16 February 2004
Pythagoras
A visitor to the www.mosselabyrinth.co.uk emailed me to ask what I thought of Pythagoras ... which surprised me. I'm not backward about coming forward with opinions, but I've never claimed any sort of authority in the field of Maths.
On reflection, though, I don't think it was Pythagoras' mathematical genius that prompted the question.
As a part of my research for Labyrinth, I set up a database of daily oddities called Did-you-know?, a sequence of weird esoteric connections. The sorts of things that prompt unexpected questions ...
One of those sequences led me to Chartres cathedral and the – supposedly – sacred oak gravoe of the Celts on which it was built. Thinking of the oak grove that pre-dates all the Christian buildings to have stood on the land led me - justement - to Pythagoras:
Hera, wife of the Greek god Zeus, was born on the Greek island of Samos, meaning 'high'. The island was described by the ancients as 'leafy' and 'oak-clad'.
Samos was also the birthplace of Pythagoras, Aesop, Epicurus, Aristarchus and Callistratus (who devised the 24-letter Greek alphabet).
Pythagoras, a brilliant geometer born in 582 BC, believed that everything in nature could be divided into three parts: 'Establish the triangle and the problem is two-thirds solved.'
In my novel Labyrinth, there is a trilogy of books whose importance and ... well, I can't tell you any more as that would spoil the story, but is that one of Pythagoras' triangles? Anyway, the sequence continues:
Pythagoras owned a mysterious wheel which he used to predict future events.
The life and wisdom of Pythagoras was predicted by the oracle at Delphi, which also predicted the foundation of the city of Ephesus.
The oracle known as the Sybil at Cumae never gave an answer without first swallowing a few drops of bay laurel juice. Her predictions were then written on oak leaves which, left at the mouth of her cave, would be blown about by the wind and disordered.
This image of disordered predictions is a favourite of mine. In a sense, it has inspired the Labyrinthine web of links that you can follow through www.mosselabyrinth.co.uk.
No two people need take the same path through the Labyrinth.
