PERFIDIOUS KINDNESS
Being janus-faced
this humanity is drooping people.
Why do some covet egotism
while others crave for vain-glory?
People are belligerent for religion
and others swear on its name.
Why in today's world
are humans innately inhumane?
Has the world deteriorated?
Has the society transposed?
Let the vision
accrue, deep within us
let the eyes
scintillate that glistens so bright.
Be the master
of your deeds,
for they are
what makes you breathe.
Life is not truculent.
It's a cycle of perturbation
that fills our heart all around.
It's God's plan - to keep us
poignant,
to make us robust, to be gallant!
Be soothe, be persistent,
leaves will be on trees again,
Make sure,
To make the
tree strong.
Go beyond the power,
of truth and falsehood.
Stand for oneness,
and solidarity alone shall succeed.
For truthfulness and perjury are mere
perceptions,
Unity alone
overpowers the delusions.
Janus und Bellona -- Johann Wilhelm Beyer
Ianus was the Roman god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways, passages, and endings; some sources regarded him as the custodian of the universe. He was usually depicted as having 2 faces since that looked to the future and the past. As a god of transitions, he had functions pertaining to birth, journeys, and exchange. He presided over the beginning and ending of conflict. He was closely connected with the beginnings of Roma and especially with the 2nd king of the Romans, Numa Pompilius (715–673 BCE). Before his deification Ianus was exiled from Thessaly in northern Greece and had a son Tiberinus (later defied as the river Tiber; Tiberinus advised Aeneus to ally with Evander – who had founded Pallantium on the future site of Roma and introduced the Greek pantheon, laws, and alphabet to Italia -- and later rescued and married Aeneus’ descendant Rhea Silvia, who had been forced by her usurping uncle to become a celibate priestess of Vesta so he could secure the throne, but Mars impregnated her and she conceived twin sons Romulus and Remus; the uncle then imprisoned her and tried to kill the twins, but Tiberinus rescued them, and they grew up to found Roma in 753 BCE). When Ianus arrived in Italia he founded Ianiculum on the west bank of the Tiber and became the ruler of Latium, where he welcomed Saturnus, the Roman version of the Greek god Kronus (time) after his expulsion by Zeus and shared his kingdom with him in exchange for teaching the art of agriculture. Ianus was also associated with Romulus’ war against the Sabines after he had their women abducted and raped in order to populate his new city; the Sabine leader Titus Tatius was repelled by a volcanic hot spring that Ianus caused to erupt. Romulus and Titus then formed a unified Roman-Sabine state, and Titus’ only daughter married Numa (who was born the same day as the city’s founding), leading to his election as Romulus’ successor. Numa constructed the Ianus Geminus, an open enclosure with gates at either end which would be opened in time of war and closed to mark the arrival of peace; Numa also reformed the calendar, creating Ianuariusas as the 1st month, since the deified Ianus was considered the highest god until the Romans adapted the Greek pantheon, and December as the last month. Ianus was regarded as the patron over both months, as indicated by his epithet “Ianus Quirinus” (which combined the attributes of the Roman god and the Sabine god of war), and the Saturnalia, the major feast held on 25 December, invoked Ianus’ association with Saturnus. In addition, the 1st day of every month was sacred to him.
ReplyDeleteIanus had no priesthood specifically dedicated to him but the King of the Sacred Rites (rex sacrorum) conducted his rites, and he was ritually invoked at the beginning of all ceremonies, regardless of the main deity honored on any particular occasion. Macrobius Ambrosius Theodosius explained that Ianus received sacrifices before all the others because he provided access to the desired deity in his role as ½ of the pair of divinities, Ianus and Iana (Diana) who had been worshipped as the sun and moon. Macrobius also preserved a list of his cultic epithets, which included the Sower (indicating his role in presiding over conception, “the propagation of the human genre, that is disseminated by the working of Janus;" St. Augustine remarked that Ianus “opens the way to receiving the semen"), the Opener, the Gatekeeper, the Good Creator, God of the Gods, Rex (king), and, especially, Pater (father), his most frequent epithet, indicating his position as the father of the gods. The English words “door” and “janitor” are derived from his name.
ReplyDeleteBellona was a Roman goddess of war. She was sometimes regarded as the twin sister, daughter, wife, or charioteer of Mars. Her priests would cut their own arms and legs and either drink their own blood or sprinkle it on celebrants to inspire warlike frenzy and enthusiasm. Probably of Sabine origin, her sacrificial victims may have originally been human. Her temple outside the city walls, in the Campus Martius (a field consecrated to Mars) was considered to symbolize foreign soil; it was where ambassadors and victorious generals were received and where war was officially declared by thrwing a javelin over the columna bellica by her temple, which represented Roma’s boundary.