Delphic Maxim 111: Accept due measure

I’ve set myself the challenge of responding to each of the Delphic Maxims for 15 minutes every day.

111. Accept due measure

Greece is more mountainous and less populated than I imagined. For such an old culture, and the so-called cradle of western civilisation, its fascinating just how unassuming Greece is. Things are relatively simple.

At the moment, I’m in a car with friends, driving to the Oracle at Delphi. My usual habit of writing for 15 minutes a day is suspended while I make this pilgrimage. So many Greeks have made this trek over the past thousands of years, whether they were Spartans readying for war, or tourists looking to connect with the past.

Why does the Oracle at Delphi fascinate people so much? The site was supposed to be the ‘navel of the world’, where Kronos, Zeus’ father, tossed the rock that he swallowed which he thought was his son. Another story is that Zeus sent two ravens flying around the world in opposite directions: Delphi is where they met, indicating the navel of the world.

The priestess at Delphi – the Pythia – sat above a crack in the earth, which gave her the ability to commune with the god Apollo, who had taken Delphi as one of his sacred sites. The god of, among other things, wisdom and reason would then speak through the Pythia, foretelling prophecies in the mode of seeming riddles (the future is, after all, a confusing and unpredictable riddle itself).

The earliest book I ever loved, and it remains my favourite book, is Jostein Gaarder’s The Solitaire Mystery. In it, young Hans Thomas and his father journey from Oslo in Norway to Athens in Greece, in search of his lost mama. Hans Thomas’ father is a philosopher, and along the way they stop by Delphi – fascinated by the oracle. I think this is where my fascination came from – a book so well written, so transformative and imaginative that it stuck with me. So visiting Delphi today feels like a personal odyssey, to see the oracle.

So we saw it – this huge site with Mount Parnassus soaring into the sky above. The Temple of Apollo is impressive – dark stones stacked into columns, the altar where the Pythia used to make her prophecies shot through with weeds and time’s decay.

The small towns that surround Delphi have tiny streets and vibrant colours, they are green with trees, the buildings are made of stone all with balconies looking down on the valley. And here I am to see these beautiful places, alongside thousands of others – secular pilgrimage to ancient sites.

And on the side of the temple of Apollo, these maxims were inscribed.

Alright, I need to tie today’s visit to the maxim, but accept due measure is a tough one. We’ve canvassed in previous maxims the need to get the timing right, to be strategic, and to accept the consequences of our actions (and to properly think them through so we don’t regret them).

My visit to Delphi was overdue, for a site that I’ve given thought to for decades. I can accept this wait – for intellectual maturity – as due measure, and the payoff is a grander appreciation of the site of the oracle.

Or it’s just pretty.