Book III

"Often the bride destined for the god is not a log or a clod, but a living woman of flesh and blood. The Indians of a village in Peru have been known to marry a beautiful girl, about fourteen years of age, to a stone shaped like a human being, which they regarded as a god(huaca)." (Frazer, 173-The Marriage of the Gods)

Seeing as the topic of god-human relationships has popped up in the class discussion a few times now, I thought the above quote to be somewhat related. It is easy to see why intercourse or marriage to a god would be well-received, it is a direct and undiluted line back to the power of the origin. Children that result from such a union often times have not only heroic futures in front of them, but also intensely cosmogonic futures that replay portions of their divine parent's past.                                  

 

Now then, onto book three of the Metamorphoses...

Actaeon: Peeping Toms reap little more than what they see, and at times pay a dearer price then a new-found sense of modesty.

Semele: A gift of the divine given, a gift of the divine taken away,and so a life is lost to amorous glory.

Tiresias: I have a question for Tiresias as well, what was the greater price to pay; male for female, or sight for foresight?

Narcissus & Echo: What a powerful thing it is to love something you cannot hope to possess, is it the elusive quality of that desired object that seduces, or simply the result of the narcissism within all that dictates we must get what we desire?

Pentheus: How great is a mother's love is she subjects her offspring to the workings of sparagmos?