THE PEACE OF HOMER

BY ATHENA'S COMMAND

boy no more, "Go!"
"Find him!"

©2015 Telemachus   stephaniepope mythopoetry.com
In SIX WORDS or fewer, write a story about leaving home. #6words #amwriting

#mpy #twolines #blog  #poetry  #mustread #mythpo #writeprompt


NOTES

Spiritual growth in Homer is related to the inheritance of a certain hardship brought to bear on families because of war.  The spiritual quest is a journey to the father, the one missing. “Go! Find him.”

THE UNIFIED POETIC TRADITION OF EPIC

image credit: Muse Kalliope (Calliope) Museum of
Fine Arts, Boston; 5^th C. Attic Red Figure Pyxis,
Hesiod Painter ca 460 - 450 BC 

EPOS

…the conspicuous differences between the poems of Hesiod and between Hesiod and Homer existed in tension with the unified poetic tradition of epos… ~Ralph Rosen, University of Pennsylvania 

odyssey driven by wrath and weaves
Hesiod Homer and nepenthes

©2014 Calliope's Lyre stephaniepope mythopoetry.com
#ohj wrath, odyssey #mythopoetics #distich #tenwords #micropoetry

THE ODDLY HOMERIC JOURNEY

photo credit:  Mt Parnassus, Raphael,  A fresco from the interior
walls of the Stanza della Segnatura in the Vatican Palace.
For more on the fresco see U of Michigan on line

BEYOND PARNASSUS

shapes oddly Homeric journey & battle;
like a shipwreck in human shadows in a
cast of sunlight; how yonder a
banquet of mythic residue echoes still


©2014 DELPHIC SPACE stephaniepope mythopoetry.com
#ohj shipwreck, banquet #mythopoetics #4lines #micropoetry

CHARYBDIS

Ulysses hanging from the branch of a fig tree, looking
down in terror at the whirlpool Charybdis, Scylla as a
sea monster writhing around rocks at left; after a watercolour
by Fuseli (Schiff 1362), illustration to Pope's translation of
 Homer's 'Odyssey'; proof before letters. 1806 Engraving and
 etching © The Trustees of the British Museum no.1853,1210.557

photocredit: http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_
online/collection_object_details/collection_image_gallery.
aspx?assetId=164619&objectId=1652214&partId=1

SHE TAKES ONE GULP

her horrible whirlpool gulping the sea-surge down, down
but when she spewed it up—like a cauldron over a raging fire—
all her churning depths would seethe 
               ~Charybdis, Odyssey Book 12, Robert Fagels trans.

thirsting eros tempts soul
a whirlpool near grabs &
pulls with more force, aflame
like a cauldron seethes
pushing toward art

©2014 HER SWALLOW BELCHES FROM A GROUNDLESS STATE
stephaniepope mythopoetry.com #ohj whirlpool, tempts

SIREN & HUBRIS IN HOMER

Ulysses and the Sirens, 1891
John William Waterhouse
[image file in public domain]

AT FIRST WHEN APPLYING SIREN ABILITY 

know thyself
nothing else

the hybrid monster
the hybris narrative

©2014 What Does A Siren Say stephaniepope mythopoetry.com
#ohj siren, hubris  #10words #mythopoetics #4lines


notes

1. In myth, sirens are feminine hybrid monsters (aka psychic facts) and like the outdoor sirens that sound out natural woes now, when a siren sounds you better hunker down and listen up.
2. In myth, siren abilities are the unconscious abilities able to take over and control narratives.
3. Hybris is a variant spelling for the word hubris, pride or ego inflation.

THE PHARMAKOS RITE

Odysseus and the suitors [The Odyssey Books 21-22]

GUSHING WAVE AND MARROW



Enchanted stem
Homeric speech
Lotus arrow

©2014 Pharmakon stephaniepope mythopoetry.com
#ohj lotus, arrow




notes

1. The arrow of Odysseus, tipped with toxikkon, is to the suitors as the lotus is to lotus-eaters. Likewise is Homeric language enchanted stem tipped in the musing marrow of alien pharmakos and pharmakon.

2. Odyssey, Book IX, Samuel Butler translation

Odysseus tells how adverse north winds blew him and his men off course as they were rounding Cape Malea, the southernmost tip of the Peloponnesus, headed westwards for Ithaca... 

"I was driven thence by foul winds for a space of 9 days upon the sea, but on the tenth day we reached the land of the Lotus-eaters, who live on a food that comes from a kind of flower. Here we landed to take in fresh water, and our crews got their mid-day meal on the shore near the ships. When they had eaten and drunk I sent two of my company to see what manner of men the people of the place might be, and they had a third man under them. They started at once, and went about among the Lotus-eaters, who did them no hurt, but gave them to eat of the lotus, which was so delicious that those who ate of it left off caring about home, and did not even want to go back and say what had happened to them, but were for staying and munching lotus with the Lotus-eaters without thinking further of their return; nevertheless, though they wept bitterly I forced them back to the ships and made them fast under the benches. Then I told the rest to go on board at once, lest any of them should taste of the lotus and leave off wanting to get home, so they took their places and smote the grey sea with their oars."

3. Odyssey, Book XXII, The Death of Suitors, Samuel Butler translation

...Ulysses tore off his rags, and sprang on to the broad pavement with his bow and his quiver full of arrows. He shed the arrows on to the ground at his feet and said, "The mighty contest is at an end. I will now see whether Apollo will vouchsafe it to me to hit another mark which no man has yet hit."

4. Pharmakos/Pharmakon wiki

Walter Burkert and René Girard have written influential modern interpretations of the pharmakos rite. Burkert shows that humans were sacrificed or expelled after being fed well, and, according to some sources, their ashes were scattered to the ocean. This was a purification ritual, a form of societal catharsis.^[1]

Pharmakos is also used as a vital term in Derridian deconstruction. In his essay "Plato's Pharmacy",^[2] Derrida deconstructs several texts by Plato, such as Phaedrus, and reveals the inter-connection between the word chain pharmakeia-pharmakon-pharmakeus and the notably absent word pharmakos. In doing so, he attacks the boundary between inside and outside, declaring that the outside (pharmakos, never uttered by Plato) is always-already present right behind the inside (pharmakeia-pharmakon-pharmakeus). As a concept, Pharmakos can be said to be related to other Derridian terms such as "trace".

Some scholars have connected the practice of ostracism, in which a prominent politician was exiled from Athens after a vote using pottery pieces, with the pharmakos custom. However, the ostracism exile was only for a fixed time, as opposed to the finality of the pharmakos execution or expulsion.

The term "pharmakos" later became the term "pharmakeus" which refers to "a drug, spell-giving potion, druggist, poisoner, by extension a magician or a sorcerer."^[3] A variation of this term is "pharmakon" (φάρμακον) a complex term meaning sacrament, remedy, poison, talisman, cosmetic, perfume or intoxicant.^[4] From this, the modern term "pharmacology" emerged.^[5]

ODDLY HOMERIC JOURNEY The Tantalus Meal

Achilles and Hector Peter Paul Rubens

ManEater

"Would that I could be as sure of being able to
       cut your flesh into pieces and eat it raw."
                ~Achilles to Hector, Iliad Samuel Butler translation 22:365

the unspeakable hospitality
of angry flesh toward flesh
Achilles fury


©2014 ManEater stephanie pope mythopoetry.com
#ohj fury, hospitality

ODDLY HOMERIC

COPYRIGHT IN PUBLIC DOMAIN
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Frederic_Leighton_-_Helen_On_The_Walls_Of_Troy.jpg

WALKING HELEN

In slumber soul wanders
the entire life of culture
chases Helen drawn out
like a Trojan to Troy or ships
launched.


In slumber through layers
of interior's meaning, a thought
largely mysterious, wanders
in thread oddly Homeric or stories
overlooked.


#ohj, wander, Trojan
©2014 Walking Helen, stephanie pope mythopoetry.com


notes

A micropoem version of this poem:

In slumber soul wanders
chases Helen
like a Trojan to Troy.

©2014 Walking Helen, stephanie pope mythopoetry.com
published on twitter under the hashtag mythopoetics (#mythopoetics) on July 5, 2014