Rachel Alexander's Blog, page 223
April 14, 2019
a-gnosis:
Persephone, blessed daughterof great Zeus, sole...
Persephone, blessed daughter
of great Zeus, sole offspring
of Demeter, come and accept
this gracious sacrifice.
Much-honored spouse of Plouton,
discreet and life-giving,
you command the gates of Hades
in the bowels of the earth,
lovely-tressed Praxidike,
pure bloom of Deo,
mother of the Erinyes,
queen of the nether world,
secretly sired by Zeus
in clandestine union.
Mother of loud-roaring,
many-shaped Eubouleus,
radiant and luminous,
playmate of the Seasons,
revered and almighty,
maiden rich in fruits,
brilliant and horned,
only-beloved of mortals,
in spring you take your joy
in the meadow of breezes,
you show your holy figure
in branches teeming with grass-green fruits,
in autumn you were made
a kidnapper’s bride.
You alone are life and death
to toiling mortals,
O Persephone, you nourish all,
always, and kill them, too.
Hearken, O blessed goddess,
send forth the fruits of the earth
as you blossom in peace,
and in gentle-handed health
bring a blessed life
and a splendid old age to him who is sailing
to your realm, O queen,
and to mighty Plouton’s kingdom.
The Orphic Hymn 29 to Persephone, translated by Apostolos N. Athanassakis and Benjamin M. Wolkow.
I have always had some problems to draw Persephone as a queen. For some reason I like her better dressed as a simple peasant girl soiled with earth. But now I think I’ve nailed it. This feels like her (my interpretation of her, that is). Quite simple but yet elegant.
Super sorry for the spam, but I definitely read pawns of Olympus as prawns in the new chapter and I went back to reread the entire sentence. Goodness me, hahaha.
Aaa hahaha this never gets old. Can’t wait to see what they actually name the show once a marketing team figures out all the issues with calling it Pawns of Olympus.
a-gnosis:
In my research for my next comic I read the book...
In my research for my next comic I read the book Sacred Marriage in the Rituals of Greek Religion by Aphrodite Avagianou (European University Studies, series 15, Classics, Vol.54, Peter Lang, 1991), and I thought that I should say a few words about it.
Avagianou has a little different interpretation of hieros gamos (sacred marriage) than the majority of scholars before her, who have seen the ritual’s purpose to be the promotion of fertility, in the context of agriculture and vegetation of the nature. Rather, she sees it as a ritual of initiation and a rite of passage. “Human marriage as an institution of human society is guaranteed and sanctified by the model of sacred marriage; the latter borrows from the former all the necessary formalities of a wedding rite.”
According to Avagianou, sacred marriage presupposes the following specific fundamentals:
A wedding ceremony performed as if it were a human one.
Immortal nature of both of the partners.
A permanent marital union.Following these principles, Avagianou argues that the union of Demeter and Iasion, interpreted as a hieros gamos by previous scholars, does not belong here. Nothing indicates that Iasion was immortal and the union didn’t last. Another important detail is Demeter’s active role: “Homer, our earliest source, makes it clear that in the Cretan tradition it was Demeter who took the initiative in attracting Iasion’s interest for her. This detail is sufficient to overthrow the interpretation of this case as a hieros gamos, since it is contrary to the rules of Greek gamos - it may belong to Minoan religion: the female makes the choice. This has absolutely nothing to do with marriage and its arrangement as seen by Greeks, where the male plays the active role; and for Greeks, hieros gamos is modelled on the human one.”
Likewise, she dismisses the union of Dionysus and the Basilinna at Athens. According to Avagianou, sacred marriage modelled upon human marriage occurs solely in the cases of Zeus and Hera, and of Hades and Kore-Persephone, but she sees them as two different kinds of hieros gamos. The union of Zeus and Hera is the prototype of the typical marital union, while Kore’s abduction by Hades is the mirror of human feelings prevailing in this social institution: "The events of premature marriage to an unknown husband at the command of a callous and remote father and the traumatic separation of mother and daughter fall to the same extent upon Kore and the human bride as well.“
While this book was a quite interesting (though sometimes a bit difficult) read, I can’t help to feel that something is missing when you interpret these things solely in relation to ancient Greek marriage customs (just as the agricultural and fertility interpretations alone wouldn’t feel like the whole explanation, either).
Image: relief believed to depict the marriage of Zeus and Hera, 470 BCE.
incorrectgreekgods:Ares: When life gives you lemons, peel them in front of the other lemons to send...
Ares: When life gives you lemons, peel them in front of the other lemons to send a message.
ethereal-drivel:
Went to the Met for class yesterday, found a relief of Demeter and Persephone and...
Went to the Met for class yesterday, found a relief of Demeter and Persephone and then a very pretty painting
April 13, 2019
Hello again, Loved the latest chapter from the good councillor :) Aidon is so edgy in this scene. You can tell, that while others enjoy the high life and reap the riches, he’s still the warrior and this unnerves all the Olympians. I had a thought whils
Lol yeah it should freak them out. Then again, he’s the one who got stuck jailing their enemies so what should they expect?
I think they give each other jewelry, definitely. Aidon always has a new thing or another for Persephone and she has definitely cobbled together mussel shells, amber, and dried flower sinew and hempen necklaces for him. And she rolls her eyes but he loves them.
RACHEL!!!! I DIED WITH THE NEW UPDATE. I don't even know where to begin?!?!?! I love Charon so much and him and Hermes, i cant'. I just, odsjfjsffjdsjf. YES. And the new character, oh lord! I swear I can visually see all of what you write like a movie in m
It did NOT worry me. Lol
Yesterday was kind of an anomaly of a Wednesday
because I had family in town, my poor toddler face burgered on the back porch and was inconsolable for like an hour, I had a pitch meeting late in the evening, the person who usually works for us on Tuesday was working on Wednesday instead to cover for bigtime family visit, and the biggest signifier of a wtf-day-is-this is that my MIL goes to church every Wednesday evening like clockwork and she skipped because of said family in town.
So I literally was on my way to falling asleep, my laptop was 0% battery and I glanced at my phone and saw the messages about the last chapter and was all ffffffffuuuuuuuuuuc——— well it’s 1am. They can wait till my toddler wakes up and so can I.
And then like a dum dum I browsed Tumblr for another hour with shitshitshitshit playing in my head while my laptop was juicing up. I failed to fall asleep until 2:30am but succeeded in barking my left shin against the kiddo’s stool we put at the foot of the bed so he can climb up and jump all over us in the morning, yelled a series of expletives, and woke up my husband because he thought the house was on fire or something. So I had to tell him no, don’t worry it was just me being a dumbass go back to sleep.
Feel better soon! ♥️♥️♥️
Thank you!! ❤️❤️❤️ to be fair, I feel so so much better than I did this morning. Of course anything feels better than your body doing a hard factory reset, so…
Specifically in your books, although it didn't help that I was reading 100DON at the same time.
Haha yep. RoM and 100DON came out around the same time so you’re not alone
