Ganymede ...

In England, and wherever people speak that same language, the myth about Ganymede tends to be glossed over ... he is abducted by Jove in the form of an Eagle to live amongst the immortals as Jove's cup-bearer ... the bit that gets left out is the messy bit about forced sex between a male adult and a male child, or youth.  This kind of sex was acceptable to the Greeks in ancient times, and remains a "fact of life" universally, although it is quite properly unacceptable to most people.

The THEOI website states ...

"GANYMEDES (Ganymede) was a handsome Trojan prince who was carried off to heaven by Zeus in the shape of an eagle where he was appointed as cup-bearer of the gods. Ganymedes was also placed amongst the stars as the constellation Aquarius, his ambrosial mixing cup as Crater, and the eagle as Aquila. Ganymedes was often portrayed as the god of homosexual love and as such appears as a playmate of the love-gods Eros (Love) and Hymenaios (Hymenaeus) (Marital Love).

 

Ganymedes was depicted in Greek vase painting as a handsome youth. In scenes of his abduction he holds a rooster (a lover's gift), hoop (a boy's toy), or lyre. When portrayed as the cup-bearer of the gods he pours nectar from a jug. In sculpture and mosaic art Ganymedes usually appears with shepherd's crock and a Phrygian cap.

The boy's name was derived from the Greek words ganumai "gladdening" and mêdon or medeôn, "prince" or "genitals." The name may have been formed to contain a deliberate double-meaning."

In comparitively recent times the mythical stereotypes have morphed, so that  Ganymede is no longer snatched from innocence to debauchery by an Eagle ... in 20th Century Spain, on the roof of several insurance offices, he became a triumphant and heroic figure perched on the shoulder of ... wait for it ... the PHOENIX.

What were the Spaniards thinking ?  And should we see it as symptomatic of the decadence of people whose notion of heroism was tainted with Imperialism and with deeply embedded cultural beliefs of racial superiority ?  I would guess that the people who commissioned this sculpture lived in hope of the revival of Spain as a global power.

 

The story of Ganymede was told many times in Ancient literature.  Details vary.  The classics website THEOI lists and quotes them all ...

https://www.theoi.com/Ouranios/Ganymedes.html

my episodic memory

the loved one is reading through a stack of her diaries ... going back more than thirty years ... and we had a short conversation about memory in which i gave a frivolous explanation of why i don't keep a diary 

i said, somewhat self-importantly, that I felt no need to file my past in a strict order ... and i went on to suggest that anyway, everything that we can remember seems as if it happened yesterday

but in truth, i would be deeply ashamed to commit a lot of my self-inflicted fiascos and disasters to a journal

later in the day there appeared a short video of a narrow street in a village in northern spain through which three shepherds and a couple of gentle old dogs were leading a large mixed herd of sheep and goats up towards the mountain pastures ... there was a wonderful cacaphony of ancient bells and occasional rasping country voices

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrZ8ORGBlco

and whilst i revelled in that sound, i remembered that i had journeyed not too far away from those shepherds many years since, back in 2001

and suddenly i needed to re-structure a memory

i set about searching the on-line maps to find a village i'd been stranded in when my van broke down ... the water pump had cracked and i had to wait there all day whilst another came fifty miles from the nearest big town, first on a service bus, and then on a school bus

it took a while to locate the village, Zarreu, because i had only remembered the name of the district, Cerredo ... different maps give the village one name or the other

on that morning, unable to converse with the mechanic, i had phoned a good spanish friend and asked him to translate as best he could

and then, all day, i had wandered the few streets of what turned out to be a coal-mining village

the language spoken in the village was an asturian dialect and i felt some connection with the place because my father was the son of a Welsh miner

so i had a vague recollection of the solidarity expressed by many Welsh people for the Asturian miners when they were oppressed, first by the mine owners, then by Franco

just a couple of weeks before this, the twin towers in New York had been destroyed

in the window of the village's tiny "casa cultura", someone had thoughtfully placed a copy of a famous poem about New York by Lorca, the one about black doves

my sense of connection became deeper

the water pump arrived right at the end of the working day, a friday ... but the mechanic said he'd come in first thing next morning to fit it and so i slept in the van that night

he didn't show up

but his apprentice did

after a wait, he decided the boss was probably too drunk to work, and so he did the job himself

it took a couple of hours and whilst i watched, the phone rang in their tiny office

he answered it, expecting a conversation with his boss ... but then he handed the phone to me

it was my friend linda, the english wife of the spaniard i had called for help the previous day

she said i have bad news ... your sister is wanting to contact you because your father has just died

the shed where i heard that news is still there

green door, what's that secret you're keeping ?