Cutting the Gordian Knot

In 344 B.C., Alexander the Great launched an expedition to the east, and on his way, he dropped by the city of Phrygia. Gordius, the king of Phrygia, was a wide man, and gave Alexander a difficult problem which no one had been able to solve. There was a cart which was tied to one of the palace’s pillars with a piece of rope, and a legend promised if Alexander could undo it, all parts of Asia would be under his control. Nobody could have gotten the knot untied before since it was too intricate, but to everybody’s surprise, Alexander drew his sword and cut the knot with it. After that, as the legend promised him, he went on his expedition and conquered Asia.

Generally, this story is interpreted as it is; you can solve a difficult problem by bold, determined action, and this is the origin of an English expression: cut the Gordian knot. However, the mother of Erich Kastner, a German writer, had a different point of view. In one of Kastner’s essays, he wrote his mother used to say ropes were not to cut, but to use, and if there was a knot on it, you had to work on undoing it with patience. In these words, Kastner found another lesson of the Gordian knot. It might be much quicker and easier to settle a problematic situation if you use your power or even violence. Nevertheless, it is just a contemporary solution, and it does not get rid of the prime cause of the problem.

The daring exploits of Alexander the Great have been told for hundreds of years, but only ten years after he cut the Gordian knot in Phrygia, he passed away, and the kingdom he built up in his bold, determined way simply fell into decline. Destruction cannot be a solution to any problem or conflict. If you cut a knot, what will become of the knot? It still remains, and what’s more, ropes which are cut up can never be connected without another knot. Violence and wars. Revenge and hatred. Come to think of it, many of the problems we have now might have come from Gordian knots we could not, or rather, did not undo.