Friday 29th of March 2024

science is brutal... and of the birth of fake news and of the seasons...

the birth of venus

Venus was the bearer of fake ideals for the human species. The dream still continues beyond the invention. The age of porkies had began, in Greek and in Latin together alike.

 

For an unfortunate but understandable reason, humans needed to know something about their conditions, including the “gift" of senselessly babbling away in different ways. The natural elements did give them clues, but hid the meaning since there was none. The forces of creation and deception had to be explained, thus any explanation would do, until science came along — like a super-sized ball, in a ten-pin godly game.



So Venus was born from the foam of the sea:

                                    “Look, look, why shine
Those floating bubbles with such light divine?
                    Shelley.

And to some young mind, the phosphorescence of the sea is like refections of stars in a cloudless night, the mystery of an intertwined universe that give birth to an amazing reflecting beauty. Why break the spell of Beauty with sciences?

In bacteria, two simple substrates [a reduced flavin mononucleotide (FMNH2) and a long-chain aliphatic aldehyde (RCHO)] are oxidized by molecular oxygen and luciferase. The aldehyde is consumed during the reaction but is continuously synthesized by the bacteria, resulting in a persistent glow.

Science  07 May 2010:
Vol. 328, Issue 5979, pp. 704-708


Science is brutal


So Venus was born. She was needed, to explain infidelity and the oddities of human variations: from idiot to intelligent, from young to old, from fit to unfit, from beauty to uglydom… 

Because she was too beautiful and possibly too aware of her own looks, the king of gods, Zeus (Jupiter), “punished” her by forcing her to marry the deformed Vulcan. So, Venus had a few affairs, including some with Mars, the “handsome” god of war…

Science is perverse. It often pinches the names of gods and their acolytes to describe its particles. Alectryon was Mars attendant, always on guard, to alert the lovers of incoming company. One day, Alectryon fell asleep, and as soon as Aurora, the goddess of the morning gates opened the sky to Apollo, the Sun god saw the lovers. Mars and Venus, intwined in the comfort of Morpheus. Apollo alerted Vulcan, who used a steel mesh to capture the “sinners”… Once freed, Mars punished Alectryon:

   “And, from a neighbouring farmyard,  
           Loud the cock Alectryon crowed.”
                       Longfellow.

Mars and Venus had a few children: Hermione (Harmonia) and Cupid (Heros, Amor) were first. Cupid did not grow up like other kids. He soon was anointed the god of love and could not grow up without his younger kid brother Anteros (Passion). Cupid when separated from Anteros would become a kid again, indulging in mischievous deeds.

Venus, the unfaithful wife and unfaithful lover, had an affair with Adonis, the most beautiful mortal ever. Venus was always worried about Adonis going on dangerous sporting hunts. Her fears came to be realised:

“The white tusk of a boar had transpierced his white thigh…
“The youth lieth dead while his dogs howl around,
And the nymphs weep aloud from the mist of the hill.
                                     Bion

Bion’s Bucolica, mostly concerned with love and some occasional bucolic themes, expressed through a playful, but sometimes pompous and moralising, tone. Since the Renaissance, Bion has been credited with the Lament for Adonis whose "overheated" and emotionalism developed the cult of Adonis, which was popular in Greece/Turkey in his time (around 100 BC). 

Running through the bush, to her dying lover,
Venus tore her delicate skin and white roses, pink became. 
Mercury took the mortal's soul to the ever after, 
Welcomed by Proserpina, Goddess of the universal domain. 
Venus cried many tears that anemones became, 
The drops of Adonis’ blood roses, red enflamed…
                                                 J Lucius

“As many drops as from Adonis bled,
So many tears the sorrowing Venus shed :
For every Drop on earth a flower there grows :
Anemones for tears ; for blood the roses.”
                                 Bion

Venus pleaded with Jupiter to release Adonis from death’s embrace, or allow her to go to Hades (Heaven/Hell) herself, where he now was… But Beauty (Venus) could not be allowed to leave earth. Jupiter eventually agreed to revive Adonis, but Pluto, who owned Adonis’ soul, objected. They made a pact: Adonis would be allowed to spend half a year on earth and the rest in Hades. Thus were born the “seasons”...

“But even in death, so strong is Love,
I could not wholly die ; and year by year,
When the bright springtime comes, and the earth lives,
Love opens these dread gates, and call me forth
Across the gulf.”
                           Lewis Morris (MORYS, LEWIS (1700–1765))


Meanwhile, Venus became more the slut she ever was…

She also loved and secretly married Anchises, the Prince of Troy. Anchises revealed his secret love to someone, thus Venus became irate and tried to kill him with a lightning bolt, stolen from Jupiter. Troy got destroyed. 

The differing representations and interpretations of the destruction of Troy (from the ancient past, to the more recent past, to today), including the tradition of the ‘Trojan War’; the role of Paris and Helen in the Trojan War; and that Troy was destroyed by earthquake and fire (Dörpfeld’s reinterpretation of Troy II and VI)

But Anchises managed to escape on AEneas’ (their son) back. Venus would look after AEneas as much as she could…

Meanwhile on trying to make sense of planetary motions:

Juno, in Roman religion, chief goddess and female counterpart of Jupiter, closely resembling the Greek Hera, with whom she was identified. With Jupiter and Minerva, she was a member of the Capitoline triad of deities traditionally introduced by the Etruscan kings. Juno was connected with all aspects of the life of women, most particularly married life. Ovid (Fasti, Book V) relates that Juno was jealous of Jupiter for giving birth to Minerva from his own head. After Flora gave her an herb, Juno gave birth to Mars...
 So Venus gets involved in her son’s love affairs…

Juno sees Dido’s love for AEneas as a way to keep AEneas from going to Italy. Pretending to make a peace offering, Juno suggests to Venus that they find a way to get Dido and Aeneas alone together. If they marry, Juno suggests, the Trojans and the Tyrians would be at peace, and she and Venus would end their feud. Venus knows Juno is just trying to keep the Trojans from Italy but allows Juno to go ahead anyway.

Virgil treats love as he treats the gods—as an outside force acting upon mortals, not a function of the individual’s free will or innate identity. He does not idealize love; rather, he associates it with imagery linked to madness, fire, or disease, presenting love as a force that acts on Dido with a violence that is made literal by the end of Book IV in her suicide. Virgil’s language in the first lines of the book indicates that Dido’s emotions corrode her self-control; he describes her love as “inward fire eating her away” (IV.3). Later, Dido’s decision to have a funeral pyre erected and then kill herself upon it returns to this imagery, and Virgil compares Dido’s suicide to a city taken over by enemies, “As though . . . / . . . / Flames billowed on the roofs of men and gods” (IV.927–929). Cupid’s arrow, shot to promote love between Aeneas and Dido, causes hatred, death, and destruction.

https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/aeneid/section4/page/2/

Thus the two sons of Venus, the goddess of beauty, have managed to cause hatred, death, and destruction.


There are also grave fears dry lightning could start new fires across parts of New South Wales and Victoria that have not already been devastated over recent days.

Temperatures in parts of each state will reach into the 40s, with Albury-Wodonga expected to hit a maximum of 46 degrees Celsius.

Almost 60 evacuees from the fire-hit Victorian coastal town of Mallacoota arrived this morning at Hastings, south-east of Melbourne, on the Navy training ship MV Sycamore.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-04/nsw-victoria-bushfire-conditions-...


And people still believe in the gods (or god, or a trinity of one god), rather than try to understand the sciences… Science is brutal. The poetry has gone. your house has gone. And Morrison, the god-fearing moron, wants to shake your hand to show he cares…

You know that hands once shook, he will turn away…

Science is brutal. It tells the truth. But few want to listen… The seasonal pact between Jupiter and Pluto is about to change… Listen up.

Gus Leonisky
Your local myth-buster...

of fairy tales and freud...

Venus was apparently born of the foam of the sea, fully aware of her own dripping beauty. Having become a slut with a few lovers after abandoning her husband Vulcan, she took upon herself to manage young people’s love, most interferences ending in tragedy. Venus was a bitch.



Thus were born the legends of Romeo and Juliet way before Romeo and Juliet — in the myths of Pyramus and Thisbe, and that of Hero and Leander. Sleeping Beauty appears way before Sleeping Beauty. The ugly jealous sisters of Cinderella, mostly a Chinese legend from way before BC, do also appear in the Greek mythology of Cupid and Psyche. 

The only story that seems to end well, but is a bit iffy, I’d say, in regard to our modern erotic robots, is that of Pygmalion — or the "raw stone improvement"… We know the modern film version “My Fair Lady”, itself based on a play by George Bernard Shaw “Pygmalion”, rehashing the ancient Greek story of the King of Cyprus, Pygmalion, who was a famous sculptor… 

Mostly concentrating on carving beautiful statues of goddesses, one day, the king decided to sculpt a magnificent mortal woman. More beautiful than his other godly fares, Pygmalion gave it the name of Galatea and begged Venus (Aphrodite) to give it life:

“O Aphrodite, kind and fair,
   That what thou wilt canst give,
Oh, listen to a sculptor’s prayer,
   And bid mine image live !”
              Andrew Long

Pygmalion was a confirmed bachelor, but happy to see that he now wished a beautiful wife like that he had carved, Venus granted him his wish…

"At once with prayers in passion flowing,
Pygmalion embraced the stone,
Till, from the frozen marble glowing,
The light of feeling o’ver him shone.”
                        Schiller.

The statue had become a fair and living maiden — and after some passionate sexy wooing, she became his “happy” wife. Yippee… Now you know why the sexy robots attract bachelors — with no "talk-back" setting included…

The legend of Narcissus is even more poignant. The young man Narcissus met Echo (you know that voice that comes back to you that is your own) when she was a lovely talkative nymph, free from care and fleeting light. This frivolous girl fell in love with this most beautiful young man… who did not return her affection. Scorned, she vanished into the forest to die, not before begging Venus to punish him — until all that remained was her melodious voice, which the gods condemned to repeat the last sounds she could hear…:

“But her voice is still living immortal, —
     The same you have frequently heard
In you rambles in valleys and forests,
   Repeating your ultimate word.”
                                 Saxe

Soon, Narcissus, thirsty, came upon a lonely pool. As he bend over to take a sip, he saw a beautiful nymph in the water above the pebbles of the bottom. barely touching the water with his hand, the nymph disappeared. The water soon returned to a mirror like smoothness and looking back into the pond, Narcissus saw the nymph again. He repeated the process several time, as he could see the nymph answering him as the same time as he talked. Enamoured with the image, his own reflection, he stopped drinking and eating until he died and became a flower. Venus had granted Echo her wish…

“A lonely flower he spied,
A meek and forlorn flower, with naught of pride,
Drooping its beauty o’er the watery clearness, 
To woo its own sad image into nearness :
Deaf to light Zephyrus it would not move ;
But still would seem to droop, to pine, to love.”
                                               Keats.

And now to our own psyche… Psyche was more beautiful than Venus. Venus was jealous. She ordered her son Cupid to kill Psyche with poisoned arrows she gave him. But Cupid saw the "unequalled loveliness" as he was about to strike with his first arrow, and taken aback, he hurt himself with his own love arrow. The image of the fair maiden fell into his heart. Cupid himself was in love! Seeing that her plan had failed, Venus inflicted torment upon torment on Psyche (don’t we all know), who in despair climbed atop a mountain and threw herself off a cliff… Cupid, who had witnessed his mother’s nasty desires, called upon Zephyrus to take Psyche floating away through the air to a distant island (isn't this our bipolar problem!).

There Psyche ended up in the exquisite garden of a beautiful castle. When night fell, Cupid came pining for love in return, but begged Psyche not to try to unmask his identity (here comes the Phantom of the Opera still stinging our hearts and brains)… And Cupid always left way before Aurora came to open the sky to Apollo…

“ ‘Dear, I am with thee only while I keep
My visage hidden ; and if thou once shouldst see
My face, I must forsake thee : the high gods
Link Love with Faith, and he withdraws himself
From the full gaze of Knowledge.’ “
                             Lewis Morris

But Psyche was curious to know her lover, who could be a monster, as told to her by her jealous sisters (here comes the Phantom and Cinderella together)… Psyche has a dagger to kill the “monster” just in case and a lamp to see his face…

“Now trembling, now distracted; bold,
And now irresolute she seems ;
The blue lamp glimmers in her hold,
And in her hand the dagger gleams,
Prepared to strike, she verges near,
“Then, the blue light glimmering from above,
The hideous sight expects with fear —
And gazes on the god of Love.”
                              Apollonius.

Awaken by a drop of burning oil from the lamp, Cupid escaped through the window:

 ‘Farewell ! There is no Love except with Faith (here comes the evangelicals),
And thine is dead ! Farewell ! I come no more !’ 

Distraught, Psyche seek to kill herself once more, by drowning. She is saved by the water nymphs… She is given the advice by Ceres, to become at the service of Venus, where she could see Cupid again and patch things up with her lover. Venus was a bitch to Psyche by giving her the vilest of tasks to perform, including going to Hades (Hell-side) to pick up a magic potion of eternal beauty, for Venus, from Proserpina. 

On her return from Hell, Psyche, affected by age and torment, decided to use some of the potion herself... but inside the box was only the Spirit of Sleep… and Psyche fell by the roadside…

Cupid eventually passed by, and with his own mind and love wrestling with the Spirit of Sleep, woke Psyche with a kiss (Sleeping Beauty, here we come):

                   “ ‘Dear, unclose thine eyes,
Thou mayst look upon me now.   I go no more,
But am thine own for ever.’ “
                                  Lewis Morris

Had love been tame by knowledge and reality? Is this our own psyche awakening to relativity? Faith and passion are long gone, but the science is telling us that love is not dead, but good. Different. Bugger, here I am talking like an advertisement for Aldi. I tend to shop at IGA, mind you. That's “where the locals go”… 
I hope you enjoyed this short visit to the gods… and that your house isn’t on fire. Yes Venus was a nasty piece of work. Beauty is only skin deep, if beauty ever was. Eventually Venus welcomed Psyche as Cupid’s bride… and Psyche became the soul that shall never die. 

Until Freud came along


Gus Leonisky
Your local wandering red ned drinking atheist...

fascism's origins..

 

 

When Science and political hubris

Marry to fight a virus,

Their child is a little brat that piss

Like the fascist little Venus

When power and the cross were bedfellows

Under the pillows.

 

              Gloria Longbottom

 

 

 

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