It filled our hearts with a strange terror.

By tacit agreement, we were staying silent, each of us was alone in front of Beauty! The time was too sacred to be expressed in words. We climbed the last step of the Propylaea and we admired the temple shining in the morning light. The sun rose behind the Pentelic, revealing his amazing clarity, the splendor of its marble sides which sparkled under the first rays of day. As we climbed it seemed that all the life I had known until then stood out to me as a garment variegated, that I had never lived before, that I was born for the first time in this long breath of beauty, in this first contemplation. We arrived that evening in Athens crowned with purple, and dawn found us trying to climb the steps of his temple, not the trembling, the failing heart of worship.

They probably thought we were drunk or crazy, when we were only excited by the expectation of the highest and brightest of wisdom, by the expectation of blue-eyed Athena. The heavy peasants were watching us in amazement in the small train stations. Often our emotions were so violent that in order to express them, we only knew to embrace in tears.

Sometimes we could see the summit of Olympus covered with snow, sometimes we were surrounded by nymphs and dancing hamadryads came from olive trees groves. In Patras a real battle was fought in us whether we would go to Olympia or Athens, but in the end our eager anticipation to see the Parthenon prevailed, and we took the train to Athens. She recalls her family’s arrival and stay in Greece in 1904. This is an excerpt from Isadora Duncan’s autobiography, My Life (1927). Photo by Arnold Genthe, created/published between 19

Greek goddess isadora duncan dance