Ἰλιάς
The 2020 Parade of Irises starts right now on May 4th.
This year's parade is dedicated to the muse of epic poetry, Καλλιόπη ("Calliope" in today's fallen tongue). "The Poet," Hesiod, thought she was wisest of muses, wiser even than her stern sister Clio. Hesiod may have been a little biased, however. He was, after all, a poet and she did give him her lyre. But other poets, including the blind one from Ionia, dedicated their greatest works to her. In fact, the poem at the center of this year's Parade invokes Καλλιόπη in the first three words, I think: "μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ." Calliope was mother to Orpheus (Music) and Linus (Song.) She is also probably mother to the sirens, whose songs could shipwreck homeward bound Myrmidons if they weren't really careful. Here on Sweet Gum, you can detect from her color pattern the wide range of her emotions, from the comic charmer to the singer of the manic rage of men.
And so it is with THIS muse that we begin our story; and with very good reason. Homer prays that Καλλιόπη will sing us a special story, a song about anger itself, because Anger is what this poet thinks the war was about. In this song he hopes she will sing, the people of the west and people of the east are all very angry. Poets have traditionally been suckers for historical explanations centered on emotions. What modern students will call the Greek World has been polarized into two basic camps in this decade long war that occurred sometime back around 1300 bce. On the one side are the Ἀχαιοί (Achaeans.) On the other side, the Τροία (Trojans). If you could imagine it in today's geography, it would be like the Hellenic Republic ("Greece") going to war against The Republic of Turkey.
But this wise muse tells us another story. Yes she sings of rage, the maniacal rage of Achilles that Ionian Homer had asked her to sing about. Interestingly, her song seems to glance over that. Achilles is the human hero of the war for Calliope. But most of her story is about stupidity, lack of leadership, deceit, and overbearing pride.
She sings a song in which neither side really wanted to be in this costly war. The Achaeans had been, at the time of this story's opening, eight long years away from home. A Princess of one of their most powerful families in Achaea had either been kidnapped or had willingly run away with a Prince from Troy. Depends on who you ask, since accurate information was hard to come by in that world of fake news. Her husband and his family wanted her back home at any cost. Their reputation was on the line. And the male ego had not evolved much by then. Today, of course, spurned husbands would rarely think of taking it out on the new beau. Right?
The Trojans, for the most part, did not care much either way. Now they were in this thing to protect their own families from the notorious treatment at the hands of the invaders. Trojan rulers seemed to be willing to risk this long war over one pretty princess. So it was the two governments and not the people who protracted this war. Still, like most wars, this one cost the people dearly. Many husbands were killed or separated from their families for years, economies were destroyed, women were subjected to countless acts of violence that would, in a few thousand years, be deemed war crimes. And don't even ask about exit strategy. That would take a whole 'nother epic to tell.
The muse also handles the viewpoint that this was somehow a religious war. As have many wars since, the Trojan war also had its religious components, she explains. Perhaps in some ways, the cause of the war was a family feud between some of the more important gods. But Καλλιόπη shows these Olympian and Aegean conflicts to be more examples of wars for ego gratification and power while the participants justify their crimes with religious rationalizations.
But at another level, Καλλιόπη as the wisest of the muses, insists that this was all about a failure of leadership. On Olympus, the gods could not put forth a unified policy. And on earth, the traditional establishment leaders could not get over themselves long enough to plan, lead, and execute. The leaders seemed to spend most of their time in conflict with their own subordinates over matters of executive privilege and the protocols of obedience. Worse, the legitimate leaders of both sides seem to have been incapable of listening to their wisest advisers. Uppermost administrators constantly failed to discern between the incompetence of favored sycophants polluting their counsels while reinforcing the leaders' lofty views of themselves at the expense of their best and brightest subordinates. The brain and talent drain almost cost the Achaeans the whole war. In the view of the wisest of muses, if you listen carefully to her song and try to ignore the invocation of the poet, this tragic war was a failure of leadership from start to finish, heaven to earth.
A cold snap
After five days of cold weather up here, the parade's been slowed down. Two nights of sub-freezing weather only delayed the iris bloom. There is no lingering damage I can see. Keep fingers crossed. Only Καλλιόπη has bloomed to date. Here's her isolated bed on May 16:
Perhaps this break in the parade would be a good place to explain some of our terminology. When I call something an "isolated bed" what I mean is that once we have a new and interesting variety, I will move it into its own bed, some place well away from other irises of the same species and blooming season. This will prevent most cross breeding since irises cross through their exchange of pollen. Remind me to demonstrate ways we can intentionally cross irises to get new varieties. Once in isolation, a bed will continue to generate plants with very similar blossoms and plant character so we will always have it. Those varieties that come back each year we call our "cultivars." But we certainly do make intentional crosses in other beds and one bed we call the "mix it up bed" generates lots of different iris varieties planted in close quarters. Surprises come out of that bed almost every year.
Some of our iris varieties were purchased over the years. Others we acquired when other varieties crossed. A majority of our best irises came to us the right way, though. After polite expression of admiration, most kind iris growers will offer a rhizome of that variety "later on in the summer when I thin out that bed." We have benefited greatly from such benevolence, a debt to future iris enthusiasts that we look forward to repaying over time.
And the basic rules for this year's naming convention? Simple, just remember the gold mines of Ilium, the purple grapes of the Peloponnese, and the snows at the tops of Mounts Olympus, the two mountains named Ida, and Mount Helicon. Okay? So purple irises are named for Achaeans, Golden irises are named for Trojans, and white, pastel, pinks, and beige irises are named for the gods. It gets just a little complicated when we recall that some gods supported the Trojan defenders, other gods supported the invaders from the Peloponnese, some remained unaligned and other gods supported the Achaeans, but wanted the Trojans to almost win, all for reasons to be discussed.
And that leads to a bit of a dilemma. There is one central character, Helen. Helen is the Spartan girl taken by Paris to Troy because she was "given to him" by Aphrodite. More on all of that later. But for this part of the discussion, what color iris should we give a woman who was both Achaean and Trojan? And to make matters even more difficult, she was both a daughter of a god and a daughter of a human. How are we going to assign Helen to an iris?
That is the question you should be asking yourself over the next few weeks.
May 19: Αψροδίτη "Aphrodite"
What was the Trojan War really about? We evidently have many views on this question. For the poet, Homer, it was about anger and revenge. The war came about because a Trojan prince kidnapped the wife of an Achaean Prince. The Achaeans wanted her back and to restore the honor of the house of Atreus (the family from which she had been "stolen.") For the Trojans, it was about the defense of their homeland and the protection of Trojan people and property. But the muse implies in her song, The Iliad, that the war was more like a giant cluster of diplomatic missteps and the prideful arrogance of mostly incompetent leaders. The entire context of the war does not receive its telling in her story. The poet and the muse both assume that every school child knows many of these side stories so they don't bother including much of this explanation in The Iliad, itself.
One example is the story of a beauty competition between three gods (Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite.) All readers of this poem in ancient Greece probably knew this story. A lucky passer-by, a young Trojan prince named "Paris" had the good or bad fortune to be in the wrong place at just the right time. He was enlisted to judge the most beautiful of the three goddess participants. He was too young, too inexperienced in the ways of the heart. He had not learned to appreciate the subtleties of feminine beauty, and to distinguish that from painted charm. So you guessed it. He picked the God of Love, Sex, Prostitution. Forever afterward, the goddess Aphrodite would also be known as the goddess of beauty. And as a reward for his taste, Aphrodite gave Paris the most beautiful mortal woman in the world. Unfortunately for the Greek world, the woman turned out to be a married woman. But the bonds of marriage were only inconvenient and imaginary to Aphrodite, anyway. And so she disregarded that little inconvenience when she gave Helen to Paris. Who, we are left to wonder, is to blame if a mere human prince falls in love with the most beautiful princess, especially if that love had been kindled by an edict from a god?
Near the very end of the Trojan War, a very clever tactician among the Greek invaders devised a plan to gain entry to the city walls of Troy. The Greeks pretended to give up the siege. They pretended to get in their boats and sail home, leaving behind a gift of a large wooden horse (the horse being a symbol of Troy and its protector god.) The Trojans celebrated the end of the war by rolling the horse into their city and undertaking a victory celebration. Deep in the early morning after the revels, several Greek warriors emerged from the hollow horse, opened the city gates to the returned invaders and began the final battle of the war against the sleeping and unprotected enemy. Very clearly, from the Trojan perspective anyway, they should have been more wary of "Greeks bearing gifts." At the same time, looking the wooden horse in the mouth would not have been the best hole to check.
This story about the wooden horse, the end of the war, and the true hero of the victory (we will discuss more about this wise tactician in due course) is not included in the Iliad. The Iliad is a story about other heroes, hand-to-hand fighting, the palace intrigue in Troy, and the dysfunctional chain of command in the Greek units.
May 20: Ἀχιλλεύς "Achilles"
With many heroes on both sides of the war, the Iliad has opportunity to bring them into successive conflicts, thus comparing the various virtues, attitudes, weaknesses, body armor, and the ways they spend their off duty free time. In the Iliad, and discounting for now all of the Trojan War that happened in the first eight years, and ignoring for now all of the war that happens after the Trojan General's funeral, this comparison of heroes seems to settle, for some, on one champion above all others. Note: usually the people who think so also believe this poem to be about the glory of war. From the very first sentence of the poet's prayer to the muse of epic poetry, we realize that the son of a powerful human king and a water goddess with a long suspected love intrigue with god almighty, Zeus, is going to win this ultimate jousting match. Achilles may not be that wise tactician who devised the wooden horse and won the war, he might not even be a smart or ethical human being. He might be just a common strain of war criminal who happens to be from a powerful family who failed in their most important mission, to teach the next generation how to be more humane if only half human. But the action contained within the lines of the Iliad is dominated by a warrior unlike any other.
Thousands of years before the earliest Greeks sailed the islands of the Aegean sea, there had been a love triangle between the most powerful of the Olympian gods, Zeus, Poseidon who was the god of the sea, and a very beautiful water goddess named Thetis. Everyone in Homer's day knew this, so this story did not have to be related in the Iliad either. It looked for a while as if Zeus would win her hand and heart, he always got everything he wanted. But a reliable prophecy warned Zeus off. It was foretold to him that a son of Thetis would be born from her marriage to a powerful god. The son would grow to become even more powerful than the father and would ultimately overthrow him. For Zeus, this was a nagging concern. He had himself been sired by Cronus, the most powerful titan, and had grown to vanquish his dad and to take over the running of the universe, as it was then conceived. So it would not be enough to just break up with Thetis. No, if she were to have a son by Poseidon, or any other god for that matter, it was possible that their son might grow to be "the one." Zeus needed a better solution.
Zeus settled on a plan to force Thetis to marry a mortal. Not just any mortal would do. It would have to be someone respected enough by the gods to prevent them from having a son with her. The king of the Myrmidons, (a sea people from Thessalonian coast of the Greek peninsula, seemed like the right choice. Of course, King Peleus (you would know him if you are familiar with his role in Argonautica) was down with that and Thetis was forced to comply with Zeus's choice.
Thetis gets married off to some human who is going to get old and feeble while she is still young and spry. So she gets even. When she gives birth to a half human baby boy she realizes that it might be mortal or it might be god like. She feeds it ambrosia and dips him into the river Styx in an attempt to burn away the mortal parts and to render the child immortal. Then she sends the boy off to boarding school where he will be developed and toughened up. And she keeps the child hidden from all knowing Zeus.
Along with the plot level question in the Iliad of "who is the most heroic hero?" lingers the broader question inherited from Greek literary traditions, "Might Achilles be the one?"
May 20: Ἥρᾱ "Hera"
Very much unlike Aphrodite, this goddess defends and upholds the sanctity of matrimony. Hera's trouble is that she is married to Zeus. Now before we get all weird about the fact that Zeus and Hera are siblings, it is important to remember the few options available to them at the time they were deciding on moving in together up on Mount Olympus. The availability of eligible gods at the time were slim pickings. After all, Zeus had saved her from spending an eternity in their father's stomach. A long story, best left for another telling. But Hera is also known as "Teliea" goddess of marriage. Sometimes she is called "Hera of the White Arms," note the silver white stalks and leaves of her iris in the following photograph.
Through most of the years after the already mentioned beauty contest, which happened --by the way--, at the wedding of Achilles's parents, Hera was and is considered the goddess of women, family, marriage, and childbirth. Had anyone but Paris been judging that day, or so long as the judge had maybe made it all the way through puberty, it is highly likely that Hera would have won. In that case, she would now be the goddess of beauty as well as these other honorifics. Remember, Zeus could have married anyone. He picked Hera though she turned him down. He forced himself on her and then, after a polite grace period, Zeus went to work procreating with almost everyone who was not prophesied to produce a son who would supplant him.
During the Trojan War, Hera was very pro-Achaean. Witnesses in positions to know such things quote her as saying all three of her very favorite city states were on the Peloponnese, the island on which the kingdom of the Atreus family ruled.
So a powerful goddess in her own right, Thetis also had a trunk full of favors to call in. Remember the favor she did for Hephaestus? Back when he was a nobody, freshly fallen from Olympus, Thetis helped him get back on his one good foot. Many years later she called in that favor for her son's new armor. Thetis seems to be someone who is always willing to lend a hand and remembers having done so.
An isolated bed of Thetis on 5/24
King Agamemnon is brother-in-law to Helen, the beautiful woman awarded to Paris by Aphrodite and the love triangle that started this entire mess. We can't place the blame for any of that on Agamemnon directly. But Agamemnon and Aphrodite should have met. They would have made a great couple. His own family separation policy was certainly the single most important contributor to a plague rained down on the Achaean invaders that almost caused them to lose the war sometime in the eighth year. In a nutshell, Agamemnon, a married man, kidnapped a girl war refugee and announced that he was taking her for his own "prize." I kid you not. The girl's name was Chryseis. Her distraught father (named Chryses) offered Agamemnon the traditional ransom money to get back his child. But Agamemnon kept her anyway and told Chryses, in so many words, to hit the bricks. He said Chryseis would grow old in Agamemnon's house back in Mycenae, performing her lifetime of service between his bed and her loom. This public insult of Chryses, who just happened to be a priest of Apollo, the son of Zeus who was already in support of the Trojans, almost cost the Achaean side the whole conflict.
May 24: Πάτροκλος "Patroclus"
Through most of the years after the already mentioned beauty contest, which happened --by the way--, at the wedding of Achilles's parents, Hera was and is considered the goddess of women, family, marriage, and childbirth. Had anyone but Paris been judging that day, or so long as the judge had maybe made it all the way through puberty, it is highly likely that Hera would have won. In that case, she would now be the goddess of beauty as well as these other honorifics. Remember, Zeus could have married anyone. He picked Hera though she turned him down. He forced himself on her and then, after a polite grace period, Zeus went to work procreating with almost everyone who was not prophesied to produce a son who would supplant him.
During the Trojan War, Hera was very pro-Achaean. Witnesses in positions to know such things quote her as saying all three of her very favorite city states were on the Peloponnese, the island on which the kingdom of the Atreus family ruled.
May 21: Ζευς "Zeus"
God almighty! What you need to understand about Ζευς is that he may be Great but he is far from Good. In fact, this god is the result of a broken family, little schooling, an amazing lack of empathy, a disinterest in the moral arc of the universe, and unrestrained power. This is what results. Other gods tell him what he wants to hear, all except for his sister/wife who tries to reason with him. But he does not even mean well. He just intends to sit up on his throne on Olympus, check out what is going on down here in the human dramas that seem to perform a role of netflix or reality tv for him, and throw around his lightning bolts. What a waste of extraordinary talent.
He claimed to remain neutral in the Trojan War, although he seems to be blind to whatever his golden haired son is up to. Ever worked in a family owned business when you were not a part of the family? The short answer is, don't. And never EVER get in between Ζευς and his son. Since Ζευς claimed neutrality, he expected all gods to stay out of the fray. But any reader of the Iliad realizes how misplaced that expectation really was. His wife and his daughter both sided with the Achaean team while his son openly fought for Troy.
An isolated bed of Ζευς on the day of its initial blossoming this season.
An isolated bed of Zeus on May 24
May 22: Ἥφαιστος "Hephaestus"
An isolated bed of Zeus on May 24
May 22: Ἥφαιστος "Hephaestus"
What's a young god supposed to do in his situation? First off, he is Hera's child, but Zeus does not claim him. Pop has this idea that his sons should be perfect in every physical attribute. But Hephaestus was born with one disfigured foot. He did not let this keep him back. In fact, he well compensated for the foot by being wonderfully creative. He could make most anything and of all the godly workmanship of Olympus, you can bet Hephaestus created the vast majority of it.
Yet rejected by Zeus, who flung the young godling to earth in one of his famous fits of rage, Hephaestus made the most of a bad situation. After falling for an entire day, he was found on a beach in Lemnos by Thetis (Achilles' mom) she comforted the child, gave him a bowl of ambrosia, and got him into a goldsmith apprenticeship program where he discovered his eternal life's calling.
This debt to Thetis would be repaid in an episode that is ennobled in some of Homer's most interesting poetry, "Shield of Achilles," an often overlooked chapter in the Iliad. In a nutshell, Achilles was humiliated by the king of the Achaean army, despite being, by far, their greatest warrior. Achilles is under no contractual compunction to support the war effort. So he goes on a kind of strike until his best friend, probably his lover, is killed by Apollo disguised as a Trojan soldier. Since his friend had been wearing Achilles' own battle attire, the need for a quick new set of armor became an issue. Thetis went to Hephaestus who went immediately to work. Before Achilles could even announce that he was angry enough to topple the towers of Ilium, Hephaestus had fashioned the most amazing armor that had ever been worn. It rivaled the armor of the gods. But the description of Achilles' new shield is where the Iliad, or the singing Muse, really shines.
Initially married to Aphrodite, god help him, Hephaestus showed up at just the wrong moment when Aphrodite was--shall we say---entertaining Ares. Hephaestus quickly fashioned a kind of fish net, entrapped them together in "the act" and hauled them off to Olympus where he displayed the adultery to the assembled gods and sued for divorce and for a return of the bride payments.
His next marriage was happy. He married a Muse, in fact she was Calliope's youngest sister. Perhaps, being Calliope's brother-in-law helps Hephaestus receive the very favorable accounts of him we hear the Muse sing in the Iliad.
Yet rejected by Zeus, who flung the young godling to earth in one of his famous fits of rage, Hephaestus made the most of a bad situation. After falling for an entire day, he was found on a beach in Lemnos by Thetis (Achilles' mom) she comforted the child, gave him a bowl of ambrosia, and got him into a goldsmith apprenticeship program where he discovered his eternal life's calling.
This debt to Thetis would be repaid in an episode that is ennobled in some of Homer's most interesting poetry, "Shield of Achilles," an often overlooked chapter in the Iliad. In a nutshell, Achilles was humiliated by the king of the Achaean army, despite being, by far, their greatest warrior. Achilles is under no contractual compunction to support the war effort. So he goes on a kind of strike until his best friend, probably his lover, is killed by Apollo disguised as a Trojan soldier. Since his friend had been wearing Achilles' own battle attire, the need for a quick new set of armor became an issue. Thetis went to Hephaestus who went immediately to work. Before Achilles could even announce that he was angry enough to topple the towers of Ilium, Hephaestus had fashioned the most amazing armor that had ever been worn. It rivaled the armor of the gods. But the description of Achilles' new shield is where the Iliad, or the singing Muse, really shines.
Initially married to Aphrodite, god help him, Hephaestus showed up at just the wrong moment when Aphrodite was--shall we say---entertaining Ares. Hephaestus quickly fashioned a kind of fish net, entrapped them together in "the act" and hauled them off to Olympus where he displayed the adultery to the assembled gods and sued for divorce and for a return of the bride payments.
His next marriage was happy. He married a Muse, in fact she was Calliope's youngest sister. Perhaps, being Calliope's brother-in-law helps Hephaestus receive the very favorable accounts of him we hear the Muse sing in the Iliad.
May 22: Ὀδυσσεύς "Odysseus"
Perhaps the fifth best known character in poetry (after Humpty Dumpty, The Grinch, Mary the Sheepherder, and some un-named girl from Nantucket) Odysseus, or Ulysses in his Latin name, is clearly the real hero of the Achaean side during the Trojan War, even if he was not granted star billing in the Iliad. A reader can't help wondering how things might have all turned out much better had everyone just followed the sage advice of Odysseus.
Odysseus is a great grandson of Zeus, and is often called the tactician of the Achaean corps. Cautious to a fault, he often shows up in some kind of disguise pretending to be someone else, just to check out the lay of the land before announcing himself. At times this might be simple prudence; say when you show up back at home after a couple decades and find your home overrun by competing suitors who are all after your wife. But even after regaining his domestic status, Odysseus pretended to be someone else when he had his reunion with his elderly father. Now, that might be too much caution.
This Siberian Iris we call "Children of Greece, Their Future."
While we are on the topic of the costs to a society of a protracted foreign war, especially one that was unnecessary and founded on premises untrue, here we have an iris that symbolizes the children of the Achaean invaders, waiting back in the Greek homelands, who passed from their infancy to their early adult hoods wondering if their father's generational war was worthwhile. Your dads may show back up in time to be the glorious granddads, telling their stories about the plains of Troy, calling themselves the greatest generation. But they brought back slaves, the defeated daughters and wives of their Trojan enemy. These "prizes" supplanted your mothers. Their sons and daughters now compete with your kids for property rights. The city-state treasuries are nearly empty. And even your grandchildren will be schooled on the glory achieved through military strength. The future will now belong to the best armed, the most violent. Your fond memory of Mycenae, Achaea, Athens, Thessaloniki, will become the future barracks life of a militarized Sparta, a Delian League, a Melos depopulation, growing intolerance of the other, etc. Populism in the name of unfettered democracy gives way to rule by "tyrants." And much of the blame must be lain at the feet of this so called "mission accomplished" in the Trojan War. "Stop singing now Muse, you are breaking my heart."
Achilles' mom, the Nereid (a word that means water goddess) Thetis, was daughter of Gaia, (Zeus's Mom.) Hence, Thetis, is technically, a half sister of Zeus, and a goddess who was forced to marry a mortal to prevent a godly son from growing to overthrow great Zeus. But her ability to persuade Zeus to allow the Trojans to almost win the Trojan War, thus engineering a situation in which her son could enter the battle just to save the day, came from her history as a supporter of Zeus when he really needed the help. But that story is not told in the Iliad, really. Yet in the Iliad, Thetis approaches Zeus placing her hand on his knee and her other hand under his chin in a position of supplication. Then she says something like, "Dude, you really owe me. I married a mortal because you told me to do so. But what you really owe me for is that day when I let you know about the palace coup. My warnings gave you notice so you could stay King of the Gods. And being King of the Gods is a good gig, right?" And Zeus caved.
May 26 Πηνελόπεια "Penelope"
Okay, granted that Penelope was not technically in the Iliad. But she certainly was "in" the Trojan War. All of the noble war struggles were not carried out on the plains of Ilium. Penelope took over the running of the estates of Odysseus's kingdom, raising their children alone, fighting off advances from scores of suitors, and in all ways keeping up the home front for twenty long years while Odysseus was on his deployment. In an age before email, before snail mail, even before APO mail call, Penelope had no way to know if Odysseus was okay. Even after the war had finished, long after other people on the Achaean side were already home, singing their victory songs and wearing their old battle dress to evening engagements, long after that, Odysseus was still AWOL from the home front of Ithaca. Still, she stuck to her knitting and, more important, her nightly un-knitting. All I can conclude is that Odysseus, "seed of Zeus," married quite well.
This Siberian Iris we call "Children of Greece, Their Future."
While we are on the topic of the costs to a society of a protracted foreign war, especially one that was unnecessary and founded on premises untrue, here we have an iris that symbolizes the children of the Achaean invaders, waiting back in the Greek homelands, who passed from their infancy to their early adult hoods wondering if their father's generational war was worthwhile. Your dads may show back up in time to be the glorious granddads, telling their stories about the plains of Troy, calling themselves the greatest generation. But they brought back slaves, the defeated daughters and wives of their Trojan enemy. These "prizes" supplanted your mothers. Their sons and daughters now compete with your kids for property rights. The city-state treasuries are nearly empty. And even your grandchildren will be schooled on the glory achieved through military strength. The future will now belong to the best armed, the most violent. Your fond memory of Mycenae, Achaea, Athens, Thessaloniki, will become the future barracks life of a militarized Sparta, a Delian League, a Melos depopulation, growing intolerance of the other, etc. Populism in the name of unfettered democracy gives way to rule by "tyrants." And much of the blame must be lain at the feet of this so called "mission accomplished" in the Trojan War. "Stop singing now Muse, you are breaking my heart."
May 23: Θέτις "Thetis"
So a powerful goddess in her own right, Thetis also had a trunk full of favors to call in. Remember the favor she did for Hephaestus? Back when he was a nobody, freshly fallen from Olympus, Thetis helped him get back on his one good foot. Many years later she called in that favor for her son's new armor. Thetis seems to be someone who is always willing to lend a hand and remembers having done so.
An isolated bed of Thetis on 5/24
May 23: Ἀγαμέμνων "Agamemnon"
It is a real shame to waste a beautiful iris on the worst human being alive during the Trojan War. But here it is. King of Mycenae and a grandson of the great king Atreus, Agamemnon, so called "Lord of Men," should go down in the history of poetry as perhaps the character with the least leadership talent before, say, 2016. But it was worse than that. This guy had his own daughter sacrificed to death just to get his coalition of the willing better sailing weather. From a highly privileged family, the whole damned bunch seemed to wield much more power than they had the self control to manage. His Great Great Grandfather was Zeus. Perhaps that explains it. But his Great Grandfather Tantalus is famous for having stolen from Zeus and then offering the gods a stew made from the flesh of one of his own sons. His punishment? To stand in the deepest pit of Hades forever in a puddle of water below him he can never reach and a fruit tree filled with delicious peaches above him, you guessed it, just out of reach. The low hanging fruit and the cool blue water give us an important word in English. They Tantalize. Get it?
King Agamemnon is brother-in-law to Helen, the beautiful woman awarded to Paris by Aphrodite and the love triangle that started this entire mess. We can't place the blame for any of that on Agamemnon directly. But Agamemnon and Aphrodite should have met. They would have made a great couple. His own family separation policy was certainly the single most important contributor to a plague rained down on the Achaean invaders that almost caused them to lose the war sometime in the eighth year. In a nutshell, Agamemnon, a married man, kidnapped a girl war refugee and announced that he was taking her for his own "prize." I kid you not. The girl's name was Chryseis. Her distraught father (named Chryses) offered Agamemnon the traditional ransom money to get back his child. But Agamemnon kept her anyway and told Chryses, in so many words, to hit the bricks. He said Chryseis would grow old in Agamemnon's house back in Mycenae, performing her lifetime of service between his bed and her loom. This public insult of Chryses, who just happened to be a priest of Apollo, the son of Zeus who was already in support of the Trojans, almost cost the Achaean side the whole conflict.
May 24: Πάτροκλος "Patroclus"
More than a couple thousand years after the dust settled on the Trojan War, another great poet, a playwright familiar to Shakespeare named Christopher Marlowe, asked a good question in one of his love poems. The poem to and about Helen begins,
Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships,
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?
It should be clear that this question was, in reality, two separate queries. Especially since their answers are respectively, "Yes and No." Helen's famous beauty (just wait until her iris blooms!) may well have been behind the launching of the thousand ships to begin the Trojan War. But her face was in no ways responsible for the Trojan loss and the burning of the topless towers of Ilium. In fact, the Trojans were well on their way to sending the Achaean invasion force packing when the god Apollo made a giant tactical error. He killed Patroclus. To add insult to injury, Hector, the Trojan field commander, refused to return Patroclus's body for proper burial, had the body stripped and was making a show of being seen wearing the captured armor around the battlefield himself while emitting threats about severing the head and putting it on a spear over the front gate.
You may recall that the water goddess, Thetis, quickly placed an order for new armor for her son Achilles. The new armor was required because Patroclus had borrowed his armor from Achilles. So, in fact, Hector was now wearing Achilles's own armor.
Who was this Patroclus whose death caused the burning of the topless towers of Ilium? And what in the underworld was he doing wearing Achilles's armor?
One answer, not quite satisfactory considering the emotional evidence in the text, was that Patroclus was Achilles's friend; a military "buddy" is what we would call him today. In the military, there truly are close bonds that form among buddies. You and your buddy switch off sleeping and watching while on a three day patrol. To save space in your packs you may switch off on a sleeping bag, cooking utensils, an extra pair of gloves. Buddies take care of each other. They carry each other's weapons and/or ammunition as needed, check each other for ticks, leeches, and snake bites. One buddy will stay behind under enemy fire with a wounded companion until either a medic arrives or the enemy finally gets there and captures you both. And in the event of KIA, the buddy is tasked to accompany the body back to HQ, and usually escorts the casket all the way home for the funeral. This kind of relationship might explain a part of the story here: Patroclus was killed while in Achilles' armor.
But look closer. When Agamemnon had to give his war prize back to her father as one part of appeasing the gods, Agamemnon simply took Achilles's war prize from Achilles. Achilles seems to have been more insulted by the slight then he was hurt by the loss of the girl, though she is described to be as beautiful as a goddess. It is almost as if Achilles prefers men and had been keeping Briseis only as some kind of trophy girlfriend. Likely Achilles and Patroclus were lovers. Sure, Achilles was angry when Briseis was taken by Agamemnon, angry enough to declare himself divorced from the Achaean coalition. Though the poet, Homer, keeps asking the Muse to sing of Achilles' anger, she repeatedly changes the subject and presses on to other influences and plot twists.
When exactly did Achilles' peevish anger turn into maniacal rage? When he was told of Patroclus death and the disgrace being afforded his corpse, Achillies went into an ~epic~ tantrum. We might call it a symptom of post traumatic stress. Achilles put on his new armor, grabbed his weapons and went into battle like no other character hero before Sergeant Barnes in "Platoon." The Muse then sings a song of Achilles cutting a swath through the Trojan lines, a killing rampage for this Army of One.
Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships,
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?
It should be clear that this question was, in reality, two separate queries. Especially since their answers are respectively, "Yes and No." Helen's famous beauty (just wait until her iris blooms!) may well have been behind the launching of the thousand ships to begin the Trojan War. But her face was in no ways responsible for the Trojan loss and the burning of the topless towers of Ilium. In fact, the Trojans were well on their way to sending the Achaean invasion force packing when the god Apollo made a giant tactical error. He killed Patroclus. To add insult to injury, Hector, the Trojan field commander, refused to return Patroclus's body for proper burial, had the body stripped and was making a show of being seen wearing the captured armor around the battlefield himself while emitting threats about severing the head and putting it on a spear over the front gate.
You may recall that the water goddess, Thetis, quickly placed an order for new armor for her son Achilles. The new armor was required because Patroclus had borrowed his armor from Achilles. So, in fact, Hector was now wearing Achilles's own armor.
Who was this Patroclus whose death caused the burning of the topless towers of Ilium? And what in the underworld was he doing wearing Achilles's armor?
One answer, not quite satisfactory considering the emotional evidence in the text, was that Patroclus was Achilles's friend; a military "buddy" is what we would call him today. In the military, there truly are close bonds that form among buddies. You and your buddy switch off sleeping and watching while on a three day patrol. To save space in your packs you may switch off on a sleeping bag, cooking utensils, an extra pair of gloves. Buddies take care of each other. They carry each other's weapons and/or ammunition as needed, check each other for ticks, leeches, and snake bites. One buddy will stay behind under enemy fire with a wounded companion until either a medic arrives or the enemy finally gets there and captures you both. And in the event of KIA, the buddy is tasked to accompany the body back to HQ, and usually escorts the casket all the way home for the funeral. This kind of relationship might explain a part of the story here: Patroclus was killed while in Achilles' armor.
But look closer. When Agamemnon had to give his war prize back to her father as one part of appeasing the gods, Agamemnon simply took Achilles's war prize from Achilles. Achilles seems to have been more insulted by the slight then he was hurt by the loss of the girl, though she is described to be as beautiful as a goddess. It is almost as if Achilles prefers men and had been keeping Briseis only as some kind of trophy girlfriend. Likely Achilles and Patroclus were lovers. Sure, Achilles was angry when Briseis was taken by Agamemnon, angry enough to declare himself divorced from the Achaean coalition. Though the poet, Homer, keeps asking the Muse to sing of Achilles' anger, she repeatedly changes the subject and presses on to other influences and plot twists.
When exactly did Achilles' peevish anger turn into maniacal rage? When he was told of Patroclus death and the disgrace being afforded his corpse, Achillies went into an ~epic~ tantrum. We might call it a symptom of post traumatic stress. Achilles put on his new armor, grabbed his weapons and went into battle like no other character hero before Sergeant Barnes in "Platoon." The Muse then sings a song of Achilles cutting a swath through the Trojan lines, a killing rampage for this Army of One.
May 24 Μενέλαος "Menelaus"
Agamemnon had a younger brother, another king of another city state. Menelaus was Helen's rightful husband, apparently he had purchased her fair and square before she "r-u-n-n-o-f-t" with Paris. So Menelaus was one of the most aggrieved parties in this poem full of aggravation. His iris is similar in color to Agamemnon, but has deeper purple and more lavender standards.
Don't confuse Menalaus with Thetis. Thetis has standards with a touch more lavender tinting. And her falls are outlined in white.
May 24 ᾍδης "Hades"
Zeus had several older siblings. Hades was his next elder brother. Once the young gods finally got themselves cut out of the belly of Kronos, their father, they cooperated in throwing a heavenly coup and three brothers decided to divide universal reality into three kingdoms, all sharing the solid earth. Zeus is the one who actually had the backbone to plan and undertake the attack on Kronos. So he became king of Olympus, with direct command over those people and gods on land. His brother Poseidon took charge of everything underwater. Finally, authority over the underworld and all of the dead was granted to Hades.
The way Hades figured it, everyone was going to end up in his underworld someday, all of the mortals, anyway. So he really did not seem to care which side won the Trojan War. There were lots of deaths and dying. Hades did not try to tip any scales to help either side.
May 26: Ἕκτωρ "Hector"
Perhaps Calliope's ideal human male character, Hector son of Priam, seems to have been a good husband, a devoted father, a restrained and thoughtful participant in Trojan public affairs and a moderately outspoken critic of powerful despots with unworkable ideas. Intelligent, pure of motive, and courageous, Hector seems to have understood the horrible costs of war and the precious opportunities afforded by peace. He also just happened to be the greatest warrior of Ilium. While it is difficult to reconcile the battle reports, Hector was credited with the death and/or capture of 31,000 Achaean troops.(Experts now question how a thousand ships could have delivered more than 10,000 personnel.) But ancient Greek had a problem with an extra zero or two in its casualty counts. Had someone stepped up to him with a microphone on the eve of battle and asked, "Prince Hector, why do we fight?" His answer would have been restrained, short, and convincing. His family was ultimately ravaged by the victory of the Achaean marauding army after the walls of Troy had been pierced. Those who were not murdered outright, were raped and then sold into slavery. The ramifications of losing wars to Achaens were serious. Peace, though preferable at almost any cost, was not always possible.
May 26 Ἀπόλλων "Apollo"
Somewhere on the spectrum between whitefish yellow and yellowish white, this iris, of all of our varieties seems to produce the largest bloom. The god Apollo, is the son of Zeus and Leto, one of Zeus's many extra-marital infatuations. The god of sunlight, truth, and many other things, Apollo was born with a golden sword in his hand.
May 26 Νέστωρ "Nestor"
How very nice of the Muse to include the poet's own grandfather in the story she sings. Nestor was king of Pylos having been awarded that kingdom by Hercules as a sort of honorarium for military services rendered to Jason as an Argonaut. In the Iliad, Nestor is always full of tales about his own heroic glory days, and his advice seems to be accepted, usually, because of his advanced age and experience, but it rarely turns out in retrospect to have been good counsel. Note: it is easy to confuse the iris Nestor with the much larger, godly iris Poseidon. Poseidon is a third larger in blossom, has more white in the anther and edges of the falls, and its standard have much brighter white than does Nestor.
Ίρις "Iris"
Iris, the messenger that often carries orders and requests from Zeus to one or another of the commanding officers, is a goddess most often described as clothed in a white that is so white it seems to have all of the colors of the rainbow captured in her raiment.
Sandy found this little white iris growing wild in some bushes up here on Sweet Gum Hill. Iris is about half the size of our other small Siberian irises and has doubled in size from the first tiny sprout we dug last year.
May 26 Ποσειδων "Poseidon"
Note the white edges and anthers of the falls, the deep gold of the beard, the pure white of the standards, this is one impressive iris. One of the most powerful of the Olympian gods, Poseidon was an older brother to Zeus, Hera and Hades, with the nickname "earth shaker." Spent most of his time on an island that is no longer above sea level, a kingdom called Atlantis that he gave to his son Atlas. Poseidon was god over all things ocean. Despite the fact that he had almost single-handed-ly built the walls of Troy as a kind of punishment for earlier disloyalty, by the time of the Trojan war he supported the Achaean campaign, except for when he didn't. He sure made Odysseus's trip home more difficult, by a measure of some ten extra years, because Odysseus blinded one of Poseidon's sons. The lesson here are multi-fold. 1.) prevent mission creep. 2.) Even in self defense be restrained in violence. 3.) If you can get away by pretending to be a sheep, do so. 4.) Don't hang around seeking an opportunity for retribution. 5.) It is always good to have a god on your side.
May 28 Βρισηΐς "Briseis"
The story is an old one. Beautiful daughter of a family which happens to belong to a community/tribe/nation/civilization on the losing side of a war. The way it works today is that soldiers/sailors/air force/aid workers/trade negotiators/billionaire playboys/sales and marketing representatives, you know the type always looking for an opportunity...well, one of these girls catches the attention of someone who can convince her that he can get her a green card and get her out of all of this economic disaster. She moves in with him, maybe has a child on the way, and then _Donnerwetter!_ he gets transferred before they can get the immigration paperwork all worked out.
In a more honest time, the beautiful girls were awarded to victorious warriors as a form of war booty. Briseis was chosen for Achilles, but she was taken from him by Agamemnon to be his "prize" when he had to give his own "prize" back to her father to appease Apollo. Odysseus commented that Briseis was as beautiful as a goddess.
Hanging in the open in museums and private collections throughout the world can still be found artist's mis-interpretations of that moment Briseis gets awarded to Achilles. Usually some artist has rendered Achilles and Patroclus off standing on the side looking with envy at the girl being given Agamemnon. More important in the painting, usually, is that other girl's plight. Chriseis is being torn from the arms of her mother, both crying. She is being bound for delivery to Agamemnon's tent. Off in the margins of the painting, young Briseis stands in the rubble of her family life. Her father and brothers all hacked to death, her pet dog has a throat slit. Her mother is lying face up without clothing. Blood is still drying all around. And yet, the painter has caught Briseis at just the moment when she is being told by strange men with bad Ionian accents that she is being awarded to that handsome, almost godly, Achilles fellow who was instrumental in the destruction of her family. She looks almost happy at the chance lineup of her stars and her good luck. No matter the fame of the painter, and the talent rendered in his/her other paintings, I usually say out loud something like, "the artist should have read the Iliad."
May 29 Ἀθηνᾶ "Athena"
Everyone's favorite goddess, (except, of course, fourteen year-old-boys). With apologies to the band, CAKE, Athena is probably the subject of the song, "Short Skirt and Long Jacket." In any modern movie with snakes, owls, a woman wearing a helmet while carrying a spear, you can bet that there is an allusion to Athena at play. Watch for it.
This lady is busy being almost all things; s miracle is easy for her. She can almost be in two places at the same time.She adopted and raised a son on her own. Athena keeps track of all reports from the olive packing factory, manages the Olympian interests in the many human wars, micromanages some of the battles, even adjusting the trajectory of arrows in just enough geometric minutes to make an arrow hit another target. She oversees handicrafts like embroidery and knitting, As the goddess of wisdom, "SOPHY deified," she is the patron of philosophers, scientists, mathematicians, and Literary Critique-ers, Historians of Deep Structures of Thought, and small engine mechanics. One of her titles, Pallas, seems to have derived from the Ancient Greek word for settled, community, city, political, etc. So when you are talking about a "Domestic Goddess," Athena is your ur referent.
A Siberian Iris we call "Collateral Damage"
You go to war with the ethics you have, not the ethics you want. During some short moments of retrospective peace, nations have often agreed on many regulations for warfare that get quickly put aside during the long phases of all out war. Very idealistic mutual promises about what constitutes violence beyond the pale and the question, "what is a war crime?", get broad ratification during the aftermath of horrible conflicts. But, enforcement provisions are left to future decision makers. So when you are losing a war, the so called "rules of engagement" get flushed as they seem at the time to be extravagances when compared to the potential repercussions of surrender. You may fail to feed your prisoners; may let battlefield economics overrule your provisions for the protection of POW and non-combatants. You may redefine "enemy combatant" to include anyone near a moving battlefield who happens to be male and who happens to be over twelve years old. You may even fall as far as to use and excuse torture on your enemy captives. Less frequently, even the apparent victor decides to use mass destruction as a means to ensure a quick closure to the conflict. In Achilles's case, the sacrifice of thirteen Trojan children captives to compensate for the fall of Patroclus. This war crime was intended to break the resistance, to humble the enemy leadership, hasten unconditional surrender. But the Muse sings it honestly, as simple revenge. Makes one wonder how this wise Muse would sing the use of Nuclear Weapons during the collapse of an entrenched enemy's defense, say sometime in the mid-1940's, or the war crimes conducted in My Lai near the Ides of March in 1968, or the "shock and awe" theatrics over civilian cities in a country that had not attacked us, or the waterboarding and black site torture camps during the so called "War on Terror."
Please don't sing that one any more, dear Muse. I am getting sick to my stomach. I'm only here for the pretty flowers, didn't want to think about my own complicity in anything, or what my government has done in my name. Just flowers, Joe. Flowers.
Characteristically, ~ahem~, we find Helen in the wrong bed. Her first blossom this season happened in a bed of mixed irises we have planted as a border at the front of our house. Her isolated bed is still to open in a few days.
Helen, the character, was supposed to be the most beautiful woman in the world. Married to the king of Sparta she finds herself at the center of conflict after escaping with Paris back to Troy. And the rest is poetry. Central to the Trojan War's onset, she survives the war and ends up back in Sparta with her husband. When, in book 4 of _The Odyssey_, Odysseus's son Telemachus visits Sparta for an account of his own father (still unaccounted for years after the war is over) Helen is a settled and rather happy wife in the court of her husband and king.
Daughter of Zeus and Leto, also both Trojan and Achaean, few other irises could represent Helen.
And that concludes this year's Parade of Irises.
You go to war with the ethics you have, not the ethics you want. During some short moments of retrospective peace, nations have often agreed on many regulations for warfare that get quickly put aside during the long phases of all out war. Very idealistic mutual promises about what constitutes violence beyond the pale and the question, "what is a war crime?", get broad ratification during the aftermath of horrible conflicts. But, enforcement provisions are left to future decision makers. So when you are losing a war, the so called "rules of engagement" get flushed as they seem at the time to be extravagances when compared to the potential repercussions of surrender. You may fail to feed your prisoners; may let battlefield economics overrule your provisions for the protection of POW and non-combatants. You may redefine "enemy combatant" to include anyone near a moving battlefield who happens to be male and who happens to be over twelve years old. You may even fall as far as to use and excuse torture on your enemy captives. Less frequently, even the apparent victor decides to use mass destruction as a means to ensure a quick closure to the conflict. In Achilles's case, the sacrifice of thirteen Trojan children captives to compensate for the fall of Patroclus. This war crime was intended to break the resistance, to humble the enemy leadership, hasten unconditional surrender. But the Muse sings it honestly, as simple revenge. Makes one wonder how this wise Muse would sing the use of Nuclear Weapons during the collapse of an entrenched enemy's defense, say sometime in the mid-1940's, or the war crimes conducted in My Lai near the Ides of March in 1968, or the "shock and awe" theatrics over civilian cities in a country that had not attacked us, or the waterboarding and black site torture camps during the so called "War on Terror."
Please don't sing that one any more, dear Muse. I am getting sick to my stomach. I'm only here for the pretty flowers, didn't want to think about my own complicity in anything, or what my government has done in my name. Just flowers, Joe. Flowers.
June 3: Ἑλένη "Helen"
Characteristically, ~ahem~, we find Helen in the wrong bed. Her first blossom this season happened in a bed of mixed irises we have planted as a border at the front of our house. Her isolated bed is still to open in a few days.
Helen, the character, was supposed to be the most beautiful woman in the world. Married to the king of Sparta she finds herself at the center of conflict after escaping with Paris back to Troy. And the rest is poetry. Central to the Trojan War's onset, she survives the war and ends up back in Sparta with her husband. When, in book 4 of _The Odyssey_, Odysseus's son Telemachus visits Sparta for an account of his own father (still unaccounted for years after the war is over) Helen is a settled and rather happy wife in the court of her husband and king.
Daughter of Zeus and Leto, also both Trojan and Achaean, few other irises could represent Helen.
And that concludes this year's Parade of Irises.
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