(urth) pleistorus and latro: communicable divinity

[Jeff Wilson]

aramini1 at cox.net wrote:

> When he sees the sphinx, she says, "I am your mother, and your mother's
> mother. For me and by me you stole the horses of the sun, that they
> might be returned to him. I am she who asks what walks upon four legs at
> sunrise, upon two at noon, and upon three at evening. And all who cannot
> answer me at evening die." (520) Who sent Latro to get the horses? And
> how is she the sphinx? What would the son and/or grandson of those two
> entities be? Certainly a god.

"X is Y's parent" and sometimes with "X is Y's parent's parent" is a 
formula often used to describe special patronage of mortals, usually 
rulers, by divine being X in ancient times. It doesn't mean that Y is 
literally a god, but a heroic mortal or perhaps a demigod.  GW would 
necessarily be familiar with this usage via biblical apologia.


> In the chapter Ares and Others, chapter 11, the man who seems to be
> Ares, is in fact King Kotys: "When the last of them had passed, I
> asked Elata whether the first rider had been the war god.  She
> laughed at me just as she had at the womanish priest, assured me he
> was not, and told me that her friends had called him King Kotys."397
> Yet the chapter is titled Ares and others ... strange he wouldn't
> actually appear in it.

IIRC, the chapter titles are merely the first sentence or phrase of each 
entry; they primarily represent Latro's perception and immediate concern.

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
< http://www.io.com/~jwilson >