MANICHAEAN
08-05-2025, 08:19 AM
You have to concede that the Ancient Greeks were an imaginative lot ! How to explain the world around them with no developed science, just fables passed down. They attempted to explain the chaos of the universe through human nature. The gods and goddesses created were the embodiment of human solipsism where the self is the only existing thing.
Thus the inhabitants of Mount Olympus with their battles, bickering and sexual conquests have indelibly influenced many writers since: cruel and fickle, passionate and vindictive, jealous and insecure, petty and insane.
Let us therefore indulge ourselves.
It was cloudy that day on Olympus. Zeus sat atop his throne while the sea nymph Thetis sank to the ground beside him, put her left hand round his knees, raised her right hand to touch his beard, and so made her petition to the Royal Son of Cronos. She begged him to intervene and guide the fate of her son Achilles embroiled in the Trojan War. It stirred that within him, which had been a driver all of his existence. He possessed a rather unique seduction technique, being able to assume the disguise of an animal. Thus in the case of his seventh wife Hera he took the guise of a cuckoo caught in a storm who nestled into her lap. Guard down he reappeared as a God and had his wicked way, as was his wont.
Here, both sister and later wife was today the cause of his current disquiet. A reserved woman yet mercilessly vindictive to Zeus's extramarital affairs. Not to her husband as such, but in tormenting both his conquests and their offspring. Zeus was well attuned to direct conflict and aggression. After all he had had a ten year war and led the revolt against the Titans and dethroned Cronos his father to become King of the God's.
One cannot but reflect that this theme of a negative marital undercurrent was all to common to those Greeks, as it is today. An experience of life shared. The genius lay in incorporating it into not just a story, but in providing a comforting touchstone and religion that quelled or gave guidance to those who accepted it as the truth.
Thus the inhabitants of Mount Olympus with their battles, bickering and sexual conquests have indelibly influenced many writers since: cruel and fickle, passionate and vindictive, jealous and insecure, petty and insane.
Let us therefore indulge ourselves.
It was cloudy that day on Olympus. Zeus sat atop his throne while the sea nymph Thetis sank to the ground beside him, put her left hand round his knees, raised her right hand to touch his beard, and so made her petition to the Royal Son of Cronos. She begged him to intervene and guide the fate of her son Achilles embroiled in the Trojan War. It stirred that within him, which had been a driver all of his existence. He possessed a rather unique seduction technique, being able to assume the disguise of an animal. Thus in the case of his seventh wife Hera he took the guise of a cuckoo caught in a storm who nestled into her lap. Guard down he reappeared as a God and had his wicked way, as was his wont.
Here, both sister and later wife was today the cause of his current disquiet. A reserved woman yet mercilessly vindictive to Zeus's extramarital affairs. Not to her husband as such, but in tormenting both his conquests and their offspring. Zeus was well attuned to direct conflict and aggression. After all he had had a ten year war and led the revolt against the Titans and dethroned Cronos his father to become King of the God's.
One cannot but reflect that this theme of a negative marital undercurrent was all to common to those Greeks, as it is today. An experience of life shared. The genius lay in incorporating it into not just a story, but in providing a comforting touchstone and religion that quelled or gave guidance to those who accepted it as the truth.