Icarus

In Canberra over the holidays I came across this sculpture, inspired by Daedalus and Icarus. The photo doesn't really do it justice, but I thought I'd share it anyway.

Eucalyptus

I recently finished reading Eucalyptus, by Murray Bail. It's quite a slow-moving story, but I found it very captivating. On the surface the book is about a father who decides that the man who correctly names every eucalypt on his property will win the hand of his daughter, but it turns into a series of loosely connected stories suggested by the scientific  (i.e. Latin or Greek) names of the various eucalypts.

It reminded me a lot of Ovid's Metamorphoses, which likewise is a loosely connected series of myths, and at some points the resemblence goes even deeper. Have a look at the following passages and see if they remind you of some of the myths you might find in Ovid:

On flying to close to the sun...

Daedalus and Icarus as you've never seen them before.

You can find the original comic here; thanks to Sarah for bringing it to my attention.

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Metamorphosis

I've just started reading An Imaginary Life by David Malouf- a short novel, told from the perspective of the Roman poet Ovid, in exile at Tomis on the Black Sea.

I was struck by this passage I read on my way to school the other day:

...the stone sleeping in the sun has once been molten fire and became stone when the fire was able to say, in its liquid form: "I would be solid, I would be stone"; and the stone dreams now that the veins of ore in its nature might become liquid again and move , but within its shape as stone, so that slowly, through long centuries of aching for such a condition, for softness, for a pulse, it feels one day that the transformation has begun to occur; the veins loosen and flow, the clay relaxes, the stone, through long ages of imagining some further life, discovers eyes, a mouth, legs to leap with, and is toad.

Vivid descriptions of transformations are of course one of Ovid's strengths. Here are two of my favourites- the statue Galatea, crafted by Pygmalion, coming alive, and Daphne, pursued by Apollo, becoming a laurel tree:

vix prece finita torpor gravis occupat artus,
mollia cinguntur tenui praecordia libro,
in frondem crines, in ramos bracchia crescunt,
pes modo tam velox pigris radicibus haeret,
ora cacumen habet: remanet nitor unus in illa.
Hanc quoque Phoebus amat positaque in stipite dextra
sentit adhuc trepidare novo sub cortice pectus
complexusque suis ramos ut membra lacertis
oscula dat ligno; refugit tamen oscula lignum.

Scarcely had Daphne finished her prayer, when a heavy slowness seized her limbs, her soft breast is embraced by thin bark, her hair grows into leaves, her arms into branches, her feet, just now so speedy, stick fast with sluggish roots, the canopy hides her face: only her shining beauty remains unchanged. Apollo loves her still, and placing his right hand on her trunk, he feels her heart still trembling beneath the new bark, and he embraces her branches with his arms, as if they were really limbs, and kisses her woody trunk; yet even as a tree she shrinks from his kisses!

(Metamorphoses I.548-556)

ut rediit, simulacra suae petit ille puellae

incumbensque toro dedit oscula: visa tepere est;

admovet os iterum, manibus quoque pectora temptat:

temptatum mollescit ebur positoque rigore

subsidit digitis ceditque, ut Hymettia sole

cera remollescit tractataque pollice multas

flectitur in facies ipsoque fit utilis usu.

dum stupet et dubie gaudet fallique veretur,

rursus amans rursusque manu sua vota retractat.

corpus erat! saliunt temptatae pollice venae.

When Pygmalion returned, he made for the statue of his girl and, lying on the couch, began to kiss her: she seemed to be warm; again he brings his mouth near, and he also tries her breasts with his hands: the ivory softens as it is touched and having lost its hardness gives way beneath his fingers and yields, just as Hymettian wax softens in the sun and, kneaded by the thumb, is moulded into many shapes, and becomes usable by being used. While he gapes in amazement and doubtfully rejoices and fears that he is deceived, the lover strokes the answer to his prayer again and again with his hand. She was flesh! As he touches them, the veins throb beneath his thumb.

(Metamorphoses X.280-289)

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Warren Buffet, Horace and Ovid

I was reading something a couple of weeks ago (though I can't for the life of me remember what), and came across a quote from Warren Buffet (currently the world's richest person) that stuck in my head. He said something along the lines of that he had made so much money by being cautious when everyone else is greedy, and by being greedy when everyone else is cautious. Good on him.

A few days later I happened to be reading a Horace poem which contains a similar idea:

auream quisquis mediocritatem
diligit, tutus caret obsoletis
ordibus tecti, caret invidenda
sobrius aula.

saepius ventis agitatur ingens
pinus et celsae graviore casu
decidunt turres feriuntque summos
fulgura montis.

sperat infestis, metuit secundis
alteram sortem bene praeparatum
pectus.

Whoever cherishes the golden middle-way
will safely avoid the squalor of the slums
and will soberly avoid the palace
which brings only jealousy.

Often a huge pine tree is uprooted by the winds,
and tall towers fall with more serious
consequences, and lightning strikes
the highest mountains.

When times are tough, the well prepared heart
hopes for a change of fate, and, when they are favourable,
fears it.

(Horace, Odes II.10)

The idea of the 'golden middle-way' (auream... mediocritatem) was particularly dear to the Romans (especially Stoics), who took the story of Daedalus and Icarus as a kind of parable on the dangers of excess:

instruit et natum 'medio' que 'ut limite curras,
Icare,' ait 'moneo, ne, si demissior ibis,
unda gravet pennas, si celsior, ignis adurat...
me duce carpe viam!'

He fitted his son with the wings and said to him 'I warn you, Icarus, to fly on the middle course, so that, if you fly too low, the waves won't weigh down your wings, nor, if you fly too high, will the sun's fire burn them... With me as your leader, take to the sky!

(Ovid, Metamorphoses VIII.203ff)

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Theoi

I came across a good-looking site dedicated to Greek Mythology the other day (thanks to rogueclassicum). It's called Theoi (Greek for 'gods') and has lots of good stuff on all kinds of gods, heroes and mythological creatures, beautifully illustrated from ancient pottery, mosaics and statuary. I've added it as a link on the right, and if you click on the links below you can check out some of the more interesting articles for yourself.

• Hera (also known as Juno)
• Heracles (aka Hercules)
• Nike (goddess of victory)
• Hygeia (goddess of hygeine)
• Hippocampi (half horse, half fish)

It even has an article on the bizarrely fearsome Hippalektryon - half horse, half chicken.

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Juno

I saw the film Juno the other day, and really enjoyed it. In one part of the movie Juno explains how she got her name:

Juno: My dad had this weird obsession with Roman or Greek mythology or something and he decided to name me after Zeus' wife.

Mark: Zeus' wife?

Juno: Yeah and I mean Zeus had tons of lays but I'm pretty sure Juno was his only wife. And apparently she was supposed to be super beautiful but really mean, like Diana Ross.

The name fits Juno's character well, I think; she's beautiful, but has the potential to be pretty cruel. That's not the only way in which it's an appropriate name though- Juno (Hera in Greek) was also the Roman goddess responsible for childbirth.

In the Aeneid the goddess Juno plays the role of Aeneas' tormentor, opposing him at every turn. Her jealousy is based on her hatred of the Trojans, stemming from Paris' rejection of her in favour of Venus (Aphrodite). At the very beginning of the poem she is described in this way:

cum Iuno, aeternum servans sub pectore vulnus,
haec secum: 'Mene incepto desistere victam,
nec posse Italia Teucrorum avertere regem?
Quippe vetor fatis...
Ast ego, quae divum incedo regina, Iovisque
et soror et coniunx, una cum gente
tot annos bella gero!'

Juno brooded, still nursing the eternal wound deep in her breast: 'Am I to admit defeat and give up my attempt to keep the king of the Trojans away from Italy? So what if the fates do not approve... Here am I, the queen of the gods, the sister of Jupiter and his wife, and I have waged war all these years against a whole race of men!'

At the end of the Aeneid Juno has somewhat of a change of heart. Jupiter convinces her that it is Aeneas' fate to defeat his enemy Turnus and to establish a city whose descendents will one day rule the world, and that not even the gods can change these things. Juno gives in, but asks for a few conditions of her own:

'et nunc cedo equidem pugnasque exosa relinquo.
illud te... obtestor...
ne vetus indigenas nomen mutare Latinos
neu Troas fieri iubeas Teucrosque vocari...
sit Latium, sint Albani per saecula reges,
sit Romana potens Itala virtute propago:
occidit, occideritque sinas cum nomine Troia.'

'And now I give in, and withdraw from these battles which I hate so much. But I entreat you... do not command the Latins to change their ancient name in their own land, to become Trojans and be called Teucrians... Let Latium live on, let there be Alban kings throughout the ages, let the Roman stock be powerful with Italian courage: Troy has died, let its name stay buried.'

And she gets her way; Jupiter replies:

'es germana Iovis Saturnique altera proles, irarum
tantos volvis sub pectore fluctus.
verum age et inceptum frustra summitte furorem:
do quod vis, et me victusque volensque remitto.
sermonem Ausonii patrium moresque tenebunt...
faciamque omnis uno ore Latinos....
nec gens ulla tuos aeque celebrabit honores.'

'You are the sister of Jupiter and the second child of Saturn, such waves of anger do you set rolling deep in your heart. But come now, lay aside this fury that arose in vain. I grant what you wish. I yield. I relent of my own free will. The people of Ausonia will keep the speech of their fathers and their ancient ways... I will make them all Latins, speaking one tongue... and no other race will be their equals in paying you honor.'

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Orpheus Rising

An interesting book review caught my eye the other day, which may be of interest to my year 11 class. The book is called Orpheus Rising- here's part of the review:

Ryan's story is a modern retelling of the Orpheus myth: an artist goes to the underworld to retrieve his beloved lost wife but disobeys the gods by looking back and so loses her forever. In his quest to reconnect with his murdered wife, Ryan becomes a medium who can see and talk to dead people, and convey their messages back to the living...

The whole thing is elaborately crazy but in an entertaining, Irish way.

My year 11 class recently read Virgil's version of the myth from the Georgics. This is how he describes the moment when Orpheus looks back at his wife, following behind him:

...subita incautum dementia cepit amantem,
ignoscenda quidem, scirent si ignoscere manes.
restitit Eurydicenque suam iam luce sub ipsa
immemor heu! victusque animi respexit. Ibi omnis
effusus labor atque immitis rupta tyranni
foedera...

A sudden madness seized the unwary lover, forgiveable indeed, if only the dead knew how to forgive. He stopped and, alas, forgetful of his dear Eurydice, now on the very verge of daylight, conquered in his resolve, he looked back. Then all his work was wasted, and the conditions of the cruel queen were broken...

Virgil, Georgics IV.488-93

It's a sad moment, and Virgil wants us to feel sorry for Orpheus- he portrays him as the passive victim (seized by madness, conquered in his resolve), he repeats himself (ignoscenda, ignoscere) as if to say he understands what Orpheus has done, and he gives us a glimpse of his own feelings when he inserts himself into the story, crying immemor heu (alas, forgetful).

You can watch the story of Orpheus and Eurydice at Winged Sandals, and over at Eternally Cool there are some modern retellings of myths from Ovid's Metamorphoses, such as Apollo and Daphne and Cupid and Psyche.

fusionman

I hope that fusionman has read the story of Daedalus and Icarus in Ovid's metamorphoses, and takes Daedalus' wise advice:

instruit et natum “medio” que “ut limite curras,
Icare,” ait “moneo, ne, si demissior ibis,
unda gravet pennas, si celsior, ignis adurat
inter utrumque vola. nec te spectare Booten
aut Helicen iubeo strictumque Orionis ensem:
me duce carpe viam!”

Daedalus equips his son, and says "Icarus, I warn you to fly by the middle course, so that the waves won't weigh down your wings, if you go too low, and so that the fire of the sun won't burn them, if you fly too high; fly between the two. I order you not to look at the bear-watcher, nor Helike, nor the drawn sword of Orion: take to the sky with me as your leader."

Of course, we all know what happened next:

cum puer audaci coepit gaudere volatu
deseruitque ducem, caelique cupidine tactus
altius egit iter. rapidi vicinia solis
mollit odoratas, pennarum vincula, ceras:
tabuerant cerae; nudos quatit ille lacertos
remigioque carens non ullas percipit auras,
oraque caerulea patrium clamantia nomen
excipiuntur aqua, quae nomen traxit ab illo.

The boy began to revel in his daring flight, and deserted his leader, and touched with a longing for the heavens, he steered his course higher. The nearness of the scorching sun softened the sweet-smelling wax, the bonds of the feathers: the wax melted; he shakes his bare arms, but lacking the power of his wings he cannot catch any air, and his mouth, calling the name of his father, is swallowed up by the dark-blue sea which now bears his name.

[Ovid, Metamorphoses VIII.204-9, 223-30]

Anzac Day

Mytho-poetic vapours… clouded many a mind during the Gallipoli campaign of 1915: in many ways an attempt to liberate the ‘holy land’ of Attica, so dear to the West’s imagination, from the Ottoman scourge. Young hoplites from Britain, France and the dominions were sent into battle against walls of flying metal because this place was still an ideal. When the time came to address his troops before their blooding, the romantically minded Commander-in-Chief of the expeditionary force, General Sir Ian Hamilton, invoked the eternal fame of the Homeric heroes. ‘You will hardly fade away until the sun fades out of the sky and the earth sinks into universal blackness’ he declared, ‘for already you form part of that great tradition of the Dardanelles which began with Hector and Achilles…’

By the time of the Great War, glamorous myth had replaced hard-edged history as another armada sailed for the Hellespont. The Englishman Patrick Shaw-Stewart, combatant and classicist, took an old copy of Herodotus on the boat to Gallipoli. ‘The flower of sentimentality expands childishly in me on classical soil,’ he wrote. ‘It is really delightful to bathe in the Hellespont looking straight over to Troy’...

The much-loved Rupert Brooke, sailing to the Dardanelles- he was to die off Skyros of an untreated mosquito bite two days before the dawn landing of 25 April 1915- also pictured the impending battle in the colours of a glorious past:

They say Achilles in the darkness stirred…
And Priam and his fifty sons
Wake all amazed, and hear the guns,
And shake for Troy again.

The officers and soldiers of the Australian Imperial Force were hardly immune to the resonance of their surroundings. An Australian contingent, pushing out their trenches at Gallipoli, chipped away at the buried remains of an ancient settlement, but there was no time for amateur archaeology and enemy fire propelled them on. Charles Bean, the classically educated war correspondent and official military historian, later kicked at the dirt and uncovered a coin of ancient provenance. The Australians may not have penned war poetry of lasting merit, but their waggish doggerel offers a distinctly ironic counter to the high-toned myth of war:

An then ol’ Joe- ‘e was a well read chap-
Starts tellin’ us about a ten years scrap
They ‘ad in Troy which wasn’t far away
So Joe made out, from where we were that day.
A bloke ‘ad pinched a bonzer tabby, then
‘Er own bloke came to get ‘er back again,
An all ‘is cobbers came to see fair play,
An’ in the end they got ‘er safe away.
But Bill ‘e didn’t think a scrap could start
And last ten years about a blanky tart;
No Jane ‘e’d ever met was worth a brawl.
There must be something else behind it all.

Within a few short years of the homecoming the Anzac experience of blood, mud, and gore had been burnished into the much more brilliant Anzac legend; the hard-bitten Australian digger was openly likened to both the Greek citizen-soldier and the Homeric warrior of myth. For the author of The Trojan War 1915, a member of the Australian Field Ambulance on Gallipoli, the digger was already a reincarnated Greek hero:

Homeric wars are fought again
By men who like old Greeks can die;
Australian backblock heroes slain
With Hector and Achilles lie.

Dating Aphrodite; modern adventures in the ancient world

Luke Slattery, pp 3-8

dies romae natalis

[The forum Romanum from the Palatine hill, where Romulus (supposedly) recieved his favourable omen from the gods]

I'm meant to be on holidays, but I couldn't let such an important date go unremarked. Yesterday Rome celebrated its 2761st birthday. There are some great photos of the celebrations at Rome here, here and here.

April 21st, 753 B.C. is the traditional date for the founding of the city by Romulus and Remus; this is how Livy recounts events:

Ita Numitori Albana re permissa Romulum Remumque cupido cepit in iis locis ubi expositi ubique educati erant urbis condendae...

Romulus and Remus, after the control of Alba had passed to Numitor in the way I have described, were suddenly seized by the desire to found a new settlement on the spot where they had been exposed and subsequently brought up...

Intervenit deinde his cogitationibus avitum malum, regni cupido, atque inde foedum certamen coortum a satis miti principio.

Unhappily the brothers' plans for the future were marred by the same source which had divided their grandfather and Amulius- a lust for power. A disgraceful quarrel arose from a matter in itself trivial.

Quoniam gemini essent nec aetatis verecundia discrimen facere posset, ut di quorum tutelae ea loca essent auguriis legerent qui nomen novae urbi daret, qui conditam imperio regeret, Palatium Romulus, Remus Aventinum ad inaugurandum templa capiunt.

Since they were twins and no distinction of age could be made between them, they determined to ask the gods under whose care those places were, to declare by means of augury who should govern the new city, once it had been founded, and give his name to it. Romulus took to the Palatine Hill, Remus to the Aventine, in order to take the auguries.

Priori Remo augurium venisse fertur, sex voltures; iamque nuntiato augurio cum duplex numerus Romulo se ostendisset, utrumque regem sua multitudo consalutauerat: tempore illi praecepto, at hi numero auium regnum trahebant. Inde cum altercatione congressi certamine irarum ad caedem vertuntur; ibi in turba ictus Remus cecidit.

Remus, so the story goes, was the first to receive a sign- six vultures; and no sooner was this announced than double the number of birds appeared to Romulus. The followers of each promptly hailed their own master as king, one side basing its claim upon priority, the other upon number. Angry words ensued, followed by blows, their anger turned to violence, and there, in the crowd, Remus was struck and fell down dead.

Volgatior fama est ludibrio fratris Remum novos transiluisse muros; inde ab irato Romulo, cum verbis quoque increpitans adiecisset, "Sic deinde, quicumque alius transiliet moenia mea," interfectum. Ita solus potitus imperio Romulus; condita urbs conditoris nomine appellata.

There is another, more common story, that Remus, making fun of his brother, jumped over the newly-built walls, whereupon Romulus killed him in a fit of rage, adding the threat, 'So perish whoever else shall overleap my battlements.' In this way Romulus gained sole possession of power; the city, having been founded, was took its name from its founder.

Holidays

[Mt Ossa, Cradle Mountain National Park, Tasmania]

I'm off on holidays again, so there won't be much posting action for the next fortnight. no exciting plans this time round, so I'll leave you with a photo of mt Ossa from my last trip.

Mt Ossa is the highest mountain in Tassie, named after a famous mountain in Greece. According to Greek mythology (and my trusty Oxford Companion to Classical Literature) Otus and Ephialtes piled Mt Pelion on top of Mt Ossa, and Mt Ossa on top of Mt Olympus in their attempts to overthrow the gods.

The phrase 'heaping (or piling) Ossa upon Pelion' is sometimes used today to refer to an extremely difficult, but ultimately fruitless, task.

Narcissus

[Narcissus river, Cradle Mountain National Park, Tasmania]

My year 11 class have been looking at some of Ovid's Metamorphoses recently, in particular the stories of Pygmalion and Galataea. Pygmalion is a sculptor who carves a statue so beautiful it seems to be alive. In the story of Narcissus things are the other way round; Narcissus is so beautiful that he is compared to a statue.

hic puer et studio venandi lassus et aestu
procubuit faciemque loci fontemque secutus,
dumque sitim sedare cupit, sitis altera crevit,
dumque bibit, visae correptus imagine formae
spem sine corpore amat, corpus putat esse, quod umbra est.
adstupet ipse sibi vultuque immotus eodem
haeret, ut e Pario formatum marmore signum;
spectat humi positus geminum, sua lumina, sidus
et dignos Baccho, dignos et Apolline crines
impubesque genas et eburnea colla decusque
oris et in niveo mixtum candore ruborem...

Here the boy, worn out from his eager hunting and from the heat, lies down, attracted by the beauty of the place and its spring. While he seeks to calm his thirst, another thirst grows, and as he drinks, he is enchanted by the beautiful reflection he saw. He falls in love with a disembodied hope, he thinks that what is but a shadow, is a body. He is amazed by his very own self, and motionless stares at it with fixed gaze, just like a statue made from Parian marble. Lying on the ground, he watches the twin stars, his eyes, and that hair, worthy of Bacchus, worthy of Apollo, and those smooth cheeks and ivory neck, and the glory of his face and its blush, mixed with snow-white radiance…


inrita fallaci quotiens dedit oscula fonti,
in mediis quotiens visum captantia collum
bracchia mersit aquis nec se deprendit in illis!
quid videat, nescit; sed quod videt, uritur illo,
atque oculos idem, qui decipit, incitat error.

How often did he did he give vain kisses to the deceitful pool, how often did he sink his arms in to the middle of the waters, trying to embrace the neck he saw there! But he could not find himself in them. what he saw, he did not recognise; but what sees he burns for, and that same illusion which deceives him, excites his eyes.

[Ovid, Metamorphoses, III.413-23, 427-31]

Narcissus eventually wasted away, and was transformed into the flower which is named after him. He also survives in our language today in the word narcissism.

Monsters

The Greeks were fond of introducing monsters of various kinds, many of them derived from eastern sources, into their myths. These monsters of various degrees of strangeness, can be classified according as they take the form of (1) human beings of merely exaggerated size; (2) human beings with some extraordinary feature, such as excess or deficiency of the normal limbs and organs; (3) creatures combining human and animal shapes; (4) creatures combining the shapes of two or more animals.

Class 1 consists of the Giants as primitively conceived, creatures of human form so huge that after the defeat of their attack on the gods they were buried under islands, Enceladus for instance under Sicily, and Polybotes under Cos; while Tityus in Hades covered nine roods of ground. But in course of time, to differentiate them from gods and heroes, their attributes became more terrific and they passed into classes 2 and 3. Giants, in the traditions of various races, were the personifications of violent forces of nature, such as volcanoes.

Class 2 includes such monsters as the Hecatoncheires (the Hundred-handed Giants); the three Graiae, having only one eye and one tooth between them; the Cyclopes, with a single eye apiece; the Medusa with her huge and hideous head and petrifying eyes; Argus, with eyes all over his body.

Class 3 embraces a very large number of monsters: the Giants, as later represented, with their legs terminating in serpents; Cecrops and Erechtheus, whose bodies also terminated in serpents; Typhoeus, a particularly terrible creature, with a hundred serpents’ heads; Echidna, with the head and bust of a young woman, the rest a serpent; the Arcadian Satyrs, goat-footed with horns and tail, and the Anatolian Satyrs with the ears, feet and tail of a horse. The Sphinx of the dramatic poets is a winged woman with the body of a dog or lion; she was derived probably not from Egypt, but from Chaldea. Scylla, a marine monster, had, according to Homer, twelve dangling feet, six long necks and a hideous head on each, with three rows of teeth, the body lying concealed in a cavern. The idea was perhaps derived from some kind of squid. Later she was given a more human form: Virgil describes her as having the body of a young woman, the tail of a dolphin, and a girdle of dogs’ heads. The Tritons were monsters combining a human body with a fish’s tail. The Centaurs had a human body, rising from the body and legs of a horse; in primitive representations the front legs are those of a man. The Minotaur had a human body with the head of a bull... Two types of monster, the Sirens and the Harpies, joined a woman’s head to the body of a bird, a widespread fantasy found in fables in all parts of the world. The Harpies were primitively represented as women with birds’ wings, later as birds with women’s heads.

In class 4 may be included the Dragons, though the dragon (Gk. drakon, L. draco) is not properly a monster at all, but merely a large serpent. It figured frequently as the guardian of shrines (e.g. the Python at Delphi slain by Apollo), as an attribute of Asclepius, or as a genius loci. But dragons were sometimes given monstrous peculiarities, such as wings or additional heads. Winged dragons drew the cars [chariots] of Triptolemus and Medea. Fire-breathing dragons are especially a product of Christian art. In the same class we have such monsters as Cerberus, with his three heads and hair composed of snakes; the Chimaera, combining the head of a lion, the body of a goat and a tail ending in a serpent’s head; and the Griffin, part eagle and part lion (see Tenniel’s illustration of the Gryphon in ‘Alice in Wonderland’). The Griffins were first referred to, we are told, by Hesiod (in a lost passage); according to Herodotus they guarded the gold in Scythia. One of the strangest monsters is the Hippalectryon: it had the head and forelegs of a horse, and behind these the legs, tail and body of a rooster. There are extant representations of it on two vases by Nicosthenes, and it is mentioned by Aristophanes (Ran. 937-8), from whom we learn that it (as also the Tragelaphus or goat-stag) was copied from Persian sources. It is not surprising that so inelegant a conception disappeared before long from Greek art and finds no place in Greek myth. The Hippocampus was a horse with fish-like tail, on which the gods of the sea are often represented riding.

Monsters made little appeal to the Romans. In the comparatively rare cases where monsters figure in their literature (e.g. Scylla in the ‘Aeneid), it is generally in imitation of Greek models.

[From The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature]

Enceladus

Enceladus is not justy a tasty mexican dish, but also one of the moons of Saturn. It's been in the news recently as NASA's Cassini space probe has been passing close by taking photos, and analysing a huge geyser that is pouring out nearly 500km into space from beneath the surface of the frozen moon.

The moon was named in 1789, long before the geyser was discovered, but it's turned out to be an extremely appropriate name. In Greek mythology, Enceladus was one of the Giants; he was wounded in the war between the giants and the Olympian gods, and buried on Sicily, beneath the volcanic Mt Etna. The volcano's eruptions were said to be the giant's fiery breath, and earthquakes occurred when he rolled over. Scientists still aren't quite sure what is causing the geyser on Enceladus- perhaps they should consider the existence of a giant imprisoned under the icy surface.

[there are more great photos from the Cassini probe here]

eternally cool

I discovered (thanks to rogue classicum) a funky new site the other day. It's a collection of lots of random but cool things to do with Rome- in the present as well as the past. Recent posts include Romans of the past as lego figures (see here for more), a chocolate coliseum and a pair of cons painted in the style of a Greek vase.

10 points if you can identify the mythological character depicted above- no cheating!

Aeolus

One of the clues in yesterday's cryptic crossword was "Ruler of the winds found in USA Leo (6)". The answer is (of course) Aeolus, the ruler of the winds according to Greek and Roman mythology (and an anagram of 'USA Leo').

In the opening lines of the Aeneid, Juno comes to Aeolus and asks him to set free his winds, in order to create a storm which will sink the Trojans' ships.

Here Aeolus is king and here in a vast cavern he keeps in subjection the brawling winds and howling storms, chained and bridled in their prison. They murmur in loud protest round bolted gates in the mountainside while Aeolus sits in his high citadel, holding his sceptre, soothing their spirits and tempering their angry passions. But for him they would catch up the sea, the earth and the deeps of the sky and sweep them along through space. In fear of this, the all powerful father banished them to these black caverns with massive mountains heaped over them, and gave them a fixed charter, a king who knew how to hold them in check or, when ordered, to let them run with free rein...

To Juno's request, Aeolus answers, "Your task, O queen, is to decide your wishes; my duty is to carry out your orders. It is thanks to you that I rule this little kingdom and enjoy this sceptre and the blessing of Jupiter. Through you I have a couch to lie on at the feasts of the gods, and my power over cloud and storm comes from you.'

At these words he struck the side of the hollow mountain with the butt of his spear and the winds seemed to form a column and pour out through an open gate to blow a hurricane over the whole earth. The east wind and the south and the south-west with its squalls all fell upon the sea at once, whipping it up from its bottom-most depths and rolling huge waves towards its shores. Men shouted, ropes screamed, clouds suddenly blotted out the light of the sky from the eyes of the Trojans and black night brooded ove the sea as the heavens thundered and lightning flashed again and again across the sky.

Aeneid I.52ff

My Fair Lady

On the weekend I went to see a production of My Fair Lady put on by my brother-in-law's school (he did a great job as freddy). If you don't know the story it's about a professor of phonetics who teaches a poor cockney girl to speak English the way he thinks it should be, and passes her off as an aristocrat.

The musical is based on the play Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw, which takes its title in turn from the myth of the sculptor Pygmalion, who made a sculpture so beautiful that he fell in love it (which should give you an idea of what happens in the musical). Here's how Ovid describes Pygmalion attempts to court his statue:

'...with marvellous artistry, he skillfully carved a snowy ivory statue. He made it lovelier than any woman born, and fell in love with his own creation... Often he ran his hands over the work, feeling it to see whether it was flesh or ivory, and would not yet admit that ivory was all it was. He kissed the statue, and imagined that it kissed him back, spoke to it and embraced it, and thought that he felt his fingers sink into the limbs he touched, so that he was afraid lest a bruise appear where he had pressed the flesh.

Sometimes he addressed it in flattering speeches, sometimes brought the kind of presents that girls enjoy: shells and polished pebbles, little birds and flowers of a thousand hues, lilies and painted balls, and drops of amber which fall from the trees that were once Phaeton's sisters. He dressed the limbs of his statue in woman's robes, and put rings on its fingers, long necklaces round its neck. Pearls hung from its ears, and chains were looped upon its breast. All this finery became the image well, but it was no less lovely unadorned.'

[Ovid, Metamorphoses X.247ff]

rain, rain, go away...

All the rain we've had lately made me think of the flood described in Ovid's Metamorphoses:

Protinus Aeoliis Aquilonem claudit in antris
et quaecumque fugant inductas flamina nubes
emittitque Notum. madidis Notus evolat alis,
terribilem picea tectus caligine vultum;
barba gravis nimbis, canis fluit unda capillis;
fronte sedent nebulae, rorant pennaeque sinusque.
utque manu lata pendentia nubila pressit,
fit fragor: hinc densi funduntur ab aethere nimbi.

Jupiter wastes no time, but shuts up the North wind in Aeolus' caves, together with all the gusts which scatter the gathering clouds; and he lets loose the South wind. On dripping wings the South wind flies, his terrible features shrouded in pitch-black darkness; his beard is heavy with clouds, water streams from his snowy locks, mist wreathes his brow, his robes and feathers dripped with moisture. When he crushes the hanging clouds in his broad hand, there is a crash; then the thick clouds are poured down from heaven.

[Metamorphoses, I.262-269]

et in Arcadia ego

Byron asked me about the origin of the phrase "et in Arcadia, ego" ("Even in Arcadia, there I am") the other day. Arcadia was an area of Greece known for its beauty, and for the simple life that its inhabitants lived. In Greek and Roman mythology it came to represent a kind of paradise or utopia, where the golden age still reigned. The above phrase is generally thought of as being spoken by Death, and conveys the idea that death is everywhere, even in a place as idyllic as Arcadia.

I told Byron with confidence that it came, of course, from somewhere in Virgil, but as I thought a bit more I became less certain. I had a vague feeling it was somewhere in the Eclogues, Virgil's pastoral poems set in the paradise of Arcadia, but it seemed odd to me that Virgil would personify death in that way. So I did some research in the best way I know how, and discovered that it's not quite that simple. The idea of death being present in Arcadia does indeed come up in Virgil's fifth Eclogue (which are set in Arcadia), where he records the following inscription on the tomb of the Nymph Daphnis:

Daphnis ego in silvis, hinc usque ad sidera notus,
formosi pecoris custos, formosior ipse.

Daphnis was I amid the woods, known from even to the stars.
Fair was the flock I guarded, but fairer was I, their master.

However the link between those lines and the phrase "et in Arcadia, ego" is, to put it mildly, not immediately obvious. In fact it's unclear where the phrase comes from. As far as I could work it first appears in Renaissance art as a memento mori- a reminder of death. Such reminders (often a skull, or an hourglass, or cut flowers) were often included in renaissance art to remind people that life is short, and to focus their attenion on the afterlife.

Some people however take it further. The authors of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail (from which Dan Brown took many of his ideas for the Da Vinci Code) suggest that the phrase is in fact an anagram for "i! tego arcana dei."- Latin for "Go away! I hide the secrets of God", and that the painting of the same name hides a secret to the identity of Jesus.