Monday, November 16, 2015

TFBT: Greater Than His Father

 "Charlemange did not want his daughters married for strategic reasons, fearing political rivalry from their potential husbands. "  Bertha; Wikipedia

None of the first generation Titanesses or second generation non-Olympian Titanesses chose  life-long virginity as a lifestyle.  They all apparently bore and raised children.  In suspicious contrast life-long virginity was a self choice among Olympian goddesses.  Zeus daughters Artemis and Athena along with his sister Hestia chose to maintained their virginity (HH to Aphrodite).  Likewise his early ally Hecate (Apollonius Rhodiius 3.840). There was always a concern among the Olympians that a child of theirs might prove greater than his father.  (For example; Poseidon's sons Otus & Ephialtes, Poseidon and Zeus' potential son Achilles and Hera's son Typhon).   Maybe this supposed self restraint was "fearing political rivalry from their potential husbands. " 

The only other Titanic family to be on the winning side of the Titanomachy were the Olympian's presumed allies the Hyperionides; Helios, Selene and Eos. Aphrodite cursed Eos and Helios with a passion for mortals.  (Apollodorus 1.27 & Metamorphoses 41.69). Their sister showed similar tendency.  The curse conveniently reduces the chances of them producing offspring greater than Zeus .

The oracle about Thetis predicted that she could bear to Zeus or Poseidon ( and probably Hades) a son greater than his father. (Hyginus, Fabulae 54). Did Zeus know this and rig the contest when they threw lots and divided up the cosmos?   

"Haides was usually regarded as an infertile god, for a god of the dead should, by his very nature, be incapable of siring children." (Aaron Atsma). 

Poseidon got stuck with the sea and was obligated for political reasons to bed Pontides to insure his influence under the sea.  This clan of sea gods produced most the monsters in Greek myth.  Inter-breeding with them produced a brood of hybrid children for Poseidon.  Triton (Theogony 930) had the head of a god and "hairy trunk of a man to the waist and below the belly of a great fish." (Aeneid 10.209) and was Poseidon's son by the Nereid Amphitrite.  The Cyclops Polyphemus was Poseidon's son by the phorcide Thoosa.  And the winged horse Pegasus he sired on the Phorcide Medusa.  Not exactly threats to Zeus' throne.  Could Zeus had arranged this too!

So, like Charlemange, maybe Zeus convinced his daughters, a sister and cousin to be virgins.  Maybe he Restricted the blood lines of his allies and brothers.    What do you think?




19 comments:

  1. From my theogony chapter:
    "The Olympians and the second generation Titans also sired children. At some time Zeus, who was often thinking aloud in those days, began to talk about the need to control fertility so that not to overpopulate the Earth. Once Prometheus heard his indignation that Atlas' wife, the Oceanid Pleione, had followed her husband in his exile and was now bearing children to him: "I haven't sent him there to breed!" The Titan reminded him: "Hey, you are talking about my brother!" Zeus of course did not apologize. Prometheus grew increasingly suspicious that the prisoners in Tartarus would never be released, even for the sole reason to prevent their reproduction... The most outrageous thing was that Zeus, while talking about the dangers of overpopulation and how inevitable the control of reproduction was, did not make any effort whatsoever to control his own reproduction. By the time when he was indignant about Atlas' large family, the number of his own children was already double-digit."

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    1. Maya,

      "Prometheus indigation". You give the god who betrayed his own brothers the moral highground right before the betrays Olympians?

      Prometheus is suspicious that Zeus will never release the prisoners in Tartarus? So much for Forethought predicting the future. "Even immortal Zeus released the Titans" is a proverb documented by Pindar

      Bill

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    2. You are right that not only Zeus but also Prometheus is indignant, though it is not explicitly mentioned in the text.
      When my father was in military school during WWII, the brother of one of his comrades became a communist guerrilla. The commander of the company told all other young men that whoever would tease the loyal brother because of the guerrilla, or even just mention this affair, would be severely punished.
      In a civil war or a revolution, it is common for family members to take opposing sides, because people are more loyal to their views than to their family members. At least in Europe. Maybe the US civil war was different. I don't know; my only source about how it affected ordinary people is "Gone by the wind".
      After Mecone, many of my Olympians are angry at Prometheus for betraying them. He tells his Olympian friends, "It is curious how everybody thinks that I owe them loyalty."

      There is something in the Prometheus Bound that puzzles me. We hear how the hero changed sides not because of a true change of heart but just to be on the winning side. However, this is told not by any of Prometheus' enemies, as we would expect, but by himself to the Chorus of naive listeners who at the end cling to his side. To dismiss all doubt, Hephaestus, who presumably knows history, gives Prometheus moral high ground (verse 18).
      It seems there is something about the ethics of ancient Greeks that we don't know - at least I don't know.

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    3. My Zeus also releases the Titans. However, Prometheus does not know this until much later.
      In my story, he has predictive power but it is imperfect and limited by uncertainties of reality itself. He could predict an eclipse even without using calculations, but many events are probability events, and he sees different possible outcomes in cloudy images. He could not predict a future birth before the child is actually conceived. (Curiously, my mother in-law once predicted correctly 3 pregnancies in a row, of which only the first one was ongoing. But my rational part says it was a mere coincidence :-).)

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    4. Maya,

      "mere coincidence" is alway the last resort of rationality and not to satisfying.

      Prometheus should have seen what was coming. The only possible end to the never-ending feud between Chaos (Gaia and other primordal gods) vs Order (Cronus and Zeus) is come sort of compromise. And end to reproduction

      Bill

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    5. Maya,

      I would love to hear more about your father's comrade and his turn coat brother. If you want a different view of the Civil War read Mary Chestnut. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Boykin_Chesnut

      As to Prometheus; he was his father's son. Befriending us was just his attempt to gain the throne. He was just like his two elder brothers. Just as the two brothers in your dad's story were boyh passionate shoulders

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    6. The brothers' name was Staevski. I can find more about the Communist. His first name was Toncho. He has a short Wikipedia page where you can see his photo:
      https://bg.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A2%D0%BE%D0%BD%D1%87%D0%BE_%D0%A1%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%B5%D0%B2%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B8
      He was killed in April 1944 by friendly fire, at age 19. It was deliberate, not accidental killing. There is a rumor about disagreements in the guerrilla group because of a woman. However, my father gives another explanation which I find more plausible. He says that by this time, everyone already knew that the Allies would win (Bulgaria was made Communist on Sept. 9, 1944). So resistance fighters grew increasingly preoccupied with career considerations. Toncho Staevski with his high school diploma was more educated than some 90% of the guerrillas and had already served for a short time as deputy commander. So most likely some career climber decided to remove a competitor.
      Toncho also wrote poetry which was published posthumously.
      His brother was well treated in Communist Bulgaria. Unlike most officers educated before 1944, he was allowed to remain in the military and reached the rank of Navy colonel.

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    7. "The only possible end... is come sort of compromise. And end to reproduction."
      Yes, you cannot have entities who are immortal, capable to reproduce by creating new immortals, and at the same time occupying physical space in our world. You have to sacrifice at least one of the three.

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    8. Maya,

      I just finished re-reading the Corsican Brothers by Dumas. Too bad he isn't on Earth any more, he'd turn the Staevski Brothers in to a best selker instantly. Thanks for the story.
      Bill

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  2. A little further:
    "As years were passing, something was becoming more and more apparent, something not quite a deviation but still strange and worrying. While both sexes had been equally distributed in earlier births, now girls were becoming more and more prevalent. Nereus and the Oceanid Doris had only daughters, the Nereids. Atlas and Pleione also had 12 daughters and no son so far. Zeus himself had from his first seven wives until his marriage to Hera a total of 19 daughters and only one son, Apollo.
    Zeus stubbornly insisted that there was nothing to worry about. He was afraid that someone would do to him what he had done to his father Cronus, so he preferred fewer boys and more girls to be born. As soon as the girls grew up, he pressed them to make a vow of virginity, if they were his daughters, and to lay with him, if they weren't. He often told Hera that with the current male-to-female ratio it was impossible to perpetuate old-fashioned Titanic relics such as marriage, because for most maidens there were no husbands anyway..."

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  3. Maya,
    Okay, I Like this one. To add to your analysis Helen was Zeu sole mortal daughter which makes the rest of his mortal children; male demi-gods to wed the over abundant population of nymphs

    Bill

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  4. Thank you! BTW, I am indebted to you for the explanation why so many of Zeus' daughters remained virgins.

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  5. "Befriending us was just his (Prometheus') attempt to gain the throne."
    In Hesiod, this seems to be the case. I doubt, however, that it was so in Aeschylus. We cannot be certain without the sequel. Power struggle is a classic plot, but it is difficult for the participants to win sympathy and hence become good tragic heroes. See Sophocles' Ajax. At the end of the play, at least I cannot help thinking: "Natural selection in action... Hopefully the boy has inherited some common sense and compassion from his mother."
    Or see the suitors of Penelope. Has anyone ever written a tragedy about them? It is plain repulsive how these young men, sons of the elite, aspire to the throne by courting a woman twice their age and partying non stop for years without doing a single damn useful thing. (Besides, their mere number makes them unsympathetic. Prometheus is at least one long individual against the System.)

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  6. Typo: "lone" instead of "long", of course.
    Mary Shelley modeled Frankenstein after Prometheus. I model Prometheus after Frankenstein. Like Frankenstein, but more so. Frankenstein doesn't supply his monster with a fertile female monster, doesn't align the monster chromosomes to allow cross-fertilization, doesn't brag to his wife about the monster creation, doesn't supply the monster with resources, tools and skills to ensure success, doesn't rebel against the government on behalf of the monster, and doesn't entrust his only son in the monster's foster care. My Prometheus does all of the above. To me, this is much more interesting than some power struggle.

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  7. Maya,

    Yeah, the lone individual against the system is part of our romance with him. But, that's our perspective. Imagine what the Titans thought of him! No living with them on the Isle of the Blest when he was released. Nor Olympus. Maybe self banished to a lonely garden some where like Laertes. Or hidden away by Oceanus like the goddesses during the Titanomachy.

    Bill

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  8. I've just figured out what's wrong with Hesiod's cosmos and why nobody likes Hesiod very much. In his world, everyone is a psychopath. Eros may exist and be a powerful cosmic principle and bla-bla-bla, yet there is no love, only power struggle. Maybe Gaea has some love for her children, but even this is a matter of interpretation.

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    1. Maya,
      My personal dislike of Hesiod comes from his constant whining in Works & Days. Ugh!

      Bill

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  9. We know that the Titans eventually forgave Prometheus, but you are right that he could not live with them when he was released (as the marriage of Heracles and Megara could not survive the killing of their children).
    I've asked myself before, where does Prometheus live after his release? According to some translations of the Oedipus at Colonus, that sacred grove is not only devoted to Poseidon and him but he really lives there. As you suggested!
    To me, however, this wouldn't work. He is not healthy enough for this, and Zeus would never let him unsupervised in the vicinity of human settlements. Oceanus doesn't like him and so I think wouldn't shelter him.
    Why not Olympus? To me, this is exactly where he goes. Olympians forgive Thetis, why not Prometheus?

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  10. Prometheus' siding with Zeus is a cosmic mistake, but from my perspective, it doesn't come out of nowhere.

    "The light intolerance of Hades remained unnoticed for a long time, because Cronus swallowed his children immediately after his birth, fearing that one of them could depose him. Prometheus had a childhood memory of his mother threatening him: "If you do mischief, I'll give you to Uncle Cronus to eat you!" Later, he doubted the story about the swallowed children and suspected that it was all invented. However, it was the pure truth, though no one could explain how the victims passed through the esophagus."

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