My Big Fat Greek Blinding??

With all this free time to myself I’m finding myself reading lots of stuff online to keep me occupied… First stop is always The International Herald Tribune site, mainly cause it has such a bad ass design, plus the articles interest me too. Then I’ll take a looksie at various message boards, maybe fire up Trillian to see who’s online then settle down with some tunes blaring at insanely high volume from winamp…

But anyways, I’m reading about things that used to interest me as a kid, like old cartoons, games and, strangely, Greek Mythology… I loved Greek Mythology in high school, mainly because my impression at the time was that the Greeks must have been doing some pretty serious drugs to come up with this stuff. I think I was wrong, though. As I’ve been re-exploring the gods and myths and tales, I’ve been seeing just how much sense, in a sense, it all makes. I don’t think the Greeks were doing any drugs at all. I think they had a tight grip on reality.

For example, here’s a story from Bulfinch’s Mythology involving Rhæcus and a Dryad (a Dryad is a nymph whose mortality is linked to a tree; if the tree dies, she dies):

Rhæcus, happening to see an oak just ready to fall, ordered his servants to prop it up. The nymph, who had been on the point of perishing with the tree, came and expressed her gratitude to him for having saved her life, and bade him ask what reward he would have for it. Rhæcus boldly asked her love, and the nymph yielded to his desire. She at the same time charged him to be constant, and told him that a bee should be her messenger, and let him know when she would admit his society. One time the bee came to Rhæcus when he was playing at draughts, and he carelessly brushed it away. This so incensed the nymph that she deprived him of sight.

That’s it. That’s the whole story. And we, the readers, can come away from such a story with a very simple, clear, obvious message: Huh? What? Da hell?

The stories I was told as a kid always had some very clear message, some moral that it beat you over the head with. Never talk to strangers. Always share with your friends. Slow and steady wins the race. It’s okay to steal from and kill giants. Don’t trust witches, no matter how delicious the construction materials of their homes appear to be. That sorta thing.

I don’t really see anything like that in the story of Rhæcus and the Dryad. He saves her, he asks for her “love”, she agrees, she later sends a bee for him, he ignores it, she blinds him for life. What the hell kind of story is that? Doesn’t have any sort of moral message, other than “don’t diss someone who owes you a huge favour or they may blind you.” It’s just sort of weird and harsh and random and pointless.

Like I said, the Greeks had a good handle on reality.

I’ve updated the story of Rhæcus into modern times and terms. Let’s say you were flipping through the newspaper and came across this story:

WOMAN BLINDS GOOD SAMARITAN

AKRON, Ohio – A Kenmore woman was arrested and charged with felony assault early Monday after breaking into Akron resident Ronald Custer’s home and attacking him with a screwdriver. Custer, who was rushed to Akron General Medical Center with severe wounds to his face, claims the woman, whose name has not been released, broke into his apartment and stabbed him in both eyes. According to Custer, he had saved this same woman’s life last Thursday when she nearly stepped into the path of a speeding lumber truck, after which they had gone out on a date and he had given her his home phone number.

Troy Campbell, a friend of Custer’s and eyewitness to the attack, said he and Custer had been playing Playstation games Sunday night when the telephone rang. Campbell says Custer ignored the phone and an hour later the woman broke in and assaulted him, screaming “Don’t you dare screen my calls!”

Doctors say the damage to Custer’s eyes is extensive and he may never regain his eyesight.

If I came across that in a newspaper, I’d think: “Man, that’s fucked up.” And then what? I’d turn the page and read about some other horrible fucked up people or crime or murder or bombing or accident or statistic.

And that, I think, is where the Greeks had it right. Moral? Nah, not really, and why should there be? There aren’t morals to most real stories. Anything can happen to anyone for any reason or, more often, no reason at all. I think the Greeks understood that well. I don’t really know what I’m talking about here, being just a casual reader, but it seems to me that most everyone in Greek mythology, be they Gods or creatures or humans, are jealous, ruthless, angry, passionate, scheming, insecure, violent beings. Stories often end with some poor mortal being flayed alive or fried with a lightning bolt, often for the tiniest offense or none at all.

If I step outside tonight and I’m vapourized by a bolt of lightning, my friends and family might wonder: “Gosh, why did that happen? he didn’t deserve it.”

Representatives of some other religions I won’t mention here would probably offer up some comforting explanations. “God loves Greg, that is why he completely and horribly fried him so. Greg had to die, twitching and burning like an caterpillar under a magnifying glass. Shrieking as his skin was melting like a cheap candle and his eyes were exploding like cherry tomatoes in a microwave, because of God’s love for him! It was God’s will that Greg should die so horribly, and in full view of all those people whose dreams will forever be haunted by Greg’s horrible screams and the smell of his cooking flesh. Though we do not understand it, Greg’s tragic, extremely painful, unbelievably messy death is part of God’s benevolent plan.”

The Greeks? They’d have said, “Hey, Zeus is a dick. What can ya do?”