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Digging for Life |
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written
by peeter / 10.24.2005 |
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Part 1: |
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When a jaded D.H. Lawrence visits the painted tombs of Tarquinia, he is in tune with the fact that his life is drawing to a close. His manner of reading into the mysterious burial places is influenced by this awareness as he longs for what he speculates about Etruscan philosophy’s prize—smooth transitions between this world and the next—to be true for his life as well.
Lawrence is displeased with the way that nature has been tamed by Western culture since the disappearance of the Etruscan civilization. The original organic longing of man to interact personally with nature transformed “into a desire to resist nature, to produce a mental cunning and a mechanical force that would outwit Nature and chain her down completely, completely, till at last there should be nothing free in nature at all, all should be controlled, domesticated, put to man’s meaner uses” (75). All of nature’s bounty ultimately submitted to being manipulated and dispensed by man. “We have lost the art of living; and in the most important science of all, the science of daily life, the science of behaviour, we are complete ignoramuses. We have psychology instead” (60). Life has been turned into an object of study, and the result is a science that cannot account for 99 percent of what it sets out to explain. The author’s writing screams out his frustration and dissatisfaction with the Western approach to nature and its relics. Western civilization is the culprit not only of the Etruscan fall, but also of Lawrence’s jadedness. Debauchery and decadence have led to de-sensitized greed. Modern museums that import wild, textured pieces of antiquity from far away places are disgusting to the man. They trim away layer upon layer of precious meaning from each piece in order to fit it into little sterile glass cases. At one point Lawrence expresses his wish that museums would reside in reasonable proximity to the original homes of the treasures they hold, thus at least forming “some sort of organic whole” (27). In contrast to the Romans and every people coming out of their empire, the Etruscans, Lawrence thinks, were in harmony with nature.
Lawrence admires the moderation the Etruscans demonstrate when confronted by both life’s tribulations and its pleasures and believes that they truly embraced every facet of nature. “There seems to have been in the Etruscan instinct a real desire to preserve the natural humor of life” (26). In the Tomb of Hunting and Fishing, Lawrence ascribes value to Etruscan moderation. He writes, “It is not impressive or grand. But if you are content with just a sense of the quick ripple of life, then here it is” (35). Neither ecstatic in the face of triumph nor despairing in the afterthought of tragedy, the appearance of the Etruscans’ tombs hints at this balance that fosters livelihood. Etruscans did not domesticate nature; rather, they achieved an intangible, sensual influence over its greatness. These people, according to Lawrence, lived “by the subjective control of the great natural powers” (74). The Roman over-domestication of anything wild has demanded a false morality to be fabricated out of insecurity. All that was natural has been either destroyed or converted into a standard piece of cultural matter. “It seems as if the power of resistance to life, self-assertion and overbearing, such as the Romans knew: a power which must needs be moral, or carry morality with it, as a cloak for its inner ugliness: would always succeed in destroying the natural flowering of life. And yet there still are a few wild flowers and creatures” (48-49). There is hope yet, but not even the natural “flowering of life” of the Etruscans was wired into their behavior; they had to choose this form of existence; effort was required on their part. “To the Etruscan all was alive; the whole universe lived; and the business of man was himself to live amid it all. He had to draw life into himself, out of the wandering huge vitalities of the world” (49). Life was something to be pursued and taken; one could not passively absorb it through an osmotic process.
Lawrence discovers such vibrant life in the unlikely Etruscan underworld and instantly takes license in speculating about their understanding of death, longing for the rebirth that he finds in their world. Lawrence’s desire to believe in an eternal process of birth and re birth is revealed in his speculation regarding the meaning of the patera as “the germ central within the living plasm” (30). He expands, saying “For the life on earth was so good, the life below could be but a continuance of it. This profound belief in life, acceptance of life, seems characteristic of the Etruscans. It is still vivid in the painted tombs,” whose slaves are “surging with full life” (36). Fetters must not be placed on the implications of this tomb. It is real to Lawrence; it needs to be real to him. Lawrence is able to look past the tempura on the walls and finds true intimacy in the way of the Etruscans, something that he may have never truly known. He writes that touch “is one of the rarest qualities, in life as well as in art. There is plenty of pawing and laying hold, but no real touch” (46). Describing the scene in another one of the tombs, Lawrence writes of “a dance that surges from within, like a current in the sea. It is as if the current of some strong different life swept through them, different from our shallow current to-day: as if they drew their vitality from different depths that we are denied.” The writer’s desire to tap into these same depths precedes his full attachment to the tombs.
By the time his visit to the tombs is over, Lawrence has found some solace within his own fabricated Etruscan world, but does not discover the security for which he yearns. Viewing one of the many hills among the tombs, Lawrence recounts what “immediately one feels: that hill has a soul, it has a meaning” (27). After years of viewing artifacts removed from their natural environment, the author is greatly inspired by these hills that are loaded with historical mystery. Lawrence reflects on the process of becoming accustomed to the tombs, saying, “gradually the underworld of the Etruscans becomes more real than the above day of the afternoon. One begins to live with the painted dancers and feasters and mourners, and to look eagerly for them” (40). He has begun a transition into his own afterlife, and soon finds discomfort in the world above. “The upper air seems pallid and bodiless, as we emerge once more” (47). He longs for an end to his terrestrial life and ultimately describes the Etruscan model that guides his transition into death. He writes, “Etruscan people never forgot […] the mystery of the journey out of life, and into death; the death-journey, and the sojourn in the afterlife” (52). This is exactly the journey that Lawrence is making. As Lawrence foresees his imminent death, he attempts to choose death rather than be swept away by it. He wants to view terrestrial life in such a way that passage into the underworld will become life to him, a life that slowly grows in appeal. He wants to believe that whatever he believes will be reality to him.
Lawrence is searching for solid rock upon which to stand in the midst of his sea of insecurity, doubt, and uncertainty. He is afraid. He does not know where to turn. Although he finds transient comfort in the footprints of the Etruscans, he never truly escapes the low-level nausea of uncertainty that invariably creeps up on us unprovoked.
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Part 2: |
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Reading Lawrence’s account of Tarquinia and its painted tombs impresses the image of organic renewal into my mind. I see a person, aging and wrinkled in both mind and body, slowly descending into a brightly ornamented cavern. This person strains to believe that he has made the right decision, and then crosses the threshold into the tomb as the light from above dims. He has chosen to return to the soil from which he stumbled clumsily into life, assured by the vibrant dancers that greet him, ushering the man not into obscurity, but into new life. Although the generation that he leaves behind “has been sinned against more than [it] sins,” the man is hopeful that their refusal to draw meaning from the meaninglessness of the modern world will foster a return to nature (62). He emerges from the tomb, full of tone and color and bursting with life in agreement with his wild environment.
Visiting the tombs of Tarquinia left me with an image of invincible leisure. Nearly all of the subterranean paintings depict a procession of dancers and feasters, seemingly tasting the greatest pleasures offered by the world yet unaware of its chaos and tragedy. Voluptuous reclining women decorated with flower garlands, men propped up on a stage beside bowls of wine, energetic servants eager to please, dolphins leaping in the marine air, and protective beasts looking down from the sky above all boast of the lack of fatigue and the absence of death that characterize the sepulchral homes. Even the fishermen in their playful ships and the hunters being led by sniffing pups do not complain of toil but glow in their delight. The scenes within the tombs are full of an alert, vibrant leisure that cannot be disturbed, even by surrounding death. My reading of the tombs reveals that I have an impression of ancient culture that is filled with greedy, oppressive Epicurean rulers whose defining attribute is sloth. This is why the playful alertness of the leisurely activities in the paintings stood out to me. I am thus eagerly receptive of these good-humored representations of ancient nobility.
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