The Two Tables

- Based on ‘The Histories’ - Herodotus of Halicarnassus

Herodotus wrote: ‘It is said that Xerxes on his retreat from Greece left his tent with Mardonius. When Pausanias saw it, with its embroidered hangings and gorgeous decorations in silver and gold, he summoned Mardonius’ bakers and cooks and told them to prepare a meal of the same sort as they were accustomed to prepare for their former master. The order was obeyed; and when Pausanias saw gold and silver couches all beautifully draped, and gold and silver tables, and everything prepared for the feast with great magnificence, he could hardly believe his eyes for the good things set before him, and just for a joke, ordered his own servants to get ready an ordinary Spartan dinner. The difference between the two meals was indeed remarkable, and when both were ready, Pausanias laughed and sent for the Greek commanding officers. When they arrived, he invited them to take a look at the two tables, saying, “Gentlemen, I asked you here in order to show you the folly of the Persians, who, living in this style, came to Greece to rob us of our poverty.”


After the far-flung freedom battle had ended,
and that ‘invincible’ World Power’s tents were taken
Pausanius, captain of us The Empire called outlandish,
could hardly believe a sight new to our rustic vision:
seeing the embroidered tent that Xerxes left his chief
of staff [the now dead Mardonius] and his army
bureaucrats - that bevy of badge-rewarded subalterns,
with its imported brocades, its gorgeous decorations,
its high table of silver bowls, platters, its cups of gold.

But Pausanias, of Spartan raising, kept his nous
from cheap greed or avarice, even so, he ordered
his now servant once-Persian bakers and cooks
to reset the tables and fill them with prepared
dishes as if for a victory banquet familiar
deemed customary for their former masters;
with Pausanias looking on in private amusement
at the opulent feast of Oriental foods, decanters of red
Shiraz, the piled up spread of draped magnificence.

Then he ordered the helots, his own servants, to
put up a trestle for an ordinary Spartan meal, aside
from the captured Empire’s spread magnificence.
Then, in casual good humour, he freely invited in us
victorious Western commanders, to lead us salivating
like bazaar dogs around that plush Eastern marquee,
vaster now the difference was displayed in two tables.

‘Welcome! Come in Gentlemen. Walk with me
around these two tables. Look long before you taste
the rewards. Only, after pause for consideration
you may choose between: “The subaltern or the free.”
This was the joke of Pausanias, Commander of Spartans,
then saying: “I asked you here in order to show you
the folly of the Persians, who, living at tables in
this style, invaded Greece to rob us of our poverty.”

At the time we enjoyed the joke. What would you do?
We laughed. Two tables beckoned and we were
free to take. And then we ate, we whooped it up!
We freely took all spoils - from both the big table
and small, as victors by tradition take. But now, this
nausea. Undigested, what we swallowed goes gastric
in our souls, impossible to vomit, a cureless bug,
like coward feeling, gutting at the bowel, all while
robed in the win-win of this freedom’s tablecloths.


November 2005 © Wayne Deavid Knoll