I saw a mad gaiety in his shadowed eyes

[sovay]

My poem "Tapping the Vine" is now online at Goblin Fruit. It was written for time_shark and tithenai. The turndun is an Australian Aboriginal form of the ritual instrument known in English as a bull-roarer and in classical Greek, as a component of the Dionysian Mysteries, as a rhombos (ῥόμβος). The OED tells me the name is "Native Australian of the Kurnai tribe in Gippsland." I do not know if the language it came from is still extant; I hope so.

On an utterly un-classical topic, How to Train Your Dragon (2010) was quite a bit more awesome than I had been expecting. I had assumed the dragons would be good: they were. (The protagonist dragon is of the feline rather than the purely saurian model, which accords with my tastes; it is also not a wish-fulfillment animal companion.) I had not assumed they would be in the same film as aeronautical engineering, subtle non-stupid gender stuff, and cursing by Odin and Thor. Yes, all right, Northumbrian smallpipes are not particularly Norse, and neither is the tradition of apotropaic names. But the credits song was by Sigur Rós!

And my fever broke sometime this afternoon, so I am going to celebrate by going to bed at a reasonable hour, or at least staying up with The Annotated Hobbit (2002) rather than a thermometer.

Comments

[sovay]

Tell me where your subject line is from--I love it.

Mary Renault's The King Must Die (1958):

The ship approached, all bound with green boughs and wreaths; the mast and oar blades and the beak were gilded, the sail was scarlet. Young girls were singing on the deck, playing the tabor and the pipes, and clashing cymabls. Standing in the prow, girt with a fawnskin, crowned with green ivy and young vine-shoots, stood the King. He was very drunk, with wine and with the god; as he waved to the people, I saw a mad gaiety in his shadowed eyes.

The scene is from the Dionysian Mysteries on Naxos; the novel is a historical retelling of the myth of Theseus. Its cultural dualism—the dark matriarchal pre-Greeks, the fair patriarchal Hellenes—owes more to Graves and Frazer than to the archaeological record, but it is still an excellent novel and my favorite version of the myth. I read it young. It's where I learned this, also:

"Horses go blindly to the sacrifice, but the gods give knowledge to men. When the King was dedicated, he knew his moira. In three years, or seven, or nine, or whenever the custom was, his term would end and the god would call him. And he went consenting, or else he was no king, and power would not fall on him to lead the people. When they came to choose among the Royal Kin, this was his sign: that he chose short life with glory, and to walk with the god, rather than live long, unknown like the stall-fed ox. And the custom changes, Theseus, but this token never. Remember, even if you do not understand . . . It is not the sacrifice, whether it comes in youth or age, or the god remits it; it is not the bloodletting that calls down power. It is the consenting, Theseus. The readiness is all. It washes heart and mind from things of no account, and leaves them open to the god. But one washing does not last a lifetime; we must renew it, or the dust returns to cover us. And so with this. Twenty years I have ruled in Troizen, and four times sent the King Horse to Poseidon. When I lay my hand on his head to make him nod, it is not only to bless the people with the omen. I greet him as my brother before the god, and renew my moira."

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

It is not the sacrifice, whether it comes in youth or age, or the god remits it; it is not the bloodletting that calls down power. It is the consenting.

This--is so true, and I've never seen it written in a way that made me see the truth, before. Wow.

Wow--yeah, thank you for this. I've been circling around this issue for days now, and you've just given me the words.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I just sent that line to myself by e-mail. Later today I'll open my e-mail and see it there again, and think on it some more.

[sovay]

Wow--yeah, thank you for this. I've been circling around this issue for days now, and you've just given me the words.

You're welcome. It's a concept that matters to me, and I read it first in Mary Renault.