Ophion, incubated the primordial world egg from which everything hatched.
Ruled the world with Eurynome back before Cronus overthrew him and the gods got their feet up under them to get started.
"He sang how the earth, the heaven and the sea, once mingled together in one form, after deadly strife were separated each from other; and how the stars and the moon and the paths of the sun ever keep their fixed place in the sky; and how the mountains rose, and how the resounding rivers with their nymphs came into being and all creeping things. And he sang how first of all Ophion and Eurynome, daughter of Oceanus, held the sway of snowy Olympus, and how through strength of arm one yielded his prerogative to Cronos and the other to Rhea, and how they fell into the waves of Oceanus; but the other two meanwhile ruled over the blessed Titan-gods, while Zeus, still a child and with the thoughts of a child, dwelt in the Dictaean cave; and the earthborn Cyclopes had not yet armed him with the bolt, with thunder and lightning; for these things give renown to Zeus."
Cons: Ophion was a dude
Asclepius?? But also a dude
"Asclepius, the son of Apollo and Koronis, learned the secrets of keeping death at bay after observing one serpent bringing another (which Asclepius himself had fatally wounded) healing herbs. To prevent the entire human race from becoming immortal under Asclepius's care, Zeus killed him with a bolt of lightning."
"In Italy, the Marsian goddess Angitia, whose name derives from the word for "serpent," was associated with witches, snakes, and snake-charmers. Angitia is believed to have also been a goddess of healing. Her worship was centered in the Central Apennine region."
Norse: Jormungand?? Nithhogg???
[About halfway down the page, he's written this and circled it:]
"The oracles of the ancient Greeks were said to have been the continuation of the tradition begun with the worship of the Egyptian cobra goddess, Wadjet."
Underneath, it says:
"As the patron goddess, Wadget was associated with the land and depicted as a snake-headed woman or a snake—usually an Egyptian cobra, a venomous snake common to the region; sometimes she was depicted as a woman with two snake heads and, at other times, a snake with a woman's head. Her oracle was in the renowned temple in Per-Wadjet that was dedicated to her worship and gave the city its name. This oracle may have been the source for the oracular tradition that spread to Greece from Egypt."
[Toward the bottom of the page, he's written the following, circled it, and underlined it a couple of times:]
Python, an enemy of Apollo, was always represented in vase-paintings and by sculptors as a serpent. Apollo slew Python and made her former home, Delphi, his own oracle. The Pythia took her title from the name Python.
"In Greek mythology, Python was the serpent, sometimes represented as a medieval-style dragon, living at the center of the earth, believed by the ancient Greeks to be at Delphi.
There are various versions of Python's birth and death at the hands of Apollo. The version related by Hyginus holds that when Zeus lay with the goddess Leto, and she became pregnant with Artemis and Apollo, Hera was jealous and sent Python to pursue Leto throughout the lands, to prevent her from giving birth to the twin gods. Thus when Apollo was grown he wanted to avenge his mother's plight and pursued Python, making his way straight for Mount Parnassus where the serpent dwelled, and chased it to the oracle of Gaia at Delphi; there he dared to penetrate the sacred precinct and kill it with his arrows beside the rock cleft where the priestess sat on her tripod. Robert Graves, who habitually read into primitive myths a retelling of archaic political and social turmoil, saw in this the capturing by Hellenes of a pre-Hellenic shrine. "To placate local opinion at Delphi," he wrote in The Greek Myths, "regular funeral games were instituted in honour of the dead hero Python, and her priestess was retained in office."
The priestess of the oracle at Delphi became known as the Pythia, after the place-name Pytho, which Greeks explained as named after the rotting (πύθειν) of the slain serpent's corpse in the strength of Hyperion (day) or Helios (the sun)."
King Ahasuerus is drunk at a festival and orders his queen, Vashti, to appear before him and his guests to display her beauty. When she refuses to come, he kicks her out and looks for a new queen. All the pretty ladies in the kingdom get together to be considered.
Esther (Hadassah) is the cousin of Mordecai and a member of the Jewish community. Upon the king's orders Esther's taken to palace. Even as she advances to the highest position of the harem, Mordecai tells her she's got to hide that she's a Jew, so she does. The king falls in love with her and makes her queen.
Later, Mordecai refuses to bow to Haman, Ahasuerus' highest advisor, and Haman requests and is given permission to order all the Jews in Persia killed. When Esther learns about it, Mordecai tells her to reveal to the king that she is Jewish and to ask him to repeal the order. Esther hesitates, saying that she could be put to death if she goes to the king without being summoned and the king doesn't want to see her; Mordecai tells her she's got to try anyway. She goes to the king, and the king welcomes her, and says he will give her anything she wants. Instead of asking directly about the order, she invites the king and Haman to a banquet the next day.
During the banquet, the king asks Esther again if there's anything she wants, and this time she asks the king to spare her life and that of all of the Jews. The king asks who was threatening them, and she names Haman. Haman throws himself at her feet; the king thinks that Haman's attacking her and orders him put to death, and gives all Haman's possessions to Esther.
Esther tells the king about Mordecai's role in her life, and the king makes Mordecai his highest advisor. Esther then asks the king to revoke the order, and king allows Esther and Mordecai to do so. They send out an order in the king's name that Jews can assemble and defend themselves, and can kill anyone who threatens them and their families, and take their goods. On the thirteenth day of Adar, the same day that Haman had set for them to be killed, the Jews do so in one city, killing 500 people but not taking plunder, and they kill around 75,000 the next day again not taking plunder, and then they feast.
"On the third day Esther put on her royal robes and stood in the inner court of the palace, in front of the king’s hall. The king was sitting on his royal throne in the hall, facing the entrance. When he saw Queen Esther standing in the court, he was pleased with her and held out to her the gold scepter that was in his hand. So Esther approached and touched the tip of the scepter. Then the king asked, “What is it, Queen Esther? What is your request? Even up to half the kingdom, it will be given you.”
“If it pleases the king,” replied Esther, “let the king, together with Haman, come today to a banquet I have prepared for him.”
“Bring Haman at once,” the king said, “so that we may do what Esther asks.” So the king and Haman went to the banquet Esther had prepared. As they were drinking wine, the king again asked Esther, “Now what is your petition? It will be given you. And what is your request? Even up to half the kingdom, it will be granted.”
Esther replied, “My petition and my request is this: If the king regards me with favor and if it pleases the king to grant my petition and fulfill my request, let the king and Haman come tomorrow to the banquet I will prepare for them. Then I will answer the king’s question.”
Haman went out that day happy and in high spirits. But when he saw Mordecai at the king’s gate and observed that he neither rose nor showed fear in his presence, he was filled with rage against Mordecai. Nevertheless, Haman restrained himself and went home. Calling together his friends and Zeresh, his wife, Haman boasted to them about his vast wealth, his many sons, and all the ways the king had honored him and how he had elevated him above the other nobles and officials.
“And that’s not all,” Haman added. “I’m the only person Queen Esther invited to accompany the king to the banquet she gave. And she has invited me along with the king tomorrow. But all this gives me no satisfaction as long as I see that Jew Mordecai sitting at the king’s gate.” His wife Zeresh and all his friends said to him, “Have a pole set up, reaching to a height of fifty cubits, and ask the king in the morning to have Mordecai impaled on it. Then go with the king to the banquet and enjoy yourself.” This suggestion delighted Haman, and he had the pole set up.
"So the king and Haman went to Queen Esther’s banquet, and as they were drinking wine on the second day, the king again asked, “Queen Esther, what is your petition? It will be given you. What is your request? Even up to half the kingdom, it will be granted.”
Then Queen Esther answered, “If I have found favor with you, Your Majesty, and if it pleases you, grant me my life—this is my petition. And spare my people—this is my request. For I and my people have been sold to be destroyed, killed and annihilated. If we had merely been sold as male and female slaves, I would have kept quiet, because no such distress would justify disturbing the king. ”
King Xerxes asked Queen Esther, “Who is he? Where is he—the man who has dared to do such a thing?”
Esther said, “An adversary and enemy! This vile Haman!” Then Haman was terrified before the king and queen. The king got up in a rage, left his wine and went out into the palace garden. But Haman, realizing that the king had already decided his fate, stayed behind to beg Queen Esther for his life. Just as the king returned from the palace garden to the banquet hall, Haman was falling on the couch where Esther was reclining.
The king exclaimed, “Will he even molest the queen while she is with me in the house?” As soon as the word left the king’s mouth, they covered Haman’s face. Then Harbona, one of the eunuchs attending the king, said, “A pole reaching to a height of fifty cubits stands by Haman’s house. He had it set up for Mordecai, who spoke up to help the king.” The king said, “Impale him on it!” So they impaled Haman on the pole he had set up for Mordecai. Then the king’s fury subsided."
The snake enters your dreams through paintings: this one, of a formal garden in which there are always three:
the thin man with the green-white skin that marks him vegetarian and the woman with a swayback and hard breasts that look stuck on
and the snake, vertical and with a head that’s face-coloured and haired like a woman’s.
Everyone looks unhappy, even the few zoo animals, stippled with sun, even the angel who’s like a slab of flaming laundry, hovering up there with his sword of fire, unable as yet to strike.
There’s no love here. Maybe it’s the boredom.
And that’s no apple but a heart torn out of someone in this myth gone suddenly Aztec.
This is the possibility of death the snake is offering: death upon death squeezed together, a blood snowball.
To devour it is to fall out of the still unending noon to a hard ground with a straight horizon
and you are no longer the idea of a body but a body, you slide down into your body as into hot mud.
You feel the membranes of disease close over your head, and history occurs to you and space enfolds you in its armies, in its nights, and you must learn to see in darkness.
Here you can praise the light, having so little of it:
it’s the death you carry in you red and captured, that makes the world shine for you as it never did before.
This is how you learn prayer.
Love is choosing, the snake said. The kingdom of god is within you because you ate it.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Page 1
Ophion, incubated the primordial world egg from which everything hatched.
Ruled the world with Eurynome back before Cronus overthrew him and the gods got their feet up under them to get started.
"He sang how the earth, the heaven and the sea, once mingled together in one form, after deadly strife were separated each from other; and how the stars and the moon and the paths of the sun ever keep their fixed place in the sky; and how the mountains rose, and how the resounding rivers with their nymphs came into being and all creeping things. And he sang how first of all Ophion and Eurynome, daughter of Oceanus, held the sway of snowy Olympus, and how through strength of arm one yielded his prerogative to Cronos and the other to Rhea, and how they fell into the waves of Oceanus; but the other two meanwhile ruled over the blessed Titan-gods, while Zeus, still a child and with the thoughts of a child, dwelt in the Dictaean cave; and the earthborn Cyclopes had not yet armed him with the bolt, with thunder and lightning; for these things give renown to Zeus."
Cons: Ophion was a dude
Asclepius?? But also a dude
"Asclepius, the son of Apollo and Koronis, learned the secrets of keeping death at bay after observing one serpent bringing another (which Asclepius himself had fatally wounded) healing herbs. To prevent the entire human race from becoming immortal under Asclepius's care, Zeus killed him with a bolt of lightning."
Page 2
Norse: Jormungand?? Nithhogg???
[About halfway down the page, he's written this and circled it:]
"The oracles of the ancient Greeks were said to have been the continuation of the tradition begun with the worship of the Egyptian cobra goddess, Wadjet."
Underneath, it says:
"As the patron goddess, Wadget was associated with the land and depicted as a snake-headed woman or a snake—usually an Egyptian cobra, a venomous snake common to the region; sometimes she was depicted as a woman with two snake heads and, at other times, a snake with a woman's head. Her oracle was in the renowned temple in Per-Wadjet that was dedicated to her worship and gave the city its name. This oracle may have been the source for the oracular tradition that spread to Greece from Egypt."
[Toward the bottom of the page, he's written the following, circled it, and underlined it a couple of times:]
Python, an enemy of Apollo, was always represented in vase-paintings and by sculptors as a serpent. Apollo slew Python and made her former home, Delphi, his own oracle. The Pythia took her title from the name Python.
"In Greek mythology, Python was the serpent, sometimes represented as a medieval-style dragon, living at the center of the earth, believed by the ancient Greeks to be at Delphi.
There are various versions of Python's birth and death at the hands of Apollo. The version related by Hyginus holds that when Zeus lay with the goddess Leto, and she became pregnant with Artemis and Apollo, Hera was jealous and sent Python to pursue Leto throughout the lands, to prevent her from giving birth to the twin gods. Thus when Apollo was grown he wanted to avenge his mother's plight and pursued Python, making his way straight for Mount Parnassus where the serpent dwelled, and chased it to the oracle of Gaia at Delphi; there he dared to penetrate the sacred precinct and kill it with his arrows beside the rock cleft where the priestess sat on her tripod. Robert Graves, who habitually read into primitive myths a retelling of archaic political and social turmoil, saw in this the capturing by Hellenes of a pre-Hellenic shrine. "To placate local opinion at Delphi," he wrote in The Greek Myths, "regular funeral games were instituted in honour of the dead hero Python, and her priestess was retained in office."
The priestess of the oracle at Delphi became known as the Pythia, after the place-name Pytho, which Greeks explained as named after the rotting (πύθειν) of the slain serpent's corpse in the strength of Hyperion (day) or Helios (the sun)."
Page 3
King Ahasuerus is drunk at a festival and orders his queen, Vashti, to appear before him and his guests to display her beauty. When she refuses to come, he kicks her out and looks for a new queen. All the pretty ladies in the kingdom get together to be considered.
Esther (Hadassah) is the cousin of Mordecai and a member of the Jewish community. Upon the king's orders Esther's taken to palace. Even as she advances to the highest position of the harem, Mordecai tells her she's got to hide that she's a Jew, so she does. The king falls in love with her and makes her queen.
Later, Mordecai refuses to bow to Haman, Ahasuerus' highest advisor, and Haman requests and is given permission to order all the Jews in Persia killed. When Esther learns about it, Mordecai tells her to reveal to the king that she is Jewish and to ask him to repeal the order. Esther hesitates, saying that she could be put to death if she goes to the king without being summoned and the king doesn't want to see her; Mordecai tells her she's got to try anyway. She goes to the king, and the king welcomes her, and says he will give her anything she wants. Instead of asking directly about the order, she invites the king and Haman to a banquet the next day.
During the banquet, the king asks Esther again if there's anything she wants, and this time she asks the king to spare her life and that of all of the Jews. The king asks who was threatening them, and she names Haman. Haman throws himself at her feet; the king thinks that Haman's attacking her and orders him put to death, and gives all Haman's possessions to Esther.
Esther tells the king about Mordecai's role in her life, and the king makes Mordecai his highest advisor. Esther then asks the king to revoke the order, and king allows Esther and Mordecai to do so. They send out an order in the king's name that Jews can assemble and defend themselves, and can kill anyone who threatens them and their families, and take their goods. On the thirteenth day of Adar, the same day that Haman had set for them to be killed, the Jews do so in one city, killing 500 people but not taking plunder, and they kill around 75,000 the next day again not taking plunder, and then they feast.
Page 4
“If it pleases the king,” replied Esther, “let the king, together with Haman, come today to a banquet I have prepared for him.”
“Bring Haman at once,” the king said, “so that we may do what Esther asks.” So the king and Haman went to the banquet Esther had prepared. As they were drinking wine, the king again asked Esther, “Now what is your petition? It will be given you. And what is your request? Even up to half the kingdom, it will be granted.”
Esther replied, “My petition and my request is this: If the king regards me with favor and if it pleases the king to grant my petition and fulfill my request, let the king and Haman come tomorrow to the banquet I will prepare for them. Then I will answer the king’s question.”
Haman went out that day happy and in high spirits. But when he saw Mordecai at the king’s gate and observed that he neither rose nor showed fear in his presence, he was filled with rage against Mordecai. Nevertheless, Haman restrained himself and went home. Calling together his friends and Zeresh, his wife, Haman boasted to them about his vast wealth, his many sons, and all the ways the king had honored him and how he had elevated him above the other nobles and officials.
“And that’s not all,” Haman added. “I’m the only person Queen Esther invited to accompany the king to the banquet she gave. And she has invited me along with the king tomorrow. But all this gives me no satisfaction as long as I see that Jew Mordecai sitting at the king’s gate.” His wife Zeresh and all his friends said to him, “Have a pole set up, reaching to a height of fifty cubits, and ask the king in the morning to have Mordecai impaled on it. Then go with the king to the banquet and enjoy yourself.” This suggestion delighted Haman, and he had the pole set up.
"So the king and Haman went to Queen Esther’s banquet, and as they were drinking wine on the second day, the king again asked, “Queen Esther, what is your petition? It will be given you. What is your request? Even up to half the kingdom, it will be granted.”
Then Queen Esther answered, “If I have found favor with you, Your Majesty, and if it pleases you, grant me my life—this is my petition. And spare my people—this is my request. For I and my people have been sold to be destroyed, killed and annihilated. If we had merely been sold as male and female slaves, I would have kept quiet, because no such distress would justify disturbing the king. ”
King Xerxes asked Queen Esther, “Who is he? Where is he—the man who has dared to do such a thing?”
Esther said, “An adversary and enemy! This vile Haman!” Then Haman was terrified before the king and queen. The king got up in a rage, left his wine and went out into the palace garden. But Haman, realizing that the king had already decided his fate, stayed behind to beg Queen Esther for his life. Just as the king returned from the palace garden to the banquet hall, Haman was falling on the couch where Esther was reclining.
The king exclaimed, “Will he even molest the queen while she is with me in the house?” As soon as the word left the king’s mouth, they covered Haman’s face. Then Harbona, one of the eunuchs attending the king, said, “A pole reaching to a height of fifty cubits stands by Haman’s house. He had it set up for Mordecai, who spoke up to help the king.” The king said, “Impale him on it!” So they impaled Haman on the pole he had set up for Mordecai. Then the king’s fury subsided."
Page 5
You can't live among a sickness
Everyone looks unhappy. Even the beginning there with the seeds of flickering dream
The mouth and all other things share within? in the planting in the knowledge of the earth or above on green fields?
Here, every vine and root demands blood
I construct arcadias to forget my ache, I decorate the light having so little of it
Page 6
The snake enters your dreams through paintings:
this one, of a formal garden
in which there are always three:
the thin man with the green-white skin
that marks him vegetarian
and the woman with a swayback and hard breasts
that look stuck on
and the snake, vertical and with a head
that’s face-coloured and haired like a woman’s.
Everyone looks unhappy,
even the few zoo animals, stippled with sun,
even the angel who’s like a slab
of flaming laundry, hovering
up there with his sword of fire,
unable as yet to strike.
There’s no love here.
Maybe it’s the boredom.
And that’s no apple but a heart
torn out of someone
in this myth gone suddenly Aztec.
This is the possibility of death
the snake is offering:
death upon death squeezed together,
a blood snowball.
To devour it is to fall out
of the still unending noon
to a hard ground with a straight horizon
and you are no longer the
idea of a body but a body,
you slide down into your body as into hot mud.
You feel the membranes of disease
close over your head, and history
occurs to you and space enfolds
you in its armies, in its nights, and you
must learn to see in darkness.
Here you can praise the light,
having so little of it:
it’s the death you carry in you
red and captured, that makes the world
shine for you
as it never did before.
This is how you learn prayer.
Love is choosing, the snake said.
The kingdom of god is within you
because you ate it.