Space Odyssey (SPOILERS for Star Trek: Picard Season 3 - and some TNG)

 In Star Trek:Picard, many veterans of the TNG era returned, including Riker and Deanna Troi. The series is set decades later, and Riker and Troi are married and have a daughter Kendra, named after the daughter that Troi's mother had lost and never mentioned until the episode of TNG in which she did mention it. The Rikers lost a son instead of a daughter on the frontier planet Nepenthe.

The name of the planet, however, is the key to the Classical connection. Although the name Nepenthe appears to be merely conforming to the classic science fiction trope of naming planet with Classical Greco-Roman names, there are deeper connections. 

The name Nepenthe means 'no sorrow', a appropriate name for a planet where parents are trying to heal, but nepenthe is also the name of a drug in Homer's Odyssey when Telemachus, son of Odysseus, goes to Sparta to meet with Menelaus and Helen (who also have a daughter, Hermione) to seek information about his father. Menelaus and Helen welcome him. At the feast, however, Helen slips the drug nepenthe into Menelaus' cup to ease the burden of his memories. Menelaus, in modern terms, has PTSD from the Trojan war. The Greek word pharmaka refers to drugs both used for healing as well as more nefarious purposes. Both Helen and Deanna are skilled healers with a daughter (Hermione, Kendra) and a husband who was second in the command structure (Menelaus, Riker). Helen drugs her husband with nepenthe, while Deanna psychically removes her husband's emotional burden on the planet Nepenthe. In neither case is consent considered despite both women's history of enduring rape, in both the abduction and the violation sense; and it is hard to overlook that the science fictional woman is named Troi!

In Defence of the Bishop of London

 During the day of the Coronation, the Right Reverend and Right Honorable Dame Sarah Mulally, Bishop of London, misspoke, saying Natharess instead of Nazareth. The bishop, considering her office and ordination, is unlikely to be unfamiliar with the name of the Savior's hometown, so it is necessary to seek an alternate explanation - and refrain from puerile mockery born of anticlericalism. The z and the th in Nazareth are both fricatives, the former voiced, the latter unvoiced. A stressful occasion such as the first Coronation in seventy years just might trigger speech errors, thankfully none in the performative speech acts - and if anybody believes that clergy never err in more frequent recitations, that person has never been next to the officiant at Mass! A pure metathesis of the fricatives would produce Natharez,  while final devoicing would change z to ss. One should be grateful that the th of Nazareth was not fronted further to an f!

Vivat Regula Variatio!

 As a Latinist and a Christian, my pronunciation loyalties are divided according to the occasion. When I read Classical texts, I generally use the Erasmian pronunciation, but when I read Christian texts, devotionally or otherwise, I prefer the Ecclesiastical pronunciation. These, however, are but two of the historical options for Latin pronunciation - musician are familiar with a third, more Teutonic variety. The French also insist on doing diction according to their own customs. Yet each country within Christendom, until the Reformation, treated the more common Latin phrases as a register of the vulgar tongue rather than an elevated idiom, by which mechanism many Latin terms were nativized. Legal formulae, in particular, have a tendency to evolve and then resist further evolution; thus the traditional English pronunciation of vivat in the formula vivat rex fossilized as waiwat rex. If the absence of v is surprising, recall the following facts: firstly, English words beginning with v are almost exclusively borrowed from French whereas w was a native English sound, and secondly, the letter u for many centuries represented both u and w as well the introduced v.

To say that the Coronation was scripted would be an understatement. The Coronation of Elizabeth II included vaivat rejaina - not identical, but note the diphthong.The choice of waiwat over vivat emphasizes the traditional, royalist, Latinate, theocratic, catholic (but not Catholic) nature of the British monarchy.

Hymn to Dionysus

 The Homeric Hymn to Dionysus is essentially a horror story, Now it's ture that Dionysus is supernaturally beautiful rather than an eldritch horror in appearence, but the result is the same. You could replace Dionysus with a squamous sea creature or giant eyeless penguin. The only thing that disguises this is the genre and the viewpoint. The genre of the Homeric Hymns varies a little bit, but its purpose to glorify the God; in order to do so one cannot turn the god into a monster. Consider, however, the story from the viewpoint of the helmsman on the pirate ship. There is no indication that he is morally superior to his shipmates except on that one point of recognizing the God. From his perspective, the pirate ship on which he is a crewmember, although perhaps not one who is treated the best, is docked at the bottom of cliff in a land where they knew they could find wealth and expensive hostages to ransom. They spot a beautiful youth, clearly not of common stock, who has foolishly decided to hang out in his sexy adolescent glory next to the sea. The seashore is the traditional place for pirates to abduct young princes and princesses and sell them in slavery - if you examine the characters in the Odyssey, even the chief slaves of Odysseus are originally of noble stock, although perhaps a petty variety. Although Dionysus is probably safer on the cliff than the princess of Phaeacia was on the boeach when Odysseus washed up, the cliffs were either not that big or the pirates had experience abducting beautiful young boys from challenging terrain. The later speculation of the crew about the destination of this young noble suggests a common excursion to foreign lands across the sea. This is consistent with the existence of pirates. If there is not extensive sea trafficc, there are no job opportunities for corsairs! Once the pirates have brought the marvelous being upon their own ship, in order to exploit him commercially, they are acting fundamentally no different than a scientist bringing a sample back to base camp or exploration vessel or a dreary town in New England. Once Dionysus easily frees himself from his bonds while mocking the sailors, the Helmsman recognizes that this is no ordinary aristocrat.

The Premature Journey of Jason, Son of Aeson

The following may be misanalysis according to those wiser than myself, but ask yourself this: how much misanalysis or reanalysis has been the source of new creativity? The story and backstory of Jason would not have reached such complexity if variatio were not a tool of the storyteller and the storytold

My obsession with Jason has resurfaced (appropriately for the topic of this post), something which either started with Euripides' Medea, or Pythian 4 - Pindar is one hell of a pharmaka! The trajectory of Jason has the trappings of  formal hero's journey yet he fails in critical ways. Although the etymological data is fascinating, I believe I have identified a larger potential problem with Jason's hero's journey - namely, that he underwent catabasis, the transformative experience of descending to the underworld and returning transformed, prematurely. According to Pythian 4, Aeson of Iolcus, whose name means 'rightly ruling', was overthrown by his half brother Pelias for reasons that we need not explore further here. The upshot of this usurpation was Jason's secret birth. It's important to realize that he was not named Jason at birth; Chiron, the immortal Centaur, divine physician, and trainer to heroes, bestowed that name. Before Chiron received him, however, the household of the deposed king feigned funeral customs over the live baby so that Pelias or his spies would believe that there had been a stillbirth. The baby then passed into the hands of Chiron, who named him Jason. In Greek, 'Jason' means 'the one who will heal' or perhaps 'the one who comes to heal' because the future participle in Greek indicates not just futurity but intention. In this situation, one might think that Jason is primed to become the young hero, the true heir to the kingdom, and that there are, at least not yet, no dark aspects to the legend. There is an aspect that I had not yet considered, and perhaps this applies to all lost princes and true heirs. The catabasis is transformative for the hero not only because he survives it but because he can process it. This processing is not available to a babe. By undergoing the catabasis at that stage of life, there is no possibility of consciously remembering the trauma, but only unconscious warping. The other effect of this journey, on a dramatic level, is that the hero has achieved the hero's journey, however faulty. Once the epic hero has completed his journey to the heights of glory, there is a possibility of falling from those heights. This opens new narrative paths for the storyteller; some heroes rise above yet another challenge, but Jason does not. Jason retrieves the Golden Fleece and returns to Iolcus, but he neither retrieves his kingdom nor kills the usurper Pelias himself. He fails in the intention of his very name! This failure could be the result of an incomplete completion of the hero's journey.

Supplemental

 I must thank my dear friend Manto for this further detail about Pan and Hermes' mothers. Hermes' mother is Maia, the name for a nurse. This is the way in which Penelope addresses her nurse Eurycleia in the Odyssey. The Hymn to Pan avoids naming his mother other than the daughter of Dryops, whence one possible name Dryope. An alternative name, however, is Penelopeia; if one knew this, then the use of the word nurse in the panicking of Pan's mother would refer to Penelopeia as well as Pan's grandmother Maia, in addition to the Odyssey. Thus it is a multilayered joke requiring more knowledge and application of wit than many possess, a true Hellenistic play on words.

Dulce Et Decorum Est: the Homeric Hymn to Ares

 In the Homeric Hymns the Hymn to Ares is a rebuttal to the notion in popular media that Ares is incompetent, amoral, or evil. This Hymn, on the other hand, is a warrior's prayer for courage and discipline in battle and preferably no need to go to war in the first place. The initial lines of the Hymn are a list of complimentary epithets. Such a list is a common feature of the beginning of Homeric Hymns and often a primary component of abbreviated Hymns. I wonder, therefore, if such introductions were not pedagogical tool for memorizing the appropriate epithets. In contemporary times, the line "immortal, invisible, god only wise" is virtually unforgettable. These epithets could further provide an inspiration for the poet to fill the space between the invocation and the missa est, either with a known tale or a tale of his own invention appropriate to the god and rendered unverifiable by attribution to a distant region. A contemporary example of the former could be the responses before and after the Gospel, which in liturgical traditions is determined by a lectionary; an example of the latter could be the Prayers of the People, which contains sufficient flexibility to include quotidian concerns.

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

A Hydrography of Words (Muta cum Liquida secundum linguam Graecam)

 When I was a lad, I learned a rule about length in metrical poetry called muta cum liquida, wherein the first category of consonants followed by the second could be considered long or short, depending on the needs of the poet. These terms are are no longer as useful as they once were, even to literates - the former is obsolete, while the latter appropriately has changed its shoreline. The modern meaning of 'liquid' is restricted to lambda and rho, but the older meaning encompassed nasals, mu and nu. A more nuanced understanding is not that the vowel before these consonants may be long and short, but that the short vowels may be lengthened. This revelation enables further nuance: the voiceless consonants of Greek display the fluidity of this rule, but the voiced consonants delta and gamma do not admit it. Beta is omitted, perhaps because it is more likely to assimilate to the following nasals. A potential reason for delta and gamma to deny this variability is that vowels, even short ones, are ever so slightly lengthened before a voiced consonant; this lengthening is enough (in Greek) to create an impediment. Such incomplete transitions are common among languages and go a long way to creating their individual flavors.

Now We Are Thriai (With Apologies to A A Milne)

In the Hymn to Hermes, there are matters which Apollo cannot share, not even with his new BFF, and the light-fingered nature of his new best friend forces him to be explicit. Hermes is the crosser of boundaries, whose transgressions are not transgressions. Apollo explains that he swore to Zeus that he alone of the other Olympian gods would have access to the will of the Fates via the birds, but offers Hermes a consolation prize in the form of a humbler oracular tradition. Ancient zoologists are notoriously unobservant, but even they agree that bees are not birds despite the ability to fly. Bees and honey appear frequently in the Greek mythological tradition, as animals, as a foodstuff, and as a generic name for doomed young royals such as the unfortunate Princess of Corinth or the original name of Bellerophon. Bees, like birds, form patterns which humans, inveterate pattern-seekers, can interpret as insight against future insecurity. Divination by bee will not incur the wrath of Zeus, because Zeus does not care. This may seem a strange attitude to prognostication from the same god who swore Apollo to eternal secrecy, but perhaps the matters revealed by apiomancy are deemed petty and not worthy of condescension. Hermes' governance of this lesser oracular tradition may be a concession to an older, humbler practice available to those who cannot afford a trip to Delphi, on the same level as plucking flowers in a game of 'she loves me, she loves me not'; but the accuracy of prophecy, whether apiary or avian, is known only to the capricious gods into whose remit it falls. You're definitely not getting your money back.

Hypermetric Verse: No Excuses: Aeneid 2.745-746

 Hypermetic verse, the phenomenon by which one line of dactylic hexameter elides into the next, is a rare enough occurance in Vergil's Aeneid that no example can be dismissed as accidental; therefore its presence in lines 745-6 of Book 2 of the Aeneid merits attention. The lines in question:

Quem non incusavi amens hominumque deorumque,

aut quid in eversa vidi crudelius urbe?

"Who of men and gods did I not accuse,

or what did I not see more cruelly in the fallen city?"

The accusation in question is the fate of Creusa, the wife of Aeneas and mother of Iulus, whom, in a hyperpatriarchal manner, Aeneas bid walk behind him. She did not arrive in the meeting place outside the city. Luca Grillo has commented in his article on how badly Aeneas appears (in his own account!) in comparison to Hector and Orpheus in relationship to his wife. These lines seem to be to crux of it. Not only does Aeneas invite Dido and the audience in Carthage, as well as any readers of Vergil, to consider which individual among gods and men he has not accused, but he does in a couplet using a poetic device that elides, quite literally, one syllable for the one man he has not accused - himself!

The Clever Old Man, Part II: Immortal Gods and Mortal Men

 The Old Man and Zeus are the apices of the "age triangle" in the Hymn to Hermes, The "age triangle" is the trinity of persons necessary to exploring the concept of time within the Hymn. Hermes and Apollo represent new birth and flourishing youth, respectively, but the apex of the triangle must be occupied by an old man, or at least a mature one past the prime of youth. The singer of the Hymn insists the Hermes' activities pertain to both mortals and immortals; Apollo, while not so deeply involved, spends a substantial time on Earth rather than Olympus. The two brothers are so intimately linked that they recieve a mutual epithet: "the very beautiful children." The immortality of the youth and the babe with the power is non-negotiable, forcing the distinction in mortality upon the position of the Elder.; thus the Old Man and Zeus are separate characters.  The appearances of Zeus and the Old Man form a chiastic structure: Zeus is first and last, as befits an immortal, while the Old Man's two appearances are in between. This return to the beginning is a characteristic of epic (here, some might say mock-epic) composition. Whereas Zeus establishes the cosmic arrangement that Hermes and Apollo are literal BFFs, the Old Man represents the mortal, cyclical arrangement of the three Ages of Man. He first meets the Babe, literally born today; next he encounters the Youth; he himself represents Eld, so there is no need for a third encounter. His scope of movement is limited to his plot of land, while the protagonist and antagonist travel the breadth of Greece in pursuit of cattle. The Old Man is also temporally limited by virtue of his mortality: he is old, but the plants he is preparing are very young, younger even than the divine baby Hermes who comments on them. The fruits of the vineyard rise from the earth; yet when the Old Man dies, he will return to the earth. The god who will escort him to the Underworld is Hermes in his role as psychopomp, thereby linking dearh and life in a never-ending cycle.

Zeus' role as the immortal apex involves telic motion rather than cyclical.  He begets Hermes in the beginning of the Hymn, accomplishing his goal. This goal is a pregnancy and a parturition, but the completion of the Twelve Olympians by Hermes' existence, at least in this Hymn, suggests that the will of Zeus is more comprehensive than "mingling in love" with a random goddess. In the latter part of the Hymn, Zeus arbitrates between his two sons by virtue of paternal authority, although he favors Hermes. The judgment and the oaths lock the cosmic "age triangle" into a principle, while the mortal form serves as a guide to mortals who dwell upon the wide earth. Zeus is in Heaven, but the Old Man is who mortals can become.

The Clever Old Man: An Essay on The Hymn to Hermes

 The Homeric Hymn to Hermes is sometimes placed in time between the more serious hymns and the satirical Battle of the Frogs and the Mice. It certainly leans towards a folkloric content while maintaining the format of its more sober brethren! Yet one of the features of epic structure is its flexibility - episodes may be expanded, contracted, or omitted depending on the whims of the audience and performer or broad time restrictions. Shorter and longer Hymns appear within this corpus. In Homeric Hymn 4, the longer and better-known Hymn to Hermes, the interactions of Hermes and Apollo with the Old Man are brief, since the Hymn is about Hermes and Apollo rather than Hermes and mortals; yet the Old Man is the only mortal featured, and the Hymn is insistent on the relationship of Hermes to both immortal gods and mortal Men. If Hermes possesses such important ties to mortals, the Old Man is the only mortal with whom he has any relationship within the Hymn. The Old Man's interaction with Hermes and Apollo, therefore, warrants examination. 

Hermes' interaction with the Old Man is brief; how threatening Hermes' speech is depends on one's perspective, but it is certain that Hermes has instructed the Old Man to pretend he did not see nor hear the things he saw and heard. In many contexts, that would be an instruction to lie, an extraordinary and impossible demand when the Old Man's next encounter with a god is one with the god of prophecy! Yet there is one specific place where falsehood and truth are so bound that one could tread the middle path between the two: a court of law. The interaction between Hermes and Apollo, after all, is a legal comedy. The Greek word used to describe Hermes' account of his actions before the throne of Zeus, the god of oaths as well as the father of the litigants, is not 'alethia', the more common word for truth, but rather 'atrekeos', the meaning of which is more closely 'technically correct'. This meaning of truth is consistent with the Old Man's reply to Apollo's interrogation: the Old Man reveals to Apollo his interaction with Hermes but only claims to have to seemed to see it: a day-old baby driving cattle backwards with Hellenic snowshoes is so surprising that one might well assume it was a hallucination. Many gods would be displeased by this betrayal, but Hermes, as a god of prevarication and precocious cleverness, might admire the quickness of such a mortal. The Old Man's fate is not revealed in the Hymn because this Hymn is about gods rather than Men. Yet in a version of Hermes' deeds in a less high register, one in which the role of Hermes as guide of Men took precedence over Olympian sibling rivalry, the Old Man's role would become pivotal.

The key lies in the exact word Apollo uses when he asks the Old Man if he has seen anyone rustling his cattle: he uses the word 'anera'. This term means either 'mortal', as in 'King of Men and Gods' or 'adult male'. In casual speech, the difference between 'anera' and 'tina' 'who' would be trivial, but this is a legal comedy, and in legal matters much that is trivial elsewhere attains significance. When Apollo asks the Old Man whether he has seen an 'anera', the Old Man can answer in the negative because Hermes is not a mortal nor is he an adult male. This level of semantics is not unique to the origin of Hermes: Apollo, who is consistently referred to as 'son of Leto' in the Hymn, was born on a floating island due to Hera's restrictions on Leto's place of parturition, while Zeus was hidden in a cradle hung from the ceiling so that he was technically neither in heaven nor on earth nor in the sea. The Old Man, in order to keep up with the gods of the Hymn, must operate on a commensurate level. 

A focus on the Old Man in the Hymn to Hermes is inconsistent with the general structure of the Homeric Hymns, which privilege the experiences of immortals. This privilege obscures the importance of the Old Man to the Hymn and his potential centrality to a telling of the story in a less elevated register. The framing of the Hymn as a legal comedy restores this element, or, if the material was lowbrow in origin, preserves some small portion in the august halls of Homeric epic.

Life and Times of Baby Hermes

In the current portion of the Hymn to Hermes, assigned to our little group, there is a line which is best translated “The tracks on this side are worthy of praise, but the tracks on the other side are more praiseworthy” (226). This line has the balance and limited vocabulary of an aphorism, a literary device which has already been deployed within the hymn (36). “Praiseworthy” is αἰνὸς, a relative of the more familiar verb αἰνέω “to praise” and possibly Αἰνείας “Aeneas” “ the praiseworthy man.” A more profitable avenue in reference to the Hymn to Hermes might be a hidden etymological connection between this aphorism and the hymns obsession with cyclical time and mortality. The philologist Pokorny suggests that the root of αἰνος is one which means “to live.” Two common Greek words relating to time and life, αἰεί and αἴων, are derived from this root. if αἰνὸς is similarly derived,  then this aphorism provides a temporal theme just as the double use of ὁδοῖο “path” in the same aphorism, provides a directional theme. Lines 17-18 define Hermes as a god who accomplishes his deeds within a solar cycle. He is born in the morning, invents the lyre in the middle of the day, and steals the cattle of Apollo in the evening.  The first thing he sings on his newly made instrument is a song about his own conception, his coming to life (56-58). He does so using materials for which a mortal being, the unfortunate tortoise has ceased to live. When Hermes ventures forth farther than his own doorstep, the individual he encounters is an mortal Old Man, the opposite of an immortal baby; yet the old man has a flourishing garden, a symbol of youthful vigor (87). Apollo discovers the theft at dawn, but the Old Man , whom Apollo questions, refers to evening(184; 206-207). Even the journey of the cattle from Pieria to Pylos can be viewed as not just a reversal in special terms, but also an alleged and mendacious reversal of time according to Hermes’ later protestations of innocence.

Meditations on Mary: Marvels Updated

Doc Shaner's recent series The Champion of Shazam is a good comic which both benefits and suffers from legacy and the constraints of continuity. Mary posseses the power of Shazam, since Billy is off wizarding at the Rock of Eternity. She is ready to go to college, to start a life independent of her foster family, and obligations of heroism. Mary is a character who has retained a fan base despite her underutilization as an independent character.  Mary, however, cannot escape Billy's sphere of influence any more (and probably less) than Kara can escape Clark's. Billy, unlike the cousins from Krypton, has a challenge maintaining his own series, while Superman endures. The other (former) female Shazam, Mary's younger foster sister Darla, provides more diversity but she is too young in-world and too recently created to claim the title of Shazam on her own. She may be better suited for a YA book, perhaps one set in the world of the Vietnamese Green Lantern or a crossover with a Wonder Person. Uncle Marv, on the other hand, is an unadulterated positive addition, who does not require powers (a betrayal of his basic nature), but also provides an adult mentor for a putative Mary-centric comic just as Darla does a Jimmy Olsen type - hopefully not a Vanessa Kapatellis! The choice of Georgia Sivana as villain is appreciated, since Sivana is the rare villain that has extended family born of legitimate marriages; Georgia, moreover, is the only Sivana sibling who possesses neither a "Junior", something which Freddie's absence suggests a move away from, nor a given name which would only hold up to scrutiny in the Golden Age of Comics. Georgia's motivation for villainy are sold and tied into the continuity of Shazam. This entanglement of Mary and Georgia with their male counterparts still leaves them with a burden of legacy, although a thankfully thin one which could be overcome in an ongoing series. This, however, is a limited series with an open ending of "the adventure continues" type. Reading the miniseries along makes this ending inspirational, but its placement with universal continuity diminishes the impact, especially when it is mandatory that the mantle of Shazam return to the slightly more commercial Billy. Even the title of the series is ambiguous: does the Champion of Shazam refer to Billy, the Champion of the force of good which the wizard Mamaragan encapsulated within the Magic Word, or Billy's Champion? 

Unrestrained by the continuity outside of Shazam portion of the DCU, this would make a hell of an animated movie; within it, like so many other series, the gravity of the status quo warps it into insignificance. This is a shame for the girl hero who preceded and inspired the Girl of Steel.