This is from Transitions one.
SectionTwo
Sea Crossings & Descent
Editorial
Odysseus embarked on a
sea voyage in order to return to his home in Ithaca, Leander to reach
his love and Jason into an unknown land in search of a magical golden
ram’s fleece in order to win back a kingdom. Yet these huge
undertakings, broadly speaking to recover interconnected places of
home, passions or worlds, are probably the small activities wittingly
or unwittingly that ordinary mortals set out to achieve every day.
Bearing in mind that
these heroes’ journeys have been retold over and over again the
bare bones are set down below for anyone wanting to be re-acquainted
or know these stories for the first time., but should be viewed in
conjunction with our own contributors’ accounts of journeys. For as
expressed in Cavafy’s poem, Ithaca, it is the journeying as much as
the arrival, that matters.
Mythical
sea-crossings
Odysseus
Homer told of the
return of Odysseus from Troy to his Kingdom of Ithaca and his wife
Penelope, an epic journey of ten years. Penelope faithfully awaited
his return fending off her many suitors by promising to choose a
new husband when she had finished weaving a cloth, each night
unstitching her day’s work. The goddess Athena angered by the
suitors, one of whom had plotted to kill Penelope’s son Telemachus,
helped to ensure the return of Odysseus.
Odysseus during his
perilous journey home was rescued by Nausica daughter of the king and
queen of Scheria who promised his safe passage home in return for
telling them his tale.
So he told of his many
adventures. On one island his men ate the Lotus of forgetfulness and
would have abandoned their journey had he not forced them on. All
except our hero, perished, but not before they had been turned into
pigs by the sorceress Circe, escaped from a Cyclops by putting out
his one eye, resisted the fatal call of the Sirens, ran from Skylla
the two headed monster and been poisoned by eating the holy cows of
the Sun God. The Sea God and father of the Cyclops, Poseidon, caused
the shipwreck which brought Odysseus to Scheria to tell this tale.
Once home Odysseus,
after winning an archery contest, revealed his identity and with the
help of his son Telemachus, killed all of Penelope’s suitors
and regained his kingdom. Hurrah!
Hero and Leander
First told by the
ancient Greeks this tragic tale has been re told throughout
history Ovid, Virgil, Marlowe, Byron, Keats, Tennyson
and artists Rubens, Turner, Rossetti, Anselm Keifer and Philippe
Lioret in his film Welcome have all drawn inspiration from it.
Despite being a virgin
priestess of Aphrodite, Hero began a secret affair with Leander. The
pair lived on opposite shores of the Hellespont. Every night
Hero would light a lamp atop her tower. Leander guided by the light
swam to his love. Eventually winter came, the sea roughened and the
wind blew out the guiding light. Leander lost his way and drowned.
The grief stricken Hero threw herself from her tower.
Jason and the Argonauts
Jason and his
Argonauts set sail in their ship, the Argo, sent by King Pelias who
stole his kingdom from Jason’s father, on a quest for
the Golden Fleece . They had many adventures whilst questing. On
Lemnos where the women murdered their husbands Jason made love to the
island queen leaving her with twins. Beyond the Hellespont to the
Black Sea aided by Athene, they saw the Amazons and the rock to which
Prometheus was chained. At last they found the Fleece in the
possession of King Aeetes but Jason was set a number of
seemingly impossible tasks to win it: yoke fire-breathing bulls,
plough and sow a field with dragons' teeth, and overcome phantom
warriors that sprouted from them. With the help of the Gods and
Medea, daughter of Aeetes, who Aphrodite caused to fall in love with
Jason by getting Eros to fire an arrow at Medea, he succeeded.
After an eventful
journey home Jason, again with the help of Medea - who also killed
the bronze man Tallos by taking out the nail which sealed the one
blood vessel running from his neck to ankle - murdered his father’s
usurper Pelias. It had been predicted that Pelias would die at the
hand of a man with one sandal. Jason had lost a sandal at the start
of his quest while helping the goddess Hera, who was in disguise as
an old woman, cross the river. Despite all she had done to help
him Jason betrayed Medea by getting engaged to Creusa, even saying it
was Aphrodite rather than Medea he should thank.
Medea killed the two
boys that she’d borne to Jason, and fled to Athens in a chariot
sent by her grandfather, the sun-god Helios. Jason become a wanderer
again and returned to the beached hull of the Argo whose stern,
Dodona, was said to speak. Cursed for breaking his vow to Medea he
died unaided by the gods when a beam of the ship fell and killed him.
About the Editor
Maryanne Grant Traylen,
PhD, Editor. As a scholar of William Blake and C.G.Jung she compared the
alchemic and platonic sources of contraries in their works and was
founding editor of the journal Stella Maris. She has reviewed books
for many publications ranging from Times Higher Educational
Supplement to Latin American Chasqui , often concerning the
relationship between science and religion, and written articles on
the same for The Guardian and The Independent. She loves living in
Folkestone by the sea.
Nautica
Sonia Overall
The eye of your prow
looked out beyond the bare horizon
foreseeing all:
losses, wrecks, the
death of hosts,
the bargain with a
woman, the children scattered
like teeth of a dragon,
sons of earth.
I saw only the open sea
– still a boy, I
wept.
Then you brought us to
the island of widows.
We forgot the lure of
the Black Sea,
sowed the island with
sons, boys of bronze
to grow and prosper in
the smoke shrouds –
or to be cast into
sacks and hurled from the headland
for all we knew. We
abandoned them
pressed west to the
bridge of rocks and the city of the sun god.
That was rich country.
The men stood
waist-deep in waterways
lifting nets,
panning for gold in
troughs.
We were no better than
pirates, stealing towards the city,
ready to wave our
spears in the face of priests.
We saw the village
watchtowers, the jealous eyes
of the jealously
guarded women,
the rams’ heads
carved in every gate and doorway.
We took what we had
come for, tugging the flayed skin
from its sacred stumps,
crashing like falling
rocks into that place of faith.
We jeered as they
howled at us,
a polyphony of praise
and rage
calling down the wrath
of a thousand fire-bulls.
I didn’t care,
came back to you with
my prize and my fierce bride.
You took us home, a
horde of wine-soaked heroes,
drunk on your decks.
Now your speaking oak
is silent.
Your proud stern
stretches and splits in the sun.
My wives, my children,
my kingdoms, are gone.
Have pity, Argo,
as the faithful hound
that tears his master;
fell me now
About Sonia Overall
Sonia Overall is a
writer, performer and creative writing tutor. She has published two
novels, A Likeness and The Realm of Shells (Fourth Estate, Harper
Perennial), and is researching further book projects. As well as
writing and teaching prose and poetry, Sonia has a keen interest in
live literature, writing and adapting for street theatre performances
and readings.
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