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.

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.

Sorrow, son of Unrejoicing: Euripides' Bacchae and Linguistic Archaeology

 In approaching the end of Euripides' Bacchae, a parallelism that has struck me is the mother-son pairs on either side of the conflict of the play. Dionysus is the son of Semele, daughter of Cadmus; Pentheus is the son of Agaue (sic), daughter of Cadmus. Pentheus' name means "the one who sorrows," a connection explicitly made within the text of the play. The context and conflict of the play is the arrival of the Bacchic rite to Thebes and its hostile reception, so names which have meaning are conspicuous and may be names of roles assumed in the rites. Within the Bacchic rites, whoever assumes the role of Bacchus becomes Bacchus in a sense, so it is reasonable to assume that the principal opponent would have a similarly dual role. On the maternal side, Semele is associated with a number of earth goddesses such as Rhea and Doso (Demeter) and happens to match the name of the Thracian Earth Goddess Zmele (because Thracian was a satem language, whereas Greek was a centum language - see Russian 'zemlya' 'land' for a more familiar cognate), so Agaue's name and role should also be significant.  Agaue murders her son Pentheus under the influence of the god, but her name also has meaning. Agaue may well be derived from the root 'gawe-', 'rejoicing', which lies at the sourche of Latin 'gaudium', 'joy'. The Greek verb 'gauroomai' occurs in the text in the discussion of Agaue's behavior. 'Gauroomai' can be broken down as follows: '-omai' is the first person singular present middle ending and can be safely excised. This leaves 'gauro-', which is an adjective. If the component which makes it an adjective is removed, i.e. -ro-, all that is left is 'gau', the part shared with the name Agaue. The -e of Agaue is just the feminine ending, so the important part for analysis is Agau-, which is -gau- with a negative prefix A-. The name Agaue, therefore, means 'The Woman Who Does Not Rejoice', which is a thematically (and dramatically?) appropriate name of the mother of The Man Who Sorrows, Agaue changes from rejoicing when she is entranced to not rejoicing when she recognizes what she has done.

Heracles, Hercules, Why So Many Names

 The mightiest son of Zeus has many names, but the two most frequently used in modern media are Hercules and Heracles. The simple explanation for this is that the Romans used Hercules, while the Greeks used Heracles (or Herakles). That suffices, but it would not be a Wednesday Classics post if there were not greater depths to explore.

The original name of Herakles was Alkaios, the name of his paternal grandfather, Alkaios, son of Perseus. This genealogical connection is why Herakles is sometimes referred to as Alcides, “descendant of Alkaios.” Herakles’ mortal parents were Amphitryon, son of Alkaios, son of Perseus, and Alkmena, daughter of Elektryon, son of Perseus. Alkmena’s name shares a root with Alkaios which indicates strength, because names in myth and legend are often extremely on the nose. Alkaios, son of Amphitryon, was a target for Hera, the wife of Zeus. After baby Alkaios strangled the two serpents sent to kill him in the first days of his infancy, he was renamed Herakles, “glory of Hera,” in a futile attempt to appease the wrath of Hera by dedicating the baby to her. That is the mythological background for the name.

Greek is an Indo-European language with a pitch whose placement is not automatic and a distinction between long and short vowels. The pitch on the name Heracles appears on the final syllable of the name; the length pattern of the name was long-short-long, a cretic according to Greek metrical naming conventions. This name did not fit well into the dactylic pattern of epic poetry, so alternate names were often used for Heracles in poetry. The Greeks used the Greek alphabet, which did not have the letter C; Heracles in Greek is spelled with a K (kappa).

 The Greeks travelled and colonized much of the Mediterranean, including what is now Italy. In Italy the Greek colonists met the Etruscans, the dominant ethnic power of northern and mid-Italy. The Latin peoples, the speakers of Old Latin, were under the power of the Etruscans. The Etruscans borrowed and adapted the Greek alphabet to write their previously unwritten language.

The Etruscan language was quite different from the Greek language. The variety of the Greek alphabet which the Etruscans adopted had three velar sounds: kappa, qoppa, and gamma. Kappa and qoppa were like a hard C sound in English, although the Etruscans could hear a difference. Gamma was like a hard G sound in English. The difference between hard C and hard G in Greek is called voicing; it was something which the Etruscan language lacked. The result of this lack was that Etruscan heard G as C. At this point, with three letters for the same or similar sounds, many language adopters would have chosen one; Etruscan retained all three and distributed them in front of specific vowels. Qoppa (Q) appeared before U. Kappa (K) appeared before A. C, the gamma which was now identical in sound to K but had one less stroke, appeared before E. Due to its slightly easier writing, C gradually annexed the vocalic territories of K, including before I, the fourth vowel of the Etruscan language.

The speakers of Old Latin learned to write from the Etruscans. They therefore adopted the three varieties of hard C. Q was useful because QU was a frequent combination of consonants in Old Latin. Old Latin did not need both K and C and opted for the simpler of the two – except in the important time word Kalends and some names. Since C was always an English hard C, any Greek words with K could be spelled with C.

An alphabet was not all Etruscan and Old Latin shared. The languages were in a Sprachbund, a kind of linguistic marriage in which certain features are shared between unrelated languages. One of the features in the Etruscan-Old Latin Sprachbund was consistent stress (not pitch) on the first syllable of a word. Herakles, therefore, became Heracle in Etruscan, with initial syllable stress. A frequent result of initial syllable stress is a decrease in stress on non-initial syllables to the point that the vowels in those syllables disappear; thus Heracle became Hercle. This form lasted in Etruscan until its eventual extinction.

Old Latin, however, did not like this consonant cluster. Old Latin, unlike Etruscan, was also a member of the Indo-European language family. Old Latin had long and short vowel lengths, which underwent different changes in initial and non-initial position. This distinction is why the Latin verb ‘facio’ has the perfect passive participle ‘factus’, but the same root with the prefix ‘infacio’ has the perfect passive participle ‘infectus.’ In Old Latin as well as Etruscan, Heracle became Hercle, but Old Latin broke the cluster by inserting a vowel to produce Hercules – Old Latin shared many declensions with Greek and therefore requires the case ending -s to use the name Hercules. The name Hercules had the same metric value as Heracles; thus this difficulty remained unresolved.

Latin, the descendent of Old Latin, had a different set of stress rules, but these happen not to affect the name Hercules. Although the native name Hercules was preferred, the Greek borrowing Heracles (with Latin C rather than Greek kappa) was available. Poets were still stuck with an awkward name – especially because Latin, due to the initial stress period and the loss of non-initial syllables, had even less short syllables.

When the Western portion of the Empire fell, most knowledge of Greek was lost, while Latin retained its position as the language of the church and of administration. The name by which the son of Jupiter, “Jovis filius,” was known for millennia in the West was Hercules, in accordance with the use of Latin names for the Greco-Roman gods. This can be confirmed in the English poetic tradition, which favors initial stress. The Greek names were not unknown, but not preferred.

In more recent times, however, there was a movement to use the Greek names, or at least the Latin spelling of the Greek names, of mythological figures. Heracles became a more common sight than it had been previously, but it did not displace Hercules in the popular consciousness. The next step was the restoration of the kappa in the name Herakles. This is most common in relatively historical or realistic accounts. While Hercules and Heracles have co-existed for a long time, the use of the name Hercules in the scripture of the Mouse is an indicator of which name remains preeminent in English-speaking, and particularly American, popular culture.

War and Peace: Hypermetric Verse and Its Contrasting Uses in Aeneid Book One

Hypermetric verse is a phenomenon where the last syllable of the dactylic hexameter is potentially extrametrical because the dactylic hexameter must end in a dactyl and spondee; this error is resolved by elision of the extrametrical syllable by the initial vowel of the first syllable of the next line. Hypermetric verse, therefore, places a restriction on the following line, much as a mistake in game can limit the conditions by which one corrects their strategy. Hypermetric verse implies enjambment, but enjambment is not dependent on hypermetric verse, avoiding it altogether. Two examples of hypermetric verse are Aeneid 1.332-3 and 1.448-9; the intended effect of the hypermetric verse, however, is antithetical.

The first example (1.332-3) occurs in a speech in which Aeneas petitions his mother Venus, thinly disguised as an impossibly beautiful huntress.

 

iactemur, doceas. Ignari hominumque locorumque
erramus, vento huc vastis et fluctibus acti:

 

The -que is self-consciously hypermetric, as indicated by erramus, the first word of the second line. The use of hypermetric verse also augments the theme of lack of control and involuntary mobility, which is shown in the bracketing of the hypermetric verse by ‘ignari’ and ‘vento … acti’.

 

The second example (1.448-9) occurs in the context of Aeneas’ jealousy of the state of Dido’s Carthage, which is not complete but well-built enough to have a finished temple whereas Aeneas has yet to reach his destination.

 

aerea cui gradibus surgebant limina, nexaeque
aere trabes, foribus cardo stridebat aenis.

 

 

This completed temple is heavily composed of bronze, a metal associated with war. This metal is mentioned three times (aerea, aere, and aenis), creating an impression of unity. This unity is reinforced by reference to architectural features which connect and support (gradibus, trabes, cardo, limina, foribus). The word which hypermetricizes the verse, ‘nexaeque’, is a verb of joining. This example, in contrast to the preceding, uses hypermetric verse to emphasize control and stability. Both lines have identical metrics for the dactylic hexameter except for the hypermetric elision!  

 

One might be tempted to consider this unity and conformity a wholly good thing, but there are elements which suggest otherwise. The use of bronze, a martial metal, is a reminder of past and future conflicts. The metrical identity of the two lines could suggest an army on the march or a crippling lack of flexibility, on the part of peoples and kings. This temple gate, which creaks (stridebant) like the Trojan fleet under assault, is reminiscent of the Gate of the Temple of Janus, which was open during war and closed in peacetime. The man who is still wandering and the woman who has settled bodes ill for any romance (of which there must be one, since Venus is involved).

Dionysus, Semele, Bromius

 The anapest is a metrical foot that not only reflects its own nature of two shorts and a long, but also matches the initial syllables of the names of the Bacchic cult. Both Dionysus and Semele form anapests, as does Bromius, the most common appellation of Dionysus, under common metric conditions. Admittedly, Bacchius does not form an anapest. The question then arises: does meter dictate the names or do the names guide the meter, or is it a matter of reciprocity? Are there instrumental factors of which we are no longer aware? 

Superman Space Age

 Superman Space Age, by Mark Russell and Mike and Laura Allred, is an illustration that a limited scope is not an impediment to telling a good story. The art is reminiscent of X-Statix, an unusual look for a Superman story, but this is a particular Superman on an Earth which does not have the privilege of being one which survives the Crisis on Infinite Earths. This is not a true spoiler: the first pages are set in 1985. This Superman's floruit is in the 1960s; the inciting incident, therefore, is the assassination of President Kennedy. This Earth's Clark Kent has a relation with his Earth father which is closer to that of the Man of Steel movie than any television adaptation. The assassination spurs Clark, Lois, Luthor, Bruce, and Hal into action which will lead to the conclusion. Despite the decade, Pariah, the multiverse-hopping herald of cosmic oblivion, arrives and the world does not immediately end in a wave of white blankness. Some may view this as breaking canon. This premature arrival prompts Superman to value the time left and rally the proto-league of this Earth. 

This version of the Superman story is geared for a generation who knows that disaster is coming within their lifetime and must decide how to manage both the catastrophe and their emotions. It is worth reading, and the development within the limited framework will be intriguing.

Paper Girls (Show and Comic)

The primary difference between watching Paper Girls and reading Paper Girls is not the '80s vibe - that is consistent - but rather that the show is structured as a season and the comic is structured like a very long '80s kid gang movie, despite its distribution over several volumes. A literal adaptation, even if costs allowed, would have felt disjointed, failing to introduce all relevant concepts and failing to conclude in a way suitable for the season format. The reworking of the plot, therefore, as well as the expansion of the cast's background, was a wise decision. The necessity for an ending, however, does create the risk of further time shenanigans that are less well-written than the original comic - note the deterioration of Game of Thrones. Appropriately, time will be the judge.

Heaven and Earth

 A feature of the myth of Dionysus which is likely to escape non-etymologists is the origin of the name Semele. Semele is an adaptation of the Thracian Earth goddess Zemele, cognate with the Greek word khthon, although it is not surprising the Greeks, hobbled by prejudice and the infant science of etymology, would not recognize it as such. Not only did the Thracian language lack the aspirated consonants (kh, th, ph) of Ancient Greek, but it was also a satem-language whereas Greek was a centum-language. This difference caused the sound which developed into kh in Greek to become z in Thracian. If Semele is Zemele, not a mortal but a god, then the union of Zeus and Semele is not a forbidden liaison between divine and mortal, but a union between heaven and earth, and Semele is the peer of Rhea or Demeter in the Bacchic rites by nature not merely by apotheosis.

Minor Threats

 The first issue of Minor Threats, the comic by Patton Oswalt, currently engaged as Matthew the Raven on Netflix’s The Sandman, Jordan Blum, Scott Hepburn, Ian Herring, and Nate Piekos, is a promising start at examining the midlevel criminal underbelly of a superhero universe. Our protagonist is a second-generation villain with inherited gimmick powers who just wants to lead a regular life and regain custody of her daughter. The universe in which she lives has suffered event escalation to the point where gimmick villains and bank robberies are old-fashioned, but there are still rules, particularly about killing heroes. This precarious balance vanishes when a sidekick of ersatz Batman is killed. The campaign of terror from the heroes prompts the midlevel villains to hunt down the culprit themselves to demonstrate zero tolerance. I look forward to the second issue.

Changing Planes (Ursula K. LeGuin)

 

Ursula K. LeGuin’s Changing Planes is a collection and a reminder of a simpler age before 9/11, before Columbine, before COVID. The parables are framed by an airport experience no longer available: dozing off. Each parable takes place on a different plane (in the non-aeronautical sense of the word) with a different ethnic group or species; not dissimilar to the manga Kino’s Journey. It is best read slowly, and a return to a favorite parable, whether that is due to familiarity or perplexity, will reap additional rewards.

The Book of Man (Mike Resnick)

 Mike Resnick's Birthright: The Book of Man is a deeply cynical future history that will delight those who seek the scope of Foundation and amoral universe of Pegana but wish to avoid the erotic exoticism of Heinlein. Each story features a different era from the ascent of Man to the stars to his eventual extinction. Man cycles through various forms of government, but ultimately remains Himself. If you need a dose of wonder afterward, Stapledon's Star Maker (equally atheist) is recommended.

Icon and Rocket

 The latest Icon and Rocket comic series is a distillation and update of the original Milestone Comics from the ‘90s. The plotting within the Dakotaverse (the name of the continuity) is tight and displays and awareness of the limited time and space granted to comic universes which are not part of the Big Two. The only character from the Dakotaverse who can hold his own long-running series is Static, and even that is sometimes tenuous. The Rocket who appears in Young Justice: Phantoms is a significantly different character in a very different world; that version is not addressed here. The leads of this comic are the titular Icon and Rocket. Icon is an alien who crashed on Earth in the antebellum South in a field; strange visitors from another planet are required to land in a field – unless they are causing cataclysmic destruction by crashing into the city prematurely. Rocket is a teenager who breaks into Icon’s house. These versions of Icon and Rocket do not exist in some separate multiverse; rather they are part of the DC multiverse or Omniverse; the gravitational pull of DC is too strong for virtually all the copies, commentaries, and deconstructions.

This Icon has tried to change the world, which resulted in a different conclusion for the Civil War; this might be considered cheap until one recalls that in Marvel the Human Torch (the original, android version) killed Hitler and in the prime Earth of DC Hitler used the Spear of Destiny as his primary defensive weapon. Comic book universes do not, and should not, have identical histories to the real world. This variation from our history in the Dakotaverse is a secret from the public. The concealment reflects the general ignorance of important events in Black history; but the method by which it is concealed is true to comic book aesthetics. The public history of the Dakotaverse must be the same as out real world because the George Floyd protests are the setting for the Big Bang, from which most of the powered individuals (but not our leads) gain their abilities. This update is reminiscent of the sliding scale of Marvel Comics, where the failed rocket flight of the Fantastic Four is move to the closest relevant international competition.

Icon has failed to change the world; Rocket inspires him to try again. The limited run time of the series allows the characters to execute real changes in their world that do not need to be reversed to the status quo, even as that same limitation restricts the amount of detail in which the characters can discuss the issues presented. If you want a series which features black leads and supporting cast, which is well thought out, and does not raise baffling alternate history questions, this could be the series for you.

Tricolon, tricolon, tricolon!

 The First Lesson from the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost is Deuternomy 30:9-14. This passage displays the use of tricolon, as well as other rhetorical devices. The first tricolon centers around "prosperous" and "prospering." The Lord will make Israel prosperous, and will delight in making Israel prosperous, just as He made their ancestors prosperous. The first part of this tricolon is expanded by a second tricolon, thereby making the first tricolon a descending tricolon. This second tricolon is based around the fruit of various living things and is (grammatically at least) balanced rather than descending or ascending.

The third tricolon is expanded to a paragraph, embedded in a ring composition, and could be decribed as a priamel, although the goodness of the commandment is not explicit. The first two parts of the tricolon are startements of fact that exclude asking the hypothetical question (which is asked anyway). The final part of tricolon is a refutation of the distance of the commandment by locating it not just near the addressee, but within him. 

Deuteronomy 30:9-14 NRSVUE - and the LORD your God will make you - Bible Gateway

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.