Herbert Achternbusch

“It is best not to be born at all. And if born, to disappear as soon as possible. Shit. Tragedy.”

Alcibiades from Athens, pupil of Socrates, was considered the most idolised youth of his time. But he switched sides too often; a betrayal causing his death. In Achternbusch’s play, Socrates’ follower is already fleeing from the Spartans. Tormented by the hostile soldiers, he first takes refuge with his teacher, then with the courtesan Timandra, but he can’t evade his death.

"You, frequent Olympic champion, rising with steeds like chestnut trees, have sunken onto my bed and imprinted a light onto the sullen Athenians until the very end, rammed a stick up the lice-ridden Spartans’ arses and put a bit in the mouth of the foolish Persians. You mastered everything, could do everything, imagined everything, Socrates’ favourite (he wasn’t picky with the ones that came to him, but with those who stayed), you were his star, the favourite of Pericles, your uncle, who you couldn’t overtake because time destroyed your racecourse. The run of things precipitated, and the lesser won, the nice and embarrassing, the small advantage destroyed the great dream of Athens. We must roam as ghosts, glam up the cerebellum of many hucksters who become doctors of convenience and put up cages in their dim brains, believing to have caught us. How they studied our language and multi-surfaced artefacts, but the mind evaded them, the mind of uniqueness, for they come from centuries of imitation. Stop it now, men! Put the shovels from your view, hide the hacks behind the gravestones. Girls, come out with the flowers and scatter them wide, to hide how narrow this grave is!"