Dante Alighieri said:
"Virtue is like an enemy avoided by all, as is a serpent, through misfortune of place, or through bad habit that impels them, on which account they have so transformed their nature, the dwellers in the miserable valley, that it seems that Circe had them in her pasture." -Purgatorio XIV
The praxis of mythology breaks trail through wilderness, lays tracks whose imprint tread distinct patterns of adaptation made by living creatures to material condition, yet mark those cycles of (re)birth, life & death we each hold in common. At their surface, myths tell of The World’s creation- detailing the family lineage of polarized unions cleaved from a “Great Mystery” - a primordial & omniscient unity whose lack of opposition (like self : other) undermines the very precepts enabling our ability to name or describe.
Inevitably, the first human ancestor appears: a being whose congress with The Gods entitles The People to certain privileges: the Earth they inhabit, their beliefs & customs, even their covenant with the Mythos itself. In the most ancient of human days, when still we roamed, these were songs shared ‘round a nomad hearth. Only when that fire became a fixed point, surrounded by the boundaries of settled life, did wilderness become departure. An advent in relations felt across the entire map of Story.
With the invention & introduction of writing into societies making little if any distinction between Religion & Politics, such tales begin to acquire the legal weight of Title divinely bestowed. And our footfall through the wilderness gives way to roads. Tracking the phronesis of myth across such terrain, we come upon their intersection: Gods & mortals whose narratives entwine at thresholds where traditions past are formulated anew for purposes present & future. Their forms refined by master story-makers skilled at crafting cohesive etiologies through the subtle veils of symbol & allegory.
The Argo setting sail assembles many heroes among the constellations, as does the severing of the Gorgon head. And from a Hesperian grove of golden
melons, guarded by a sleepless dragon, Discord drew an apple “for the fairest”. From the starlit seasons the alchemists of old kindled their magic, conjuring metaphor in imaginations who marveled beside firelight. We may not ask when our shaman became priest, our chief a king, or the hunter a pawn of war -but we ought not miss the subtle trick of their metamorphosis through our Myths. This is the power of The Craft and its’ conundrums.
http://www.tarot.org.il/Cary Yale/
When the last Visconti Duke of Milan assembled his Book of Triumphs, such was the Fire with which he played. No less a weaver of many Gods & Heroes, the architect of this eldest Tarot wrought a work that, even in tatters, demonstrates a mastery of the alchemical arts. For, though few who’ve not learned these ways might see, there is a Mandala from which these stories make. And, as the stars keep track of every master’s memory, so too do the wandering spheres sing The Song of Songs.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-426q2-Dq-sk/TlsxjrWrJJI/AAAAAAAAAZw/IQLZYcaWqyw/s1600/gOSSIp.jpg
The cycle of Isis & Osiris turned with the constellations as the journey of Sothis trailing Sah, the brightest star and her consort, whom we now call Sirius & Orion. Yet our names for the “Queen of Heaven” & her Underworld King have undergone many transmutations, and their “marriage” at his resurrection echoes that Great Mystery we seem to lack word for description.
It is as if “nothing” were both the end ☋ & ☊ beginning of it a11.
But how could something ever come from nothing?
Rumor has it, that at the Ensifer’s feet, there flows a River-God named Eridanus (“Early-Burnt”), whose counterpart below was said to be the Nileus of ancient Kemet (“Black”) - for, the logic goes, the isle of Canopus within its’ delta is mirrored above by night’s second brightest star, likewise named, where Argo’s slackened rudder is set beneath the Dog. But the name “Eridanus” was given by the Greeks to another river - One of no small significance to the duchy of Milan, nor the Valley Po...
Isidore of Seville said:
“The Padus, a river in Italy flowing from the Alpine heights, arises from three sources. The name of one of these sources is Padus, which, having spread out like a lake, sends the river from its lap. The river Padus is named from this. The Greeks also give it the cognomen Eridanus, from Eridanus the son of the Sun, whom people call Phaeton. After being struck by lightning he fell into this river and died. It is fed by melting snows at the rising of the Dog Star, and with the addition of thirty other streams it empties into the Adriatic Sea near Ravenna.” -The Etymologies
Could it be that the ships astride Fame’s disputed shores “reflect” Orion’s Belt upon the waters of Eridanus?
And, if so, who might that couple in the boat by the fisherman be?
Surely, the son of The Sun did not fall from his father’s Chariot here.
Apollonius Rhodius said:
"And Hera devised an ending for their voyage and stirred up storm-winds before them, by which they were caught and borne back to the rocky isle of Elektra. And straightway on a sudden there called to them in the midst of their course, speaking with a human voice, the beam of the hollow ship, which Athena had set in the centre of the stem, made of Dodonian oak. And deadly fear seized them as they heard the voice that told of the grievous wrath of Zeus. For it proclaimed that they should not escape the paths of an endless sea nor grievous tempests, unless Circe should purge away the guilt of the ruthless murder of Absyrtus; and it bade Polydeuces and Castor pray to the immortal gods first to grant a path through to the Ausonian sea where they should find Circe, daughter of Perse and Helios.”
Thus Argo cried through the darkness; and the sons of Tyndareus uprose, and lifted their hands to the immortals praying for each boon: but dejection held the rest of the Minyan heroes. And far on sped Argo under sail, and entered deep into the stream of Eridanus; where once, smitten on the breast by the blazing bolt, Phaethon half-consumed fell from the chariot of Helios into the opening of that deep lake; and even now it belcheth up heavy steam clouds from the smouldering wound. And no bird spreading its light wings can cross that water; but in mid-course it plunges into the flame, fluttering. And all around the maidens, the daughters of Helios, enclosed in tall poplars, wretchedly wail a piteous plaint; and from their eyes they shed on the ground bright drops of amber. These are dried by the sun upon the sand; but whenever the waters of the dark lake flow over the strand before the blast of the wailing wind, then they roll on in a mass into Eridanus with swelling tide. But the Celts have attached this story to them, that these are the tears of Leto's son, Apollo, that are borne along by the eddies, the countless tears that he shed aforetime when he came to the sacred race of the Hyperboreans and left shining heaven at the chiding of his father, being in wrath concerning his son, Asclepius, whom divine Coronis bare in bright Lacereia at the mouth of Amyrus. And such is the story told among these men. But no desire for food or drink seized the heroes nor were their thoughts turned to joy. But they were sorely afflicted all day, heavy and faint at heart, with the noisome stench, hard to endure, which the streams of Eridanus sent forth from Phaethon still burning; and at night they heard the piercing lament of the daughters of Helios, wailing with shrill voice; and, as they lamented, their tears were borne on the water like drops of oil."
“Thence they entered the deep stream of Rhodanus which flows into Eridanus; and where they meet there is a roar of mingling waters. Now that river, rising from the ends of the earth, where are the portals and mansions of Night, on one side bursts forth upon the beach of Ocean, at another pours into the Ionian sea, and on the third through seven mouths sends its stream to the Sardinian sea and its limitless bay.” -Argonautica, IV
ROTA?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhodanus#Etymology
Wheels within wheels, it seems, are interlinked by “impossible” geography.
And have you ever noticed our word for Circle is synonymous with Magic?
http://www.theoi.com/Titan/Kirke.html
We ask: What portent could any of this hold for the scion of House Visconti (“Powerful Lance”) faced with the immanent prospect of his Family “losing” Milan, like the Delle Torre (“Of The Tower”) before them.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/vis#Latin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kontos_(weapon)
To such a mind, steeped in myth & stars & heraldry, the marriage of his love child to the mercenary “Force”, Francesco Sforza - a Dragon knight of the Emperor’s chivalric order - might have redeemed an otherwise tragic end of dynasty. Or perhaps it was Forethought, by the alchemists of antiquity, which devised this ‘master narrative’ for our Piscean Age.
http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=147731
Consider how the Milky Way flowed from the glory of Hera’s breast...
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/μῆλον
...and we might agree: that the parallels attending Ghibelline (Imperial) & Guelph (Papal) standard, compared to that Red/White Crown uniting the upper & lower “Black”, may be more than mere idle gOSSIp.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FICjKwyXe.../DI7N0wwAQjw/s1600/sheep%27s+breast+melon.jpg
For, traversing both high & low, the “Early Burnt” river is said to roll upward, through the forest of Elysium, to an oracle told where mythologies cross roads...
Virgil said:
“First, know that heaven and earth and the watery plains, the moon’s bright sphere and Titan’s star, a spirit within sustains; in all the limbs mind moves the mass and mingles with the mighty frame. Thence springs the races of man and beast, the life of winged creatures, and the monsters that ocean bears beneath his marble surface. Fiery is the vigour and divine the source of those seeds of life, so far as harmful bodies clog them not, or earthly limbs and frames born but to die. Hence their fears and desires, their griefs and joys; nor do they discern the heavenly light, penned as they are in the gloom of their dark dungeon. Still more! When life’s last ray has fled, the wretches are not entirely freed from all evil and all the plagues of the body; and it needs must be that many a taint, long ingrained, should in wondrous wise become deeply rooted in their being. Therefore are they schooled with punishments, and pay penance for bygone sins. Some are hung stretched out to the empty winds; from others the stain of guilt is washed away under swirling floods or burned out by fire till length of days, when time’s cycle is complete, has removed the inbred taint and leaves unsoiled the ethereal sense and pure flame of spirit: each of us undergoes his own purgatory. Then we are sent to spacious Elysium, a few of us to possess the blissful fields. All these that you see, when they have rolled time’s wheel through a thousand years, the god summons in vast throng to Lethe’s river, so that, their memories effaced, they may once more revisit the vault above and conceive the desire of return to the body.”
Anchises paused, and drew his son and with him the Sibyl into the heart of the assembly and buzzing throng, then chose a mound whence he might scan face to face the whole of the long procession and note their faces as they came. “Now then, the glory henceforth to attend the Trojan race, what children of Italian stock are held in store by fate, glorious souls waiting to inherit our name, this shall I reveal in speech and inform you of your destiny...” -Aeneid VI
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