘art does not deliberate’ (Arist., Physics II 8, 199b28). Vizyenos is aware that, for Plato, the irrational element common to all kinds of madness places it on a lower footing than a properly ‘scientific’ approach (Ήφιλοσοφία τοϋκαλσν, 178), but he goes on to point out that Plotinus managed to break away from the classical master’s strict intellectualism and to appreciate more fully the advantages of the ‘indescribable urge’ (‘άπερίγραπτος πόθος’) of love for gaining insight into the highest levels of reality. Cf. Plotinus, Enn. VI 7.31.11-25, 35.19-30.

26 Cf., on this particular point, Plotinus, Enn. V 8.6.1-9.

27 As the narrator aptly formulates it, ‘so it usually happens whenever we seek to discover the truth not as it is, but as we want it to be’ (M161=W147). Here is Chryssanthopoulos’ comment on this passage (Γεώργιος Βιζυηνός, 103-4): ‘Desire precedes interpretation and guides it; interpretation just serves to discover desire; in such romantic rhetoric subjectivity triumphs, desire and interpretation become identified. Of course, this happens because the text that has named its characters appropriately desires it’ (author’s emphasis).

28 To my knowledge, Chryssanthopoulos, Γεώργιος Βιζυηνός, 92-6, was the first to draw attention to the structural significance of the narrator’s interpretation of the letter and to point out its ‘importance in exploring the self-referential dimension of Vizyenos’ story’. See also Tziovas, To παλίμψηστο, 74–6, who insists on ‘the indefiniteness and the ambiguity’ characterizing the formulation of the letter, as well as on its impact on the development of the story as a whole. See further Alexiou, ‘Writing against silence’, 269-72.

29 See, e.g., Hermeias, , In Platonis Phaedrum Scholia, ed. Couvreur, P. (Paris 1901) 84.18–101.35 Google Scholar, 146.25-147.6, Proclus, , In Platonis Rem Publicam Commentarti, ed. Kroll, W., I (Leipzig 1899) 56.20–60.13 Google Scholar, 180.10-182.20.

30 See Coulter, J. A., The Literary Microcosm: Theories of Interpretation of the Later Neoplatonists (Leiden 1976) 73 ff.Google Scholar, and Rangos, S., ‘Proclus on Poetic Mimesis, Symbolism, and Truth’, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 17 (1999) 252-9Google Scholar. Cf. also the elaborate defence of allegory offered by Vizyenos against the attack by F. Schiller, in Ή φιλοσοφία τοϋ καλοϋ, 79–86.

31 In the case of Plato, it is well known that the author is only mentioned twice in his dialogues, just to mark the fact that he was not there. And in the Phaedrus Socrates famously delivers his first speech on Eros (237a ff.) while covering his face.

32 Chryssanthopoulos, Γεώργιος Βιζυηνός, 115, has perceptively observed, in Vizyenos’ narrative technique in general, the analogy between the relation of the narrator and his description of the characters in the story on the one hand, and that of the author and the process of writing on the other. But such symmetry never actually collapses into simple identity, at least in his ‘even-numbered’ stories, which, as indicated by Chryssanthopoulos, op. cit., 19-20, resist a straightforwardly autobiographical reading.