They take death as their bride

Wrench-snatched from the rapacious hands of slow to start
Imperial Germany, Imperial England Victorious gave
To ever obedient Australia this tasty morsel of colonial
Land. The Trust Territory of New Guinea.
And Nauru Pleasant Phosphate Island, a second morsel to be savoured
And shared joint exploitation ANZAC & England. Captured, bypassed
Wither on the vine. And abused by the great torn up emptied.
And in 1989 Australia was sued for damages done to the island;

Islands placed in our trust as a token
North East quadrant of sun swaying dreams.
Bird of paradise dancing warriors, emerald snails,
Fruit bats and friar birds. Crystalline
Wave against wave, shore against shore
Ruinous trust curse, for us and our children and
Our children's children.
Bismark blood and Ironbottom sound sea
Not enough, never enough to compensate
Slaughters of Flanders and the Troad.
For the damage done to our desires.

And Little Billy told Wilson and Goerge
and all the rest “
Strategically the northern islands
(such as New Guinea)
Encompass Australia
Like fortresses.
They are as necessary
To Australia
As water to a city. “

And the ruling bourgeoisie more and more seeks salvation in fascism.
And in 1942 when the inevitable war with Imperial Japan came,
A handful of diggers and a radio tower on Manus.
Air raids and bombings and then a landing, and the diggers
Dove into the bush, destroying all the could not carry
Private Coker commented
"A hand-grenade,
and run like hell,
did the trick!"

And fighting the jungle and malaria.
Lieutenant Palmer
(cited for the Military Medal)
“He was unable to walk for several weeks
For severe septic infection on his arms and legs”
“Weakness due to several attacks of malaria.”
SO
They carried him out.
And Lance-Corporal McLean
Took command the four man patrol &
Found the Lutheran Mission firmly
In Japanese hands. So they beat it out of there
Fortuitous, heavy, jungle obscuring rain
And the relentless beating sound
Of rain rain rain pounding covered the retreat.
Through swamp and jungle and cutting grass
And illness and starvation, and then on boats
The sailed the IJN cruised sea
And overland and over mountains
And final hope home Cairns in May.

The ruling bourgeoisie are trying to solve The problem of markets
By enslaving the weak nations,
By intensifying colonial oppression &
Repartitioning the world anew by means of war.

Finally February leap year day 29 1944
Diggers and Doughboys crawling up the Solomons Islands
And the Trust Territories landed Manus Island.
Guadalcanal, Milne Bay, Buna, The Bismark Sea, Lae,
Rabaul, Scarlet Beach, Kokoda. Diggers and Doughboys.
ANZAC sad sack dog faced privates fought with
Bayonet and machine gun and flame thrower and demo charge
And grenade and shovel and cannon and aircraft and bare hand.
And the things they saw and did died
Broke them 1000 yard shell shock stare.

Crawling mud, roaring insect, snake bite green hell jungle.
Pushing back venal bestial racist fascist
Anti-comintern ideology. Rolling back the fascist
Offensive. Manus Island attacked, and shortly recaptured.

Well, now time passed and now it seems.
Everybody's having them dreams.
Everybody sees themselves.
Walking around with no one else.

Dreams of a land without the others, dreams of an end to history
And end to the stresses and uncertainties of capitalism.
Dreams of an obsolete discredited ideology.
Old man old school old timey dreams of controlling the external.
Dreams that somehow it will end differently, that we can close
Our eyes and everything will somehow be all right.
Fearful thoughtless dreams, relaxed and comfortable.
RATHER -

Fascism is a most ferocious attack by capital on the mass of the working people;
Fascism is unbridled chauvinism and predatory war;
Fascism is rabid reaction and counter-revolution;
Fascism is the most vicious enemy of the working class and of all working people.

And now we can imagine on this very same spot -- wild eyed
Dare-death opium and hunger fuelled banzai attack
Shooting from the hip and shouting loud the Japanese Marines
Fall upon the position. Hacking and attacking and striking out
In all directions. Indiscriminate. And after the smoke and noise
Littered broken bodies of empty dreams the result of lies, a cynical
Grab-lust for power. Unbridled chauvinism. Rabid reaction.
Predatory war.

And then, as if a final spitting in our face
Historic irony, it was here, when we almost half-believed
In a new world, in a better world,
In a world that does not resort to war
And endless horror.
It was here on Manus
In 1950 Australia held the last trials
Japanese war criminals.

And did those geebungs and dubbos, did those inner city hooligans
Signing up for adventure, signing up for their first pair of shoes,
In fear and bravado, did they, shivering in their watery slit trenches;
Did they do all this, so much waste and horror, did they liberate
The camps so that now we too can have camps?

An Imaginary Review

Artist have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is
to change it.

I am not an artist, at least not a visual artist, so of course my
views do not count much more than a hill of beans, a bucket of warm
spit. Well maybe they count a little, as anyone can study - perhaps in
spare time between working and children and the invariable quest for
transcendence, and through patient study understand several of the
received wisdoms about art. One may understand and still be unable to
create art themselves. My concern is to review with having any actual
art works involved. I am not so much interested in 'attacking' an
artist or a single work, or group of works. My wish is to use this
essay as a skeleton. A skeleton that I can flesh out with my obscure,
unloved words. A skeleton I can use to conceptualise a review.

Driving in the car, damp, overcast, drizzle. I heard part of a static
interrupted interview on RN the other day. An artist, a photographer,
had created a series of black and white photos. The works were tidied
up with care, framed and put on the walls of the gallery with price
tags and a catalogue. The smoothness of modernity. The exhibit, as
they were by all accounts accomplished and beautiful works of art, was
a success.

I parked the car in front of the independent bookshop where I work,
and having moved from family car (a penis shrinking Tarago) to shop, I
switched on the radio to catch the end of the interview. I thought
about what I had heard long into the afternoon, as the blue skies of
spring wrestled with the early rising clouds of slow to leave winter.

More than any actual art works, which I had not seen, and most likely
will never see, it was his interview that I was interested in. Here I
am on sturdier ground in my ability to add anything to the
discussion. Specifically I was moved by one small sliver of the
interview. When the artist described her work as probing the
boundaries of art & photography.

The word probe was what caught my interest and prompted this
confessional. Our verb probe comes from the Latin probare, which has
several meanings. Which is understandable seeing how Latin was spoken
for many hundreds of years over the, at that time, largest empire in
the western world. These meanings can in the present context mean To try,
test, examine, inspect, judge of any thing in respect of its goodness,
fitness, etc.

I started to write this is the darkness of night, when windy sleet and
rain pelted down on the roof and windows of the wood fire heated
house. I can also see the word probe having a weaker connotation, in
the sense of an army probing the defences of the enemy. A section of
the army will move forward and test the enemy and gather
information. Usually they are ordered not to launch a full scale
attack. They just move into contact, find information out, and then
pull back into the relative comfort of their trench line.

Others will of course disagree with me, and that is to be expected. I
have a particular point of view, and a particular ideology and way of
seeing the world and our interactions with the world. Many will say
that probing and trying to describe and understand the world is
enough, some will go further and say that is all art can do. In this
they will argue against the idea of didactic art. That art should seek
what it wants and that it has no need to go further.

Again let me reiterate that I do not wish to be seen as attacking any
art works or any artist with this article. What I am saying, and am
happy to say, is that art needs to go past the probing of the
world. As the world moves into a dangerous new era. To paraphrase from
The Will to Power 'For some time now, our whole Western culture has
been moving as toward a catastrophe, with a tortured tension that is
growing from decade to decade: restlessly, violently, headlong, like a
river that wants to reach the end, that no longer reflects, that is
afraid to reflect.'

In short, in prosaic words, we are going to hell in a hand
basket. Never before have we had to ability to wreak global damage on
the planet. We have been able to destroy little bits here and there,
the over farming of Libya during the time of the Roman Empire, the
cataclysm that was Easter Island. Now we are able to create universal
catholic destruction. Gaia is seeking to shake off the poisonous
bacillus that is humanity.

Now is not the time for art to describe the world, not the time to
engage in art works. Now is time for art to stake a claim, to chose
sides and not look back. The goal is no longer to probe
boundaries. Art must become part of the dream factory, the imagining
of a new and better world. The borders are well understood, as are the
false dichotomies of male/female, black/white, right/wrong all of this
is understood. The boundaries are meant to be overstepped, erased. As
the chalk lines after a shouty and hard fought sweaty football match
fade and dissolve into the ground with the rain and dewy mornings, so
should the boundaries of art erode and wear away into the meaningless
dust from which they arose. 

Now the time has come for artists to gather their courage and storm
the gates of heaven.

Dream Factory Manifesto

---

How can we speak of a dream factory?

Socialism?

Capitalism?

Classless Society?

What are our dreams? A better life, a life of co-operation, of working together.

What is a factory? A place to work, where things are made. From Blombos Cave to the Apple plants in the Special Economic Zones of the People's Republic of China, we come together to make things. Man woman young old black white. Work is what unites us, the coming together to work. Work must become play.

Even deeper work ((think elastically) and the complex of changes (social and physiologically) and feedbacks involved) created us.

Does work create language? Have women always done the bulk of the work? Did women create language?

Factory from the Latin factor. a maker, a doer, performer, perpetrator, one who strikes the ball.

We need to turn away from the dystopian narrative. We need to create utopias - we can write of utopia and mock the plutocrats.

Thomas Moore brought the word Utopia into being. The idea is old, older than the name, think of the utopian farces of Aristophones. In Cloud Cuckoo Land, Pisthetaerus chases away the poet, the town planner, the inspector, the oracle peddler, the law mason.

Pisthetaerus becomes like a God.

Utopia; what is the meaning? It could be outopia - no place, or it could be eutopia, good place. Does it matter? Moore gives us only utopia, teasing us or misunderstanding? Culture arises equally from the fact of not remembering the quote correctly as it does the note perfect recital.

Tales and myths, or so I am told, are powerful emotional tools that pass culture and morality down the ages. Let us not pass down the morality of our parents, of the police man, or an edginess that actually dulls.

Reject bourgeois concepts of conflict in literature! Let us build to our own climaxes!

I am not naive, but I seek to become naive.

Johnny Rotten sang "There is no future", it was implied but not understood, unless you make it yourself.

He also sang, "Your future dream is a shopping scheme." Let us write, let us spew, let us draw, let us extrude, sing, scream, paint, cry, act, shout, perform, build our dreams. For ourselves.

No more tales of junkie lusers - realistic and gritty as they may be, they only reinforce the power of Kapital over us, they only reinforce our alienation.

Reject the cult of violence and death. we are, our children are fed a steady diet of death, let us say enuf. Choose (as George Michael quaintly said) Life. Real active live work, as opposed to the concentration of dead labour.

Work going back the generations - something done, deed, action - weorc, worc, werkan, werk, verk, warc, werah, werk, gawaurki, vareza, ergon, orgia, gorc, verziu, vargas, vragu, waurkjan, wyrcan, wrikan, wrecan, yrka - and PIE *werg-. Also an urge, THE HUMAN URGE.

Do not be wishy-washy.

If you want to be cynical, do it properly, give up all wealth and possessions, live in a wine cask, do not eat meat, and see the knife as your friendly doctor.

If you wish to be a skeptic, again do it properly, doubt all things, even your own thoughts and experiences. Walk with friends who will save you from the cliff.

To create to make to do to act to play to dream. To struggle to win.

Be realistic, the graffito spoke to me, demand the impossible. The Dream Factory. The space where we build our dreams. A place of work and struggle.

A lifetime of compulsion. A dream of play. Two or three days a week at most, maybe a week in every six. Child care at the work place, schools serving breakfast and lunch, helpful police men and women dressed in natty grey uniforms with pink piping, passing out condoms, and directions to lost tourists, lovely and unarmed.

Philosophy has only interpreted the world, the point is to change it. Is not art a mode of philosophy? Is not art a love of wisdom, a way of interacting with the world. The point of art is to change the world.

Eleou kai Fobou

---

Misotheoi: Agememnon by Aeschylus line 1069ff

I have compassion for her, I am not angry.
Come suffering one, off this desolate carriage retire
And to the new yoke submit yourself.

Ot ot ot otoy popoy da!
Opollon Opollon!

Why all this breaking into lament about Loxias?
For he is not pleased with lamentations.

Woe Woe Woe Woe Shame and Sorrow Earth!
Apollo Apollo!

Again these words of ill omen
To the god she calls.
The one not present in weeping

O Apollon, Apollon
Guardian of the ways.
You scour me. And utterly
You destroy me this second time.

She shall chant visions as fitting her distress.
For divine passion ever flows her enslaved soul.

O Apollon, Apollon
Guardian of the ways, you destroy me.
Ah! where have you brought me? Under what roof?

The house of Atreus, if you cannot perceive,
I tell you: and you can not say I lie.

Misotheoi!
A God-hating house
Many are aware evil beheading of kin.
A charnel house, a bowl for catching the blood
Of slaughtered children.

Fitting keen dog sensing female guest.
She seeks and so discovers murder.

Bearing witness to this I come to know:
Lament butchered new-born
Roasted flesh Father served eaten.

Rumours your prophetic learning
Reach us. A prophet we do not desire.

Oh! Sorrow! What does she intend?
Some young great pain,
Great evil she intends.
Intolerable beloved, implacable, boldness.
Far off help stands aloof.

Of these oracles, ignorant I am;
Others I come to know:
All of the city sings out.

Alas! Wretched, this she will fulfil,
Her bed-partner husband
Bath making bright - How I see the end
Speed - for this it will be:
She holds out her hand - her hand stretching out.

Not yet is brought together: no more than riddles
A film covers the eye,
Obscure decrees of God.
I am at a loss.

Woe! Sorrow! What is this appearance?
The net of the grave?
By the net of the bed-partner sharing guilt,
Stained they are with blood.
Standing and instantiate kin cry out!
Fit only for stoning.

How now cries Strife - this building up urged,
Set upright? Not for me a clean reckoning.
Upon my heart blood runs sallow
Still. In equal time fallen,
And arrived together in life
Plunging the glow sunset:
Swift and reckless
Sin becomes.

Ah! Ah! Look! See there!
Keep away the bull the mate:
In woven robes
Black-horned seizing cunning work
She strikes in the cauldron.
Slaying by treachery.
This act, you I show.

I can not boast to understand
The highest from god spoken sign.
Being evil compare this.
Pure airs of pure voiced
Pour Gods from heaven
How much I misunderstand?
Of and through the evil
Wordy arts singing prophetic
Fear they learn and carry.
Oh! Oh! Oh me! Suffering Ill-fated fortune:
I cry out, cry aloud my suffering.
Why this place wretched
Have you me carried?
Am I to with him die? For what end?

She is, her mind distracted
Possessed of a God.
With him you cry aloud.
A song - no song,
And a nimble insatiate cry, alas!
Humming tawny suffering spirits
Calling out Itun, Itun.
Moans abounding on all sides
Drear nightingale sorrow.

Sorrow! Sorrow!
My clear fate as the songstress
Thrown about her the feathered form
The Gods sweet span of life
A weeping without:
My end, a cleaving two-edged spear.

From whence this rushing
Gushing god bearing
Inspiration you have?
Vain human misery.
Whence the frightful
Unutterable cries
You chant?
High-pitched custom.
What is the boundary
Horizon of this marvellous
Road ill-omened.

---

Afterword

If Aristotle was right and tragedy is imitative language to provoke Pity and Fear then there are few better examples of this than the prophecy scene of Kassandra in Agamemnon. If the Philosopher was wrong than all we have are whirling words, and the scene is stunning none the less.

For reasons that we need not discuss I had only a week to translate this scene. As my skills are the skills of tyro, in that week, which really turned out to be only two days, I was not able to translate the entire scene. So this excerpt starts with the Choros asking Kassandra to leave her chariot, and ends with her first vision of her own death.

There are some interesting points in this piece. There is the pun made from the name of the god Apollo and the folk etymology that the god's name is derived from the verb Apollumi, which means to kill, or to destroy utterly. Apollo is called by his epithet Loxias, which may mean obscure, from the word Loxos, literally crosswise, and extended metaphorically to mean ambiguous. Obviously from the God's role as a oracle, one that give ambiguous answers. There is also some puns around the name Klutaemnestra , which is used to mean she is renowned for her intentions, for her plans.

The house of Atreus was a cursed house, a house of slaughter and rust. The family was founded by Tantalus, who for some obscure reason decided to test the knowledge of the gods by killing and cooking up his son Pelops. All the gods rejected the offering,. Demeter, as she was distraught at the abduction of her daughter ate the shoulder of the poor child. The gods damned Tantalus to suffer in Tartarus, while the son was resurrected with his shoulder replaced with an ivory prosthesis. He later killed his father in law by sabotaging his chariot.

Pelops and Hippodamia had two sons: Atreus and Thyestes. Thyestes had an affair with Aerope, the wife of his brother. In revenge Atreus cooked up the sons of the adulterer and served them to Thyestes. Exiled in shame Thyestes consulted, and was told by an oracle to father a child with his daughter, and the resulting son would kill Atreus. Aegisthus, the son, did kill Pelops. Pelops had two sons himself, Agamemnon and Menalaus. Agamemnon later sacrificed his daughter Iphegenia to allow the Greek fleet to sail to Troy. This understandably annoyed his wife Klutaemnestra , who in revenge killed Agamemnon on his return from Troy. This being the subject of the Aeschylus play which is the source of this scene. Later Orestes kills his mother and is harried by the Furies. In the end there is a trial overseen by Athena, in which he is acquitted.

A horrible series of events, but in metaphorical terms we see the movement from darkness to the light, form blood feud to the rule of laws. The Erinyes (Furies) move from being the avengers to becoming the Eumenides, the kindly ones. So showing the movement to the rule of law. The trilogy would start in the early morning darkness, and end in the bright light of the afternoon , so making clear this movement from darkness of blood feud to the light of the law.

With all this drama and excitement how could I resist? This translation is not the best ever, but it conveys the main points, and as it was written for an afternoon of poetry and jazz at the Museum of Old and New Art in Hobart I thought it best to keep it relatively short. Any failings or errors are completely my own. And I used the translation of Browning as a guide, as some passages are obscure though corruptions of the text, and my own weak skills in Ancient Greek.

Barking and Nothingness

---

One day last week I had to drive into town and pick up my wife from
her work. I was listening to Radio National, and as usual I was
subjected to the views of some sort of a political pundit. I was a bit
surprised when the pundits were happy to call themselves cynical. This
got me thinking and looking stuff up, both on the internet, and also
using something rather old fashioned called books.

Normally one would write this sort of an essay using a historical
method, that is one would start off from the origins of the words and
concepts and then move to the present. Instead I want to turn things
over and look at the current idea of Cynicism first. In the dictionary
I consulted, it defined Cynicism as misanthropy, that is a hatred for
humanity. This can be accepted without too much controversy. The
dictionary had a second definition which may cause more interest. A
Cynic is one who thinks that all human activity is based on self
interest. The point that I found interesting in this definition is the
fact that it is a commonplace thought that we are all self
interested. Indeed this is the philosophical underpinning of all
market economies. It is the basis of our modern world, all our rights
and our legal framework are based on this idea of self interest. So
when a person calls themselves a Cynic and then says his or her
opponent is only acting on self interest, how can this even be a
critique in a market based economy?

Of course it can not be, unless of course one is making their critique
from a left wing position. By left wing I mean a position that holds
that if all things are created socially they must be appropriated
socially. It would be more instructive, and maybe even closer to the
truth to say that the modern Cynic is in fact no more than a
nihilist. Our modern Cynics would say, for example, that the big banks
and corporations are all greedy bastards who are out to get us, and
steal our money. Sadly our modern Cynics also see to sya that if
someone tries to protest against this exploitation, for example, as the
occupy movement has tried, then the Cynic will in all likelihood brand
them lazy lay-about hippies who just want a hand out. So you can
easily see that this sort of Cynicism leads us into a position where
we are unable to act, as all action is futile and self centered. In a
word nihilism.

So if our modern Cynics are in fact nihilists, what is a 'true'
Cynic. As Plato would say a Cynic is Socrates gone mad. Some
commentators note that Jesus was a type of Cynic, I am not able to
comment on this point, but I happy to point out the relationship
between the Cynics and the early monastic movement.

Cynicism is an old movement, which did have a basis in the philosophy
of Socrates. More than a sect it was a way of life, a mode of thinking
and acting. There are various arguments as to the origin of the name
Cynic, but all the various view points agree that the term comes from
the Greek word for dog (kuon). Some would say that it is simply that
they met in at an Athenian gymnasium called the White Dog Gymnasium,
in a similar way to the Stoics were given their name from the
colonnaded building where they used to teach. Others say that it is
because a dog will guard his or her home with all their ability, in
this case the idea is that Cynics closely guarded their ideas, and
their program. My personal opinion is that the name comes from the
idea that the dog is the most shameless of the animals. The dog will
go anywhere, eat anything, have relations in the street and
more. Seeing how the original Cynics lived rough it is easy to see the
relation to dogs and Cynics.

So let us return to the contrast with Cynics as a movement, and the so
called cynics who dominate our present mutual discourse. Cynicism for
the ancients was informed by two quotes from the Delphic Oracle. Know
Thyself, and Debase the Current. There is some argument over what was
meant by Know Thyself (gnothi seauton). Some commentators would say
that it meant to know your place in the face of the Apollonian oracle,
I reject this idea. The verb gnothi for the Greeks as well meant to
have sexual relations, in the way that we say that a if person knew
someone carnally, we would say know them in the Biblical sense. So the
oracle could be telling people to 'F*** themselves.' Amusing as this
idea is, I think we can safely reject it as well. Which leaves us with
the simple injunction (for the form of the verb is the aorist
imperative) to have knowledge of yourself, to be self aware. Or as a
Marxist would say self consciousness.

The other important phrase is the idea of 'debasing the currency.'
Poor Diogenes took this too literally and did in face debase the
currency (mixed another metal in with the silver used for making
coins.) This caused him to have to flee his home town of Sinope. This
can also be seen to mean debase the current. To; as Nietzsche would say,
revalue all values. This can mean little else than to look at all the
current socially accepted values, and then try to understand them, and
overturn them if required. This is NOT what most of the current cynics
attempt to do.

A third major idea of the Cynics is the idea of being
cosmopolitan. Where in our current multicultural society this may seem
like a trite truism, but for the Ancients to leave one's city meant to
loss citizenship, the ability to take part in political life, and
meant that certain roles and jobs were not available to such a
person. To be a citizen of the world in ancient Greece was to make
oneself an outsider.

In our day when the pundits we see on television or hear on the radio,
who have a career earning good money, who have the ability to persuade
many people, call themselves Cynical, we can rightly call them as no
more than liars. While I am happy to see words change over the years,
as this represents the genius of a people, and the flexibility of
human thought, there are times when we have to nail certain definitions
to certain words to allow us to communicate properly. When there are
perfectly good words to describe the jaded nihilistic speech of our
moulders of ideology, why make up a word when one has no idea of what
they are talking about. To me this sort of caper does nothing but
muddy the waters, and gives trite ideas a fabulous dress which it has
no right in wearing.

So what should we mean by Cynicism? A Cynic is a person who is able to
look at themselves, and the world around them, and to see that so much
of it is a failure and a confidence trick. A Cynic is a person who
rejects the goods and wealth of society, who attacks the accepted
norms of that society. A person who understands that they are a
citizen of the world. A Cynic is not a person who uses glib sarcasm,
not one who accepts the general malaise of the bought and sold media
to make smug comments which do not extend our knowledge, but only
cause more despair by pandering to the lowest common denominator. A
Cynic is not someone who parrots falsehoods in a attempt to pander to
wealth and to promote their own career. This sort of person is no more
than a bourgeois nihilist, and should be called such.

So Many Particulars

---

One part Lucian, one part Brecht, three parts Arrian. And as Oscar would say 'all garbage all the time.' However it tickled my fancy, so read it or ignore it as you wish, I have already moved on.

---

Euoi, Euoi, Saboi!
The ecstatic raging followers
Of the loud roaring, ivy wreathed
God chanted and danced, and the songs
Reverberated the forest glens
And quiet coverts of the wide flooding
High banked river Indus. Icy cold
Waters tumbled from glaciered vast
High mountains. Closer to the world
Encircling river than the laughing
Shouting drunken god the myriad
Companions did march. Strong Herakles
Cursed and kicked the barren ground before
The most steadfast Sogdian rock.
Macedonian soldiers grew wings,
Flew up the cliff face in the murky night,
And so conquered what stymied Herakles.

Nothing could stop, no one could stop
The conquering god-king Alexander.
Not the wide fast flowing rivers,
Not the lazy streams flowing to marshes,
Not the dizzying gorges, not the cloud
Gathering mountains, not the howling
Jangling deserts, not the walls of island
Proud Tyre, not the mysteries of sand
Blown trees of the oasis of Siwa,
Not the massed cedar built long boats
Of purple clad Phoenicia,
Not the fire worshiping magi,
Not the mud built bitumen mortared
Walls of Babylon, of Susa,
Of Persepolis, not the seven walled
City of stars Ekbatana, not the
Rabbis of Jerusalem, not the Gates
Of Persia, not the battle fleeing
King of Kings, not the tattooed
Boulder hurling liberty loving tribes,
Not the craggy walls of ancient Thebes
Where only darling Pindar's house remained,
Not the foot stamping naked Buddhists.
Nothing could stop, no one could stop
The god-king Achilles reborn.

Naught but the sorrow of the hosts, the ones
That marched and fought and explored and said
Finally this far and no further,
For we are tired and our dear ones
We miss, our wives, our children, our aged
Fathers and mothers. For we have been
From home for as long as Menelaus
Before the walls of windy Illius.
This far we go and no further.

Only thus was Alexander stopped.

The Old Men of Argos Huddle in Terror

---

From Aeschylus tragedy Agamemnon, Line 1020.

Over the weekend there were two football grand finals on television. On the Saturday Geelong and Collingwood struggled in a close run thing for three quarters until the Cats skipped away and won the game. On the Sunday Manly defeated the Warriors. On the Sunday night, for reasons which had nothing to do with football, I was unable to sleep. Having not much else to do, I read the Agamemnon of Aeschylus. More exciting than football, the creative spark forced me from my bed. I am not fluent in my translations, one could compare my technique to a person attempting to solve a cryptic crossword. My lack of skill or fluency does not stop me, for my main goal is to learn and to gain fluency. In this instance the only way to learn is to read.

This piece is from Agamemnon, the first part of the Oresteia. A wonderful, brutal, strange and powerful work. Agamemnon has just returned home from the long war against Troy. Home to Argos and to his wife Klutaimnestra, who has set herself on killing him. She feels she is in the right, as he sacrificed (murdered) their daughter Iphigeneia. She was sacrificed to allow the Greeks to launch their campaign against Troy. For ten years the war dragged on, and for ten years Klutaimnestra, the wife of Agamemnon and mother of Iphigeneia, nurtured her hatred and desire for vengeance. Who could blame her? Even the old men of Argos agree 'blame is present against blame, difficult it is to judge. He endures who is enduring, the killer has to pay.'

Using flattering words, a warm bath, and a krater of drugged wine, wielding her sword and a net, Klutaimnestra rolled out the wine dark carpet for the returning hero. She stabbed him twice and killed him. Splattered with blood she plunged the sword a third thrust to convince herself that the deed had been done.

This passage is from one of the songs of the Chorus of Old Men. The old men sense that something is amiss, but unlike the audience they do not know what is to come to pass. They are fearful for Agamemnon as he strides across the barbaric carpets. He seems to be taking on the manners of the East, of the Trojan king Priam. Klutaimnestra appeals to his vanity by telling him that the feet of a hero should not touch the dirt. The old men see this an affront. The red carpets flow from the palace doors and across the stage. The Phoenician carpets call to mind the wine dark blood which has flowed across generations of the House of Atreus and which will soon flow again. The old men are scared and they sing a long passage, of which I cut out a bit to make a (hopefully) nice little poem. In ripping fifteen or so lines out of a much larger poem I can only do violence to the original, but I have endeavoured to minimise the harm.

Robert Browning is not much spoken abut these days, but he was insightful in many ways. I agree with him in the spellings that he uses, for instance I much prefer Klutaimnestra to Clytaemnestra, Kassandra to Cassandra. He did some very literal translations from the Greek. He did this in opposition to current ideas about the beauty of the Greek language. In this he showed ancient Greek to be a highly flexible, and at the same time sparse language. This sparseness, which is increased by the heightened language of the tragic form, is a peg that allows the translator to hang any garment desired, be it gaudy or plain. I think this was the point that Browning tried to make in his, even to this day, despised translation of Agamemnon.

As a example let us look at the last line of this passage (line 1034), in Greek it reads, Zopuroumenas frenos. From the dictionary we find out that Zopuroumenas means kindle into flame and frenos meaning midriff, or breast and by extension heart, mind, sense etc. (As an aside Zopuroumenas can also mean kindle into life, as in the quickening of the embryo.) In Browning we get 'the enkindling mind.' From E. D. A. Morshead we get 'my soul is prophecy and flame' which Robert Fagles in turn translates as '...and the brain is swarming, burning.' Which is best? Which is most correct? Which is nearest to the mind of Aeschylus?

---

The Old Men of Argos Huddle in Terror.

Once upon the earth
One's life blood black.
Can anyone with charms
Sing it back?

Once there was one who rightly knew
How to call back the dead.
Fearful Zeus struck him
Thunderbolt dead.

Had not the deathless
Arrayed our portion
Against another,
Bright laughter
Would burst forth.
Outracing
My heart.

Now
However
The lower gloom
Beneath the darkness.
Sick at heart,
I murmur and grumble.
Unable to hope
For that opportune day
To unravel, and so
Bring to an end.

Kindled my heart leaps into flame!

---

The pic is from http://www.theoi.com/image/F6.1Artemis.jpg

Nepenthes

image from http://www.minervaclassics.com/tthhconc.htm

---

Helen, daughter of Zeus and Leda thought.
She ached with their sorrow, she straightaway threw
Into the wine charming herbs. Then they would be
Drinking soothing sorrows, allaying anger
And the forgetting of all evil.
She in the krater mixt and all gulped down
The wine. And not for the whole day through
Would tears fall down their cheeks. Not even
If his Mother or Father fell down to death,
Nor is his bother, nor his beloved son were
Hacked to pieces shining blades in front his eyes.
Such was the knowledge of herbs the daughter
Egg hatched of cloud gathering Zeus, learnt from
Poludamna, she who overcomes many,
Wife of the Egyptian Thonos. A great many
Sorts of herbs bring forth the corn bearing land.
Many are mingled and overcome disease,
Others overcome and bring misery.

All the Egyptians understand and are healers
For they are all of the time of Paieon.

---

Remains of the temple to Menelaus and Helen in Sparta - image from http://www.panoramio.com/photo/51879369



Helen is a favourite character of mine, not because of her alleged beauty, although I must admit that would surely be part of it. She was the daughter of Leda and Zeus. The cloud gatherer raped Leda and she gave 'birth' to two eggs. Out of one egg came the twins Castor and Polydeuces or the Dioskouroi. From the other egg came Helen and her sister Clytaemnestra. Clytaemnestra is an even more interesting character than Helen, and will hopefully be the topic of a later piece. Suffice to say she is one of the strongest women in Greek mythology, and her tale is the subject of the wonderful Orestia trilogy of Aeschylus, who died in Sicily when an eagle, mistaking his bald head for a rock, dropped a tortoise on it, hoping to crack the thick shell open.

We all know the tale of Helen. How Zeus wished to kill off the humans, and so allowed Eris, the personification of Strife, to roll the apple of discord inscribed with the one word Kalliste (the dative, or indirect object superlative of the word fair or beautiful, so it means to the fairest) amid the three goddesses Hera, Aphrodite and Athena. To settle the argument Paris was asked to be the judge. He was bribed with the hand of Helen in marriage. And this lead to the Trojan war.

What intrigues me in all this, is the tale told by Herodotus (book 2, 120) that Helen was never in Troy, but rather in Egypt. Ten years of war and sorrow and death followed. Much like the WMD and the war in Iraq. (As an aside I hope I live long enough to see the secret papers of the Australian cabinet released, petty maybe - but we all need a goal.)

This section I have translated is from the Odyssey, Book 4 starting at line 219. It tells of Telemachus searching for information about his long absent father. He goes to Sparta to speak with Menelaus, and the discussions of what happened during and after the war make them sad. Helen then adds some drugs to their wine, and this seems to be some type of opiod which defeats their sorrow. So strong it is that one would not even shed a tear to see their children hacked to pieces in front of them. Pretty strong stuff indeed.

Some points to consider. Poludamna means 'she overcomes many' - overcoming disease or overcoming life. The Greek word used has many meanings, but they seem to revolve around the idea of taming, and is used to describe making a wife. The word Nepenthes is something like soothing sorrows. I used the word charming, as it is one of the epithets Homer uses to describe Troy. The word Chalko (the ch is pronounced like in the Scottish loch, and the O at the end is the letter omega, long or big O - so it is the long O sound) means copper, but is used in this situation in the same way we would say a person was gunned down.

Unless you are a Greek geek you will probably not enjoy this as much as I enjoyed translating, but either way I hope you enjoy.

Erida - Goddess of Strife

---

A couple of paragraphs from the Iliad. Two sections where we see the external nature of war. Of how the feelings of soldier are manipulated by larger forces. In this case the will of Zeus, but let us see it as a metaphor for our society, where War seems natural and opposing your neighbour passes for society. I used more words in these translations, as it was important to create some context for the passages, as we are only dealing with a few lines out of over 15,000 in the epic.

Book IV of the Iliad, Strife and Fear and panic stricken rout arise with Strife and discord. A love of the sound of battle of the clots of blood. She spreads discord and strife among Charming Ilios and the Danaoi. Strife starts off little and then grows; until, with feet striding the land her head is in the heavens. And I am reminded of the blood lust of my fellows and the generals and politicians and the perverters of language, and the mockers of democracy and how we must honour our dead by keeping the wars going. So strife feeds on strife and storms the very gates of heaven, suffocating in blind remorseless fury, the children of the poor.

I am sure one who is smarter than I am will find a deep misogynist strain in Homer, and his feminising of discord. As for myself, I struggle with simple translations.

Book 4 starting line 439

Some are called forth by Ares, some by iron eyed
Athena. So arises Fear and panic stricken
Terror. And Strife who desires cruelty,
Sister and concubine of Ares destroyer of men.
Small she is, to start, armed, but soon
Her head rises to the heavens. Across the land
She strides. She spews strife to all sides
Equal, as she goes among the tumult,
Increasing the lamentations of men.

---

Book XI of the Iliad. Those who feel that history is made by great men, and that history appears as a series of wars and violence will find much to hardened their positions by reading this epic. It seems to me wrong to discuss the Iliad with modern eyes, as the poem seems to me to be denying modernist ideas of free will. In the beginning of book eleven the Achaeans have suffered badly at the hands of the Trojans, and many are dejected. It is the plan of Zeus that the war continue. He sends Strife down to the encampment and she screams and fills the hearts of the army with hatred, with love of battle, sweeter even then the thought of going home.

Book XI starting line 14

And then Erida rose to her full height -
Eyes dripping blood. She called out great
And terrible. Penetrating into the hearts
Of the Achaeans. At once war become
Sweeter than going back in the hollow
Ships to the beloved land of their families.

---

Can we see our own throwness in the works of Homer? Torn asunder from our beloved land we are captivated by our supposed freedom. The power of Capital toys with our lives, in a similar way to how Zeus toyed with warring Greeks and the Trojans. He set them to strife and even goaded them to second effort when they began to falter. This was his plan, Zeus wanted to depopulate the Earth. War was his answer, and it was only too easy for him to find willing accomplices in their own extinction. As it is only too easy to find today many who wish for war, and forsake multilateral solutions and worship at the cenotaph. Empty tombs of the empty lives of our dead, honoured by old men. Or as Lenin said there was no crisis from which the bourgeoisie could not escape provided the working class was prepared to pay the price.

We are not as superstitions as the ancients, but we still sacrifice our children on hard stone altars, praying for a wind that will blow an invisible hand onto our scales, allowing us to fight our enemies, and to gain great wealth. It is, of course, wrong to see Capital as a supernatural power. Yet for the vast herd that roams the land having no understanding of what drives them, no grasp of simple history, of how the world became this way, having nothing but disdain for the workings of the scientific method, knowing nothing of the intricate web of interconnected wealth which builds up the foundations of everyday life, and of thought itself, they act and move as if controlled by far off gods who drink and love and mock the tiny ones who live not a true human life, but rather a shadowy passing of time. Lacking above all curiosity and imagination.

And yet both the Gods of the old days, and the Wealth of our modern age, are nothing if not our creation, the common structure and therefore the common inheritance of countless hands and hearts and minds.

---

The image is Achilles getting new armour from his mother. He is going back to war Why? His friend was killed, and the only way to honour his death is to add to the pile of death.

War and Anti War

---

I was reading an only moderately interesting book about the Trojan War. Among the cliches of a conflict of cultures and the battles of East and West, I came across some good quotes from out of Homer.

So like a good little geek, I had no choice to look up the original, and make a stab at translation. Mucking around a bit with what I ended up with, lead me to this two little pretend imagist works posted here.

These lines are Odysseus speaking to Agamemnon. Things are not going well for the Greeks. Odysseus lets his captain know that this is the lot of soldiers, and they will have to fight until they die. He seems to be pointing to the cruelty of the gods and their callous disregard for human life. Maybe we can see the gods as standing in for the historic and economic forces in our lives, and how it can seem to the unexplored mind that war is natural and a normal part of life.

When in fact we all know that it is possible to end war.

---

(Iliad Book 14.86)

This Zeus has assigned.

We are to endure,
From insolence
Into grey age,
Painful war,

Until we perish.
Everyone.


In this second quote, Odysseus is even more clear as to who should wear the blame for the war. It is clearly the work of the gods, and Zeus in particular. He seems to see the war as a toy of the gods, and the death of the many as being of no importance to the deathless ones.

---

(Odyssey 14.235)

Along this hateful path
Far sounding Zeus
Led many
Knee bent men
To their death.

---

The image depicts the battle about the body of Patroclus, and is from a greek vase. More can be found here
http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/Mythology/Images/BattlePatroclus.jpg

A free and frank city

The Suppliants: lines 399 - 408



Herald:

Who is the ruler of this land?
To which one shall I announce
The proclamation of Creon?

He has mastery of the lands
Of Cadmus, since Eteocles
Died under the blows of his own
Brother Polynices, outside
Thebes of the seven towers.


Theseus:

You begin your tale
Falsely, stranger,
Seeking tyrants here.

Not for us the authority
Of one man, rather we are
A free and frank city.

The people rule and are ruled
In yearly turns. And what's more wealth
Will not grant you the most, for even
With the day labourer are they equal.

---

Theseus killed the Minotaur. He became one of heroes who brought the Greeks into the light, into the world of the city.

I was struggling my way through the final chapter of "Politics in the Ancient World" by M.I. Finley, when he quoted from the Euripides play "The Suppliants." Anything to have a break from the arid style of the former Master of Darwin College, Cambridge. And anything in these dreary days of apathy across the Angloshpere that speaks to progressive ideas is a boon.

Knowing that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and with more enthusiasm than fluency, I dove into an attempt at translation.

I used ruler as opposed to tyrant in the first line, as I wanted to see this brief exchange as a critique on our own democracy. Euripides himself was both a supporter and critic of democracy. This is as it should be, criticism and self criticism. I thought it was important to use the world frank to describe the free city of Theseus. The phrase in the original is eleuthera polis, which means free city. I thought I had to go deeper, as it seems as if free is a heavily loaded word, one which means many different things to different people, one that over the years has lost some of it's lustre. A few of the synonyms for eleuthera included free, liberal, open, unencumbered, open to all, as well as my final choice of frank. One of the positive features of Athenian democracy was the idea of frank speech, even if only in theory. A citizen who was to speak before the assembly was expected to speak truthfully, including being truthful with themselves. This what is meant by the motto "Know thyself." How much this was actually followed in daily life I dare not say. Australians only have to look at their own mythology of mateship and the fair go to make their own conclusions as to how moderate and self aware the Ancient Greeks really were.

Beyond the 'woolly' idea of being able to speak frankly in the assembly, this simple exchange allows us to sneak a peek between the curtains, into a window on Athenian democracy in action. The people rule and are ruled in yearly turn. The citizens are expected to rule, to take an active part in the actual running the government, as well as debating and voting on policy and strategy. Ruling and ruled in turn. Beyond what we learn from Euripides, we know that Athenian democracy included payment for work done for the state, as well as the use of lotteries to allocate positions. Citizens were questioned before they took up their appointed roles, and reviewed at the end of the yearly appointment. We also know, if only negatively from the constant complaints of the literate aristocrats, that democracy in Athens was for a time extended to the lower classes, the rowers and the day labourers. Side by side with the well born the day labourer was expected to speak, and his speech was expected to be heard. Again as to how equal the assembly really was, I dare not say. It does seem as if the sheer expense of the political contest, as well as the large size of some electorates, act as a ration card for political activity by the great majority of people. Lotteries also seem to have an advantage, in that it would be harder for positions to ossify, as they do in our current regime. Lotteries and fixed terms form all positions would end the idea of people being in parliament as a career.

With the current impasse in politics in the West, any idea that extends the ideas of democracy is worth thinking about and discussing.

---

Pic from: http://www.timelessmyths.com/classical/gallery/theseusminotaur.jpg

Postponer of old age

---

Hymn 10: To Aphrodite

I will sing Cyprus-born Cytherea.
She gives to mortals tender gifts.

Upon her lovely face, ever smiling,
The mischievous bloom of beauty.

Hail Goddess of sweet-tiled Salamis,
Ruler over sea girt Cyprus!

Grant me charming melodies.

Your song sung, I shall
Recall still others.

---

From Canto One by Ezra Pound
In the Cretan's phrase, with the golden crown, Aphrodite,
Cypri munimenta sortita est, mirthful, oricalchi, with golden
Girdle and breat bands, thou with dark eyelids
Bearing the golden bough of Argicidia. So that:

Aphrodite the foam born goddess, rising from the severed, flung away
genitals of the God Ouranos. She arose from the ocean Chaos, and
danced across the foamy salt sea waves, grasses and flowers grow where she steps. Born fully fledged, she never had a childhood. The cuttlefish and the sea urchin are sacred to her, for even down to our so called enlightened times many of us still think of seafood as an aphrodisiac. Myrtle, roses, poppies, doves and swans are also sacred to her.

She has many names and functions, many more than the concise, accepted
into polite company versions of her myth are able to encompass. Some
of her names include; The Eldest of the Fates, The Black One,
Man-slayer, and Aphrodite of the Tombs.

In Sparta she is Aphrodite Ambologera, the postponer of old-age. Also
we see Aphrodite Morpho, the well-formed, here she is in fetters and
wearing a veil, a vain attempt, an altogether simple-minded plan to control the goddess. Another temple is Areias, meaning warlike, or devoted to Ares. Sexual passion and the blood-lust of battle both being seen as impetuous, as action without thought. Unlike Athena, the Goddess of Strategy in War. In commercial Corinth, as well as militaristic Sparta, she is seen as a defender of the city, as a warlike Goddess.

Like all the ancient gods the tales of Aphrodite a mass of contradictory stories and attributes. She is ready for battle, she is beautiful, she is cruel and she is sentimental. Like all things she is a mixture, and when the stew is no longer stirred, it will separate, and separation means death. Copper eyed Aphrodite, the laughter loving goddess with quick glancing eyes, riding on a swan across the sky.

the pic comes from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Aphrodite_swan_BM_D2.jpg

Helper of the hospitable

Ares, the hated son of Zeus & Hera. Thracian God of War, as a Thracian
was he seen as being outside the ordered world of the Greek polis? Was
war then seen to be a barbarian activity, as an outside force to be
shunned and feared? In Sparta they would sacrifice puppies to Ares, and
they had a statue of Ares in chains, on theory that if the Lacedaemonians
kept Ares is chains then they would forever keep their martial spirit.
In a similar way Athens erected a statue of Nike Apteros; that is wingless
Victory, so she could not leave the city.

Ares whose war cry was as loud of 10 000 men. Lover of Aphrodite (does
this show Greek fear at the irrational, disruptive and eventually
destructive nature of sexual love?). In a typical example of the
ancient Greek love of dichotomy, Ares was held in opposition to
Athena, in that she represented strategy, rational thought and
intelligence applied to war, the just war, warfare to defend the
polis. Ares on the other hand was an anthropomorphic shadow of
bloodlust, of the dashing off into the icy cold din of battle.

Ares would side first with one city, and then with another. He
represented the love of battle itself. His sacred animals were the
vulture and the dog, as they would feast upon the not always dead
bodies of the battlefield. His attendants are Deimos, dread fear
personified, and Phobos, panic stricken flight, the supreme at war
goddess Enyo, destroyer of cities. Also in attendance to Ares would be
found Eris, the personification of Strife. Eris took delight in battle
and in human bloodshed.

Some have Eros born of the union between Ares and Aphrodite, for
myself I would agree with Hesiod and make Eros one of the original
gods. For it is desire that allows us to remake the world anew.

This poem was a fun one to translate, lots of operatic language and
imagery. The first five of so lines are a list of attributes for
Ares. Reminding me of ALP's mamafesta (a feminising of the word
manifesto) starting on page 104 of Finnegans Wake. Of course Joyce had
to take it too far.

I tried to show the Greek desire for a well ordered life, for the
following of custom, for knowing what is to be done, and what should
not be done. If one followed the customs of the polis, in particular
the custom of hospitality, Ares will grant victory. But for the
heretic, for the one who disdained the mores of the people Ares would
be a tyrant, meeting force with force.

I can make no claim at being a classical scholar, I am at best a vain
poseur, and I am sure that my translations can not fully illuminate
the thinking of people who lived over two thousand years ago, but as
always I hope you will at least grant me my petty pretense. For I at
least had some fun writing this poem, and even more than that I was
able to learn a bit more about the world around me. And as we slowly
meander our way to the eternal void what more can any of us hope to
receive.

---

The image is of Ares & Aphrodite and it came from here:

http://www.theoi.com/Gallery/K9.3.html

---

Homeric Hymn 8 - To Ares

Surpassingly strong Ares,
Prevailing with chariots, crested of gold,
Strong willed, Shield bearing, City protecting,
Clad in shining bronze, Strong hearted,
Untiring, Mighty with spear,
Bulwark of Olympus.

Victorious good-at-war Father,
Helper of the hospitable,
Tyrant to the hostile.

The well-ordered he leads to the light
Bearing his sceptre of courage.

He sets spinning his fiery bright
Shield above the clouds, across
The seven-pathed constellation.
There forever his foals,
Full of fire, steer him.
The third firmament
Above the orbit.

Hearken champion of the ones who bleed,
Giver of courage to the youth,
Kindly pour down your radiance
From on high, giving sustenance
And warlike courage. Allow that I
May be able to rout sharp cowardice
From my thoughts, and bend my deceitful
Soul back to it's senses.

Restrain my anger and blood-lust,
Restrain my charge the icy din
Of battle. - But thou courage give.
Blest one, let me abide without harm
Within well-ordered peace;
Shunning ill-will, tumult and
The call of the queen
Who is violent doom.

Dioskouroi

---

Homeric Hymn to the Dioskouroi

Bright-eyed Muses, fall into song
Concerning the strapping sons robust
Of Zeus. The Tyndaridai.

Born of fair-ankled Leda.
Beautiful shining children.
Kastor who overcomes horses
And Polydeuces,
Sea-green incorruptible.

Upon the summit of Taygetus
The cloud-clad son of Cronos
Mixed in love, mingled in friendship,
And she gave birth. Two children,
Saviours upon the mortal
Ones who haunt the earth,
And of the quick-going ships
That speed stormy winter winds
Of seas implacable.

And from their ships
They call upon, they invoke,
With white sheep, the sons of Zeus.
Poised upon the stern, upon the stormy sea.

With the strong gale and the waves of the sea,
The ship begins to slip under the water.

Suddenly! They come to light.
Nimble golden brown wings
Whirring, thrilling. At once the trials
Raised by the winds are brought to an end.
The squally waves calmed,
Glassy is the white-salt sea.

The signs are good, the toil is over.
For they saw, and they rejoiced,
Their sufferings are over.

Hail Tyndaridai!
Quick-riding horsemen.
Always will I remember,
Always will I sing.

---

Kastor - the beaver
Polydeuces - very sweet

Kastor and Polydeuces - the twins. The pair that we call Castor and Pollux. Sons of Zeus, hence the name Dios-Kouroi Sons of Zeus. Brothers to the City Destroying Helen and Clytemnestra. Sons also to Tyndareus. Their mother was Leda, who spawned an egg and from this egg came the sons, one of whom was immortal, and the other was mortal. This leads to some conflicting accounts of how they shared the immortality, some tales say that they alternated days between mortal and immortal.

The pair had a special cult in Sparta, and some say this is the origin of the Sparta system of having two kings. This may or may not be true, it may be that Sparta came up with the idea of two kings and then looked for a religious explanation. Either way the sons were protectors of humans, and in particular they protected sailors, in the quick-going ships. This is the basis for this hymn. The Disokouroi protect the ship, arriving at the last moment in response to the supplications of the navigators. The pair are identified with St Elmo's fire, and this is how they appear in the poem. They calm the seas and the sailors are happy.

Amometos - Blameless, but here I gave it maybe a bit more, and used the epitaph given to Robespierre, sea green incorruptible. It sounded nicer.

Okyporos - The swift-sailing, or fast going. Describing the ships that the sons of Zeus protect.

Ameilichon - Implacable, or more literally, not gentle.

Echapines - Suddenly, how the twins appear to the supplicating sailors.
Ephanesan - To bring to light, to show, but also to shine. This sudden bringing to light represents the twins appearing at the last minute to save the sinking ship. It has connotations of an epiphany, in this cause the sudden coming into being of the power of the gods.

Chouthos - The colors yellow-brown, this describes the wings of the Disokouroi. It is also the word that is used to describe the bumblebee. Later it is meant to describe the thrilling, humming sound (I assume of bees). The twins are like busy bees flying here and there around the top most part of the mast, remembering how they were identified with St Elmo's fire. Here I wanted to try to invoke the bussing humming sound of the static electricity glowing on the mast in the storm.

---

the pic is from http://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/dictionary/Dict/image/dioskouroiLIMC.jpg

Hymn to Demeter

Hymn 13 - To Demeter

Flaxen haired goddess
Demeter majestic.
You I celebrate in song.
You and your daughter,
Persephoneia, beyond beauty.

Hail and Rejoice Goddess.
Preserve our city.
Attend my song.

---

Only three lines, this is basically a small section taken from a much longer hymn of Demeter, which hopefully I will be able to translate as I gain more experience and confidence. Only three lines, but it gave me lots of pause for thought. As people used to say about the Australian cricket, it was the best because of the short and sharp nature of the Sheffield Shield Competition. Each games was important, each innings, each over was important. So with this little three line poem, there is in fact no place to hide.

This translation is as much, if not more so, for me than it is for the general reader. So I go only beg your indulgence in my exercises.

hukomon - fair haired. This seemed a fair enough translation, but after looking deeper into the descriptions of Demeter it seemed best to go with flaxen-haired, as Demeter is a corn goddess.

koure - this means Demeter's daughter, more generally it means daughter. But it has overtones of the young daughter on the cusp of sexual life. A maiden is how we often see it defined in dictionaries from the early 1900's. I will leave it at daughter, but as I understand things, this word; like most words has deeper meanings.

perikallea - peri-kallea simply means very beautiful. Peri means about, around. This is what it means when used in the word peripatetic, where is describes Aristotle teaching his students, as they walk around the grounds of the Lyceum. This word is also defined as simply very, which is a fine word, but is one without much punch, so I decided to use another meaning of peri; beyond. And Koure (Demeter's young bride virgin daughter) is then described as beyond beauty. It seemed to be the correct intensifier.

The final word which I enjoyed was arkhe - this means simply to begin, to lead off. Further investigation gives meanings such as to govern, to lead, to command. After much thinking I went with attend, as this gives a dual meaning of leading, but also of paying attention. Maybe not the most correct translation, but for the poem it seemed the best word.

The image comes from here: http://www.theoi.com/Gallery/K3.2.html

Where are the snows of yesteryear?

Another year over, a new one just begun. A new year of blogging and poetry.
As one gets older one gets to indulge in rounds of 'I told you so', as if
any sane person needed to be told that, for example, invading Iraq was not a good idea. And this rapidly turns into schadenfreude, or to use the term that the Philosopher would have used, epichairekakia. Yes, I do confess to a feeling of delight watching politicians and sundry hob knobs twisting in the wind of historical necessity.

Long term historical movements bring the greatest amusement, for example the turmoil of the Catholic Church, as years of abuse come to the fore. The long term 'blow back' caused by the US supporting Muslim guerrillas in Afghanistan. And then years later to see these groups fight the Amis to a standstill. This is the type of schadenfreude I enjoy. The unrolling of history.

Petty? Maybe.

Cruel and unfeeling. Never! Any feelings are always coupled with a deep sadness for the terrible loss of life. Any feelings always burn with angry at the terrible lies and distortions, the steady loss of our freedoms and rights, and the stupid complicity of all of us.

So I write poetry and do this and that about my life, working, raising children and so it goes. When a young lad I wished to be a published author. This would be a good thing, or so I thought. Now I look upon the rows of shelves in the markets, and at all the books published, I am glad I have never carried through with this dream. I can blame no one but myself for any failings, indeed I do not blame anyone for my not being a successful author. One would think that the sheer volume of works produced each year would allow for one more book of poetry, or one more small novel, and if I really wanted to go down this road I could very easily.

A half assed internet search gave me a number of over 500 000 books published in the Anglosphere, which turned out to about 1440 books a day, or one a minute! And so much just overwhelms and drowns us in a sea of market based editorial self censorship. Corralled into a particular form, typecast and constricted suffocatingly tight of mind forged manacles. Even the authors who are interesting and thoughtful, are they serving a need for the elites, acting as a 'safety value' of dissent?



Of course leads me into this blog. I have a need to write. It is almost like a disease. Even though I may not be very talented, and often I am unable to properly express the ideas bumbling around my noodle, I am still going to write. In this I want to follow a line of ephemera, which is why my external contact is via this blog and more importantly poetry (open mic) readings. This generates feelings and thoughts of immediacy and inevitable transience. The poem is written, and maybe it is read aloud and maybe deposited onto this blog, and then is forgotten as I and all things around me move, which brings us to this effort...

And so this poem is a welter of pretence and derivation. The title and first line allude to Villion, Shakespeare and Hopkins. Two sections concerning my back yard, nauseous with a sense of place. The first is daytime the second section is night time. And the two sonnets hinge on an unwobbling pivot, a half emerged quote from the Phenomenology, included in it's entirety.

Sense-certainty itself has thus to be asked: What is the This? If we take it in the two-fold form of its existence, as the Now and as the Here, the dialectic it has in it will take a form as intelligible as the This itself. To the question, What is the Now? we reply, for example, the Now is night-time. To test the truth of this certainty of sense, a simple experiment is all we need: write that truth down. A truth cannot lose anything by being written down, and just as little by our preserving and keeping it. If we look again at the truth we have written down, look at it now, at this noon-time, we shall have to say it has turned stale and become out of date.

Wo ist der Schnee vom vergangenen Jahr?

---

Eager morning, wide couple colored sky.
Matrix of cloud and pure sun massy blue.
Sparse white cloud tea rising morning, my eye
Scans and prowls damp landscape of dawn break dew.

Shadows of clouds and glittering sunlight
Compete and tumble across the distance.
Dull shadows of gray clouds, of middling height,
Obscure ridgeline farmland of shadow dance.

Garish sun reflects the water surface,
Bouncing, redoubling the burning glow.
Ninety two million miles of empty space
Birthing energy so that all needs grow.

Write what I see just beyond my window,
Recording can not be, to truth, a foe.

Into the dark, past split wood stacked three tonne,
High pressure clear night, bright Venus shining,
Pouring ash the turned earth garden begun.
Sea birds and lap wings calling combining

Far off single dogs bark and howl, I close
My eyes and listen to the songs of the trees.
Grand murmuring sonatas. Winds compose
Long slow songs of history and unease.

Epics written across a thousand years
Sung one thousand rustling chorus leaves.
I listen the songs my eyes fill with tears,
The outer space wind, my heart grieves.

Everything. The Earth, the Sun, the Moon moves,
As careful standing on the one spot proves.

Devonport - Deloraine - Conara - St. Mary - Bicheno

Driving through the North East side of Tasmania. Too many of these poems end becoming anti war poems. It sucks that I have to do this rock drill anti war thing.

---

Early mourning shill
Scent of wood fires.

Meander on the Liffey
Bloom home steam Manchester train falls.

Counting the possums split open
The green verge of black road.

The influence of the city extends
Into the smallest one dirt horse town
A smut on the graph of the highway
Out here Coca Cola rocks the forest.

Salting about juice annoying each other
Mother confused by friendly service.

Ravens feasting the spilt open devil
Thin black ribbon between train tracks and river.

Strange distorted faces out the rock wall
Fallen over trees dressed in raggedy moss.
Green blue waves glimpsed random holes of trees
Alongsdide the ocean Break o' Day.

All these hamlets little towns we pass
New South Victoria Tasmania
It matters not, we see the same stone ghosts
Pale and cold. The sorrowful digger rifle
To the ground slouch hat head down grieving
Immense chasm of grief a generation
Lost or more accurate thrown away.
Est e Forge. How can we? Remembrance.
We do not even remember the whys
And wherefores. Knee deep in mud built trenches
Alongside a young man his bottom jaw
Torn apart eyes rolling in terror.
Epiphanies staring across a chasm
Of grief and sorrow. Fourteen Eighteen
A generation slaughtered as if the world
Is too small to share. Sent home to forget.
As if one can forget the brave young ones
Shrieking in terror in the mud and lies
Entrails spilling lungs searing of poison.
Home to a lack and shell shock and the dole.
Home to the same parties and policies
Home to the pimps and whores who grew so much death.
Lest We Forget! There is not enough to share.
War to build more more war and more destruction
Greed and cynical anti communism.

Into East Devonport

---

Into Tasmania, looking around East Devonport

---

A pot of beer
A pint of port
In this old port town.

Gusting shreds of rain squalls
Round and round breaking the quiet.

Beach of rocks and rain water flowing
From the streets across the sandy flats
Constant rattle hymn of ocean waves
Teen age lairs of empty condom bottles
Three yellow black cockatoos mock ignore
The two running screaming laughing children.

Cement factory looming and noisy
Fright herds in away the capital
Engorging never stood and never will.

Staring dog on a leash blinking blackness
Quenching ocean constant thrilling roar
One two ten seconds one two ten seconds
Repeating red warning lights charnel
Estuary beckoning beacon sign.

And the ship as tall as a carpeted
Apartment building as wide as a parking
Garage lifted and lofted bounced about
The humbling power of the ocean
Scouring the shore land mixing vital
Minerals into the vast salt soupy
Briny krill wash of the great sweet mother.

Scorpio descends uncoiled shiftless clouds
Binary night of day long showers.

Long low sorrowful bass wail blast
Of industrial ship rugged up against
Bracing blasting wind cold ruggedly
Merchant sailors rough rugged hands calloused
Torn knuckled and Bolsheviki hands
Arthritic and abused and thrown away
Aside hands. Maritime Workers Union
Hall monument to past away sailors
Sufferers chapel. The first radio
Southern hemisphere transmission.

East Devonport Bowls Club painkilling
Into the night innuendo laughter.

Flashing tough spectacle images
A disordered mind remote control
Lumping from scene to scene advertisements
Con you into thinking you're the one
That doesn't smoke the same cigarette as me
Drunken druggist compelled control
Mod urn of piled spectacle over priced
Vaccination and accusations
Hung parliament of transported agreement
Let all parliamentarians go hang
That wing should only exist to support
The out in the street wing not the back room
Loitering wing of well paid communions.
The disordered mind twists and mash up turns
This is our left wing wight sad to say.

The young boy toss throws one eon smoothed rock
My young son into the shallow puddle
And the dog chases pounces upon
Unable to purchase a bite smooth
Worn rock over time and he struggles.

Piddle paddle puddles reflect
The incandescent houses the city.
Long low stentorian great ship groans
Thunder heave hoes into view and I watch
As it sail shudders dissipates long way
Into the jet ink black cold uncaring
Night of enhancing jet black ink cold night.

The wind rattles and rustles and whispers
And thistles the aluminium frame
Skeleton plastic construction work place.

Bonza bait for sale
Lapwings chitter chatter
The golden rain night.

Port Melbourne - Bass Straight

Crossing the Bass Straight in a big old boat. Closing in on our goal.

---

I knew we were meant to be together
For we, know what I mean, hate the same things.
Timidity of the capitalist class
Fearful any changes to the flow of cash
And yet rushing salivating to follow
The path finders pushing to over
Produce then equalising back to fear.

What is rational for the individual
Becomes irrational for everyone.

As the down steady rain pelts the earth
Bogging the grassy dirt and sliding off streets
Of hand made bitumen tiny rivulets
Form and all find their way to the rivers
And creeks and streaming brooks embracing filling
The ways of water and constant the water
Rises and over flows the normalising
Banks the constraining banks the confining banks
Slowly at first cautiously searching for low
Spaces to explore and exploit until
With an unstoppable rush the water
Overflows and scours the riverbanks
Filling all depressed places eroding
The sides destroying humbling all
In the path sapping houses and neighbourhoods
Entire towns tossed apart and denuded.
Even so does the capitalist class
Rush into the low places where money
Can be found where gain is to be made
Regardless without thought irrational.

Pretence of inner city living
Gazebo in memoriam ANZAC
Bronze brick subscription great war diggers
Home to homeless barefoot avoided
Encrusted black single feather headband
Failures of our rulers. Discarded
Cast aside abused ignored soldiers
The incurable widows orphans tossed
Onto the pigsty scrap heap the shadow
Of fabulous wealth of endless theft.

After two hours or more crossing
The calm wide light encircled bay
Dreaming of maybe ancient encampments
Forty thousand years ago and the Yarra
Slowly meandered a flat dry plain
Hunters and small gorups built and spoke their tales
After the ice age after the ice melted
The sea rushed into the rip filling shallow
The land hiding the encampmetns the middens
And the meltiung ice caps the rising seas
Recalls Utnapishtim or Noah's flood
The strong waves of the ocean bob cork
Towering ship large apartment building.

Black sky black ocean cloudy starless moon kiss
Pitching and yawing yawing and pitching
Slow and anaemic steady breathing rolling
In unison sympathy with the gentle
Sleep rhythm breathing of children snoring
The slow tidal rhythm of countless lunar
Cycles the long sonorous song calls
Hiding massive southern right humpback whale.
Dread the fear that any time I would be pitched
Off tall second floor scuppered bunk bed.

Hiding in plain site thick working class beard
Searching out quiet herbal smoking dream.
Saints win clinking glasses and television
Sing soggy scraping knifes and forks on plates
Slave coast titans claw back a surprising
Come from behind win o'er the southern storms.

The black dog alone in rowed kennels
A middle aged dyed blonde women sings
Popular disinterred love silly songs.

Shuddering ship
Vibrating engines
Resonance
Shuttering ship
Radiant children
Dissonance.

Bairnsdale - Sale - Traralgon

More travelling through Gippsland Victoria quiet and nightmare dark history and i can never wake up from. like a vampire it infects me and slowly drains me dry. from a letter written 1846 by a squatter Henry Meyrick. the quote was found on wikipedia.

The blacks are very quiet here now, poor wretches. No wild beast of the forest was ever hunted down with such unsparing perseverance as they are. Men, women and children are shot whenever they can be met with … I have protested against it at every station I have been in Gippsland, in the strongest language, but these things are kept very secret as the penalty would certainly be hanging … For myself, if I caught a black actually killing my sheep, I would shoot him with as little remorse as I would a wild dog, but no consideration on earth would induce me to ride into a camp and fire on them indiscriminately, as is the custom whenever the smoke is seen. They [the Aborigines] will very shortly be extinct. It is impossible to say how many have been shot, but I am convinced that not less than 450 have been murdered altogether

---

Gloaming growling wind
Grey oligarchies
Solitary

Barnacle sale paragons

And what is the great bourgeois dream?
Nothing less than something for nothing
Gold from death from tossed aside lives
Sleazed extorted used discarded.
The great alchemical dream of gold
From base nothingness. As the chairman
Of the Chamber of Commerce admitted
In the Fin Review, I chanced to glance
At one pot clouded Friday afternoon,
In fact we resent paying wages.
Worship of the criminal
Of the strong man who takes what he wants.
Something for nothing. To diddle
Staff out of money to offer poor
Service at best to place the onus
On the outsider the customer
Anything else. Enterprise translates
To pure theft and nothing else no honour
No social good no care no forward.
Something for nothing. Something for nothing.
The bourgeois dream taught to our children.
Climbing the ladder of aspiration
Living the life of ownership
We have lost more than optimism
Grasping after wealth after things
We have lost the cooperative
Spirit for the home owner lives in dread
Fear of it all failing crashing down.
And this fear makes all weak and confused.
Something for nothing. Responsibility
Falls to the individual
While producers laugh cashing cheques
The hungry are allowed to starve
The weak are thrown aside those who are ill
Deserve to die they are not pure of heart.

Asbestos lead cadmium coal
Let the workers chew on that
Let the workers spit out gold.

Is this how we are to teach our children?

Compassion suits the poor
Greed is the strong Christian man.
The world is too small to share.
When uncle Toby was vexed
And his dinner spoiled
From a simple fat buzzing fly
He let the fly out the window
This world surely is wide enough
To hold both Thee and me.

Misty foggy clean evening tide
Osiris to my right hand side
Saggy telephone lines beside
The wide highways black glinting
The oncoming car headlights.

Slack sloughing Orion to the front
And off the my right side.

Mimic English names Avon River
And you can guess the rest.

The telephone is out of range
The petrol stations are all closed.

Late rising lazy old dying
Crone wan moon mother sickle.
And then I read Malcolm died.