Of the unworthy hand

on the unworthiness of the hand

The “unworthiness of the hand” of the undersigned is not a Byzantine modernism but rather another form of a sequel of an ancient consensus about the poem, about the “ιόν εκ του μη όντος εις το ον” (whatever causes anything to pass from not being into being). There was already Homer’s “μήνιν άοιδε θεά” (Sing, Goddess, sing) and “άνδρα μοι ένεπε μούσα” (Tell me, O muse, of that ingenious hero), Hesiod’s “ταδέφασαν κούραι μεγάλου Διός αρτιέπιαι” (So said the ready-voiced daughters of great Zeus), Heraclitus’ innate passion, the revelation of the goddess to Parmenides. I wonder whether it is modesty face to the infiniteness of the world around us or rather the arrogance of humility of the handicraftsman who hints at a special relationship with deity. He admits the weakness of giving spirit to the things of the flesh or maybe rather he decides that only through the unworthiness of the hand can we understand the things of the spirit.

That is to say, a hidden confession of iconoclastic thought on the image, ineffable to the word. The consciousness of that weakness works in the end as a device to do the unfeasible, the multifaceted screen face to chaos. And if we say “…to Charon I won’t let you go untrimmed”, we say it because we know that there is no other way to be before him but untrimmed. The awareness of immeasurable ignorance dilates the thought and the work of Man. And they dilate our soul, with the wonder generated all over by the joyous mysticism of the beauty of the world. “Φύσις κρύπτεσθαι φιλεί ” (Nature likes to hide), “άπειρον το θείον και ακατάληπτον και μόνον αυτού καταληπτόν η ακαταληψία αυτού” (God is infinite and incomprehensible and all that is comprehensible about Him is His infinity and incomprehensibility).