Metamorphosis

Tue, 02 May 2006 22:23:27 GMT

ARCHAEOLOGY - A
ARCHAEOLGY LAB - A
MYTH IN GREEK ART - A
MEDIEVAL LITERATURE - A
HUMANITIES: HOMER TO GOTHIC - A
HUMANITIES: RENAIS/ELIGHTMT - A
LATIN II (Pass/Fail) - P

(Posted by Moco because Maize doesn't want to brag. Who will join Moco in a superhappy dance?)

Angel in the Machine

Wed, 19 Apr 2006 23:26:03 GMT

No time to post a full entry here. I may edit and backdate later.

Mircea Eliade, in The Forge and the Crucible, writes about the way the widespread "cosmological" myth that underlies the integration of iron into many ancient cultures, especially in India, Africa, Mesopotamia, and China. A central theme is the link between human sacrifice and metallurgy, in which the soul of the sacrifice was said to be transformed into the metal. Hence, the newly forged object would be *alive* with the soul of the person. This was treated alternately with horror and with honor by the populations around the smith, and underlies many of the strange myths regarding magic weapons and evil smiths.

It occurred to me, as I read it, that this same basic myth underlies a huge part of modern science fiction which discusses the idea of human (or pseudo-human) intelligence being integrated into machines.

The link between this ancient mythological concept and our modern approach to AI and the coming Singularity and so forth seems worth further enquiry.

To ensure the 'marriage of metals' in the smelting process, a living being must 'animate' the operation and the best means of achieving this is by the sacrifice, the transfer of life. The soul of the victim changes its fleshly envelope: it changes its human body for a new 'body' -- a building, an object, even an operation -- which it makes alive, or animates." (Eliade, 64)

Entering our language from the rear....

Wed, 19 Apr 2006 21:02:46 GMT

The evidence is in. Tolkien's fictional beasts have most certainly crossed the line from being specific literary characters to being common cultural material.

I submit in evidence the following quote, found in a book on scientific history released by Harvard University Press:

In thinking about the history of science, most of us are accustomed to believing in the authority of a 'grand narrative,' the story of the triumph of human reason over mysticism, magic, and the occult. The major battle in this exalted conflict, one in which the brotherhood of reason finally dispelled the orcs of intellectual darkness, took place, according to the story line, during the Scientific Revolution

When "orcs" can be used casually to describe any monster of "mysticism, magic, and the occult" -- and in this case to refer to the embodiment both of alchemical reasoning and the Catholic dogma! -- then Tolkien's beasts have incontrivertible moved off the page and into the universal subconscious.

I have long thought that orcs and all the other Tolkienesque beasts pre-dated Tolkien (they appear in Beowulf and other mythology, for example)... but even if they did not, quotes like this show that they have escaped the confines of his fiction.

Reinsurrections

Mon, 17 Apr 2006 07:45:32 GMT

Not consciously in honor of Good Friday and Easter, but nonetheless coinciding with them, I have been working on a long paper on the "Dream of the Rood."

In this paper, I discussed the ancient northern tree cults, in which the sacred trees . . .as embodiments of the World Tree. . . were used as executionary gallows in which living human sacrifices were made of criminals (and possibly of prisoners of war), and also used a charnal gallows in which the bodies of those most esteemed in society were hung to rot after their death. The trees were also adorned with other sacrifices of gold and of cloth, of wine, of milk... the tree was seen as the sacred center of the universe, ever providing rebirth and regeneration, and yet also requiring a death toll.

At the same time, I have been working on a paper on alchemy, which was inspired partly by my second teacher's refusal to accept a second paper on tree cults and partly by my fondness for the show FullMetal Alchemist:

"Teachings that do not speak of pain have no meaning, because humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. That is alchemy's First Law of Equivalent Exchange."

Which I suppose is what brought me to my thoughts tonight. Instead of sleeping, I carried on a long discussion with [insert secret name of the voice in my head], regarding suffering and joy.

Is it not possible that the world is intrinsically balanced between suffering and growth, and that this balance cannot be upset by even the most ardent reforms? Perhaps the more desparate the measures taken to assure the welfare of some only assure the most supreme degredation of others. In the abstract, this could be percieved as the concept of the Christian heaven and hell. We are told that heaven would not be heaven if "sinners" were allowed in, because then it would not be perfect. In essence, heaven is defined by the existence of hell, which is why in the Middle Ages we have so many depictions of the saints in heaven gleefully crowding about for a chance to observe the sinners in hell. I would go so far as to say that though it might be the sacrifice of the savior which enables specific individuals to enter heaven, it may actually be the suffering of the sinners that ensures that heaven exists.

In a more modest and less archetypal sense, let us consider modern America --and even my own life. Every day I feel this aching awareness that my current contentedness is due entirely to the fact that I am willfully refusing to involve myself in stopping the suffering of others. For years I struggled to help others and to minimize my negative impact, and in so doing only managed to sink myself to nearly the same level of suffering as that I was trying to stop. Today, I steadfastly refuse to do this. In general, I undertake charity only when it costs me nothing; I refrain from causing suffering only when it is not necessary for my own comfort. I still go much farther out of my way to avoid harming others than most people I know, but only insofar as it does not endanger my goals and my quality of life. I have no illusions of self-sacrifice. Which brings me to America.

Affluent American maintain a remarkably high quality of life in terms of physical "comforts." It is perhaps the highest the world has known. Yet this is only maintained at a horrifying cost to the third world, to the environment, to the global working classes, and to the animals which die in our factory farms and medical research facilities. Like "saints" in heaven, we have created a better world at the cost of creating a hellish world for others.

And yet in a purely utilitarian sense -- in the sense of equal exchange -- is it not fair? We live longer than hunter-gatherers, at the cost of our communities, our connection to the products of our labor and to our environment, and even at the cost of our happiness (suicide and depression are virtually unknown among healthy hunter-gatherers)...

So I was thinking about the role of sacrifice and suffering in the ancient world. The Norse sacrificed criminals to the tree because it kept the world balanced -- it was a more honest and symbolic equivalent of what we do today when we thousands of people to rape-infested prisons for "possession of plants," or have a death penalty that costs more to enforce than life in prison . . .they traded suffering for security, death for life. . . not because it was physically or even socially sensical. . .not because it "worked" to kill someone for the harvest or to reduce crime by incarcerating marijuana smokers. . . but because it balances the tally of suffering and joy.

Is this equivalent exchange real? I don't know. It's obviously real to the human psyche -- the logic of thousands of generations is saturated with it. It's real in the physical world, so far as I can tell. All things live by feeding off the death or suffering of other living things.

I feel better in recognizing it, to some degree.

Two questions arise:

FIRST -- what would society ...and/or an individual... need to do to balance these two things within itself so that it did not create more suffering that it could bear within itself safely? (a memory of sundances and painful initiations springs to mind)

SECOND -- How does a modern person, such as myself, recognize and do honor to those whose sufferings make life possible? My ancestors might have feasted and fucked the criminal before they hung him in a tree, recognizing his death as a gift... they had rituals to honor the harvest and the hunt and the battle. . . what can I do to honor the slave-laborer who made my shoes?

Ooze

Wed, 05 Apr 2006 20:02:46 GMT

Words of the last several days: Effluvent Ooze.

As in: "I feel like myself becoming an effluvent oozing mass..." (and if you haven't yet seen Howl's Moving Castle, it was the best film of 2004).

I am depressed. A lot is bothering me, all tied up to a basic inability to communicate with others. Predictably, I can't figure out how to wrap it up in a nice little package to post here, and so I am not going to.

Big Boned

Wed, 29 Mar 2006 05:16:57 GMT

So.... today I got in another discussion regarding whether or not such a thing as "big boned" exist. Apparently, there's a theory that all men and women have *identical* bone structures relative to height. I can now provide evidence to the contrary from my archeology class.

"The world's population vary in how robust or how gracile male and female skulls are." (Thomas & Kelly, Archeology, pg 300) The text also links this to the rest of skeletons. My archeology teacher has gone further to discuss dramatic differences in the weight and size of bones based on individual genetic heritage and muscle use.

Need visual proof: http://www.mandemic.com/bigboned.jpg <-- this is a slide directly from my archeology class.

Maize-

sigh

Tue, 28 Mar 2006 15:19:49 GMT

Word of the day: Palimpset

as in: my brain is a palimpset and I am no longer sure I can read the text.

I have a major test today.... a major presentation on Thursday . . . three large research papers due in the next three weeks . . . and then finals . . . It's that final stretch of the semester, but I just can't seem to focus enough.

In other news, does anyone have any sources about Greco-Roman paganism in the middle ages (500 AD - 1300 AD) that might come in helpful for me? I'd take any primary sources that mention the old "classical" gods, even in a fictional context (e.g. like Dante).

M-

The word of the day...

Sat, 25 Mar 2006 22:14:43 GMT

Unclarified.

I had the rather worrisome realization, yesterday, that in about twelve month I will need to make a final decision about where I want to go with my entire future. That's when I'll be choosing betwee graduate schools, etc. To make matters more complicated, in less than nine months I will have needed to make all my final decisions about where to apply, and so forth. The problem here is that I'm not really sure what departments I want to be going into.... Classics? English? Folklore? Humanities? My focus of interest actually falls through the cracks between them.

So far, the best candidates are:

*Pursuing a PhD in the Folklore or English program at Indiana State University

*Pursuing a Classics MA here at FSU and then attempting to transfer to a tier 1 school for a classics PHd after I have more languages under my belt.

*Teach For America in New Mexico on the Navajo or Hopi reservations for two years, THEN try to transfer to the Folklore program or get a teaching job elsewhere.

However, there are also some programs that I'm looking rather dreamfully at:

* Brown University -- either their religion department or archeology in the ancient world
* Cornell University Medieval Program
* Princeton Religion department, which has links to the "program in the ancient world."

I'm very enflutterated by all this. I can't quite figure out what I need to be doing to keep my options open and at the same time to present a solid face to these programs. I think that's what is attractive to me about going and teaching for two years or so while I work on applications and preparing myself for them. But two years more delay doesn't seem like it will necessarily speak in my favor getting in.

grrr.... the whole thing is made even more stressful by having to take into account where I will be able to get housing that will be acceptable to Moco and Dar.

M-

Mustang, not the Colonel

Thu, 23 Mar 2006 23:14:38 GMT

Mustang (Mechanical Saint)

to wheels he turns his hooves,
the plunderer of grass abandonning
flesh and jutting bone (his pride of mane and mare)
His last breath: already the white bones
glint invitations to the sun and circling shamans.
The air eater carries him skyward and high
above the smoke signalling factory,
and so once more to earth.

He longs for his hills (fence-poached they
yielded to bulldozers and mines,
carving the bones of silver beasts
from the long birthing rocksides), turns
wheels and glass towards them,
chrome and paint he round-pounds,
throbs like heart beats in oil and blood
the sacrifice of roadways returning his fury.

A sharp curve, silver-hooved leaping
unreigned on slick asphalt he slides
and flips (as on grass in the sunlight,
belly exposed to the sky and wheels spinning)
he falls with the sound of waterfalls and far
above the wings gather again, a reunion
welcomed in blood and steel
plain-chanting he restarts.

http://mandemic.com/kudzu/mustang_color.jpg

The word of the day is....

Thu, 23 Mar 2006 23:04:01 GMT

Apotheosis.

http://www.mandemic.com/OfHell_complete.doc

Somewhat back from the dead....

Fri, 03 Mar 2006 16:29:49 GMT

I have been so sick and fallen so behind in school. But in better news, it is now Spring Break, which means I should have plenty of time to catch up.

In my archeology class yesterday, there was a lecture on phytoliths and fauno-archeology that I found truly inspiring. The following was writen on the back of my notes:

Osiris sings to the future:

my leaves are stone		storing the rock I devoured
phytoliths of my pasts		leave footprints in the sand
silica memories of roots		remain long after I go
into the river,		it unrecallable and relentless
is sweeping the pollen		of my sex out, into the ocean...
Digger in the Dirt,		do you discover me?
can your shovelers		unshroud these memories?
I need them no longer;		leaving my leaves to blow
deeply across the desert		(still deserted by man)
bits of sand I once bled out,		my sap-soaking grief now
released to the wind		I fare well into sunlight.

Not horrible good, by any stretch, but an amusing product of archeology mixed with an overdose of caffeine.

I'm trying to catch up on my post-reading, btw.

M-

My Computer came in!

Sat, 28 Jan 2006 19:14:44 GMT

He's so lovely and shiney, but I can't use him for much of anything until Zak takes the hard drive out of my other one. I'm ecstatically happy about him, though.

I other news, I'm thinking of changing my first name to Maize. I've been wanting a gender-non-specific name very badly, and from the time I was very little I detested my parental name with a passion (particularly since it was always accompanied by lectures about how I wasn't living up to the ideals embodied in that name by being such a somber sort) .... but I also wanted to keep my first initial the same. So Maize is currently my favorite option.

Opinions?

Would I be able to convince you fine fellows all to think of me by a different name?

M-

So long with no post....

Fri, 27 Jan 2006 17:49:47 GMT

Once my computer arrives in the mail, I'll probably be better.... especially about responding to other people's posts.

So... In the meantime, what's up with me? First off, I'm frustrated in my Medieval Literature class because my teacher continuously insists that things that are not at all factual are true. The worst example has been with our reading of Boethius. For those of you who do not know who Boethius is:

Boethius wrote a book called "The Consolation of Philosophy"
in which he described the way in which Lady Philosophy
comforted him in jail by explaining the ways of Fortune.

Now, my teacher continually insists that Boethius wrote this book while being tortured to death. This is not the case. He was under house arrest in a Roman slum, but he was certainly not being continuously flogged or brutally tortured. He was, after all, still a Roman citizen. In the end he would be killed in an unpleasant fashion, certainly, being throttled violently while his brains were bashed out with a club. But in the meantime, he was sound in body and soul -- something that Lady Philosophy continually points to while reminding him that there are more important things than mere wealth. My teacher, whoever, keeps speaking about his unearthly torture. So finally I raise my hand and ask, "exactly what kind of torture are we talking about here -- isn't he just on house arrest?" She says: "Oh no! The Romans had all sorts of terrible tortures... have you ever seen The Passion?... they weren't making that up..." and proceeds to detail how Nero crucified people all along the highway to Rome. Now, Boethius wasn't in the time of Nero or of the great gladiator circuses. This was well after the time of Constantine. That flaw aside -- she's actually suggesting that this piece of philosophical literature, composed in a comic form, was written while he was being flogged like in The Passion? Even that movie wasn't accurate to the original texts -- let along to general Roman treatment of their own citizens. Alas.

In other news, I am writing the poetic version of my trip into hell. (Aka Marianna) Stay tuned.

M-

When fish grow wings....

Wed, 11 Jan 2006 19:47:30 GMT

On campus there is a beautiful little lily pond along a back trail. It's a small, man-made thing, constructed of gray slate, with a fountain at the head. Usually there are a few lotus flowers and a school of brightly colored carp. The whole affair is overshadowed by a polished granite monument on which are carved the words: "your lost friends are not dead, but gone before, advanced a stage or two upon that road which you must travel in the steps they trod. -Aristophanes-"

I like this spot. I would go there to sit and study. The fish were wise and beautiful. The largest was surely half a dozen years old, huge, mottled and whiskered. The smallest were silver and darted about like lost thoughts, while the others floated placidly in gold and brown circles. I once read the Bacchae aloud to this little school, and they would surface to my fingers when I sat still long enough.

Today, having a few moments of time free, I whisked myself away to this little pond with every intention of reading Tolkien's translation of Sir Orfeo to the fish. However, to my immediate confusion, I found that they were all gone. But why? They had been left in the fountain at the coldest part of winter, so surely now that spring is coming they would not suddenly be removed to warmer climates by an unknown caretaker.

Then I looked up.

A stately blue heron stood silently on the lawn, less than four feet from the pool, watching me. It was very beautiful, with feathers the color of overcast skies reflected in water, a gold-tinted beak, and a rustling mane of feathers that blew in the breeze. It stood quite perfectly still, watching me, waiting for me to understand.

"Did you eat all my fish?" I asked it, quite out-loud and quite thunderstruck. It tilted its head slightly, perhaps taken aback by my rage. I waited for a moment, and it waited, as I considered my feelings. I could see, in my minds eye, how easy it must have been to catch up all of the pretty imported goldfish with their Asian-bright colors. The lilies are all dead, and the pond is devoid of natural hiding places. I was suddenly as angry with the pond makers as with the bird, for their blind stubbornness in constantly scooping out all the fallen leaves and designing such as smooth and hidingplace-less home.

Classes let out. People came trolloping by on the path, and a handful of girls went ooh and aah over the bird. "It ate all the fish!" I announced to them, quite unreasonably. They hurried along.

Where the bird had walked across the slate pond border, it left a strange design of criss-crossing watermark prints. It looked vaguely like some unknown cuneiform, and I instantly understood the old Egyptian idea that Thoth, the ibis headed bird, was intimately connected both with literature and with death. "It's all right," I told the bird. "You are very beautiful."

So I went to the bench, some ways back from the pool, and sat watching. The bird was now absolutely certain I was talking to it, and I have my suspicions that the well mannered beast recognized the intensity of my emotions towards it. It tucked its long neck down, nestling its skull against its chest, and with exquisite slowness walked back to the pool. It would take a step, and then stop, hesitate in thought for minutes on end, and then take another step, until at last it stood right at the pool's edge, looking down soberly into the quite-empty water. It cast a strange crooked shadow on the monument behind it, quite unnaturally for the lighting, for where its shadow fell across the water, the sunlight did not reflect up onto the glossy black surface -- thus the shadow came not from the bird but from the pool itself.

I considered, then, that I did not agree with the quote. My friends were not gone ahead along the same road I would walk. No twist of fate will have me eaten by a heron -- when I die my bones and skin will not dissolve and reform themselves as the sinewy wings of a waterbird. Perhaps, if I have my fondest wish, some vulture or crow will eat me, or some yellow butterfly lay eggs in my eye sockets -- but I certainly will not become a heron, even then. The fish are gone, and try as I might I cannot imagine their golden souls still swimming quite undetected in that pool.

When it has been a long time between deaths, I find it easy to imagine an afterlife. Nonetheless, evey time I actually see a creature dying before me, and watch as the body is eaten or decays, I find once again this discomfitting surety that immortality is not some heavenly abode or even some easy reincarnation as the soul is poured, water like, from one vessel to another. Reincarnation, I think to myself, is this simple -- the fish dies and is reborn as a heron. The heron dies and is reborn as little scavenging fish and perhaps as bull-rushes feeding from its carcass. Once again the little fish die, becoming turtles or ducks, or perhaps herons again. Today my friend Amadeus is a flock of vultures and crows wheeling in circles over the decimated sandpits of Marianna, and perhaps some part of him is yellow butterflies and bluegreen dragonflies, and certain some part of him is still with me (in the most literal way) . . . but that is all.

How I detest embalming and hermetically sealed coffins! What kind of afterlife is that?

Sheepishly wondering....

Tue, 13 Dec 2005 18:36:30 GMT

....why I over-reacted.

My astronomy thing is being worked out. The 1% was for something else (being there on Thanksgiving eve when no one else was) . . . and I'm going to get an *additional* 5% for the website. Which, all things considered, makes me feel much better.

I think I should sleep.

Astronomy Bullshit!

Tue, 13 Dec 2005 16:48:20 GMT

I am indescribably upset.

I stayed up all night working on this frigging website for my astronomy class because it's worth 5% of the final grade in extra credit. Because I put so much time and effort into it, I fucking didn't have enough time to actually study FOR the final test.... but I was like, that's okay, because I can't be sure an extra 6 hours studying will do me much better on a test that's 35% of my grade than an for-sure 5% . . . . I even cleared the subject with him ahead of time.

So I send in the website, and he writes back and he's like "that nice! I'll give you 5%" . . . great, right???

Not great, because then I go check my final grade in the class and he's only given me ONE % extra for the frigging took-me-eight-hours website.

That makes the difference between havign 90% in the class, which I'd be happy with (that should be an A-) . . . and having 86% in the class, which is just a B. This is a whole letter grade issue, and I feel really dicked over. My gpa is really important to me, I want to get into grad-school. So I'm pretty fucking pissed off right now.

I wrote him a super polite letter askign if it was a clerical error because he'd TOLD me I'd get 5% on it.... if he fixes it, fine. I'll make a nice post abot him. But as it is I'm pretty damn mad. If I don't hear back from him by tomorrow I'm going to hunt him down and talk to him in person.

Damn--- I'm so mad I can hardly think straight. I feel like my stomach is about to turn inside out..... I think this just puts the cap on a horrible week. First, Zak's computer ate a third of my massive Seth paper (10 pages!) and so I had to Saturday (when I planned to study astronomy) and redo that. THEN, I had to do all this fucking work on the astronomy website, which should have taken me like two hours, on a computer so slow that it took eight.... AND I had to do all the research for it by myself even though I'd been promised help. . . . and THEN I was so tired that I couldn't think straight on my Astronomy test and it had all these questions that weren't discussed anywhere in the notes or on the class website (I ended up with 83%) . . . and THEN I was so far behind that I couldn't take enough time to study for my Latin test,... and then when I went to take it over half the stuff I'd studied wasn't ON the test, and a whole bunch of words she'd specifically said WOULDN'T be on the test (and therefore I hadn't studied) WERE in fact on the test . . . . and NOW this???? MFSOtDVM!

Mythunderstandings (part 1)

Fri, 09 Dec 2005 18:51:56 GMT

This is a summary of the first part of a paper I'm turning into my Greece and Egypt class. If for some reason you find it inspiring and want to read the whole thing, write to me and I'll send it out.

"...You can't kill what's already dead..."

The common repetition of the Egyptian Osiris myth states that he was a vegetation god who was killed by his jealous brother Seth, embalmed by Isis and Anubis (and/or possible Thoth), and resurrected in the underworld as lord of the dead. This is the myth as we have inherited it from the Roman writer Plutarch.

However, contrary to popular belief, it is not the myth as we have inherited it from the Egyptian primary texts. Plutarch gives us the very first written account of the whole myth in narrative form, and his story-telling is very suspect. Plutarch claims that both Isis and Osiris were originally Greek deities; hence he synthesizes them both very strongly with Demeter and Dionysus, even transplanting some the most famous elements of the Demeter-Persephone myth into the Isis myth. Moreover, he has an obvious philosophical agenda in the text. He appears to be using the basic Egyptian elements as an allegory for Platonic dualism. However, since his account is the oldest and because it seems to be the only one that makes narrative sense, it has been widely adopted by everyone as the framework that should be used to interpret Egyptian references to Osiris, Isis, and Seth.

However, Plutarch introduces a huge number of elements into the myth that are never attested to in Egyptian sources. He also deletes a number of elements that are very clearly attested to in Egyptian sources (such as the homosexual relationship between Seth and Horus that resulted in the (re?)birth of Thoth, and the moment when Horus attacks and beheads his own mother when she refuses to help him kill Seth)

Never, in any Egyptian artwork or text is the death of Osiris portrayed. Many Egyptologists believe that this is because showing the death of the god would be taboo. What makes strikingly less sense is that it is also impossible to find a good, ancient source that portrays Osiris being alive. There is no reasonable explanation for a ritual avoidance of portraying the God alive. In all other Dying-God styled myths (Dionysus, Adonis, Jesus, etc) the God is usually portrayed either alive or in the process of dying, with a minimal amount of portrayal dedicated to the dead god. Hence Plutarch may have borrowed these elements in an attempt to flesh-out the Osiris myth. Yet in ancient Egyptian sources for the Osiris myth, we never see him alive.

Like other dying gods, Osiris is associated with vegetation. However, other dying-and-reborn gods have a life cycle associated with the life cycle of plants. They die to represent the harvest and they are reborn to represent the new life springing from the seeds. This is decidedly not the normal portrayal of Osiris (though the rebirth of plants was linked metaphorically to his reawakening in the underworld, it was not represented as a physical rebirth). On the contrary, Osiris was said to cause the earth to be fertile by virtue of his bodily fluids. The original texts suggest that when Osiris was being embalmed, the outpouring of blood and other fluids --referred to as an efflux-- was the cause of the inundation of the Nile. Osiris was able to cause the plants to rise from the underworld precisely because he was dead, and not because he was alive.

"...several gods [are] protecting the dead body of Osiris and its efflux [bodily fluids] until the present day, thus performing an eternal embalming rite...the liquids emanating from Osiris' corpse, [are] apparently functioning in their will-known role of the Inundation of the Nile, [and have] caused an abundant growth of barley and emmer. . . Anubis brings forth the Inundation...which... is equated with the efflux from the body of Osiris, which is embalmed under the responsibility of Anubis... Creating the fertility of the land is symbolically translated into the mummification of Osiris."
----Willems, Harco. “Anubis as Judge” Egyptian Religion the Last Thousand Years, vol 1. Clarysse et al. (eds) Uitgeverij Peeters en Department Ooster Studies: Leuven, 1998. pg. 731----

If one is willing to abandon the heavily-biased ideas of Plutarch and consider just the original evidence, a striking new possibility arises. Osiris may never have been alive. Like the Norse Goddess Hel, Osiris may have been born already dead. This would easily explain his portrayal in the Egyptian myths, and would further-more explain certain other elements of Egyptian afterlife theology. In the Egyptian texts, those who die and go into the underworld become Osiris. The sun itself becomes Osiris when it descends into the Underworld. Ra is said to be Khepri in the morning, Atum at noon, and Ra in the evening -- and then to become Ra-Osiris at night in the underworld. As in English we say "The former Mr. Doe" to denote in writing that Mr. Doe is dead, if the Egyptian practice had persisted it might be written "Mr. Doe-Osiris." Osiris seems to be the personification, as it were, of the state of being dead. If that is his intrinisic nature, how could he ever have been alive?

There appears to be one major flaw in this theory. If Osiris was never alive, how did Seth kill him? The answer is remarkable simple. Seth didn't kill Osiris: the crime which Seth committed against Osiris was not murder, but something else.

Yesterday I read through the entire Book of the Dead, as translated by Raymond Faulkner (he's a much more readable, accurate, and modern translator than Budge. I highly recommend his work). In the majority of instances where Osiris is said to be "vindicated" against Seth, it is in the context of the Contendings of Horus and Seth. Now, in the original Horus and Seth myth, which you can read here, the two Rivals were not fighting because Seth killed Horus' father but because Seth did not want Horus to have the throne of Egypt (which was Osiris' by right of his being the firstborn son). Seth believed that as the stronger deity and second son, he should rule. In fact, Ra agreed, and throughout the text argues that Horus is too weak to rule Egypt. Eventually, the gods ask Osiris his opinion. Osiris never responds by saying "Seth killed me, therefore I think he should not have the throne." Instead, he argues that the throne should go to Horus because Horus is his son. When Ra still disagrees, Osiris threatens to send his "savage-faced messengers ...[to] fetch the heart..." of anyone who opposes his will in this matter. At last, Seth relents and gives the throne to Horus. In order to recompense Seth for his lost kingdom, Ra says that he "may dwell with me, being in my company as a son, and he shall thunder in the sky and be feared." In the Book of the Dead, Osiris is consistently vindicated against Seth not by punishing Seth for killing him (as Plutarch would suggest), but by having his own son Horus take the throne of Egypt.

There are, however, still troubling accounts in the old Egyptian of Seth having committed some terrible crime against Osiris. However, a closer analysis shows that his crime was that of mutilating the corpse, preserved in Plutarch's story as the idea that after Osiris' death Seth cut him up into 14 pieces. Osiris is re-assured that he will not die (a second time?) by Seth's knife and that he will regain all his limbs, and Seth will be restrained. Nonetheless, all the dead are said to fear the mutilations of Seth. This does not imply, however, that Seth killed Osiris -- only that he did terrible things to the corpse.

My next Mythunderstanding post will deal with that remaining question: What did Seth do to Osiris' body... and why?...and why didn't anyone stop him?

Dear, dear, deor...

Wed, 07 Dec 2005 20:26:53 GMT

So there's this poem in Old English, Deor. It's supposed to be very serious. In it, a poet sings about all the terrible things that have happened to people in his songs, and at the end laments that he himself has now had terrible things happen to him -- he's lost his job.

Ok, actually, it's pretty funny. You can read the Old English and a literal translation here.

So I decided in translating it to (A) try to keep as much of the poetic rhythm and alliteration as possible, and (B) to point out how funny it was. As you can see, it starts out very serious and then just keep getting odder... Hope you enjoy:

Weland was serpant wound*, with persecution experienced
a single-minded man these miseries suffered
he took to his side sorrow and longing
winter cold suffering, misfortunes oft-found
after Nithad in fetters had laid him
supple sinew bonds on an innocent man.
Yet that passed away and this may too.

To Beadohilde was not her brother's death
as hard on her heart as her own hardship?
When she clearly considered
that she was knocked up -- no never might she
confidently think about that as she ought.*
Yet that passed away and this may too.

We the moaning of Maethilde heard
when the embraces of Geates became boundless
and that sad love of all sleep deprived her
Yet that passed away and this may too.

Theodric ruled thirty winters,
In Maeringaburn, as many have known
Yet that passed away and this may too.

We have learned of Eormanric's,
wolfish mind. He widely ruled men
in the gothic kingdom -- that was a cruel king!
Many retainers by grief remained fettered
in waiting for sorrow wished surely
that the kingdom were overcome.
Yet that passed away and this may too.

A man sits sorrowing, severed from joys,
the soul it grows dark, to himself it seems
that endless is his share of suffering
I can then think that throughout this world
the wise lord works constant change
to many a man mercy shows,
a certain success, to some deals woe.

For myself I will say
that while for a time I was a poet
dear to the master and Deor I was named
many years I passed in a position so good
with a loyal headman until Horant now came,
that lute-skilled "hero," the lands recieved
that the protector of Earls previously granted to me!
... and that passed away and this may too.

*this line is obscure in the orig.

Ok-- last day for my Myth E&W class... I'd better skeedadle.

Translations and a predicament

Thu, 01 Dec 2005 19:53:57 GMT

First... I have managed to translate my first stanza of Old English Poetry! I'm so glad we moved into the poetry... I prefer it to the prose.

This is from "the Dream of the Rood", in which the poet dreams he sees the cross, gilded with gold and stretched across the sky... (and, of course, talking to him).

The original:

Hwæt! Ic swefna cyst		secgan wylle,
hwæt me gemætte		to midre nihte,
syðþan reordberend		reste wunedon!
þuhte me þæt ic gesawe		syllicre treow
on lyft lædan,		leohte bewunden,
beama beorhtost.		Eall þæt beacen wæs
begoten mid golde.		Gimmas stodon
fægere æt foldan sceatum,		swylce þær fife wæron
uppe on þam eaxlegespanne.		Beheoldon þær engel dryhtnes ealle,
fægere þurh forðgesceaft.		.......(etc)....

My translation so far:

Behold! I will chant		the chosen dream
What I dreamed		at darkest night
When the bearers of voices		had bedded down
it seemed to me I saw		a stunning tree
skyward lifted		by light wrapped round
in brightest beams		All that beacon was
drenched with gold		Gems appeared
beautiful at the earth's corners		and above the crossbeams
there were five besides		All beheld that angel of the Lord
beautiful by divine decree		.....(etc)....

Now, I'm very happy with this so far. It sticks much closer to the meaning and meter that most of the translations of this poem that I've read. (compare here) The problem is that I'm not sure if I should continue to translate it like this. I *think* the teacher intends for us to give him a literal translation. Which would be: What! I the choicest dream will tell / what dreamed to me at most-middle night / when the voice-bearers occupied their resting places / [it] seemed to me that I saw a most wonderous tree / borne up into the sky with light wrapped round / of beams brightest. All that beacon was / drenched with gold. Gems appeared / at the surfaces of the earth (alt. the corners...) : likewise there were five / above on the shoulder-link (alt. cross-beam). Beheld the angel of the Lord all / beautiful by preordination (alt. eternal decree)

So the question is -- which way do I translate it? The poetic way is MUCH more satisfying, but takes MUCH longer and is not 100% accurate to the text. And this is just to be read in class when called on... and the whole poem is 155 lines long. I've only done 10 lines here, and it took me about 45 minutes poetically and maybe 15 otherwise. So I'm thinking... do I want to spend 12 hours on this, or four? But if I spend the 12, then I come out of it with something I'm really proud of ... a good translation of one of the greatest Anglo-Saxon poems. hmmmm... To make matters worse, the next half line is literally "[this] was not the criminal's gallows / but the holy spirits behold Him there / men across the earth and all god's glorious creation. / wonderful was the victory-tree and I by sins stained, badly wounded with faults." And I just am not sure how to get the last line "Beautiful by divine decree" to mesh alliteratively and naturally with "This was not the criminal's cross"

do you all think that CRiminal alliterates sufficiently with deCRee? (I could say "beautiful by divine decree.... no criminal's gallows now..." )

it still seems increasingly hard from here.

Wed, 30 Nov 2005 13:44:31 GMT

I decided to paste in my Spring class schedule here, partly so that Moco will always know how to figure out where I am. Anyone else who wants to stalk me should be able to use this to do so too. :/

You know, I am so tired right now. I'm supposed to be pumping out an SNR paper about Batman and Gilgamesh, but I can't think of the first thing to say.

Well, here's the schedule:

Title	Building	Room	Days	Begin	End	Hours
BEGINNING LATIN II	PSY	0326	MTWR	12:20 PM	01:10 PM	4
MYTH IN GREEK ART	DOD	0205I	T R	03:35 PM	04:50 PM	3
INTRO TO ARCHAEOLOGY	BEL	0102	T R	11:00 AM	12:15 PM	3
INTRO ARCHAEOLGY LAB	L52	0127	W	10:00 AM	10:50 AM	1
MEDIEVAL LITERATURE	WMS	0317	R	06:45 PM	09:30 PM	3
WEB:Homer to Gothic	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	3
WEB:RENAIS/ELIGHTMT	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	3

7 courses totaling 20 hours -- eek!

Unbefore the Sale

Tue, 29 Nov 2005 19:32:32 GMT

Why is live-journal putting a big gap here?
<td align="right">Stains on the window <td width="8"><td> Mudgirl pulls her

Unbefore the Sale
self a cross		that porcelain floor
the eyes of the house		darken and web-burn
God-spiders and leaves		Orb of the Goldmarked
warp and weave		and the wind blows in
dust-gathering dreams		forks and knives
in the sink and sunken		she crawls the wall
in drip-line stains		the roof sags down
Kudzu comes		as Porchvine-provider
roots in the cracks		he widens the shims
the plaster falls		to his pulse to his fingers
to his faith and folding		roots in her body –Mudgirl
pulls herself		a cross the lightbars
the eyes of the house		clothed with leaves
The walls hold still		and the vines grow
She crawls and curls by		moldering concrete
The floor dustblown		in the leafstrewn dark
water beetles		emerge their mating
unheard the rush		the road goes by.

I'm not sure I'm happy with it yet -- but there you go. The rule is: two accented syllables per half-line... ideally the first stressed syllables in the second half alliterates with either stressed syllable in the first half. An ideal verse: "Mudgirl comes crawling the road" I haven't followed this rule exactly here, so I may do some editting. I did better with "Pitbull becomes Prometheus" ... which I'll post latter. This is partly because I allowed myself to alliterate either the two half-lines lines going horizontally OR the two half-lines going vertically. (the poem can be read in columns or in lines) ... so we have "STAINS on the window SELF a cross" and "Mudgirl PULLS her that PORCELAIN floor" . . . I haven't decided how I want to work this amibiguity of line-order in with the alliteration rule yet. Once I figure that out, everything should fall into place.

Also, I couldn't quite get the last 5 lines to come out right-- no matter where I tried stopping it... the poem seems to have wanted to be very long (an epic tale of dissolution, eh?). But the longer it got, I feared the more incomprehensive it would become.

My computer is broken.

Wed, 23 Nov 2005 14:20:52 GMT

I love my computer... I deeply, truly, love my computer. His name is Gothmog, though he hasn't been quite himself since they replaced his old hard drive.

It's a fickle relationship, to be sure... I have a sort of serial monogamy issue here; my computer is my closest confidante until the new model comes along. heh. What a shallow bitch. (me, not Gothmog)

Of course, I suppose I have to be in the dating game at some point. I've been startlingly loyal to my girl and my Dar, so I must have some outlet for my naturally coldhearted self. Which means that soon I'll probably be looking into one of those shiny new apples.

In the meantime, I miss my computer. I miss him very, very much... his motherboard is malfunctional. Things I miss most about my computer:

1) I can't do art. I was in the middle of an awesome piece on IO (re: greek myth, not the star) when he crashed... and it's gone!

2) I can't work on my papers.

3) I can't play SIMS!!!! :(

4) I can't read my nifty bumper stickers.

5) I can't get him back until Zack takes initiative to call the repair guy. :( (ie-- when hell freezes over)

Oh well.

Helen was in Africa when the UN inspectors came . . .

Tue, 22 Nov 2005 19:59:40 GMT

Ideally, I would go do my homework now. However, I jsut can't wrap my head around it endless Anglo-Saxon parsing right now.

So.....

Let's talk about Troy.

It so happens that I started this post in one of the prior posts (about King Aelfred) which never made it to the blog. So whenever we finally get that up, you can refer back to it.

Meanwhile, students of the Trojan myth will be interested to know that the story does not end with the sack of Troy -- not even for the Trojans. For the Greeks, of course, the battle of Troy became the starting place for a new brand of nationalism which they had never known before. The memory of the Trojan war sustained them through the wars with Persia and inspired them during the age of Alexander.

Some, no doubt, rebuilt. The historical city of Troy was in fact destroyed and rebuilt several times. However, they could not rebuild fast enough or well enough to maintain their previous role in the region. The fall of Troy has been directly linked by many scholars to the fall of the Hittite Empire which depended on Troy to maintain one of its borders. Indirectly, the fall of Troy is symptomatic of the great collapse of the great civilizations of the Bronze age. The "sea peoples" over-ran Egypt during this time period too. Though some scholars have said that the sea peoples may have been the Greeks themselves (and that the legend of Troy hence represents just one among their many predatory actions in the region), if Virgil's latter insinuations are to be believed, one might guess that the sea peoples were the Trojans themselves, fleeing the remains of their city.

Which brings us directly to Virgil. Most of the great Trojan war stories come to us from the Greek perspective and representing the Greeks as the heroes. That they are the aggressors and that they destroyed a great center of culture is a perspective only generally glossed in a few tragedies. (Euripides, for example, liked talking about the underdog in any given situation. I find a kindred spirit in his tendency to try to humanize the "enemy"... be that the Trojan Women or Medea) This would all change with the Romans.

According to Virgil's epic, The Aeneid, after the fall of Troy a band of refugees make their way from the ruined city to Italy. There they found a culture that will someday be the Romans. So it is that Troy is directly linked with Rome, and the idea that the Romans were --in fact-- the Trojans reborn was persistently held through-out the days of the Empire. Virgil's story of this Trojan exodus is remarkably similar to the Hebrew account of their own Exodus from Egypt -- complete with the divine gift of a promised land (Italy or Palestine) and the brutal driving out of those who came before.

In this tale, Aeneas is directed by Jove to turn his back on the woman who has loved, married, and supported him (Dido of Carthage), and to take his people to Italy. Dido kills herself from the grief and dishonor of this abandonment. Once Aeneas arrives in Italy, he engages the natives in battle and siezes control of the land by force. Dr. Ian Rutherford (my much-esteemed Classics Prof. who teaches both my myth class and my Greece-Egypt class) pointed out that at this moment the Trojan have, in effect, become the Greeks. They are no longer the people of the city, but they are now the invaders who besiege the city.

I would add that they are no longer the ones fighting for love, but for power and pride; a fact made blatantly clear by Aeneas' rejection of Dido. Though Venus/Aphrodite is still on their side, it is now not in her role as a goddess of love that she is reverred, but in her role as the mother of Aeneas who wishes him to have power. In effect, she is a mother goddess to the Romans and plays just the role that Hera played to the Homeric Greeks.

In case the future role of the Romans as conquerers was not clear enough, Aeneas journeys into the underworld NOT for love (like Orpheus) or for guidance (like Odysseus) but for the chance at seeign a vision of the "glorious" future of the Roman Empire victorious.

From that time forward, the Trojans became not the conquered but the conquerers. This is not an account restrained only to the Roman world, however. Other cultures also recount that their ancestors were Trojan -- specifically, the Northern people who became known as the Vikings. If anything, their claim to Trojan ancestry was even more reputable than the Roman claim. Scandinavian and Irish national myths both suggest that after the fall of Troy refugees fled North by land and sea, carrying with them their beliefs and their cultural memories. If anyone is interested, I have read a number of sources recently which gave a thorough analysis of the similarities between reconstructed Trojan beliefs (specifically those dealing with the storm god) and the Norse beliefs. As we all know, the Vikings too were conquerers and "sea people" whose influence spread from Russia to Ireland to Byzantine.

In short, many Germanic tribes claim direct descent from Troy, as does the Roman empire. This fact was actually somewhat influential during the early church era and into the middle ages. "After the fall of the Roman Empire, the concept of a world-state was appropriated by the medieval Church, which ruled from the same center, Rome, and laid claim to a spiritual authority as great as the secular authority it succeeded." It is not surprising that when Rome fell to the Germanic tribes what emerged (after years of conflict and conversion) was neither quite Roman nor quite Germanic.... the German "First Reich" was also known as the "Holy Roman Empire."

Of course, the first reich gave way to the second reich and to the third.... I was also reading, a couple days ago, about how the mystics of Nazi Germany (for lack of a better term for them) spoke effluvently about the importance of Wotan -the-storm-God... who is, of course, one and the same as Jove-the-Storm-God... and who national myths of both Rome and Germany equat with the Trojan deity and with the power of their military culture. One might even be tempted to talk about Troy as the proto-Reich... the city that was destroyed so that from its ashes the great empires could arise.

Which is not to say that the New Troy is the Third Reich. For the New Troy is ever bit as much America as it is Germany. When America was founded by "refugees" (as it were) from the Old World, it was idealized as a new "Republic." The design of our government (with a "senate" modeled after Rome) and the use of an Americanized "Imperial Eagle" (http://www.greatseal.com/symbols/eagle.html) make it obvious that this is no Platonic reference! We were going to be Rome-done-right, as it were... we were going to be Rome as it might have been....

Of course, we started by making the same moves that Aeneas did... we subjugated the natives... and of course it seems increasingly clear that we are headed in the same direction as the Roman Republic -- we are moving towards decadence, dictatorship, and Empire.

Nonetheless, America is the new Troy.

This Troy, it will not fall again... but that doesn't mean it's not going to become a tyrant-state bullying the rest of the known world into some "Pax Troiana" ...

There's a problem with this, of course. I've always tended to be more on the side of the Trojans than the Greeks... and I must say, I'm also more on the side of the Natives than the Colonists. (That goes for the Iroquois and Navajo against the settles, for the Celts against the Romans and the Anglo-Saxons, the Aborigines against the English, and so on ad nauseum. Not so sure about the Anglo-Saxons vs. the Vikings or the Romans vs. the Visigoths--it gets more confusing after too many conquestes) So at which point in the story do we switch allegiances?

A similar problem is presented with the story of the holocaust. I feel a deep appreciation for the victims of the Third Reich... Deep down, I feel they had a right to fight for their freedom, and I appreciate the bravery of those that survived. However, I also have a problem with the sort of neo-colonial bullshit that goes on in occupied Palestine and the way in which the Jewish refugees from Germany (much like the refugees from Troy) found a "new world" which was already occupied and then gained control of it through terrorism, and held that control through . (What? Jewish Terrorism? read: Terror Out of Zion: The Fight for Israeli Independence, if you're interested. It's a pro-Jewish book) At what point do I switch allegiances? And what are the costs of doing so?

When you watch Trigun, my friends, do you cheer for Vash or for Knives?

The answer, so far as I can tell, is this: Don't form allegiances at all, but appreciate each story for itself.

Or, as my *OTHER* myth teacher says:
A hero is defined by how good he is
at hurting his enemies
and helping his friends.

In Hector's Memory (still writing)
M-

PS-- about the title of this blog.
According to some ancient sources, Helen was not actually in Troy at all. These sources suggest that she spent the entirety of the the Trojan war nestled away in Africa. The Trojans tried to explain this to the Greeks, who refused to believe them and persisted on fighting this increasingly senseless and destructive war in her name. In the end, after looting Troy, the Greeks discovered that the Trojans had, in fact, been telling the truth. Helen was not there. However, the downfall of Troy nonetheless led to the rise of Rome.

When I first heard this variant of the myth, I was struck by its similarity to the present situation in Iraq. I remember, right before the war started, talking to a friend in Tallahassee about the coming hostilities. I told him that I felt sorry for the Iraqis -- because there was going to be a war regardless of whether they were a warlike or a peaceful people. If they were warlike, then they would never reveal their weapons and there would be a war. But if they were peaceful then they would have already disposed of the weapons long ago when we first told them to do so -- and so now, when we asked to be SHOWN the weapons, they would not be able to produce them for our inspection. Sure enough, the war happened, and as it turned out Iraq did NOT have these weapons of mass destruction or any ability to sustain prolonged military combat. (Incidentally, my friend was very Greek in his outlook, and said that he was sure they had the weapons, and even if they did not, Agammembush certainly must have a good reason to want the war)

So... neither Troy nor Iraq produced its contraband, and both were doomed from the moment that someone showed up on their doorstep demanding to see proof that they had desired war in the first place. For Helen (And apparently those fabled WMD) was bound to be in Africa if the city wanted to avoid a fight.

Unfortunately...

Fri, 18 Nov 2005 20:21:26 GMT

I was promised flying cars. Why are there no flying cars????

She said that when I startd my journal, she would type for me. I can't be bothered to type for myelf. So my three readers (three is a good number) have not had any more posts.

The journal in my head, however, has been very eventful.

Posts you have missed because she did not type for me:

(1) A new theory on Mars and Fairies
(2) A detailed discussion of Sethian sexuality
(3) Pandora & Eve
(4) Allegorizing the Iliad Gods
(5) Zombies in classical literature
(6) Seth as the Embalmer of Osirus
(7) The Crucifixion of Odin and the importance of Loki.

So write to Moco and complain!