Previous William Thomas Sherman Info Page postings, quotes, observations, etc.
www.gunjones.com
"THE MERCY OF APOLLO,"
or this is what some people consider a god.
"...[according to Nietzsche] Apollo represents harmony, progress, clarity, logic and the principle of individuation, whereas Dionysus represents disorder, intoxication, emotion, ecstasy and unity..." ~ Wikipedia article "Apollonian and Dionysian"
Or, in effect, so says Nietzche.
However and tellingly, the following story is found in Book 1 of Statius' Thebaid (1st century A.D.), here in translation from Latin by J. H. Mozley:
[557] “Perchance ye may inquire, O youths,” thus says the monarch [King Adrastus of Argos], “what means this sacrifice, and for what reason we pay Phoebus signal honour. Urged by no ignorant fear, but under stress of dire calamity, the Argive folk aforetime made this offering. Lend me your hearing, and I will recount the tale. When that the god had smitten the dark and sinuous-coiling monster, the earth-born Pytho, who cast about Delphi his sevenfold grisly circles and with his scales ground the ancient oaks to powder, even while sprawling by Castalia’s fountain he gaped with three-tongued mouth athirst to feed his deadly venom: when having spent his shafts on numberless wounds he left him, scarce fully stretched in death over a hundred acres of Cirrhaean soil, then, seeking fresh expiation of the dead, he came to the humble dwelling of our king Crotopus. A daughter [elsewhere in other versions of the story named Psamathe], in the first years of tender maidenhood, and wondrous fair, kept this pious home, a virgin chaste. How happy, had she ne’er kept secret tryst with the Delian, or shared a stolen love with Phoebus! For she suffered the violence of the god by Nemea’s stream, and when Cynthia [the moon, also a peronification of Artemis] had twice five times gathered her circle’s visage to the full, she brought forth a child, Latona’s grandson, bright as a star. Then fearing punishment – for her sire would ne’er have pardoned a forced wedlock – she chose the pathless wilds, and stealthily among the sheep-pens gave her child to a mountain-wandering guardian of the flock [named Linus] for nurture. No cradle worthy of a birth so noble, hapless infant, did thy grassy bed afford thee, or thy woven home of oaken twigs; enclosed in the fibre of arbutus-bark thy limbs are warm, and a hollow pipe coaxes thee to gentle slumbers, while the flock shares thy sleeping-ground. But not even such a home did the fates permit, for, as he lay careless and drinking in the day with open mouth, fierce ravening dogs mangled the babe and took their fill with bloody jaws. But when the tidings reached the mother’s horror-struck ears, father and shame and fear were all forgot; herself straightway she fills the house with wild lamentation, all distraught, and baring her breast meets her father with her tale of grief. Nor is he moved, but bids her – Oh horrible! even as she desires, suffer grim death.
[596] “Too late remembering thy union, O Phoebus, thou dost devise a SOLACE [my capital letters] for her miserable fate, a monster conceived 'neath lowest Acheron in the Furies’ unhallowed lair: a maiden’s face and bosom has she, from her head an ever-hissing snake rises erect, parting in twain her livid brow. Then that foul pest, gliding at night with unseen movement into the chambers, tore from the breasts that suckled them lives newly-born, and with blood-stained fangs gorged and fattened on the country’s grief. But Coroebus, foremost in prowess of arms and high courage, brooked it not, and with chosen youths, unsurpassed in valour and ready at life’s hazard to enlarge their fame, went forth, a willing champion. From dwellings newly ravaged she was going, where in the gateway two roads meet, the corpses of two little ones hung at her side, and still her hooked talons claw their vitals and the iron nails are warm in their young hearts. Thronged by his band of heroes the youth rushed to the attack, and buried his broad blade in her cruel breast, and with flashing steel probing deep the spirit’s lurking-place at length restored to nether Jove his monstrous offspring. What joy to go and see at close hand those eyes livid in death, the ghastly issue of her womb, and her breasts clotted with foul corruption, whereby our young lives perished! Appalled stand the Inachian youth, and their gladness, though great now sorrow is ended, even yet is dim and pale. With sharp stakes they mangle the dead limbs – vain solace for their grief – and beat out the jagged grinding teeth from her jaws: they can – yet cannot glut their ire. Her did ye flee unfed, ye birds, wheeling round with nocturnal clamour, and ravening dogs, they say, and wolves in terror upon her, dry-mouthed.
[627] “But against the unhappy youths the Delian rises up fierce at the doom of his slain avengeress, and seated on the shady top of twin-peaked Parnassus with relentless bow he cruelly scatters shafts that bring pestilence, and withers beneath a misty shroud the fields and dwellings of the Cyclopes. Pleasant lives droop and fail, Death with his sword cuts through the Sisters’ threads, and hurries the stricken city to the shades. Our leader then inquiring what the cause may be, what is this baleful fire from heaven, why Sirius reigns throughout the whole year, the word of the same god Paean [or "Poina"] brings command, to sacrifice to the blood-stained monster those youths that caused her death. O valour heaven-blest! O worth that will merit a long age of fame! No base craven thou to hide thy devoted deed, or shun in fear a certain death! Unabashed he stood on the threshold of Cirrha’s temple, and with these words gives fierce utterance to his sacred rage: `Not sent by any, nor suppliant, O Thymbraean, do I approach thy shrine: duly and consciousness of right have turned my steps this way. I am he, O Phoebus, who laid low thy deadly scourge, I am he whom thou, ruthless one, dost seek out by poison-cloud, and the light of day defiled, and the black corruption of a baleful heaven. But even if raging monsters be so dear to the gods above, and the destruction of men a cheaper loss to the world, and heaven be so stern and pitiless, in what have the Argives sinned? My life, my life alone, most righteous of the gods, should be offered to the fates! Or is it more soothing to thy heart that thou seest homesteads desolate, and the countryside lit up by the burning roofs of husbandmen? But why by speaking do I delay the weapons of thy might? our mothers are waiting, and the last prayers for me are being uttered. Enough: I have deserved that thou should’st be merciless. Bring then thy quiver, and stretch thy sounding bow, and send a noble soul to death! but, even while I die, dispel the gathered mist that form on high hangs pallid over Inachian Argos.’
[661] “Equity hath regard for the deserving. Awe of slaughter took hold on Leto’s fiery son, and yielding he grants the [self-sacrificing] hero the sad boon of [losing his] life; the deadly clouds fly scattering from our heaven, while thou, thy prayer heard, departest from marvelling Phoebus’ door...
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The above taken from:
https://www.theoi.com/Text/StatiusThebaid1.html
For another translation, see:
https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/StatiusThebaidI.php#anchor_Toc337135253
~clip from "Island of Lost Men" (1939) with J. Carrol Naish, one of the true, and much underrated, movie greats.
[""ISLAND OF LOST MEN" (1939) - FINALE with J. Carrol Naish"]
["Borodin "Polovtsian Dances" from the opera "Prince Igor" Only children choir" -
College Symphony Orchestra
Consolidated Choir of the Children's Music School
Head Zoya GROSHENKOVA
Conductor - Honored Artist of the Russian Federation Vladimir RYZHAEV]
Having therefore undertaken the office of explaining the truth, I did not think it so necessary to take my commencement from that inquiry which naturally seems the first, whether there is a providence which consults for all things, or all things were either made or are governed by chance; which sentiment was introduced by Democritus, and confirmed by Epicurus. But before them, what did Protagoras effect, who raised doubts respecting the gods; or Diagoras afterwards, who excluded them; and some others, who did not hold the existence of gods, except that there was supposed to be no providence? These, however, were most vigorously opposed by the other philosophers, and especially by the Stoics, who taught that the universe could neither have been made without divine intelligence, nor continue to exist unless it were governed by the highest intelligence. But even Marcus Tullius, although he was a defender of the Academic system, discussed at length and on many occasions respecting the providence which governs affairs, confirming the arguments of the Stoics, and himself adducing many new ones; and this he does both in all the books of his own philosophy, and especially in those which treat of the nature of the gods...
~ Lactantius (c. 250–c. 325), Divine Institutes (Book I, ch. 2)
He's SUPPOSED to be an interesting and attractive person; indeed a kind of celebrity.
But I don't understand. Why would an interesting and attractive person (and who isn't acting in the capacity of, say, someone like a legitimate police officer) need to force himself on others and prevent them from freely communicating?
But then all things are possible to those who are dishonest, delusional, and highly irrational.