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Tales from the Island of Serendip
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Started by Flex Mentallo,

8,956 posts in this topic

Flex Mentallo

Flex Mentallo

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For those of you who have been following this - distinctly non-comics related thread - since the beginning - A footnote to relate that Lucina has informed me that she just received the gold medal as top university student at her graduation.

 

Considering her desperate beginnings, and that she is now studying for her PhD, I confess I shed a tear. (Proud fathers do that, I'm told.)

 

 

DSCN1652_zps74977e15.jpg

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Flex Mentallo

Flex Mentallo

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Why do we need stories?

 

Why do we find stories – especially comic book stories and characters – so fascinating, whether on paper or on celluloid?

 

What is the hero's journey?

 

9076173148_457195b578_o_zpsa5f15d88.jpg

 

Welcome back to the Island of Serendip, where all coincidences meaningfully meet!

 

I’d like you to help me to explore the roots of storytelling, and the associated imagery of villains and heroes that we all find so compelling.

 

 

I'll make a start over the coming weekend. Hopefully some of you will join in.

 

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Cat-Man_America

Cat-Man_America

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For those of you who have been following this - distinctly non-comics related thread - since the beginning - A footnote to relate that Lucina has informed me that she just received the gold medal as top university student at her graduation.

 

Considering her desperate beginnings, and that she is now studying for her PhD, I confess I shed a tear. (Proud fathers do that, I'm told.)

 

 

DSCN1652_zps74977e15.jpg

 

 

:applause:

 

Wow! :headbang:

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Cat-Man_America

Cat-Man_America

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Why do we need stories?

 

Why do we find stories – especially comic book stories and characters – so fascinating, whether on paper or on celluloid?

 

What is the hero's journey?

 

9076173148_457195b578_o_zpsa5f15d88.jpg

 

Welcome back to the Island of Serendip, where all coincidences meaningfully meet!

 

I’d like you to help me to explore the roots of storytelling, and the associated imagery of villains and heroes that we all find so compelling.

 

 

I'll make a start over the coming weekend. Hopefully some of you will join in.

 

How about this (although it is from a Roger Zelazny series) ...

 

faff18b1-9bc0-46d3-984e-401f89246a6f_zps2921ea19.jpg

 

[font:Times New Roman]Tim White original recently acquired in HA.[/font]

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Pat Calhoun

Pat Calhoun

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athene.JPG

There came a lady to him through the wood, taller than he, or any mortal man; but beautiful exceedingly, with great gray eyes, clear and piercing, but strangely soft and mild. On her head was a helmet, and in her hand a spear. And over her shoulder, above her long blue robes, hung a goat-skin, which bore up a mighty shield of brass, polished like a mirror. She stood and looked at him with her clear gray eyes; and Perseus saw that her eye-lids never moved, nor her eyeballs, but looked straight through and through him, and into his very heart, as if she could see all the secrets of his soul, and knew all that he had ever thought or longed for since the day that he was born. And Perseus dropped his eyes, trembling and blushing, as the wonderful lady spoke.

'Perseus, you must do an errand for me.'

'Who are you, lady? And how do you know my name?'

'I am Pallas Athene; and I know the thoughts of all men's hearts, and discern their manhood or their baseness. And from the souls of clay I turn away, and they are blest, but not by me. They fatten at ease, like sheep in the pasture, and eat what they did not sow, like oxen in the stall. They grow and spread, like the gourd along the ground; but, like the gourd, they give no shade to the traveller, and when they are ripe death gathers them, and they go down unloved into hell, and their name vanishes out of the land.

'But to the souls of fire I give more fire, and to those who are manful I give a might more than man's. These are the heroes, the sons of the Immortals, who are blest, but not like the souls of clay. For I drive them forth by strange paths, Perseus, that they may fight the Titans and the monsters, the enemies of Gods and men. Through doubt and need, danger and battle, I drive them; and some of them are slain in the flower of youth, no man knows when or where; and some of them win noble names, and a fair and green old age; but what will be their latter end I know not, and none, save Zeus, the father of Gods and men. Tell me now, Perseus, which of these two sorts of men seem to you more blest?'

Then Perseus answered boldly: 'Better to die in the flower of youth, on the chance of winning a noble name, than to live at ease like the sheep, and die unloved and unrenowned.'

Then that strange lady laughed, and held up her brazen shield, and cried: 'See here, Perseus; dare you face such a monster as this, and slay it, that I may place its head upon this shield?'

And in the mirror of the shield there appeared a face, and as Perseus looked on it his blood ran cold. It was the face of a beautiful woman; but her cheeks were pale as death, and her brows were knit with everlasting pain, and her lips were thin and bitter like a snake's; and instead of hair, vipers wreathed about her temples, and shot out their forked tongues; while round her head were folded wings like an eagle's, and upon her bosom claws of brass.

And Perseus looked awhile, and then said: 'If there is anything so fierce and foul on earth, it were a noble deed to kill it. Where can I find the monster?'

Then the strange lady smiled again, and said: 'Not yet; you are too young, and too unskilled; for this is Medusa the Gorgon, the mother of a monstrous brood. Return to your home, and do the work which waits there for you. You must play the man in that before I can think you worthy to go in search of the Gorgon.'

Then Perseus would have spoken, but the strange lady vanished, and he awoke; and behold, it was a dream. But day and night Perseus saw before him the face of that dreadful woman, with the vipers writhing round her head.

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Flex Mentallo

Flex Mentallo

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athene.JPG

There came a lady to him through the wood, taller than he, or any mortal man; but beautiful exceedingly, with great gray eyes, clear and piercing, but strangely soft and mild. On her head was a helmet, and in her hand a spear. And over her shoulder, above her long blue robes, hung a goat-skin, which bore up a mighty shield of brass, polished like a mirror. She stood and looked at him with her clear gray eyes; and Perseus saw that her eye-lids never moved, nor her eyeballs, but looked straight through and through him, and into his very heart, as if she could see all the secrets of his soul, and knew all that he had ever thought or longed for since the day that he was born. And Perseus dropped his eyes, trembling and blushing, as the wonderful lady spoke.

'Perseus, you must do an errand for me.'

'Who are you, lady? And how do you know my name?'

'I am Pallas Athene; and I know the thoughts of all men's hearts, and discern their manhood or their baseness. And from the souls of clay I turn away, and they are blest, but not by me. They fatten at ease, like sheep in the pasture, and eat what they did not sow, like oxen in the stall. They grow and spread, like the gourd along the ground; but, like the gourd, they give no shade to the traveller, and when they are ripe death gathers them, and they go down unloved into hell, and their name vanishes out of the land.

'But to the souls of fire I give more fire, and to those who are manful I give a might more than man's. These are the heroes, the sons of the Immortals, who are blest, but not like the souls of clay. For I drive them forth by strange paths, Perseus, that they may fight the Titans and the monsters, the enemies of Gods and men. Through doubt and need, danger and battle, I drive them; and some of them are slain in the flower of youth, no man knows when or where; and some of them win noble names, and a fair and green old age; but what will be their latter end I know not, and none, save Zeus, the father of Gods and men. Tell me now, Perseus, which of these two sorts of men seem to you more blest?'

Then Perseus answered boldly: 'Better to die in the flower of youth, on the chance of winning a noble name, than to live at ease like the sheep, and die unloved and unrenowned.'

Then that strange lady laughed, and held up her brazen shield, and cried: 'See here, Perseus; dare you face such a monster as this, and slay it, that I may place its head upon this shield?'

And in the mirror of the shield there appeared a face, and as Perseus looked on it his blood ran cold. It was the face of a beautiful woman; but her cheeks were pale as death, and her brows were knit with everlasting pain, and her lips were thin and bitter like a snake's; and instead of hair, vipers wreathed about her temples, and shot out their forked tongues; while round her head were folded wings like an eagle's, and upon her bosom claws of brass.

And Perseus looked awhile, and then said: 'If there is anything so fierce and foul on earth, it were a noble deed to kill it. Where can I find the monster?'

Then the strange lady smiled again, and said: 'Not yet; you are too young, and too unskilled; for this is Medusa the Gorgon, the mother of a monstrous brood. Return to your home, and do the work which waits there for you. You must play the man in that before I can think you worthy to go in search of the Gorgon.'

Then Perseus would have spoken, but the strange lady vanished, and he awoke; and behold, it was a dream. But day and night Perseus saw before him the face of that dreadful woman, with the vipers writhing round her head.

 

Powerful stuff Pat! What is the source please? I don't recognize it.

 

I do recall, though not from where, that Pallas Athena was known as the "glaucous eyed", or "owl eyed" goddess, because the Greek word for owl resembled the name of a local grape, glauxos, that was luminous by moonlight.

 

Hence she was the Moon Goddess - "far seeing", and wise.

Edited by Flex Mentallo
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Flex Mentallo

Flex Mentallo

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For those of you who have been following this - distinctly non-comics related thread - since the beginning - A footnote to relate that Lucina has informed me that she just received the gold medal as top university student at her graduation.

 

Considering her desperate beginnings, and that she is now studying for her PhD, I confess I shed a tear. (Proud fathers do that, I'm told.)

 

 

DSCN1652_zps74977e15.jpg

 

 

:applause:

 

Wow! :headbang:

 

She is my hero.

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Flex Mentallo

Flex Mentallo

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'The Heroes' by Charles Kingsley, illustrated by W Russell Flint, Medici Society 1924

img559.jpg

 

Thank you, that is quite wonderful. More please?

 

Ariadne gave Theseus a golden thread to find his way out of the labyrinth, and a sword with which to slay her half brother, the Minotaur. In return, he promised to take her back with him to Mycenae. But he betrayed her, and leaving her behind, set sail for home.

 

He had promised his father Aegeus that if he was a victorious, he would lower the black sails of the returning ships in favor of white ones. Full of his victory, he forgot to do so.

 

Seeing the black sails on the horizon, Aegeus in mortal grief cast himself into the sea and was drowned. Hence the name, Aegean Sea.

 

All myths have in common a historical basis, and a moral.

 

In this case, Theseus began as the hero and slew the monster, only to become a monster himself.

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MrBedrock

MrBedrock

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What happens when your heroes go through tough times and start to think that embracing a villain might improve their standing?

i.e - The Longhorns courting Nick Sabin ???

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