TFBT: Hubris; The Walking Tour

 I recently read an inspiring paper on classical reception by Dr. Amanda Potter (Visiting Research Fellow with the Open University.)  From a Cow in Walking Boots to Queen Victoria: A Greek mythology tour of Brighton

I wondered if I could do something at home in Petersburg, Alaska.   I touched bases with a local tour company just for logistical details.  No real plan to do the tour.  The title would be; “Hubris, the Difference between Them and Us: A Greek Mythology Tour of Petersburg”.

The tour would start at the beautiful Petersburg Public Library where currently on display, is a beauty pair of colorful wings.(1)  These will represent the Wings of Icarus of course. 

The story is that the inventor Daedalus and his young son Icarus were imprisoned in the Labyrinth by King Minos.  Minos was the son of the sky-god Zeus. He was married to the daughter of the Sun-god Helios, Queen Pasiphae.  Daedalus had done a favor for Queen Pasiphae that the king did not appreciate!  Hence the imprisonment of the inventor.  Of course, being an inventor, he easily invented a way out.  That is wings of wax and feathers for him and his boy.  Of course dad, told the boy that when they flew away from Crete for Asia Minor they would flew not fly too low over the Aegean Sea for fear of gathering moisture in their pinions or too high for fear of being scorched by the sun. But like a teenager with his dad’s car keys, once young Icarus got his wings he took off for the sky. Like monster-slaying Bellephron upon the winged horse Pegasus, Icarus thought he could fly to Olympus and join the gods.  In Bellephron’s case Zeus sent a gadfly to sting the horse. Bellephron was thrown from the saddle.  In Icarus’ case the sun-god Helios melted his wings.  The boy fell to his death in the Aegean while his helpless father could do nothing for his child but watch.  Heracles found Icarus’ body near the island of Samos. The teenager was buried with heroic honors and the neighboring waters named the Icarian Sea in his honor. 

Stop two; Viking Travel and Bruno the Bear. (2) 

(insert picture).  Bruno reminds us of the sad story about a mortal girl named Callisto. She thought she could be a friend of the goddess Artemis.  Friendship with the ancient gods and goddesses was sort of fragile and fickle thing.  Artemis was the virginal goddess of the hunt.  She and her posse of beauties roamed the hills looking for game to shot and hot springs for  skinny-dip;in.  (Greek goddesses were really into skinny-dipping.)  Of course, Artemis expected all her “girlfriends” to be virgins like she.  One day when they were all hot and sweaty from the chase they found a cool pool and quickly stripped off their short dresses.  Just as quickly Callisto’s baby-bump was revealed to the quick-tempered Artemis.  When the goddess demanded to know who the father was, Callisto said it was Artemis’ father Zeus King of the Gods.  That did not over well!  Callisto fled into the woods and Artemis flew off to Olympus to tell Zeu’s wife Hera.  Then both goddess went hunting for her. The Greek gods had some strange rule about how they couldn’t interfere with one another’s divine privileges.  The best Zeus could do for his mistress was turn her into a bear, to better hide her. The angry goddesses found her anyway and Artemis of the silver bow slew her with an arrow and they returned to Olympus.  Zeus arranged for their love child to be rescued and to be secretly raised by a nymph in a cave.  Little Arcas grew up to found the kingdom of Arcadia. “The haunted, land of song; and by the wells where most the gods frequent.” (Robert Louis Stevenson)  Zeus threw Callisto’s shaggy body into the heavens and it because the constellation called by the Romans Ursa Major, the Great Bear.  But in Alaska we call her the Big Dipper and placed her on our state flag. (3) 

 

Third Eagle Roost Park (4) There was a great battle in the heavens once; the sons of Iapetus and the Titans against the sons of Cronus and the Olympian gods.  They battled across the mountaintops for ten years.  When the Titans’ herald Prometheus saw from which side the winds of war were blowing, he betrayed his brothers and threw in his lot with the Olympian gods.

When the war ended and the male Titans had been thrown into the Pit of Tartarus, there was a big party.  Everyone that had helped Zeus and the Olympians was invited; gods, titans, demi-gods, people and even animals.  Gifts and privileges from the spoils of war distributed to all.  Prometheus, being a herald, cut up the great oxen that had been cooking for some time. For you see up to this point in the Golden Age men and gods ate together.  Rather than distributing the cuts of meat appropriately, Prometheus made two piles, one for the gods and one for people. Then the Titan asks Zeus to decide who group got which pile. But there was a trick in all this.  Like the gifts and privileges already passed out, this decision was forever.  One pile looked delicious but beneath a fine layer it was all nasty skin and dog-chewed bones.  The other pile was the good meat hidden beneath a layer of slimy innards.  But Zeus saw through the trick.  If he chose the apparent pile of innards the gods would get the good meat and fledgling humanity would starve.  If he took the apparently good meat, humanity would survive, but the gods would have nothing to eat.  Did I mention the Titan Prometheus originally fought for the other side?  Olympian Zeus, King of the Gods, was angry at the deception, but made the decision that save humankind.  What Prometheus didn’t know was that the gods of Olympus had gone vegan.  During the war they had discovered ambrosia and nectar, food and drink much better suited to the gods than the meat and wine their Titan foes ate. After the party, Zeus had his henchmen chain Prometheus to the Caucasian Mountain Range in Russia.   Hence forth, after big feasts, people burned the dog-gnawed bones on the altar in remembrance of Zeus’ kind decision.  As to the innards, Zeus gave them to his pet-eagle, who went to Russia and tore at Prometheus innards.  They grew back every night and the eagle had fresh food the next day.   (pause)  Too much of a bummer ending?  To quote the poet Pindar (Pythian 4.519)

λῦσε δὲ Ζεὺς ἄφθιτος Τιτᾶνας.

For even immortal Zeus released the Titans  \

And even now Prometheus and the rest of the Titans “live untouched by sorrow in the Islands of the Blessed along the shore of deep swirling Oceanus, feasting with the happy fallen heroes for whom the grain-giving earth bears honey-sweet fruit flourishing thrice a year.”  “There indeed men live unlaborious days. Snow and tempest and thunderstorms never enter there, but for their refreshment Zeus sends out continually the high-singing zephyrs of the west” .  Oh, and Prometheus got a shrine built for him at Rockefeller Center

Fourth, a raven somewhere on main street; or Bojer Wikan Fishermen's Memorial Park (5) and the Viking ship Vahalla with her double headed raven on the sails. .  Did you know that ravens were originally white? 

Zeus’ favorite son Apollo didn’t have much luck with the ladies.  He once made love to a mortal maiden named Coronis.  We aren’t told how she felt about this tryst with the god, but she definitely did not want him as a husband.  Neither did Hestia, Marpessa, Daphne Cassandra, Bolina, Melia, Ocyrrhoe…  Coronis chose a mortal man as her husband to be.  A raven spotted the couple making love and told Apollo.  When Apollo whined about this outrage, Zeus killed the man with a thunderbolt; mortal men sleeping with immortal goddess was a big no-no.  Apollo’s twin-sister Artemis of the silver bow slew Coronis with an arrow. Apollo and Coronis’ love-child was rescued and secretly raised in a cave.  Oh, the Raven?  When it gave Apollo the news about Coronis’ adultery Apollo blasted it, turning ravens black for all time.

M/V Zeus - Rob Schwarz,   

(If not there) Where is the Zeus?  That’s what his father should have been asking.  Zeus’ father, previous King of the Gods, heard that one of his children would hurl him from his throne as he had done to his own father.  So, he swallowed all his children upon their birth.  Zeus was the sixth and last child in the family.  When he was born, his mother wrapped a rock in a baby blanket and handed it over to Zeus’s father who swallowed it whole.  Meanwhile, Zeus’ grandmother, who was mid-wife, smuggled the child to Crete where he was secretly raised by a nymph in a cave.  (Are we seeing a pattern here?)  His cradle was hung from the ceiling so he could not be found on earth or in the sky.  He lived on honey and goat’s milk.  When he started to cry as infants will, his bodyguards the Curetes began banging their swords against their shields and began circling the divine child.  That’s where he is today

(if the boat is there)  Don’t mistake this for the god Zeus, that would be a mistake.  King Salmoneus, built a city near the source of the river Enipeus.  He thought himself better than King Zeus of Olympus.  He transfered Zeus’s sacrifices to his own altars. He drove the streets of his city, dragging bronze pots behind his chariot.  It kind of looked like he was “just married”, but he told everyone it was the sound of Zeus’s thunder, and he threw burning brands at his subjects, who pretended they were lightning. Gods don’t take kindly to this sort of thing and one day Zeus hurled a real thunderbolt, which not only destroyed Salmoneus, his chariot and all, but burned down the entire city.  

Fifth M/V Orion,   (C-605) The Giant Orion was the black sheep of the Olympian family of gods.  He was related to them.  There were various versions of his birth, which no one wanted to talk about.  He might have been Zeus’ bastard, but… well he was mortal, like us.   In short he was not from the right family, not from the right place  and definitely not one of them.  That said,  several goddesses threw themselves at him include the Goddess of the Hunt Artemis.  This didn’t go over too well with Artemis’ brother Apollo.  Apollo strongly believed in the separation of the divine race and the mortal one.  On the wall of the forecourt of his most temple, the one at Delphi he had inscribed;

γνῶθι σεαυτόν

know your place

Apollo was indignant that Orion was courting his sister, but he blew up one morning when he saw the giant taking a morning swim in the Aegean.  He was headed for the island of Chios where rumor had it he was two-timing Apollo’s sister with another goddess.  Apollo casually mentioned to his twin sister Artemis that if she was a really good shot, she’d be able to hit that dark spot bobbing in the water at some great distance.  Artemis rapidly strung her bow and let fly.  She was exuberant when her arrow hit home.  She never realized it was her mortal lover slipping beneath the waves. (If the boats not there. Look down to see if it is there.)  Of course, the goddess who loved him, saved him, and tossed him (and his favorite hunting dog ) into the starry where the jealous gods could not touch him.  You can still seem him on clear night, the constellation Orion. 

Sixth, M/V Siren - (Mike File, C-615) The Sirens were getting a little uppity.  They  were the daughters of a mere river-god, but thought themselves better than Zeus’ daughters the Muses, goddesses of the arts and sciences.  Some unkind soul suggested the nymphs challenge the goddesses to a singing contest.  The Olympian gods would be the judges of the contest.  Both choruses sang.  The gods voted for their nieces the Muses.  The Sirens were stripped of their wings and imprisoned on a deserted island.  They ended up using their divine voice to lure passing fisherman into stepping ashore and never leaving again.  (They had the same tastes as Zeus’ father.) 

Finally, Mermaid at Java Hus This will be our last visit here together in the grotto of this Nereid.  The Nereids were daughters of the Old Man of the Sea; Nereus.  He had fifty daugters.  Among them ; Light-footed Amphitrite, the nurturer of sea monsters, Fair-cheeked Ceto “The Kraken”, Oreithyia; goddess of the raging sea, Psamathe of the graceful form, who sent a wolf against Achilles’ people of Phthia.  In distance Aethopia, Queen Cassiopea had a beautiful daughter named Andromeda.  The girl was so beautiful that she would brag that Andromeda was more beautiful than the Nereids.  Goddesses don’t take kindly to this sort of thing, Amphitrite’s husband sent a tsunami into the country and in its wake the goddesses sent sea monsters.  These “gifts” from the gods are forever right?  So regularly there would be floods from the sea carrying in monster to poison the soil and eat up all the livestock.  Andromache’s father asked an oracle how to stop this ongoing catastrophe.  The reply was he had to sacrifice Andromeda to the Nereids. So there she was chained to the rock, when the hero Perseus happen to fly by.  It was love at first sight for both.  He killed the sea-monster and sacrificed it to the Nereids.    He was working for some other gods at the time, so the Nereids couldn’t interfere with his rescue of the princess.  Of course, her cowardly father and fiancée felt free to interfere with the happy couple’s bright future.  Things got really ugly after that.  But Perseus and Andromeda survived and lived happily ever after, becoming the ancestors of most of the royal family in Ancient Greece.

Other sites of mythical interest;




M/V Galatea, C-658  Galatea was called glorious and “the beautiful”. She was a Nereid and goddess of calm seas.  A roman poet said once,   "May Galatea be not unfriendly to your voyage." (Propertius, Elegies 1. 8A)  She was the lover of the Cyclops Polyphemus “Polyphemos built a shrine to Galatea near Mount Etna in gratitude for the rich pasturage for his flocks and the abundant supply of milk." (Douris, historian C3rd B.C.]  

M/V Lady Helen, B-736 Lady Helen, if Apollo’s maximum was “Know your place.”  Helen of Troy failed miserable; she didn’t know she was a goddess.  She should have noticed that her beauty was supernatural.  Surely she heard people say that she was the most beautiful woman of all time.  When she came of marrying age, every prince in Greece vied for her hand.   

She was the sole mortal daughter of Zeus, but of course she wasn’t mortal.  She was the Trojan War made manifest.  She was the epic itself.  She as an abstraction and a force of nature.  She was the Queen of Sparta.  When she left her home and husband civilization began to collapse. 

An entire generation of men would disappear from Greece and Asia Minor for her sake.  Troy and the neighboring cities would burn.  Most of the surviving Greek victors would drown on the way home.  In Greece there will be civil wars and the Dorian invasion.  She would be the cause of the Bronze Age collapse of 1179 BC. 

She did what no doom-bearing mortal could do; she was adored by King Priam, beloved by her sisters-in-law and special friend to Crown Prince Hector.  She gave the eulogy at his funeral.  On the dreadful night that Troy fell her husband Menelaus rescued her and lovingly took her home to Sparta.  It took them ten-years to get home.  When they arrived back in Sparta the Dark Ages had descended.  She was in her forties.  Her subjects line the shores waiting stones in hand.  They were going revenge themselves and all their departed loved ones. She stepped ashore and lifted her eyes to meet her greeters.  The stones fell from their hands and they welcomed her home. 

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(1) "Wings of the Phoenix" Using water color and oil pastels kids created 200 feathers.  This project was a collaborative effort between the Summer Stream Kids, Andrea Weathers and Josef Quitslund.
(2) Bruno the Bear was created by local artist Eric Larsen.  Bruno uses to have a salmon in his jaws, but it and several others go away.(3) Benny Benson a 13 year-old Alaskan Native. The blue field is for the Alaska sky and the forget-me-not, an Alaskan flower. The North Star is for the future state of Alaska, the most northerly in the union. The Dipper is for the Great Bear—symbolizing strength.
(4)  During the summer dozens of eagles will roost in the trees above this spot hoping to snatch fish in the eddies of the Wrangell Narrows below.
(5) Supported by Sons of Norway Lodge #23 and the Borough of Petersburg.  Her we acknowledge those community members who have been lost at seas or spent much of their lives working directly in the fishing industry.