TFBT: Book Review "Murder Among Friends" Part I

 

First, “Murder Among Friends” is a great title.  Elizabeth S. Belfiore’s excellent book is subtitled “Violation of Philia in Greek Tragedy”.  The Ancient Greek word; philia refers to your closest friends and blood relatives.  Belfiore says,  “The Greek concept of kinship included relatives to the degree of children of cousins.”  Professor Nagy calls these your near and dear ones.   

 

The first chapter is a review of betrayed philia relationships in Greek literature.  The quick summary is that “epic either lacks or fails to emphasize violence among blood kin or spouses.  There is no mention in Homer of a sacrifice of Iphigeneia by her father."  “On the other hand, violation of philia is an important element in most of the extant tragedies.” If you don’t know Greek tragedy well, some of the most famous plays include cannibalism, incest, patricide, matricide, human sacrifice, suicide, mariticide, infanticide and genocide all of which happens between cousins or closer.  I read elsewhere recently, “Just as Dante put those who defrauded kinsmen and benefactors at the bottom of the Infernal pit, the Greeks saw this kind of fraud as beyond remediation. ¹

 

Chapter One and Two together discuss purification and supplication.  In epic the decision to accept a suppliant “is usually swift and without painful consequences.” In the olden days of Greek myth some criminal comes to you for forgiveness; a complete stranger.  You sacrifice a pig, more or less adopt him and call it a day.      “Moreover, reference to pollution (is) absent from epic” compared to supplication in tragedy.  Of all people Odysseus complained in his own epic that “any one with even a moderate amount of right feeling knows that he ought to treat a guest and a suppliant as though he were his own brother.” (Homer, Odyssey 8.545)

 

“Although (suppliants) are complete strangers in epic, in all but one of the four suppliant tragedies, suppliants are related by blood to those whom they supplicate.”     Supplicates in tragedy aren’t necessarily exiled criminals, sometimes they are people running from criminals as is the case of the daughters of Danaus one of Belfiore’s major examples in a play called “The Suppliants”. 

 

Supplication may occur at a sacred place or it may occur at the knees of the supplicated individual.  The suppliant carries "hiketeria", suppliant branches.   He crouches by while making contact altar, sacred object, or with the knees, right or chin of the person he supplicates.  To accept a suppliant, the person supplicated uses his right hand to grasps the suppliant’s left and raises him formally for what is technically called “the anastais"...   Another gesture often accompanies the anastais is the leading of the suppliant to a place suitable to a guest.  In "The Suppliants", Danaus instructs his daughters on supplication etiquette, telling them to sit ...where the statues are and to hold the branches in their left hands.  This will leave them free to stretch out their right hands in a gesture of supplications.

 

In the third chapter Belfiore makes a compelling argument that there is a relationship between ritual pertaining to a suppliant and that of a bride.  The daughter of Danaus claim Io as a common ancestress with the people that supplicate.  Belfiore explains that “Io (was) the mythological prototype of the Greek bride as respected suppliant.”  Aristotle is quoted that  “Concerning a wife…the Pythagoreans say that one should least of all do wrong to her, for she is like a suppliant and one led from the hearth.   Belfiore sees close parallels between raising a suppliant and leading a bride.   “The groom nearly always takes the bride’s left hand or wrist with his right.”  There is a great discussion about wedding imagery in Heracles supplication to Theseus in Euripides play of the former’s name.   Belfiore also point out that “Medea’s marriage to Jason began, in a significant reversal of the traditional procedures with his supplication of her. 

 

Chapter Four discusses Sophocles’ “Philoctetes” concentrating on the charter of Neoptolemus, son of Achilles.  Neoptolemus was ordered by Agamemnon to help Odysseus trick Philoctetes into giving up the bow given him by Heracles. “Neoptolemos asks to be allowed to do reverence to it as to a god.”  Belfiore explained that “the bow has never left Philoctetes hands; it is untouchable as well as sacred.”   Neoptolemus ends up deciding to do the right thing.  He lets Philoctetes keep his bow and promises to take him home rather than returning to Troy.  “Neoptolemus is willing to sacrifice glory for friendship.”  Which explains the meaning of his name “New Warrior” because his father the ultimate warrior did the opposite; sacrificing his friend Patroclus for unfailing glory.   After a length and thorough analysis of Neoptolemus and his friendship with the title character, Belfiore brings in traditions from other sources to round out her portrayal of the Peleuides.  A lot of what she brings up makes the son of Achilles and grandson of Peleus look back.  But summoning all these other traditions, Belfiore fails to deal with the tradition of Neoptolemus age.   Belfiore is in good company; every poet and analyst dealing with is play fails to include the fact that Achilles’ son is 11 years old at the time of the play.

 

Chapter 5; Sleeping with the Enemy discussed examples of women who slept with (married) the murderer of her kinsman; and “authentes”.  It doesn’t end well for all involved.  One short quote will make the point.  “Marriage with an “authentes” killer of a relative is one of the greatest of evils in Greek thought…Clytemnestra’s terrible marriage with Agamemnon began when he killed her husband and child.”

 

I am still reading this wonderful book.  It is slow going because there are so many moment of quotable text and thought provoking insights.    More later.

 

 

 

 

 

 

¹http://bibleandgreeks.blogspot.com/2015/02/ixion-and-theatrics-in-philoctetes.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ClassicsReadingsSarasota+%28Classics+Readings%3A+Sarasota%29

 

 

 

 

TFBT: Homeric Conversation

I started reading Deborah Beck’s book with a little trepidation.  Several people recommended “Homeric Conversation” to me after I presented a paper on proper personal conversation in epic at Hour 25’s first symposium.    After a few tentative peeks to see if Beck would destroy my pet theory, I began reading with enthusiasm. 

 Beck’s work on Homeric conversations evolved from the popular field of research into “speeches”. (My work is descended from the popular field of research into “prayer”.)   This book is incredibly well researched and incredibly well written. I found it full of close readings, statistics, sharp insights and asides worth tweeting.  For example, did you know that “both neoanalysts and oral theorists tend to be unitarian in their attitude towards Homeric epics?”  Who knew?  

Her book is full of insights; like the fact that Homeric speakers are rarely interrupted, the Homeric formula that initiates a reply and the fact that in all two hundred incidents of that formula a version of the verb ameib-.  She does a great analysis of the Telemachy and suggests the lame “duex de machina” finale of the Odyssey was a late addition. She writes some really good stuff about Penelope’s speeches and discusses the field of conversation analysis, in a way I found understandable.  (Did you know we intentional categorize people when we talk to them?  Sort of like calling a stray dog; “Good dog.”)

If you have any interest in Homeric conversations and speeches, this is the interesting and very readable book for you.  (As to my own research, Beck helped great in better defining my own research and giving me the phraseology to better express my thoughts come publishing time.)

TFBT: Random Notes on Hesiod’s Cosmos

Recently I was on the road for six weeks.  I took this as a great opportunity to re-read Strauss-Clay’s great book.  She provides a close reading of each of Hesiod’s works individually and then compares and contrasts them as we see Hesiod’s concept of the cosmological process unfold.    

The Two Perspectives.   

What I didn’t remember from my last reading was Clay’s proposal that “Works and Days” is written from a mortal perspective while, “The Theogony” is for a divine audience.   (  Maya M.  suggests that " So Hesiod here has completely dissociated himself from the human viewpoint and taken the viewpoint of his divine characters. And not even of Zeus, but of his opponents. Phorkys is called "brave", like the Titans during the Titanomachy.") Clay describes the apobatic moment of the Muses departure from their bath places on Permessu or Hippocrene or Olme or dancing ground of Helicon and their arrival where Hesiod tends his sheep as “the moment of transition from the eternal time of the gods to the temporality of mankind…the Muses have arrived at the limit of the world of men…the high pastures where notoriously gods and human beings may encounter each other…In the meantime, the change in the Muses’ name and address – from Heliconian to Olympian –underlines the movement from a localize epichoric, perspective to a PanHellenic one. “  Clay juxtaposes “divine and human temporalities as past and present, eternal and ephemeral”  I would add, that even the gods are immortal, the temporality is “once and forever” whereas generations of men die and are reborn eternally.   

In Works & Days “he revises the earlier teaching of the Muses by telling us that on earth, it turns out there are two Irides – not one, as claimed in the Theogony.  What his means is that from the point of view of the gods, there is only one Eris” This might be more understandable if we recall from Hippolytus that Artemis declared the gods are not allowed to interfere with one another    “Hesiodically, Eris and Hubris precede the birth of Dike.  Dike enters the world of men only much later with the fourth race, the age of heroes.” 

 

The Alternative Theogonies

 

Clay states that “Homer and Hesiod allude to alternative theogonic traditions”, and “a developed genre of theogonic poetry”.  She lists the Homeric Hymn to Hermes in her footnotes “where Hermes enchants Apollo with his singing of a theogony which likewise recounts the birth of the gods in order and their acquisition of their allotted shares.”  She adds that “Homer seems to know of a cosmogonic model in which Oceanus and Tethys were the primordial parents.”   I would point out that the Orphic Hymn to Nyx suggests that;

 “Nyx, parent goddess, source of sweet repose, from whom at first both Gods and men arose”;

and Zeus’ awe of the goddess seems to support that thrice-prayed for, best beloved, most fair Night is a goddess of matriarchal importance.    I’ve argued elsewhere that Homer’s treatment of Thetis and Eurynome is a subtle acknowledgement to theogonies that make each of the water goddesses, creatrix in their own rights.  (See http://shortstories-bill.blogspot.com/2014/11/tfbt-homer-is-thessalian.html) 

The Five Ages of Man (Discussed elsewhere http://shortstories-bill.blogspot.com/2014/11/tfbt-clays-five-ages-of-man.html) 

 

The Genealogy of the Gods 

If you don’t know Hesiod’s basic premise, it is that once upon a time, there was nothing but the unfathomable abyss of Chaos.  From it arose primordial Earth (Gaea). Clay observes that Mountains, Nymphs and the barren salt Sea (Pontus) were all born of the Earth without intercourse.   With the latter she became mother of all the primordial sea gods and sea monsters, with the possible exception of Nereus who Pontus bore asexually.   Also, to Earth was born the starry Heaven Uranus. ”Uranus, the Heavens to cover or enclose her (Gaia) in all direction as if she somehow required such delimitation.”  In this position there was little opportunity for grow in the world, until Cronus emasculated his father and for the first time Hyperion (the sun) arose splitting the earth and sky.  Also spilling from the mother’s womb were 17 other primordial deities.  The drops of divine ichor that fell to Earth would engender the ash-maidens; Erinyes and giants.  His genitals tossed into the sea would generate the mighty Aphrodite.¹   

Cronus becomes King of the Gods until overthrown by his son Zeus. 

 

Zeus distributes the honors and privileges of the gods among his kin and allies at Mecone.  “Zeus secures the instrument of organized violence which are characteristic of political power; an armament industry (the Cyclopes) and a mercenary army (the Hundred-Arms).”  Clay adds to this the children of the Styx.  “Zeus promised honor (time) while she in return gave Zeus the gift of her children, Violence, Power, Zeal and Victory.”    As I write this it occurs to me that Styx had no grandchildren, the first generation of Cyclops were slain without heirs and two out of the three “Hundred-arms” served as jailers in Tartarus a realm notorious for its lack of fertility.  (Note Queen Persephone’s infertility.)  Elsewhere I’ve noted the choice of virginity which is unique goddesses in Zeus’s extended family and that goddesses in the only other titan family allied to the Olympians, the Hyperionides were cursed with an obsession with mortal men.   Zeus seemed to have made a real effort to thwart the birth of an adversary.  Finally he sires a few abstractions to decorate the place.   

Meanwhile, from Chaos arose Nyx (Night) and Darkness (Erebus) who had a brood of generally unpleasant deities and daemon, the least likeable being born from Nyx’s attempt at asexual reproduction.   Maya M refers to these daemons as the “bio-weapons in Pandora’s jar”.    Clay notes Gaia’s “line remains completely separate from that of Chaos – intercourse between these two fundamentally opposed cosmic entities seems impossible.” ²     

 Prometheus the King

 So if you don’t know the story of Zeus and Prometheus; here it is.  They were cousins.  When Zeus and his sibling overthrew the Titan King and made a grab for power, Prometheus and his three brothers, the sons of Iapetus led the resistance against them.   Hesiod…makes the Iapetids appear to be the younger sons of the family of Cronus.  .. this genealogical sleight-of-hand (has to do with) the succession myth, where it is always the younger son who disposes his father.  And significantly Prometheus is the only figure who share the epithet ankulometis “of crooked – devising” with his uncle Cronus.  Prometheus either through the gift of foresight or on the advice of Themis, switches sides, bring his dullard brother Epimetheus with him.    At Mecone (see above) Prometheus arranged for the Bronze Men to get the better part of the community meal.  In revenge Zeus withholds the fire that would have cooked the meal, Prometheus steals it from the gods, the gods withdraw the easy living that required no farming and burden men with Pandora, the first woman who brings all the illness of the world as a dowry to her husband Epimetheus. 

Clays asks “Why did he take up the cause of mankind?”  Clay suggests that the crafty Titan took up the mortal cause in order to court them as allies in his own bid for power.  He ends up leaving “mankind permanently unable to escape its human condition, a condition founded on the institutions of sacrifice, agriculture and marriage and predicated on Hope.”   

 

_______________________________________________

¹  Clay’s foot note to the castration of Uranus and the release of his children from Gaia’s womb “Hesiod seems to be punning on locos, “ambush” and the root loc-, relating to child-birth”    A similar pun is reported on the soldiers issuing from the belly of the Trojan Horse   

²   Well, at least until  Iliad 14. 231 when Hera weds Nyx’s son Hypnos to one of the Graces.

TFBT: Clay's Five Ages of Man

Recently I was on the road for six weeks.  I took this as a great opportunity to re-read Strauss-Clay’s great book; "Hesiod's Cosmos".  She provides a close reading of each of Hesiod’s works individually and then compares and contrasts them as we see Hesiod’s concept of the cosmological process unfold.  What I didn’t remember from my last reading was Clay’s proposal that “Works and Days” is written from a mortal perspective while, “The Theogony” is for a divine audience.

For those unfamiliar with Hesiod, his five ages are; Golden, a time in which the gods shared their sacrifices with men at the same table and the living was easy.  Then the Silver, the Bronze, the Heroic and finally the Iron. 

Clay says, not me, “the men of the Race of Gold (and they appear indeed to have been males, since otherwise they could not have lived is such a state of bliss!) did not have the ability to reproduce themselves and without this ability they quickly became extinct. “They were ruled by Cronus (Pausanias, Description of Greece 5. 7. 6 :)   Likewise he came to rule a similar paradise called the Isle of the Blest; an age yet to come for some of us.  (Hesiod, Works and Days 156)

The next age was the Silver Age, where men lived for a hundred years as teenagers in the care of their mother.  Being disrespectful of the gods and too lazy to offer sacrifice, they too passed away.  Clay’s foot note suggests that “Zeus come to power only in the course of the silver age.” and she states “Neither the race of gold nor that of silver find a place in the Theogony.  This absence provocatively suggests that from the Olympian perspective… no golden age of mankind ever existed. “ 

Clay quotes Hesiod’s Theogony 143-5, “Father Zeus made another race of men, the third brazen, in no way resembling the silver one, from ash-tree nymphs” and then several pages later she says that “Hesiod describes how the drops of blood from Uranus’ several member fell upon Earth, who from them conceived the Giant and the Nymphs called Meliai.  From these the scholiast asserts, spring the ancestors of the human race.”   Meliai are ash nymphs and the Giants birth subsequent to the ascension of Zeus (Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 1. 34 - 38 fits nicely with the timeline Clay establishes for the five ages. “Hesiod remarks, they do not eat bread… One might well wonder what these bronze men ate.  They most resemble…the Spartoi, who sprang from eh earth fully armed and quickly set about killing each other off.” In answer to the question as to what the Bronze men ate, her footnote reads, “The Scholia suggest cannibalism or hinging wild beasts.” 

The Bronze men were fond of war and ruthless.  They got caught up in a contest of wits between wise Zeus and his sly cousin Prometheus.   …“the Bronze men.  They had fire, which they used for warfare and armor that made them a threat to the gods.  Prometheus' attempt to usurp Zeus’ power through an alliance with these powerful men prompted Zeus to deprive them of fire…”  When, “Prometheus restores fire to men, their status is likewise restored for all time to its precarious intermediate position between god and beast.”  Zeus arranges for Prometheus’ brother to accept the gift of Pandora “Her arrival inaugurates the human institution of marriage…unlike the promiscuous beast who practice incest and the similarly promiscuous gods, human beings uniquely regulate sexuality and reproduction through marriage…men eternally reenact the folly of Epimetheus.   Within the jar that accompanied Pandora’s dowry were all the ills born of Nyx, which spilled out into the mortal world. 

Next came the heroic age.  An age of demi-gods born to clear the world of monsters and in the case of the greatest of the demi-god Heracles to defeat the giants.  The notion that the creation of Heracles was a conscious effort on the part of the gods comes from [Apollodorus, Library 2.4.8] where “Zeus came by night and prolonging the one night threefold …and bedded with (Heracles’ mother) Alcmena” In other words Zeus put some effort into siring the greatest of the heroes.  Clay comments additionally, “According to Hesiod, the city comes into being only with the race of heroes.”

Lastly comes our age; the Iron Age.   “the mythloogical tradition relates that from a certain moment on, the gods distanced themselves from intimate contact with human beings and refused to continue to bring forth such children of mixed parentage.”  “Even in Homeric epics, Zeus intervenes in the activities of the heroes only indirectly through messengers, omens and sings.”  Nor does he ever appear on stage in Athens. 

This should bring us to the end of our discussion on the ages of men, except for a lament made by Hesiod.  He wished that rather than being born into this age when men are mix of the four previous ages that he’d been born in the previous age (Heroic) or the one to come, presumably Golden.  The irony of Hesiod wish is that not everyone born in the Heroic age was an all-powerful demi-god; he had just as much chase of being a poor shepherd then and there as he was in his here and now.  As to being born into the next age, that is most like to come about after his death, if the Hero Hesiod can attain the Isle of the Blest  (Homer, Odyssey 4. 56o)  where;

“indeed men live unlaborious days. Snow and tempest and thunderstorms never enter there, but for men's refreshment Oceanus sends out continually the high-singing breezes of the West”

 

 

 

TFBT: Heroes as Performers

 

"Do not try me like a simple child, or a woman, who does not know war-work.  I know well fights and man-slayings, I know to the right, I know to the left how to move my ox-hide shield that I own for warring. I know how to leap into the moil of swift horses,  I know how to dance to hostile Ares in the close fighting. "                                                                        Hector at Iliad 7.235-241

At Hour 25 our classical studies club is studying Richard Martin’s Language of Heroes.  Currently, chapter 3; Heroes as Performers.

After getting over;  being called “deracinated” and the romantic notion that Mycenean noblemen orated in dactyl hexameter, I found Martin’s analysis of each major character’s speeches, amazing!  I am just noting highlights and points new to me.  His analysis is much fuller and much more amazing that the gleanings here.

He starts with Nestor of course , which I’ve reviewed elsewhere.  I can add here that according to Martin; “Irony…is not in Nestor's repertoire nor is punning.” And that “Nestor utilizes a diachronic rhetoric of tradition versus contemporary situation.”

I’ve always wondered about Thersites performances.  Martin says he is “ quite literally without meter in his performance.” 

Agamemnon's speeches are driven by fear of  “ receiving a bad reputation”, that he is poor at apportioning moirai and has no clue that his extravagant gifts listed by the Ambassadors in Book IX will look like he is trying to buy Achilles.

Odysseus uses irony and puns.  In commands, he is inclusive, using a first-person plural.

Martin reads Diomedes' and Glaukos' storytelling on the battlefield as vieled threats as to what they will do to one another on the battle field.

Hector is “constantly preoccupied with the winning of reputation” and public opinion.  Maybe too preoccupied considering the conversation he had with himself before the walls of Troy as Achilles closed in.    Martin explains that Hector “knows that the gods cannot help him… so he cares nothing about whether the birds go rightwards to sun and dawn or to the left, to misty dusk"

 Martin demonstrates that Achilles is in command; “Achilles directs the Achaeans to ask … the cause of Apollo's anger … He authorizes speech … defends the speaker, Kalkhas. .. has taken the initiative to call an assembly, another indication of his respect for speech.”  He used words rather than the sword on Agamemnon; uses  scepter dramatically, tells a dramatic tale to his mother and “even coach her in techniques of argumentation to win him honor from Zeus. “   His style is open, communicative, adaptable.  Achilles' perspective is larger.  His language likes Odysseus’ is inclusive and explanatory.  He also uses “The device of directing another to speak, so that we may both know" which  gives us the impression that Achilles cares about what his listener thinks.  “ Achilles uses command to pass on that authority to others,” From person experience as Crew Boss of the Santa Fe Hotshots, I can tell you this is an effective, flattering empowering technique.  “this self-deprecating strategy fits with Achilles' preference for two-way communication between speaker and addressee. And of course, the denial of command only increases respect for the hero “

TFBT: Correct Conversation in the Iliad

In preparation for a live discussion on the Language of Heroes Professor Richard Martin asked members of Hour 25 to make sense in context of the speech-acts in three passages of The Iliad;

·      Text A - Iliad 1.1-52,  Chryses and Agamemnon

·      Text B -  Iliad 20.176-258,   Aeneas and Achilles

·      Text C – Iliad 11.618 – 654, Nestor, Machaon and Patroclus

And then try to apply our sense of the overall speech-situation to Text D - Iliad

6.119 -236, Glaucus and Diomedes.  Unfortunately my observations seem to have turned the post and gone back the other way.  But I suppose that is to be expected with discussing conversation and Nestor.

Here’s what I got so far;

In “Text A” the priest Chryses demands the return of his daughter in the name of the god Apollo.  Lord Agamemnon  “spoke fiercely to him”, and maybe with good reason.  Based on the examples of Thetis supplication of Zeus and Priam’s of Achilles, Chryses was not supplicating Agamemnon  properly.  If the priest had maybe Agamemnon’s response might have been similar to Nestor in “Text C”; “he sprang from his seat, seized his (Patroclus’ s) hand, led him into the tent, and bade him take his place among  them”  Of course that didn’t happen, Agamemnon sent the priest away.  “The old man feared him and obeyed.”  But as we know from Hour 24 in HeroesX just because one party goes away, the dialogue doesn’t end, rather “Not a word he spoke, but went by the shore of the sounding sea and prayed apart to King Apollo whom lovely fine haired Leto had borne.”  Chryses continuation of the conversation foreshadows Achilles own prayer apart by the sounding sea.  And we all know how affective that was for Achilles in the Iliad and for Demeter in her Homeric Hymn.

In Text B when I read Aeneas say, “I will, can brag and talk unseemly…We could fling taunts… and talk all sorts of ways” I took this for the normal sort of chest puffing, trash-talk you can witness before some sporting events and on the playground before recess.  It wasn’t until Text D when  I heard the graciousness of the son of Hippolokhos and the son of Tydeus on the battlefield that I realized Achilles barely got a word in edgewise and that Aeneas was disrespectful of Achilles lineage. Maybe if Aeneas hadn’t been talking like Thersites he might have walked away with the much coveted armor of Achilles.

Text C brings us a man who knows how to converse.  Nestor as host takes Machaon to the shore so they can dry their shirts in the breeze, while a wise woman sets a meal for them.  And the mixing of the wine took on such precision and ritual that it conjured up images of Demeter’s sacred drought  then “they fell talking with one another”.  You just know this was a great talk.  Enter Patroclus, greeted graciously as mentioned above.  His response to the offer of wine is almost as curt as Demeter’s had been.  He gets what he wants and is gone.

In Text D two chivalrous Bronze Age nobles exchange gracious respectful words  and part with gifts to amaze their peers for generations to come.  One would have the armor of Diomedes and the other armor of gold.  (As to Glaucus taking leave of his wits; keep in mind these are the words of an envious iron age bard who sings for his dinner singing of two bronze age heroes whose world view was as different from his as ours is of all of them. )

Visit the full text of Professor Martin's book at the Center for Hellenic Studies; http://chs.harvard.edu/wa/pageR?tn=ArticleWrapper&bdc=12&mn=3366
 

TFBT: Nart Sagas from the Caucasus

While exploring an underground used-book full of musky leather bound books I began talking with the clerk.  We had something in common, we were both classicists.  (Are all clerks at used bookstores classicists?)  His academic credentials gave him far great claim to the title.  I asked about a fairy tale I had long looked for; a witch and king in a marriage of convenience. He didn’t know the specific tale, but he knew a similar motif in the Nart Sagas from the Caucasus by John Colarusso. 

Oddly enough, I was familiar with the Nart sagas thanks to My Adventures in the Caucasus by Alexander Dumas.   Monsieur Dumas is the person who made me aware that the people of the Caucasus knew about the binding of the Titan Prometheus.  It is Saga 34 in Colarusso’s book.

Colarusso translates myriad folk tales from the myriad peoples of the Caucasus.  All though these peoples used indifferent languages, practiced different traditions and worshipped different versions of the Abrahamic God they all seemed to share similar folk tale.  The “Nart” are the demi-god children of a Golden Tree.  The tales are degenerate myths of ancient gods.  They did not display the artistry or length I expected from a “saga”.   The wives are witches or fairy brides.  It is easy to read into them the Choice of Achilles, Prometheus/Loki, the Sword in the Stone all sorts of Indo-European mythological myths.  But, maybe it is better to read them as the wise folk tales and ancient lays they are.