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. 

 

TFBT: A Jealous God

I participated in an excellent presentation by Dr. Keith Stone on Deuteronomy.  Keith made the point that Yahweh is a jealous god (Exodus 34:14) and that the Hebrew people were His portion. (Deu. 32:9) 

The Greek gods were notorious for not trespassing on one another's allotted honors and privileges. As the goddess Artemis tell us at the end of Euripides’ Hippolytus.  But were any of the Greek gods jealous?  I read recently that no god denies another and I cannot think of an example.  But, I have been thinking of Salmoneus lately, for another piece;  

"Salmoneus at first dwelt in Thessaly, but afterwards he came to Elis and there founded a city. And being arrogant and wishful to put himself on an equality with Zeus, he was punished for his impiety; for he said that he was himself Zeus, and he took away the sacrifices of the god and ordered them to be offered to himself; and by dragging dried hides, with bronze kettles, at his chariot, he said that he thundered, and by flinging lighted torches at the sky he said that he lightened. But Zeus struck him with a thunderbolt, and wiped out the city he had founded with all its inhabitants.” (Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 1.9. 7-8)

Now Salmoneus was an idiot and his story was probably just a cautionary tale.  But it reminded me of another mortal jealous of sacrifices to another god.  The mortal Niobe and her childhood friend the goddess Leto. A seeress foreseeing troubles advices Niobe’s people to sacrifice to Leto, which they do.  Niobe comes upon the scene.

“Madness has prevailed on you to worship some imagined Gods of Heaven, which you have only heard of; but the Gods that truly are on earth, and can be seen, are all neglected! Come, explain to me, why is Latona worshiped and adored, and frankincense not offered unto me?” (Ovid Metamorphoses 6)

That is both denying other gods and obviously jealous. The end result is that Niobe’s children are slain and her subjects turned to stone (Homer, Iliad 24.602). What I find interesting about Niobe's claim to divine honors is her genealogy.  She is a grand-daughter of Zeus via her infamous father Tantalus and claims Zeus a father-in-law.  She is a queen of Thebes a royal family that produced Olympian Dionysus, Thyone, Leukothea, Olympian Heracles and several other gods. 

There is an old theory in classical studies that "heroes" are simply local gods with fading stars unable to compete with the shining pan-Hellenic Olympian.  I don't think I believe that, but is it possible the Salmoneous and Niobe were local monotheistic gods in conflict with the polytheistic Olympians who lost the battle for supremacy and were literally tossed into the pit of Tartarus?[i]

    

 

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[i] Salmoneus (Virgil, Aeneid 6.548)  & Tantalus  (Odyssey 11.582) 

TFBT: Thresholds

Over at the Kosmos Society we’ve been discussing “thresholds” in the forums.

Taboo on Crossing the Threshold

You know me. I am going to the Iliad for examples. As I started collecting I noticed something; a taboo on crossing the threshold;

Then Hector of the shining helmet left her, [Iliad 6.370] and right away was at his own house. He did not find Andromache of the white arms, for she was on the wall with her child and one of her maids, weeping bitterly. Seeing, then, that she was not within, [375] he stood on the threshold of the women’s rooms

Okay that makes sense. Other women might be naked in there.

Meleager was also supplicated many times by the old charioteer Oineus, 9.582 who was standing at the threshold of the chamber with the high ceiling 583 and beating at the locked double door, hoping to supplicate him by touching his knees. 584

Oineus has an excuse for not crossing, but the bottom line is he cannot.

Iliad 19.91 That goddess Atē, senior daughter of Zeus—she makes everyone veer off-course [aâsthai], 92 that disastrous one [oulomenē], the one who has delicate steps. She never makes contact with the ground of the threshold, 93 never even going near it,

That looks pretty specific about not crossing it

[Iliad 23:200] They were holding high feast in the house of boisterous Zephyros when Iris came running up to the stone threshold of the house and stood there,

Not even Iris in an emergency can cross the threshold?

I have just glanced at the Odyssey, but it looks like every time he enters the palace at Phaeancia, he paused before crossing the threshold.

Hurled From Olympus

“I caught any one of them I gripped him and hurled him from the heavenly threshold till he came fainting down to earth;” (Iliad 15.25)

Getting tossed over the celestial threshold like Ate (Homer Iliad19.126) and Hephaestus, is not a good thing. Generally such daemons can’t re-cross the threshold.

Goddesses Changing Form when Crossing the Threshold

I noticed something about Athena crossing the celestial threshold; it might be universal.  Goddesses change form when they cross the threshold.  Maybe that is why Iris and Ate were reluctant to cross it. For

“As for Athena, daughter of Zeus who has the aegis, she let her woven robe slip off at the threshold of her father, her pattern-woven peplos, the one that she herself made and worked on with her own hands. And, putting on the khiton of Zeus the gatherer of clouds, with armor she armed herself to go to war, which brings tears.” (Iliad 5.733-738) 

She reenacts the scene at [Iliad 8.385].  Strange place to change clothes, but it is more than that.  We talked about this before; gods taking on new forms.  She starts out as Zeus’ favorite daughter and ends up wearing his clothes and armor while bearing the awesome aegis before here.  Homer’s account turns her into a stand-in for Zeus, maybe in appearance too, like Patroclus in Achilles armor.

Mourning Demeter disguised as an elderly woman unthinking reveals herself when she cross the threshold.

“Soon they came to the house of heaven-nurtured Celeus and went through the portico . . . the goddess walked to the threshold: and her head reached the roof and she filled the doorway with a heavenly radiance.”  HH Demeter

Athena as Mentor seems to recognize the risk of crossing the threshold for when “she took the form and voice of Mentor, and called Telemachus to come outside.”  (Od 2.400]  Unless I missed it all their conversations were outside the sacred threshold of Odysseus house until just before the big battle scene (Od 22.210-241) where she enters the house as Mentor, Odysseus recognizes her as Athena and then she turns into swallow.

Oh I expected to find a problem with thresholds and the goddess' maiden form in the HH to Aphrodite.  But she kept her form when she crossed Anchises' threshold. Can I cheat here?  Her true form was revealed to him in the morning twilight at the threshold of sleep.

Threshold for Supplicants

There are several examples of Odysseus as a supplicant sitting on the threshold at Aeolus’ place and, while in disguise, several times at this own places. I think we can see another example in Polynices and Tydeus at Adrastus’ door.

But, I think a threshold in this scenario is just a sacred place for a supplicant. Like Zeus’ knees t (Ilaid 1.500) when Thetis seized his knees and besought him or like Arete’s knees;

“still hidden by the cloak of darkness in which Athena had enveloped him, till he reached Arete and King Alkinoos; then he laid his hands upon the knees of the queen, and at that moment the miraculous darkness fell away from him and he became visible. Everyone was speechless with surprise at seeing a man there,” (Odyssey 7.140-145)

Or the hearth in lieu an altar (or as the family altar)

Then he sat down on the hearth among the ashes and they all held their peace,[7.154-155]

 The Aeacides and Thresholds

Achilles says; “My life is worth more to me than … all the treasure that is stored inside when you enter the stone threshold of the one who shoots, Phoebus Apollo, at rocky Pytho.” (Iliad 9.401-406)  Ironically, his son Neoptolemos goes to Delphi where when “he is refused the satisfaction demanded for Achilles’ death before Troy, (he) plunders the sanctuary and sets fire to the temple.”(i ) There are several different myths about Neoptolemus’ visit to Delphi, but all agree that he was killed and “buried beneath the threshold of the temple, presumably where he fell.”(ii)  Pausanias tells us that Neoptolemus’ shrine was actually to the left as you passed out of the temple and over the threshold [10.24.6] And that when the Gauls attempted to, plunder all the treasure that is stored inside sanctuary Neoptelomus and two other heroes arose from their graves to insure that the Gauls did not cross the threshold. (1.4.4)

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i Neoptolemos at Delphi, Emilio Suárez de la Torro, Kernos, 10 (1997), p.153-176
ii Neoptolemus at Delphi: Pindar,” Nem.” 7.30 ff. L Woodbury – Phoenix, 1979 – JSTOR

Those Thresholds Below

 We’ve discussed celestial and mortal thresholds how about a transmission to those below; “Grandchild of Atlas, Arcadian-born, deity that sharest hell and heaven, thou who alone hast the right to cross either threshold.” (The Rape of Proserpine Claudian 1.89)  I think we talked about this in HeroesX.  Hermes was one of the few gods who passed lightly into the Underworld.  Plus there is a taboo on the Olympians fraternizing with the children of Night.

The bronze thresholds of Tartarus/Hades are unpassable, maybe even to gods. Cerberus standing on the threshold would make one pause as would the Hecatoncheires.

“here by the counsel of Zeus who drives the clouds the Titan gods are hidden under misty gloom, in a dank place where are the ends of the huge earth. And they may not go out; for Poseidon fixed gates of bronze upon it, and a wall runs all round it on every side. There Gyes and Kottos and great-souled Obriareos live, trusty warders of Zeus who holds the Aegis  (Hesiod, Theogony) 

“There [in Tartarus] stands the awful home of murky Nyx (Night) wrapped in dark clouds. In front of it the son [Titan Atlas] of Iapetus stands immovably upholding the wide heaven upon his head and unwearying hands, where Nyx (Night) and Hemera (Day) draw near and greet one another as they pass the great threshold of bronze  (Theogony)

“And there [in Erebus, beyond Oceanus at the ends of the earth,], all in their order, are the sources and ends of the dark earth (ge) and misty Tartarus and the unfruitful sea (pontos) and starry heaven (ouranos), loathsome and dank, which even the gods abhor. And there are shining gates and an immoveable threshold of bronze having unending roots and it is grown of itself. And beyond, away from all the gods, live the Titans, beyond gloomy Chaos." Theogony

Guardians at the threshold

I don’t know what to say about the various guardians at the thresholds  The daemoness Campe preceded the Hectanshieres as guardian of the bronze threshold of Tartarus, but we know nothing of her expect that Cronus killed her.  We touched on Cerberus standing on the threshold of Hades.  His adoption in the Olympian hierarchy along with  other of his siblings in the brood of Echidna and the Hectanshieres incorporation might reflect an effort to include creatures that could be enemies if not made friends.   We discussed Neoptolemus guarding Delphi.  But there is there is no Heimdall in Greek myth.  He was the god in Norse mythology who guarded the Aesir from the prophesied attack by the Giants.  No watchman alerted Olympus when the Giants attacked twice.   But what about Heracles as guardian of the celestial threshold.  Heracles was the last threat to the Olympians political structure. He was adopted by Hera and wed to Hebe.  

Did Heracles “porter duties” (Graves) include watchman over the celestial threshold?

TFBT: Aeneid or Critique?

“Is the Aeneid a Celebration of Empire or a Critique?” by Daniel Mendelsohn. I recently read this New Yorker piece on line.  First, I love Mendelsohns' writing style.  A while back, I think many of us read and enjoyed “An Odyssey: A Father, a Son, and an Epic.” 

I was a little surprised how harsh he was on Virgil.  Poets got a sing for their supper and if they want to eat, they’d better play to the audience.  Being a mythologist, I noted he didn’t mention that the course of the Aeneid was the Will of Zeus. Aeneas death at Troy was “beyond destiny”.  He and his descendants were promised sovereignty over the surviving Trojans. 

But, I felt like missed a paragraph towards the end.  He was talking about a book on the Holocaust, interviewing survivors from a small Polish town.  He used that experience to explain Aeneas often confused behavior.  Like the Jewish survivors Mendelsohn interviewed, Aeneas was “a survivor, a person so fractured by the horrors of the past that he can hold himself together only by an unnatural effort of will.” 

 The every next paragraph he is talking about; “about a tiny band of outcasts, the survivors of a terrible persecution. It is about how these survivors—clinging to a divine assurance that an unknown and faraway land will become their new home—arduously cross the seas, determined to refashion themselves as a new people, a nation of victors rather than victims. It is about how, when they finally get there, they find their new homeland inhabited by locals who have no intention of making way for them. It is about how this geopolitical tragedy generates new wars.”  

Was Mendelsohn still talking about the Trojans and Romans?  Or is this piece a craftily coded critique of imperial ideology.

TFBT; September Quotes

“Woman like the goddesses, at that point, after mounting your bed, I would be content to enter the house of Hades”. (HH to Aphrodite 153-154). Wish I’d known this line when I was a bachelor. Really similar to Moonstruck.

“The basic issue in these episodes involving mortals behaving like gods is that gods and mortals are not, as Apollo said to Diomedes, of the same class.  The traditional role of Apollo in making just this distinction and reinforcing it” Muellner in Menis page 23

“Victory or Vahalla!”

When Aphrodite saw Cypris at Cnidus, "Alas!" said she; "where did Praxiteles see me naked?"  Plato, Epigram XVII

“The hardest part is the beginning.” - carpet layer 

"The herald of the prowess of heroes and the interpreter of the immortals, a second sun on the life of Greece, Homer, the light of the Muses, the ageless mouth of all the world, lies hid, O stranger, under the sea-washed sand."  Antipater of Sidon

TFBT: Plato's Ion

This month at the Kosmos Society we will be reading and discussing Plato’s dialogue Ion.

I will say that I am no fan of Socrates.  He went around with his great genius abusing his listeners and bragging that he was the smartest man in the world.  If I had been on the jury… 

Early on Socrates says, “Homer speak of the same themes which all other poets handle? Is not war his great argument?”  Really? Wasn’t the anger of Achilles the major theme of the Iliad and return the theme of Odyssey.  Hmm, where’s that lot I   wanted to cast?

“The gift which you possess of speaking excellently about Homer is not an art, but, as I was just saying, an inspiration…”   That threw me off.  I forgot he had a daemon who told him things. Hmm.  “…the Muse first of all inspires men herself; and from these inspired persons a chain of other persons is suspended, who take the inspiration. For all good poets, epic as well as lyric, compose their beautiful poems not by art, but because they are inspired and possessed.”  He explains that Ion’s spectators are the last in this chain of inspiration.  “the greater number are possessed and held by Homer. Of whom, Ion, you are one, and are possessed by Homer.” 

It occurs to me that the English word rhapsody means “an effusively enthusiastic or ecstatic expression of feeling.”

“Many are the noble words in which poets speak concerning the actions of men; but like yourself when speaking about Homer, they do not speak of them by any rules of art: they are simply inspired to utter that to which the Muse impels them, and that only; and when inspired… this the lesson which the God intended to teach when by the mouth of the worst of poets he sang the best of song”  I like this line of logic and apparently does Ion, who says  “I feel that you are; for your words touch my soul”  

Why does Socrates keep avoiding listening to Ion recite Homer?   

That great line about “twenty thousand friendly faces”!  Nestor’s advice on chariot racing!  Didn’t expect that!  And now Hecamede’ drink! 

And then at the end, here it comes; every Socratic question is made in ill-faith, a trap for his listener, he is not dueling but rather toying with an unarmed man, reaching the “logical” conclusion that rather “you are only a deceiver” and forcing Ion to allow Socrates to attribute his “praises of Homer,  inspiration, and not art.”  A notion Ion did not seem adverse to in the first place. 

Where’s that lot I was looking for?

See the discussion here;  https://kosmossociety.chs.harvard.edu/?p=40729