'Helen of Troy' (2003)

John Kent Harrison, director. Helen of Troy (2003). A lot of mythical ground is covered in just under three hours. This made-for-cable version mixes together bits of Greek and Roman lore, lots of stuff not in Homer and some that is. Though a little silly at times, Helen of Troy gives us interesting angles on Helen and the Trojan War. 

Emphasis here is placed on Helen, Paris, Theseus, Cassandra, Hector, Agamemnon and his brother Menelaus. Odysseus (Ulysses) is on the edges, portrayed mostly as a jerk. Achilles is inexplicably depicted as a tall and bald brute. Goddesses appear (briefly) in the Judgment of Paris, a scene that seems thrown together like an afterthought but featuring Hera (Juno), Aphrodite (Venus) and Athena (Minerva).The sacrifice of Iphigenia is included. (Recent post on Iphigenia here). Troy is set too close to the sea, with little room for all the fighting that takes place in Homer's detailed descriptions.   

Despite various quibbles, Helen of Troy is still fun to watch. Is Helen the fairest of people, or the most clever, or both? Is Paris an idiot, or Hector? And what about poor Cassandra, always pushing for her brother Paris' death to no avail? 

The tale is told mainly from the point of view of Menelaus, with Agamemnon as a sometimes humorous villain.   

BBC One and Netflix have reportedly partnered to produce Troy: Fall of a City, an eight-part mini-series that will probably come out later this year. Given that this is one of the greatest stories ever told -- especially with all the ancient spin-offs and prequels to draw from -- I look forward to seeing what they've come up with for 21st century audiences. 

Today's Rune: Partnership. 

Michael Cacoyannis: 'Iphigenia' (1977)

Michael Cacoyannis' Iphigenia (1977) is a sharp film adaptation of Iphigenia in Aulis, the circa 407 B.C. play by Euripides (circa 480-406 B.C.). Chock full of psychological and existential crossroads, it has the additional benefit of having Irene Papas (born in 1926 -- now 91 years old) in the role of Clytemnestra -- the mother of Iphigenia and Orestes, wife of Agamemnon, and sister-in-law of Menelaus and Helen of Troy.   

In Iphigenia, so many things converge and collide, with just a handful of characters carrying the core drama. 

The thousand (small) ships of the Greeks are beached at Aulis, ready to carry the army across the Aegean Sea to attack Troy. The winds are listless and the army is restless and hungry. Agamemnon, the man they chose to lead them as overall king, orders food to be collected from the surrounding area. An archer kills a deer sacred to the goddess Artemis, who becomes pissed off and demands, according to augur-seer Calchas, the sacrifice of Agamemnon's oldest daughter, Iphigenia, before she'll kick the winds up again and let the army set sail for Troy.

Agamemnon is appalled, and considers, among other options, dissolving the army rather than going through with it. His brother Menelaus argues with him, back and forth. They are both portrayed with empathy, unlike Odysseus who is depicted as concerned only with getting the army to war against the Trojans as quickly as possible and at whatever cost. 

Eventually, Agamemnon has to trick Clytemnestra into bringing Iphigenia from, presumably, Mycenae to Aulis, so that she can be married to Achilles, commander of the Myrmidons. All hell breaks out when everyone learns the truth.

Some of the themes that jump loose include: the fickle nature of the gods, and fate, and life; the instability of power; the sacrifices demanded for "success;" the wildness of men primed for war and bloodlust (it's noted in the film that had Agamemnon not ordered the sacrifice as required by Artemis, the army might very well have turned on him and killed his whole family); and individual choice vs. fate. All of these themes convey a sense of urgency to the story, ensuring its continued popularity right into the 21st century. Plus, it's so damned absorbing, everything related to the Trojan War.

Today's Rune: Partnership.   

SPECTRE vs. Spectre

Number One (Blofeld) and his Persian feline friend, From Russia with Love (1963) 

Before getting into the SPECTRE milieu, let me weigh in on the possibility of a black James Bond. Of course James Bond can be black -- simply tweak the backstory and bring us into the 21st century. Yes, Idris Elba, David Oyelowo or any number of other black actors could play Bond. As for Daniel Craig's run as 007, he's done a good job and seems close to Ian Fleming's conception of his character in the early novels. 

Regardless of who plays Bond, the earlier films to date are much more interesting to me. Why? Because of the writing, and the greater complexity of worldview. The first batches of James Bond films were more layered and enduring, like The Iliad. The latest, including the new Spectre (2015), are written much more like Scooby-Doo Where are You!  The main reason for this oversimplification in the newer ones, the great narrowing in number and variety and scope of characters, is undoubtedly financial: by make the SPECTRE organization a vague and fairly generic international crime syndicate that does not include real world animosities or historical backdrop, it can be sold anywhere from the USA to China and all over the globe without offense. As an investment strategy, this generic approach works -- Spectre is on track to rake in the equivalent of more than one billion dollars worldwide at the box office by the end of 2015. 

Claudine Auger -- Domino in Thunderball -- as Athena/Minerva (1960)*

As for The Iliad angle, one can imagine 007 (as played by Sean Connery, say, or George Lazenby), being plucked from lethal situations by the last-minute intervention of the goddess Athena, or encouraged to sleep with a beautiful enemy through the wiles of the goddess Aphrodite, or punished by one of the same goddesses for some arrogant slight on Bond's part (as in the loss of his wife in On Her Majesty's Secret Service). In the newer story lines, how does Bond escape sure death? Who knows? For there is no sense of wonder, or magic . . . just simple-minded writing. We are supposed to believe that Blofeld's entire animus toward Bond is due to his father's affection for the orphan boy Bond when they were kids. In the previous film, former 00 agent Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem) was supposed to carry an identical hatred toward Bond because of a Freudian conflict regarding their mutual surrogate mother and boss, M (Judi Dench). Pitiful. What works in a Sergio Leone film does not work in a Bond film.

In the earlier Bond films, there is a sense of a greater, interlocking world with numerous conflicts going on, any number of which may blow up at any time. SPECTRE (Special Executive for Counter-intelligence,Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion) exploits Cold War tensions and other historical animosities. One catches glimpses of old and new conflicts, ones involving Turks vs. Bulgarians, Greeks, Russians, Koreans, Germans, British, Americans, Chinese and various organized crime syndicates. It's a big world, complex, and nationalism is treated in a tongue in cheek way. James Bond notes as much when he quips to "Bond girls" he's sleeping with: "What I did this evening was for Queen and country" (Thunderball) and, "The things I do for England" (You Only Live Twice). Any number of seemingly patriotic nationalists are, in fact, mercenaries, willing to do anything for money, power or revenge. These are valuable lessons for living in the world. One must always be on guard as to actual intent.

Besides the international intrigue and possibility, there's technology and its impact. This is a constant theme throughout the entire series -- including the limits of technology. (I'll write more about this, the importance of theme music and the mystique of hotel rooms at some point).

In the earlier films, I like the way they typically culminate in special forces assaults on a villain's castle, or secret lair. Bond is merely the frontman for larger backup forces. Again, in the new Spectre, there's none of that -- just the little Scooby-Doo band of oddballs working in conjunction with 007. And man, where is Oddjob (Harold Sakata) when you need a truly memorable assassin to contend with?

As of this posting, the closest thing to the spirit and range of the earlier run of James Bond films may be CNN's Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown (2013-present). Bourdain is like a real James Bond for the here and now, a cultural explorer who carries himself with grit, humor, curiosity, and an intrepid nature. Rather than a license to kill, he has a license to travel, drink, sample various cuisines, and engage with people of different backgrounds and histories, all the while making a serious effort to understand both historical context and future possibilities. And so the circle is complete -- Bourdain, Anthony, vs. SPECTRE-like chaos. Can you dig?

*In Jean Cocteau's Le testament d'Orphée, ou ne me demandez pas pourquoi! (1960). 

Today's Rune: Wholeness.     

Venus: A Biography (Part I)

Andrew Dalby's Venus: A Biography (The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2005) really ties the Greco-Roman Gods and Goddesses together. Connects the dots. The names. The cross-cultural fertilization. 

Like the different worldwide Marian avatars of Catholicism, Venus comes in many guises and equivalencies. Inanna (Sumeria), Ishtar (Assyria-Babylonia), Isis and Bastet (Egypt), Aphrodite (Greece), Venus (Rome), Oshun (Yoruba), Rati and Parvati (Hindu), Xochiquetzal (Aztec). There are others.

Dalby provides variations on the myths and tales of Venus and many of the other deities of "The Before Time."  Venus hooks up with Ares (Mars), God of War, and they have three (or more) children: the twin sons Phobos (Fear), Deimos (Dread and Terror) and Harmonia.  Ares takes his boys off to help whip up a bloody good war among the pitiful mortals basically whenever he wishes. 

All stuff good to know, for it's especially relevant to astrology, astronomy, art, architecture, literature, gender studies, area studies, anthropology, psychology, religion, philosophy, history, politics and chaos theory -- among other things.

Today's Rune: Wholeness. 

Kang Je-gyu's 'My Way' / 마이 웨이 (2011): Take Two

Shirai (Fan Bingbing), one of the characters in Kang Je-gyu's My Way / 마이 웨이 (2011) is a Chinese sniper. There were thousands of women snipers engaged in combat during the World War II period-- none of them American. Consider Lyudmila "Lady Death" Pavlychenko, a Ukrainian Soviet sniper who killed 309 Axis men. Women snipers fought during the American War in Vietnam, as is depicted in Stanley Kubrick's 1987 film, Full Metal Jacket (Ngoc Le plays a Viet Cong sniper).    

Another element of Kang Je-gyu's My Way / 마이 웨이 (2011): the runner. The two main characters compete in races before the outbreak of war -- just as in Peter Weir's Gallipoli (1981). In both films, running is another way to spotlight race, class and socio-economic competition. It makes one think of the Olympics, the ancient Greeks, The Iliad and the "tribal core" sports of the 21st century. It also might make one think of the Robert Altman film MASH (1970), set during the Korean War of 1950-1953, and prison films like Robert Aldrich's The Longest Yard (1974), as well as Hugh Hudson's Chariots of Fire (1981), which among other things deals with anti-Semitism. In My Way, there is not only the runner vs. runner aspect; at Normandy, we see Axis soldiers playing football (i.e. soccer) before the coming Allied invasion.

Kang Je-gyu's My Way / 마이 웨이 (2011) also deals with prisons, POW camps, gulags, concentration camps, forced labor and all of their most terrible conditions. Indeed, the German title for the film at its 2012 release in Germany was Prisoners of War -- in English. 

Since forever, it seems, POWs and prisoners in general have been treated very badly. Who would want to be trapped in an Iranian or North Korean prison? Or a Chinese, German, Russian, Turkish one? Or a French or British penal colony? During the American Civil War, both sides treated POWs in an abysmal manner, leaving them -- their fellow  Americans -- exposed to the elements, malnourished and decimated by infectious disease. Captured freedmen and free black men were either executed or sent back into, or into, slavery. Today, groups like the so-called Islamic State execute prisoners en masse. I doubt treatment of prisoners in ancient times was a pretty picture, either. 

Why are prisoners treated so cruelly? It's so easy -- too easy. Millions of prisoners -- civilians and soldiers, grownups and children -- perished while in prisons, camps and gulags during WW2. Millions more died in captivity after the war, never returned by the captor nations to their home countries -- or expatriated and then imprisoned-to-death in their home countries. My Way reminds us.

Today's Rune: Growth.   

Kang Je-gyu's 'My Way' / 마이 웨이 (2011): Take One

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Kang Je-gyu's My Way / 마이 웨이 (2011), delivers an epic story that begins in Japanese Occupied Korea in the late 1920s and ends, or almost ends, at Normandy in 1944. Drawing on the real story of Yang Kyoungjong and the great sweep of history, My Way works on several levels -- from the small and human to the mass and inhuman violence of global war. 

Like The Iliad, My Way lets us see multiple viewpoints. And as with that Homeric epic, there is an abundance of courage, stupidity, shrewdness, luck, fate, adventure, cruelty and death. 

Among a group of characters, three stand out: Korean Joon-Sik (Jang Dong-gun), Japanese Tatsuo (Joe Odagiri) and Chinese Shirai (Fan Bingbing); the latter, a female sniper, contributes to an unlikely romantic thread, as well. 

Among the crazier things one will encounter in My Way is a Japanese infantry frontal assault against Soviet tanks at Khalkhyn Gol (1939).  

Here, a Soviet frontal assault against German positions at Kharkov in Ukraine (1943). 

In My Way, no one is as fanatical as low level military officers -- Japanese, Russian and German -- in sending their men into doomed, bloody efforts. 

As members of Ostlegionen units, Asians were positioned at Normandy, part of the German defenses of the Atlantic Wall. There were all sorts of ethnicities in the Ostlegionen: mostly desperate POWs converted into cannon fodder. 

Spotlighting the existence of the Ostlegionen is fascinating, another way in which My Way raises consciousness about the complexities and nuances of war on a massive scale.   

Today's Rune: Breakthrough. 

Gallipoli / Çanakkale Centenary: 1915-2015

Gallipoli / Çanakkale Centenary: 1915-2015.  Approximately 500,000 casualties in this one campaign of the First World War: mostly Ottoman imperial troops, British and French imperial troops, Australian, New Zealander, Indian, Canadian and German troops. 

100,000 dead in eight and one-half months.  

Gallipoli / Çanakkale Centenary: 1915-2015. Pertinent books, movies, poems and cultural exchanges have bubbled up in the past 100 years.

Here in Peter Weir's Gallipoli (1981),  Mel Gibson's character Frank Dunne looks across barbed wire at a Turkish POW on the beach at Gallipoli. Turkey is now part of NATO.  

Gallipoli / Çanakkale Centenary: 1915-2015. Recent Turkish film from the Ottoman point of view. 


June Tabor's excellent 1976 version of Eric Bogle's powerful 1971 song, "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda," which is all about Gallipoli from an ANZAC perspective.

Perhaps fittingly, the French and Turks battled over the same area as the site of the Trojan War (circa 1250 B.C.). 'Nuff said. 

Today's Rune: Harvest. 

Romare Bearden: The Odysseus Series

There's a cool exhibition at the Amon Carter -- Romare Bearden's Odysseus Series. Lots of bold lines, strong hues and tall tales -- including ones many will be familiar with. 

Bearden (1911–1988), who was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, but lived most of his life elsewhere, made a quip something like this: "I never left Charlotte, except physically." 

What do you think of taking familiar tales and recasting them in a different time or context, or place? (Example: Robinson Crusoe on Mars, 1964). My basic aesthetic philosophy is: whatever works.

Today's Rune: Journey.

Chapel Hill, North Carolina: West Franklin Street 3

Among other places, I ducked into Internationalist Books at 405 West [Benjamin] Franklin Street over Thanksgiving Break. This Chapel Hill cultural institution was founded by Bob Sheldon in the early 1980s, orginally over on Henderson Street above the then-location of Linda's Bar. Hector's, a Greek (and Trojan) hangout, was next door.

Bob moved into a bigger space at 408 West Rosemary Street, behind (north of) Franklin, about a year later. That's the one I worked at while still an undergraduate student at UNC. Bob also graciously permitted the Internationalist to be utilized as a meeting and yakking place and staging point for ad hoc protest groups, such as the one I joined to march and occupy Republican Congressman Bill Cobey's office with in 1985.

Now, in 2012 at the latest incarnation of Internationalist Books, I bought some artwork and chatted to a new worker about more recent goings on, and about Bob. 

To the right on the fringe of the picture above is the front of a record store, another still thriving Chapel Hill tradition.  

On the top shelf of this scanned image from inside Internationalist Books is a photo of founder Bob Sheldon, who was killed on February 21, 1991. The 1992 song "Chapel Hill" by Sonic Youth is loosely based on his death.

A salute to Bob and the Internationalist Books community!

Today's Rune: Journey.   

Skyfall

Fifty years and still running, the contemporary epic myth of 007 continues. James Bond, the Achilles of the here, the now and the recent past: from JFK to Barack Obama and way on down the road.

Skyfall is the best so far of the the Daniel Craig era Bond films. Beyond a large budget, Skyfall has many assets propelling it forward. Director Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Jarhead, Revolutionary Road). Craig as Bond. Javier Bardem. Judi Dench. Ralph Fiennes. Naomie Harris. Bérénice Lim Marlohe. Albert Finney. Istanbul. Shanghai. Macau. London. Scotland. Title song by Adele. Traditional Bond theme saluting back to the Sean Connery era. Clone of the Aston Martin DB5 from Goldfinger (1964/1965), which I first saw as a little kid at the New York World's Fair. Oh, yes. What's not to dig?
    

Today's Rune: Defense.

Unfortunately, It Was Paradise

This will be the last post inspired by Jean-Luc Godard's Notre Musique (2004) -- for now.

In panning for more gold, another found nugget is Jean Racine's Phèdre (1677). This connects to contemplation of suicide by a main character in Godard's film. "Suicide is the only truly serious philosophical problem" - derived from a statement by Albert Camus (1913-1960): "Il n'y a qu'un problème philosophique vraiment sérieux: c'est le suicide" -- from Le Mythe de Sisyphe (1942) / The Myth of Sisyphus (1955). And then there's this eerie announcement: “Tonight I will be in heaven.”

Claude Lefort (1924-2010), a social-political theorist like Hannah Arendt, also pops up. Lefort wrote about, among other topics, Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527) and Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859), the butt of many pot jokes in American high school classes. I'm not sure if this is from Lefort, but around this time in Notre Musique, the following statement is made: "The life of man is but a battle for existence with being vanquished the only certainty . . .”  How will each person conduct that battle in the meantime?

Finally, there's Palestinian poet-writer Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008), born in Palestine, died in Texas. Given his arc, the title Unfortunately, It Was Paradise: Selected Poems (2003) makes perfect sense. Displaced, exiled, with no hope of return, in Notre Musique, he speaks of being a Poet of Troy, the city overrun near the end of the Trojan War. The thorny Palestinian-Israeli relationship has been at the heart of many a Middle Eastern dilemma for as long as I can remember, with no out in sight. 

  















Mahmoud Darwish discussing poetry and life in Bosnia links to the arrival of American Indians (aka Native Americans) at the Mostar Bridge, pointing to a feeling of similar displacements in North America. It could be that reconstruction of the bridge after the Bosnian War will parallel reconstruction and reconciliation for "First Nations" here in the 21st century.

Today's Rune: Separation (Reversed).
 

Behind Every Word is Another Word

Still thinking about Jean-Luc Godard's Notre Musique (2004). The film, set in and around Sarajevo and Mostar less than a decade after the Bosnian War ended, embeds the equivalent of a blizzard of hyperlinks in many directions. There's enough to keep one making connections and musing for quite a little while.

Godard delves into numerous (somehow) interconnected topics and themes. These include war (Hell), with specific examples drawn from Homer and Euripides (the Trojan War), plus the American Civil War and just about anything you can imagine from the 20th century.

In one scene, Godard (as Godard) shows students in Sarajevo a projection of a photograph depicting urban ruins. He asks if anyone can identify the geographic or temporal location of this destruction. Some try. Stalingrad? Sarajevo? No, Godard says. Richmond, Virginia, 1865.

  

Godard is in a taxi cab, answering someone's question from offscreen: "Humane people don’t start revolutions. They start libraries." Spanish writer Juan Goytisolo (b. 1931), accompanying him, quips: ". . . and cemeteries." The source for this banter? A novel by Andre Malraux set during the Spanish Civil War, L'Espoir (aka Hope, The Hope, Man's Hope, Days of Hope, first published in 1937).

Godard: As our age has endless destructive force,
it . . . needs a revolution of a comparable creative force that reinforces memory, clarifies dreams and gives substance to images.

Which is exactly what Godard is hoping to underscore through the entirety of Notre Musique. 

Today's Rune: Fertility.

Jean-Luc Godard: Notre Musique

Jean-Luc Godard's Notre Musique (2004) is set in Bosnia-Herzegovina less than ten years after the Bosnian War (1991-1995), a savage conflict involving three main factions: Bosnians, Croatians (Croats) and Serbians (Serbs). Sounds and images of significant contemporary documentary value depict street scenes in Sarajevo and Mostar. Without getting into the film proper (yet), a primary image that leaps out from the film is the functioning electric tram. Here it is so soon after the bloodletting, yet trams are humming along.

I couldn't help but think how Detroit used to have a major streetcar/trolley system and may again; how in Fort Worth, Texas, there is currently a discussion over reinstalling trolleys along 7th Street and other thoroughfares. In 1907, there were sixteen streetcar lines in Fort Worth. Today, Dallas runs trolleycars and other light rail, as do other North American cities such as Philadelphia, New Orleans, San Francisco, Mexico City and Toronto.

What does the electric tram represent in Notre Musique? I'm not sure, but it's worth remembering that Orpheus is a tram conductor and the god Hermes runs a tram station in Marcel Camus' Orfeu Negro/Black Orpheus (1959). Perhaps the electric tram represents a hope for the reconstruction of a well-woven social fabric after periods of mass violence and destruction, the kind that makes one think of Syria today, or the Gordian Knot of Israeli-Palestinian relations, which is another key topic in Notre Musique. Or perhaps it's simply making some of notre musique -- "our music."  

Today's Rune: Possessions.         

The Iliad Becomes An Iliad

A little more about the Undermain Theatre production of An Iliad in Deep Ellum. Bruce DuBose does the talking and Paul Semrad plays most of the instrumental mood music.

As you can see from the theatre card pictured above via the electrical outlet, this version of The Iliad has modern connections. Most of them are subtle, but two stand out from what I saw this past weekend. First, when the Poet (DuBose) begins reeling off where the Greek contingents arrayed against Hittite Troy (Ἴλιον aka Ilion or ILIUM) come from, it dawns on him (his persona): the audience may not be familiar with these ancient lands or peoples. So he updates them to different locales around today's USA -- the more to drive home the universal relevance of the epic story, song and poem of the Trojan War. The audience immediately connects the Trojan War to, say, the Afghanistan War, or the Syrian Civil War. And indeed, later on the Poet reads the names of wars from a long scroll, a representative sample only of what seems like a hundred of them from the Trojan War right up to Syria and the burning of Aleppo. The audience winces during this litany, chilled to the bones, and for good reason. It would seem that humankind is doomed to keep clawing itself to pieces down through the ages and right off into the future. Or as George Santayana noted in 1922, between the Great War to End All Wars and WW2: "only the dead have seen the end of war." But we were and are and will be human all the way. An Iliad also reminds us to live life while we can, because mischief awaits us at every turn. Be hospitable to poets and other artists, Homer seems to be saying, and they will make the way more palatable in return. Good one.

Today's Rune: Separation (Reversed).         

Undermain Theatre Presents: An Iliad

Over in Deep Ellum, Dallas, at the Undermain Theatre, I had the great pleasure of experiencing a riveting performance of An Iliad, "by Lisa Peterson & Denis O'Hare adapted from the Robert Fagles translation of Homer." As the back of a theatre card puts it succinctly: "An illumination of this ancient classic directed by Katherine Owens. Bruce DuBose and Paul Semrad reveal Homer's epic in words and music." Astonishing and powerful. A little Greek language flavor in some of the song, the rest in English -- and tied beautifully to the here and now, underscoring the universal relevance of The Iliad, with the Trojan War as stand-in for all war.

(Note on set: "Designed by John Amone, Linda Noland, Giva Taylor, and Steve Woods.")

Undermain Theatre: 3200 Main Street, Dallas, TX, USA. Performances will continue this week, Wednesday through Saturday night, with a Saturday matinee. Seating capacity -- eighty. A golden bargain at $15-$25. http://www.undermain.org/

Today's Rune: Breakthrough.  

Sappho of Lesbos and Helen of Troy

In the Days of Sappho by John William Godward (1904, Getty Center, Los Angeles). Sappho lived circa 612/630-570 BC, perhaps 600 years after the Trojan War.

Here's a sample from Sappho's Fragment 16, which could, I suppose, be called "Helen of Troy." English translation by Anne Carson, with my own line breaks given the contraints of formatting here:

Some men say an army of horse and
some men say an army on foot and
some men say an army of ships is
the most beautiful thing on
this black earth.
But I say it is
. . . what you love. . .

I would rather see her
lovely step and
the motion of light
on her face than
the chariots of the Lydians or
ranks of foot soldiers in arms. . .

Today's Rune: Journey.

La Mort d'Orphée

Mort d'Orphée by Émile Lévy (1866, Musée d'Orsay, Paris). Here, Maenads are in the process of slaying Orpheus. Why? Paging Dr. Freud . . . Who knows?  Has Orpheus pissed off a god or goddess, or just the Maenads (in Roman terms, the Bacchae) themselves? Is it a case of "Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned," as William Congreve put it in The Mourning Bride (1697)? Does this mythical scene represent the transient arc of the artist in life, the fickle nature of how art is perceived?

"Whatever prompted the Maenads to do it, each one wanted Orpheus for himself, and their tugging at him ended in a bloody death," according to Stephen P. Kershaw, in A Brief Guide to the Greek Myths (London: Robinson, 2007), page 56.

As for the painting, that's quite a fantasia there imagined by Lévy. I wonder if he had actual models act out the scene?      

Nymphs Finding Head of Orpheus by John Williams Waterhouse (1900, Collection of Sir Tim Rice). In any case, the myth continues. The head of Orpheus -- along with his lyre -- makes its was to the Island of Lesbos, where it's found either by "nymphs" (as pictured above) or Muses or their representatives. Orpheus was, by most accounts, a son of the Muse Calliope, who also happened to be the "Sing to me, O Muse" of Homer, apparently. So, we've got a case of energy transfer here, a touch of good feng shui and good luck or the will of the gods, because the talents of Orpheus begin to permeate around Lesbos, inspiring later artists such as the poet Sappho. And so, as is often the case, something "good" comes out of something "bad," eh?    

Today's Rune: Initiation.