Urth Net
Laundress and Star (AEG spoilers)
brunians at brunians.org · 20 Oct 2008, 17:03
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From: brunians at brunians.org (brunians at brunians.org) Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2008 13:03:05 -0400 (EDT) Subject: (urth) Laundress and Star (AEG spoilers) In-Reply-To: <93d4039f0810200836n40548b80r8a4454864cc5039b at mail.gmail.com> References: <48F6F93B.8010802 at gmail.com> <48F772FB.6090103 at mindspring.com> <b12d82080810200242n60268449ucb972989e29f1f36 at mail.gmail.com> <1606.72.171.0.143.1224499464.squirrel at brunians.org> <14368.72.171.0.143.1224500262.squirrel at brunians.org> <93d4039f0810200416m2b356419kc24041089439887 at mail.gmail.com> <13818.72.171.0.143.1224503003.squirrel at brunians.org> <93d4039f0810200513y4854a1c9p5e1a3291f3db4e64 at mail.gmail.com> <9886.72.171.0.143.1224507381.squirrel at brunians.org> <93d4039f0810200836n40548b80r8a4454864cc5039b at mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5480.67.142.130.42.1224522185.squirrel at brunians.org> Cadmus was from Phoenicia. As are Greek letters, the polis and a lot of other things that people think of as typically Greek. Yes, Perseus was the ueber-Greek. Wasn't Danae Cadmus daughter? No, I was mixed up. Argos, not Thebes. They are related somewhere in there, though. Anyway, there was a lot of Phoenician influence on Greece just coming out of the post-Mycenaean dark ages. You are very welcome, for the word and for everything else, such as it is! It's not often that I get to go on about this stuff, which I do enjoy immensely. . > Excellent reply. Thanks. I did in fact get the bit about Ba'al--in > fact, I'd known that and forgotten it from long ago. Once you know > that "Beelzebub" means "Lord of the Flies" or "Prince of Flies" it's > actually quite intuitive that "Ba'al" is just "lord" or "prince"--a > title, rather than a name. > > I'm also fairly surprised that I missed that Wolfe, by connecting > Cthulhu to Phoenician deities, was only following Lovecraft--it's not > as though I haven't read The Shadow over Innsmouth, and, heck, even > Buffy the Vampire Slayer made the connection. > > Perseus was Greek in all the senses that count, right? His mother was > almost the mother of Greece, as the Greeks are the Danaans. I suppose > people thought he was from Serifos. > > I'll look into The Highest Altar, it sounds fascinating. And thank > you for the word "aniconic." > > On 10/20/08, brunians at brunians.org <brunians at brunians.org> wrote: >> > Of course--I'm not using Chesterton as gold-star history here. The >> > question is whether we can infer that Wolfe had the sacrifices to >> > Phoenician false gods in mind when he threw that "Cassiopeia weeps for >> > her children" bit in. It's certainly an interesting thought. The >> > Squid God is already Cthulhu layered with Cetus and sort of the pulp >> > notion of a human sacrifice to quiet an angry volcano or storm. >> >> I read a *way* interesting book about this, which does happen, in this >> instance among the Mapuche of Chile. What actually is done (or was done >> in >> this case) is that there is a disaster, volcano, storm, tsunami or >> whatever and after the fact the sacrifice is done. The book is called >> 'The >> Highest Altar': I have a copy around here somewhere. >> >> The Mapuche are *very* traditional and their religious practice >> completely >> non-Christian (altough there are Catholic and Protestant Mapuche (the >> Incas never conquered the Mapuche, the Spanish never conquered the >> Mapuche, the Chileans worked out an agreement with them)). Further >> north, >> in the region around Lake Titicaca, the author investigates similar >> practices which have become more or less syncretic and (here it becomes >> very interesting) which the practitioners very consciously correlate >> with >> European derived occult practices and Satanism. >> >> > Are >> > we meant to also take him as the deity honored by human sacrifice >> > around the southern and eastern side of the Mediterranean? >> >> That's his nephew Dagon. >> >> > I don't >> > know if this points toward any other interpretive clues, although it >> > is interesting that what we typically consider a Greek myth is set in >> > what is now Israel. >> >> Who was Cadmus? Where did he come from? And Danae? >> >> Where did people *think* that Perseus was from? >> >> > That's rich turf--I doubt Wolfe would leave it >> > fallow. >> >> Wolfe is one of, like, three people I've met who really understands this >> stuff. >> >> > Or maybe it's just Wolfe's guess at the origin of the Cetus myth. >> > Ultimately the myth is about a queen trying to sacrifice her daughter >> > to a monster, and the heroic foreigner who stops the sacrifice. >> >> On one level. I don't think I would say 'ultimately'. >> >> > Maybe >> > Wolfe takes the myth as in part chiding by the Greeks of the >> > child-sacrificing practice of their neighbors? >> >> I doubt it, but maybe. >> >> Maybe I was unclear about the Ba'al bit: all of these Kana'anim, Bni >> Israel, Phoenicians, the lot of them, had lots of gods and one in >> particular who was in charge of where you lived, addressed as Creator >> and >> Master (or Creatress and Mistress) of the World, worshipped >> aniconically, >> etc. Who it was varied on what city you were in. The Bni Israel, in the >> time of David and Solomon, addressed YHWH as ba'al. Later on, the >> language >> changed, the title confused with a proper name and applied only to the >> other gods of other western Semitic cities. >> >> >> >> . >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Urth Mailing List >> To post, write urth at urth.net >> Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net >> > _______________________________________________ > Urth Mailing List > To post, write urth at urth.net > Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net >
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