Fleeing

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A friend of mine showed me a poem she wrote. She used the image of the oars in the water, churning the water to foam. Which reminded me of the end of book nine of the Odyssey. Our hero is fleeing after having blinded Polyphemus. The phrase Homer uses is πολιὴν ἅλα polien hala. Literally the grizzled salt, but obviously Homer is talking about the churning sea water. Odyssey 9.556ff

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So then all the day, until the sun sank
We feasted, sharing ample flesh, sweet wine.
When the sun set and the shadows came,
Lulled by the breakers, we slept on the beach.

With the early rosy fingered light of dawn,
I roused my drowsy comrades, ordered them
To board the ship, to let slip the anchor.

And they at once boarded and on their benches sat
Crouching rows, the grizzled salt sea they struck with oars.

So we sailed away, grieving in our hearts,
Glad to have escaped death, our dear friends dead.

Homer Vomiting

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So we have seen squalls all day, in between moments of bright sunshine. I took some time off from the family to read a few paragraphs of Charon by Lucian. When I got to this passage a wild storm rose up. Hail banging on the roof, the windows shaking and rattling with the wind and rain. It was quite a tempest. An example of a recursive incantation? A Homeric recital that caused a storm in Dodges Ferry.

First a little background; Charon has come to Earth to see what it is that makes the shades weep so, when on his ferry. He comes across Hermes and Hermes agrees to show him about. But Charon can not see very well in the bright sunlight (he lives in Hades after all.) Hermes chants some lines of Homer over Charon and he can see! Marvellous he exclaims! Shall I tell you what I know of Homer? How do you, Hermes asks, now of Homer. Charon is insulted and says:

For I was ferrying his shade across the river,
He would not stop reciting - I listened
And I remembered. Even when a storm
That was not trivial overtook us.
When he began his chanting
Not everyone thought his song
To be of good omen for the journey.
He sang of Poseidon gathering the clouds
And troubling the waves. Like when
The cook uses a spoon to stir soup,
So did Poseidon's trident trouble the sea
Great gales he roused and much else besides.
Foaming the seas with his poetic words.
And for a moment I thought our ship
Would be overturned. Then the poet
Grew sea-sick and vomited up his
Recitations. All about was Scylla,
Charybdis, and Cyclops, and many more.
It was not hard for me to gobble up
Some lines from out of the mess.

Magic words that bring on the storm!

Nothing is True

---

So as one who has spent his entire career on the fringes of the poetry world, I am more than a bit amused at the recent plagiarism scandal in the poetry world. In the same way that opposition to the ETS is actually a symptom of a deep seated fear of change and of science so too is this plagiarism scandal the symptom of a much deeper problem. There are others words that we dare not say as well, words such as incompetence and monotony, and the most dread of all words ownership.

I look back at some of the events in my life and I have to laugh. Many years ago while living in Brisbane and working in some soul destroying proletarian sort of job an academic knocked back my submission to an anthology of poetry telling me that I did not speak the language of the working people. Too stunned to reply I could only laugh. Later I entered the Vogel Award, not that I am a novelist of any sort, but I wanted to see if I could write a full length novel. I have no bitter feelings for having lost for my book was not very good. But the point I want to highlight is that this was the same year that the award was won by the execrable The Hand That Signed the Paper. A remarkably nasty little book that went on to win the Miles Franklin award! As a side note a previous winning novel Jack Rivers and Me was not written by the claimed author.

So here we can see a pattern of foolishness.

But enough of my nonsense and moving right along. It was with great amusement when I jumped onto the computer and saw a series of posts and comments about the most recent scandal in the poetry scene. Every single post attacked the individual involved. Some saying that the poet refused to travel the searing road to find his own voice, others, like protesters in front of Scott Morrison's office chanted shame, shame!

Now it is not my intention to defend the poet, Andrew Slattery, as I do not know him from a bar of soap. But rather I wish to find any deep seated failures that allow this to happen. For like anything else in our world, the poem is not a thing, but rather a relationship between people.

So besides the terrible word plagiarism, the first word we must bring up in relation to this “scandal” is incompetent. First I have to note that it has been almost three years since he won the Rosemary Dobson Prize. Three years and nobody from the judging committee noticed! Even more shocking to me is this sentence from the SMH article that leaves me shaking my head. An entire poem was lifted from the philosopher Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil. Have none of the judges ever read Beyond Good & Evil? Surely one of the most unique voices in Western philosophy and the doyens of literature in Australia did not notice. This is surely a level of incompetence that makes the sins of the poet pale into insignificance.

In my travels as a poet I have at times had a foolish or unreasoning fondness of the idea of the gloss. Submitting my poems to various journals and what-not, I was informed (again by an academic) that to use a gloss was an example of pretentiousness and that modern poetry could not be pretentious. I retorted that if pretense is from the word to play, who if not a poet could be pretentious. So the gloss is no good, in-text citations are clunky and disturb the flow. Foot notes seem better, but to my mind the best thing to do would be to mention in a bit of a proem that this is a cento with lines from XYZ poets. But would the poem then pass the muster of the academy? I think not, I am happy to be shown wrong. All of this lifts the cover on the sleeping lump that is poetry in Australia. That it is too closely bound with academics, and we can note that academic is close to the word anemic. For that is what passes for poetry in Australia today, a bloodless, lifeless regurgitation of the known.

The third and final point I wish to make concerns the idea of intellectual property. Did the Homeridae even care about intellectual property? For is not the literal definition of rhapsode a stitcher of words? This was noted by Pindar
In the same way as the Homeridae,
Singers of stitched words...

Did Shakespeare feel he was plagiarising when he used, for example, the story of Pyramus and Thisbe as the basis for Romeo and Juliet? Did the medieval balladeers feel they were plagiarists when they recycled lines and tunes? And what of the works of Eliot or Joyce, to name just two?

Or to quote Pound with usura
seeth no man Gonzaga his heirs and his concubines
no picture is made to endure nor to live with
but it is made to sell and sell quickly.

Plagiarism as a crime (or sin if you prefer) rises with Capitalism, for the ancients had no problems with the idea of recycling and reusing works. In our bourgeois world (and I would invite my readers (however few they may be) to join me in recreating bourgeois as a word that expresses contempt) where the individual is risen above all, and the very idea of the co-operative spirit is brought into doubt what are the pressures on the author? It seems to me that copyright and intellectual property, while sounding helpful and fine in theory are used by big conglomerates to control thought, and art in our society. One only has to look at the shameful acts of the Disney corporation in ripping off fairy tales and then claiming ownership of the idea of, for example, Snow White. Or the equally shameful and bogus claims of Men at Work and the Kookaburra Song. So keen where they to defend their rights that tehy did not even know, until an unfortunate episode of Spicks and Specs. Examples of publishing companies abusing copyright can be extended seemingly endlessly.

So here we have it, my thoughts on this topic. The words that can not be spoken are, incompetence -- the incompetence of judges. Monotony, the stranglehold of writing held by academics who seek only to reinforce their own position. And of course the vile words of ownership, which seeks to make money at the expense of art.

Could this all have been avoided? Yes, the author could have noted the use of other writings, but would it have won? With the storm spreading across facebook, I doubt it, for too many seem to place an individual originality above the work of art. But from my point of view, this whole imbroglio was worthwhile as it allowed me to do some research into the ancient idea of the cento. Was the poem good, were the ideas good, did you enjoy and learn something? So we must finish with a half-forgotten quote from Ezra Pound, “it is a poor critic who talks of the artist and not the work of art.” For now we know more about Andrew Slattery and very little about the actual poem written.

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painting from http://www.kounterkulture.co.uk/blogs/charlotte-bracegirdle-and-las-meninas

Rock Pools

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Hair heavy with sand and salt.

The swirling random patterns of foam
Leave strange shadows in the water...

As the shadow of the swimmer
Falls upon the sand and shimmers
The refracted fractures of sunlight
Upon the lumpy uneven sand,
So too does the prehistoric
Ray move a shadow across the sand
Graceful across the undulating
Echoed slowly becoming rock waves.

The flat grey sky falls upon the flat
Grey ocean, the flat bright blue
Sky falls across the blue vivid sea.

On the sand a small broken fleck
Of a scrape of purple inside
Mother of pearl mussel shell
Catches my eye, catches the sun.

More stars in the heavens than grains of sand.

In the rock pools starfish and urchins,
The strange marking of the snail glyphs.
The gentle flowing of the tide
And a torn jellyfish hangs the
Water column and waltzes back and forth
The tidal flow.

Dionysus & Semele

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Homeric Hymn 1: To Dionysus
Dionysus, the God of wine and etc. His mother was Seleme, whom Zeus fell in love with and visited as an eagle. When Hera heard of the affair, she tricked Semele into asking Zeus to appear in his true form. He tried to dissuade her, but Semele insisted. When he appeared in this true form, the flashing thunder & lightning killed her.

Zeus took the foetus from the womb of the dead Semele, and stitched the god into his thigh. Hence the epithet eirafiwta, in-sewn. Later Dionysus went to the underworld and brought the shade of his mother to Olympus. She was given the name Thuone, which is something like inspiring frenzy in women obviously in her role as a 'priest' in the cult of Bacchus.

Much of this is missing, and the geography is wrong, Phoenicia is not near the Nile. But I am happy to view the geography as one would in, for example, Brecht's City of Mahogany, where Alabama is thought near Alaska.

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[bits are missing]

Some say in Drakanon,
Others in windy Ikaria
Others on Naxos divinely born in-sewn
Others by deep flowing Alfeios
You were born.

Conceived of Semele,
Nurtured of thunder-loving Zeus.
Still others in Thebes
They say you were born.

But they lie.
You were born the father of men and gods
Away from men, hiding from white armed Hera
On high mountain Nysa's blooming forest,
Far way in Phoenicia by Aegyptus streams...

[The text is lost here - but it appears that Zeus is talking]

And they offer sacrifices in your many temples
And these are indeed three,
At your triennial festival
Men shall offer perfect hecatombs.

Behind his dark brow the Son of Kronos
Nodded assent, flowing hair flowing
His immortal head
Great his voice roared and echoed
Out from Olympus, all-wise Zeus assented.

Be gracious, twice born God,
You who inspire frenzy in women.
We singers sing to you
As we begin and end our songs.
Never forgetting the songs
You put in our minds.

And so we praise thigh-born Dionysus
And his mother Semele now called Thuone.

Shield Of Achilles

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From Book 18 lines 478-608 of the Iliad this is one of the first examples (in western poetry anyway) of Ekphrasis. The detailed description of a work of art. I have not attempted to recreate the rhythm of Homer, but I flatter myself that I have captured the rapid changes of topic and point of view, I have also tried to capture some of the clear sounding literalness of Homer.

---

First of all he fashioned a shield, large and strong,
Elaborate in all ways, about the rim he set threefold
Glittering shining metal. He made a strap of studded silver.
Five layers of metal for the shield. The surface
Covered with decorations from his knowing mind.

He wrought the land, the heavens and the oceans,
The restless blazing sun, the moon waxing full.
The constellations encircling the heavens.
The Pleiades, the Hyades, strong Orion,
The Great Bear, also called by some the wagon.
Who twists around the one spot, watching Orion.
Alone, he does not bath the stream of Oceanus.

Two fair cities he made, swelling well spoken ones.
In the first city there were weddings and banquets,
The young wives from out of chambers with torches
Blazing were lead the streets, while wedding songs
Aroused the young men. Dancers spinning around,
Flutes and lyres loud playing. And the older
Women stood marveling beside doorways.
People gathered together, for a quarrel
Had risen. Two arguing over blood price.
A man had died. The killer to the crowd
Offering to pay. While a relative
Of the victim refused to accept money.
Both sides desiring to hear a judgement,
The partisans of the two divided.
Marshals held back both sides. And the judges
Sat in a circle, on smoothly polished stones.
Heralds passing the speaking staffs around
As each judge, clearly speaking, took his turn.
The joined pair, accused and accuser, in turns
Pushed to plead their case and hear the judgement.
And in the middle two gold talents to pay
The old one who most just spoke his judgement.

All around the second city were camped armies
In flashing armour. Divided in thought,
Some to sack the city, some to heap up the wealth
And take half of all the lovely city contained.
The citizens were not these plans persuaded,
In secret they armed themselves and planned ambush.
Setting their beloved wives and young children
To guard the walls, alongside old men pressed by age.
The citizens moused away to set the ambush.
In the van Ares and spear holding Athena,
Clad all in gold. Dressed all in golden clothes.
Beautiful and dreadful, armoured as fitting Gods.
The gods stood aloof, the people in the shadows.
They marched out searching out a likely ambush place.
By the river, the drinking spot of thirsty beasts.
There they crouched, having covered their flashing bronze.
They sent two look outs to keep watch on the host,
Quiet watching for sheep and twisted horn cattle.
Soon the beasts came into view, with two herdsmen,
Playing flutes to cheer themselves, the trap unseen.
Upon seeing the sheep they at once sprang their trap.
Surrounding, they cut off the herds of cattle,
The flocks of fair white sheep. Both herdsmen they killed.
The army heard the sounds of battle near their herds,
Ending debate, at once they rushed to their horses.
Mounting high-stepping horses, they quickly reached
Their foes and engaged in battle by the river banks,
Each side throwing bronze tipped spears at the other.
Eris and Kudoimos battle joined with Keros,
One man supporting a newly wounded man,
Another unwounded, another having died.
Through the pressing din, Eris by feet claiming.
Her garments painted red with the blood of men.
Coming together in battle the enemies
Fought over the corpses, dragging them away.

He set a fallow field, soft, rich, fertile,
Wide, thrice-ploughed. Many ploughmen worked the land.
Draught teams turning, working, driving back and forth.
Turning about once reaching the boundary.
And pressed into their hands cups of honey sweet wine
Were given, quick the men would turn, cutting furrows,
Aiming for the fallow field, deep soil to reach.
The field growing black, as if having been ploughed,
In truth golden. A wondrous shield had been made.

And he set the private land of the king. Workers
Holding sharp sickles in their hands were cutting
Swathes of corn along the lines of reaping.
One after another falling to the ground.
Sheaf-binders were bundling up the corn,
Three binders working, while behind children
Picked off the ground, with bent arms, the fallen bundles
Carrying without pause. The king stood silent
Amid the labourers, holding his sceptre,
Along the reaping line, happy of heart.
Attendants stood apart, under the oak tree,
Having sacrificed a great ox they were
Busy preparing a feast. The women workers,
The main meal of the day for the field hands,
They were preparing, sprinkling the white barley.

He set a great vineyard, heavy with clustered grapes,
Beautiful and golden. Purple black grapes
All around there were, supported by vine poles
Right around of silver. A drainage ditch
Fenced the vineyard, blue corn flower enamel.
Right around the vineyard a fence of tin
He hammered out. A path without turnings
Leading to the vineyard, where the bearers
Would walk when they were harvesting the vineyard.
Young women and young men, innocent at heart
Carrying wicker baskets of honey sweet fruit.
Amidst the fruit carriers a youth played
A clear toned lyre, sweetly he played his tune
Singing clear with his delicate young boy voice,
All together beating time with raised voice and
Dancing, frolicking feet, following his song.

He made a herd of cattle with straight horns.
Golden cattle he made of tin, lowing
They hastened out of the farmyard towards the pasture
Aside a murmuring river, with waving reeds.
Golden herdsmen were together with the cattle,
Nine swift footed dogs followed the four herdsmen.
Two fearful lions terrible blocked the way,
Holding their mouth a loud bellowing bull.
The lions were dragging the bull away
The herdsmen, strong and vigorous were following.
The two lions having torn open the thick hide
Were greedily feeding on dark blood and entrails,
The herdsmen in vain urging the nimble dogs
To attack the lions. The dogs were avoiding
Bites of the lions. Barking keeping out of reach.

In the large pasture he made, the famous
Injured one, lovely glen full of white fleeced sheep,
A homestead, with huts for shepherds and pens for sheep.

A dancing place he made, from his brain and arm,
Just like the one, long ago in wide street Knossos,
Built by Daedalus for fair haired Ariadne.
There young men and cattle bringing young women
Were dancing with each other, wrist hand holding.
Some of the women wearing fine linen, the men
In tunics softly shimmering olive oiled
And the women beautiful garlands wearing,
The men wore golden daggers in silver baldrics.
They used to wheel about with skilful steps,
Very smoothly, like the potter throwing.
Crouching at work smoothing the clay with testing palm
How it would spin, new running lines one another.
Sweet companies tumbling. A crowd gathering
In enjoyment. Two acrobats the middle
Of the happy crowd, singing and dancing
Leading the festive crowd in cries joyful.

He set the great stream, spirit of Oceanus
Along the edge of the shield, large and strong.

After he had made the shield, large and strong
He made a breastplate brighter than the sun's fire.
He made a helmet, strong and protecting the temple,
Beautifully wrought. Upon he set a golden crest.
Next he made leggings of soft pliant tin.
After his hard toil he took all the armour
Presenting it to the mother of Achilles.
Like the hawk she sprung from snowy Olympus
Bearing the flashing armour of Hephaestus.

Misew

Misogyny, Sexism and some (rambling) thoughts on language.

Odysseus - the hated one, the accursed one.

---

As a note, I have used in various Greek words the convention of
writing omega (big or long O) as a w. Also I have used the
uncontracted version of the verbs, making it that little bit easier to
find in dictionary.

Many of us, including myself, were thrilled to see Julia Gillard stand
up and confront the rabid sexism and misogyny coming from the leader
of the Opposition Tony Abbott. This is reflected in the youtube video
of the speech having garnered over 1 500 000 hits. Not bad for a
speech in parliament. Usually one of the last place you tubers like to
go to, with cute cats and children falling down generally getting the
lions share of hits.

Many people have been stunned by the consistent media refrain that
this was a bad speech and shows Gillard at her shrewish, hysterical,
fish wife, school marm, or what other sexist remark you want to fill
in best. Some have even hinted that she was somehow responsible for
the text massages of a (at the time) sitting LNP member. Putting aside
the obvious sexism and attempts to muddy the waters of these sorts of
comments, I want to focus on one point of the 'counter-speech.'

It seems to me that, in an attempt to side step the issue and confuse
things among the people, the reactionaries, in their usual legalistic,
language perverting manner have fixated on the question of
hatred. Tony Abbott does not hate women, he has a wife and three
daughters, they scream red faced back at the PM. Leaving us with the
more than farcical idea that Tony Abbott is such a supporter of women
that his sperm can bring forth nothing but more women. I will leave it
to others to explain this ludicrous bit of science.

But let us use some dictionaries and some understanding of Greek
language to investigate this point further. Working in a book shop I
have access to numerous dictionaries. Some of them define misogyny as
hatred of women, while others extend the definition to include
contempt for, or dislike of women. Since the draft of this it has been
reported that the Maquarie Dictionary will extend (not soften as some
say) the definition of misogyny to include 'entrenched prejudice
against women.'

To fixate on the one word 'misew' the reactionaries and their running
dog media lackeys fail to see that the language has evolved (of course
evolution and reactionaries are not the best of friends) over the
years, and that there can be various levels of hatred. Indeed if I was
to say that I hate Collingwood; for example, does that mean that I am
unable to admit that some players are very good, could I not also say
that they are a very good team who have been a fixture in the league
for over a century? Only the most narrow and useless understanding of
language would force me into a position where I must hate without
reservation every single player who put on the black and white across
their entire history of the club. Most of us use words like hate in a
more elastic sense, and see that it is does not have to be a universal
principle held with no regard for nuance and changing circumstances.

So let us now turn to the Greeks. It did not take much research to see
that the ancients, like us, had many different words for hate. Misew
being only one of these words. And even this word had subtlety. For
example in one section of the Iliad (17.272) the verb is used when the
poet has Zeus say that he would hate to see the Achaeans be made a
feast for dogs and vultures. One can easily translate this word as
hate. But most people can see that Samuel Butler makes a better point
in his translation when he makes this line say, Zeus would not suffer
for the Achaeans to be made a feast for dogs and vultures. So with
almost no effort on my part I discovered a 'lesser' connotation of the
word. Does Tony Abbott and the LNP not suffer women to take their full
place in society? One can argue this point, but from my point of view
I would have to say yes. One only has to listen to quiet bubbling up
of opposition to the idea of no fault divorce within LNP to see this.

More research led me find other words used to mean hatred. Oddussw
(the possible root of the name Odysseus) also means to hate, or to be
incensed. In the case of our wandering hero he could seen as having
been named 'the accursed one.' Indeed our hero says in book five, "For
I know that the glorious Earth-shaker is filled with wrath against
me." This would seem sensible as he was cursed and tormented by the
Gods.

Misew as we have seen means to hate, as in seen in this Aristophanes
quote. 'I hate the rough (brazen) women, I hate the prudish ones.'
Besides the apparent confusion of the character who spoke these lines,
does this not imply a more light hearted, more frivolous usage of word
hate? One may think so. The wrath of Poseidon towards Odysseus, based
on blinding of his son Polyphemus by Odysseus seems to be much
stronger than the confused hatred of Aristophanes comic creation.

Some other words used by the Greeks to describe hatred include;
Bdelugmia, loathing, disgust, nausea; Fthonew, bear ill-will, envious,
grudge, malice; Stugew, abominate, loathe, hate, this is used by
Sophocles in his tragedy Ajax 'the gods hate the evil ones'; and
finally echthairw, to hate or detest. This can be found in the phrase
used by Sophocles, echthos echtheras mega - hating with a great
hatred.

So here we find a continuum of words which mean hate, with misew being
at the bottom end, while loathing, disgust and nausea being on the top
end of hatred. This is true in English too, I can say I hate my
landlord, but I really may not, as I have never met him. But if I was
to say my landlord fills me with disgust and makes me nauseous, I
think we may be talking about real deep down in ones bones hatred.

Of course I could be wrong, as I have never met Tony Abbott. He may
very well love his wife and family. This absurd line that having a
wife makes on immune to accusations of misogyny can be seen in the
fact that (and I am not saying Abbott is a wife beater) one must have
a wife before one can be a wife beater. Surely a great deal of
misogyny is hidden behind closed suburban doors. But I see no reason
to dispute the PM's comments on his misogyny, as it is something we
see everyday. From his support for people like Alan Jones, to his
opposition to HPV vaccine, to his opposition to RU486 contraception, to
his life long support of one of the great pillars of womens oppression
the Catholic Church. This includes his statements like the lovely one
about women not being fit for command. Coming back to the Greeks this
seems to echo the ancient idea that a woman was a deformed man, this
deformity is echoed in the Pythagorean idea that if a man was immoral
in this life he would be reincarnated as a woman.

This next quote comes from The Geography of Strabo, in which he
describes Misogynists as complaining about their wives spending too much
money. Is this not an idea which is still current in our society? Is
this still not the punchline of many lame jokes on many lame situation
comedies? And is it an idea that comes back to the idea that women
are deformed men? Not as able as men to handle command and fiance?
And are this not similar words to the words used by Abbott and many
other LNP hacks? (To be fair I am sure there are many men in the ALP,
or even the Greens party, who hold similar views.)

And again attend to the words of the same poet when he speaks in one
of his characters, bringing in a man disgusted with the expenses of
the sacrifices of the women. ‘The gods weary us indeed, but
especially our married men, who are always obliged to celebrate some
feast.’ And his Misogynes, complaining of the same things, exclaims,
‘We sacrificed five times a day, while seven female slaves ranged in
a circle played on the cymbals, and others raised their suppliant
cries.’ (the poet mentioned being Meandear.)

More than enough ink has been spilt in the last week or so on this
subject, so I will leave with a quote from the delightfully absurd
'Philosopher's Dinner Party' by Athenaeus.

Euripides the poet, also, was much addicted to women: at all events
Hieronymus in his Historical Commentaries speaks as follows,—"When
some one told Sophocles that Euripides was a woman-hater, 'He may be,'
said he, 'in his tragedies, but in his bed he is very fond of women.'"

Polytropos

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Hermes is fast becoming one of my favourite of the ancient Greek gods. Why is that? He is, like Ulysses, referred to as polytropos - being of many turns. Tropos is a word that has several meanings. Many of the words in ancient Greek had to perform many tasks. Most of the definitions of tropos centre around being a turn, a mode, a fashion or a manner. From this we get our modern, maybe overused word trope; meaning a figure of speech.

Versatile. Cunning he was, a thief and a watcher in the night. He stole the cattle of Apollo and built the first lyre from a tortoise shell and the guts of the stolen cattle. A rover and a drover, the bringer of dreams and of good luck. As he is messenger between the gods and mortals he becomes the guardian of boundaries and the guardian of interpretations. He protects harlots and thieves and crones. In his mode (or trope) as messenger he helps travellers and runners. He is often shown as an adolescent in the art works, alluding to role as a guardian of transitions. It was in this role as guardian of boundaries that he suffered the sacrilege referred to as the Destruction of the Hermai. Statues of Hermes had been set up in many places in Athens. These were simple blocks of stone with the head of the god, as well as his exaggerated phallus. These markers were also rumoured to ward off evil. On the eve of the ill-fated Sicilian Expedition unknown vandals smashed off the penis, as well as (even worse) mutilating the face of many of these statues. This was understandably the cause of great anxiety in the city, and in retrospect should have resulted in cancelling the project, which become in many ways the Stalingrad of the ancient world.

Hermes may be an old god, for he is mentioned in Linear B inscriptions found in Knossos and Pylos as e-ma-a. Others traditions say that he may been an import from the East. Although to my thinking it is best to think of the Eastern Mediterranean as being a single culture. Regardless of his origin he was worshiped in the more remote, wild places such as Arcadia. As such he was the patron of farmers and shepherds. Amusing to me to think the laconic dry witted farmer type gave rise to the smooth talking interpreter. From his early shaman origins he would have been involved in divination, of crossing between this world and the other. Evolving into the trickster dream bringing god, and giving us the words hermetic and hermeneutics.

Also it is interesting to compare Kriophoros Hermes (Ram Bearing Hermes) to early Christian imagery of the Good Shepherd. But that is another story for another day.






























Polytropos indeed.

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Homeric Hymn 17 - To Hermes

Of Cyllenian Hermes I sing! Slayer of Argos,
Guardian of Cyllene and of Arcadia
Rich in flocks of goats and sheep.

Luck bringing messenger of the gods.
Own child of Maia, daughter of Atlas,
Who had intercourse with Zeus.

Bashful she shunned
The crowded tumult
Of the deathless ones.

Into her shaded cavern
Came the son of Kronous.
To the young fair haired
Cutely trimmed new wife.

They made love in the dark
Of the night entwined in her hair

While smoothed limbed
Hera slept sweetly.

They escaped the notice
Of the deathless gods
And the mortal ones.

Of you I rejoice,
Son of Zeus and Maia
Of you I begin,
And so pass over
To other melodies.

Rejoice!
Joy giving guide,
Bringer of good luck.


pictures are from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:0007MAN-Herma.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hermes_crioforo.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c2/Good.Shepherd.Vatican.Museum.jpg

Apis the Egyptian brought medicine

Homeric Hymn 16 - To Asklepius

I begin to sing of the Healer of diseases Asklepius
Son of Apollo, born through Koronis, daughter of Phlegyas,
In the Dotian plain. A great joy to the mortals,
Soother of the evil pains.

Rejoice Lord, my prayer to you is my song.

---

Asklepius was god of medicine. His father was Apollo and his mother Koronis. One tradition relates that she died in childbirth, and Apollo took the baby from her womb. The flames of the pyre parting, allowing him to tear his dead lovers belly open. Another, more brutal, tale tells how after intercourse Koronis spurned Apollo for another. He then killed her, maybe with his hands, maybe with his bow. In both variants the child was torn from Koronis and given to the centaur Chiron to be raised. This Caesarian birth also explains the god's name which means something like 'cut from' (or then again maybe not.) The child was taught medicine, and so became a great doctor. During his adventures, Athena gave him some of the blood from the right side of the gorgon, which gave the power to raise the dead. Blood from the left side, being of course deadly.

With this power came the downfall of Asklepius. Maybe he was killed because raising the dead angered cloud-gathering Zeus, or maybe Hades fearing his kingdom would be emptied had a word to Zeus and angered up his blood. I prefer the version where he was killed for charging money for raising the dead. For the warmth and light of the sun, then plants that grow from the fields, the rivers that flood and revitalise the land, and this and more are freely given by the gods. Not, as in Christian thought, because the gods love us, but rather it shows how much more powerful the gods are than us puny mortals.

And in anger for killing his son, Phoibos Apollo killed the Cyclops who had made the murderous thunderbolt.

An Argonaut, Asklepius was married to Epione, the soother of pains, and they had six daughters.

• Hygeia - goddess of hygiene and cleanliness
  
• Meditrina - the serpent bearer (goddess of the healing power of wine in Roman times)
  
• Panakeia - goddess of cures (literally all-healing)
  
• Akeso - goddess of healing process
  
• Iaso - goddess of recuperation
  
• Aigle - whose name is Radiance.
  

They also had three sons.
Podalirius, Machaon who. as unsuccessful suitors of Helen were bound. As soldiers and surgeons they raised thirty ships to fight at windy Ilium.
Also Telesphorus, the possibly Celtic, dwarf whose name means bring to fulfilment.

Asklepius had a staff with one snake wrapped round it (not the staff of Hermes, the Caduceus which has two snakes, and is sometimes mistakenly used as a medical symbol), this may symbolise the 'straight' path of health, compared to the contortions caused by illness. Temples built to honour him were similar to, and very different from, modern hospitals. Snakes, sacred to Asklepius, and used in treatment, slithered the wards where opium was used to allow surgery to take place.

---

the pic is from http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/16/Asclepius_and_hygieia_relief.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.

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

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.

Helios

Hymn 31 - to Helios

Begin your song of radiant Helios,
Muse Calliope, child of Zeus.

Cow eyed Euryphaessa
Glorious child of Gaia
With starry Ouranos.
Married Hyperion
His own sister.

And she brought forth
Beautiful dear ones,
Rosy armed Eos
Fair haired Selene
Tireless Helios.

Resembling the Gods,
He brings to sight both mortals
And the deathless ones,
Mounted his horses.

Terrible the glance
His eyes from out
His golden helmet.
Rays radiate from him,
Radiant, glittering
Hair falls his forehead
Gracefully captivating
His far-shining face.

Beautiful clothes
Delicately made
About his body
Shimmer the breath
Of a breeze.

With his stallions
And his chariot
And golden yolk
He established
From Heaven
To Oceans edge.

Rejoice Lord!
Of your own will
Bestow to me
A life welcome.
Beginning with thou
I celebrate with song
The mortal race of demigods.
Whose deeds the goddesses
To mortals pointed out.

---

the photo is from http://www.theequinest.com/horses-of-helios/

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Selene

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Homeric Hymn 32 to Selene

Sing Muses of the broad winged moon
Sweet sounding, song knowing
Daughters of Zeus, Son of Cronus.
Her heavenly radiance from her deathless head
Encircles the earth, as her golden crown
Gleams upon the gloomy lower air.

When she rises from Oceanus river
Bath dripping wet her flawless skin,
She dresses in far shining garments. Divine Selene.

She harnesses her radiant neck arching horses,
She drives her impetuous full maned foals.
In the evening, in the fullness of the month
The full moon becomes as it must.
Her beauty increases as the glow waxes across
The firmament. A token and a sign for mortal lives.

Once upon a time, the son of Cronus mingled
Her bridal bed, and she conceived and brought
Into being a daughter, Pandia.
Most beautiful of the deathless ones.

Rejoice queen! Pale armed divine Selene
Cheerful and fair haired. Of you and your
Tidings I begin. The deeds of divine
Heroes I now celebrate in song,
Pupil of the sweet mouthed Muses.

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.

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