Seven Days in New Crete (Penguin Modern Classics) Read Online Free

you’d distinguish a man who adds up columns of figures from a man who invents a complex mathematical formula or generalizes about the nature of the universe?’
    ‘There’s no magic in a mathematical formula, however complex. It’s only a recorder’s convenience for his fellow-recorders: it’s part of accountancy, or history. A philosophic concept about the nature of the universe is of the same order: it’s part of history.’
    ‘I don’t follow you, Sally. What is active thought, as opposed to passive?’
    ‘Active thought is to passive as rhythm is to metre; or as melody is to harmony. It’s an event, not a condition. It’s a proof of life, not a description of the limits within which life moves.
    I let this go by, and changed the subject: ‘Do your kings actively govern their kingdoms?’
    ‘No, do yours?’
    ‘Only in name. Who does govern then? The captains? Or you magicians?’
    ‘There isn’t any governing estate. Custom is the governing principle, and each estate has its obligations to it.’
    ‘In the short run that’s all very well, but aren’t you asking for trouble in the long run? Suppose some unforeseen natural disaster occurs? You still have droughts, floods and so on?’
    Before she answered, Sally touched wood to avert ill-luck, but did this seriously and religiously, not with an apologetic smile. ‘The recorders keep detailed accounts of past disasters and if a new one happens, the captains consult with them at once on the best way to meet it. There’s always a precedent of sorts. Then they set the commons to work. They work until the danger has passed. The less responsible tasks are performed by the servants. The magicians stand by; they aren’t consulted unless the disaster concerns public health or morals, when they’re expected to intervene.’
    ‘You’re priests of a sort, then?’
    ‘Oh, no, all the priests belong to the servants’ estate. That seems to surprise you, but surely it’s only commonsense. The priest’s function is to give his deity faithful service. He doesn’t need to improvise, or take decisions, or perform magic. He memorizes his ritual and loyally and unthinkingly carries out his duties. It was once proposed that our kings should belong to the servant estate, too, because the king is the supreme servant, capable of the most utter self-sacrifice; but that was a mistake. The commons were conceded the right, on the plea that “the fool’s finger wears the crown” as the poet Vives had written, and that the priesthood and the kingship ought to be kept separate.’
    ‘A sensible decision. You get a more interesting set of kings that way and it must give the commons a sense of pride.’
    ‘It’s a fine foolish thing to wear a crown; while it lasts.’
    ‘Where do women come into this system?’
    ‘We maintain it, because we act directly on behalf of the Goddess. We appraise men; we don’t compete with them. Naturally, they treat us as the superior sex.’
    ‘But more men than women are capable of active thought.’
    ‘That’s irrelevant. We don’t regard magicians as more important than recorders because they think actively rather than passively; we regard them only as different.’
    ‘Well, as the superior sex (in the eyes of the men at least) I suppose you do no work?’
    ‘Of course we work. But in every estate women have different fields of action from men. There’s no competition between the sexes.’
    ‘Do men never appraise women?’
    ‘That isn’t the custom.’
    ‘It seems a rather one-sided arrangement.’
    ‘Yes, but the men are satisfied and we don’t complain.’
    Feeling a little crushed, I asked Sally to explain the difference between women magicians and men magicians. She said that evocatory magic was the women’s field. ‘That means removing spirits from where they have no right to be –’
    ‘For example?’ I asked.
    ‘For example, in cases of demonic possession and haunting. Or summoning people from elsewhere in