Swapna Sundari
(First Draft.)
Leptis Magna 2
Look on that pile of stones
Grecian in their shape
There sat I once
in the shade
sipping wine
with you on my lap
Artemis
being ardently kissed
Our tools raised a temple
to your heavenly likeness
even here in Khums
What may remain, I know not
but with you
nothing's amiss
Grecian in their shape
There sat I once
in the shade
sipping wine
with you on my lap
Artemis
being ardently kissed
Our tools raised a temple
to your heavenly likeness
even here in Khums
What may remain, I know not
but with you
nothing's amiss
Statue of Artemis, Lepcis Magna
Artemis (Diana), the chaste goddess of the hunt, wild animals, wilderness, childbirth, and virginity, was the twin sister of Apollo. The first born, she assisted her mother Leto in the birth of Apollo. One of her most persistent suitors was the river god Alpheus, but she foiled his attempt to abduct her by covering her face with mud; when Alpheus tried to rape her virgin attendant Arethusa, Artemis transformed her into a spring in her temple in Letrini. When Sprite accidentally saw her bathing, she transformed him into a girl. Similarly, Actaeon saw her naked, tried to seduce her, boasted he was a better hunter, or bragged that he was a rival of her father Zeus for the affections of Senele (the daughter of Cadmus and Harmonia), and Artemis turned him into a stag which was then killed by his own hunting dogs. She also sent a wild boar to kill Adonis to punish his hubris in claiming that he was a superior hunter. The only man she seemed to have an interest in was Orion the hunter; Apollo saw him swimming, with just his head visible above the water, and challenged Artemis to shoot that moving target, thus killing him; in other variants, she killed Orion in self-defense after he told hold of her robe, or she killed him to protect Opis, one of her virginal followers. Otos and Ephialtes, the Aloadae, the giant twin sons of Poseidon and Iphidemia, could only be killed by each other; they boasted of their intention to abduct Artemis and Hera, so Artemis transformed herself into a doe and jumped between them, and the Alboadae killed themselves when they threw their spears at the disguised goddess.Her name probably derived from the Persian “art” (great, excellent, holy). Her statue was one of the treasures excavated at Leptis Magna, a Roman copy of a bronze the 4th-century BCE Athenian sculptor Leochares for the Mausloeum of Maussollos at Halicarnassus (modern Bodrum, Turkey). Mausolus had been the autonomous satrap of the Persian province of Karia, a region of western Anatolia along the coast from Mycale to Lycia to Phrygia. He had conquered parts of Lycia, Ionia, and several Greek islands and had supported Rhodes against Athens in the Social War (357-355 BCE), the beginning of the end of Greek political independence imposed by Philippos II of Macedon. He was succeeded after his death by his sister/wife Artemisia II, who commissioned the Mausoleum, employed the leading Greek rhetoricians to praise her husband in their orations, and drank a daily brew that included his ashes. Rhodes objected to female rule over Karia and sent a fleet to depose her, but Maussollos had already constructed a secret harbor. When the Rhodians disembarked in Halicarnassus, Artemisia led her ships into the main harbor, captured their empty boats, slaughtered the men on shore, and then sent her army back to Rhodes on the captured ships and captured the city. She erected the Abaton there to commemorate her victory, but the Rhodians made it inaccessible after they regained their liberty. Leochares also carved the Apollo Belvedere and the chryselephantine (ivory and gold) statues of the Macedonian royal family in the Philippeion, the memorial Philippos build in the Altis at Mt. Olympus to commemorate his 338 BCE victory at Chaaeronea, the final act in his destruction of Greek autonomy, a process that began with the Social War. It was the only structure in the Altis that was dedicated to a human rather than a god.
ReplyDeleteMarshwiggle:
ReplyDeleteThanks for such excellent notes Duane - you have lifted the poem to the level of a classic by making more evident the depth in it.