Realms Frequented By The Muses

After Prometheus, as was prophesied by Chiron managed to reveal to the mortals the secrets of even the Olympian-Thunderbolts (e=mc²) __ energy originally reserved for Zeus and his cosmic theater __ Zeus, witnessing yet another godly downgrading and mortal upgrading, was feeling extremely nostalgic. Wallowing through quagmires of lost worlds of heroic deeds, lost languages and lost rites and engulfed or better said overwhelmed by a poignant loss of that tangible feeling of self-recognition in the universe that he had created, it seemed at first glance that he was fleeing into past unable to look at present on it’s own terms.

Hera, coming of age and grown closer to and more sure of her own self and witnessing the inevitability or the Parcian Pattern, as Ascelpios would nodoubt say, of it all and having forgiven but not forgotten all that she had suffered in this relationship, seemed sometimes on the verge of losing patience, and it certainly was now more out of consideration rather than fear of Jove, that she held herself back. Unlike some other goddesses she was not misusing her newly acquired powers, in fact she was getting used to it and quite clear about what responsibilities it entailed for those who possess it.

However one day, meaning well or so she thought, nevertheless unable to hide her feeling of self-satisfaction thereby, she was audacious enough to suggest to Jove that he should be learning American English and the Apple-Linux-Window jargon to keep up with the times! To someone, who had vehemently refused to read Ovid, Virgil, Confucius, Omar Khayyam, Chaucer and Shakespeare, Kalidassa & Goethe in original? Polymnia always had to translate them into Greek for Zeus. Jove reacted mad. Hera had never seen him get so mad at her! For such a small cause, she thought! She did not know how to react at first and it seemed she had neither understanding nor any feelings left for him and thinking that the situation may worsen, she left him alone and went to see Apollo. Oh! Accursed Fate. O Hera, you Godly Gemahlin! Have the times really changed? Is it someone new? Is it pity that is creasing your sublime face? Or is it even disgust that is contorting it a utterly new way? Or are you suddenly seeing clay where your saw marble? And are you drawn to marble? Or have you now become what you were always afraid to be but realize might be your true essence? Cold as the marble that you love? No don’t pity, leave rather! She did it! And Thalia is sure, she did it gladly…

Zeus, too glad to use an English word he knew_ "Bitch!" _ reclined himself on the divine cloudy sofa. He was suddenly woken up by a Tomahawk, stealthily flying by, but was as suddenly asleep again. He gave in to the memories of the past, that really was. They came, crept, slouched, jumped and sneaked through his godly brahmanic-awareness, unlike the human dreaming, he could hold them, zoom in and even make them stand still but he could not however alter their irreversible nature. And he could regain full consciousness of his surroundings, if he wanted to but presently he let it be, submerging himself in a glorious past, the like of which, no gods and men have known!

It was, as he was “lying” in this state, that She appeared to him, yes the Memory herself, Mnemosyne, his old nine-nights flame Mnemosyne. How sweet her name sounded! Mnemosyne, the goddess of Memory, whose memory he cherished, appearing to him in a dream!

Yes it was she, who, divining the future as she controlled the past, persuaded him to let some of the Muses leave for good the Olympia and head for the streets, the subways, the tin-pan alleys and to seep through radio, multichannel television cables and as bits and bytes through glass fibers _ in order to counter the polyglot confusion of the newly organized Nations with potential for self-destruction that these formidable weapons doubtlessly entailed.

"For truly Jove” spoke Mnemosyne, “What mankind now needs are not the bards of the old, singing the recurrent theme of the gods and the deeds of the heroes but something to make the mortals forget and amuse themselves and hope for a better future. No not Clio the Muse of the Epics and the history of Gods and their bastards, who is always preoccupied with chronology and descent but Lesmosyne to make them forget, Euterpe to make them musical, Terpsichore to make them rock & roll, Erato to make them amusingly craving, Thalia to make them laugh at themselves or amuse themselves with consumer goods and last but not least Calliope to make them wonder at the creation, which they are apt to forget, given so much goods and entertainment. Yes, Calliope should take care that the others don’t overdo it and as you know too much of their goodwill toward mankind may lead to new kind of hybris too.”

After waking up Zeus felt once again like the old Jove of the Homeric times. Mnemosyne had indeed invigorated him in an unexplainable way, making him even more magnanimous than even Pluto and Rhea put together! He had not felt great lately, besides the fact of Prometheus, this rascal son of Iapetus and the grandson of Heaven & Earth, having somehow betrayed him, he seemed to have a feeling chronic exhaustion, devoid of hunger nor did he have any great desire to change anything around him. He was no more the old vigorous master of the universe. He had a problem with his diet too. Nowadays much of the smoke from the roasted lamb, that the gods were breathing and living on, got mixed up with pollutants in the atmosphere, so much so that, Apollo and Ascelpios had hard time taking care of the gods. Although they would consult Chiron, the only one left who still spoke their language after the death of mortals like Hippocrates and Avicenna it did not help much. Ascelpios thought it had to do something with something called flourocarbons. Besides the smoke coming from charred lamb in digitally controlled microwave ovens made them long for more organic smells. Most of them suffered from strange headaches which however they got partly under control, after Hermes stole some tons of Aspirin from the mortals, Aspirin is a great hit at the Olympia nowadays.

But today Zeus was the old boy Jove. He summoned all the gods and stood towering above everyone in the assembly. Hera had diminished, so had Prometheus as had all the mortals playing with his private property, the plasma fire. Suddenly they all appeared to him like children or more like puppets dangling from nanothreads moved by an invisible hand that had magically appeared from that deep lurking source of all appearances, the Void and Chaos. Yes they needed him! The humans needed him, in fact more than they had needed him all through the years! His greatest job in this universe was still ahead. And as ever and always, he rose up to the occasion.

Hearken ye all! I have called you, to announce the news that is shaking the world. The mortals now possess that, what till now, has made us the masters of this universe. But let me bring this home to you, we are not here just for our own pleasure, although our century old thinking has always been that humans were made for our pleasure I am getting increasingly convinced that we are here as much to take care of them as they are there for our pleasure. But I am afraid, the mortals will not be able to handle this fire without a guiding hand. Of course we have always intercepted when things got too hard for them, but now we need to involve ourselves more dynamically than we have done so far. After the first two blasts I realize there is no time to waste. Before we make more elaborate plans to fulfill our mission in regard to human beings, they direly need something or someone to overcome this shock and to create a more abiding sense of solidarity, without loosing their sense of diversity, amongst themselves. Someone to make them forget the immediate past, to amuse them and make them optimistic toward future and not to loose their faith in Mankind. They need exactly what we needed after the defeat of the Giants. Some one to amuse them, enhance their existence and the sense of the meaning of life and at the same time inculcating in them a sense of higher Order that is worth striving for and which I hope may to some extent ensure their cooperation rather than mutual self-destruction, assured or otherwise!

And Who else than the Muses are better equipped to do this job?

I have decided they shall leave Olympia and head straight to all the corners of the planet, to places they had no chance to go till now, due commitments here at Olympia. Despite the great need I personally feel, to have them here besides me, I know that they are still more needed by the human beings at present. Yes the Muses shall bring color to the at-present fully grey planet

And hearken, my children, Erato, Euterpe, Terpsichore, Calliope, Thalia and Polymnia, I have chosen you for this job. Clio will be keeping a watch over you and reporting to me in case you are in need of help. Urania and Melpomene will be visiting Earth, the way they have done till now but now with less constraints in their movements, especially in accessing the regions, thought by some to be barbaric and inaccessible. And of course there will be Apollo, who will certainly without my ordering it explicitly keep his watchful eye on you...

So come here, the six of you and listen carefully to what I have to say to you. Although you are all of noble birth, I let thee go freely to all the races and classes of the mortals, you shall be from now on home equally in ghetto as well as in the castle or the academy. You can hobo in backwaters, hitchhike with a truck-driver, smoke pot at Yasgur's farm, demolish your guitar on stage, trespass the taboos in spotlight, appear with a snake dangling down your neck or get yourself nailed live in a coffin on stage, or be thrown out of a pub, whatever... You are free… but remember the great poets, like Shakespeare know the soul of the pauper, as well as that of a king and like Gogol are not stingy when describing the lesser characters in their story or ignoring their existence altogether. They would do well today if they lent their voices to the grieving of the branded criminal or the outlaw as well as to the suffering of the victim and most of all, transform the woes of the disenfranchised and those not blessed with the glib art of rhetorical speech, into a common cultural good, resonating in contemporary media and available to the masses. See to it that you generously donate your gifts to such universally empathetic souls, constrained from neither class, color or cultural fictions.

I know the times have changed… but still the old ways of chivalry count… for truly then Bob Dylan would not have felt the need to lament that he was shooting someone without a trial and that his enemy as he came close had a face just like his…

Or Roger Waters comment ironically upon the modern bravery of being out of range!

Yes sing not just for the pleasure of the over satiated consumers but give voices to those who are disenfranchised and need your gifts to reveal what would otherwise be hidden, and that is your mission too.

And lastly see to it that you give your gifts freely to all but don’t get too hooked on drugs or at the Tin Pan Alley.

Fare thee well!