sdi

(But Mr. Ed Means "Wealth")

Tue, 26 Aug 2025 23:10:17 GMT

Okay, okay, while I think that names matter, they don't all matter. Akhilleus's two divine horses were named Ξάνθος "Goldie" and Βαλίος "Spotty."

(Other horses in the Iliad include Πήδασος "Jumper," Ἀρείων "Better," Αἴθη "Blaze," and Πόδαργος "Swiftfoot.")

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On Digestive Organs

Tue, 29 Jul 2025 14:01:08 GMT

Okay, you guys, it's driving me nuts how everyone says "evil livers" and I need to get to the bottom of it. Murray's translation of Sallustios XIX reads,

[...] which is seen about graves, especially the graves of evil livers.

In the original, this is,

ὃ περὶ τοὺς τάφους καὶ μάλιστα τῶν κακῶς ζησάντων ὁρᾶται.

All of these are genitive case, hence "of." τῶν is the definite article. κακῶς is the adjective "bad" or "evil." ζησάντων is the past-tense active participle of ζῶ "to live," therefore... shit.

SALLUSTIOS HIMSELF SAYS "EVIL LIVERS."

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Orphic Hymn to the White Goddess

Fri, 25 Jul 2025 03:05:55 GMT

Λευκοθέας, θυμίαμα, ἀρώματα.
Λευκοθέην καλέω Καδμηΐδα, δαίμονα σεμνήν,
εὐδύνατον, θρέπτειραν ἐϋστεφάνου Διονύσου.
κλῦθι, θεά πόντοιο βαθυστέρνοιο μέδουσα,
κύμασι τερπομένη, θνητῶν σώτειρα μεγίστη.
ἐν σοὶ γὰρ νηῶν πελαγοδρόμος ἄστατος ὁρμή,
μούνη δὲ θνητῶν οἰκτρὸν μόρον εἰν ἁλὶ λύεις,
οἷς ἂν ἐφορμαίνουσα φίλη σωτήριος ἔλθοις.
ἀλλά, θεὰ δέσποινα, μόλοις ἐπαρωγὸς ἐοῦσα
νηυσὶν ἐπ’ εὐσέλμοις σωτήριος εὔφρονι βουλῇ,
μύσταις ἐν πόντῳ ναυσίδρομον οὖρον ἄγουσα.

For the White Goddess. (Cense with aromatics.)
I call the White Goddess, daughter of Kadmos, august divinity,
well-able nurse of well-crowned Dionusos—
hear me, leading goddess of the deep-bosomed sea,
delighting in the waves [of adversity], great savior of mortals;
for by you ships fly unceasingly over the sea,
and you alone untie the pitiable fate of sea-bound mortals,
those to whom you would rush to as a rescuing friend.
But, mistress goddess, come be a helper
to well-decked ships, dispensing gracious advice,
and bring a ship-speeding stretch to sea-going initiates.

(As translated—probably very poorly as the hymns are grammatically difficult!—by yours truly.)

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Smintheus

Wed, 16 Jul 2025 21:43:15 GMT

So I'm presently reading Herodotos through for fun, having only read bits and pieces from him before. Today I came across this:

Ἀπάγονται δὲ οἱ αἰέλουροι ἀποθανόντες ἐς ἱρὰς στέγας, ἔνθα θάπτονται ταριχευθέντες, ἐν Βουβάστι πόλι [...]. τὰς δὲ μυγαλᾶς καὶ τοὺς ἴρηκας ἀπάγουσι ἐς Βουτοῦν πόλιν, τὰς δὲ ἴβις ἐς Ἑρμέω πόλιν.
Dead cats are taken away into sacred buildings, where they are embalmed and buried, in the city of Bubastis [...]. Field mice and falcons are taken away to Buto, ibises to the city of Hermes.
(Herodotos, Histories II §67, as translated by A. D. Godley with minor edits by yours truly.)

This struck me, since Bubastis (hence the cat) was the holy place of Bastet (Artemis/Hekate), while Buto (hence the mouse and falcon) was the holy place of Horos (Apollon), being his birthplace. Now, we're very familiar with cats, but the Greeks weren't; they kept weasels to hunt mice, and while we tell silly stories about cats and mice, they told the same sorts of stories about weasels and mice. Here's a dopey example I ran across back when I was studying Teiresias:

[...] δειπνῆσαι ἐν τοῖς Θέτιδος καὶ Πηλέως γάμοις. ἔνθα ἐρίσαι περὶ κάλλους τήν τε Ἀφροδίτην καὶ τὰς Χάριτας, αἷς ὀνόματα Πασιθέη Καλὴ καὶ Εὐφροσύνη. τὸν δὲ δικάσαντα κρῖναι καλὴν τὴν Καλὴν, ἣν καὶ γῆμαι τὸν Ἥφαιστον, ὅθεν τὴν μὲν Ἀφροδίτην χολωθεῖσαν μεταβαλεῖν αὐτὸν εἰν γυναῖκα χερνῆτιν γραῖαν, τὴν δὲ Καλὴν χάριτας αὐτῇ ἀγαθὰς νεῖμαι καὶ εἰς Κρήτην ἀπαγαγεῖν, ἔνθα ἐρασθῆναι αὐτῆς Ἄραχνον, καὶ μιγέντα αὐχεῖν τῇ Ἀφροδίτῃ μιγῆναι. ἐφ' ᾧ τὴν δαίμονα ὀργισθεῖσαν τὸν μὲν Ἄραχνον μεταβαλεῖν εἰς γαλῆν, Τειρεσίαν δὲ εἰς μῦν, ὅθεν καὶ ὀλίγα φησὶν ἐσθίει ὡς ἐκ γραός, καὶ μαντικός ἐστι διὰ τῶν Τειρεσίαν. ὅτι δὲ μαντικόν τι καὶ ὁ μῦς δηλοῦσιν ὅ τε χειμών, οὗ σημεῖον ἐν καιρῷ οἱ τῶν μυῶν τρισμοὶ, καὶ αἱ ἐκ τῶν οἰκιῶν φυγαὶ, ἃς διαδιδράσκουσιν ὅτε κινδυνεύοιεν καταπεσεῖν.
[Teiresias] dined at the wedding of Thetis and Peleus. A beauty contest between Aphrodite and the Graces, named Pasithea ["the goddess of all," wife of Sleep, hence refreshment], Kale ["beauty"], and Euphrosune ["happiness"], was held there. He was made judge and judged Kale the most beautiful, and she married Hephaistos, which so galled Aphrodite that she turned Teiresias into an old spinster, but Kale made her very beautiful and brought her to Crete, where Arakhnos ["spider"] fell in love with her and, having had sex with her, bragged that he lain with Aphrodite herself. This so infuriated the goddess that she turned Arakhnos into a weasel and Teiresias into a mouse, which is why they say a mouse eats so little (because it is an old woman) and why they say it can tell the future (because it is Teiresias). That it can tell the future is clear because its squeakings are a timely sign of a storm, and that it flees a house in danger of collapse.
(Eustathios of Thessolonike on the Odyssey 1665.48 ff., following Sostratos, Teiresias, as very hastily translated by yours truly—please consider it a mere paraphrase.)

Both of these—the association of Horos with mice and the association of the hero Teiresias with a mouse—of course calls to mind how Khruses, the high priest of Apollon, calls to Apollon Smintheus ("Apollon of the Mouse") to visit a plague upon the Akhaians at the beginning of the Iliad:

κλῦθί μευ ἀργυρότοξ’, ὃς Χρύσην ἀμφιβέβηκας
Κίλλάν τε ζαθέην Τενέδοιό τε ἶφι ἀνάσσεις,
Σμινθεῦ εἴ ποτέ τοι χαρίεντ’ ἐπὶ νηὸν ἔρεψα,
ἢ εἰ δή ποτέ τοι κατὰ πίονα μηρί’ ἔκηα
ταύρων ἠδ’ αἰγῶν, τὸ δέ μοι κρήηνον ἐέλδωρ:
τίσειαν Δαναοὶ ἐμὰ δάκρυα σοῖσι βέλεσσιν.
O Smintheus! sprung from fair Latona's line,
Thou guardian Power of Cilla the divine,
Thou source of light! whom Tenedos adores,
And whose bright presence gilds thy Chrysa's shores;
If e'er with wreaths I hung thy sacred fane,
Or fed the flames with fat of oxen slain;
God of the silver bow! thy shafts employ,
Avenge thy servant, and the Greeks destroy.
(Homer, Iliad I 37–42, as translated by Alexander Pope.)

Evidently the ancients thought this very strange and spent a lot of ink trying to make sense of it. One example, concerning not only Apollon and mice but also weasels, runs like this:

Αἰγύπτιοι μὲν οὖν σέβοντές τε καὶ ἐκθεοῦντες γένη ζῴων διάφορα γέλωτα ὀφλισκάνουσι παρά γε τοῖς πολλοῖς: Θηβαῖοι δὲ σέβουσιν Ἕλληνες ὄντες ὡς ἀκούω γαλῆν, καὶ λέγουσί γε Ἡρακλέους αὐτὴν γενέσθαι τροφόν, ἢ τροφὸν μὲν οὐδαμῶς, καθημένης δὲ ἐπ᾽ ὠδῖσι τῆς Ἀλκμήνης καὶ τεκεῖν οὐ δυναμένης, τὴν δὲ παραδραμεῖν καὶ τοὺς τῶν ὠδίνων λῦσαι δεσμούς, καὶ προελθεῖν τὸν Ἡρακλέα καὶ ἕρπειν ἤδη.
καὶ οἱ τὴν Ἁμαξιτὸν τῆς Τρωάδος κατοικοῦντες μῦν σέβουσιν: ἔνθεν τοι καὶ τὸν Ἀπόλλω τὸν παρ᾽ αὐτοῖς τιμώμενον Σμίνθιον καλοῦσί φασιν. ἔτι γὰρ καὶ τοὺς Αἰολέας καὶ τοὺς Τρῶας τὸν μῦν προσαγορεύειν σμίνθον, ὥσπερ οὖν καὶ Αἰσχύλος ἐν τῷ Σισύφῳ ἀλλ᾽ ἀρουραῖός τίς ἐστι σμίνθος ὧδ᾽ ὑπερφυής. καὶ τρέφονται μὲν ἐν τῷ Σμινθείῳ μύες τιθασοὶ δημοσίας τροφὰς λαμβάνοντες, ὑπὸ δὲ τῷ βωμῷ φωλεύουσι λευκοί, καὶ παρὰ τῷ τρίποδι τοῦ Ἀπόλλωνος ἕστηκε μῦς.
μυθολόγημα δὲ ὑπὲρ τῆσδε τῆς θρησκείας καὶ ἐκεῖνο προσακήκοα. τῶν Αἰολέων καὶ τῶν Τρώων τὰ λήια πολλὰς μυῶν μυριάδας ἐπελθούσας ἄωρα ὑποκείρειν καὶ ἀτελῆ τὰ θέρη τοῖς σπείρασιν ἀποφαίνειν. οὐκοῦν τὸν ἐν Δελφοῖς θεὸν πυνθανομένων εἰπεῖν ὅτι δεῖ θύειν Ἀπόλλωνι Σμινθεῖ, τοὺς δὲ πεισθέντας ἀπαλλαγῆναι τῆς ἐκ τῶν μυῶν ἐπιβουλῆς καὶ τὸν πυρὸν αὐτοῖς ἐς τὸν νενομισμένον ἄμητον ἀφικνεῖσθαι.
ἐπιλέγουσι δὲ ἄρα τούτοις καὶ ἐκεῖνα. ἐς ἀποικίαν Κρητῶν οἱ σταλέντες οἴκοθεν ἔκ τινος τύχης καταλαβούσης αὐτοὺς ἐδεήθησαν τοῦ Πυθίου φῆναί τινα αὐτοῖς χῶρον ἀγαθὸν καὶ ἐς τὸν συνοικισμὸν λυσιτελῆ. ἐκπίπτει δὴ λόγιον, ἔνθα ἂν αὐτοῖς οἱ γηγενεῖς πολεμήσωσιν, ἐνταῦθα καταμεῖναι καὶ ἀναστῆσαι πόλιν. οὐκοῦν ἥκουσι μὲν ἐς τὴν Ἁμαξιτὸν τήνδε καὶ στρατοπεδεύουσιν ὥστε ἀναπαύσασθαι, μυῶν δὲ ἄφατόν τι πλῆθος ἐφερπύσαν τά τε ὄχανα αὐτοῖς τῶν ἀσπίδων διέτραγε καὶ τὰς τῶν τόξων νευρὰς διέφαγεν: οἳ δὲ ἄρα συνέβαλον τούτους ἐκείνους εἶναι τοὺς γηγενεῖς, καὶ μέντοι καὶ ἐς ἀπορίαν ἥκοντες τῶν ἀμυντηρίων τόνδε τὸν χῶρον οἰκίζουσι, καὶ Ἀπόλλωνος ἱδρύονται νεὼν Σμινθίου.
ἡ μὲν οὖν τῶν μυῶν μνήμη προήγαγεν ἡμᾶς ἐς θεολογίαν τινά, χείρους δὲ αὑτῶν οὐ γεγόναμεν καὶ τοιαῦτα προσακούσαντες.
People make fun of the Egyptians for regarding different kinds of animals as gods and worshipping them, but I hear that the Thebaians, despite being Hellenes, worship a weasel, since they say that it was the nurse of Herakles himself when he was born, or if it wasn't his nurse, that when Alkmene was in labor and wasn't able to give birth, it ran by and the bind on her labor was released, and Herakles was born and began to crawl right away.
And those who live in Hamaxitos in the Troad worship a mouse, and they say that for that reason they call Apollon, who they worship, by the name "Smintheus," because even today the Aioleans and the Troadians call the mouse sminthos, just like Aiskulos in his Sisyphus:
But what's so special about a field mouse?

And in the Smintheon they keep tame mice by a tax on the people's food, and white ones live in a hole under the altar, and a mouse stands beside the tripod of Apollon.
And those same people tell me a further story, that many myriads of mice came upon the yet unripe field crops of the Aioleans and the Troadians and cut them from beneath, causing the summer harvest to fail early. Accordingly they asked the god at Delphi and he answered that they must sacrifice to Apollon Smintheus, and they obeyed and were delivered from the treachery of the mice and their wheat attained a normal harvest.
And they also tell me another story on that topic, that a group of Cretans who had met with some bad luck were dispatched to found a colony and asked the Puthia to show them some good place where it would be advantageous to resettle, and the oracle answered that they should stop and raise a city where the "earth-born" attack them. So they came to where Hamaxitos now is and camped to rest for the night, but an uncountable multitude of mice snuck up and, scattering everywhere, ate their shield straps and bowstrings. They made the connection between these mice and the "earth-born," and anyway, now being without a means of protecting themselves [on the road], built a city and a temple to Apollon Smintheus.
Well, the mention of mice led us into some theology, but perhaps we are none the worse for hearing such stories.
(Aelian on the Nature of Animals XII v; following Strabo, Geography XIII i §48; in turn following Kallinos; as very hastily translated by yours truly—please consider it a mere paraphrase.)

But Aelien apparently misses the crucial point that Herakles's weasel was a human originally, and was transformed into a weasel by Hera as punishment for supporting Alkmene. Here is Antoninus Liberalis's account of the story:

Προίτου θυγάτηρ ἐν Θήβαις ἐγένετο Γαλινθιάς. αὕτη παρθένος ἦν συμπαίκτρια καὶ ἑταιρὶς Ἀλκμήνης τῆς Ἠλεκτρύωνος. ἐπεὶ δὲ Ἀλκμήνην ὁ τόκος ἤπειγε τοῦ Ἡρακλέους, Μοῖραι καὶ Εἰλείθυια πρὸς χάριν τῆς Ἥρας κατεῖχον ἐν ταῖς ὠδῖσι τὴν Ἀλκμήνην. καὶ αὗται μὲν ἐκαθέζοντο κρατοῦσαι τὰς ἑαυτῶν χεῖρας· Γαλινθιὰς δὲ δείσασα, μὴ Ἀλκμήνην ἐχστήσωσι βαρυνομένην οἱ πόνοι, δραμοῦσα παρά τε τὰς Μοίρας καὶ τὴν Εἰλείθυιαν ἐξήγγειλεν, ὅτι Διὸς βουλῆ γέγονε τῇ Ἀλκμήνῃ παῖς χόρος· αἱ δὲ ἐκείνων τιμαὶ καταλέλυνται. Πρὸς δὴ τοῦτ' ἔκπληξις ἔλαβε τὰς μοίρας καὶ ἀνῆκαν εὐθὺς τὰς χεῖρας. Ἀλκμήνην δὲ κατέλιπον εὐθὺς αἱ ὠδῖνες· καὶ ἐγένετο Ἡρακλῆς. αἱ δὴ Μοῖραι πένθος ἐποιήσαντο καὶ τῆς Φαλινθιάδος ἀφείλοντο τὴν κορείαν, ὅτι θνητὴ τοὺς θεοὺς ἐξηπάτησε, καὶ αὐτὴν ἐπόησαν δολερὰν γαλῆν καὶ δίαιταν ἔδωκαν ἐν τῷ μυχῷ καὶ ἄμορφον ἀπέδειξαν τὴν εὐνήν· θορίσκεται μὲν γὰρ διὰ τῶν ὠτῶν, τίκτει δ' ἀναφέρουσα τὸ κυούμενον ἐκ το τραχήλου. ταύτην Ἑκάτη πρὸς τῆν μεταβολὴν τῆς ὄψεως ᾤχτειρε καὶ ἀπέδειξεν ἱερὰν αὐτῆς διάκονον· Ἡρακλῆς δ' ἐπεὶ ἠυξήθη, τἠν χάριν ἐμνημόνευσε καὶ αὐτῆς ἐπόησεν ἀφίδρυμα παρὰ τὸν οἶκον καὶ ἱερὰ προσήνεγκε. ταῦτα νῦν ἔτι τὰ ἱερὰ Θηβαῖοι φυλάττουσι καὶ πρὸ Ἡρακλέους ἑορῇ θύουσι Φαλινθιάδι πρώτῃ.
At Thebes Proetus had a daughter Galinthias. This maiden was playmate and companion of Alcmene, daughter of Electryon. As the birth throes for Heracles were pressing on Alcmene, the Fates and Eileithyia, as a favour to Hera, kept Alcmene in continuous birth pangs. They remained seated, each keeping their arms crossed. Galinthias, fearing that the pains of her labour would drive Alcmene mad, ran to the Fates and Eileithyia and announced that by desire of Zeus a boy had been born to Alcmene and that their prerogatives had been abolished. At all this, consternation of course overcame the Fates and they immediately let go their arms. Alcmene's pangs ceased at once and Heracles was born. The Fates were aggrieved at this and took away the womanly parts of Galinthias since, being but a mortal, she had deceived the gods. They turned her into a deceitful weasel, making her live in crannies and gave her a grotesque way of mating. She is mounted through the ears and gives birth by bringing forth her young through the throat. Hecate felt sorry for this transformation of her appearance and appointed her a sacred servant to herself. Heracles, when he grew up, remembered the favour she had done for him and made an image of her to set by his house and offered her sacrifices. The Thebans even now maintain these rites and, before the festival of Heracles, sacrifice to Galinthias first.
(Antoninos Liberalis, Metamorphoses XXIX, as translated by Francis Celoria.)

The mention of Hekate here is very interesting, and this leads me to my own conclusion concerning Apollon Smintheus, which ties into a theory I expressed before.

Now, one the one hand, Apollon and Hekate have a sort of connection: Hekate means "from afar," and is the feminine form of a common epithet of Apollon (e.g. as a marksman); on the other hand, the two couldn't be more opposite: Apollon is the lord of light, while Hekate is the lady of darkness; Apollon is heavenly, while Hekate is chthonic; Apollon is associated with unity (indeed, the Neopythagoreans derived his name from ἁ-πολλόν "not many"), while Hekate is associated with multiplicity (always appearing triform). From a Neoplatonistic view, one gets the sense of Apollon guiding upwards and Hekate dragging downwards.

I think all these stories give us another angle on the same thing: Apollon is the god of mice, Hekate the goddess of weasels, and weasels eat mice. Since Apollon is the god of the mysteries, we might consider mice as his initiates; similarly, since Hekate is the goddess of magic, we might consider weasels to be magicians. Thus from these symbols it is very little wonder that most of the philosophers warned their students away from magic so vociferously: at that early stage, fired with enthusiasm for things spiritual, they could very easily be consumed by it and drawn to use spiritual means for material ends. As Lucius found out in the Golden Ass, of course, this leads nowhere.

On the other hand, Homer tells us that Apollon is also the god of falcons, which isn't a surprise to anyone who's been following my Horos series:

ὣς ἄρα οἱ εἰπόντι ἐπέπτατο δεξιὸς ὄρνις,
κίρκος, Ἀπόλλωνος ταχὺς ἄγγελος: ἐν δὲ πόδεσσι
τίλλε πέλειαν ἔχων, κατὰ δὲ πτερὰ χεῦεν ἔραζε
μεσσηγὺς νηός τε καὶ αὐτοῦ Τηλεμάχοιο.
As he was saying so a bird flew towards him on the right,
a falcon, the swift messenger of Apollon; and with its feet
it plucked a pigeon it was holding, and feathers fell to the ground
between Telemakhos and his ship.
(Homer, Odyssey XV 525–8, as translated by yours truly.)

If the association of mice with initiates and weasels with magicians is correct, then falcons are surely heroes: those who have mastered the mysteries and soar on the wings so given.

I should also note, of course, that falcons eat weasels.

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Revision of the Doctrine of Guardian Angels

Tue, 15 Jul 2025 15:43:13 GMT

I was down the other day, and whenever I'm down I tend to think about angels, and that got me poking into the textual history of the Works and Days. It turns out that many variants of Hesiod were current even in antiquity, and that seems to be reflected in what we have access to, today.

The description of the daimons that I was familiar with is the scholarly accepted version of a century ago:

#	Greek	English
109 110 122 125	χρύσεον μὲν πρώτιστα γένος μερόπων ἀνθρώπων ἀθάνατοι ποίησαν Ὀλύμπια δώματ᾽ ἔχοντες. [...] τοὶ μὲν δαίμονες ἁγνοὶ ἐπιχθόνιοι καλέονται ἐσθλοί, ἀλεξίκακοι, φύλακες θνητῶν ἀνθρώπων, οἵ ῥα φυλάσσουσίν τε δίκας καὶ σχέτλια ἔργα ἠέρα ἑσσάμενοι πάντη φοιτῶντες ἐπ᾽ αἶαν, πλουτοδόται: καὶ τοῦτο γέρας βασιλήιον ἔσχον.	First of all, a golden race of humans with divided voice the deathless ones having homes on Olumpus made. [...] They are called holy, righteous daimons on the earth, warding off evil, guardians of mortal men, so they tirelessly police laws and works wearing air and going to and fro over all the land, and are givers of wealth (for they have this royal privilege also).

(The translation is my own, hopefully not too bad!)

As it turns out, lines 122–3 are those given by Platon in the Kratulos; the problem with this is that it disagrees with a different version given by Platon in the Republic, the version given by Ploutarkhos in his commentary on the poem, and the version given by Proklos in his commentary. (It seems that all of the manuscripts of the poem that we have adhere pretty closely to Proklos's version, so it was a wilful choice to favor Platon over it, and to favor the Kratulos over the Republic!) It seems Platon bowdlerized the lines in order to fit the purposes of his dialogues (both literary—these are lines recalled from memory by Socrates—and philosophical—as he uses the descriptions to argue for theological points).

On top of that, lines 124–5 are copied from elsewhere in the poem and appear to be either a gloss or an error in the mainline branch of the manuscripts, and are apparently not duplicated elsewhere (e.g. in Proklos); M. L. West notes that a "police force administering legal justice" is quite different from the Providential givers of all good things described by the rest of the lines; and the grammatical context changes from line to line, too, which seems suspicious (though maybe I'm just not familiar enough with Hesiod's Greek, which always feels rather crabbed to me, at least by comparison with Homer).

At any rate, the current scholarly text, by M. L. West, gives the same section as follows:

#	Greek	English
109 110 122 126	χρύσεον μὲν πρώτιστα γένος μερόπων ἀνθρώπων ἀθάνατοι ποίησαν Ὀλύμπια δώματ᾽ ἔχοντες. [...] τοὶ μὲν δαίμονες εἰσι Διὸς μεγάλου διὰ βουλάς ἐσθλοί, ἐπιχθόνιοι, φύλακες θνητῶν ἀνθρώπων, πλουτοδόται: καὶ τοῦτο γέρας βασιλήιον ἔσχον.	First of all, a golden race of humans with divided voice the deathless ones having homes on Olumpus made. [...] They are righteous daimons by the will of great Zeus, on the earth, guardians of mortal men, and givers of wealth (for they have this royal privilege also).

(Translation also my own.)

We see that the gist is the same, but the two differ in almost every detail. I did a pass previously over the doctrine of guardian angels, but noticing the differences in the modern accepted text, I thought I should do so again:

χρύσεον "golden:" incorruptible, hence never contaminated by material life. (This stands to reason; if material beings are granted guardians [#6, below] by Providence [#3, below] so that we have the potential for purification, then the guardians must themselves have never been material, since if they were, they would need their own guardians, who would need their own guardians, etc., which would be an infinite regress, which is absurd. So the guardians themselves must have never been material at any time.)
πρώτιστα "first of all:" that is, the race of not-gods that is closest to the gods.
τοὶ μὲν δαίμονες εἰσι Διὸς μεγάλου διὰ βουλάς "they are daimons by the will of great Zeus:" Providence, being good, always ensures that there is a pathway to good for all. Each soul's daimon (from δαίομαι "to distribute"), therefore, is the means by which Providence acts (e.g. is distributed to mortals).
ἐσθλοί "righteous:" morally good, virtuous, faithful; does not have the capacity for bad, because they act out the will of Zeus.
ἐπιχθόνιοι "on the earth:" as opposed to in heaven (where the gods live) or below the earth in Tartarus (where the dead live—that is, us), indicating their middle status.
φύλακες θνητῶν ἀνθρώπων "guardians of mortal men:" daimons protect mortals because mortals don't have the perceptive capacity or wisdom to protect themselves.
πλουτοδόται: καὶ τοῦτο γέρας βασιλήιον ἔσχον "givers of wealth (for they have this royal privilege also):" in archaic Greece, social status was not determined by how much you owned (as it is today), but how much and how freely you gave to others. Kings were kings because they had the greatest capacity to give. This same thread is taken up by Plotinos, who assigns higher position to those who are able give more freely of themselves (e.g. gods are gods because they can give without diminishment, and Zeus is king of the gods because Zeus is pre-eminent in doing so). Daimons are the agents by which the gods give: while the gods give universally, daimons give individually, mortals receive individually, once again demonstrating the middle rank of daimons.

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On Ritual

Wed, 09 Jul 2025 03:19:46 GMT

Oh! I can't believe I missed this, it seems so obvious in hindsight.

In Porphurios's Life of Plotinos (§10), he writes that Plotinos's head student, Amelios, φιλοθύτου γεγονότος "grew ritualistic" and took to frequenting the temples on holy days and once invited his teacher along to the feasts of the gods. Plotinos answered him,

ἐκείνους δεῖ πρὸς ἐμὲ ἔρχεσθαι, οὐκ ἐμὲ πρὸς ἐκείνους.
It is necessary for them to come to me, not I to them.

(Translation mine.)

Amelios, Porphurios, and the rest of the students were apparently so flabbergasted by this that they couldn't bring themselves to ask what he meant.

Now, a lot of people have theories about this. Dodds (The Parmenides of Plato and the Origin of the Neoplatonic "One") figures Plotinos wasn't religious and was just trying to get Amelios to stop pestering him. Armstrong (footnote to his translation) figures that Plotinos considered that only daimons of the lower order go round the temples (as places of blood sacrifice) and thus were beneath him (intent, as he was, on the highest). Three years ago (almost to the day!) I myself made the similar case that Plotinos was after something greater than the mundane gods.

Looking at it again, I think it's much simpler than that (and think Plotinos was much humbler than Porphurios is making him out to be). Plotinos saw no point in going because the experience of divinity is a gift. There is no way a mortal can hope to chase and seize the god; the only way is for the god to look kindly on the mortal. So what would be the point in attending the sacrifices or observing the rituals? The best one can do is to patiently purify and prepare themselves in the hope the god chooses to illumine their efforts.

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Some Miscellaneous Thoughts on Homeric Epithets

Thu, 26 Jun 2025 17:18:35 GMT

What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name;
And for that name, which is no part of thee,
Take all myself.

(Juliet speaking. William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet II ii.)

"Why do you need a new name to get well?"

"Only the right name gives beings and things their reality," she said. "A wrong name makes everything unreal. That's what lies do."

(Atreyu interrogating the Childlike Empress. Michael Ende, The Neverending Story XI, as translated by Ralph Manheim. "Atreyu," incidentally, means "the Son of All," as he was an orphan raised by the whole village.)

It is a bit odd that the convention in English is to translate American Indian names (e.g. we call the famous Lakota "Crazy Horse" and not "Tȟašúŋke Witkó") but that we transliterate Ancient Greek names (e.g. we call the famous Athenian "Plato" and not "Broad-Shoulders"). This is usually said to be "racist," as if we are looking down on American Indians, but I think the opposite, that we should rather translate the names of other languages so that their meaning isn't veiled: the more I study Greek, and the more I study the Mysteries, the more clear it is to me that names are everything and are worth the closest study.

(Indeed, while I am estranged from my family, I am grateful for the name they gave me: Ἰάσων Jason "of Iaso," that is, a dedication to the goddess of recuperation from disease, which has been the purpose of this life—and, indeed, is the meaning behind the myth of my heroic namesake.)

Here's a few miscellaneous name-notes I've run across recently as I struggle my way through Homer.

νεφεληγερέτα Ζεύς nephelegereta Zeus is usually translated "Zeus Cloud-Gatherer," with the epithet traditionally derived from νεφελη-ἀγείρετα nephele-ageireta "who gathers clouds to himself;" but I wonder if it is, in fact, the simpler νεφελη-γερέτα nephele-gereta "who was given the clouds as his king's prerogative" (cf. Homer, Iliad XV 187–93).
Humans are often called μερόπων ἀνθρώπων meropon anthropon "humans of divided voice (e.g. speak in words);" e.g. treating language as a differentiator between men and beasts. It occurs to me that the first men didn't speak, though; speech was the gift of Hermeias to Πανδώρα Pandora "all-gifted" (cf. Hesiod, Works and Days 77–80), and it is only her and presumably her descendants that have the ability to speak. (This is all of present humankind, of course, via Pandora's daughter Purrha, who survived the flood alongside Deukalion.) So the gift was a curse, but the curse was also a gift—but then, I suppose μηχανεύς Ζεύς mekhaneus Zeus "Zeus Contriver" never does anything for merely one reason...
I find it interesting that Homer calls the constellations τείρεα teirea "signs," since the famous prophet Τειρεσίας Teiresias "sign-reader" is the quintessential Master of the Mysteries (being the savior of Thebai, the initiator of Odusseus, and the only mortal who retained hits wits beyond death); this reinforces, I think, my theory that the constellations are (or, perhaps, were) meant to be the hieroglyphs on the walls of the Great Temple which Plotinos so often refers to (cf. Enneads II iii "Are the Stars Causes?" §7, Enneads V viii "On the Intellectual Beauty" §6; Enneads VI ix "On the Good, or the One" §11). That is, I think we are being exhorted to be like Teiresias and learn to "read the signs" for ourselves!

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Attempting to Decipher the Hieroglyphs

Wed, 18 Jun 2025 18:21:06 GMT

I realized something fun while trying to read one of my favorite parts of the Iliad in Greek:

ἐν μὲν γαῖαν ἔτευξ’, ἐν δ’ οὐρανόν, ἐν δὲ θάλασσαν,
ἠέλιόν τ’ ἀκάμαντα σελήνην τε πλήθουσαν,
ἐν δὲ τὰ τείρεα πάντα, τά τ’ οὐρανὸς ἐστεφάνωται,
Πληϊάδας θ’ Ὑάδας τε τό τε σθένος Ὠρίωνος
Ἄρκτόν θ’, ἣν καὶ Ἄμαξαν ἐπίκλησιν καλέουσιν,
ἥ τ’ αὐτοῦ στρέφεται καί τ’ Ὠρίωνα δοκεύει,
οἴη δ’ ἄμμορός ἐστι λοετρῶν Ὠκεανοῖο.
On it, he made the earth, the sky, the sea,
the sun that never sleeps, the swelling moon,
and all the signs which circle the heavens:
the Pleiades, the Huades, mighty Orion,
and the Bear (which they also call the Wagon),
which always spins in place, watching Orion closely,
and, alone, being free of bathing in the Ocean.
(Hephaistos decorates the shield of Akhilleus. Homer, Iliad XVIII 483–9, as translated—hopefully not too badly!—by yours truly.)

This is, in fact, almost all that is said of the hieroglyphs on the walls of the great Temple by the archaic Poets. The Homer of the Iliad makes one other reference to the skies:

τὸν δ’ ὃ γέρων Πρίαμος πρῶτος ἴδεν ὀφθαλμοῖσι
παμφαίνονθ’ ὥς τ’ ἀστέρ’ ἐπεσσύμενον πεδίοιο,
ὅς ῥά τ’ ὀπώρης εἶσιν, ἀρίζηλοι δέ οἱ αὐγαὶ
φαίνονται πολλοῖσι μετ’ ἀστράσι νυκτὸς ἀμολγῷ,
ὅν τε κύν’ Ὠρίωνος ἐπίκλησιν καλέουσι.
λαμπρότατος μὲν ὅ γ’ ἐστί, κακὸν δέ τε σῆμα τέτυκται,
καί τε φέρει πολλὸν πυρετὸν δειλοῖσι βροτοῖσιν:
And first the old man Priamos saw him with his eyes
charging the plain and shining like that star
which rises in late summer, whose conspicuous twinkling
outshines the many stars in the dead of night,
and which they call by the name "the dog of Orion."
It is the brightest of all, but it is made out to be an evil sign,
for it brings much heat to wretched mortals; [...]
(Priam sees Akhilleus in his divine armor. Homer, Iliad XXII 25–31, as translated—hopefully not too badly!—by yours truly. The precision of "dead of night" is doubtful, since ἀμολγῷ is a hapax legomenon, but the gist is clear enough.)

Meanwhile, Hesiod adds agricultural timing to the rising and setting of these but mentions no other celestial figures. "The Bear" is the Greek name, and "the Wagon" the Mesopotamian name, for the constellation we Americans call "the Big Dipper." That Orion and the Big Dipper and Sirius are emphasized is surely no surprise, as even a city kid like me in a misbegotten age like this one recognizes these three beyond all others. The Pleiades and Huades are a little surprising—even knowing where to look I have not managed to identify them—but I suppose that, given their intimate connection with trade (Pleiades means "sailors") and agriculture (Huades means "rain-bringers"), their import to the Greeks is obvious enough.

But let me focus on the Bear's behavior: always watching Orion and never going near the water. "The sea" must be the horizon, as the Big Dipper is far enough north that it remains in the sky all year round at the latitude of Greece. Presumably, then, the sky is simply heaven, and the "underworld" is the part of the sky below the horizon which we do not see.

Now, I have said before that Osiris is Orion, the "great man of heaven;" that Horos is Sirius, his son and the brightest star of heaven, literally following Orion's footsteps; and that Isis and Anoubis are Argo Navis and Canopus, searching for Osiris in their little boat together. We might see Egypt as heaven, the sea as the horizon, and Bublos as the underworld. The original home of Osiris is obviously heaven, but Seth kills him and he floats to the ocean, which seems a clear reference to Orion falling below the horizon; Isis follows him and brings him back from the underworld, which is just as clear a reference to Argo Navis following Orion in the sky and Orion rising back up above the horizon again. (Indeed, after he returns, the boat becomes visible again, as Isis searches for Osiris's pieces.) That Osiris is "king of Duat" may be a reference to the fact that he is the most conspicuous constellation in the southern sky, and perhaps then it is no surprise that Odusseus saw Orion when he went to Haides.

I wonder if the Greeks got their star lore from Egypt (presumably via Syria—noting Homer's reference to "the Wagon," and noting that the name Orion is believed to be from Akkadian uru-anna "light of heaven"); if so, then perhaps it is no accident that the Bear is the only other constellation mentioned. Who watches Osiris carefully and never leaves Egypt? Why, Seth does; and Plutarch even tells us (Isis and Osiris §21, though be advised that I ignore his celestial associations for Isis and Horos) that the Egyptians associate the Bear with Seth. (I can even sorta see the Seth-animal in the shape of the Bear.) So perhaps we have another piece of the myth, still written in the stars.

As for the Pleiades, these are not directly referenced as far as I can tell in the Egyptian myth (though perhaps these are the servant-girls of Astarte which invite Isis into the palace). It seems noteworthy that Osiris was forced to the sea unwillingly, while Orion chases the Pleiades into the sea; perhaps this is why the Greeks emphasize sensual desire as the cause of the fall of the soul, while the Egyptians seem to have seen it more as simple necessity.

Very speculatively, I wonder if Thoueris and the serpent are the Little Dipper (an obvious choice for the consort of the Big Dipper) and the constellation Draco, respectively; the Little Dipper defecting to Horos because Polaris points the way North, and Horos begins his upward journey once she joins him. Certainly, the Staff of Asklepios—another symbol of the soul's purification—is a reference to the world axis, topped by Polaris, around which a great serpent is coiled...

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Following the Avenue of the Sphinxes

Mon, 09 Jun 2025 21:23:30 GMT

I have no idea what the Egyptian sphinx represents—best guess is that it was originally just a lion, but some narcissistic jerk re-sculpted his face onto it—but the Greek sphinx, at least, is simply the riddle, the puzzle, the koan personified: it entices you in with it's pretty face and soft breasts, but once you get close, it sinks its claws into you. (In fact, the word Σφίγξ "sphinx" is from the Greek σφίγξω "I will hold tight.") With that image, an entire avenue of sphinxes seems a frightening prospect, and yet here I am, traipsing down just such a path...

A while back I noted that there were two major Greek myth cycles, the "city myth" and the the "hero myth." The first of these (exemplified by the two great cycles of the Heroic age, Thebai and Troia) follows seven generations of kings as they found a city, the city's royal line splits, the main branch fails (due to assaults from foreigners ultimately caused by a divine curse), while the secondary branch moves on to found a new city. On the other hand, the "hero myth" (exemplified by the Horos myth and the Orestes branch of the Epic Cycle), describes the structure of the world that we inhabit and describes what we can do about it; it is meant to be an example to prospective initiates, just like Athenaie says:

ἢ οὐκ ἀίεις οἷον κλέος ἔλλαβε δῖος Ὀρέστης
πάντας ἐπ’ ἀνθρώπους, ἐπεὶ ἔκτανε πατροφονῆα,
Αἴγισθον δολόμητιν, ὅ οἱ πατέρα κλυτὸν ἔκτα;
καὶ σύ, φίλος, μάλα γάρ σ’ ὁρόω καλόν τε μέγαν τε,
ἄλκιμος ἔσσ’, ἵνα τίς σε καὶ ὀψιγόνων ἐὺ εἴπῃ.
Or haven't you heard what kind of renown noble Orestes gained
among all men when he avenged his father by murdering
that weaselly Aigisthos, who killed his illustrious father?
Likewise you, my friend—for I see that you are very handsome and well-built—
be courageous! so that even those yet to come may speak well of you.
(Athenaie, in the guise of Mentes, exhorting Telemakhos. Homer, Odyssey I 298-302, as translated—hopefully not too badly!—by yours truly.)

This is, in fact, why Horos never goes to Bublos or why Orestes never goes to Troia: they are drawing on the lessons of the "city myth" in order to determine their own path. The city is an abstraction or teaching to them, the stories of those who went before, rather than a lived experience. In fact, it suggests that the city is a place they want to avoid, a source of trouble! Because of this, it seems rather important to make sense of what the city is and what it means, but I've been in difficulty doing so. I hit upon a potential angle on it, though, that I thought might be worth walking through.

I recently mentioned the Ra Material in reference to Teiresias (himself a part of the Thebaian city myth), and while pondering this, I realized that "Ra's" metaphysics dovetails neatly with the city myth, with "Ra's" seven degrees of consciousness corresponding very well with the seven generations of kings; under this interpretation, the city myth describes the unfolding of the Cosmos from Source to Source, while the hero myth, situated at the end of it, tells us what we can do about it right now, today, and what we can expect to happen to us if we try.

As a disclaimer and a reminder, I'm pretty skeptical of channeled texts (and doubly so of anything "New Age") for a few reasons: first, I have a pretty strong anti-modernity bias; second, most people are incapable of reaching up to the aither to channel angels, and even if they can, it can be very difficult to tell since daimons "know how to tell many convincing lies;" third, the channelled material always reflects the biases of the person doing the channelling, and if one isn't personally close with them, it can be very difficult to correct for these; and fourth, the "New Age" seems to largely presuppose a worldview I don't adhere to, and involve wish-fulfilment fantasies which I'm not interested in. So this material needs to be taken with salt; please consider this post merely an attempt to expand upon my prior exploration of Teiresias in order to make a more comprehensive evaluation of the model possible.

Perhaps I should start by describing "Ra's" view of the development of consciousness. (Or attempting to, it is not perfectly clear to me, so take this as a sketch.) Consciousness is analogized as a vibration, and this continuum of vibration is discretized into seven degrees of consciousness, just like how we break up all the possible vibrations of the air into a scale of seven notes or all the possible vibrations of the visual spectrum into seven colors. Since souls are just a vehicle for consciousness, we inherently possess the capacity to vibrate in any harmony of frequencies, at least potentially; but in practice, one has to "climb the scale" a bit at a time, from lowest vibration to highest vibration:

Red, which relates to being, and is the consciousness of "inanimate" objects.
Orange, which relates to growth and movement, and is the consciousness of plants and animals.
Yellow, which relates to social identity, and is the consciousness of humans. Being the vibration of identity, it is the first properly "individual" degree: red and orange are "herd" or "group" consciousness, while yellow consciousness is individual (at least once sufficiently developed).
Green, which relates to love, and is the consciousness of lower daimons. Love is polarized: one may give love (compassion) or take love (selfishness), and thus green consciousness is dual in nature.
Blue, which relates to communication and wisdom, and is the consciousness of higher daimons, though it is also (being the lowest vibration not subject to mortality) where we resonate with after death. Blue retains the polarized nature of green; the positive pole is the collective search of understanding (collaboration), while the negative pole is the individual search of understanding (hoarding knowledge).
Indigo, which relates to universality, and is the consciousness of angels. Unlike green and blue, indigo is not meaningfully polarized, because of the nature of universality; negatively-polarized individuals, having mastered wisdom, come to understand this and reorient themselves positively as they endeavor to comprehend the All.
Violet, which is related to transcendance and unity. This is, in a sense, rejoining the All and moving on to a new "octave" of existence, in which one co-creates the universe as and with God. (At least, apparently: "Ra" claimed to be of indigo consciousness, themselves, and claimed only secondhand knowledge about violet consciousness from its own teachers.)

Apparently souls usually ascend as groups: that is to say, the group of what we now call "human souls" all passed through the red stage more-or-less together, then the orange stage more-or-less together, and are now working through the yellow stage more-or-less together. ("Ra" says the reason why the earth is such a mess is that, apparently unusually, humans aren't developing consistently: a few are polarizing positively, a few others are polarizing negatively, and the vast majority aren't polarizing at all. Evidently conditions are much smoother in the common case where the group develops together.) There are uncommon exceptions to souls developing as a group, however: some people are souls of a higher degree, who incarnate as humans in order to teach and guide; while, conversely, some few human souls "jump the tracks" and, through spiritual practices or divine support or sometimes even by accident, behold God naked and become able to ascend separately from the rest of their group.

I think that's enough about "Ra's" metaphysics to get on with. So far so good, and other than the emphasis on soul-groups, isn't too distant from Empedokles or Plotinos.

As for the city myths, there is, unfortunately, no one good source remaining for either of them. I'd like to look at Troia today, partly because I looked at Thebai last time and partly because the Epic cycle is by far the more familiar to me. The outlines of it's history can be more-or-less cobbled back together from bits and pieces in the Iliad and Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (which I trust) and the Library (which is my preferred fallback when a reliable source isn't available). Here is a sketch at describing the seven generations, with citations:

Dardanos, the favorite mortal son of Zeus, founded Dardania at the foot of Mt. Ide. [Il. XX 215-8, 301–5.]
Erikhthonios, the son and successor of Dardanos, "became the richest of all men" with a herd of three thousand mares. Boreas mated with some of these mares in the form of a black stallion, adding twelve semi-divine horses to Erikhthonios's herd. [Il. XX 219–29.]
Tros is the son and successor of Erikhthonios, renaming the kingdom (but not the city) of Dardania after himself. [Il. XX 230, Lib. III xii §2.]
At this point the royal line splits three ways, as Tros has three sons: Ilos, Assarakhos, and Ganumedes. All three are described as faultless. Ilos goes to Phrygia; he wins a prize of fifty men and women; following an oracle's instruction, he follows a dappled cow to the hill of Ate; he asks Zeus for a sign; he is given the Palladium; and he founds Ilios on the spot. Assarakhos, meanwhile, simply succeeds to the throne of Dardania. Ganumedes, finally, being peer of the gods and most beautiful of mortals, is spirited away in a whirlwind to be the immortal, ageless cupbearer of Zeus; Tros is grieved by his son's disappearance until Zeus sends Hermes to tell him what has become of him and give him divine horses. [Il. XX 231–5; HH 202–17; Lib. III xii §3.]
Laomedon is the son and successor of Ilos, and also described as faultless. Kapus is the son and successor of Assarakhos. [Il. XX 236, 239.]
Priamos is the son and successor of Laomedon; he is the final king of Ilios, since while Zeus loves Priamos and his city, he withdraws his favor from Priamos's line and gives it to Aineias. Ankhises is the son and successor of Kapus; he was seduced by Aphrodite, but not made immortal; and he secretly bred his mares to the divine horses of Laomedon (descendants of those ransomed for Ganumedes), thereby stealing their bloodline. [Il. IV 44–9, V 265–72, XX 236, 300–8; HH.]
Hektor is the son and heir apparent of Priamos, but is killed in battle by Akhilleus. Aineias is the son and successor of Ankhises; he is the son of Aphrodite; he is most pious and beloved by the gods; and he escapes Ilios and refounds it after it is sacked. [Il. II 819–21, XX 293–308, XXII; HH.]

Now, let's synthesize these two models. I don't think this is too difficult! The seven kings can obviously be linked to the seven degrees of consciousness, with the line of descent showing the progression of consciousness (e.g. orange follows red just as Erikthonios follows Dardanos), and with the split among the sons of Tros showing the split in polarization at the green level of consciousness (e.g. just as, after Tros, the Troad has two kingdoms, Dardania and Ilios, so too does consciousness have two polarities after yellow). Everything else falls out naturally from there.

Mt. Ide (traditionally from ἴδη "woods," as in a place of material to harvest and work with) is the world-axis or ladder of consciousness, which is why Zeus sits atop it and watches all. The hill of Ate (Ἄτη "blindness, recklessness") is presumably where Zeus threw her after Hera tricked him into recklessly making Iphikles king rather than Herakles (cf. Il. XIX 91–136), clearly a place where a lack of foresight makes one deviate from the intended course. Dardania (apparently related to the onomatapoeic δάρδα darda "bee," like "bumble" in English, and an appropriate name for cooperation, as a hive of bees work together for the good of all) is the positive polarization of consciousness, while Ilios (which Ilos, of course, selfishly named for himself) is the negative polarization of consciousness, distant from Ide but still in sight of it (as one can never really escape divinity).

Dardania is founded by Dardanos at the foot of Ide since red consciousness is foundational, inherently positive, and where everything begins; while Ilios is founded by Ilos on Ate since green consciousness is the first that can be negatively polarized (though doing so is short-sighted). Nonetheless, each of Tros's three children are described as ἀμύμονες "without blemish," because all is one, so to love others and to love self are both to love God. However, Tros has a third faultless son: Ganumedes; Xenophon's Socrates (Symposium VIII xxx) makes the case that Ganumedes was beautiful in soul, and I likewise think that Ganumedes is a mythic representation of how peculiarly virtuous souls can short-circuit the usual path of growth through intensive self-development and/or devotion to divinity. Zeus withdraws his favor from Priam because negative polarization halts at the indigo level (thus ending the line of Ilos), and Hektor dies in battle because it is not possible for a negative polarization to transcend. Aineias refounds Ilios because the result of returning to the One is to co-create the next "octave" of consciousness.

Homer goes to particular lengths to talk about horses (maybe they should have called him Φίλιππος Phillip "horse fancier"), so these must be noteworthy for some reason. I suppose that while the kings represent the levels of consciousness in general, the horses must represent their property; that is, specific individuals or groups of individuals within those levels of consciousness. Perhaps the wealth of Erikhthonios indicates the vast speciation of the natural world, while the offspring of Boreas ("the North Wind") indicates that only some of the many species of animals are judged desirable enough to become vessels of the yellow level (e.g. are imbued with "breath" or "wind," that is, individual soul); perhaps the horses Zeus gifts to Ilos indicate that while some beautiful souls may leave the group, the group is not neglected, but is in fact given support in recompense for their loss in order to maintain balance; that Ankhises breeds his horses with the descendents of these perhaps suggests that these beautiful souls join groups of the indigo level ("go to be with the angels"). These kinds of things aren't really discussed in the Ra Material so far as I recall, though, so this is all not-terribly-deep guesswork based strictly on the symbolism in the myth.

A few miscellaneous notes from while I was working my way through all this:

I have long wondered why Homer is so very down on Aphrodite; she seems to me to be among the nicest of the gods. One nice thing about this interpretation of the city myth is that it makes sense of this. Aphrodite is love, and loving mode of consciousness—green—is where polarization takes place; since Ilios is the negative polarization, which is ultimately incapable of returning to the source, this is the reason for the city's downfall. In fact, that Zeus refuses to adjudicate the apple to any of the goddesses indicates that God has given us free will to choose our paths; that Paris has to choose between Aphrodite (= love = green?), Athene (= wisdom = blue?), and Hera (= universality = indigo?) indicates that these are the levels affected by choice of polarization; that Paris chooses Aphrodite for reasons of self-gratification reinforces the recklessness (ate) of the negative polarization in general.
I'm not really prepared to do a deep-dive on the Thebaian myth yet, but while we're talking about sphinxes, it's worth noting that Oidipous, being of the fifth royal generation, would, by this theory, be of the blue, or wisdom, degree of consciousness. This makes his solving of the sphinx's riddle—a test of wisdom—pretty appropriate!
If you'll recall in the Horos-myth, I likened Thoth to "experience," the reason or purpose behind climbing the ladder of consciousness: so God-in-part can come to know part-of-God. Thoth is married to Maat, the "necessity" of this occurring. It is noteworthy that the child of Thoth and Maat is Seshat "scribess," who is depicted with two cow horns and a seven-petalled flower above her head. It is plausible to me that "scribess" is a reference to consciousness being that which observes and records (cf. Od. XI 223–4) and the seven-petalled flower is indicative of the seven modes of consciousness here described:
𓋇
This would, of course, presuppose that "Ra" is correct in saying that they influenced the development of Egypt with their teachings.

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Toto, I've got a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore...

Wed, 04 Jun 2025 16:27:47 GMT

ἦ τοι μὲν ξανθὸν Γανυμήδεα μητιέτα Ζεὺς
ἥρπασε ὃν διὰ κάλλος, ἵν᾽ ἀθανάτοισι μετείη
καί τε Διὸς κατὰ δῶμα θεοῖς ἐπιοινοχοεύοι,
θαῦμα ἰδεῖν, πάντεσσι τετιμένος ἀθανάτοισι,
χρυσέου ἐκ κρητῆρος ἀφύσσων νέκταρ ἐρυθρόν.
Τρῶα δὲ πένθος ἄλαστον ἔχε φρένας, οὐδέ τι ᾔδει,
ὅππη οἱ φίλον υἱὸν ἀνήρπασε θέσπις ἄελλα:

You know how most-clever Zeus spirited away blonde Ganumedes
because of his beauty, to be among the deathless ones
and serve wine to the gods in the house of Zeus,
a sight to behold as he is honored by all the immortals
as he draws crimson nectar from the golden bowl.
But incessant worry gripped the heart of Tros, since he didn't know
whither the heaven-sent cyclone had caught up his beloved boy.

(Aphrodite consoles Ankhises. Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite 202–208, as translated—hopefully not too badly!—by yours truly. Yes, it really says "cyclone!")

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Escape

Sun, 01 Jun 2025 18:24:17 GMT

ἀλλὰ φόωσδε τάχιστα λιλαίεο: ταῦτα δὲ πάντα
ἴσθ’, ἵνα καὶ μετόπισθε τεῇ εἴπῃσθα γυναικί.

But anxiously hasten to the light, and remember all this,
so that you can tell your wife even after.

(Antikleia speaking to Odusseus. Homer, Odyssey XI 223–4, as translated—hopefully not too badly!—by yours truly.)

Σωκράτης. ἀλλ᾽ οὔτ᾽ ἀπολέσθαι τὰ κακὰ δυνατόν, ὦ Θεόδωρε— ὑπεναντίον γάρ τι τῷ ἀγαθῷ ἀεὶ εἶναι ἀνάγκη—οὔτ᾽ ἐν θεοῖς αὐτὰ ἱδρῦσθαι, τὴν δὲ θνητὴν φύσιν καὶ τόνδε τὸν τόπον περιπολεῖ ἐξ ἀνάγκης. διὸ καὶ πειρᾶσθαι χρὴ ἐνθένδε ἐκεῖσε φεύγειν ὅτι τάχιστα. φυγὴ δὲ ὁμοίωσις θεῷ κατὰ τὸ δυνατόν: ὁμοίωσις δὲ δίκαιον καὶ ὅσιον μετὰ φρονήσεως γενέσθαι.

Socrates. But it is impossible that evils should be done away with, Theodorus, for there must always be something opposed to the good; and they cannot have their place among the gods, but must inevitably hover about mortal nature and this earth. Therefore we ought to try to escape from earth to the dwelling of the gods as quickly as we can; and to escape is to become like God, so far as this is possible; and to become like God is to become righteous and holy and wise.

(Plato, Theaitetos 176A–B, as translated by Harold N. Fowler. I might translate the last phrase as "becoming righteous and pure in thought.")

Πυλάδης.
[...]
λήξαντα δ᾽ οἴκτων κἀπ᾽ ἐκεῖν᾽ ἐλθεῖν χρεών,
ὅπως τὸ κλεινὸν ὄνομα τῆς σωτηρίας
λαβόντες ἐκ γῆς βησόμεσθα βαρβάρου.
σοφῶν γὰρ ἀνδρῶν ταῦτα, μὴ 'κβάντας τύχης,
καιρὸν λαβόντας, ἡδονὰς ἄλλας λαβεῖν.

Ὀρέστης.
καλῶς ἔλεξας: τῇ τύχῃ δ᾽ οἶμαι μέλειν
τοῦδε ξὺν ἡμῖν: ἢν δέ τις πρόθυμος ᾖ,
σθένειν τὸ θεῖον μᾶλλον εἰκότως ἔχει.

[Orestes and Iphigenia are tearfully reunited, but Orestes's comrade, Pulades, reminds them of the danger they're in.]

Pulades. [...] But stop crying, we have to focus on other things so that we can obtain that glorious label of "salvation" and escape this foreign land: wise men seize the moment, lest they snub Lady Luck for the wiles of others!

Orestes. Well said!—but I think She will support us in that, since the more one strives, the more the gods strive for them.

(Euripedes, Iphigenia in Tauris 904–11, as loosely translated by yours truly. "Lady Luck" is Tukhe, the gods' providence or good fortune.)

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The Mother

Fri, 30 May 2025 21:37:31 GMT

The English word matter is from French matière from Latin materia from Latin mater "mother." The Romans worshipped Magna Mater "the Great Mother," just as the Greeks worshipped Demeter "Mother Earth," and the Egyptians worshipped mother Isis "the seat [upon which all rests]."

I might note that our modern materialists worship matter to a far greater degree than those other cults, denying even the existence of all other gods...

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Enneads I iv: On Well-Being (Revised)

Tue, 27 May 2025 04:02:14 GMT

I've been pretty down lately: most of this month I've been ill and very weak, and even after that, it's been stressful trying to catch back up with everything that fell by the wayside, and frustrating to strugglingly clear the fog from my mind and get back to being capable of thinking. I had a little space available to me, today, and I thought I might pluck Plotinos off the shelf... little did I know that this essay, which I struggled to make sense of two years ago, was just what I needed today.

Despite being a little lost last time, my summary actually wasn't too bad, but I still wanted to tinker with it, some:

I iv: On Well-Being [Revision of my original summary.]
Let us consider a musician and his lyre. It is the lyre that sings sweetly, but can it be considered to have well-being? No—the lyre might be in tune or in good repair, but it is the musician that can be well; the lyre is a mere instrument of the musician's well-being. But let us suppose that the lyre is out of sorts: does this mean the musician is unwell? Not necessarily: perhaps it fell out of tune in his absence and he is not even aware of it, or perhaps he sings on even without accompaniment, or perhaps he has grown tired of playing and does something else. In whatever case, the musician cares for the instrument, tuning it and fixing it as needed, but only insofar as it contributes to his own well-being.
In the same way, a man's body is the mere instrument of the soul; and while the body might experience pleasure or contentment, this is merely akin to the lyre being in good shape. No, the Good is the highest of all, and so a man's good must come from his higher part: his well-being is of the soul, and being of the soul it is to be found solely within and not subject to the vagaries of without.
Just like how the lyre is not essential to the musician's well being, what does the saintly man—he who is consumed with divinity—care for the body? He will be swayed neither by power and luxury, on the one hand, nor disease and disaster, on the other. Would we not call him a man of tremendous well-being, who could be satisfied even as he is placed on the pyre? But this is just what happens when the practice of the virtues is taken to its end.

In general, in my summaries of Plotinos, I have taken the tack of summarizing his conclusions and more-or-less ignoring his arguments. I think I was upset with my summary the first time since this was the first essay in which doing so was really glaring... it really leaves a lot out. But I think, by the end of summarizing the Enneads, I came to the conclusion that I can't really do justice to the full arguments; really, these summaries exist to A) remind me of the contents of the essays, and B) maybe, hopefully, entice others to read Plotinos—at least, those essays that seem most interesting to them. So if my summary seems abrupt and you want to know what the good man is like and why, then just read the real thing: it's linked above and it's not very long.

I didn't realize this the first time through Plotinos, but this essay is about εὐδαιμονία eudaimonia, the meaning of which was one of my Big Questions™ when I went through On the Gods and the World. The dictionary gives "prosperity, good fortune, wealth;" Murray and Nock translate this word as "happiness;" Taylor translates it "felicity;" MacKenna goes a little further and translates it "true happiness;" and Armstrong is critical of these and translates it as "well-being." I agree with Armstrong that any variation on "happiness" is misleading: the philosophers are not saying that the virtuous feel good, they are saying that they have transcended feeling. But it would be wrong to call such people "stoic" or "impassive," I think: Taoist and Zen masters are well known for their good humor, and angels (as the beings intrinsically possessing the virtues we try to take on) are full of joy. (Indeed, when I think of my own angel, I think of them first and foremost as playful.) Perhaps a very literal translation of eudaimonia might be "well-spirited," which I can sorta see as encompassing all of these notions.

In my summary I mention tossing the good man on a pyre, but Plotinos's actual example was of tossing him in the Bull of Phalaris. I wasn't familiar with it, but good old Diodoros tells us the story in the Library of History IX xviii–xix. Yipes!

Even though Plotinos is following Plato in his arguments, and even though Plato and Diogenes were at odds, it is hard not to see the stray dog as an exemplar of eudaimonia, retaining his well-being even as he was sold into slavery.

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Reagent and Catalyst

Fri, 16 May 2025 14:59:20 GMT

ποιμένες ἄγραυλοι, κάκ᾽ ἐλέγχεα, γαστέρες οἶον,
ἴδμεν ψεύδεα πολλὰ λέγειν ἐτύμοισιν ὁμοῖα,
ἴδμεν δ᾽, εὖτ᾽ ἐθέλωμεν, ἀληθέα γηρύσασθαι.

"Boorish shepherds—you disgraceful wretches, nothing but stomachs!—
we know how to say many convincing lies,
but we know also, when we please, how to sing true."

(The Muses of Mount Helikon speaking. Hesiod, Theogony 26–8.)

I have been thinking a lot lately about the spiritual process.

I have studied, and continue to study, a lot—but truth is simplicity itself: ἕν τὸ πᾶν "all is one." The closer one can actualize that notion, the closer to divinity one is. No amount of study can add to that.

And yet the study is not for nothing; one often needs much scaffolding to build a tower, even if it all gets pulled away and torn down thereafter. This was called to mind forcefully today as I began my attempt to reread Hesiod haltingly in Greek and read the above lines. (He's much harder than Homer, since while Homer has an elegance about his speech, Hesiod is coarse and takes, shall we say, tremendous liberties with his grammar to make the verse work. Simonides said that Hesiod was taught by the Muses, while Homer was taught by the Graces, and this seems about right to me.)

Who are Hesiod's Muses? Well, recall our fourfold schemata of consciousness, and note that light is truth. In Air, light is transmitted clearly, so all there is true. In Earth, light is not transmitted and only received, so all there is false. (Indeed, this is why there is no "user manual" for life here in the world of Earth, and why we need to grope about in darkness.) Water is translucent, just as Air is, but unlike Air, the light there can be reflected and refracted: when the Water is calm, the light passes true, but if the Water bends on itself cleverly, it can distort the light in whatever ways it pleases—even seeming true when it is quite false. So the Muses are clearly daimons, beings of Water, shepherding the shepherd—inner-plane initiatrixes, we may say, rather than the guiding angels I am so fond of. (Thus while one may learn from them—and from Hesiod!—great care must be taken, as they can't be trusted to be Good, just as they warn us.)

This identification is very useful, I think, and was effortless to make, but it must be noted that I've studied Empedokles with at least some care for something like six years, ever since I first took up geomancy. It took so much effort and contemplation to finally penetrate the proper simplicity of the model, so that now I can easily use it as a map and identify something from it. Now that I comprehend the model in it's simplicity, a lot of what I studied is now redundant... but it cannot be said to be "wasted," since without the complicated I couldn't have gotten to the simple.

So it is with spirituality. It is perhaps best to just clear the mind and sit in zazen; but without a koan or sutra or some other material for the soul to work on, the leap may never come, just as you may have all the reagent in the world, but without catalyst, the reaction can't occur.

The end may be utter simplicity, but there are long miles of breadcrumbs we must follow that we may appreciate it.

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A Respite

Fri, 09 May 2025 03:50:40 GMT

ἀλλ’ ὅτε δὴ διὰ νήσου ἰὼν ἤλυξα ἑταίρους,
χεῖρας νιψάμενος, ὅθ’ ἐπὶ σκέπας ἦν ἀνέμοιο,
ἠρώμην πάντεσσι θεοῖς οἳ Ὄλυμπον ἔχουσιν:
οἱ δ’ ἄρα μοι γλυκὺν ὕπνον ἐπὶ βλεφάροισιν ἔχευαν.
Εὐρύλοχος δ’ ἑτάροισι κακῆς ἐξήρχετο βουλῆς:
κέκλυτέ μευ μύθων κακά περ πάσχοντες ἑταῖροι.
πάντες μὲν στυγεροὶ θάνατοι δειλοῖσι βροτοῖσι,
λιμῷ δ’ οἴκτιστον θανέειν καὶ πότμον ἐπισπεῖν.

But when, traversing the island, I was free of my crew,
I found a place sheltered from the winds, washed my hands,
and prayed to all the gods who hold Olumpos;
at which they poured sweet sleep over my eyelids.
But Eurulokhos brought up a wicked plan to the men:
“I know you're in a bad lot, mateys, but listen to me:
every death a wretch can have sucks,
but the worst is to meet your doom by starving!”

(Odusseus speaking. Homer, Odyssey XII 335-42.)

It must be remembered that starvation is inevitable in the grey wastes of Haides, where the food tastes as dust and nourishes likewise. Impiety, on the other hand, is a choice. Do you like Odusseus and call for help, that a respite might be granted you...

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On Hesiod's Sources

Wed, 07 May 2025 02:52:43 GMT

εἰπεῖν· Γῆς παῖς εἰμι καὶ Οὐρανοῦ ἀστερόεντος,
αὐτὰρ ἐμοὶ γένος Οὐράνιον· τόδε δ’ ἴστε καὶ αὐτοί.
δίψηι δ’ εἰμὶ αὔη καὶ ἀπόλλυμαι. ἀλλὰ δότ’ αἶψα
ψυχρὸν ὕδωρ προρέον τῆς Μνημοσύνης ἀπὸ λίμνης.
To say: "I am a child of Earth and starry Heaven,
but my race is of Heaven—even you yourselves know this—
and I am parched with thirst and dying; so, quick, please give me
the cool water flowing forth from the pool of Memory."
(The Petelia Tablet, ll. 6–9a. Note that "dying," apollumai, is a pun with Apollon.)

The Orphics used to tie little gold leaves inscribed with instructions around the necks of deceased initiates, that they might avoid reincarnation. When the recently deceased came to the guardians of Haides, they would be asked, "Who are you?" and they were to answer, "I am a child of Earth and starry Heaven, but my race is of Heaven." This was called to mind today, and it reminded me, of course, of Horos (see here, item 9)—when brought to judgement (e.g. after death), the gods held him, though born of both fiery Osiris and earthy Isis, to be of the race of his father and thus worthy of his throne.

That the Orphics, who are thought to be Pythagorean, got their doctrines from Egypt is no surprise; but there's something else: that first line from the tablet is taken, nearly word-for-word, from old Hesiod:

χαίρετε τέκνα Διός, δότε δ᾽ ἱμερόεσσαν ἀοιδήν·
κλείετε δ᾽ ἀθανάτων ἱερὸν γένος αἰὲν ἐόντων,
οἳ Γῆς τ᾽ ἐξεγένοντο καὶ Οὐρανοῦ ἀστερόεντος,
Νυκτός τε δνοφερῆς, οὕς θ᾽ ἁλμυρὸς ἔτρεφε Πόντος.
Greetings, children of Zeus, and grant me a delightful song:
glorify the sacred race of the immortals who always are,
who were born from Earth and starry Heaven,
and from dark Night, and those who were nourished by salty Sea.
(Hesiod, Theogony 104–7, emphasis mine.)

But wait a second, Hesiod lists not only the parents of the immortals, but their nurses, too. But is this not just what Empedokles said?

τέσσαρα γὰρ πάντων ῥιζώματα πρῶτον ἄκουε·
Ζεὺς ἀργὴς Ἥρη τε φερέσβιος ἠδ' Ἀιδωνεύς,
Νῆστις θ' ἣ δακρύοις τέγγει κρούνωμα βρότειον. [...]
ἐκ τῶν πάνθ' ὅσα τ' ἦν ὅσα τ' ἔστι καὶ ἔσται ὀπίσσω,
δέδρεά τ' ὲβλάστησε καὶ ἀνέρες ἠδὲ γυναῖκες,
θῆρές τ' οἰωνοί τε καὶ ὑδατοθρέμμονες ἰχθῦς,
καί τε θεοὶ δολιχαίωνες τιμῇσι φέριστοι.
First, hear of the four roots of all things:
shining Zeus and life-giving Hera and Aidoneus
and Nestis, who wets the springs of mortals with her tears. [...]
From these all things were and are and will be:
sprouting trees and men and women,
beasts and birds and water-dwelling fish,
even long-living, most-exalted gods.

That Earth is Isis and Heaven is Osiris is an easy association to make: Ouranos even lost his penis in the sea (ll. 176 ff.), just like Osiris lost his in the Nile. Even though Hesiod associates Night with Watery things later on (like Death and Sleep and Dreams, ll. 211 ff.), I think those might be due to reconciliation of the source teaching—after all, Hesiod was the great systematizer of all the wild panoply of Greek theology (thus probably mixing the pure teachings from several sources), and anyway we are unable to see at Night meanwhile Haides means "unseen" (both references to how Airy beings are without form). And Sea is obviously Watery (like Nestis), here described as a nurse (like Nephthus and Nestis both), and of course the father of the Old Man of the Sea and all other shapeshifters (as Watery beings have fluid form rather than the fixed form of Earthy beings).

I had speculated before that Hesiod's "races of men" came from the same source as Empedokles's "roots;" after seeing this, I now think the case is even stronger that Hesiod's Muses were Egyptian. I even begin to wonder if the laurel staff they gave him was, in fact, a was-scepter, the symbol of authority:

𓌀

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The Distinguishing Mark

Tue, 06 May 2025 01:46:05 GMT

ἡδὺ δὲ καὶ τὸ πυθέσθαι, ὅσα θνητοῖσιν ἔνειμαν
ἀθάνατοι, δειλῶν τε καὶ ἐσθλῶν τέμαρ ἐναργές

and it is sweet too to learn the clear distinguishing mark
of bad and good things that the immortals have assigned to mortals

(Hesiod, Melampodia, as quoted by Clement of Alexandria, and as translated by Glenn W. Most.)

I remember reading somewhere, I think in a book discussing past life regression with hypnotism, of a psychologist who was trying to understand why some people turn out virtuous and others don't. He had heard of a pair of twin brothers, one of whom was a respected doctor, the other of whom was in prison, and this intrigued him, since, at least in theory, they should have been raised similarly. So he went to interview them. He first interviewed the brother who was a doctor, and asked him, "How did you become so successful?" The doctor told him, "Well, my father was always in and out of prison, all through my childhood. So with a father like that, how could I have done otherwise?" The psychologist next went to interview the brother who was a criminal, and asked him the same question. The criminal told him, "Well, my father was always in and out of prison, all through my childhood. So with a father like that, how could I have done otherwise?"

So to Hesiod's point, the real sweetness is when one finally learns that the distinguishing mark is on the mortal and not on the circumstances...

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The Twin Gates of the Land of Dreams

Sat, 03 May 2025 03:05:40 GMT

τὸν δ’ αὖτε προσέειπε περίφρων Πηνελόπεια:
ξεῖν’, ἦ τοι μὲν ὄνειροι ἀμήχανοι ἀκριτόμυθοι
γίγνοντ’, οὐδέ τι πάντα τελείεται ἀνθρώποισι.
δοιαὶ γάρ τε πύλαι ἀμενηνῶν εἰσὶν ὀνείρων:
αἱ μὲν γὰρ κεράεσσι τετεύχαται, αἱ δ’ ἐλέφαντι:
τῶν οἳ μέν κ’ ἔλθωσι διὰ πριστοῦ ἐλέφαντος,
οἵ ῥ’ ἐλεφαίρονται, ἔπε’ ἀκράαντα φέροντες:
οἱ δὲ διὰ ξεστῶν κεράων ἔλθωσι θύραζε,
οἵ ῥ’ ἔτυμα κραίνουσι, βροτῶν ὅτε κέν τις ἴδηται.
ἀλλ’ ἐμοὶ οὐκ ἐντεῦθεν ὀΐομαι αἰνὸν ὄνειρον
ἐλθέμεν: ἦ κ’ ἀσπαστὸν ἐμοὶ καὶ παιδὶ γένοιτο.

And then prudent Penelopeia said to him,
“Stranger, dreams are wayward and mysterious
things, and they don't all come true,
since they stray through not one gate, but two:
one made of horn and the other of ivory.
Those that come through the carved ivory
are wily and carry false messages,
but those that come out of the polished horn
come true whenever one might see them.
But I doubt my weird dream came from there;
oh, it would've been so welcome to me and my son...”

(Homer, Odyssey XIX 559–69, as translated—hopefully not too badly!—by yours truly. There's some cute alliteration in the original: elephantos “ivory” with elephairontai “wily,” and keraon “horn” with [etuma] krainousi “come [true].”)

Something in the air of late—may your dreams issue through the gate of horn...

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The White Goddess Rises

Mon, 28 Apr 2025 21:01:20 GMT

More translation practice! I'm getting a little faster: this batch was twenty lines a day! I find, as I read Homer in Greek, that the stories' connection to philosophy and the Mysteries is far more obvious than it is in translation, as so many of the words or phrases carry double meanings...

313

315

320

325

330

335

340

345

350

ὣς ἄρα μιν εἰπόντ’ ἔλασεν μέγα κῦμα κατ’ ἄκρης
δεινὸν ἐπεσσύμενον, περὶ δὲ σχεδίην ἐλέλιξε.
τῆλε δ’ ἀπὸ σχεδίης αὐτὸς πέσε, πηδάλιον δὲ
ἐκ χειρῶν προέηκε: μέσον δέ οἱ ἱστὸν ἔαξεν
δεινὴ μισγομένων ἀνέμων ἐλθοῦσα θύελλα,
τηλοῦ δὲ σπεῖρον καὶ ἐπίκριον ἔμπεσε πόντῳ.
τὸν δ’ ἄρ’ ὑπόβρυχα θῆκε πολὺν χρόνον, οὐδ’ ἐδυνάσθη
αἶψα μάλ’ ἀνσχεθέειν μεγάλου ὑπὸ κύματος ὁρμῆς:
εἵματα γάρ ῥ’ ἐβάρυνε, τά οἱ πόρε δῖα Καλυψώ.
ὀψὲ δὲ δή ῥ’ ἀνέδυ, στόματος δ’ ἐξέπτυσεν ἅλμην
πικρήν, ἥ οἱ πολλὴ ἀπὸ κρατὸς κελάρυζεν.
ἀλλ’ οὐδ’ ὣς σχεδίης ἐπελήθετο, τειρόμενός περ,
ἀλλὰ μεθορμηθεὶς ἐνὶ κύμασιν ἐλλάβετ’ αὐτῆς,
ἐν μέσσῃ δὲ καθῖζε τέλος θανάτου ἀλεείνων.
τὴν δ’ ἐφόρει μέγα κῦμα κατὰ ῥόον ἔνθα καὶ ἔνθα.
ὡς δ’ ὅτ’ ὀπωρινὸς Βορέης φορέῃσιν ἀκάνθας
ἂμ πεδίον, πυκιναὶ δὲ πρὸς ἀλλήλῃσιν ἔχονται,
ὣς τὴν ἂμ πέλαγος ἄνεμοι φέρον ἔνθα καὶ ἔνθα:
ἄλλοτε μέν τε Νότος Βορέῃ προβάλεσκε φέρεσθαι,
ἄλλοτε δ’ αὖτ’ Εὖρος Ζεφύρῳ εἴξασκε διώκειν.

τὸν δὲ ἴδεν Κάδμου θυγάτηρ, καλλίσφυρος Ἰνώ,
Λευκοθέη, ἣ πρὶν μὲν ἔην βροτὸς αὐδήεσσα,
νῦν δ’ ἁλὸς ἐν πελάγεσσι θεῶν ἒξ ἔμμορε τιμῆς.
ἥ ῥ’ Ὀδυσῆ’ ἐλέησεν ἀλώμενον, ἄλγε’ ἔχοντα,
αἰθυίῃ δ’ ἐικυῖα ποτῇ ἀνεδύσετο λίμνης,
ἷζε δ’ ἐπὶ σχεδίης πολυδέσμου εἶπέ τε μῦθον:

κάμμορε, τίπτε τοι ὧδε Ποσειδάων ἐνοσίχθων
ὠδύσατ’ ἐκπάγλως, ὅτι τοι κακὰ πολλὰ φυτεύει;
οὐ μὲν δή σε καταφθίσει μάλα περ μενεαίνων.
ἀλλὰ μάλ’ ὧδ’ ἔρξαι, δοκέεις δέ μοι οὐκ ἀπινύσσειν:
εἵματα ταῦτ’ ἀποδὺς σχεδίην ἀνέμοισι φέρεσθαι
κάλλιπ’, ἀτὰρ χείρεσσι νέων ἐπιμαίεο νόστου
γαίης Φαιήκων, ὅθι τοι μοῖρ’ ἐστὶν ἀλύξαι.
τῆ δέ, τόδε κρήδεμνον ὑπὸ στέρνοιο τανύσσαι
ἄμβροτον: οὐδέ τί τοι παθέειν δέος οὐδ’ ἀπολέσθαι.
αὐτὰρ ἐπὴν χείρεσσιν ἐφάψεαι ἠπείροιο,
ἂψ ἀπολυσάμενος βαλέειν εἰς οἴνοπα πόντον
πολλὸν ἀπ’ ἠπείρου, αὐτὸς δ’ ἀπονόσφι τραπέσθαι.

ὣς ἄρα φωνήσασα θεὰ κρήδεμνον ἔδωκεν,
αὐτὴ δ’ ἂψ ἐς πόντον ἐδύσετο κυμαίνοντα
αἰθυίῃ ἐικυῖα: μέλαν δέ ἑ κῦμα κάλυψεν.

As he was talking to himself, a frightfully great wave drove down
rushing over him, and his raft whirled around.
He was thrown far from the raft, the rudder
yanked from his hands; and the mast broke in half
from a terrible blast of the whirling winds,
the yard-arm and sail plunging deep into the sea.
A long time he was held under, and he wasn't able
to very quickly rise from under the rush of the mighty wave
since the clothes which Kalupso gave him weighed him down.*
Finally, at length he surfaced, his mouth spitting out bitter brine
which ran in many streams from his crown.
He didn't forget the raft in spite of his distress,
but rushed after it in the waves and held it to himself,
and he sat in the middle to hide from a deadly end,
as the great wave carried it here and there in the current.
Just like how, in late summer, Boreas* carries thistledown
along the plain, and clusters cling to each other,
in the same way the winds carried the raft here and there in the sea:
at once Notos* tossing it to Boreas to carry,
and again Euros* giving it up for Zephuros* to chase.

And then came the daughter of Kadmos, dainty-footed Ino,*
the White* Goddess, who used to be a mortal possessed of voice,*
but now, in the sea, receives her share of reverence given to its gods.
She pitied Odusseus in his wandering and the suffering he bore,
and she rose from the water like a seabird in flight,
alighted upon the raft of many fastenings, and said to him:

“You poor thing, why is Poseidaon Earth-Shaker so
very mad at you, that he causes you so much trouble?
Don't worry,* he won't kill you even though he really wants to.
But you seem sensible enough to me, so do as I say:
take off your clothes and abandon your raft* to be borne by the winds,
but, swimming with your hands,* try to get to
the land of the Phaiakians, where it is your fate to escape.
And here, wrap my immortal veil* around your chest,
so that you may fear neither suffering nor death;
but when you've laid hands on the firm ground,
untie it and throw it back into the wine-like sea*
far from land, and turn yourself far away* from it.”

So speaking, the goddess gave him her veil,
and dove back into the surging sea
like a bird, and the dark swell covered her.

(Homer, Odyssey V 313–53, as translated—hopefully not too badly!—by yours truly.)

Notes:

The clothes which Kalupso gave him weighed him down: Kalupso ("one who covers") is sensual desire, and the clothes she gives Odusseus are the physical body (which enables sensual desire). Focusing on the body, of course, hampers the soul which wishes to return home.
Boreas: the frigid north wind.
Notos: the desiccating south wind.
Euros: the wet east wind.
Zephuros: the balmy west wind.
Ino: Ino (from νέω "I swim," cf. Tzetzes, on Lukophron §107) is the daugher of Kadmos, sister of Semele, and aunt and nurse of Dionusos. She represents the Mysteries guiding the mature soul which, having already mastered the fear of death (e.g. Kirke) and sensual desire (e.g. Kalupso), is nonetheless still lost in the tumult of the material world and doesn't know the way home.
White: representative of purity (as the Mysteries are meant to purify the soul) and simplicity (as the Mysteries are meant to unify the soul). See also I Ching 22:6 and the Tao Te Ching 67.
Possessed of voice: humans communicate to the ears with words, but gods communicate directly to the mind with concepts, a thing which is at once uncanny and completely natural when one experiences it.
Don't worry: μὲν δή, not really translatable but representing a continuation of the prior sentence's thought, so I have added this phrase to bridge the two sentences.
Take off your clothes and abandon your raft: the clothes represent the body of dense matter and the raft represents the imagination of subtle matter, and the advice of the Mysteries is to prioritize the spiritual over the material, to "store up your treasures in heaven."
Swimming with your hands: it is not enough to merely experience the Mysteries; material things passively grow on their own, but spiritual things only grow by making active effort.
Immortal veil: the veil represents the teachings of the Mystery schools and tying the veil around the chest is to hold them close to heart. I'm torn on whether this represents how the teachings act as a psychological life-preserver in the welter of life or whether it represents some more esoteric spiritual connection to the god which acts to buoy one upward; certainly my philosophical studies suggest the former, but my personal experiences suggest the latter.
Wine-like sea: οἴνοπα πόντον, literally "wine-faced sea" and usually taken as "dark in color," but the sea is a reference to life in the material world, which is as intoxicating and disorienting to the soul as wine is to the body.
Turn yourself far away from it: the Buddha taught that, just like a raft was good for crossing a river but pointless once one got to the other side, the Mysteries are for passing over and not for holding on to.

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Her True Name

Fri, 25 Apr 2025 02:09:24 GMT

Βασιλεύς. τὸ πάνσοφον νῦν ὄνομα τοῦτό μοι φράσον.

King Pelasgos. Now, tell me his masterly-devised name.

(Aiskhulos, Suppliant Maidens 320, as translated by yours truly.)

ὣς ἄρα οἱ εἰπόντι ἐπέπτατο δεξιὸς ὄρνις,
κίρκος, Ἀπόλλωνος ταχὺς ἄγγελος: ἐν δὲ πόδεσσι
τίλλε πέλειαν ἔχων, κατὰ δὲ πτερὰ χεῦεν ἔραζε
μεσσηγὺς νηός τε καὶ αὐτοῦ Τηλεμάχοιο.

As he was saying so a bird flew towards him on the right,
a falcon, the swift messenger of Apollon; and with its feet
it plucked a pigeon it was holding, and feathers fell to the ground
between Telemakhos and his ship.

(Homer, Odyssey XV 525–8, as translated by yours truly. Emphasis mine, too.)

I can't believe I didn't notice this before now! In Greek, κίρκος kirkos means "falcon" or "hawk," obviously as suited to Apollon as it is to Horos. But this is the same word as Κίρκη Kirke, daughter of the Sun and initiator of Odusseus.

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Guidance of the Dead

Wed, 23 Apr 2025 19:13:06 GMT

ὤ μοι, τέκνον ἐμόν, περὶ πάντων κάμμορε φωτῶν,
οὔ τί σε Περσεφόνεια Διὸς θυγάτηρ ἀπαφίσκει,
ἀλλ’ αὕτη δίκη ἐστὶ βροτῶν, ὅτε τίς κε θάνῃσιν:
οὐ γὰρ ἔτι σάρκας τε καὶ ὀστέα ἶνες ἔχουσιν,
ἀλλὰ τὰ μέν τε πυρὸς κρατερὸν μένος αἰθομένοιο
δαμνᾷ, ἐπεί κε πρῶτα λίπῃ λεύκ’ ὀστέα θυμός,
ψυχὴ δ’ ἠύτ’ ὄνειρος ἀποπταμένη πεπότηται.
ἀλλὰ φόωσδε τάχιστα λιλαίεο: ταῦτα δὲ πάντα
ἴσθ’, ἵνα καὶ μετόπισθε τεῇ εἴπῃσθα γυναικί.

Oh! my child, unluckiest of all men,
Persephoneia, the daughter of Zeus, isn't deceiving you:
this is just the way it is when a mortal dies,
for sinews no longer hold flesh and bones together,
but the mighty force of blazing fire overcomes them
once spirit first leaves the white bones,
and soul, like a dream, flutters up and away.
But be anxious to hurry to the light; and remember all,
so that you can tell your wife even after.

(Antikleia speaking to Odusseus. Homer, Odyssey XI 216–24.)

μὴ δή μοι θάνατόν γε παραύδα, φαίδιμ’ Ὀδυσσεῦ.
βουλοίμην κ’ ἐπάρουρος ἐὼν θητευέμεν ἄλλῳ,
ἀνδρὶ παρ’ ἀκλήρῳ, ᾧ μὴ βίοτος πολὺς εἴη,
ἢ πᾶσιν νεκύεσσι καταφθιμένοισιν ἀνάσσειν.

Don't talk to me about death, Mr. Smarty-Pants.*
I would rather be a hired laborer slaving for another,
a man with no land and little means,
than to be king of all the wretched dead.

(Akhilleus speaking to Odusseus. Homer, Odyssey XI 488–91.)

Mr. Smarty-Pants: φαίδιμ’ Ὀδυσσεῦ, literally "brilliant Odysseus," but I take this sarcastically, as immediately above (473–6) he says, "if you're so clever, why the hell did you go to Hell?"

If we take Haides to be the material world, it really puts a different spin on Antikleia's and Akhilleus's words, doesn't it?

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The Bath of Pallas

Sat, 19 Apr 2025 20:18:18 GMT

τὸ δ’ ἐν Σάει τῆς Ἀθηνᾶς [...] ἕδος ἐπιγραφὴν εἶχε τοιαύτην “ἐγώ εἰμι πᾶν τὸ γεγονὸς καὶ ὂν καὶ ἐσόμενον καὶ τὸν ἐμὸν πέπλον οὐδείς πω θνητὸς ἀπεκάλυψεν.”

The statue of Athena [=Neith] at Sais has the following inscription: “I am all that was and is and will be and no mortal has yet uncovered my dress.”

(Ploutarkhos, Isis and Osiris IX, as translated—hopefully not too badly!—by yours truly.)

Ah, but there was a mortal who uncovered Athena's dress (albeit accidentally): the great seer of Thebai, Teiresias. Many conflicting stories are told about him (her?), and I spent a few days trying to sort out his (their?) myth. Here is my best guess at a reconstruction, with a few observations:

Kadmos ("pre-eminent") is led to the spot which would become Thebai by a cow with a moon-shaped spot on it. The nearby spring is guarded by a dragon; Kadmos slays it and, on the advice of Athene, sows its teeth. The teeth grow into a host of warriors, and Kadmos throws stones into the group, which causes them to attack each other until there are only five left, who pledge allegiance to Kadmos. One of these five, Oudaios ("from the ground"), has a son named Euerous ("well-built"). Euerous marries the nymph Khariklo ("famous for her beauty"), who is a favorite attendant of Athena, and they have a son, Teiresias ("prophet"). [Apollodoros, Library III iv, vi.]
1. Euerous is only said to be "of the line" of Oudaios, but two considerations require Teiresias to be within two generations of him: first, he is blinded some time before Kadmos's grandson, Aktaion, is killed; second, Teiresias becomes seer to Kadmos, and so is at least partially contemporaneous with him.
2. Teiresias having one parent's line being literally sprung from the earth and the other being divine has the same crucial resonance with other heroes, but perhaps none more than Aineias, who's paternal grandfather was the brother of the founder of Troia (like how Oudaios was the close associate of the founder of Thebai), whose mother was Aphrodite (who, like Khariklo, is a divinity "famous for her beauty"), and who rescued those who could be from the sack of Troia.
One summer day, Athena, Khariklo, and young Teiresias are traveling through Mt. Helikon. Teiresias goes off to explore while Athena and Khariklo bathe in the spring of Hippokrene ("horse spring"). At some point, Teiresias comes back to the spring to get a drink, sees Athena naked, and is blinded for it by the law of Zeus. Athena is upset about this, but cannot override her father; so as to make amends to Khariklo, she gives Teiresias the gifts of prophecy, augury, long life, retaining his wits after death, and a magic staff of cornel-wood which would "guide his feet." [Kallimakhos on the Bath of Pallas; Apollodoros, Library III vi.]
1. The Hippokrene is also where the Muses bathed before giving Hesiod the gifts of an inspired voice and a staff of laurel-wood. [Hesiod, Theogony 1–35.] Both seem to me reminiscent of how initiates of Osiris were purified and given heather stalks, or initiates of Dionusos were purified and given thursoi.
2. The Bath of Pallas, which gives wisdom even as it inflicts punishment, is, of course, life in the material world, which is almost always treated as a purification or cleansing of the soul. (Indeed, Empedocles's famous poem on the topic, which I have used as the basis of my interpretation of the hero-myths, is called Purifications.)
3. Teiresias's blindness and gifts, of course, are exactly the point of spirituality: one loses the ability to engage in the material world but gains the ability to engage in the spiritual world both now and after they die.
4. Kallimakhos explicitly links this story to that of Aktaion. Both beheld their patron deity naked (Athena for Teiresias, Artemis for Aktaion), but Teiresias made good of evil, while Aktaion did not. I wonder if seeing one's patron naked is the point of no return in spirituality: after that, one must either cease to be mortal or cease to be—there is no longer a middle ground, and this is why Neith's statue says that no mortal has uncovered her dress.
5. There is an alternate version of the story (made famous by Ovid) where Teiresias was blinded when he settled a bet between Zeus and Hera, saying that sex is ten times better for women than men. I dismiss this one out of hand, because it is of a popular nature and because spiritual teachings are unitive rather than divisive.
While traveling through Mt. Kullene, Teiresias comes upon two serpents entwined in sex and crushes them with his staff. This so incenses Hera that she changes Teiresias into a woman. Teiresias becomes a priestess of Hera, marries, and has a daughter named Manto ("prophecy"). At some point, Apollo tells Teiresias that if she comes upon a pair of serpents, to repeat her prior action, which happens in the eighth year after the first time, and she is changed back into a man. [Phlegon, Book of Wonders; Apollodoros, Library III vi.]
1. Mt. Kullene is the birthplace of Hermes, and his symbol, the kerukeion, is two serpents entwined around a staff. Even today we call androgynous people mercurial. Teiresias being initiated by Hermes (if only figuratively) and Athena is shared by other hero myths, like Perseus and Odusseus.
2. Surviving sources disagree about which serpent or serpents are crushed in each event. Most sources are either ambiguous or say both each time (and this is what I've followed), though others say that the female was crushed each time, or the female the first time and the male the second time. Whatever the case, the sex-change is an obvious reference to reincarnation; the killing of the serpents inadvertently is a symbol of dying without purpose, but the killing of the serpents intentionally is a symbol of dying with purpose. This is the same as the myth of Perseus, where the Gorgons ("grim things") represent death; but while Stheno ("forceful") and Euruale ("far-ranging") are immortal, indicating that death cannot be overpowered or outrun, Medousa ("she rules") is mortal, indicating that death doesn't need to control us (and, indeed, can be put to good use—as Plotinos says, why should death trouble an immortal?). Therefore, Manto represents the realization of one's true self, the soul which animates the body, which only comes through experience.
3. The serpentine symbolism is also present in the Kadmos myth, where he kills the serpent of Ares, serves Ares for eight years, marries Ares's daughter Harmonia, and finally is transformed with his wife into a pair of serpents.
4. Archbishop Eustathios of Thessalonike, following an elegiac poet named Sostratos, tells an alternate version of the story in which Teiresias was born female and changed sexes six times before finally being turned into mouse (and presumably eaten by a weasel). I also dismiss this out of hand, because it is of a popular nature and is impossible to reconcile with both of the only reliable fixed points of the Teiresias's life: his rescue of Thebai and the necromantic ritual of Odusseus.
When the Seven attack Thebai, the Thebaians ask Teiresias how they should be victorious, and he advises that if Menoikeus ("strength of the house"), son of Kreon, willingly sacrifices himself to Ares, that the Thebaians would be victorious, which he does and they are. Ten years later, when the Epigone attack Thebai and king Laodamas ("tamer of the people") is killed by Alkmaion (general of the Argives), Teiresias advises the people to send a herald to negotiate with the enemy and secretly flee meanwhile, which they do. Apollo shoots him with an arrow as he drinks from the spring of Tilphoussa and he dies there, but the people continue on to found Haliartos (about fifteen miles from Thebai). Manto, however, is captured by the Argives and, since they had promised "the most beautiful of the spoils" to Apollo, send her to Delphi. She becomes a priestess of the god and he sends her to Colophon to found an oracle. There, she marries Rhakios ("rag"), and has a son by him, Mopsos, who is also a celebrated seer and the rival of Kalkhos in the Nostoi. [Pausanias, Descriptions of Greece VII iii, IX xviii, IX xxxiii; Apollodoros, Library III vi–vii, Epitome vi.]
1. Tilphoussa is the spring where Apollo first tried to institute his oracle, but the water nymph dissuaded him; after taking over the oracle at Delphi, he later returned and cursed the spring. [Homeric Hymn to Apollo 239–76, 375–87.]
2. I have a theory that the myth of the house of Kadmos represents the mysteries, just like the myth of the house of Atreus or the myth of the house of Atum. If that is so, then the reason why Teiresias participated in the seven generations of Thebai up to the epigone (Kadmos→Poludoros→Labdakos→Laios/Kreon→Oidipous→Polunikes/Eteokles/Ismene/Antigone→Laodamas/Thersandros) is because he participated in the mysteries and, having mastering these, he was able to, on the one hand, save the women and children of Thebai, and on the other, guide future heroes (e.g. Odusseus) on the way home.
3. Tilphoussa is on Mt. Tilphosium, which is right next to Mt. Helikon (which is where the Hippokrene was). There is something very Wizard of Oz about Teiresias's life ending where it "began."
4. That Teiresias ("prophet") dies but Manto ("prophecy") lives on to serve others is, of course, a common motif in spirituality and reminds me more of Plotinos than anyone.
5. Manto marrying Rhakios ("rag") certainly shows how the mystery teachings are valued in the world: that is to say, not at all, and I wonder to what degree we possess the likes of Plato today because of his homosexual pedophilia, or Plotinos because nobody knew what to make of him, or Apollodoros because the mysteries were hidden in silly stories that nobody took seriously. Mopsos became celebrated precisely because he recognized the hidden value of those rags, though.
While lost at sea, Odusseus travels to Haides and summons Teiresias, now holding a golden staff, and receives advice on how to safely return home. [Homer, Odyssey X–XI.]

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The Duel Between Aineias and Akhilleus

Tue, 15 Apr 2025 22:46:58 GMT

Happy Ares-day!

Since so many of you asked, and I’ve never tried my hand at translating a lengthy section, I figured I’d go ahead and give it the old college try... but yipes! this took forever, and, anticipating that, I went rather more quickly than usual (managing a dozen lines a day); so it’s probably a lot less precise than I usually strive for. Consider it a first draft!

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τὸν δ’ αὖτε προσέειπεν ἄναξ Διὸς υἱὸς Ἀπόλλων:
ἥρως ἀλλ’ ἄγε καὶ σὺ θεοῖς αἰειγενέτῃσιν
εὔχεο: καὶ δὲ σέ φασι Διὸς κούρης Ἀφροδίτης
ἐκγεγάμεν, κεῖνος δὲ χερείονος ἐκ θεοῦ ἐστίν:
ἣ μὲν γὰρ Διός ἐσθ’, ἣ δ’ ἐξ ἁλίοιο γέροντος.
ἀλλ’ ἰθὺς φέρε χαλκὸν ἀτειρέα, μηδέ σε πάμπαν
λευγαλέοις ἐπέεσσιν ἀποτρεπέτω καὶ ἀρειῇ.

ὣς εἰπὼν ἔμπνευσε μένος μέγα ποιμένι λαῶν,
βῆ δὲ διὰ προμάχων κεκορυθμένος αἴθοπι χαλκῷ. [...]
Αἰνείας δὲ πρῶτος ἀπειλήσας ἐβεβήκει
νευστάζων κόρυθι βριαρῇ: ἀτὰρ ἀσπίδα θοῦριν
πρόσθεν ἔχε στέρνοιο, τίνασσε δὲ χάλκεον ἔγχος.

Πηλεΐδης δ’ ἑτέρωθεν ἐναντίον ὦρτο λέων ὣς [...]
οἳ δ’ ὅτε δὴ σχεδὸν ἦσαν ἐπ’ ἀλλήλοισιν ἰόντες,
τὸν πρότερος προσέειπε ποδάρκης δῖος Ἀχιλλεύς:
Αἰνεία τί σὺ τόσσον ὁμίλου πολλὸν ἐπελθὼν
ἔστης; ἦ σέ γε θυμὸς ἐμοὶ μαχέσασθαι ἀνώγει
ἐλπόμενον Τρώεσσιν ἀνάξειν ἱπποδάμοισι
τιμῆς τῆς Πριάμου; ἀτὰρ εἴ κεν ἔμ’ ἐξεναρίξῃς,
οὔ τοι τοὔνεκά γε Πρίαμος γέρας ἐν χερὶ θήσει:
εἰσὶν γάρ οἱ παῖδες, ὃ δ’ ἔμπεδος οὐδ’ ἀεσίφρων.
ἦ νύ τί τοι Τρῶες τέμενος τάμον ἔξοχον ἄλλων
καλὸν φυταλιῆς καὶ ἀρούρης, ὄφρα νέμηαι
αἴ κεν ἐμὲ κτείνῃς; χαλεπῶς δέ σ’ ἔολπα τὸ ῥέξειν.
ἤδη μὲν σέ γέ φημι καὶ ἄλλοτε δουρὶ φοβῆσαι.
ἦ οὐ μέμνῃ ὅτε πέρ σε βοῶν ἄπο μοῦνον ἐόντα
σεῦα κατ’ Ἰδαίων ὀρέων ταχέεσσι πόδεσσι
καρπαλίμως; τότε δ’ οὔ τι μετατροπαλίζεο φεύγων.
ἔνθεν δ’ ἐς Λυρνησσὸν ὑπέκφυγες: αὐτὰρ ἐγὼ τὴν
πέρσα μεθορμηθεὶς σὺν Ἀθήνῃ καὶ Διὶ πατρί,
ληϊάδας δὲ γυναῖκας ἐλεύθερον ἦμαρ ἀπούρας
ἦγον: ἀτὰρ σὲ Ζεὺς ἐρρύσατο καὶ θεοὶ ἄλλοι.
ἀλλ’ οὐ νῦν ἐρύεσθαι ὀΐομαι, ὡς ἐνὶ θυμῷ
βάλλεαι: ἀλλά σ’ ἔγωγ’ ἀναχωρήσαντα κελεύω
ἐς πληθὺν ἰέναι, μηδ’ ἀντίος ἵστασ’ ἐμεῖο,
πρίν τι κακὸν παθέειν: ῥεχθὲν δέ τε νήπιος ἔγνω.

τὸν δ’ αὖτ’ Αἰνείας ἀπαμείβετο φώνησέν τε:
Πηλεΐδη μὴ δὴ ἐπέεσσί με νηπύτιον ὣς
ἔλπεο δειδίξεσθαι, ἐπεὶ σάφα οἶδα καὶ αὐτὸς
ἠμὲν κερτομίας ἠδ’ αἴσυλα μυθήσασθαι. [...]
ἀλκῆς δ’ οὔ μ’ ἐπέεσσιν ἀποτρέψεις μεμαῶτα
πρὶν χαλκῷ μαχέσασθαι ἐναντίον: ἀλλ’ ἄγε θᾶσσον
γευσόμεθ’ ἀλλήλων χαλκήρεσιν ἐγχείῃσιν.

ἦ ῥα καὶ ἐν δεινῷ σάκει ἤλασεν ὄβριμον ἔγχος
σμερδαλέῳ: μέγα δ’ ἀμφὶ σάκος μύκε δουρὸς ἀκωκῇ.
Πηλεΐδης δὲ σάκος μὲν ἀπὸ ἕο χειρὶ παχείῃ
ἔσχετο ταρβήσας: φάτο γὰρ δολιχόσκιον ἔγχος
ῥέα διελεύσεσθαι μεγαλήτορος Αἰνείαο
νήπιος, οὐδ’ ἐνόησε κατὰ φρένα καὶ κατὰ θυμὸν
ὡς οὐ ῥηΐδι’ ἐστὶ θεῶν ἐρικυδέα δῶρα
ἀνδράσι γε θνητοῖσι δαμήμεναι οὐδ’ ὑποείκειν.
οὐδὲ τότ’ Αἰνείαο δαΐφρονος ὄβριμον ἔγχος
ῥῆξε σάκος: χρυσὸς γὰρ ἐρύκακε, δῶρα θεοῖο:
ἀλλὰ δύω μὲν ἔλασσε διὰ πτύχας, αἳ δ’ ἄρ’ ἔτι τρεῖς
ἦσαν, ἐπεὶ πέντε πτύχας ἤλασε κυλλοποδίων,
τὰς δύο χαλκείας, δύο δ’ ἔνδοθι κασσιτέροιο,
τὴν δὲ μίαν χρυσῆν, τῇ ῥ’ ἔσχετο μείλινον ἔγχος.

δεύτερος αὖτ’ Ἀχιλεὺς προΐει δολιχόσκιον ἔγχος,
καὶ βάλεν Αἰνείαο κατ’ ἀσπίδα πάντοσ’ ἐΐσην
ἄντυγ’ ὕπο πρώτην, ᾗ λεπτότατος θέε χαλκός,
λεπτοτάτη δ’ ἐπέην ῥινὸς βοός: ἣ δὲ διὰ πρὸ
Πηλιὰς ἤϊξεν μελίη, λάκε δ’ ἀσπὶς ὑπ’ αὐτῆς.
Αἰνείας δ’ ἐάλη καὶ ἀπὸ ἕθεν ἀσπίδ’ ἀνέσχε
δείσας: ἐγχείη δ’ ἄρ’ ὑπὲρ νώτου ἐνὶ γαίῃ
ἔστη ἱεμένη, διὰ δ’ ἀμφοτέρους ἕλε κύκλους
ἀσπίδος ἀμφιβρότης: ὃ δ’ ἀλευάμενος δόρυ μακρὸν
ἔστη, κὰδ δ’ ἄχος οἱ χύτο μυρίον ὀφθαλμοῖσι,
ταρβήσας ὅ οἱ ἄγχι πάγη βέλος. αὐτὰρ Ἀχιλλεὺς
ἐμμεμαὼς ἐπόρουσεν ἐρυσσάμενος ξίφος ὀξὺ
σμερδαλέα ἰάχων: ὃ δὲ χερμάδιον λάβε χειρὶ
Αἰνείας, μέγα ἔργον, ὃ οὐ δύο γ’ ἄνδρε φέροιεν,
οἷοι νῦν βροτοί εἰσ’: ὃ δέ μιν ῥέα πάλλε καὶ οἶος.
ἔνθά κεν Αἰνείας μὲν ἐπεσσύμενον βάλε πέτρῳ
ἢ κόρυθ’ ἠὲ σάκος, τό οἱ ἤρκεσε λυγρὸν ὄλεθρον,
τὸν δέ κε Πηλεΐδης σχεδὸν ἄορι θυμὸν ἀπηύρα,
εἰ μὴ ἄρ’ ὀξὺ νόησε Ποσειδάων ἐνοσίχθων:
αὐτίκα δ’ ἀθανάτοισι θεοῖς μετὰ μῦθον ἔειπεν:
ὢ πόποι ἦ μοι ἄχος μεγαλήτορος Αἰνείαο,
ὃς τάχα Πηλεΐωνι δαμεὶς Ἄϊδος δὲ κάτεισι
πειθόμενος μύθοισιν Ἀπόλλωνος ἑκάτοιο
νήπιος, οὐδέ τί οἱ χραισμήσει λυγρὸν ὄλεθρον.
ἀλλὰ τί ἢ νῦν οὗτος ἀναίτιος ἄλγεα πάσχει
μὰψ ἕνεκ’ ἀλλοτρίων ἀχέων, κεχαρισμένα δ’ αἰεὶ
δῶρα θεοῖσι δίδωσι τοὶ οὐρανὸν εὐρὺν ἔχουσιν;
ἀλλ’ ἄγεθ’ ἡμεῖς πέρ μιν ὑπὲκ θανάτου ἀγάγωμεν,
μή πως καὶ Κρονίδης κεχολώσεται, αἴ κεν Ἀχιλλεὺς
τόνδε κατακτείνῃ: μόριμον δέ οἵ ἐστ’ ἀλέασθαι,
ὄφρα μὴ ἄσπερμος γενεὴ καὶ ἄφαντος ὄληται
Δαρδάνου, ὃν Κρονίδης περὶ πάντων φίλατο παίδων
οἳ ἕθεν ἐξεγένοντο γυναικῶν τε θνητάων. [...]

τὸν δ’ ἠμείβετ’ ἔπειτα βοῶπις πότνια Ἥρη:
ἐννοσίγαι’, αὐτὸς σὺ μετὰ φρεσὶ σῇσι νόησον [...].
ἤτοι μὲν γὰρ νῶϊ πολέας ὠμόσσαμεν ὅρκους
πᾶσι μετ’ ἀθανάτοισιν ἐγὼ καὶ Παλλὰς Ἀθήνη
μή ποτ’ ἐπὶ Τρώεσσιν ἀλεξήσειν κακὸν ἦμαρ,
μηδ’ ὁπότ’ ἂν Τροίη μαλερῷ πυρὶ πᾶσα δάηται
καιομένη, καίωσι δ’ ἀρήϊοι υἷες Ἀχαιῶν.

αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ τό γ’ ἄκουσε Ποσειδάων ἐνοσίχθων,
βῆ ῥ’ ἴμεν ἄν τε μάχην καὶ ἀνὰ κλόνον ἐγχειάων,
ἷξε δ’ ὅθ’ Αἰνείας ἠδ’ ὃ κλυτὸς ἦεν Ἀχιλλεύς.
αὐτίκα τῷ μὲν ἔπειτα κατ’ ὀφθαλμῶν χέεν ἀχλὺν
Πηλεΐδῃ Ἀχιλῆϊ: ὃ δὲ μελίην εὔχαλκον
ἀσπίδος ἐξέρυσεν μεγαλήτορος Αἰνείαο:
καὶ τὴν μὲν προπάροιθε ποδῶν Ἀχιλῆος ἔθηκεν,
Αἰνείαν δ’ ἔσσευεν ἀπὸ χθονὸς ὑψόσ’ ἀείρας.
πολλὰς δὲ στίχας ἡρώων, πολλὰς δὲ καὶ ἵππων
Αἰνείας ὑπερᾶλτο θεοῦ ἀπὸ χειρὸς ὀρούσας,
ἷξε δ’ ἐπ’ ἐσχατιὴν πολυάϊκος πολέμοιο,
ἔνθά τε Καύκωνες πόλεμον μέτα θωρήσσοντο.
τῷ δὲ μάλ’ ἐγγύθεν ἦλθε Ποσειδάων ἐνοσίχθων,
καί μιν φωνήσας ἔπεα πτερόεντα προσηύδα:
Αἰνεία, τίς σ’ ὧδε θεῶν ἀτέοντα κελεύει
ἀντία Πηλεΐωνος ὑπερθύμοιο μάχεσθαι,
ὃς σεῦ ἅμα κρείσσων καὶ φίλτερος ἀθανάτοισιν;
ἀλλ’ ἀναχωρῆσαι ὅτε κεν συμβλήσεαι αὐτῷ,
μὴ καὶ ὑπὲρ μοῖραν δόμον Ἄϊδος εἰσαφίκηαι.
αὐτὰρ ἐπεί κ’ Ἀχιλεὺς θάνατον καὶ πότμον ἐπίσπῃ,
θαρσήσας δὴ ἔπειτα μετὰ πρώτοισι μάχεσθαι:
οὐ μὲν γάρ τίς σ’ ἄλλος Ἀχαιῶν ἐξεναρίξει.

ὣς εἰπὼν λίπεν αὐτόθ’, ἐπεὶ διεπέφραδε πάντα.
αἶψα δ’ ἔπειτ’ Ἀχιλῆος ἀπ’ ὀφθαλμῶν σκέδασ’ ἀχλὺν
θεσπεσίην: ὃ δ’ ἔπειτα μέγ’ ἔξιδεν ὀφθαλμοῖσιν,
ὀχθήσας δ’ ἄρα εἶπε πρὸς ὃν μεγαλήτορα θυμόν:
ὢ πόποι ἦ μέγα θαῦμα τόδ’ ὀφθαλμοῖσιν ὁρῶμαι:
ἔγχος μὲν τόδε κεῖται ἐπὶ χθονός, οὐδέ τι φῶτα
λεύσσω, τῷ ἐφέηκα κατακτάμεναι μενεαίνων.
ἦ ῥα καὶ Αἰνείας φίλος ἀθανάτοισι θεοῖσιν
ἦεν: ἀτάρ μιν ἔφην μὰψ αὔτως εὐχετάασθαι.
ἐρρέτω: οὔ οἱ θυμὸς ἐμεῦ ἔτι πειρηθῆναι
ἔσσεται, ὃς καὶ νῦν φύγεν ἄσμενος ἐκ θανάτοιο.
ἀλλ’ ἄγε δὴ Δαναοῖσι φιλοπτολέμοισι κελεύσας
τῶν ἄλλων Τρώων πειρήσομαι ἀντίος ἐλθών.

But then Lord Apollon, the son of Zeus, said to [Aineias]:
“Pray, then, to the immortal gods—yes, even you, hero!*—
since they say that Aphrodite, the daughter of Zeus,
is your mother. That [Akhilleus] is of a lower degree of god,
for your mother is of Zeus, but his, merely the Old Man of the Sea.
Now, pick up your unwearying bronze, and don't you let
him weary you* with curses or threats.”

Then he breathed great spirit into the prince,*
who went beyond the flashing bronze helmets of the vanguard. [...]
And Aineias stood menacingly out in front:
lowering his heavy helmet, holding his eager shield
in front of him, and brandishing his bronze spear.

Across the field, the son of Peleus prowled forth like a lion, [...]
and when they had drawn close to each other,
swift-footed, noble Akhilleus spoke first:
“Aineias!? Out of such a huge crowd, why did you come out
to make a stand? Were you itching to fight me*
in the hopes of being lord of the horse-taming Troians,
the pride of Priam? Even if you kill me,
it’s not like Priam would put the crown in your hands,
not while his sons are of sound body and mind.
Or maybe the Troians set aside some choice parcel
of good orchards and fields* for you to manage
if you kill me? I don’t think you’ll find it easy—
I seem to remember having already set you running scared of my spear!
Or had you forgotten that time you were separated from your cows
and I chased you down Mount Ida as fast as your feet could carry you?
You never even looked back as you ran!
You escaped to Lurnessos, but I set it
to the torch, having tracked you with Athene and father Zeus,
and I took away her women’s day of freedom*
and led them away.* Zeus and the other gods saved you then,
but I don’t think they’ll save you now, like you think they will;*
I urge you to go back
into the crowd instead of facing me man-to-man—
you might get hurt! ‘Only an idiot makes the same mistake twice.*’”

Then Aineias spoke in answer to him:
“Son of Peleus! You can’t hope to frighten me like a baby with your words,
since I, too, know how
to bitch and moan. [...]*
You will not turn me from the battle I desire
before we meet bronze-to-bronze. Come on, then—
let’s taste each other’s spears!*”

And with that he hurled his heavy, fearsome spear into that marvelous shield,*
and the great shield rang out from the impact.
With his strong hand the son of Peleus pushed the shield away from him
in alarm, since he foolishly thought the long spear
of heroic Aineias would pass right through it—
he didn’t realize, deep in his heart and mind,
that the glorious gifts of the gods are not easily
broken or turned aside by mortal men!
So the heavy spear of skillful Aineias did not
pierce that god-given shield, since the gold held;
even so, he drove it through two plates, but three
remained, since the Clubfoot* had forged it of five:
two of bronze, two of tin within those,
and [the middle] one of gold,* which held the ashwood spear.

Next, Akhilleus hurled his long-handled spear
and struck the circular shield of Aineias
on its edge, where the bronze and leather run thinnest,
and the the son of Pelias’s ashwood shot through
and the shield crashed under it.
Aineias shrank and flung his shield up
in fear, and the spear deflected over his back and stuck in the earth,
having sundered the two parts of the circle
of the massive shield.* Having dodged the hefty shaft, he
stood still, eyes wide in shock,
frightened that the missile grazed so near, while Akhilleus
quickly drew his double-edged sidearm* and pounced at him
with a fearsome roar, but Aineias seized a boulder in his hand—
a mighty deed! two men couldn’t have lifted it,
such as men are now, but he wielded it easily by himself—
then Aineias would have charged and thrown the rock
at helmet or shield, which would have kept [Akhilleus] from certain death,
and the son of Peleus would have closed and taken away his life with his sword,
had not Poseidaon Earth-Shaker seen it quickly
and immediately spoke his mind to the immortal gods:
“Damn, I ache for great-hearted Aineias,*
soon to be broken by the son of Peleus and descend to the house of Haides,
having let himself be persuaded by the words of Sniper Apollo—
foolishly, since [the god] won’t save him from a grim fate.
But why should this innocent pointlessly suffer
for others’ mischief, when he always
gives such nice gifts to the gods who hold the wide heavens?
How about we snatch him away from death?
The son of Kronos might also be angry if Akhilleus
cuts him down, since he is destined to escape [Troia],
lest the bloodline of Dardanos be destroyed or forgotten,
since he was the favorite of all the sons of Zeus
that were born to him of mortal women. [...]”

Then the cow-eyed queen Here answered him, saying:
“You do you,* Earth-Shaker, [...]
but as for us, we have sworn many oaths
before the immortals, little Athene* and I,
never to prevent a bad day for the Troians—
not even should all Troia be set alight and consumed by fire,
so long as the martial* sons of the Akhaians kindle it.*”

But when Poseidaon Earth-Shaker had heard this,*
he went on over the fighting and clash of weapons
and came to where Aineias and glorious Akhilleus were,
and he immediately poured a mist down over the eyes
of Akhilleus, son of Peleus, and drew the bronze-tipped ashwood
from the shield of greathearted Aineias
and set it at the feet of Akhilleus;
but Aineieas he spirited away, lifting him high above the earth.
And many ranks of heroes and horses both
were quickly passed over by Aineias in the hand of the god,
until he landed at the furthest of the many battle fronts,
where the Kaukonians were arming up for war.
Then Poseidaon Earth-Shaker came up beside him
and admonished him, piercing with words fletched as arrows:*
“Aineias! Who the hell ordered you to recklessly
face that madman son of Peleus’s in battle?
He’s both stronger and dearer to the immortals than you are!*
He ever comes near you, you run—
or else you’re going to the house of Haides no matter what your destiny is.
But when Akhilleus is dead and gone to his fate,
then take courage and fight at the forefront,
since he’s the only Akhaian that can beat you.”

He left Aineias there after saying all this
and dispersed the heaven-sent mist from Akhilleus’s eyes
so that he goggled
and ranted to himself:
“What the fuck kind of magic is this!?
Here’s my spear lying on the ground, but I can’t
see the man I meant to kill with it.
So Aineias really is dear to the immortal gods!
I thought he was just bullshitting me.
Eh, fuck it: he won’t have the guts to face me
again, happy to have cheated death once.
Come on, I’ll rally the bloodthirsty Danaans
to go and try some other Troian face-to-face.”

(Homer, Iliad XX 103–352, as translated—hopefully not too badly!—by yours truly.)

Notes:

Hero: ἥρως, literally “hero” in Greek, too. Hero comes from the Egyptian heru “falcon,” referring to the god Horos; that is, a “hero” is a little-H horos (rather than the big-H Horos). Many sources (Herodotos, Histories II cxliv; Diodoros, Library of History I xxv; Ploutarkhos, Isis and Osiris XII) equate Apollon with Horos, implying that Apollon is the god of heroes. If the god of heroes himself calls you a hero, I imagine you’re doing something right! In fact, Aineias is much beloved by the gods, being saved from certain death by each of Aphrodite, Apollon, and (as we see here) Poseidaon. He was also the only Troian hero to survive the fall of Troia.
Weary you: the pun is mine; the Greek is ἀτειρέα "unable to be dulled" and ἀποτρεπέτω "turn you away."
Prince: ποιμένι λαῶν, literally “shepherd of his people.” Homer has a higher opinion of nobility than I do, but then, I guess I always was more of a Hesiod sort of guy!
Itching to fight me: ἦ σέ γε θυμὸς ἐμοὶ μαχέσασθαι ἀνώγει, literally “did your heart command you to fight me?”
Orchards and fields: Greek distinguishes “land planted with field crops” (wheat, barley, etc.) and “land planted with anything else” (e.g. orchards, vineyards, gardens, etc.), and these are the two kinds of land being described.
Day of freedom: what a serendipitous turn of phrase!
Led them away: this was when Akhilleus captured his favorite girl-toy, Briseis, the fight over whom started off the events of the Iliad.
Like you think they will: ὡς ἐνὶ θυμῷ βάλλεαι, literally “as is set in your heart.”
Only an idiot makes the same mistake twice: ῥεχθὲν δέ τε νήπιος ἔγνω, literally “even a child learns from experience,” but I wanted to clarify it since Akhilleus is implying that Aineias would be foolish to try his luck again.
[...]: I know I make Aineias sound like a stoic, actions-speak-louder-than-words type of person here, but you should know that he goes on at excruciating length about the lineage of princes of Troia. He's actually much more of a kinda square, by-the-book sort.
Spears: χαλκήρεσιν ἐγχείῃσιν, literally “bronze-tipped spears,” but the excessive repetition of the word “bronze” was galling.
That marvelous shield: the beautifully-crafted shield that Hephaistos, god of smiths, forged for him the night before and inlaid with beautiful imagery. Its description is one of the highlights of the Iliad, and can be found in XVIII 478–608.
The Clubfoot: Hephaistos, who was born lame.
[The middle] one of gold: gonna be honest, it seems pretty strange to use tin (which is brittle) and gold (which is both soft and very heavy) in a shield, especially on the inside where their corrosion-resistance and beauty aren't on display!
Massive shield: ἀσπίδος ἀμφιβρότης, literally “shield which covers both sides of a man.”
Double-edged sidearm: ξίφος ὀξὺ, literally “sharp-pointed xiphos,” which was a backup weapon, a large dagger or short sword sharpened on both sides, meant for both slashing and stabbing.
I ache for great-hearted Aineias: Throughout the Iliad, Poseidaon sides with the Akhaians. His regard for Aineias is therefore quite special!
You do you: αὐτὸς σὺ μετὰ φρεσὶ σῇσι νόησον, “decide for yourself within your own heart.”
Little Athene: Παλλὰς Ἀθήνη, usually transliterated “Pallas Athene,” but Παλλάς from πάλλαξ, “child below the age of puberty.” I suppose that’s why she’s always said to be a virgin...
Martial: ἀρήϊοι, literally “of/like/devoted-to Ares,” which is the equivalent to "martial" (e.g. “of/like/devoted-to Mars”) in English. I edited this on 8 May 2025, and had originally translated this word as "warlike." The comments below reference the original.
So long as the [...] Akhaians kindle it: sheesh, talk about vindictive!
But when Poseidaon [...] had heard this: I like to think he rolled his eyes and gave an exasperated sigh before rushing off to save Aineias.
Piercing with words fletched as arrows: φωνήσας ἔπεα πτερόεντα, literally “speaking feathered words,” usually translated “winged words.” Like “the wine-colored sea” of the Odyssey, this is one of those phrases that classicists have been arguing over forever. I can’t for the life of me tell why, since the meaning seems obvious enough?
Dearer to the immortals than you are: yeah, maybe his mommy got him some fancy-pants armor, but you don't see anybody rescuing Akhilleus from the battlefield, do you?
To himself: πρὸς ὃν μεγαλήτορα θυμόν, literally “at his own mighty heart.”

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The Names of the Unnameable

Sun, 13 Apr 2025 17:44:56 GMT

Some follow-on notes to my realization that Helene/Europe/Persephone/etc. are Osiris rather than Horos:

You remember how I (following, I think, Pythagoras and Empedocles) likened Osiris to Fire? Helene (Ἑλένη) is from ἑλένη "torch." Similarly, Ploutarkhos derives Phersephone (Φερσεφόνη) from φαεσφόρος "light-bringing" (On the Man in the Moon XXVII).

You remember how Osiris's name in Egyptian is a little throne next to a little eye (𓊨𓁹), meaning "the seat of the eye" (that is, the root of our consciousness, god-consciousness)? Europe (Εὐρώπη) is from εὐρύς "wide, broad" and some form of ὁρᾶν "to see," indicating something very similar (that god-consciousness sees all at once).

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Guiding Ruin

Sun, 06 Apr 2025 17:05:36 GMT

Κασσάνδρα. ὀτοτοτοῖ πόποι δᾶ. Ὦπολλον Ὦπολλον. [...] Ἄπολλον Ἄπολλον ἀγυιᾶτ᾽, ἀπόλλων ἐμός. ἀπώλεσας γὰρ οὐ μόλις τὸ δεύτερον.

Kassandra. [incoherent screaming] O Ruin! O Ruin... [sobbing] Ruin, Guiding Ruin, my ruining! Twice now you have utterly ruined me... [sobbing]

(Aiskhulos, Agamemnon 1072-82.)

I'm not much of a theater person, but Aiskhulos's Kassandra is harrowing. I've checked something like five translations and, while I'm no expert, nobody seems to translate her well. And honestly I just don't think she can translate well: she's incoherent, rambling, and everything she says seems to have a double or triple meaning. Here, Aiskhulos explicitly connects Ἄπολλον "Apollon" (the god) with the virtually identical ἀπόλλων "destroying utterly" (the action), referring to how Apollon despoils the material world in favor of the spiritual (cf. Horos beheading Isis; Perseus from πέρσευς "pillager [of cities];" etc.) as he has also despoiled Kassandra. Ἄπολλον ἀγυιᾶτα "Apollon of the Roads" refers how Apollon guides initiates on the upward ways but also how he has guided Kassandra to her undoing. One gets the impression of a failed initiate, who saw but was unable to digest what she had seen and was broken by it.

By the Hellenistic era, Apollo was a joyful singer of songs; but to Homer, Apollon was a harsh warrior. I wonder if his golden lyre was only for his heroes; his golden arrows were for everyone else...

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