Monday 8 April 2013

by hades’ handbag

Of all the gifts—pandora—of the gods of mythology, all the humanizing deifications, it strikes me as strange that the only “professional” endowment that has not be stricken from common-parlance is a plutocrat—though, unlike for the aristocracy, probably not a badge proudly proclaimed.

Prometheus who gave mankind the gift of foresight and the patron of the healing arts Asclepius were basically condemned with extreme prejudice for elevating mortals and challenging supremacy and only their names remain as cautionary tales, however, the acquisitiveness of Pluto, or earlier Hades, remains. The connotation is not an infernal one, necessarily, and is connected with buried mineral wealth. The association developed over the centuries, tending towards greed and inequity, combining the god of the Underworld with the attributes of a minor demi-god, son of the Demeter (Ceres) the goddess of the harvest and more broadly cycles of creation and destruction and Iasion (wiled and then also destroyed with extreme prejudice), called Plutus, whose name carries all the root-meanings. His mother saw to it that Plutus was amazingly wealthy but that left no riches for his twin brother, another figure that seems to not have a contemporary cult-following, Philomelus. Without an inheritance, the brother turned to industry and invented the plough, out of necessity. Very impressed, Demeter made him into a constellation, Boรถtes, the Plowman and a celestial cue for tilling the fields. I think that there are some more admirable qualities to incorporate into our vocabularies.