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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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DPCrisp wrote:
Ishmael wrote: So Pullox (the testicles) is the part of the nothing that is separated from the whole by the chaotic force of Castor.
Or Castor is the other part, the complementary opposite. Castrato and Bollocks. |
Ahhh...yeah. That's what I would have said if I had any brains. You're obviously right, Dan. His name is Castor not because he castrates but because he is castrated. He is also greater than his twin because he is larger -- 1.618 times as large -- and therefore divine as well.
I most strongly suspect that the ancients believed the original omniverse to have been initially separated such that the larger part was 1.618 times as large as the smaller part.
Hmm. Archetypal twins: they have the same relationship to each other but they are different. 1:Phi sure fits that better than 1:1. Nice one. |
Thanks to you, I now can see that Castor and Pollux were not two minor Greco-Roman deities. The reason a temple to these gods stood on the Capitoline hill next to the temple of Jupiter himself is that these two gods represented cosmic creation itself.
Of course, it is likely that Romulus and Remus were the Roman "twins" -- why would they then take second place to Castor and Pollux?
And on a side note, what about Cain and Abel?
| We did already mention that logos = ratio, right? |
Ahhh...NO!!!!!! If that's true then I think it pretty well seals my case! Why has no one thought of this before? (that the universe was initially divided into a Golden Ratio?). It seems obvious. Especially now that you tell me logos = ratio!
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DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
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It just occurred to me that Cyclops, Kuklops means 'round or circular eye(s)', not 'one eye' at all.
Actually, ops means eye, sight or face, but let's forget 'round face' since the connection is obviously with seeing (turning your face toward, etc*.) and the theme of the stories is eye-y.
* Etc. = "and the rest". Why isn't there an abbreviation for "or something else", "or whatever"? Vel alia, v.al.? Oh, that's why; it hardly trips off the tongue.
So, circular eye, circular vision could mean circumspect, clever, all-seeing, perspicacious...?
The Cyclopses forged Zeus's thunderbolts. Clever artisans and giants to boot? Yet another version of the technically adept, sometimes good, usually bad guys (Megalithics?), like the Centaurs.
And like the Centaurs, they are almost human monsters. In particular, being one-eyed they are, like Vulcan/ Hephaestos, mildly disabled.
---
Is there any mileage in 'the eyes of Circe'? They're a few steps before, but is there a sense in which the Cyclops presage the Circe episode?
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DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
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Are the Cyclops taken at face value (no pun intended) and a subtlety in their 'identity' missed? I checked what Wiki has to say.
The Cyclops is an Ancient Greek satyr play by Euripides, the only complete satyr play that has survived. It is a comical burlesque-like play on the same story depicted in book nine of The Odyssey by Homer.
Odysseus has lost his way on the voyage home from the Trojan War. He and his hungry crew make a stop in Sicily at Mount Aetna, which is inhabited by Cyclopes. |
A Vulcan-o connection right from the off.
| They come upon the Satyrs and their father Silenus, who have been separated from their god Dionysus and enslaved by a Cyclops. |
Cyclops associated with the moral debasement of the Satyrs. Hmm. And the enslavement is a bit Circean -- not to mention Platonic. And the blinding in a cave...!
An aside: Plato's (much misunderstood?) metaphocal stuff is trotted out as a short answer to the Atlantis question: he made it all up. And this Euripidean stuff (predating Plato a little) looks like another case of the same: moral decline and all that. But there seems (to me) to be a recurring theme with the "artful enemy" that lines up quite well with the MegalithiCelts. I can't help being reminded that the map of the Megalithic Empire is a very good match to the map of the Atlantean Empire.
| He had told the Cyclops earlier that his name was 'Noman' or 'Nobody' (Greek outis or mētis). So when the Cyclops yells out who was responsible for blinding him, it sounds like he's saying "No man blinded me". In addition to this pun, there is a less easily translated joke on the fact that the form of "no man" (mētis) is identical to the word for cleverness or art. |
"Blinded by no man" sounds like a visionary of some sort, dunnit? "Blinded by art"? Perhaps a cleverness that surpasses his own. Metis is the goddess of wisdom and Zeus' first wife.
Reminds me of Lilith... who turns out to be echoed in Vulcan/Hephaestus and Athena.
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DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
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In Greek mythology a cyclops is a member of a primordial race of giants, each with a single eye in the middle of its forehead... The name is widely thought to mean "round-" or "wheel-eyed".
As with many Greek mythic names, however, this might be a folk etymology. Another theory holds that the word is derived from PIE kuh-klops -- "cattle thief". |
They dunnarf like their puns, but I can't see how this one fits.
| Hesiod describes one group of cyclopes and Homer describes another. |
I didn't know that. Let's see if the two fit the twin natures of these "Centauroids".
| Odysseus encounters the Cyclops Polyphemus, the son of Poseidon and a nereid (Thoosa), who lives with his fellow Cyclopes in a distant country. The connection between the two groups has been debated in antiquity and by modern scholars. |
The myths are evidently so old that they were getting confused even in Homer's day. Then again: one misses a point in the twinkling of an eye.
| In the Theogony, the Cyclopes -- Arges, Brontes, and Steropes -- were the primordial sons of Uranus (Sky) and Gaia (Earth) and brothers of the Hecatonchires. They were giants with a single eye in the middle of their forehead and a foul disposition. According to Hesiod, they were strong, stubborn, and "abrupt of emotion". Collectively they eventually became synonyms for brute strength and power, and their name was invoked in connection with massive masonry. They were often pictured at their forge. |
Wha'd I tell ya?
| The thunderbolts, which became Zeus' main weapons, were forged by all three Cyclopes, in that Arges added brightness, Brontes added thunder, and Steropes added lightning. |
Just a touch Pythagorean.
| These Cyclopes also created Poseidon's trident, Artemis' bow and arrows of moonlight, Apollo's bow and arrows of sun rays, and the helmet of darkness that Hades gave to Perseus on his quest to kill Medusa. According to a hymn of Callimachus, they were Hephaestus' helpers at the forge. |
Ha! I swear I didn't know that.
| The Cyclopes were said to have built the "cyclopean" fortifications at Tiryns and Mycenae in the Peloponnese. The noises proceeding from the heart of volcanoes were attributed to their operations.... |
Also:
| they concluded that only the Cyclopes had the combination of skill and strength to build in such a monumental manner. |
See what I mean about the Megalithics? Underground like the Dwarfs, too.
| The Sicilian Greek poet Theocritus wrote two poems circa 275 BC concerning Polyphemus' desire for Galatea, a sea nymph. |
A Cyclops, a Gaul and the sea?!
| Veratrum album, or white hellebore, an herbal medicine described by Hippocrates before 400 BC, contains the alkaloids cyclopamine and jervine, which are teratogens capable of causing cyclopia (holoprosencephaly). Students of teratology have raised the possibility of a link between this developmental deformity and the myth sharing its name. |
Interesting, what with Circe being all about transmogrifying people through the use of herbal drugs...
| Cyclopean vision, the ability to see with two eyes information that is hidden from each eye alone. |
That's funny: the opposite of being one-eyed, as though the true meaning of cyclops is preserved in this one expression.
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DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
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| [In Homer] The Cyclopes were huge one-eyed monsters that resided on an island with the same name. Commonly, the term "Cyclops" refers to a particular son of Poseidon and Thoosa named Polyphemus who was a Cyclops. Another member of this group of Cyclopes was Telemus, a seer. |
Polyphemus is supposed to mean "famous", but I can't see how that fits. Fame means being reported, spoken about, heard of; and pheme means words, speech.
Polyphemus = 'much speaking' or 'many words', but is that 'much said about him' (fame)... or 'talks a lot, knows a lot of words', in line with his artificer nature?
| In Greek mythology, Telemus (or Telemos) was a prophet, and the son of Eurymus. He warned the Cyclops Polyphemus that the giant would lose his sight to a man named Odysseus. |
Tele means far, telos means end. Telemus can see far, can see the end, knows the ending? Is he only included as a pun because he foresaw the ending of Polyphemus sight?
Stop press: eury-, eurus means wide. Between them, father and son are far and wide.
Cyclops far, wide and learned: it's the Megalithics I tell ya.
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DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
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| Vulcan is the god of beneficial and hindering fire, including the fire of volcanoes. |
A dual nature.
| Through his identification with the Hephaestus of Greek mythology, he came to be considered as the manufacturer of art, arms, iron, jewellery and armor for various gods and heroes, including the thunderbolts of Jupiter. He was the son of Jupiter and Juno, and husband of Maia and Venus. His smithy was believed to be situated underneath Mount Etna in Sicily. |
There could hardly be a tighter identification between Vulcan and the Cyclops then.
| As the son of Jupiter, the king of the gods, and Juno, the queen of the gods, Vulcan should have been quite handsome, but, baby Vulcan was small and ugly with a red, bawling face. Juno was so horrified that she hurled the tiny baby off the top of Mount Olympus. |
Charming. But there's that dual nature again: should be a good guy, but is thrown out of Olympus.
| Vulcan fell down for a day and a night, landing in the sea. Unfortunately, one of his legs broke as he hit the water, and never developed properly. From the surface, Vulcan sunk like a pebble to the cool blue depths where the sea-nymph, Thetis, found him and took him to her underwater grotto, and raised him as her own son. |
Thetis' son is Achilles. Achilles... Troy... Atlantic Europe... Celts...
| On the first day after, Vulcan stared at this fire for hours on end. On the second day, he discovered that when he made the fire hotter with bellows, certain stones sweated iron, silver or gold. On the third day he beat the cooled metal into shapes... |
Three days.
| Juno was furious and demanded that Vulcan return home, a demand that he refused. However he did send Juno a beautifully constructed chair made of silver and gold, inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Juno was delighted with this gift but, as soon as she sat in it her weight triggered hidden springs and metal bands sprung forth to hold her fast... For three days Juno sat fuming, still trapped in Vulcan's chair... Jupiter promised that if Vulcan released Juno he would give him a wife, Venus the goddess of love and beauty. |
Three days.
| According to Virgil, Vulcan was the father of Caeculus. |
| To punish mankind for stealing the secrets of fire, Jupiter ordered the other gods to make a poisoned gift for man. Vulcan's contribution to the beautiful and foolish Pandora was to mould her from clay and to give her form. |
A parallel with Prometheus, another 'clever bastard ' story...
| Hephaestus gained revenge against Hera for rejecting him by making her a magical golden throne which, when she sat on it, did not allow her to leave it. The other gods begged Hephaestus to return to Olympus to let her go but he repeatedly refused. Dionysus got him drunk and took him back to Olympus on the back of a mule. |
Under the name Vulcan, we're told this took 3 days. Praps that mule was a donkey, or vice versa.
| Hephaestus was reported in myth as cholÅs, "lame", crippled, halting (Ä“pedanos) and misshapen, either from birth or as a result of his fall |
Cf. Dwarfs, Trolls.
| The Argonaut Palaimonius, "son of Hephaestus"-- which is to say a bronze-smith -- was also lame. |
Argonaut? That's probably Atlantic Europe, too.
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DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
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| Other "sons of Hephaestus" were the Kabeiroi on the island of Samothrace; they were identified with the crab (karkinos) by the lexicographer Hesychius, and the adjective karkinopous, "crab-footed" signified "lame" |
Hera sent a crab to harry Heracles one point... Check it out.
| Hephaestus's physical appearance indicates arsenicosis, low levels of arsenic poisoning, resulting in lameness and skin cancers. In place of less available tin, arsenic was added to copper in the Bronze Age to harden it; most smiths of the Bronze Age would have suffered from chronic workplace poisoning, and the mythic image of the lame smith is widespread. |
That's a bit prosaic even for my taste. Reminds me of the Japanese swordsmith who, as an apprentice, had his hand lopped off for dipping into the water to find out the secret quenching temperature, but thereby became a great master himself. It's all about sacrifice for your art and secret/sacred knowledge, innit?
NB.
In Ugarit, among other parallels with Greek myth, the craftsman-god Kothar Hasis limps about; in Egypt, Herodotus was given to understand, the craftsman-god Ptah was club-footed. Compare the Nordic lame bronzeworker Weyland the Smith.
In another version of the myth, Hephaestus, being the most unfaltering of the gods, was given Aphrodite's hand in marriage by Zeus in order to prevent conflict over her between the other gods. |
Technically adept... abrupt of emotion... unfaltering? Asperger's! (Linked to Rhesus Negative...)
| Eventually, Hephaestus found out about Aphrodite's promiscuity from Helios, the all-seeing Sun |
Hephaestus aided by the all-seeing, round-faced Sun?
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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It just occurred to me that Cyclops, Kuklops means 'round or circular eye(s)', not 'one eye' at all.
Actually, ops means eye, sight or face, but let's forget 'round face' since the connection is obviously with seeing (turning your face toward, etc*.) and the theme of the stories is eye-y. |
Having recently seen a production of Midsummer Night's Dream am a-thinking the whole theme is eye-y from the start; Hernia, one of the lovers, (very Herne-like -- the play takes place in a wood of course) says to her dad if only you could see things through my eyes, and the plot revolves around Puck putting juice in various characters' eyes to make them see differently.
Oberon is supposed to mean "elf-bear". Tatiana, or Queen Mab, had acquired a changeling though it wasn't thrown off Mount Olympus but, interestingly, her husband wanted the child as his page...All's well that ends well i.e. the right couples get married when they get out of the briars and thickets, never realised how Platonesque it was.
Eyes: lovers, madmen and poets see differently according to Will. But, he says, poets' vision goes from earth to heaven and back again; they see both human and divine aspects and try to enlighten the rest of us ...
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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Going off at a tangent, the underground is associated with 'secret' knowledge; rabbits live in burrows and have eyes set in the side of their heads thus giving them all-round vision, essential for their survival. A 'rabbit' ("of unknown origin") is similar to rabbi, 'rav' in Hebrew means many, numerous.
The third day... the day of Passover is always fixed on Nisan 14th (eve of Nisan 15th). In the Essenes calendar it always fell on a Tuesday, which is the third day, Sunday being Day One of the week.
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DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
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| the plot revolves around Puck putting juice in various characters' eyes to make them see differently |
Circean "herbal essences"?
Seeing differently is like changing, being seen differently: the hunter becomes the hunted and that sort of thing. Hmm.
| Going off at a tangent... rabbits... burrows... all-round vision... 'rav' in Hebrew also means many, numerous. |
Not so much a tangent as an epicycle (or something). If memory serves, the best we could do is link rabbit and robin to robbing... Robin Hood/Goodfellow... Herne... Hephaestus/Vulcan's son was a robber... many, numerous ~ "far and wide"... like the incoming Megalithics?
Who knows? The Cyclops might have been rabbits (mice, voles... water voles, muskrats): you can usually only see one eye... and you could run them both through in one go with a skewer if you had to.
Not so much hares, I suppose: they don't 'build' anything. I've seen rabbit warrens in megalithic/ earthwork-y things.
I wonder whether being carried off by eagles/birds-of-prey parallels anything that happened to these guys.
| The third day... Passover... |
Look up Lilith.
Loki and Xanas are fidgeting in the back of my head too...
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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Well that's interesting, she's associated not only with night, desert and predators but with child-stealing/child-killing (cf. Hercules' "madness"). As in societies where witchcraft is the cause of all ills, laying the blame on an outside source absolves someone of responsibility; how much infanticide went on is unknowable of course but having a goddess in charge of child disappearances is a pointer perhaps.
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Komorikid
In: Gold Coast, Australia
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Dan wrote: | [In Homer] The Cyclopes were huge one-eyed monsters that resided on an island with the same name. Commonly, the term "Cyclops" refers to a particular son of Poseidon and Thoosa named Polyphemus who was a Cyclops. Another member of this group of Cyclopes was Telemus, a seer. |
There is a common misconception about Cyclops being one eyed. The Greek word actually means 'ROUND eyed'. How this misconception became a popular belief is a mystery.
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DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
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The misconception already seems to be in place in Homer, innit: Odysseus blinds Polyphemus with one skewer in one go.
As I say, he could have done that if Polyphemus were a rabbit (which would make an excellent association with the satyrs). Now... where have I heard of a terrible man-eating rabbit living in a cave...?
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DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
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| ]Just noticed: earlier, I wrote: | | Tele means far, telos means end |
If that means (Middle Eastern) tells are really associated with endings, then it squares nicely with the suggestion that Çatal Höyük et al are really necropolises, not cities for the living at all.
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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Tel in Hebrew, tall in Arabic, is defined as
A mound, especially in the Middle East, made up of the remains of a succession of previous settlements.
Just looking at the marvellous Book of Kells which is quite 'Byzantine' in appearance and wondered about kell, from cill in Gaelic ('cell') said to mean churchyard (or burial place?); very much to do with endings. Didn't we trace a (Coptic) Christian link between the ME and Ireland?
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