Trojan, Trojan, Trojan-cats Ho!: Potential Classical References in Cheetara #1

 Cheetara #1 is the initial issue in a prequel series to the main and heretofore only series in the reimagined Thundercats universe, one of many childhood franchises adapted, updated, and streamlined for a modern audience. The writer is Soo Lee; the artist Domenico Carbone; the letterer is Jeff Eckleberry.

Thundercats was not a childhood franchise with which I was obsessed, although of course I was aware of it, so this reimagining does not break my almost non-existent sense of canon, nor do I cry how any change has ruined my childhood. Let us ignore the Johnny Quest promotional stinger interpolated herein!

This prequel takes place on the alien planet Thundera before its destruction. The most obvious comparison would be Superman's home planet of Krypton, especially if you choose not to believe that Lion-O's original name Lionel was in reference to a train rather than the Big Blue Boy Scout. The presentation of Thundera does remind me a Silver Age Krypton or a more aggressively furry Space Wakanda. This is a bright and wonderful world, full of promise, at least from the perspective of our protagonist Cheetara. 

Since Krypton has not been portrayed in this manner since the icy planet of the Christopher Reeve movie (the best Superman movie) usurped the utopian vision of the World of Krypton backups with their primary colors and many headbands, a more apt comparison is Troy before its fall. Thundera is prosperous and powerful due to its control of the endemic mineral power source Thundrainium. Troy is prosperous and powerful due to its control of access to the trade routes into the Black Sea; the beginning of the Iliad involves Agamemnon, king of men, who is besieging Troy, offending the priest of Apollo, "Goldman," father of "Goldie," from "Goldtown." The different Great Thunderans, Thundera's aristocrats (or Aristocats?) are based on different feline species. The original motivation for this was visual distinctiveness, a key quality in animation but also in epic, since all important Trojans and Greeks receive epithets which may not be applicable in the immediate circumstances, but nonetheless provide personal characteristics with which to imagine them. Cheetara, as one of these nobles, is an biased observer; in the Iliad, Odyssey, and Aeneid, the perspectives of the Greeks and the Trojans differ markedly. 

Both Thundera and Troy are treated not just as places, but as characters, and as characters, both are positioned as tragic heroes. According to Aristotle, a tragic hero must be at the height of their power, yet the conditions for the fall have already been set. This necessity is best illustrated in Oedipus Tyrannus, where the same qualities that made Oedipus a great king guaranteed his downfall. The causes of Thundera's future reckoning are not presented in Cheetara #1, but there is only one issue and Cheetara has a enormous privilege as a noble. Troy, on the other hand, despite being blessed by the gods, had broken its agreement with the divine builders of its current walls, as well as the laws of hospitality. Troy was the head of a Bronze Age empire, with subordinate princes such as Aeneas, Briseis' father Briseus, and Cassandra's suitor Coroebus. The Thunderan ruler is blind from the last war (details as yet unrevealed) and therefore unfit to rule, so he has selected an elite squadron of Great Thunderans to raise his only son as ruler of Thundera. Priam, king of Troy, has no such externally inflicted infirmity, but he is very old and he was the only surviving son of the last Trojan War. Perhaps one could connect king Claudius of Thundera's disability with Anchises, father of Aeneas, rather than Priam, due to the savior complex surrounding the child prince Lion-O. Priam has a squad of sons, royal cousins, and client kings on which he can rely. 

Cheetara is framed as a warrior, a priestess, and a mother figure. The gender equity of the franchise and perhaps felines in general allow Cheetara to fight alongside the male Thunderans, a true Andromache. She accompanies the Regent Jaga to the temple of the ancestors. While it is true that the temple has an aesthetic between that of the Jedi and that of Black Panther, the facelessness of the ancestors provides a point of comparison. Many of the oldest idols in the Classical and pre-Classical times were not statues as we conceive them, with carefully defined faces, but rather sacred stones to which divinity and sometimes facial features were attributed. One can still visit the Aphrodite of Paphos, a stone where the characteristics of the goddess would suggest greater detail. The Thunderan Sword of Omens, which guarantees the safety of Thundera as long as it remains in the temple, is not just a Chekhov's gun, but also an easy analogue to the Palladium, a lumpy sacred statue which Odysseus had to remove from the Temple of Athena in the citadel of Troy before Troy could fall.

Cheetara's preference is holy orders, but martial duty takes precedence. Cheetara's physical gift of suitably themed speed, "swift-footed Cheetara," overshadows her psychic gift of precognition. This precognition, which in the service of the story involves the ineluctable doom, aligns her more with Cassandra than Achilles. Cassandra was cursed to speak the truth which none would believe. This conflict is a way to build tension when the outcome is already known - as in a tragedy. Cheetara is also the replacement mother for the young prince Lion-O, whose own mother is no longer around, although once again there are no details. Since Priam's wife Hecuba and Hector's wife Andromache are prominent in the Iliad, a more apt comparison is Anchises, who begot his son Aeneas on Aphrodite, a conspicuously absent mother. Lion-O may be special, but it remains to be seen if his bloodline is what passes for divine in the Thunderan cosmos. If Cheetara's maternal role aligns her with Andromache, then Lion-O is Astyanax, the doomed son of Hector, presumptive heir of Troy. Andromache's name means "she who fights like a man," while Astyanax means "lord of the city," both of which are applicable to the Thunderans.

Cheetara's story also involves romance. Tygra, a male Thundercat not to be confused with Marvel's Avenger, the engineer and builder of the core characters, is smitten with her. His obsession with ships is not only a narrative necessity, but also provides a link with Troy and the infamous thousand ships. The reality of noble families, however, demands arranged marriages, and Tygra and Cheetara is not one such. In this aspect also, there is a comparison between Cheetara and Cassandra. Cheetara is reluctant to accept her arranged match, else there would be no story. Cassandra also had a suitor, Coroebus, a prince of the outlying territories. His tale appears in the second book of Aeneid, when Aeneas is reluctantly recounting the fall of Troy to an insistent Dido at the Carthaginian court. Coroebus visited the city and was enchanted by Cassandra. Her brothers discouraged Coroebus, but Priam, king of Troy, could not pass up an opportunity for extra military assistance and allowed it. On the final night of Troy, Coroebus joined Aeneas' suicide squad and perished as Cassandra was carried off to be Agamemnon's booty. Tygra and Cheetara survive the fall of Thundera, so the parallel is not exact, but the number of similarity between Cheetara and Cassandra, as well as other women of Troy, is suggestive, Cheetara, as the girl Thundercat, must encompass far more roles than the more abundant male characters.

Although it is not possible to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Troy has provided an inspiration for the first look at prelapsarian Thundera, the multiple parallels condensed into a smaller cast and narrative structure suggest that it is worthwhile to use such an approach. The land, the king, the heir, and the royal retinue show points of similarity, but they also reveal potential differences. The interest in both lies in the path to the inevitable.

Wonder Woman Historia

 In anticipation of the upcoming Amazon series, I read the three volumes of Wonder Woman Historia, written by Kelly Sue DeConnick and drawn by Nicola Scott - a suitably all-woman team for Wonder Woman. The art is one notch below that of an Orthodox church. An Orthodox church is designed to blind you with splendor while you listen to the mass, whereas it is critical that one be able to read a comic. The art carries the story as much as possible, especially in the cosmic sections. This is a reversal of the epic tradition, in which evocative words, whether spoken or written, provide a text for the listener's interior visuals. The majesty and inhumanity of the gods is manifest. Scott strikes a nice balance between the complete anthropomorphism of many depictions of the Olympians and the deliberately inhuman depictions of the New 52 Olympians. 

There are a plethora of characters in Wonder Woman Historia; not just the goddesses, but also their queens among the Amazons and several followers of those queens. Even when dealing with Olympians, who some readers wiil already be familiar with, each story emphasizes particular characteristics of those gods. Both the goddesses and the queens are portrayed as slates in a vertical structure. The six queens are more akin to gods in their mortality and their creation. It is not until the introduction of Hippolyta that we get a truly mortal queen. This echoes the ages of Man in standard Greek theogony. Once all the players are available, DeConnick deftly balances a need in a prequel for Amazons to be both amazingly fierce and ultimately defeated.

There are more than enough characters for an adaptation. Most of them have distinct enough personalities that new dialogue not present in the graphic novel can be easily scripted. The splendor of the page, however, may not wholly transfer to a different medium. It is certainly worth a try.

Et In Arcadia Nos: The Hymn to Hermes and the Hymn to Pan

        The overall structure of the Hymns to Pan and Hermes are parallel; the comparisons serve as a scaffold to highlight the contrasts, Both exist within the framework of a Homeric hymn and therefore introduce a god from his birth and highlight at least one story associated with him. The structure of these two Hymns, however, is carefully parallel in cast and plot: the cast consists of a father, a mother, a divine baby, a god who takes the baby to Olympus, and Zeus, either alone or in council. The plot is as follows: the father 'mingles in love' with the mother; the mother gives birth to the baby; the baby displays divine characteristics; a god transports the baby to Olympus; the baby is accepted by the gods and gains a "Big Brother" among the Olympians.

        The similarities should be addressed first, so that the contrasts may be better understood. The conception and parturition of each god is couched in similar verbs of birthing and accomplishment of goals. Each god immediately displays characteristic powers: the art and invention of Hermes and the startling power of Pan. The action around the babies is characterized by swiftness: Hermes' motions and sojourns are described with many phrases denoting fleetness; the Hymn to Pan, because it is much shorter, incorporates more fleetness into the syntax and prosody than the extant vocabulary. Apollo brings baby Hermes to the throne of Zeus, while Hermes brings baby Pan to the council of immortals of which Zeus is the head. Both babies are ultimately accepted as gods (although Pan is not an Olympian) and both acquire a Big Brother among older immortals - Apollo in the case of Hermes and Dionysus in the case of Pan.

        The contrasts between the Hymns are many. The preconception, conception, and birth of Hermes use an extensive vocabulary of secrecy. Maia is a loner whom Zeus meets at night specifically when Hera is asleep. The grown Hermes, in contrast, has a wedding, a public event, to the daughter of Dryops. The here unnamed daughter of Dryops, perhaps Penelope (but not that Penelope), bears Pan in a palace, rather than the cave in which Maia gave birth - even if that cave was akin to a Gilded Age cottage! The onomastic patterns of the mother and the father also contrast: Maia in the Hymn to Hermes is a daughter of the otherwise unknown Megameidas and frequently appears by name in two declensions, while the mother of Pan remains unnamed save for her patronymic. Hermes, once he is born, is a classically beautiful god, whom Maia places in vain in his cradle; Pan frightens his mother so much that she immediately flees after she has borne him because she is afraid of his unlovely face and prematurely bearded appearance. The daughter of Dryops' increased vulnerability to the power of a god may be due to her potential mortal status: nymphe may refer to an immortal young woman or an ordinary mortal bride. Hermes, although he is a god, consorts with mortal shepherds such as Dryops, son of Apollo, Hermes' BFF. Perhaps, though, giving birth to the Arcadian Jersey Devil would throw off anyone, mortal and immortal alike. The way in which baby Hermes and Pan display their precocious adulthood also differs: Hermes remains a baby in size but indulges in adult activities such reiving, so much so that Apollo deems him competent for trial, whereas Pan displays adult features but has the characteristic lack of agency of a day old baby. This may be why the introductory segment of the Hymn to Pan where he is an adult is about the same length as the story of baby Pan panicking his mothers - the adult behavior necessary to characterize Pan is displaced to a portion where such behavior can be covered. 

        Baby Hermes' first trip to Olympus is as a prisoner for crimes which he has indeed committed, but Pan's first visit is a formal presentation. The gods who choose to act as Big Brothers to each baby also contrast. Apollo, as a god who values order, is a brake to Hermes' relatively chaotic nature, while Dionysus is an enabler to Pan's rustic partying. The humor in each Hymn is appropriate to the god: Hermes' humor may be occasionally crude but is always clever, while that of Pan is the world's worst game of peek-a-boo. The role of mortals in the Hymn to Hermes is extensive if secondary to that of the gods - the Old Man of Onchestus receives two divine visitations - but the roe of mortals in the Hymn to Pan, although mandatory due to Hermes' affiliation with mortals and immortals alike per his own Hymn, is reduced and backgrounded.

        The points covered above are by no means the entirety of the comparisons and contrasts between the Hymn to Hermes and the Hymn to Pan, but they are sufficient to demonstrate the interrelationship between the texts. This is particularly relevant if the Hymn to Pan is a later response to the older (but not much older) Hymn to Hermes. The study of these two Hymns would benefit from further examination of their shared vocabulary and even etymology.

Primary Sources (Greek first, English second)

Hymn to Hermes

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0137%3Ahymn%3D4

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0138%3Ahymn%3D4

Hymn to Pan

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0137%3Ahymn%3D19

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0138%3Ahymn%3D19

Orpheus and Eurydice

 Recently, I went to see Gluck's Orpheus and Eurydice at the War Memorial Opera House. I deliberately did not read the program and therefore was surprised at how different from other conceptions of the Orpheus myth this performance was. Although program notes are often useful, particularly for stories with which I am less familiar, I believed that the Orpheus myth was familiar enough to not require extra reading. 

The first conspicuous element was the balletic component. Out of opera, symphony, and ballet, ballet is easily my least favorite, but here the ballet was well integrated into the music. This brings me to the second element - the repetition. Opera, by its nature, involves much repetition of themes and phrases, but this opera seemed to almost have a surfeit of repetition worthy of a Jesuit education. The first and second elements, however, worked together to create an effective impression of something as ineffable as the singing of the greatest singer who ever lived, whose song entranced implacable chthonic beings; such hyperbole is far easier to write than to render visually, 

The third element was the excellent use of color. Orpheus' vived red contrasted with the blacks and greys of the infernal denizens and the yelloe of Love. The shifting colors of the area currently spotlighted enhanced the music and the movement of the performers. I found it a great aid to my deficit of knowledge of reading ballet.

The fourth element was the change in the Orpheus myth from the "canon" (although any casual dive into Orphic texts suggests "anti-canon" might be a better term). The absence of Hades and Persephone was initially jarring/ The inclusion of Love as the divine character marked this as a version more focused on the internal components of the myth than the external. It also provided Orpheus with an ally and advisor, something which was lacking from the more "traditional" version, which I suppose is therefore an externalization of the usually internal components. The potentially successful rescue of Eurydice reminded me of Alcestis, but Eurydice's reluctance to return from the Shadowlands was reminiscent of Izanami and Izanagi; the tale of a bereft husband seeking his departed wife is as least as old as a migration into the Americas. Thus the reduction of the myth to a man, a woman, and their love might be more faithful than a more numerous cast.

Gorr the God-Butcher: A Child's Story

 Thor: Love and Thunder is a “classic Thor adventure” told by Korg to children and ending with a punchline that is poignant rather than funny. The audience of children frames the way the story is told in both omission of gruesome deaths and the prominent inclusion of children within the story. This child-focus also creates a connection between the narration and the other framing device about Gorr the God-Butcher, which in the source material was less child-friendly and certainly more lethal. There are a lot of scary and dangerous things in Love and Thunder – as Thor reminds us, these are (mostly) Asgardian children.

The reticence of early MCU to use the word ‘gods’ is wholly gone from this movie, although Thor is still from space. The gods in this story are the sort tp whom you can pray and they might hear you. The attitude of the gods is established in the interaction of Gorr, the last surviving devotee of his god, who takes his devotion for granted and mocks his belief in an afterlife. This god’s existence is not contingent on the existence of believers. The existence of a divinely lush oasis on an otherwise dead planet suggests a retreat of the gods from reciprocity of do ut des, which is mirrored in the hedonistic isolation of Omnipotence City. The corpse of the previous owner of the Necrosword, a weapon which can kill gods, suggests that Gorr is not the first to turn resentment towards the gods into direct hostility; perhaps the existence of gods who might aid mortals are a hindrance in the Celestials’ plans for planets such as Earth? Or perhaps the Necrosword is a weapon of an enemy of the Celestials, who want life, if only specific kinds, to exist? After this nameless god has dismissed his last worshipper, Gorr starts his career as Gorr the God-Butcher.

By the end of the movie, there has been a lot of love and even more thunder, but both have been recontextualized in such a way that Thor and others receive as happy an ending as one can find in the death and battle dominated world of Norse myth. Thor’s arc, like those of many MCU heroes, finds him in a state closer to his canonical self than at the beginning. The mid-credits scene promises the audience a new father-son dynamic to replace that of Thor and Odin for the next phase.

The Complete Pegānā

 If you want to avoid the loathing of all things and otiose verbiage of Lovecraft, but still desire a cosmos that is at best indifferent and at worst actively hostile, you could do worse than Lord Dunsany’s mythology about the Gods of Pegānā. Lord Dunsany’s style is the opposite of that of Lovecraft: Lord Dunsany writes horror by omitting adjectives and descriptions of rituals which are either known to those who dwell therein or are secrets known only to the Gods. Many of the most memorable elements of Lovecraft’s cosmos derive from here, including the sleeping god whose dream we are and his musical attendant. The best collection to read these tales is The Complete Pegānā: All the Tales Pertaining to the Fabulous Realm of Pegānā. The cosmos of the Gods of Pegānā is mostly Lucretian, in which the prayers of Men usually reach only as far as the ears of the priests; the attitude of the Gods towards Man is best epitomized in these lines from the chapter “Of Yoharneth-Lahai”: “Yoharneth-Lahai is the god of little dreams and fancies … To whom Yoharneth-Lahai come not with little dreams and sleep he must endure all night the laughter of the gods with highest mockery in Pegānā.”

The first half of the collection is structured like a holy book. The chapter divisions are similar to the surāt of the Qur’an. The chronology is similar to the books of the Bible, stretching from the creation of the Gods and the Worlds to the End. The content in the beginning is reminiscent of the Theogony of Hesiod (another noted pessimist), while the middle contains longer stories of Men and their desperate attempts to access the Gods. The Gods win, every time. There is some variety, such as the rebellion of minor streams. The final tale is that of the End, in which the god of Time is slain by one of his own hounds, who are the Hours which devour all things.

The second half of the collection is an expansion of the mythology, both in the realms of the Gods and of Men. The order here is more varied. On the divine side, it includes “A Legend of the Dawn,” in which the sole child among the gods loses her ball (the Sun), and “When the Gods Slept,” in which worse things than the gods creep into the world and further degrade Men. On the human side, there is “The Relenting of Sarnidac,” in which a disabled dwarf undergoes accidental apotheosis, and “In the Land of Time,” in which a king declares war against Time himself.

The final three tales of the collection are titled “Beyond the Fields We Know”: each tale involves a traveler from our world participating in the world of Pegānā. These serve as a link between the realms of Dunsany’s dreams and the “real world,” thereby allowing a transition to more familiar landscapes with a new appreciation. A good (but definitely not tame) Lion once put it thus: “I am [there] … But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason you were brought [here], that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.” Homecoming is a necessity after the adventure in the perilous realm.

If you enjoy Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman, you will enjoy Pegānā; but I would not recommend a graphic novel adaptation, for the sign of Mung and the other Gods of Pegānā are best left to dreams and dreamers.

Island in the Sea of Time

Snake Island, the island off the Romanian coast from which the Ukrainian soldiers shouted words as vociferous, if not as grandiose as some Laconic words of defiance has a history stretching back into the Greek myths. Upon this island lay the temple of Achilles, where now the lighthouse stands; on its model the Greeks constructed Elysium; on these shores Circe (in some accounts) absolved her niece Medea of the murder of her brother Absyrtus (whose resemblance to Abzu, the watery consort of Tiamat, does not pass unnoticed). Pindar's Olympic Ode 2 mentions the Tower of Kronos in the Islands of Blest. If any island should represent the ghosts and sorrows of war, it is this island. 

Flashlight Hike 2011

No photos this time. I was in a dark corner supervising the carries group, and then it was too dark. We followed the customary route above Rodeo Lagoon, near which some of the participants had gone to environmental awareness camp. One of my earliest maps was drawn at that camp for my journal entries of that year. I believe I also said something uncomplimentary about Jonathan Vordermark and criticized the camp's treatment of the flag.  We went up the hill to the bunker and split into a round robin of five groups to complete various requirements. As I said, I was supervising the carries group. The test was a race, which would have been much more hazardous if the giant gun emplacement pit had not been filled. We continued up the hill and up the stairs. I was a bit worried when we were passing the collapsed wooden ruins on the top of the head, since some of the younger kids were itching to descend into the splintery abyss. Several of the turns were not clearly marked, but we did not lose anybody. We ascended to Hill 88 and supped there. The Urban Astronomer, who was with us, provided guidance to navigating the stars, although the moon was bright. We headed down from the summit of Hill 88 and walked along the backside of the ridge.

At the crossroads, where a wrong choice would lead to the Long March of that infamous year, the Urban Astronomer provided more guidance on celestial gazing, but fell short on myth. Cepheus was the king of Ethiopia, and Cassiopeia was his queen, and Andromeda was his daughter. Cassiopeia bragged that Andromeda was more beautiful than the gods. This boast angered the gods and Poseidon demanded that Andromeda be chained to a cliff and consumed by a sea monster. Andromeda did not die, because Perseus (not Pegasus) rescued her. Upon reflection, the confusion might have arisen because Perseus did have the sandals of Hermes, which had wings and allowed him to fly, thus fulfilling the same role as Pegasus. Such errors do makes me wonder whether I should start a mythology blog.

We descended from the decision of Hercules into the always-chilly hollow and out towards the road. We were behind schedule, but I was less discombobulated than some of the impatient teenagers. We walked along the north side of Rodeo Lagoon, and I recalled the swampy path on the south side and the crossing of the bar. We reached the parking lot, consumed doughnuts and hot chocolates, and the Urban Astronomer allowed the boys to look through his telescope at the Galilean moons.

Hwaet!: Review of Beowulf

Sometimes I forget how blessed I am to live in the Bay Area, with its plethora of theatrical options. On Friday night, I went with L. to Beowulf. I had planned to meet up with a fellow member of the SF Language Lovers Meetup group, but the exigencies of getting to the theater prevented this. The performer, Benjamin Bagby (whose name makes me think of the Hobbit), sat on a spare stage. A screen with supertitles hung over him; I am not sure which translation he had chosen. The performance was abbreviated to 90 minutes, since a full retelling of Beowulf would require the time my ancestors only had in the miserable wet winters. Bagby's voice was resonant and varied according to character and timbre of conversation - this is not an easy task while maintaining the metrics of epic poetry. Bagby took frequent breaks to refresh his throat, but the pauses were well worth the results. As Bagby continued to recite, I began to recognize more words without reference to the supertitles; this task was made easier by my familiarity with the plot. The performance was old-fashioned story-telling at its best.

Recent Reading: Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters

Since the movie adaptation of the first book in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians is opening next Friday, providing an excuse to get the kids out of the house so that the parents can enjoy the Friday night of Singles Awareness Day weekend, I thought I should write up a short review of the second book in the series, Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters. The sequel uses a comparatively slower narrative pace, but then the author (Rick Riordan) could afford to place his chess pieces more carefully once the first book had sold well. His conceit about the nature of monsters pays off well in a series format, since there are a limited number of canonical monsters of myth (although far more than most moderns know). Another key conceit, what I would call "indefinite geography", serves as an anchor between the mundane and mythical worlds; the tendency to place wacky magical movies and television series in my own hometown makes this conceit particularly familiar and dear to me. If the world were as this series describes, the placement of the Sea of Monsters is perfectly logical.

One of the joys of reading this series as an adult Classics major is the recognition of story elements, and this installment does not disappoint. The choice of boss monster in this book telegraphs the stratagem of the hero, but a good story is always fun, and the particularly twisted version of La Belle et Le Bête (or perhaps Hercules and the Queen of the Amazons) which serves as the book's mcguffin is amusing on many levels, not all of which would be appropriate to explain to grade school kids.

I do not want to give away the conclusion (it's the second of five books: of course our hero wins the battle), but the way in which the success of the mission of the second book leads into the mission of the third book feels natural, an important feat for the sequel in an incomplete series. If I were teaching middle school, I would use these books quite happily to instill a love of mythology in my students - I come by that love naturally, but I understand many do not.

Ra, Set, Russkiy!

  I don't have any profound spiritual commentary for the end of 2009, so in terms of another year around the Sun, this news seems appropriate. The Russians have devised a scheme to try alter the orbit of Apophis, the near-Earth asteroid which in 2004 was calculated to have a 1-in-37 chance of hitting the Earth (That figure was later revised to less panic-inducing odds). The timing of this announcement, just as NASA's shuttle program is expiring, appears to be a bid for the space portion of the news cycle, and fits well with Russia's "muscular patriotism". The plan does sound heavily inspired by movies, but then many space scientists have been inspired by science-fiction movies and stories, and quite a few science fiction authors have worked for NASA. On the positive side, Russia is the country over which the "path of risk" is imminent and the only country in which a large meteorite has exploded in recent times (I do not believe that the Tunguska Explosion was an exploding alien spacecraft). That experience does give it a little more authority than other nations in this matter, just as Japan has more authority than other nations when it comes to suffering nuclear attack.

Apophis appears to be an appropriately menacing name for the asteroid, but is less so if one has sufficient familiarity with Egyptian mythology. The namers of the asteroid seem to be bigger fans of Stargate than Sinuhe. Apophis is the Greek name for the Apep serpent, the cosmic embodiment of all that is evil, which threatens the sun god Ra as travels nightly through the Duat, but is always defeated by the god Sutekh/Set - despite his use as a Satan-equivalent in fiction, that is not his primary role in Egyptian cosmology-cosmography. Sometimes the struggles of Ra, Sutekh, and the Apep serpent resulted in earthquakes, storms, and eclipses when the Apep serpent got the upper hand, but Ra was ever victorious.Apophis, therefore, is a good name for an object in the darkness, be it Duat or Outer Space, which periodically threatens, but never prevails.

Myth-understanding (I need an Aspirin)

Hollywood's remake machine has set its sights on Clash of the Titans. The remake itself is not what bothers me, since this movie was never a favorite of mine, despite my love of myth and legend. Strange versions of the Arthurian mythos bother me more. I am, however, concerned that this adaptation of an adaptation, like the light of mirror in moonlight, will have myth-obsessed fanboys up in arms about its (no doubt gross) misrepresentation of the mythological canon.

Let me say this up front: I love myths and have been reading them since I was eight years old. I started with Sumerian, Egyptian, Greek, and Norse myths; moved to Yoruba and other African myths; and once was mocked in grade school for reading the tales of the Aboriginal Dreamtime in a book which featured Aboriginal art (which lacks the same modesty taboos as contemporary pseudo-Victorian society). Once I had moved on from Bullfinch, however, I learned from Graves and translations of the Greek tragedies and epics that ancient authors and poets felt no compunction at changing the narrative of a myth in order to illustrate their desired point. The backstory of Oedipus at Colonus cannot be exactly the same as the ending of Oedipus Rex, and the version of Oedipus in the Iliad is less flawed than the Oedipus of the tragic stage.

The outrage of the mythological fanboy, therefore, is not only unwarranted, but even untrue to the spirit of the nature of myth. The last outburst of such outrage I can recall occurred at the release of Disney's Hercules, which made the radical change of having Hercules as the son of Hera and therefore a god without terrestrial access to his own godhead. At the time, many complained that this was some desecration of the Herculean canon, although that canon includes Hercules as sage and barbaric, irredeemably stupid and unexpectedly crafty, in love with women and in love with boys. The syncretism of the Herculean mythos from the tales of strongmen of many cities prohibits a single interpretation of his character.

This lack of canonical exclusivity, it seems to me, is characteristic of myth in general. Although there may be general outlines, the teller of the tale is free to stretch or diminish portions to suit the point which he desires to make at that telling. Since Hollywood desires only to entertain (as judged by ticket revenue), it is natural that it would bend the tale in the ways most suitable to that purpose.

Fanboys have no right to complain that something as fluid as myth should conform to their preconcieved standards, although they are free to dislike it.

Kauai Tales

Most people, when they travel to exotic lands, collect knick-knacks such as clothing items or useless objects that soon are retired to a drawer and completely forgotten. I prefer to buy language-themed items, which is how I have come to own many Teach Yourself Language X books and dictionaries over the years. This time, when I went to Kauai with my family, I was looking around an antiques and Hawaiiana store in a Hanalei and discovered a book of Kauai legends and folktales. I already owned a Hawaiian dictionary (which I had forgotten, oh so foolishly, to bring with me to Kauai) and a book on the better-known Hawaiian legends, such as Maui and Pele, so I was excited to obtain a book with more provincial legends.


What particularly appealed to me about Kauai Tales was the glossary in the back that explained the meaning of the names in the stories. It pleased me not only as a practitioner of the "secret vice", but also as a student of myth and legend. The names in such stories, unless they are drawn from a historical person, are not chosen randomly; knowing the meaning of the name, therefore, illuminates the point of the story and may yield cultural information otherwise hidden. Many of the stories in Kauai Tales are aetiological, spanning form the time of night before the colonization of the Hawaiian islands to semi-historical periods. The author-collector is very careful to point out that this is a collection of stories from story-tellers, rather than genealogist-historians, and is intended to entertain first and be useful or historically accurate secondarily.

I devoured the tales in the first book so quickly that I returned to the shop to purchase the other two collections. The shop was still there, since it wasn't magical, and a book that appeared in the back of an antiques shop did not seem the sort of literature which would be easy or possible to find on a return voyage (I'm still kicking myself for not picking up the Adam Link collection in Many Waters bookstore in Northfield).

The second volume, Polihale, unfortunately lacked the comprehensive language index of the first volume, but it contained much more material. Now that I have returned home, I have access to my Hawaiian reference material. Much of Polihale appears to be derived from an Kauai oral epic involving several characters in a war between the chief of Kona (yes, the coffee place) and the chief of Wailua, near the sacred birthing stone of the chiefly class. It reminded of the Iliad and Odyssey, in that the cycle contained an overarching war narrative, personal narratives (from both sides), aetiologies, and stories about the aftermath of the war (involving a were-octopus).

I have not read the third yet, but I am looking forward to it.

Recent Reading: The Lightning Thief

I read The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan partly because I knew a movie of the book was being made and I wanted to check how solid the mythology was. I like Harry Potter, but the distortions of Latin get on my nerves. Rowling clearly knows enough Latin to get it almost right. Imagine my joy, then, when I discovered an exclamation in Homeric Greek in The Lightning Thief! The first book of the Percy Jackson series reminded me a bit of John Christopher's initial offering in the The White Mountains trilogy due to a careful balance of a full story within a projected series.

The Latin and Greek in the book is grammatical and colloquial. The book follows the standard literary convention that only obscenities remain untranslated, although I doubt the intended audience would realize quite how offensive the phrase 'eis korakas' truly is in Ancient Greek. Riordan extends his untranslated expletives beyond the vocative (the lazy man's foreign language) and even includes the plural imperative of a deponent verb. For those of you who lack the ars grammatica, that means he used a verb form which is passive in form, but active in meaning; that's a level of detail which many grade school Latin students would miss.

The reason for the movement of the world of Greek mythology to the United States is well presented, even if it does show the usual bias towards New York. Riordan has solved creatively the problem of a limited (and previously killed) roster of Classical monsters. The monsters themselves are true to the traditional mythology, and dwell in the appropriately iconic cities and regions. The choice of the entrance to the Underworld is a little surprising, although there is a certain logic to it.

The trio of heroes (an apt term for this subcreated world) fill the Harry Potter mode of main character, best friend, and opposite gender friend/potential love interest, but the character interaction placed between the desperate attempts to avoid assassination (this is a children's fantasy, after all) rings true and explores a lesser known dynamic between two gods, or rather their children. The Lightning Thief compromises as little as possible the occasionally sordid interactions between the Olympian gods - this is a relief from the bowdlerization of many other tales.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and I can endorse it as a Classics major and occasional fantasy fan.

Phoenix Preserve

Recently I read this article
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090515/ap_on_re_as/as_indonesia_bird_beach_3)
on the maleo, a bird native to Sulawesi, which put me in mind of the mythical phoenix. The maleo is mostly black, but has prominent pink plumage, yellow facial skin, and red-orange beak color. Both of these colors would lend themselves to the idea of flame, especially in climes where the birds are generally less particolored than in tropic lands. Even the black back of the maleo could be attached to the idea of flame, by way of ash.


The female maleo lays her remarkably large egg in volcanic sand or soil and wanders off. This is not a species where a hen and her brood troop gamely through the forest! When the egg hatches, the young maleo is ready to fly and forage. A full-grown bird emerging from the hot sands would indeed appear to be self-generating. There's no particular association of the maleo with spices, such as the frankincense with which (according to Herodotus) the phoenix immolates himself, but spices came from a wide area of the ancient world, and I am not arguing that the legend of the phoenix reflects biology with full accuracy (see Pliny the Elder for particularly egregious examples). I am, however, convinced that reports of this remarkable bird contributed to the myth of the phoenix.

Egyptians and Astronauts

One of the blessings of living in San Francisco is the presumption of literacy, but the literacy which some possess is not what others would consider "respectable". My habit of studying Ancient Egyptian in public has highlighted this local characteristic. It would be presumptuous to expect that many citizens would display much archaeological acumen, but the sight of hieroglyphs seems to draw the "ancient astronaut" crowd.

My quarrel with this sort is not that extrahuman life exists, but that aliens must have helped the ancient civilizations, which afterwards deified them. The deification of illustrious or notorious humans as their deeds become increasingly remote from the present of the incipient worshipper has happened (the technical term is 'euhemerism'), most notably in Egypt, where the Pharaoh already possessed divine characteristics. The suggestion, however, that the Sumerians and the Egyptians received extraterrestrial aid denigrates the ingenuity of the men and women who lived at the dawn of civilization. The requirement of external help is a remnant of racial attitudes which are no longer acceptable,; since it would be impossible for non-white tribes to accomplish such mighty deeds unaided, but white aid is chronologically impossible, aliens must have helped the savages of yore.

Presentation of the aliens as a "more rational" explanation for the deeds of gods in whom no-one (including yours truly) believes is really a re-mythologizing and displacing in time those very gods. The shift from numinous or divine forces to extraterrestrial ones occurred in the late nineteenth century and early to mid-twentieth century, the very era when technological progress was replacing (and in some cases threatening) the theological establishment. The fundamental characteristics, however, of contemporary systems of human thought do not change instantly, and just as the sixteenth century reformers replaced a Papal absolutism with a Biblical one, so too the congregants of technology replaced the unknown, watching God of Heaven Above with new watchers who had superior technology rather than supernatural potency. The aliens may not demand incense and burnt sacrifice, but belief in them is no dfferent than belief in elves and brownies, and the aid the (allegedly) gave no more than a modern version of the myth of Prometheus, with the added satisfaction of confirming the superiority of modern man.

The Weekend

After a rather dull Friday, more notable for my contemplation of the Great San Francisco Bay Oil Spill rather than any particular work I accomplished. Mom and I went to ACT to see The Rainmaker, of which I had a vague memories due to a hazily remembered movie verison of the broadway version of the play. The performance was wonderful and piercing, ddep thoughts expressed in vivid language.



On Saturday, I had the first half of Scouting for Food, in which the Scouts hang the bags on the doors. This year, however, the bags had been replaced by door hangers in an attempt to reduce litter. The sky was beginning to cloud over. The cubs, a chief component of this outing, arrived late, and too few of our own were in attendance. I would have preferred to go with one of the Scout groups rather than sitting at Broadway and Lyon, but I accepted my role.



After the Closing Circle, I returned to Maple Street and Mom and I rushed over to Berkeley to see the CCA (California Classical Association) performance of Argonautika written by Mary Zimmerman. I found it remarkable how different yet equally true interpretations of a character such as Jason could be. There were occassional moments of pretentiousness. Theorizing in drama should be in character, and I found the zodiacal interpretation awkwardly presented. It also occurred to me that the figure of St Christopher may have more to do with Jason bearing Hera than the grim chthonic ferryman Charon.


Once the curtain had fallen, the rain had increased greatly. I went over to Another Change of Hobbit and picked up the copy of Donaldson's Fatal Revenant. Then I read it as I awaited the return of my beautiful Amy, for I had foolishly left my key in San Francisco. Initially, my plan was to got a certain restaurant along Shattuck, but Amy persuaded that she was tired and that I ought to get some food to eat in. So trudged through the rain and acquired the comestibles. She returned and we had dinner together.



This Sunday, Rod Dugliss spoke at St James on the state and office of the diaconate, to which I remember his appointment, Later, there was a sale of goods and trinkets to benefit Palestinian Christians, and I attended the last Via Media discussion, which was on mission (although not quite what Amy would mean by 'mission'). When I went to Kaju for coffee, Seiko was harried and Lindsey Berkovich was there with her husband.

Aeneas and Dido

In consideration of the sad ignorance of many of my friends of the glorious language of Cicero and Caesar, I have established a separate blog into which my attempts at recreating that noble tongue shall reside.

I went down to the JCL (Jewish Community Library) yesterday and discovered that it was hidden, oh so cleverly on the second floor of a high school. Although I had come there originally in search of a Hebrew primer and a Harry Kemelman mystery, I rejoiced upon discovering a collection of the four extant Ugaritic myths. I love mythology, I devour it, but this was the first time I had found a volume of these myths unencumbered by apparatus critici, or too precious to read at leisure. I also checked out Wednesday the Rabbi Got Wet.