Theseus Quotes

Name one hero who was happy." I considered. Heracles went mad and killed his family; Theseus lost his bride and father; Jason's children and new wife were murdered by his old; Bellerophon killed the Chimera but was crippled by the fall from Pegasus' back. "You can't." He was sitting up now, leaning forward. "I can't." "I know. They never let you be famous AND happy." He lifted an eyebrow. "I'll tell you a secret." "Tell me." I loved it when he was like this. "I'm going to be the first." He took my palm and held it to his. "Swear it." "Why me?" "Because you're the reason. Swear it." "I swear it," I said, lost in the high color of his cheeks, the flame in his eyes. "I swear it," he echoed. We sat like that a moment, hands touching. He grinned. "I feel like I could eat the world raw.

Theseus: Stop. Give me your hand. I am your friend. Herakles: I fear to stain your clothes with blood. Theseus: Stain them, I don't care.

… you’ll need some help getting acquainted. I’m Carmel Jones.” “Theseus Cassio Lowood. What kind of a parent names their kid Carmel?” She laughs. “What kind of a parent names their kid Theseus Cassio?” “Hippies,” I reply. “Exactly.

A man is at his youngest when he thinks he is a man, not yet realizing that his actions must show it.

An unchangeable colour rules over the melancholic: his dwelling is a space the colour of mourning. Nothing happens in it. No one intrudes. It is a bare stage where the inert I is assisted by the I suffering from that inertia. The latter wishes to free the former, but all efforts fail, as Theseus would have failed had he been not only himself but also the Minotaur; to kill him then, he would have had to kill himself

Poseidon spent almost all his time pursuing a perfectly exhausting quantity of beautiful girls and boys and fathering by the girls an even greater number of monsters, demigods and human heroes - Percy Jackson and Theseus to name but two.

It is better to learn war early from friends, than late from enemies

There are things roaming around inside my head as clever as Theseus in the Labyrinth. It's just that nobody ever gave them the necessary piece of string, so they'll never find their way out.

[Theseus] soon found himself involved in factions and troubles; those who long had hated him had now added to their hatred contempt; and the minds of the people were so generally corrupted, that, instead of obeying commands with silence, they expected to be flattered into their duty.

Did you know the world ‘clue’ comes from Greek Mythology? A clew, C-L-E-W, was a ball of yarn. Ariadne gave Theseus a clew to help him out of the Minotaur’s labyrinth. He unraveled it as he went so he could find his way back.

With words we begin to leave traces behind us like breadcrumbs: memories in symbols for others to follow. Ants deploy their pheromones, trails of chemical information; Theseus unwound Ariadne's thread. Now people leave paper trails.

Theseus- O mankind so deluded! so pointlessly deluded! Why investigate, study, devise ten thousand technologies yet you do not know this one thing and cannot grasp it: how to teach a mindless man to think.

You see? You're not paying close enough attention. Theseus fought for his life," He shook his head. "But the minotaur, he fought for Ariadne.

Theseus: What is the crime for which you must pay by death? Phaedra: My life.

It is the mark of little men to like only what they know; one step beyond, and they feel the black cold of chaos.

It is not the bloodletting that calls down power. It is the consenting.

Three years went by in happiness and health; He bore himself so well in peace and war That there was no one Theseus valued more.

The morning sun shone over the bronze blade. There were no more traces of blood left. "Would you believe it Ariadne?" said Theseus "The Minotaur almost didn't defend itself.

Often I wished for someone to share my mind with; but their hearts were in little things, they would have thought me a dreamer, and I had to plan alone.

To catch the bad guys, you've got to think like a bad guy - and that's why all the best detectives have a dark side...

NEWT shuffles over awkwardly to the bereft THESEUS. NEWT hesitates, struggling to find words of comfort. Then for the first time in his life, he puts his arms around his brother. They hug. NEWT: I've chosen my side.

Men would be as gods, if they had foreknowledge.

NEWT rummages in his pockets and pulls out a tiny bottle with only a couple of muddy drops left inside it. TINA: Is that Polyjuice? NEWT (of the bottle): Just enough to get me inside. He looks down at his coat and finds one of THESEUS’S hairs on his shoulder. He adds it to the mixture, drinks, and turns into THESEUS, still wearing NEWT’S clothes. TINA: Who—? NEWT: My brother, Theseus. He’s an Auror. And a hugger.

These things sensibly affected Theseus, who, thinking it but just not to disregard, but rather partake of, the sufferings of his fellow citizens, offered himself for one without any lot. All else were struck with admiration for the nobleness and with love for the goodness of the act.

The word 'clue' derives from 'clew', meaning a ball of thread or yarn. It had come to mean 'that which points the way' because of the Greek myth in which Theseus uses a ball of yarn, given to him by Ariadne, to find his way out of the Minotaur's labyrinth.

The alternative, should you, or any writer of English, choose to employ it (and who is to stop you?) is, by use of subordinate clause upon subordinate clause, which itself may be subordinated to those clauses that have gone before or after, to construct a sentence of such labyrinthine grammatical complexity that, like Theseus before you when he searched the dark Minoan mazes for that monstrous monster, half bull and half man, or rather half woman for it had been conceived from, or in, Pasiphae, herself within a Daedalian contraption of perverted invention, you must unravel a ball of grammatical yarn lest you wander for ever, amazed in the maze, searching through dark eternity for a full stop.

For I had felt too much and reasoned too little, hearing what I was ready to hear, not what had been said. There

Не лысый, а стриженный наголо. Это большая разница. Лысеют от безысходности, а наголо стригутся из самоуважения

Monstradamus Мама. Когда я слышу слово «дискурс», я хватаюсь за свой симулякр.

I want to build / and raise anew / Theseus' Temple and the Stadiums / and where Pericles lived But there's no money, too much spent today / I had a guest over and we sat together.

THESEUS FEE! FI! FO! FUM! LOOK OUT, HORNHEAD! HERE I COME!

Yet I feel like Theseus running madly through the coils of the labyrinth with horrors following at my heels and every twist bringing a new and dreaded sight. I dream and it pursues me I am sunk so far in horror heaped upon horror that I cannot taste wine or see the sun above. The world has ended and I don't know why I yet Live

Sometimes I think that the biggest difference between men and women is that more men need to seek out some terrible lurking thing in existence and hurl themselves upon it like Ahab with the White Whale. Women know where it lives but they can let it alone. Even in matriarchal societies I doubt that there were ever female Beowulfs. Women lie with gods and demons but they don’t go looking for monsters to fight with. Ariadne gave Theseus a clew but the Minotaur was his business.

IsoldA: The only way to be alone is to behave as though we are alone already.

I was a king and a king's heir and now I am a slave.

O great Ariadne who pour out your tears On the shore, as you see, out there on the waves, The sail of Theseus flying white under the sun, O sweet virgin child whom a night has broken, Be silent! -Sun and Flesh (Credo in Unam)

Poseidon spent almost all his time pursuing a perfectly exhausting quantity of beautiful girls and boys and fathering by the girls an even greater number of monsters, demigods and human heroes – Percy Jackson and Theseus to name but two.

This fight was old, Shadow thought, older than even Mr. Alice knew, and he was thinking that even as the creature's talons raked his chest. It was the fight of man against monster, and it was old as time: it was Theseus battling the Minotaur, it was Beowulf and Grendel, it was the fight of every hero who had ever stood between the firelight and the darkness and wiped the blood of something inhuman from his sword.

There is truth and truth,’ said the priest of Delos. ‘It is true after its kind.

Apollo, who understands all mysteries, says also, “Nothing too much.” He is knowledge, Theseus; but She is what he knows.

the world was on fire, and theseus was a shaded green pool.

Let’s say you have an ax. Just a cheap one, from Home Depot. On one bitter winter day, you use said ax to behead a man. Don’t worry, the man was already dead. Or maybe you should worry, because you’re the one who shot him. He had been a big, twitchy guy with veiny skin stretched over swollen biceps, a tattoo of a swastika on his tongue. Teeth filed into razor-sharp fangs-you know the type. And you’re chopping off his head because, even with eight bullet holes in him, you’re pretty sure he’s about to spring back to his feet and eat the look of terror right off your face. On the follow-through of the last swing, though, the handle of the ax snaps in a spray of splinters. You now have a broken ax. So, after a long night of looking for a place to dump the man and his head, you take a trip into town with your ax. You go to the hardware store, explaining away the dark reddish stains on the broken handle as barbecue sauce. You walk out with a brand-new handle for your ax. The repaired ax sits undisturbed in your garage until the spring when, on one rainy morning, you find in your kitchen a creature that appears to be a foot-long slug with a bulging egg sac on its tail. Its jaws bite one of your forks in half with what seems like very little effort. You grab your trusty ax and chop the thing into several pieces. On the last blow, however, the ax strikes a metal leg of the overturned kitchen table and chips out a notch right in the middle of the blade. Of course, a chipped head means yet another trip to the hardware store. They sell you a brand-new head for your ax. As soon as you get home, you meet the reanimated body of the guy you beheaded earlier. He’s also got a new head, stitched on with what looks like plastic weed-trimmer line, and it’s wearing that unique expression of “you’re the man who killed me last winter” resentment that one so rarely encounters in everyday life. You brandish your ax. The guy takes a long look at the weapon with his squishy, rotting eyes and in a gargly voice he screams, “That’s the same ax that beheaded me!” IS HE RIGHT?

What makes someone mythic is not whether or not he lived, or lived well, but whether or not he was larger than life. Mythic heroes were – and are – outrageous and outstanding. They are phenomenal. They distil some collective ideal or fantasy. That’s why we can speak of ‘the myth of John Lennon’, but not ‘the myth of John Major’. And it’s also why Theseus made it and Lycurgus didn’t.

The finished shape of our fate, the line drawn round it. It is the task the gods allot us, and the share of glory they allow; the limits we must not pass; and our appointed end. Moira is all these.

Then there’re Theseus, Oedipus, Peleus, Orpheus, Jason and Hercules all waiting to be untangled, since their various deeds are running crisscross through my mind like multicolored threads in a dress. Myron

My story would not be one of death and suffering and sacrifice. I would take my own place in the songs that would be sung about Theseus: the princess who saved him and ended the monstrosity that blighted Crete.

It was not until ten summers later, when Theseus came to Crete, seeking power beyond what we could give him, that I learned the truth: that any man can throw words up into the air, and it it women who must pay when those words land.

Фсе зделано изтово кто смотрет. Потому что издругово это сделать нельзя. Без таво кто смотрет не будет ни шляпки ни вуали ни ландышый. Ничево. Понятно? Тисей смотрит в зеркало а Минатавр это то что он видет патамучто на нем шлем ужаса.

Now, somewhere over that wide blue sea, Theseus lolled with impunity on royal couches, admired by all for his bravery, his noble and heroic exploits—and like a thousand women before me, I would pay the price of what we had done together.

Just as there are different types of stars—red and white and brown and blue and dwarf and giant and all that lot—there are different types of Quests, and if we determine what type you face, we shall have a much easier time managing the whole business. We’re doing very well. Already we know that Prince Myrrh is an Endgame Object Type W—that’s Wonderful, since we have yet to see if he will be any Use in governing. He sleeps suspended in a Theseus-type narrative matrix, however he does seem to have some gravitational pull on events, which is unusual for a T-Type. After all, we still remember him even after all these years. It’s far easier to forget something than to remember it. Remembering takes all kinds of magic. No one knows who he is or what he looks like or where to find him, and yet we all know of him. We all know he sleeps in an unopenable box on an unbreakable bower. That’s a frightfully strong E.K.T. Field for one little creature!

So, Ariadne was the babe with the ball of twine and the plan.

May the Mother curse him and all gods below, and may Night's Daughters hunt him down into the ground! And on the hand that sheds his blood let there be a blessing.

I know that human life shines more brightly because it is but a shimmering candle against an eternity of darkness and it can be extinguished with the faintest breeze.

She stood laughing in the water. Her laughter made my backbone ripple. It had neither shame nor shamelessness; she laughed alone, please with her victory over strange monstrous things.

Instead of collapsing, Theseus swung it and smacked Periphetes upside the head, killing him instantly. ‘Yep!’ Theseus said. ‘That’s bronze over wood, all right! Thanks, man. I think I’ll keep this.’ Periphetes didn’t argue, since he was dead. Theseus

I know the you who’s in the margins. I know you’re thinking hard about what you want and why– more than some people ever do. I know you can take on a challenge and kick its ass. And I know you’ve tried harder to understand me than anyone has in a long time.

Their real strength was their ears: Theseus and Hercules were lifelong learners and equal-opportunity students, always seeking advice and just as happy to get it from women. That was the mark of a hero and the signature of pankration: total power and knowledge.

You curving—you rivering and full— how did Theseus find no joy in you? Let me be your tender captain, ferry the ultramarine thread you unraveled from your skein—to lead the most lost through the labyrinth of your body. Go forward, always down, you said. I know another name for holy is water…

Theseus put his club aside. He approached the Pine Bender and sized up the situation. He wasn’t as strong as Sinis. He didn’t have the ability to root himself to the earth. He didn’t even have a plan. But he glanced over at the girl Perigune, and his distractible brain started racing. A girl in the trees. A girl. A tree. Trees have spirits. I’m hungry. Wow, Sinis smells bad. A dryad. I bet the dryads in these trees are really tired of getting bent. Hey, there’s a chipmunk.

He went crazy over Greek mythology, which is where I got my name. They compromised on it, because my mom loved Shakespeare, and I ended up called Theseus Cassio. Theseus for the slayer of the Minotaur, and Cassio for Othello's doomed lieutenant. I think it sounds straight-up stupid. Theseus Cassio Lowood. Everyone just calls me Cas. I suppose I should be glad--my dad also loved Norse mythology, so I might have wound up being called Thor, which would have been basically unbearable.

Theseus and Ariande. Theseus says to Ariande, “I’ll love you forever if you can show me a way to come out of the labyrinth.” So she gives him a ball of string, which he unwinds as he goes into the labyrinth, and then follows to find the way out. You say, “All he had was the string. That’s all you need.” CAMPBELL: That’s all you need—an Ariande thread. MOYERS: Sometimes we look for great wealth to save us, a great power to save us, or great ideas to save us, when all we need is that piece of string.

As far as cheating goes , you have illustrious predecessors . Theseus escaped from the labyrinth thanks to Ariadne's thread , Jason stole the golden fleece with Medea's help .... The Kaurabas used subterfuge to win at dice in the Mahabharata , and the Achaeans checkmated the Trojans by moving a wooden horse . Your conscience is clear .

When I rode on to meet the army, I learned a thing one never forgets after: how much easier it is to move the many than the few.

It was his nature to believe anything, before he would believe he could be wrong.

The man who sleeps on a warning does not deserve one. What wait till tomorrow? I will go today?

Jake knew which senior officer was on call tonight. He knew they would be one of the tougher ones to convince. Better to get forgiveness than permission in these circumstances.

Theseus

I had given Theseus the clue to the Labyrinth, fourteen lives of Athens, and the death of my own brother. In exchange, he granted me perhaps a week to live in exile, imprisoned on a desolate island.

He stands alone in hollow gloom, with the sound of his own breath whispering down unseen passages ahead and behind and to both sides, wondering how he stumbled into this blackest of all labyrinths. He entered by choice. We all do. Whether we are mapping the heavens or skulking the lanes of the underworld, whether we are hunting the imprisoned fiend or have ourselves become the monster, whether we are searching for what is lost or hiding what must never be found, we all round that first corner by choice - and by then, we are lost. You too. You must decide what is false and what is true, and what is true for me but not for you. We are wandering the mazes, all of us, and we cannot hope to escape until we learn to tell between what is real and what is real for someone else. There lies the madness, and the truth as well.

Diffugere Nives Horace, Odes, iv, 7 The snows are fled away, leaves on the shaws And grasses in the mead renew their birth, The river to the river-bed withdraws, And altered is the fashion of the earth. The Nymphs and Graces three put off their fear And unapparelled in the woodland play. The swift hour and the brief prime of the year Say to the soul, Thou wast not born for aye. Thaw follows frost; hard on the heel of spring Treads summer sure to die, for hard on hers Comes autumn with his apples scattering; Then back to wintertide, when nothing stirs. But oh, whate'er the sky-led seasons mar, Moon upon moon rebuilds it with her beams; Come we where Tullus and where Ancus are And good Aeneas, we are dust and dreams. Torquatus, if the gods in heaven shall add The morrow to the day, what tongue has told? Feast then thy heart, for what thy heart has had The fingers of no heir will ever hold. When thou descendest once the shades among, The stern assize and equal judgment o'er, Not thy long lineage nor thy golden tongue, No, nor thy righteousness, shall friend thee more. Night holds Hippolytus the pure of stain, Diana steads him nothing, he must stay; And Theseus leaves Pirithous in the chain The love of comrades cannot take away.

Asterion!” Theseus cried. The Minotaur froze as if he’d been punched in the snout. That name…He knew that name. His earliest memories…gentle voices. A woman, maybe his mother? A comfortable nursery with actual baby food, warm blankets, a fire in the hearth. The Minotaur remembered a life outside the maze. He had a fleeting, warm sense of being human. And in that moment, Theseus stabbed him in the gut with his own broken horn.

I know I thought of many things: of death, and fate, and what the gods want of man; how far a man can move within his moira, or, if all is determined, what makes one strive; and whether one can be a king without a kingdom.

As a general rule, it is highly desirable that ladies should keep their temper: a woman when she storms always makes herself ugly, and usually ridiculous also. There is nothing so odious to man as a virago. Though Theseus loved an Amazon, he showed his love but roughly, and from the time of Theseus downward, no man ever wished to have his wife remarkable rather for forward prowess than retiring gentleness. A low voice "is an excellent thing in woman.

Man born of woman cannot outrun his fate. Better then not to question the Immortals, nor when they have spoken to grieve one's heart in vain. A bound is set to our knowing, and wisdom is not to search beyond it. Men are only men.

It was the perfect set. Theseus gave a great war cry and brought his sword arcing up toward Sheba’s throat - but the monster of the labyrinth lives inside us all. She is the dark, devouring hunger that is never sated, the creeping shadow that ever plays the fiend to our seraphim, the secret rage hidden in our hearts; deny her, and we become her slaves; fight her, and we make her invincible. By now, you must know that no monster can ever be killed, not really - […]

Fame has taken the place of religion in the 21st century. The Beyoncés and the Brangelinas of our world filling the void left by the gods and heroes of antiquity. But like most cliches, there's an element of truth to it. And the gods of old were merciless. For every Theseus who slays the Minotaur and returns home in triumph, there's an Ariadne abandoned on the isles of Naxos. There's an Aegeus, casting himself into the ocean at the sight of a black sail...In another life, I like to think that Luc O'Donnell and I might've worked out. In the short time I knew him, I saw a man with an endless potential trapped in a maze he couldn't even name. And from time to time, I think how many tens of thousands like him there must be in the world. Insignificant on a planet of billions, but a staggering number when considered as a whole. All stumbling about, blinded by reflected glory, never knowing where to step, or what to trust. Blessed and cursed by the Midas touch of our digital era divinity.

Romeo-y-Cohiba Это твой RR SUV. IsoldA Почему? Romeo-y-Cohiba Он же с твоей стороны. IsoldA Но ведь в нем ты. Значит, он твой. Romeo-y-Cohiba Как он может быть моим, если я его не вижу? IsoldA А как он может быть моим, если я даже не могу в него залезть?

He moved closer to me and caught a strand of my hair between his thumb and finger. I couldn’t find enough air to breathe; Theseus filled all the space in front of me. “You will be glad,” he continued, “to have your sister dance at our wedding.” He kissed me then.

Menestheus, the son of Peteus, grandson of Orneus, and the great-grandson to Erechtheus, the first man that is recorded to have affected popularity and ingratiated himself with the multitude, stirred up and exasperated the most eminent men of the city, who had long borne a secret grudge to Theseus, conceiving that he had robbed them of their several little kingdoms and lordships, and, having pent them all up in one city, was using them as his subjects and slaves. He put also the meaner people into commotion, telling them, that, deluded with a mere dream of liberty, though indeed they were deprived both of that and of their proper homes and religious usages, instead of many good and gracious kings of their own, they had given themselves up to be lorded over by a new-comer and a stranger.

That's smart,' Justin said, thinking of Theseus picking his way through the Minotaur's lair, unwinding Ariadne's string behind him. Thinking of how his heart had pounded when he was lost in the stacks. It wasn't just smart, it was clever, even classical. He wished he'd thought of it.

That,” I said, “is the business of the gods, who made us.” “Yes, but for what? We ought to be good for it, whatever it is. How can we live, until we know?” I gazed at him; such desperate words, yet he looked all lit from within. He saw I was paying attention; that was enough to draw him on.

We lived in the Bull Court; a city sealed in a palace, and a life sealed in with death. Yet it is a proud city, and a strong fierce life. A man once in it is of it till he dies. So I, who have gray beginning in my beard, still say "it is", as if the Bull Court stood and I might yet go back to it.

Their heroes do not know love because they only value what they can measure–the mountains they make of their enemies' bones, the vast piles of treasure they win, and the immortal verses that are sung in their name. They see only fame and are blind to the rewards that only human life can offer, which they simply toss aside like trash. They are fools.' ... Theseus had not left me because I was at fault or because I did not matter. He had left because, to him, nothing mattered at all beyond the cold pursuit of his own fame. I would not let a man who knew the value of nothing make me doubt the value of myself.

I wanted so much to believe that this could be true. But I had believed Theseus, and he had left me on that desolate beach to die, with my home in ruins behind me, forever beyond my reach. I had looked into his clear green eyes and seen sincerity. So how could I know what was truly behind Dionysus’ smiles?

Certainly a man who dies in the flower of his Excellency when he is sure of his good name, has the greatest honor; then he brings no shame upon himself or upon his friend. Therefore his friend should be happier that he died in such circumstances then if he had died when his name had grown pale with age and his accomplishments were all forgotten" Theseus

There is only one journey, she said, that all men make. They go forth from the Mother, and do what men are born to do, till she stretches out her hand, and calls them home.

It was necessary, therefore, to Moses that he should find the people of Israel in Egypt enslaved and oppressed by the Egyptians, in order that they should be disposed to follow him so as to be delivered out of bondage. It was necessary that Romulus should not remain in Alba, and that he should be abandoned at his birth, in order that he should become King of Rome and founder of the fatherland. It was necessary that Cyrus should find the Persians discontented with the government of the Medes, and the Medes soft and effeminate through their long peace. Theseus could not have shown his ability had he not found the Athenians dispersed. These opportunities, therefore, made those men fortunate, and their high ability enabled them to recognize the opportunity whereby their country was ennobled and made famous.

A fine statue of a naked Theseus stands proudly today in Athens' central place of assembly, the city's hub, Syntagma Square. Even today he is a focus of Athenian identity and pride. The ship he brought back from his adventures in the Labyrinth of Crete remained moored in the harbour at Piraeus, a visitor attraction right up to the days of historical ancient Athens, the time of Socrates and Aristotle. Its continuous presence there for such a long time caused the Ship of Theseus to become a subject of intriguing philosophical speculation. Over hundreds of years, its rigging, its planks, its hull, deck, keel, prow, stern and all its timbers had been replaced so that not one atom of the original remained. Could one call it the same ship? Am I the same person I was fifty years ago? Every molecule and cell of my body has been replaced many times over.

I looked at the priest. He had turned his face to the moon, which glittered on his open eyes; his body was quiet as the olive tree, or as a snake upon a stone. He seemed like a man who knew earth magic, and would prophesy in the madness of the dance. And then I thought of the great Labyrinth, which had stood a thousand years; and how Minos had said the god’s voice called them no longer. “All things change,” I thought, “except the gods who live for ever.

If I could forget you! Is my love then a work of memory? Even if time expunged everything from its tablets, expunged even memory itself, my relation to you would stay just as alive, you would still not be forgotten. If I could forget you! What then should I remember? For after all, I have forgotten myself in order to remember you: so if I forgot you I would come to remember myself; but the moment I remembered myself I would have to remember you again. If I could forget you! What would happen then? There is a picture from antiquity. It depicts Ariadne. She is leaping up from her couch and gazing anxiously after a ship that is hurrying away under full sail. By her side stands Cupid with unstrung bow and drying his eyes. Behind her stands a winged female figure in a helmet. It is usually assumed this is Nemesis. Imagine this picture, imagine it changed a little. Cupid is not weeping and his bow is not unstrung; or would you have become less beautiful, less victorious, if I had become mad? Cupid smiles and bends his bow. Nemesis does not stand inactive by your side; she too draws her bow. In that other picture we see a male figure on the ship, busily occupied. It is assumed it is Theseus. Not so in my picture. He stands on the stern, he looks back longingly, spreads his arms. He has repented, or rather, his madness has left him, but the ship carries him away. Cupid and Nemesis both aim at him, an arrow flies from each bow; their aim is true; one sees that, one understands, they have both hit the same place in his heart, a sign that his love was the Nemesis that wrought vengeance." ―Johannes de Silentio, from_Either/Or: A Fragment of Life_

Don’t we say all helpless folk—the orphan, the stranger, the suppliant, who have nothing to bargain with and can only pray—are sacred to Zeus the Savior? The King must answer for them; he is next the god. For the serfs, the landless hirelings, the captives of the spear; even the slaves.

They should remember it everyday, when they look into their smiling faces, and be thankful that their bones are not scattered in a Cretan dungeon." "Oh, of course they should", I hastened to agree. "But you know what people are like..." His brows few together, confused. "What do you mean?" "Well, they forget what could have been and focus only on the irritations of today.

His eyes opened. “Name one hero who was happy.” I considered. Heracles went mad and killed his family; Theseus lost his bride and father; Jason’s children and new wife were murdered by his old; Bellerophon killed the Chimera but was crippled by the fall from Pegasus’ back. “You can’t.” He was sitting up now, leaning forward. “I can’t.” “I know. They never let you be famous and happy.” He lifted an eyebrow. “I’ll tell you a secret.” “Tell me.” I loved it when he was like this. “I’m going to be the first.” He took my palm and held it to his. “Swear it.” “Why me?” “Because you’re the reason. Swear it.” “I swear it,” I said, lost in the high color of his cheeks, the flame in his eyes. “I swear it,” he echoed. We sat like that a moment, hands touching. He grinned.

My brothers woke me when the sun was beginning to set. “What’s the matter with you, Helen?” Castor cried, shaking me by the shoulder. “How can you sleep at a time like this?” “Are you all right?” Polydeuces put in. “You’re not ill, are you?” He touched my forehead to check for fever. I brushed his hand away gently. “I’m fine, ‘Ione’. You don’t need to fuss over me just because I’m smart enough to catch some sleep before the feast. I’ll still be awake when the two of you are snoring with your heads on the table.” “Ha! If not for us, you’d’ve slept right through the feast,” Castor countered. “I’ll build a temple in your honor to show my thanks,” I said, straight-faced. “Now if you really want to lend a hand, go find a servant to help me get ready. This is a special occasion and I want to look my best.” “Ooooooh, our little sister wants to look nice, does she?” Polydeuces crooned. “I wonder why?” I saw him wink at Castor and knew I was doomed to be teased to death. “Don’t you mean, ‘I wonder who?’” Castor replied. He tried to look sly and all-knowing, but his tendency to go cross-eyed ruined the effect. “Do you think it’s Meleager himself?” “He’s the hero of the day, but I think she’d rather have a brawnier man,” Polydeuces said. “I’ll bet I can guess who. I saw how you looked at him the first night we were here.” He flung his arms around his twin, pitched his voice high, and cried, “Oh, Theseus, you’re sooooooo strong! Make me queen of Athens too!” “Out!” I shouted, snatching up my nearly empty water jug. My brothers retreated at a run, laughing.

Ode 4.7 Diffugere niues, redeunt iam gramina campis arboribus comae; mutat terra uices et decrescentia ripas flumina praetereunt; Gratia cum Nymphis geminisque sororibus audet ducere nuda chorus. Inmortalia ne speres, monet annus et almum quae rapit hora diem. Frigora mitescunt Zephyris, uer proterit aestas, interitura simul pomifer autumnus fruges effuderit, et mox bruma recurrit iners. Damna tamen celeres reparant caelestia lunae: non ubi decidimus quo pater Aeneas, quo diues Tullus et Ancus, puluis et umbra sumus. Quis scit an adiciant hodiernae crastina summae tempora di superi? Cuncta manus auidas fugient heredis, amico quae dederis animo. Cum semel occideris et de te splendida Minos fecerit arbitria, non, Torquate, genus, non te facundia, non te restituet pietas; infernis neque enim tenebris Diana pudicum liberat Hippolytum, nec Lethaea ualet Theseus abrumpere caro uincula Pirithoo.

Bana bu eserde Muhammed’i, işlemeye mümkün olmadığı bir suça mahkum ettiğim söylenebilir. Kont Boulainvilliers, zamanında onu Hristiyan dünyasını cezalandırmaya gelen büyük bir adam olarak tanıtmış; Bay Sale de Kuran’ı İngilizce’ye çevirmiş ve onu bir Numa veya Theseus olarak anlatmıştı. Ben de biri, meşru hükümdar olur, barışçıl yasalar üretir ve insanların sesine kulak verirse -Numa veya Theseus gibi- saygı duyulması gerektiğini kabul ediyorum. Ama köyüne nifak sokan bir deve sürücüsünün; kendini zavallı Kureyş’ten biri olarak gösterip, Cebrail melek ile konuştuğunu söyleyip, cennete gittiğiyle böbürlenip, orada her sayfası mantığa mugayir anlamsız bir kitabı elde ettiğine; ve bu eyleme saygı duyulmasını temin etmek adına kılıcı ve alevi taşıması gerektiğine, babaları öldürüp kızlarına sahip olmaya ve fethettiği yerlere onun dini yahut ölüm arasında seçim vermesine, kimse hiçbir koşulda hak veriyor gibi davranmasın. Tabii o kişi bir Türk olarak doğmadıysa ve hurafe, içindeki doğanın ışığını tamamen söndürmediyse. (Önsöz - Voltaire'den Prusya Kralı'na, 1742)

Theseus Within the Labyrinth pt.2 But nobody like Theseus likes a smart girl, always telling him to dress warmly and eat plenty of fiber. She was one of those people who are never in doubt. Had he sharpened his sword, tied his sandals? Without her, of course, he would have never escaped the labyrinth. Why hadn’t he thought of that trick with the ball of yarn? But as he looked down at her sleeping form, this woman who was already carrying his child, maybe he thought of their future together, how she would correctly foretell the mystery or banality behind each locked door. So probably he shook his head and said, Give me a dumb girl any day, and crept back to his ship and sailed away. Of course Ariadne was revenged. She would have told him to change the sails, to take down the black ones, put up the white. She would have reminded him that his father, the king of Athens, was waiting on a high cliff scanning the Aegean for Theseus’s returning ship, white for victory, black for defeat. She would have said how his father would see the black sails, how the grief for the supposed death of his one son would destroy him. But Theseus and his men had brought out the wine and were cruising a calm sea in a small boat filled to the brim with ex-virgins. Who could have blamed him? Until he heard the distant scream and his head shot up to see the black sails and he knew. The girls disappeared, the ship grew quiet except for the lap-lap of the water. Staring toward the spot where his father had tumbled headfirst into the Aegean, Theseus understood he would always be a stupid man with a thick stick, scratching his forehead long after the big event. But think, does he change his mind, turn back the ship, hunt up Ariadne and beg her pardon? Far better to be stupid by himself than smart because she’d been tugging on his arm; better to live in the eternal present with a boatload of ex-virgins than in that dark land of consequences promised by Ariadne, better to live like any one of us, thinking to outwit the darkness, but knowing it will catch us, that we will be surprised like the Minotaur on his couch when the door slams back and the hired gun of our personal destruction bursts upon us, upsetting the good times and scaring the girls. Better to be ignorant, to go into the future as into a long tunnel, without ball of yarn or clear direction, to tiptoe forward like any fool or saint or hero, jumpy, full of second thoughts, and bravely unprepared.

INT. NEWT’S SITTING ROOM—FIVE MINUTES LATER—NIGHT The threesome sit at a table bearing NEWT’S mismatched crockery, the atmosphere tainted by TINA’S absence. QUEENIE’S case lies open on the sofa. QUEENIE: Tina and I aren’t talking. NEWT: Why? JACOB’S POV—pink and hazy, as though happily drunk. QUEENIE: Oh well, you know, she found out about Jacob and I seeing each other and she didn’t like it, ’cause of the “law.” (miming quotation marks) Not allowed to date No-Majs, not allowed to marry them. Blah, blah, blah. Well, she was all in a tizzy anyway, ’cause of you. NEWT: Me? QUEENIE: Yeah, you, Newt. It was in Spellbound. Here—I brought it for you— She points her wand at her suitcase. A celebrity magazine zooms to her: Spellbound: Celebrity Secrets and Spell Tips of the Stars! On the cover, an idealized NEWT and an improbably beaming Niffler. BEAST TAMER NEWT TO WED! QUEENIE opens the magazine. THESEUS, LETA, NEWT, and BUNTY stand side by side at his book launch. QUEENIE (showing him): “Newt Scamander with fiancée, Leta Lestrange; brother, Theseus; and unknown woman.” NEWT: No. Theseus is marrying Leta, not me. QUEENIE: Oh! Oh dear . . . well, see, Teen read that, and she started dating someone else. He’s an Auror. His name’s Achilles Tolliver.

Freud’s incest theory describes certain fantasies that accompany the regression of libido and are especially characteristic of the personal unconscious as found in hysterical patients. Up to a point they are infantile-sexual fantasies which show very clearly just where the hysterical attitude is defective and why it is so incongruous. They reveal the shadow. Obviously the language used by this compensation will be dramatic and exaggerated. The theory derived from it exactly matches the hysterical attitude that causes the patient to be neurotic. One should not, therefore, take this mode of expression quite as seriously as Freud himself took it. It is just as unconvincing as the ostensibly sexual traumata of hysterics. The neurotic sexual theory is further discomfited by the fact that the last act of the drama consists in a return to the mother’s body. This is usually effected not through the natural channels but through the mouth, through being devoured and swallowed (pl. LXII), thereby giving rise to an even more infantile theory which has been elaborated by Otto Rank. All these allegories are mere makeshifts. The real point is that the regression goes back to the deeper layer of the nutritive function, which is anterior to sexuality, and there clothes itself in the experiences of infancy. In other words, the sexual language of regression changes, on retreating still further back, into metaphors derived from the nutritive and digestive functions, and which cannot be taken as anything more than a façon de parler. The so-called Oedipus complex with its famous incest tendency changes at this level into a “Jonah-and-the-Whale” complex, which has any number of variants, for instance the witch who eats children, the wolf, the ogre, the dragon, and so on. Fear of incest turns into fear of being devoured by the mother. The regressing libido apparently desexualizes itself by retreating back step by step to the presexual stage of earliest infancy. Even there it does not make a halt, but in a manner of speaking continues right back to the intra-uterine, pre-natal condition and, leaving the sphere of personal psychology altogether, irrupts into the collective psyche where Jonah saw the “mysteries” (“représentations collectives”) in the whale’s belly. The libido thus reaches a kind of inchoate condition in which, like Theseus and Peirithous on their journey to the underworld, it may easily stick fast. But it can also tear itself loose from the maternal embrace and return to the surface with new possibilities of life.

Heracles was the strongest man who ever lived. No human, and almost no immortal creature, ever subdued him physically. With uncomplaining patience he bore the trials and catastrophes that were heaped upon him in his turbulent lifetime. With his strength came, as we have seen, a clumsiness which, allied to his apocalyptic bursts of temper, could cause death or injury to anyone who got in the way. Where others were cunning and clever, he was direct and simple. Where they planned ahead he blundered in, swinging his club and roaring like a bull. Mostly these shortcomings were more endearing than alienating. He was not, as the duping Atlas and the manipulation of Hades showed, entirely without that quality of sense, gumption and practical imagination that the Greeks called 'nous'. He possessed saving graces that more than made up for his exasperating faults. His sympathy for others and willingness to help those in distress was bottomless, as were the sorrow and shame that overcame him when he made mistakes and people got hurt. He proved himself prepared to sacrifice his own happiness for years at a stretch in order to make amends for the (usually unintentional) harm he caused. His childishness, therefore, was offset by a childlike lack of guile or pretence as well as a quality that is often overlooked when we catalogue the virtues: fortitude -the capacity to endure without complaint. For all his life he was persecuted, plagued and tormented by a cruel, malicious and remorseless deity pursuing a vendetta which punished him for a crime for which he could be in no way held responsible- his birth. No labour was more Heraclean than the labour of being Heracles. In his uncomplaining life of pain and persistence, in his compassion and desire to do the right thing, he showed, as the American classicist and mythographer Edith Hamilton put it, 'greatness of soul'. Heracles may not have possessed the pert agility and charm of Perseus and Bellerophon, the intellect of Oedipus, the talent for leadership of Jason or the wit and imagination of Theseus, but he had a feeling heart that was stronger and warmer than any of theirs.