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eBook details

• Title: Salmoneus and the Poets: Poetry in a World of Violence (Poem)
• Author : Travis Poling
• Release Date : January 01, 2010
• Genre: Education,Books,Professional & Technical,
• Pages : * pages
• Size : 51 KB

Description

A reading from the book, Gods, Demigods and Demons: (1) Salmoneus, King of Elis and brother of Sisyphus, shared his elder brother's contempt for the gods. Salmoneus grew so arrogant that he commanded his subjects to address him as "Zeus." To validate his claim to divine honors, he clanged iron pots together calling it thunder and hurled torches into the night sky to mimic lightning. Zeus, of course, viewed such pretensions with enormous displeasure, which he expressed by hurling a thunderbolt at Salmoneus, killing him instantly. After his death, Salmoneus was consigned to a part of Hades near where his brother, Sisyphus, was undergoing his own special torment. As Salmoneus observed his brother's ordeal, turnspit demons were basting him over a flame so that he sizzled through eternity as his brother eternally rolled his rock. This story (2) shows us how Salmoneus, who "hurled torches into the night sky," might serve as a metaphor for the poet in a world of violence. Through his action of launching light through the darkness, this king was doing more than assaulting an already angry god. He was asserting his vision of a world without violence sanctioned from above and allowing others to share in what he saw: that the gods of violence are always a threat to human sensibilities. It is true that this king claimed divinity for himself, but so too do poets, and all mortals, at least to the extent that humans can be divine--that is, to live in the image of the One who created us. But Zeus did not create the people of Greece. He merely ruled over them like an angry father, much like human distortions of the God of Abraham, Jesus, and Mohamed, as the one who could be called Mighty Destroyer. Zeus represents here the spirits of outrage, hatred, slavery, torture, retribution, and war. Salmoneus, like the poet, is one who knows the truth, that such power can only take the god so far, and so challenges Mount Olympia with flame and iron, symbols of light and strength crafted by human hands. Being a god of quick tempers, Zeus lashes out with lightning, a real threat to human flesh, leaving Salmoneus victim to the spirits of violence. And the dead king's suffering does not end there. He is sentenced to helplessly watch his brother Sisyphus, enslaved for his own challenge to the gods, roll a boulder uphill, only to have it tumble back down each time he nears the summit. Simultaneously, Salmoneus himself is tortured, in tragic irony, in flame upon an iron rod.

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