Metamorphoses ~ Book XII

Book XII

Iphegenia / Rumor / Achilles & Cycnus / Caenis/Caenus / Lapiths & Centaurs / Cyllarus / Caenus / Hercules & Periclymenus / The Death of Achilles

The Sacrifice of Iphigenia (1770)
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo
source Wikimedia Commons

While Priam doesn't realize that his son has been changed to a bird, and mourns his death with Hector, Paris is missing from the funeral rites, as he has gone to Greece, stolen a wife and returned with a war behind him.  But the Greeks chasing Paris, become bound by storms at Aulis, so they kindle fires for Jove in hopes of smooth sailing.  However, a blue-green serpent climbs a sycamore tree, seizing eight fledglings and their mother, and swallowing them in his greedy jaws.  Calchus, the augur, son of Thestor, claims it is a sign that the Greeks will be victorious but only after a long war.  Nereus' rage though is unrelenting and Calchus claims Diana is aggrieved that Agamemnon slew her sacred stag.  He requires payment in virgin's blood, and so Agamemnon's daughter, Iphigenia is sacrificed.  The girl does not die, however, as Diana covers the altar with a dark cloud, exchanging Iphigenia for a hind.  Her wrath appeased, the thousand ships are able to sail for Phrygian shores (Troy).  (For a somewhat different story of Iphigenia's sacrifice, see Agamemnon).

Where the earth, heavens and sea meet, Rumor lives high upon a peak in a palace with no doors, and everything that is spoken in the wide world is taken in ....  Credulity, Error, Joy, Consternations, Fears, Seditions and unknown whispers.  Rumor knows all.  This is why, as the Greeks reach the shores of Troy, the Trojans are not unaware of their coming.  Under Hector's deadly spear, Protestilaus is the first to lose his life.  The Danaans pay in death, but the Trojans lose men too and each learn the prowess of the other.

source

Achilles races in his chariot, searching for Cycnus or for Hector. He finds the former and attempts to kill him but Cycnus is the son of Neptune and no weapon can pierce his skin.  Spear after spear glances off him and Achilles is enraged, eventually questioning his own might. Leaping from his chariot, he attempts to stab him without success, finally grabbing Cycnus and choking him until the hero dies.  Or so he thinks, for as he tries to strip his armour, he finds no body.  Neptune has already changed his son into a swan.  This seems a perpetual feat, as Cycnus has already been changed into a swan under different circumstances in Book II and is mentioned again in Book VII.

Achilles is so wonderful that everyone can only speak of courage and bravery around him.  His victory over Cycnus is astonishing, although Nestor relates of another warrior whose body could not be touched by weapons.  His name was Caenus although he was born as a woman.  Shocked, the Greeks beg for the rest of the tale and we hear how Caenis was born fair and famous for her beauty.  Raped by Neptune, he promises to give her what she desires, and vowing never to suffer such outrage again, she wishes to become a man.  She transforms into Caenus, and no weaponry could ever kill her.

Battle Between Lapiths & Centaurs (1735-40)
Francesco Solimena
source Wikiart 

In Thessaly, Pirithous, king of Lapith and son of Ixion, is to be wed to Hippodame (who was supposed to be wed to Pelops in the backstory to Agamemnon, but perhaps this is a different Hippodame) and Caenus attends.   At the feast, the centaurs (bred by Ixion and "Cloud" --- it's a horrendous story if you want to look it up) go mad on lust and wine.  Eurytus snatches the bride, and his brothers begin to snatch women without qualm.  Brave Theseus stands to oppose their evil intentions, throwing a vat into the face of Eurytus, upon which the centaur gushes blood and brains and vomits wine, falling dead to the floor.  War ensues with a descriptive tapestry reminiscent of The Iliad.  Some of the centaurs flee (including Nessus, who met Hercules' bow in Book IX), yet the war continues with even more elaborate description.

Flawlessly handsome, with a black coat yet a white tail and legs, the centaur, Cyllarus, is loved by a woman, Hylonome. However, he is unable to escape his fate and when a spear pierces his body, his wife runs to him, holding him, and then throwing herself on the spear so they die together.

Lapiths and the Centaurs
Jacob Jordaens
source Wikiart

Nestor continues with his stories, telling of how Phaeocomes threw a log which smashed the skull of Tectaphos, the son of Olenus, his brain matter oozing from his eyes, ears and nostrils. Nestor struck him down, along with other centaurs, his strength in those days equal to Hector's.  Caenus was killing centaurs as well, and the rest of the bipeds were in a frenzy of irritation because none of their weapons were able to pierce his skin.  Finally, Monycus came up with a plan: if they weren't able to skewer him, they would smother him.  The centaurs ripped trees from the ground, piling them onto Caenus until he was buried.  A golden-winged bird escaped from the rubble; some say it was Caenus but others claimed that he was pushed right down to the Underworld.

As Nestor's tale ends, Tlepolemus is disturbed that no mention of his father Hercules' feats were acknowledged.  Nestor reveals his hatred for the hero, as Hercules was responsible for razing Pylos, Nestor's homeland, without provocation.  Hercules killed all eleven of his brothers, including his brother, Periclymenus, who was able to change shape, yet as an eagle, Hercules shot him with an arrow.  Yet in spite of his rage against Hercules, Nestor gracefully says that he hold no enmity towards Tlepolemus.

Neptune, still in grief over Cycnus, detests Achilles with a raging passion. He enlists Apollo to covertly bring about the death of Achilles.  Apollo enters the Trojan battle and, as Paris shoots an arrow, the god guides it towards Achilles, felling the hero.  The death is a shameful one, as Achilles is killed by a coward and a debaucher of women.  At his funeral, Achilles' physical ashes barely fill a small urn, yet his reknown is as large as the whole world.  Ajax the greater and Ulysses prepare to contend over the hero's armour. 

The Death of Achilles (1630-32)
Peter Paul Rubens
source Wikimedia Commons

Ovid continues to astonish with his vivid description and puzzle with choice of stories and pacing.  The Trojan War itself is nearly skipped through, as we go from an event at the beginning of it, to an event at the end.  Instead of the battles of Troy, the warriors themselves appear more important.  

There is also the parallel theme of the ignorance of fathers: Priam does not realize that his son was changed into a bird, and neither does Agamemnon know that Iphigenia was saved by Minerva.  

Nestor's treatment of Hercules is very startling.  Fame and glory (kleos) for a Greek warrior is their ultimate purpose in life.  By not mentioning the feats of Hercules against the centaurs, Nestor is suppressing Hercules fame and glory.

"The vengeance that I seek for my dear brothers stops at this:  my speech, in telling of the Lapiths' victory omitted the great deeds of Hercules...."

Nestor is effectively erasing Hercules, as Hercules obliterated Nestor's cherished homeland.

And as much as I'm enjoying Ovid's poetry and stories, he can't hold a candle to Homer.  Ovid's poetry can have some beautiful passages but often the underlying tone seems more ghastly and outrageous, whereas Homer's tone sounds more majestic, with a resonating grandeur.  But, of course, I'm reading poetry in translation, which is always problematic when making judgements.  However, I think the Greeks, at least, would agree with me. :-)

Metamorphoses

Snake  ❥  stone

Cycnus  ❥  swan

Caenis/woman  ❥  Caenus/man

Caenus  ❥  golden-winged bird

Periclymenus  ❥  many shapes  ❥ eagle

Behold The Stars Review - Book XI & XII

The World of Tomorrow by E.B. White

I seem to be getting mostly essays lately for my Deal Me In Challenge.  This week, I read The World of Tomorrow by E.B. White, the famed author of Charlotte's Web.  White wrote this essay about the 1939 World's Fair in New York, where visions of the future abounded and a bright tomorrow was laid before eager and credulous eyes.

"The eyes of the fair are on the future ---- not in the sense of peering toward the unknown nor attempting to foretell the events of tomorrow and the shape of things to come, but in the sense of presenting a new and clearer view of today in preparation for tomorrow; a view of the forces and ideas that prevail as well as the machines.

To the visitors the Fair will say, 'Here are the materials, ideas and forces at work in our world.  These are the tools with which the forces of the World of Tomorrow must be made.  They are all interesting and much effort has been expended to lay them before you in an interesting way.  Familiarity with today is the best preparation for the future."
                                                  ( ~ official New York World's Fair pamphlet)

British Pavilion
source Wikipedia

Someone is obviously trying to sell something grand, and it was enlightening to read about White's experience at the Fair.  Right from the start, we sense a disconnect between the two, as he personifies the event.  His first sentences read:  "I wasn't really prepared for the World's Fair last week, and it certainly wasn't prepared for me. Between the two of us there was considerable of a mixup."  White informs the reader that upon his visit, he had a cold and that "when you can't breath through your nose, Tomorrow seems strangely like the day before yesterday."  He then gives a catalogue of the exhibitors with strangely impersonal names such as Kix, Astring-O-Sol, Textene, Alka-Seltzer and the Fidelity National Bank. White's impressions do not inspire awe or a trust in Tomorrow.

"It is all rather serious-minded, this World of Tomorrow, and extremely impersonal.  A ride on the Futurama of General Motors induces approximately the same emotional response as a trip through the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.  The countryside unfolds before you in $5-million micro-lovliness, conceived in motion and executed by Norman Bel Geddes. The voice is a voice of utmost respect, of complete religious faith in the eternal benefaction of faster travel ........  When night fall in the General Motors exhibit and you lean back in the cushioned chair (yourself in motion and the world so still) and hear (from the depths of the chair) the soft electric assurance of a better life --- the life which rests on wheels alone --- there is a strong, sweet poison which infects the blood.  I didn't want to wake up.  I liked 1960 in purple light, going a hundred miles an hour around impossible turns ever onward toward the certified cities of the flawless future.  It wasn't till I passed an apple orchard and saw the trees, each blooming under its own canopy of glass, that I perceived that even the General Motors dream as dreams so often do, left some questions unanswered about the future.  The apple tree of Tomorrow, abloom under its inviolate hood, makes you stop and wonder.  How will the little boy climb it?  Where will the bird build its nest?"

White makes a few other observations which are very powerful statements:

"In Tomorrow, people and objects are not lit from above but from below" 

"Rugs do not slip in Tomorrow, and the bassinets of newborn infants are wired against kidnappers.  There is no talking back in Tomorrow.  You are expected to take it or leave it alone." 

"In Tomorrow, most sounds are not the sounds themselves but a memory of sounds, or an electrification."

At the end of the essay, instead of remembering the Fair itself, White's recollections are quite different:  the trees at night, eerie shadows, fountains in the light, a girl, remembered not just as passing impressions, but in generous detail.  The last line of the essay stabs home his point:

"Here was the Fair, all fairs, in pantomime; and here the strange mixed dream that made the Fair: the heroic man, bloodless and perfect and enormous, created in his own image, and in his hand (rubber, aspetic) the literal desire, the warm and living breast."

After my first read of this essay, I was left completely unmoved.  I had no interest in the 1939 World's Fair, and White's ramblings about his cold, standing in line, etc. which I found annoyingly pointless.  It was only when I read the essay for a second time, that his consummate skill as a writer drummed me over the head.  Though not stating his views outright, with each sentence White was building his case, having the reader experience the loss of humanness and empathy that the rapid rise of technology was moving towards.  When one places the value of machines and progress above the people they are supposed to be serving, you lose the human qualities of life and the simplicity, the wonder and human connection in life that make it so fulfilling.

Perhaps it's telling that White moved from New York to Maine that very year.


Deal Me In Challenge #8

The Faerie Queene in Poetry Month ~ Two Events!

As you're probably aware from both my On Reading the Faerie Queene and Spenser's Images of Life posts, I'm gearing up to read The Faerie Queene in late April.  But instead of sliding quietly into the read-along, I thought it might be nice to give it an official announcement!

O at Behold the Stars was the instigator of this event and Jean, Cirtnecce, Ruth, Consoled Reader and I quickly followed her lead.  We will be attempting to stick to this schedule:

April 25 – May 1^st  ~  Book I

May 2 – May 8^th  ~  Book II

May 9 – May 15^th  ~  Book III

May 16 – May 22^nd  ~  Book IV

May 23 – May 29^th  ~  Book V

May 30 – June 5^th  ~  Book VI

June 6 – June 12^th  ~  Mutability

Thanks to O for the prod, and to Jean's husband for creating a rather awesome button! Anyone else who would like to join us is very welcome!  Reading this tome among friends will make it much less intimidating!

And, coincidentally corresponding with the above read, in April Hamlette from The Edge of the Precipice is going to be hosting a Poetry Month Celebration in honour of National Poetry Month.

We'll be starting The Faerie Queene read-along near the end of the month, but I hope to be able to read a few more poems, at least one per week, for this event.  It's a good chance to focus on that category for my Deal Me In Challenge.

So if either of these events interest you, I hope you'll join us for a very busy April, and ring in the spring with poetry!

The Oresteia ~ Agamemnon by Aeschylus

The Sacrifice of Ipheginia by Agamemnon (1671)
 Jan Steen
source

Agamemnon by Aeschylus

"Dear gods, set me free from all the pain,

the long watch I keep, one whole year awake ...

propped on my arms, crouched on the roofs of Atreus like a dog."

Agamemnon is the first of a trilogy of plays called The Oresteia, the next two plays being The Libation Bearers and The Eumenides, all performed in 458 B.C., only two years before the death of Aeschylus.  This surviving unified trilogy allows the reader to experience the development of these three-part stories and to observe the common strands of informatiion and enlightenment winding throughout.  Each play would have built support and framework for the others.  However, even though we have all three plays of this trilogy, the satyr play Proteus is lost, as it would have been a type of comic epilogue to finish the Oresteia.

There are two background stories important to the understanding of this play, the first being the history of the Trojan War, and the second the history of the House of Atreaus, Agamemnon's family background.

The "fuse" of the war with Troy was the kidnapping of Helen, the wife of Agamemnon's brother Menelaus, by Paris, prince of Troy.  To get fair winds to sail for Troy, Agamemnon was forced to sacrifice his own daughter, Iphegenia.  The war was fought for ten long years, and at the end, because of outrages committed against the gods, many of the heroes took years to find their way home (Odysseus' journey in The Odyssey is the story of one of these heroes).

The curse of the House of Atreus, adds another element to the play, going back to the family's founder, Tantalus.  Offending the gods, either by attempting to deceive them into eating the flesh of his son, Pelops, or by endeavouring to plunder nectar and ambrosia from the gods, Tantalus was punished in the Underworld by being eternally inflicted with a raging hunger and thirst.  Pelops was resurrected by the gods, but eventually incurred a curse by killing his desired bride's father and fleeing with the girl, Hippodamia.  An attempted rape of the girl by Myrtilus ensued, and when Pelops threw him from a cliff, he cursed Pelops.  The hereditary nature of the curse resulted in the killing of children by their parents and vice versa, a destroying of the whole family from within.

Fleet of Greek Galleys reconstruction
The Perseus Project
source Wikimedia Commons

The play begins with a Watchman who is surveying from the roof of Agamemnon's palace, lamenting the years of watching and waiting for a very important signal, a signal that would indicate the completion of the war with Troy.  The very first lines themselves are a signal, setting a sombre, ominous tone to the scene:

"θεοὺς μὲν αἰτῶ τῶνδ᾽ ἀπαλλαγὴν πόνων .... "  ("I ask the gods for respite from these toils .....")

The beacon is seen and the Watchman rejoices for the return of his king, but the mood does not lighten as the Chorus enters and begins its parados (the chorus' entrance song).

The Chorus consists of elderly men who were too old ten years ago to make war on Troy, but now impart perhaps the most critical information in the play in their back-story:

• that Zeus was requiring Agamemnon, the eldest member of his family, to act in avenging the insult to his household by Paris, by making war on Troy
• Agamemnon was required by an offended Artemis to kill his daughter, Iphigenia, to get fair winds to sale for Troy.

Agamemon is put in an unbearable position.  He is protector of his household, therefore to kill his daughter goes against his moral obligation.  On the other hand, if he dismisses Artemis' command, he would be disobeying Zeus which would denote a refusal to fulfill his familial accountability to his brother, an offence against his very being.  He is caught in an inescapable situation. Fate is suffocating him and no matter what his choice, there will be appalling consequences.  His words are seeped in agony:

"My fate is angry if I disobey these,
but angry if I slaughter
this child, the beauty of my house,
with maiden blood shed staining
these father's hands beside the altar.
What of these things goes now without disaster?
How shall I fail my ships
and lose my faith of battle?
For them to urge such sacrifice of innocent blood
angrily, for their wrath is great ---- it is right.  May all be well yet."

Once Agamemnon makes the decision to sacrifice his beloved daughter, his whole character alters.  In spite of her heart-rending pleas, the men who have known her since she was a child, lift her upon the altar.  Although the audience witnesses the poignancy of the preparation of her sacrifice, we are left to imagine her terrible fate.

Le Sacrifice d'Iphigenie
Bertholet Flemalle
source Wikimedia Commons

Meanwhile, Clytemnestra, Agamemnon's wife and the leader of Argos during his absence, has entered during the Chorus' story, and she announces the fall of Troy, which news the Chorus is hesitant to believe, implying that the populous of Argos is discontent after these long years of war.  A Herald arrives confirming the victory of the Greeks, and proclaiming the return of their king, Agamemnon.  His wife professes overwhelming joy at his homecoming, and in an ironic twist, the Herald is impressed with the truth and majesty of her words.

Clytemnestra (1882)
John Collier
source Wikiart

Agamemnon arrives in regal impressiveness, riding in a chariot with Cassandra, the prophetess and princess of Troy by his side, his winnings from the spoils of the war. Clytemnestra greets him with overblown and excessive oratory, spreading purple carpets for him to walk on.  The king denounces such delicate pomp, yet walks on them anyway, unwittingly proclaiming a rather chilly illustration of his own character and a whisper of his fate:

"Discordant is the murmur at such treading down
of lovely things; while God's most lordly gift to man
is decency of mind.  Call that man only blest
who has in sweet tranquillity brought his life to close.
If I could only act as such, my hope is good."

Again, Agamemnon has idealistic wishes for a good outcome to his struggles, yet he almost seems to realize that it is a futile hope.  The trampling and "crushing" of the purple carpets symbolize his trampling and crushing of all that is delicate and beautiful: Iphigenia, Troy and soon, Cassandra.

Cassandra (1897)
Evelyn de Morgan
source Wikimedia Commons

Clytemnestra attempts to invite Cassandra inside, but she silently resists until Clytemnestra gives up and enters herself, leaving Cassandra alone with the Chorus. Finally, the girl speaks, but the words flowing from her lips are laments and apocalyptic premonitions.  She relates her own story, and also begins to offer vague prophecies of calamity and death, revealing the cause of the melancholy and impeding doom which blankets the city in spite of the return of its king.  She claims to foresee her death and Agamemnon's at the hands of a woman, however, the chorus, bewildered and startled by her claims, refuses to believe her.  Her last words are pregnant with eerie foreshadowing:

"..... That room within reeks with blood like a slaughterhouse ..."

Resigned to her fate, she enters the house.

Clytemnestra (1817)
Pierre-Narcisse Guerin
source Wikiart

Suddenly Agamemnon cries out:  "Ah, I am struck a deadly blow and deep with!"  At this point, the Chorus fragments, undecided and perplexed as to what they should do. When the doors of the palace open, Clytemnestra is standing over the prone and bloody bodies of Agamemnon and Cassandra, bringing the Chorus' horror to its peak, as Clytemnestra describes the murder of her husband claiming Agamemnon's evil deed to his daughter as her right.  The Chorus, while still bewildered, finally agrees that judgement between them is unclear and revisits the cause of the war with Troy: the repercussions from Helen's perfidy still resound.

Aegisthus (Clytemnestra's lover) enters the scene, exchanging insults with the Chorus, but Clytemnestra attempts to calm his ire, claiming that the curse has been cancelled by her act of retribution. She and Aegisthus will be able to reign in peace and benevolence. The altercation does not diminish as the play ends.

The next play in the trilogy is The Libations Bearers, and we get a hint of one of its characters in this play, when Clytemnestra mentions that she has sent their son, Orestes, away to safety when there were rumours of unrest in Argos.  In the second play, Orestes returns.

The Funeral Procession of Agamemnon (1787)
Louis Jean Desprez
source Wikimedia Commons

Greek scholars bring out a number if interesting points in this first play that would not be apparent to a modern audience.  The Greek spectators would have been expecting Cassandra to remain silent and have Clytemnestra draw her out, a common strategy in Greek theatre.  The fact that Cassandra actually speaks would have astounded onlookers, therefore making her speeches and presence much more powerful.

They also highlight the masculinity of Clytemnestra, noting the Greek words she uses to describe herself as being very masculine references to a Greek audience.  The fact that she is placed in the doorway of the house ("oikos" - a woman's domain) as the murderess, would have been appalling to the viewers.  While near the end of the play, she attempts to reclaim her sex as woman, the male images of power, vengeance, murder and ruthlessness still remain.

Hubris in Greek does not simply mean pride but instead indicates wanton violence motivated by pride.  Both Agamemnon and Clytemnestra suffer this poisonous quality.

My personal observations ....?   I'm continually impressed by the lack of reliance on plot by the Greeks as they, in fact, often give "spoilers" throughout the whole play or poem. The plot is only the packaging; the real story is born of the intrigues, the capriciousness of the gods, internal struggle, personal sacrifice and vengeance.  How the plot unfolds is secondary to performance, an intense and acute penetration into the soul of man.

Translated by H.W. Symth (Loeb Classical Library), edited by David Greene and Richard Lattimore

Behold the Stars - Agamemnon Review

Metamorphoses ~ Book XI

Book XI

Orpheus / The Bacchantes / Midas / Troy / Peleus & Thetis / Ceyx / Daedalion / The Wolf / Ceyx & Alcyone / Aesacus

Orpheus charms the beasts and trees with his songs, and even the stones pause to listen.  But the Thracian women, the Bacchantes, are enraged, accusing Orpheus of scorning them.  They hurl staffs and rocks at him, intent on murder but when a stone is flung,

"....it cleaved the air, it yielded to the spell

of his enchanting voice and lyre: it fell

at Orpheus' feet as if compelled to seek 

forgiveness for its mad audacity ...... "

Circling him, the women attack, and all of their weapons would have been tamed by his sweet music, if their "shrieks and caterwauls" had not drowned it out, and they murder and dismember him.  Mournful sounds fill the air as his body is carried by the Hebrus river to the coast.  There, a snake attempts to attack the head, but before it can, Phoebus turns it into stone.  As the Shade of Orpheus descends to the Underworld, he meets Eurydice.  Side by side, they walk and they can now gaze at each other without fear.

Nymphs finding the head of Orpheus (1900)
John William Waterhouse
source Wikiart

Bacchus intends to punish the criminals for their profane act, and the Bacchantes find themselves bound to the ground.  Roots spread from their feet, bark begins to cover their bodies, as they are transformed into oak trees.

König Midas (1670)
Andrea Vaccaro
source Wikimedia Commons

Bacchus leaves Thrace for his Lydian land and own vineyards in Tmolus.  His satyrs and bacchantes crowd around him, but Silenus (his tutor) is missing, yet he finds him with King Midas who has him in his care.  Bacchus rewards Midas with one wish, and the king requests that everything he touches will turn to gold.  Delighted, Midas begins to touch everything, but soon realizes the curse of his request, repents, and Bacchus instructs him to go to a river near Sardis to wash his sin away.  Midas complies and even today, as Ovid tells us, the Pactolus' shores can be streaked with gold.  Midas, however, now hates riches and roams the hillside, but his wits were never clever and he continue to seek stupid things which will bring harm.  While watching a musical contest between Pan and Phoebus, upon Tmolus judging Phoebus Apollo the winner, Midas disagrees and for his ill-judgement, Phoebus turns Midas' ears into those of an ass.  He wraps those ears to his head with a purple turban and when his slave discovers his secret, the slave whispers it into a hole in the ground.  But when the reeds there grow tall, they whisper the secret to the winds, betraying the servant.

Apollo departs for Troy where Laomedon had accepted the offered of Phoebus and Neptune to build the walls of Troy for payment in gold and then reneged on his debt. The sea god caused a flood to bury the fields of Troy.  In payment, they demanded the daughter of the king, Hesione, who was chained to a reef for the prey of monsters, but Hercules saved her.  For his payment, he was promised horses, but again Troy was faithless and Hercules razed its walls.

Apollo and Poseidon Punishing Troy (c. 1590)
Paolo Fiammingo
source Wikimedia Commons

Hercules gives Hesione to Telamon as a royal bride but he is busy fighting with his brother, Peleus.  Peleus is famous for his goddess wife, and we learn of his "courtship". Zeus had an ardent desire fot Thetis, the goddess of the waves," but it was prophesied by Proteus that her son would be greater than his father, so Zeus blessed his grandson, Peleus, to pursue her.  Peleus attempted to rape her in her grotto but Thetis transformed into a bird, a tree and then a spotted tigress, so Peleus wisely abandoned his plans.   He prayed to the gods for success and was counselled by Proteus, who rose from the sea, to tie her up, which he did and made her pregnant with Achilles.

The Feast of Peleus (1872-81)
Edward Burne-Jones
source Wikimedia Commons

Peleus accidentally kills his half-brother, Phocus, and for this treachery he is exiled to the land of Trachin, recounting a lie as to his crime.  Ceyx, the king of Trachin, welcomes him, then weeps, whereupon Peleus and his men ask the cause of his sadness.

Ceyx tells of his brother, Daedalion, who had a lovely fourteen-year-old daughter, Chione.  She was raped by both Phoebus and Mercury, bearing twin sons but one from each god: Autolycus, "a connoisseur of wiles and guiles", and Phillamon, Apollo's son, "famed for lyre and song."  Chione, because of this glory bestowed on her, now considered herself surpassing Diana's beauty, and, for her insult, she was killed by an arrow of the goddess.  At her funeral (burning), Daedalion overcome with grief, ran senselessly around, finally leaping from Parnassus' peak, where Apollo changed him into a hawk, and "aggrieved, he makes all others mourn."

As Ceyx relates this story, Peleus' Phocian cowherd rushes in to announce that a wolf is ravaging the herds of oxen and terrifying the people.  Peleus silently believes this event to be his penance for his crime.  As they prepare to leave to deal with the wolf, Alcyone, the wife of Ceyx, begs him not to go, foreseeing his death.  Thetis intervenes to pardon Peleus and helps him, changing the wolf into a marble statue.  But the fates cause Peleus to travel to the land of Magnesia and King Acastus, where he is cleansed of his guilt.

Meanwhile Ceyx is still puzzled by his brother's fate and these strange happenings, so he decides to consult an oracle on the isle of Clarus.  Alcyone begs him not to go, but, while trying to calm her fears, he departs and his boat encounters a momentous storm. Before he drowns, he prays that his body will return to his wife for burial, and she finally spots it floating in the water, confirmation of her husband's death that she had received in a dream conducted by Morpheus.  As she tries to reach the body, she is changed into a bird (a kingfisher), and when she tries to cover her husband with her wings, he too changes:

"...... Their love remained; they shared one fate.

Once wed, they still were wed: they kept their bond.

They mate; they rear their young; when winter comes,

for seven peaceful days Alcyone --- 

upon a cliff that overlooks the sea ---

broods on her nest.  The surge is quiet then,

for Aeolus won't let his winds run free;

he keeps them under guard, so that the sea

maintain the peace his fledgling grandsons need."

Halcyone seeking her husband Ceyx (1914)
Herbert James Draper
source Wikimedia Commons

An old man, as he watches the pair of birds, is reminded of another bird, a swift merganser.  The bird is of the line of Ilus and Assaracus, then Ganymede, then Laomedeon, and finally Priam, who was the last king of Troy.  Aesacus, half-brother of Hector (son of Priam) pursued the nymph, Hesperie, who was bitten by a serpent as she fled.  Distraught, Aesacus offered his life for hers.  As he leapt into the sea, Thetis pitied him and clothed him in feathers, but Aesacus so diligently sought death, he continually attempts to plunge in the sea, only to rise again.  He is the diving bird, the merganser.

source

❀ ❀ ❀ ❀ ❀ ❀ ❀ ❀ ❀ ❀ ❀ ❀ ❀ ❀  ❀ ❀ ❀ ❀ ❀ 

In this book, I noticed varying motifs on music, sound and hearing.  Orpheus communicates by music, yet is drowned out by the Bacchantes' shrieks; Apollo and Pan have a musical contest; Mt Tmolus must brush away the forest to hear; Midas for hearing 'incorrectly' has his ears changed to those of an ass; Proteus' words are stopped/finished as he sinks into the sea; on Ceyx's ship, the captain's voice in drowned out by the "blustering winds"; Ceyx's words are impeded by the waves; and the Cimmerian cave is a place of complete silence yet for the Lethe.

While the stories often seem random, we can experience a non-linear telling of some of the history of Troy and its heroes.  The scattering make up a puzzle, if we can only pick up the pieces and fit them into the whole.

Metamorphoses

Snake  ❥  stone
Thracian women  ❥  oak trees
Midas' touch  ❥  gold
Midas' ears  ❥  ears of an ass
Thetis  ❥  bird/tree/spotted tigress
Thetis  ❥  various shapes  ❥ Thetis
Daedalion  ❥  hawk
Wolf  ❥  marble statue
Ceyx & Alcyone  ❥  birds (kingfishers)
Aesacus  ❥  merganser ("diving bird")

Top Ten Book on My Spring TBR

It's been awhile since I participated in a Top Ten Tuesday post and this particular Tuesday, the topic caught my eye.  I started off 2016 with a bang, but since the year is progressing, I've lost some of my reading focus.  A post like this will be a good motivator to pull it all together and target my important reads.

Still Life Vase with Flowers (1881)
Paul Gauguin
source Wikiart

I have a number of challenges and read-alongs going on, including my Shakespeare challenge, my Greek challenge, my Reading England challenge, Back to the Classics, etc., along with a group read of The Faerie Queene motivated by O at Behold the Stars, my read of The Lord of the Rings with Cirtnecce of Mockingbirds, Looking Glasses and Prejudices, and I know not what (that last phrase is good to use when your head is going to explode with the possibilities! ;-)  ).  Will my list be longer than 10 books?  Let's find out!

1.

The Faerie Queene:  The whole complete unabridged poem (although I liked the above book cover best).  I'm terrified and also kind of excited.

2.    

The Pickwick Papers:  For the Behold the Stars read-along in publication order.  A very unique and illuminating experience to read Dickens as his first readers would have read his works ..... spanning about a year and a half!

3.   

The Histories by Herodotus:  I've place it at the top of the list because I'm determined to get to it sometime this year, and I'd like to start it soon.  Hopefully, the fact that I've been looking at it for the last month without reading it, isn't a dire premonition!

4.   

To Kill A Mockingbird:  I'm reading this with one of my Goodreads groups.  I haven't read it since high school and it's on my Classics Club list, so I'm looking forward to it.

5.   

Sophocles:  I should be finishing up the plays of Aeschylus soon and then I'll begin on those by Sophocles.  I've read his Theban Plays twice already and can't wait to re-visit them, but I'm also looking forward to reading the rest of his works.

6.   

Twelfth Night:  This play is being performed at our local university, so I thought I should support locally, read a book for a challenge, and make another attempt at this play.  I've read it twice already and wasn't enthused, but perhaps the third time will be a charm. 

7.   

My Father's Dragon:  This is such a great book!  If you haven't read it, I guarantee you'll love it.  I'm adding it for Amanda @ Simpler Pastimes' Children's Literature Event in April.

8.   

Emil and the Detectives:  Another book for Amanda's event.

9.   

The Cloud of Unknowing:  I'm trying to get through this one.  Very mystical, which normally I like, but this time I'm not connecting.  Perhaps it has to do with the fact that the anonymous author at the beginning of the book says it is not to be read by anyone but a contemplative.  And I didn't listen to the warning! :-Z

10.   

Framley Parsonage:  Oh my goodness, do I owe an enormous apology to Trollope!  Do you know how many years ago I started to read through his Barsetshire Chronicles? Two!  Do you know how many books I've managed to read?  Three!  It's pitiful, especially considering that I really have enjoyed each book.  Sigh!  I just don't know why I have no desire to pick the next one up.  In any case, I got this book for my latest Classics Club Spin and Cirtnecce has kindly offered to read-along with me.  Do you think with a Spin hanging over my head and a blogging friend to hold my hand, that I can get it finished?  We'll see .......