#Sedibus

[trevlad]

Invisible Waves 18.

Mixcloud link Spotify link

Intro 00:00 Time Rival-Pumice 00:05 Chapter 1 05:35 Sedibus-Seti - Pt. 3 07:07 CIALYN-Magpies Hopscotch 12:38 Chapter 2 16:11 Forsling&Hauch, Mika Forsling-Markings 20:03 boycalledcrow-Tuktuk 23:50 Chapter 3 27:18 Correlations-Expanding Orange 29:46 Sergio Nunca-Décalage 34:02 Chapter 4 37:03 Andrew CS-dead leaves / morgan brown 41:03 Afterthoughts 45:28

[ryuzakemo128]

Beyond Comprehension

Pairing: John 'Soap' MacTavish x Italian! Goth! Female Reader

Content Warnings: Swearing, cussing, smutty implications, college au!, John 'Soap' MacTavish is a popular football player, Female reader is studying in Forensics Pathology & Anthropology, Female reader is Italian, Female reader's aesthetic has a gothic aesthetic overall.

Summary: How come he never remembers you saying them to him? How come he never remembers how they sound until this moment?

Divider Credit: @cafekitsune + @strangergraphics

Masterlist

Note: Inspired by 'Tomb' written by H.P. Lovecraft. I also made the female reader intense on purpose..

Word Count: 1547

‘Sedibus ut saltem placidis in morte quiescam.’ – Virgil. (English translation: At least in death I may find a quiet resting place.)

The mansion you have been born and raised into. The half-hidden house of death. Unknown to the throng considered to be a majority of civilian life. Opulent in design. Yet the stench of death and decay from the cemetery attached to the family churchyard, which still remains in your family’s name to this present day.

The overview of the woodland slopes painted with the earths finest bristles. Painting a lustrous colour palette range of greens, browns, and greys. The look over the city lights from the balcony like floating tea lights.

If you had not discerned for yourself. The means of how lavish your lifestyle if depicted and sculpted into. The gilding of gold in the nooks and crannies of your familial mansion. A display of white and gold.

You are indeed wealthy beyond the necessity of a commercial lifestyle. Unfitted for typical formal studies and social recreations. Your peculiar temperament in discerning a cause of death or why someone might have died has always tickled your fancy. Macabre is the most ‘fitting’ description of you. The one told by your kin.

Other equally strange pursuits you have lay in the art of taxidermy and preservation of animals after their passing. You don’t turn from the potential disgust it may bring unto others. Even as you lean into the art of death and decay.

These discerning passions do well in dispelling your keenest impatience of waiting for the next class to come forth. You are burning hot with eagerness to learn more of death. To hold knowledge people. The ones who dare not search for in the black abyssal seas.

A beckoning gloom of your quarters or ‘dorm’ depending on which term you would prefer. The hellish confinement of your social life is stifling at best and contentious at worst. Your nocturnal rambles seek shelter and safety within your sanctum. Those who believe things are better left almost forgotten for many generations.

Death had repelled you and bewitched you all at once. Like a snare you can’t bring yourself to crawl away from. Who were any of them to deny you such things, such idle flights of fancy many denied themselves. Who were they in the art of decay?

As you peruse the textbooks pertaining to the knowledge required in Forensics Pathology and Forensics Anthropology. Emboldened by the heaven-sent circumstance you walk into. Despite all your efforts to enclose yourself inside your own earthly desires.

How did you think John MacTavish found you hunched over an ancient tome reading about the deaths of people you deemed preventable. At least as preventable as they could have been. If only they knew of your existence, the world would be a different place. Had they known to do anything other than the path they have chosen would the world be better?

‘Who are we to ourselves if we are denied truth?’ you questioned inside your handwritten cursive notes. Pure existential dread taking over the recesses of your mind it seems. Philosophically overriding the sense of living you have inside your ribcage. One of which life must come first before we eventually descend unto death itself.

‘Is this how philosophers go made? It seems I am at the moss covered door step of madness and teetering on the edge of my own sanity.’ Another handwritten note inside your death smelling journal.  

‘In my peculiarities am I truly doomed to walk upon  this earth alone?’ you questioned further in your heavily pressed written notes. Recent. Too recent. The ink painted upon the black textured page hadn’t dried just yet.

You had hoped John would have forgotten about that kiss you gave him while you were pissed drunk off your three shark themed cocktails which were strong enough to make him question where your hunger in that kiss came from suddenly. Something about ‘the zest of life’ or whatever you slurred afterwards.

You even dipped him like he was some kind of dance partner you decided to claim for yourself for at least ten minutes. Then stumbling off into the night to your dorm like you didn't just decide to one up him in a bet that technically never existed in the first place. Like you didn’t just decide to fuck around and make sure he is the one finding out.

When Gaz found out? “Man, she really turned the tables against yourself huh?” he snickered, knowing Soap isn't the type to take that lying down. Not without knowing what he was getting into first.

“Knocked the wind out of me and had the gall to scamper away like a mouse or a chinchilla?” Soap continues to be baffled by you and your wildly, chaotic whims. Whatever they have in you. You passionately did with fervour and compassionate love.

How could someone be so enamoured with the end? Easily. When you have grown to enjoy, to love and thrive in the beginning. Where you are celebrated as you are and continue to be. Yourself.

In this name of heritage, you have every intention to claim death tightly into your hands like no other has done in your familial bloodline. The guests of your domain your centric world, you should have known them better as the shrivelled, decomposed, decayed bodies. The layers of death and decomposition finally eating away at the frail shell left behind.

“Mio stella, you are a delight to see my darling.” You chirped like a bluebell making John’s gaze snap to your direction, his eyes narrowing slightly, trying to discern if you were mocking him or if you were actually in a good mood. His confusion was written clearly across his face, and you couldn’t help but smirk.

“You are an absolute peach when confusion is written onto your visage so clearly.” you stated. “Most beautiful state I have seen you in all week.”

John ‘Soap’ MacTavish, the star football player with a Scottish accent that could melt the coldest of hearts, stared at you quizzically. You could see the wheels turning in his head as he tried to figure out if your sudden sweetness was genuine or if there was a hidden barb underneath. You had to admit, the thrill of keeping him on his toes was quite entertaining.

“The more confused you get the cuter you have become. I must leave before I melt beneath your confusion completely.” you cooed playfully as you walked to go to the diner to indulge in some junk food alone.

Before you could step too far away from him, he pulled you back to him by your wrist and he said, “What's gotten into you, love?”

“Other than my assignment is finished early? I have decided to treat myself with some sickeningly sweet food.” You answered buzzing with so much excitement you were physically shaking, at least a smidgen. “I also found out to my sweet tooth’s utmost delight that there is a diner that is normally open during the night.”

“You are more than welcome to come with me if your little buddies don’t have anything planned for you.” You added in. “Unless you’re worried your buddies will get jealous then I’m afraid you must stay behind. Can’t have your buddies missing your presence.”

You were certain he would relent and scurry back to his group of lads. Who you wouldn’t be surprised if they all sucked each other off for the sake of it. Only to deny that it was just ‘bros helping bros out’ or whatever other excuse they might come up with.

You were going to get your hoof heels to see if you could get someone’s number if you had the sudden urge to have a drink at a bar or pub in the same area.

John remembers how you used tongue, a French kiss so deep his head swan, his mind froze, and his body felt like it was burning. He swore his soul left his body for only a moment. A moment which lasted for what it felt like an eternity. He was dared to kiss you, but it felt more like you were kissing him and he was there for the experience of a lifetime. Rattling him to his core.

You didn't taste like death at all, you tasted of black vodka, ginger, mint and rum. The sickeningly sweet part of the cocktail a mix of gummy sharks and a hint of the sea. The smell of your hair was faintly like salt and sand. A smell that was strangely calming and terrifying all at once. The ocean's siren calling him closer to the shore, yet the salt reminded him of the sting of the sea spray on his skin during storms.

You are both oddly fascinating and eerily unknown. Layers of you he assumed never existed are now exposed to his purview. His eyes now see what he disregarded in past encounters with you. How you insist on calling him things like: ‘Mio Stella’, my star, ‘Mio Sole’, my sunshine, ‘Mio Caro’, my dear, ‘Mio Tutto’, my everything, ‘Mio Principe’, my prince, ‘Mio Amore’, my love, ‘Luce delle stelle’, starlight, and ‘Mio vita’, my life.

How come he never remembers you saying them to him? How come he never remembers how they sound until this moment?

[andromedainruins]

Wednesday, August 23rd || Latin

The Latin was rough today, I choked and forgot what 1st person singular verb endings mean (I obviously don't do well under pressure) and wasn't able to figure out the last few lines before class started.

Here's the Latin:

cum sic unanimam adloquitur male sana sororem: ���Anna soror, quae me suspensam insomnia terrent! Quis novus hic nostris successit sedibus hospes, quem sese ore ferens, quam forti pectore et armis! Credo equidem, nec vana fides, genus esse deorum. Degeneres animos timor arguit: heu, quibus ille iactatus fatis! Quae bella exhausta canebat! Si mihi non animo fixum immotumque sederet, ne cui me vinclo vellem sociare iugali, postquam primus amor deceptam morte fefellit; si non pertaesum thalami taedaeque fuisset, huic uni forsan potui succumbere culpae. Anna, fatebor enim, miseri post fata Sychaei coniugis et sparsos fraterna caede Penatis, solus hic inflexit sensus, animumque labantem impulit: adgnosco veteris vestigia flammae.

And my at home translation (minus the four lines I couldn't figure out):

she accosts her sympathizing sister, not of the right mind, "Anna, sister, my agitated dreams terrify me! Who is this new guest approaching the throne, how he conducts his mouth, what a strong chest and weapons! Truly believe, and not a vain faith, his race is divine. Fear makes clear the ignoble spirit. Alas, how miseries were thrown at him! What wars he has exhaustedly sang of! If my spirit was not immovable stuck on being unwilling to settle in the bonds of wedlock, when my first love deceived me, cheated me through death; If I were not wearied by marriage and wedlock, perhaps this one I will be able to yield to weakness.

And the corrected in-class translation:

She, not of the right mind, addresses her sympathizing sister thusly: “Anna, sister, what dreams terrify agitated me! What new guest has approached our home, carrying himself as what in regard to his appearance, of how strong a chest and weapons! I truly believe, nor is my faith vain, that his race is of the gods. Fear makes clear ignoble minds. Alas, by what fates this man has been tossed! And by what endured wars he was recounting! If it were not settling, fixed and unmoving in my soul, that I did not wish to unite myself in marital chains with anyone, after my first love deceived and cheated me by death; if it had not wearied me of the bridal chamber and the torch, I could now perhaps yield to this one weakness. Anna (for I will confess) after the fates of my poor husband Sychaeus and the household gods, sprinkled with fraternal gore, only this man has bent my senses and drove on my wavering mind. I recognize the vestige of the old flame.

[walgie]

Est deus in nobis

El Caballero de la Triste Figura quotes this (here) from Ovid but apparently Ovid used it twice.

est deus in nobis, agitante calescimus illo; impetus hic sacrae semina mentis habet

Fasti VI (link)

and

Est deus in nobis, et sunt commercia caeli: Sedibus aetheriis spiritus ille venit.

Ars amatoria III (link)

[kimsonvalon]

Écouter / acheter: Seti de Sedibus

[twistedsoulmusic]

With the new Sedibus album landing on Friday, one-half of the duo and original The Orb member Andy Falconer has concocted an intriguing selection of music for our start-of-the-week treat, otherwise known as our Monday mix.

[lawfulgoodsir]

IMO the most intriguing part of the early-to-mid-nineteenth century (as far as British medicine goes) is how much the reputation of the "surgeon" was changing - and how influential Scottish practitioners had been in establishing that new professional status:

There had been intense discussions surrounding the capabilities of surgeons during the seventeenth & eighteenth centuries that ultimately led to several barber-surgeon guilds breaking up & surgeons establishing themselves as significantly more medically aligned than their former colleagues. Royal favor, in part, was helping to elevate certain 'celebrity surgeons' to a status previously held by physicians. Between French king Louis XIV's public gratitude to Charles-François Felix for relieving his anal fistula, and various political motions made by British surgeons to garner similar favor in their own court (see Cheselden, Pott, etc.), the combined thoughts of "hey, these surgeons might have useful knowledge of their own" and "because they have these medical connections, they're way different from barbers" meant that generally, more dedicated clubs & institutions were being created for surgeons to hone their skills.

There was also a huge shift in the perceived value of dissection and autopsy over the same time period! As just one example, Giovanni Morgagni's painstakingly-researched De sedibus et causis morborum (1761) has been credited with opening up the discipline of pathological anatomy - making the connection between symptoms, in life, and changes to anatomical structures, in death - and making the practicality of dissection-based study more visible.

Edinburgh (where the Goodsirs were trained) had a particularly long history of anatomical dissection - and by the 19th century, had become a renowned . As an example, the original Seal of Cause for the institution that would become the RCSEd (1505) includes a clause as follows, permitting the guild to obtain the body of one executed criminal a year to dissect:

"...that euerie man that is to be maid freman and maister amangis ws be examinit and previt in thir poyntis following, that is to say, that he knaw anatomell, nature and complexion of euery member humanis bodie...and that we may have anis in the yeir any condampnit man efter he be deid to mak antomell off, quhairthraw we may haif experience, ilk ane to instrict vtheris, and we sall do suffrage for the soule; and that na barbour, maister nor seruand, within this burgh hantt vse nor exerce the craft of Surregenrie without he be expert and knaw perfytelie the thingis abouewritten." (Dingwall, 2005)

(btw if you work with 16th-century text...I'm already in awe. If you work with 16th-century Scots text......I'm intimidated by your power.)

Interestingly enough, I think an anatomist or surgeon learning the trade around the time of the Goodsir brothers would have experienced a new, quasi-regulated dissection environment post-1832-crackdown on resurrectionist activity, sure, but also an environment that was slightly looser in legal terms towards the unclaimed poor. The Anatomy Act (as I read it) has some rather open-ended implications in its language, codifying the ability of whichever person had legal claim over a set of remains to agree to their donation and use, given no family member or friend came forward. I think a lot of historical discussions about autonomy after death tend to focus on broad moral attitudes towards dissection & less on the class stratification (& racial stratification, at least in the US) of exactly whose remains were more acceptable to utilize. An 1838 letter to the editor of the Lancet, quoted in MH Kaufman's article about Edinburgh's cadaver supply patterns post-1832, lamented not the lack of bodies but the unfair distribution of remains among the anatomical schools:

"Every unclaimed body which dies in the Infirmary and is unopened, is sent...to the anatomical rooms of the University, sent there indiscriminately, unwished for, and with the knowledge that they will be wasted. These rooms are filled with bodies, from many of which no one ever derives any benefit." ("Study of Anatomy in Edinburgh", The Lancet 1837-1838, 1:589-90)

Tl;dr I think Goodsir, having been trained at the Scottish epicenter of 19th-c. British surgical prestige, at a time in which the practical purpose of autopsy & dissection was made clearer, probably had experience at least viewing a dissection (if not participating in one or multiple) - even more given the family's proximity to prominent anatomists like Robert Knox and contemporary claims about the state of cadaver supply.

I don't know about TV Goodsir's technique, though. Totally with leadandblood that it looks quite inexperienced, but that might have been a character or direction choice. Blanky's amputation scene also has some basic surgical missteps that make me think (no shade!) that the prop team may have overlooked the wide variety of knives & precision instruments available to mid-19th-c. surgeons in favor of the arguably flashier toothed saws. I haven't yet found anatomical lecture notes from the period that would detail proper autopsy technique, but something about the scene doesn't entirely make sense.

Each time i watch Goodsir do the autopsy, it's worse. It really makes you realise that no. He is not in fact a doctor. I present to you my inner monologue:

Starting good. There's nothing you can really fuck up here! *remembers the Jartnell scene from the pilot script* *dies a little* ............... you're doing GREAT buddy!!!

oh god that's nasty why'd you do that-

THAT'S NOT WHAT THAT'S FOR

this would be so much easier if you switched instruments... my good sir (badum tss), why do you not have rib shears...?

HANG ON NO NO NO NO NO YOU'RE GONNA HURT YOURSELF THIS IS SO UNSAFE STOP WHAT YOU'RE DOING STOP IT STOP

CAREFUL WITH THE SCALPEL

*yeets liver* are you gonna... look inside or....?

[fiendhop]

Incantation - DJ Muggs

The Communion feat. Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh & David Murphy - Ordnance Survey 

Toi 1338b - Sedibus, The orb 

Drum glow - Moderat 

Merkabah - Meemo Comma 

Just like his dad - Cosmo Vitelli feat. Truus de Groot

Be airborn - Natalie Beridze 

Praise the Sun - Whitesquare 

Intimate immensity - Tomaga 

Chapter 9 - Moritz von Oswald Trio, Heinrich Köbberling, Laurel Halo

[seeco1973]

[honorhearted]

“Perhaps one day, we’ll be able to tell them of what truly happened and they will at least know that you’re alive and well, but I agree. For now, it’s best that all but us remain in the dark about this plan.” 

Benjamin nodded, his smile a touch melancholy. "I would like to," he agreed, "if...i-if only they can forgive me, of course. To mess with one's heart is a cruelty. I don't imagine it would be easy to accept, were they to learn I'd willfully deceived them."

To his surprise, his talk on medical science seemed to light in Penelope a fiery fervor, her eyes wide and elated as she gushed, “Morgagni has a fascinating work on the latest discoveries in pathology, De Sedibus et Causis Morborum, and René Laënnec, who invented that fascinating pulmonary device, the stethoscope I believe it’s called, just recently published De l’auscultation médiate where he describes the curious sounds of the human heart and lungs. Truly fascinating and utterly remarkable!"

Unable to help it, Benjamin laughed, his brows drawing upward in incredulous delight. "Yes!" he exclaimed. "Yes, yes, I just read on such a device a month or two ago...Laënnec used a hollow tube of wood, if I'm not mistaken, and somehow, that was able to enhance the human heartbeat with startling clarity." He grinned. "If nothing else, I suppose we'll no longer need our physicians to nuzzle our breasts akin to nursing babes, vainly listening about for a heartbeat. The world is a startling and fascinating place..."

Noting Penelope's embarrassment, Benjamin was quick to raise a hand. "No, no, please," he entreated. "I like to learn...perhaps someday, you can tell me more about Morgagni? Although I have heard his name in passing, I confess to not being familiar with his works...I've mostly read up on Erasmus Darwin, and Thomas Denman's expertise on midwifery." He smiled. "In other words, I'm no medical scholar -- I merely like to study."

Penelope's face soured at the talk of her mother, and mirroring her frown, Benjamin listened while she muttered, “I suppose we should tell her as soon as possible. If she heard from anyone other than me, I don’t think I’d ever hear the end of it.”

"Ah." Anxiously flexing his free hand, he rolled his palm over his thigh and exhaled. "Well...I always imagined an engagement would be a joyous occasion, and yet the outlook here almost feels like an execution." He glanced toward Penelope with a weakened smile. "Not because of you, of course, but your mother...she seems difficult to please, for lack of a better word, and I hope she won't have too many questions."

Rising from the settee, Benjamin held out his arm for her. "Shall we go? I'm as ready as I'll ever be..." Which wasn't much, but he couldn't turn around and recant now.

There was some relief to be had in knowing he preferred to find a wife back home, but to think of him leaving indefinitely was quiet he saddening thought. The Bridgertons clearly adored him, so much so that he was treated as family, just as Penelope was.

If they were to think him dead, it would surely break their hearts. And yet, it was a necessary evil so that both she and Benjamin were protected. 

“Perhaps one day, we’ll be able to tell them of what truly happened and they will at least know that you’re alive and well, but I agree. For now, it’s best that all but us remain in the dark about this plan.” 

At the mention of tomes concerning the medical sciences, Penelope’s eyes lit up, for a moment forgetting their inhibitions as she immediately recollected her contemporary readings on the subject.

“Morgagni has a fascinating work on the latest discoveries in pathology, De Sedibus et Causis Morborum, and René Laënnec, who invented that fascinating pulmonary device, the stethoscope I believe it’s called, just recently published De l’auscultation médiate where he describes the curious sounds of the human heart and lungs. Truly fascinating and utterly remarkable!"

As her excitement ebbed and she realized that she’d perhaps gotten a little too off topic, as well as the fact that she was still holding fast to his hand with an ardent squeeze, Penelope's face flushed at least four different shades of red.

Unfurling her fan, she waved it to and fro rigorously while softly clearing her throat.

“Th-they would be useful for your research on the matter, if you are to make your performance convincing.” 

Surprisingly, Benjamin responded with a fervent squeeze of his own, "When do you wish to tell your mother of our...'engagement?'”

Penelope’s face soured. If she had her way, if it were at all feasible, she would leave her mother out of this affair entirely, but even if she attempted to keep this from her, Portia would find out via Lady Whistledown and come flying down the corridor to confront her. 

“I suppose we should tell her as soon as possible,” Penelope bemoaned, “If she heard from anyone other than me, I don’t think I’d ever hear the end of it.”

[the-chomsky-hash]

[foxtsumus]

wait why am i so fond of aen 6.370-71........

[uispeccoll]

Guest Post from John Martin Rare Book Room

At the Hardin Library for the Health Sciences

MORGAGNI, GIOVANNI BATTISTA (1682-1771). Opuscula miscellanea quorum non pauca nunc primum prodeunt, tres in partes divisa [Miscellaneous works, some of which are new, divided into three parts]. Printed by Giovanni Antonio Remondini at Remondiniana, Bassano del Grappa, 1763. Three volumes bound together. 39 cm tall.

This month we highlight a book currently receiving treatment from the UI Libraries Conservation and Collections Care. Collections Conservator, Beth Stone, is working to clean and stabilize one of our books from Giovanni Battista Morgagni (1682-1771).

Morgagni was an 18th-century Italian anatomist and physician. He is referred to as the "father" of modern pathologic anatomy. He stressed connecting the symptoms observed in the sick to the findings from their dissection. Symptoms, he felt, were "the cry of the suffering organs." His work helped dispel the longstanding notion that most diseases were scattered throughout the body. Instead, he was able to demonstrate that they emerge from specific organs and tissues.

During his very long life, Morgagni was a prodigious worker and prolific writer. His three-volume Adversaria Anatomica (1706-1717) put him on the map. His most monumental work, De sedibus, et causis morborum per anatomen indagatis libri quinque, was published in 1761 and made him a legend among anatomists. Vast in scope, it is one of the most fundamentally important works in the history of medicine.

The book this month, however, is Morgagni's Opuscula miscellanea quorum non pauca nunc primum prodeunt, tres in partes divisa [Miscellaneous works, some of which are new, divided into three parts]. As stated in the title, this is a collection of writings on a variety of subjects, including letters to Giovanni Lancisi, an Italian physician, discussing how Cleopatra died.

Morgagni's scholarly ability was apparent at an early age. At sixteen he was a pupil of Antonio Maria Valsalva at Bologna, and there he received the stimulus to devote his life to pathology. While pursuing postgraduate studies, he worked with Giovanni Santorini performing dissections. (Giovanni was clearly a very popular name at this time!)

By 1715 he took the chair of anatomy at Padua, a seat which he held with utmost distinction for many years. He was a brilliant and tireless investigator and, in addition to his work in medicine and anatomy, was a student of the classics and an archaeologist of repute.

Over his long career at the University of Padua, he taught thousands of students from dozens of countries. His teaching emphasized empirical data, direct observation, and experimentation.

Among several other structures, his name is most widely connected with the "Columns of Morgagni," the fine, vertical folds of the anal canal.

As mentioned, if he was not teaching or dissecting, Morgagni was writing. Opuscula miscellanea shows his range and diverse interests. Along with discussing Cleopatra's cause of death, it includes a biography of his mentor, Valsalva, a tract on gallstones, and a few more on legal issues.

Opuscula miscellanea has a lovely, soft paper cover. The cover shows the effects of age, use, and exposure to the environment, with scuffs, stains, and an overall darkening. Do not let that fool you, though, as this is still an effective binding. With a new housing from Conservation, Opuscula miscellanea will be around for a very long time.

Go here to read about Beth’s treatment for Opuscula miscellanea and more.

The annual JMRBR open house is April 20, from 4-7 pm. This is our first in-person event in quite some time and we'd love to see you there!

[zmaragdos]

I'm obsessed with the ekphrasis in this passage primarily because Minerva has a simple olive-leaf border surrounding one (1) scene showing a contest between herself and Neptune, with the Olympians, seeming noble and awesome, overlooking them, and victory crowing her the winner; then four "scenelets" (I find it difficult to discern if she is just depicting the mountains, the two birds, and Cinyras on the temple steps, or the actual action of their transformation/the preceding/following events), depicting the gods as beings not to be trifled with. The passage also includes her reasoning behind including the extra scenes. She is certainly not subtle in making her point...I also love that the topic she chose for her weaving was....her winning another contest, surrounded by the gods defeating lesser beings in...contests. Minerva certainly is the goddess of strategy, not subtly. (and maybe also the goddess of insecurity...who needs to hype themselves up so much to win a contest against a lesser being that they first surprise their quarry, then choose to show themselves as a winner in a past contest...that's like playing a football match with your old season tournament trophy on the sideline...like, why do you need that?)

But Arachne has 22 (!) separate scenes and an elaborate vegetative border. While Minerva depicts the gods with "their own features" (this seems almost rote, like she's working from an existing stylistic template), Arachne's weaving is so accurate that her figures are described as "real"/"true". Her sheer volume of figures simply overtowers Minerva's one piddly scene, as does their message of "the gods are capricious and cruel, even to their own kind". The gods are not stately and awesome in Arachne's tapestry: they are monstrous, terrible beings who contort their forms to take advantage of those who they can, even those who undoubtedly hold as much divine power as they do, as the case is for Neptune's rape of Ceres in lines 118-119. And Ovid doesn't even include her reasoning for creating these scenes, so I have to assume the reasoning is "if these gods are flawed, than Minerva can be, too." I admire her audacity in the face of likely loss and death. I think she knew she was going out, so she chose to go out swinging, and I think that's pretty badass.

I love how Ovid depicts the gods as fallacious and capricious in the Metamorphoses. What does that mean? It is a barometer of public opinion about the gods? Is it just his own opinion or stylization of existing literary traditions and tropes? Is it meant to be a slight to the Imperial family and the Roman state in general (i.e. those in charge are cruel, petty, and unjust)? I'm obsessed. I'm completely obsessed.

     Cecropia Pallas scopulum Mavortis in arce               70 pingit et antiquam de terrae nomine litem. bis sex caelestes medio Iove sedibus altis augusta gravitate sedent; sua quemque deorum inscribit facies: Iovis est regalis imago; stare deum pelagi longoque ferire tridente               75 aspera saxa facit, medioque e vulnere saxi exsiluisse fretum, quo pignore vindicet urbem; at sibi dat clipeum, dat acutae cuspidis hastam, dat galeam capiti, defenditur aegide pectus, percussamque sua simulat de cuspide terram               80 edere cum bacis fetum canentis olivae; mirarique deos: operis Victoria finis. ut tamen exemplis intellegat aemula laudis, quod pretium speret pro tam furialibus ausis quattuor in partes certamina quattuor addit,               85 clara colore suo, brevibus distincta sigillis: Threiciam Rhodopen habet angulus unus et Haemum, nunc gelidos montes, mortalia corpora quondam, nomina summorum sibi qui tribuere deorum; altera Pygmaeae fatum miserabile matris               90 pars habet: hanc Iuno victam certamine iussit esse gruem populisque suis indicere bellum; pinxit et Antigonen, ausam contendere quondam cum magni consorte Iovis, quam regia Iuno in volucrem vertit, nec profuit Ilion illi               95 Laomedonve pater, sumptis quin candida pennis ipsa sibi plaudat crepitante ciconia rostro; qui superest solus, Cinyran habet angulus orbum; isque gradus templi, natarum membra suarum, amplectens saxoque iacens lacrimare videtur.               100 circuit extremas oleis pacalibus oras (is modus est) operisque sua facit arbore finem.

     Maeonis elusam designat imagine tauri Europam: verum taurum, freta vera putares; ipsa videbatur terras spectare relictas               105 et comites clamare suas tactumque vereri adsilientis aquae timidasque reducere plantas. fecit et Asterien aquila luctante teneri, fecit olorinis Ledam recubare sub alis; addidit, ut satyri celatus imagine pulchram               110 Iuppiter inplerit gemino Nycteida fetu, Amphitryon fuerit, cum te, Tirynthia, cepit, aureus ut Danaen, Asopida luserit ignis, Mnemosynen pastor, varius Deoida serpens. te quoque mutatum torvo, Neptune, iuvenco               115 virgine in Aeolia posuit; tu visus Enipeus gignis Aloidas, aries Bisaltida fallis, et te flava comas frugum mitissima mater sensit equum, sensit volucrem crinita colubris mater equi volucris, sensit delphina Melantho:               120 omnibus his faciemque suam faciemque locorum reddidit. est illic agrestis imagine Phoebus, utque modo accipitris pennas, modo terga leonis gesserit, ut pastor Macareida luserit Issen, Liber ut Erigonen falsa deceperit uva,               125 ut Saturnus equo geminum Chirona crearit. ultima pars telae, tenui circumdata limbo, nexilibus flores hederis habet intertextos.

Ovid, Metamorphoses VI.70-128

Pallas pictures the hill of Mars on the citadel of Cecrops and that old dispute over the naming of the land. (There sit twelve heavenly gods on lofty thrones in awful majesty, Jove in their midst; each god she pictures with his own familiar features; Jove's is a royal figure.) (There stands the god of ocean, and with his long trident smites the rugged cliff, and from the cleft rock sea-water leaps forth; a token to claim the city for his own.) (To herself the goddess gives a shield and a sharp-pointed spear, and a helmet for her head; the aegis guards her breast; and from the earth smitten by her spear's point upsprings a pale-green olive-tree hanging thick with fruit); (and the gods look on in wonder). (Victory crowns her work.) Then, that her rival may know by pictured warnings what reward she may expect for her mad darings she weaves in the four corners of the web four scenes of contest, each clear with its own colours and in miniature design. (One corner shows Thracian Rhodepe and Haemus, now huge, bleak mountains, but once audacious mortals who dared assume the names of the most high gods.) (A second corner shows the wretched fate of the Pygmaean queen, whom Juno conquered in a strife, then changed into a crane, and bade her war upon those whom once she ruled.) (Again she pictures how Antigone once dared to set herself against the consort of mighty Jove, and how Queen Juno changed her into a bird; Ilium availed her nothing, nor Laomedon, her father; nay, she is clothed in white feathers, and claps her rattling bill, a stork.) (The remaining corner shows Cinyras bereft of his daughters; there, embracing the marble temple-steps, once their limbs, he lies on the stone, and seems to weep.) (The goddess then wove around her work a border of peaceful olive-wreath.) This was the end; and so, with her own tree, her task was done. (transl. Miller 1915)

(Arachne pictures Europa cheated by the disguise of the bull: a real bull and real waves you would think them. The maid seems to be looking back upon the land she has left, calling on her companions, and, fearful of the touch of the leaping waves, to be drawing back her timid feet.) (She wrought Asterie, held by the struggling eagle); (she wrought Leda, beneath the swan’s wings.) (She added how, in a satyr's image hidden, Jove filled lovely Antiope with twin offspring); (how he was Amphitryon when he cheated thee, Alcmena); (how in a golden shower he tricked Danae); (Aegina, as a flame); (Mnemosyne, as a shepherd); (Deo's daughter, as a spotted snake). (Thee also, Neptune, she pictured, changed to a grim bull with the Aeolian maiden); (now as Enipeus thou dost beget the Aloidae), (as a ram deceivedst Bisaltis). (The golden-haired mother of corn, most gentle, knew thee as a horse); (the snake-haired mother of the winged horse knew thee as a winged bird); (Melantho knew thee as a dolphin). (To all these Arachne gave their own shapes and appropriate surroundings.) (Here is Phoebus like a countryman); (and she shows how he wore now a hawk's feathers), (now a lion's skin); (how as a shepherd he tricked Macareus' daughter, Isse); (how Bacchus deceived Erigone with the false bunch of grapes); (how Saturn in a horse's shape begot the centaur, Chiron). (The edge of the web with its narrow border is filled with flowers and clinging ivy intertwined.) (transl. Miller 1915)

[mercury-messages]

A Hymn to Mercury:

Mercuri, facunde nepos Atlantis

qui feros cultus hominum recentum

voce formasti catus et decorae

more palaestrae

te canam, magni Iovis et deorum

nuntium curvaeque lyrae parentem,

callidum quicquid placuit iocoso

condere furto.

Te, boves olim nisi redidisses

per dolum amotas, puerum minaci

voce dum terret, viduus pharetra

risit Apollo

Quin et Atridas duce te superbos

Ilio dives Priamus relicto

Thessalosque ignis et iniqua Troiae

castra fefellit.

Tu pias laetis animas reponis

sedibus virgaque levem coerces

aurea turbam superis deorum

gratus et imis.

-- Horace's Odes, 1.10