Trilogy

It's ok, Cleardaynow, no offence taken and anyway I agree with you that the effort is worthwhile both for classical literature and for your own art which gives a new very valid perspective.

Well done!

Interesting discussion. Thank you.

First, in response to specific queries:

Only angels dare to weep was Case 1, the idea that the rest of us are semi paralysed as we see the train crash unfolding and only angels see the full ramifications of what is happening and react accordingly to what is inevitable. Angels and heaven are not part of the Greek mythology but seemed to fit.

The iron wheel. I think a fresh crop of people rise and then get crushed with each cycle of the wheel – thus Antigone and her siblings are the cycle after Oedipus. The cycle of life and death.

Pelegrino, I fear I offended you with my somewhat flip take on the Greek myths and tragedies. I wanted to strip them bare of all the pomp that surrounds and smothers ‘great’ literature. Among non Greeks, relatively few of us these days will have read the Greek tragedies and most will have no more knowledge of them than say of Norse or Indian mythology. As well as explaining my poem I wanted to ‘sell’ the Greek plays and the whole incredible concept of tragedy. If one reader goes on to actually read the Greek tragedies then my comments will have been worthwhile. My apologies for having forgotten and omitted Ismene.

I agree with others that you do not *need* to explain your poem; however, I think it is nice that you've left comments with further commentary for those that might need it, and I don't see the harm in doing it. I wouldn't have picked on all the subtleties otherwise, that's for sure (at least, not without going after Medea and the Bacchae).

Now, about the poem itself. I think you've managed to pull off an "epic" feeling, with these long lines and full sentences. It's very musical, it flows very well. I found the rhyming curious, in my mind it just becomes lost effort due to the length of the sentences. But, at the same time, I think the pacing is great, so no real complaint there (again, just found it curious).

I thought these lines in the first stanza were confusing:

"For him heaven beckons and only angels dare to weep

To see how mortal man acts out his mortal destiny

And see again the tragic circle begin its sacred beat."

Now, English isn't my first language, so perhaps I'm just lacking what is needed to properly parse this chunk of text. My problem with it is that I have two readings:

case 1: "Only angels dare to weep as they see a mortal man acting out his destiny"

or

case 2: "Angels weep. And oh! To see how mortal man acts out his mortal destiny..."

So, what I'm saying is, if the correct reading is case 2, I feel there should be a point on s1,l2 (after "weep") to separate those sentences.

I like the image of the wheel of fate, of rising to the top and seeing far, to the horizon, while ignoring the inevitable downfall and crushing that is to come. However, I also think it is a problematic choice, for the *wheel of fate* is eternal. So it's up, down, up, down, up... Forever. It doesn't stop with the low tide. Why not use a more generic wheel? A "wheel of hubris", "wheel of the gods", or whatever, just to avoid the "wheel of fate", which has its own mythological bagage? Yes, I'm nitpicking... And to be honest, "wheel of fate" just sounds cooler. Hell, I don't know. Just a thought.

Really cool. Many great lines, very interesting. Thank you for sharing it.

I appreciate the education - but as we discussed before I think the poem is excellent on it's own. The explanations add some depth for the poorly read such as myself but here is what the poem did for me:

At first I didn't like it because of the futility it made me feel. However, because I am learning to think more about the "why" of what I like and don't like:

Began to realize how well it was written, how effortlessly the words evoked the emotion, no reaching, no contrivance.

Realized that happy, sad, or whatever - good poetry makes you feel SOMETHING. Good poetry does it without making you solve a riddle. Good poetry does it with combinations of words that can contain nuance, that can be interpreted, or can be enjoyed for the way they read and sound in your head as well as for the story or message. Enjoyment comes from recognizing and appreciating the above more than from the actual emotion or reaction evoked.

Okay most who read this will be thinking " what,did he just wake up? " Well, in a sense I did and I think both my poetry and comments will be much improved because of it. While I liked what I liked and didn't what I didn't I will spend more time thinking about why.

Thank you, Cleardaynow.

Well, if you feel the need to write such lengthy comments on Greek drama, perhaps you should start a thread where every one can express his views. As it is, I feel obliged to answer you here. I completely disagree with some of your views.

If you mean to say that characters or dramatic plots in Greek tragedies, taken straight out of Greek myths and tradition are obscure, then what and who is not obscure?

I don't believe that a poet should have to give any explanations or apologize for his subject matter, however familiar or obscure that may be. It is up to the reader to know, and if he does not, at least for such well known subjects as Greek drama, he should refer to the Wikipedia as you do.

Knowledge is privilege as you say, but I do not mean it in a derogatory sense as you do. It is a honorable privilege to me and only attained with hard effort.

Now, on your "incest hub" on Literotica: I am not as sure as you that the Greeks would disapprove all that much. Incest was present in ancient Greek society (Athenian or otherwise) as much as it is today. A fact of life and a taboo, but in some cases like the Macedonian dynasty of Egypt, well established and necessary. Let us be realistic about it: Incest stories are the overwhelming majority in our data base. People may have it as a taboo, but they are intrigued by it, they like reading it and, given the chance, probably they would practise it. That's how I interpret the statistics.

King Oedipus tale is not only about incest, as I said, but rather about dealing with realities in life, and, incidentally, he had four incestuous children, not three:

Eteocles, Polynices, Antigone and Ismene. I do not like mythological inaccuracies.

Personally, I am not happy when writers make reference to obscure things and it becomes something of an in game to spot them and say ‘I am one of the privileged who sees and understands’. I have given the reasons why I believe the Greek tragedies are special – very special – at least to me.

The following is a potted history of the tragedies & what I remember about it all – checked by Wikipedia.

Oedipus Rex. His parents, king and queen of Thebes, were warned (by the Oracle) that their son would kill his father and marry his mother. Therefore, as any good parent would do, they gave the newborn infant to someone to dispose of him. He was left out for the wild animals. Unfortunately, depending on your point of view, he was found and raised. As a young man, he was travelling and came to a crossroad (where three roads meet) and someone was coming along another track. Neither would give way, so they fought & Oedipus killed the man. He then came to Thebes which was plagued by a monster – and curiously, the king had been killed. He defeats the monster and as his reward was made king and married the queen. Years later Thebes was racked by plague. It all came out, yes you guessed it, that he had killed his father and married his mother. The Greeks obviously had quite strong taboos about this and would not have approved of the Incest hub on Literotica. His mother hanged herself and Oedipus put out his own eyes. Strong drama & end of the play Oedipus.

Oedipus at Colonus is quite boring to us but very daring for the Greeks. Oedipus (at Colonus would you believe) decides that it was not his fault, it was the Gods’ doing and he should not have put his eyes out. The small matter of homicide – even if it had not been his father - was not regarded as anything to be worried about. The ‘god from the machine’ comes along vindicates him and he is carried off in a blaze of glory.

Antigone is the last of the Theban plays. Oedipus had had three incestuous children and of course they were cursed. There is civil war, one brother kills another (losing) brother and everyone is forbidden on the strictest of punishments to bury him. The Greeks took funeral rites very seriously. Their sister Antigone buries her dead brother. Very reluctantly, as everyone loves her, she has to suffer the punishment. She is walled up in a cave to die of thirst or starvation. End of play.

I have covered Medea in my previous comment – except to say the Jason and Medea’s two sons were carrying wedding gifts for their father’s marriage to the princess when Medea kills them. Yes and it was Medea who helped Jason achieve his quest and steal the golden fleece. To my mind, this is the strongest of all the tragedies, though I have been told that the language is not so good – but I did not read it in the original Greek.

The Bacchae is fun. There is a new religion sweeping the kingdom that involves the women going off by themselves and getting high and abandoned – and probably naked. The king is persuaded to go and watch this secretly – purely for the good of the kingdom, of course. He does so and the women come back with the queen, his wife, carrying the head of a stag that they have chased down and ripped to pieces in their frenzy. Gradually, she comes out of her high and realises it is actually her husband’s head. How awful – what, did I hear some wives cheering?

So there you have it and it turns out that the Greeks also invented road rage and dogging.

Clearly, the Athenians were very taken up by the issues of cause and effect and good and evil. The idea that natural disasters are caused by our wrong doing, our offending the gods. There are still people who think that Aids or floods are God’s punishment for condoning homosexuality. Back then, cause and effect was a hot topic for all the Greeks and the Athenian tragedies were absolutely adored throughout the Greek world. Thus, captured Athenian prisoners were spared if they could recite any of the plays. It is all closely connected with the rise of reason and science in Athens.

Cycles were also very important to the ancient Greeks – as they would be to any peoples dependent on the land and where a bad winter or a poor harvest would mean starvation a death for many. The cycles of the seasons and life and death. As far as I am aware, there are no references in Greek to ‘iron wheel of fate’ but it fits in with their thinking.

To our ears, the chorus in the tragedies are a pain. They tend to state the obvious and get in the way of the drama. Essentially, they were the relic of the plays starting as religious rites. For the playwright, they had the advantage of letting him make his points clear to even the thickest members of the audience.

Heavy stuff, Cleardaynow, but I don’t think it is an old hat. It can never be when people still find ways to make a new point like you do in your last stanza. I also like your imagery and your comments on the actions of the chorus.

Although here is not the place to get into such deep waters, I believe that King Oedipus (not necessarily his children) is one of the less fatalistic heroes by Sophocles and probably the most dignified. It is not so much fate but circumstance that determines his life, and thus he becomes the most human of all heroes. Something like a 21st century human being.

Anyway, I really liked it, thanks for sharing it.

I hope this poem stands alone without a detailed knowledge of the Greek tragedies. Although mainly covering the Theban plays (Oedipus), I also bring in Medea and the Bacchae.

When I was at school we had one of those really special people as headmaster. In my last year I did English with him (I was a mathematician) and he introduced us to and took us through some of the Greek tragedies. He was well qualified to do so as he had written some of the Penguin translations. There was something in those tragedies that hit a nerve with me.

The Athenian Greeks were amazing. They invented most sciences, democracy, philosophy and even (heaven help us) literary criticism. Obviously, they must have been building on previous thinking in their and other societies. Nonetheless in just a few short years and with just a handful of individuals they created the greatest leap in human thought there has ever been.

One such creation was drama – and tragedy. Three individuals basically jazzed up a religious rite into inventing not only drama but the driving wellspring of literature. The ‘tragic’ idea being that we are brought down and destroyed not by others but by weakness that is inherent or counterpoint to any greatness we possess. That weakness is titled hubris, often translated as arrogance, though I think it is more accurately ‘culpable blindness’. They even had the idea of redemption through suffering – though it came out clumsily with the ‘god from the machine’ coming along giving a speech praising and exonerating the hero and carting him or her off in a blaze of glory. A bit naff really – also a bit disconcerting when Medea, who has chopped her loving, trusting younger brother in pieces to slow down her father’s pursuit and then killed her two sons by Jason when he dumps her for the king’s daughter, gets this official seal of approval.

But, like I said, it tapped into something very deep – as did democracy and science (I will leave out literary criticism). Virtually any story that has bite will contain the essence of tragedy.

Anyway, my apologies to those for whom this is all old hat.

And thank you Walter Hamilton.