Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Aphrodite & co.

Lots of people, including one former mayor of New York, are comparing Eliot Spitzer's troubles to a Greek tragedy.

It almost writes itself. He starts off high on hubris, but is laid low by mighty Aphrodite.

Which got me thinking - why did these people worship such troublesome divinities?

The gods of the Greeks? How very rude
and even lewd
they were at times,
lacking in beatitude,
slipping into dreadful crimes,
even stooping to quarrel
with each other like chattering squirrels.

What made them godly, then?
I guess each embodied a trend,
some universal tendency,
love, war, poetry, whatever,
that can't be severed
from our nature.

Defying erasure,
refusing to die,
they came back
after every attack.

Which, oddly enough,
may be godly enough.

3 comments:

F L Light said...

The special statist, Spitzer, in constraint
Of Wall Street seemed a demagogic saint.

John Enright said...

I like it.

It's interesting, your mention of his sainthood brings out the tension in his persona. He pretended to be an avenging saint for the public, but really he had this demonic side.

F L Light said...

There's no fraud like a demonic fraud.

Asserting the demonic privileges
Of lawless prophets, Eliot perishes.