On Codes and The Rule of Four

General comments on “substitution” codes.

This is the most favorite type of code; The Rule of Four, and many others, rely on. It consists of a text which is a “dummy text”, containing the real, secret text which can be found when the code is applied to the dummy text. For instance, the simplest code is to read every third letter, or substitute a different letter for each one in the text. This is easier said than done. Let’s try:

Secret Text (ST):

Paul Hoffman is a very critical person.

Let’s “encode it” by substituting the next letter for each of the ST. Of course, in a real code we would not use capital letters or punctuations, because they are a dead giveaway. We obtain:

rbtm ipggnbo jt b wfsz dsjujdbm rfstpo.

Of course, this makes no sense. But anyone solving the code would easily realize that it is a code, not a text (let’s call it the dummy text, DT, masquerading as a real text, ST).

I challenge anyone to create a simple substitution code such that it codes the ST into a meaningful sentence (the DT). Try it. Not easy though possible. But imagine if the ST were an entire page, let alone a chapter, as is in The Rule of Four. I do not think it is possible, and I have never seen it done. I challenge the authors to produce the DT from which they keep producing the ST in their book with the greatest of ease. For that, I would pay 10 times the price of the book, and maybe even an English translation of Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. Or try a simpler one, assume my first paragraph is the secret message (ST). Develop a code, any code that would translate the first paragraph into a dummy text (DT) such that it too is belivable and makes sense.

Specific criticism of The Rule of Four.

There is nothing in the 15th century text, Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (HP) that indicates that it contains anything secret, let alone an important one, on which the entire The Rule of Four is based on. There is no reason why Tom’s father (and his two friends, playing vital roles many years later in the book) should have spent so much of his time, neglecting his marriage, and ruining his son’s life. In the book there is constant reference to all the progress he, and his friend Richard Curry, had made prior to the events in The Rule of Four. Actually, he made no progress, except for luckily finding a piece of paper in an Italian library indicating the possible author of HP, which in my opinion is not an important point. The putative author is Francesco Colonna (turns out to be the correct one). If this finding is not fortuitous, look at the next: His (Tom’s father’s) friend, Richard then “finds” a diary by the 14th century “portmaster”, who becomes interested in Colonna’s goings on, had Colonna’s home invaded by a thief who knows what to look for, and copies the vital map. Amazing! Of course Colonna has the thief killed, but not the portmaster (that should have been so easy to do that it strains credulity that that didn’t happen), who continues to spy of Colonna, overhears vital discussions (Colonna, who takes more precautions than can be imagined everywhere else, somehow doesn’t notice this), and writes it down in his diary. Why? Of course, without the note and the diary there would not be a book, but I could think of many more credible backgrounds.

OK. The poor (and by now rich) authors need something to invent or else there is no book. So let’s go on. Paul, the other protagonist (the other two roommates really don’t matter in the book except for padding), has as a senior thesis nothing less than the complete “solving” of HP, something his thesis adviser, and presumably no one else had been able to do. This strains the remaining credibility. And the deadline is so important that he can only satisfy it by completing his thesis by solving the riddle of the book, something that isn’t even obvious is a riddle. I guess anything less would mean he flunks out.

Of course, the boys solve the riddle. HP, it turns out contains many of the hardest riddles 14th century experts, mathematicians, logicians, philosophers, doctors, linguists, artists (did I leave anything out?) could devise. In Italian, Latin, Arabic, Hebrew, and so on. Needless to say, our intrepid undergrads can speak fluent Italian (can even read the text which modern-day experts have a hard time doing), are familiar with the myriad quaint references required to solve the riddles, needed to decode the dummy text into the secret text, and of course, not only know the texts but know how to apply them for the solution. Well, to me, it is reminiscent of how Sherlock Holmes “solves” his murders—he couldn’t. Just read the stories carefully and see how many he could solve.

The “solutions” look so easy. So let’s see how these work: suppose that I pose a riddle that is needed for the cipher: “It is fated by its creator”.
Suppose 500 years from now someone needs this for a cipher. It is by no means obvious that the reference is to Beethoven’s 5th symphony? And it is not at all obvious that Paul Hoffman is Hungarian, therefore the 5th should actually be “ötödik”, which means the same in Hungarian. I doubt that anyone 500 hence except the future authors of another The Rule of Four could solve it. And this is not even a good riddle because most people know Beethoven and the Fate reference. I could dig out a work only 10 mavens today have read and use it for setting the riddle. 500 years from now the person trying to solve it would have to know which arcane work I used, and how to use that book to solve the riddle. Once the author gives the solution, it sounds inevitable, even obvious. Backwards. But try going forward. It is hopeless. To repeat, writing a book in which the protagonists run across the word “ötödik” and try to solve what it means of course could have several charming chapters, after which they finally had a brainstorm realizing that Paul Hoffman was Hungarian, he was a classical music lover, he probably liked Beethoven and the 5th symphony could have been his favorite. The reader would believe that the protagonists were so smart. Would that they were!

Here is another, more typical example: Suppose the riddle is “the greatest music”. So the writer-geniuses 500 years hence will read about composers. They try Beethoven’s 9th symphony. By trying I mean do all kinds of ciphers, 9th, Beethoven, and so on. While it doesn’t work, it allows the authors to educate the future readers on Beethoven, symphony, and so on, thereby prompting the reviewers to unheard-of accolades about their erudition. The writer-geniuses next move on to Bach. The same erudition, but no dice. Not even Pachelbel!!! So somebody has the bright idea that the reference is not about music but art. (Why not furniture polishing?). That allows the writers to wax about Leonardo, Picasso, and so on. No luck. Next Philosophy. They now think it may be Pythagoras because of his music of the spheres (few people actually know what he meant by this) but the Greek sage isn’t the answer You cannot imagine the amount of work required to find out that no combination of Pythagoras, etc. “doesn’t work” so they can rule (no pun) him out. On to literature, allowing them to educate the unwashed about Homer, Dante. Then to the Romantics. By then they are so exhausted that they are figuratively dead, ready for a funeral. One of the budding authors says, “I want to be cremated”. Be put in an urn. AN URN, AN URN, scream both of them Of course!!!!!! Keats, Keats,

KeatsKeats,keatskeatskeats keatskeatskeats …

So they read the poem to each other so we (who didn’t have English Lit) would know what it’s about. Of course, of course, it is unheard music that is the greatest. Eureka! (This is a good spot to write a bit about Keats’s Romanticism). So they try everything until they figure out that the cipher is urn and of course it is “urn” in Greek. Easy, ain’t it?

Call me for a riddle of this kind and see if you can solve. But be prepared to speak Aramaic, know Mathematics and the Continuum Hypothesis, Ukiyo-e, and be familiar with ancient Urdu and Hungarian texts. Among others.

Well, of course if I am so smart… May I close with a joke about the proverbial little old lady who won a million dollars on the daily double. A reporter asked how she arrived at the winning combination. “In my dream the Virgin Mary appeared and showed me six lambs and seven geese”. I realized that six times seven is forty-one, so I bet on horses 4 and 1 and won. “But madam, six times seven is forty-two” cried the reporter. “If you are so smart, how come I won the million dollars”.

Quite.

On multiple performances of the same classical music works

I have been listening to classical music for most of my life. I have also been reading music review magazines like Gramophone, Fanfare, and Americal Record Guide for the last 35 years.

As is well known, it is permissible for the same artists and conductors to record the same works several times in their career. I have often wondered whether over time performances have remained the same, changed in a predictable fashion, or differed from each other in a random fashion. I have especially been interested in the reviews about such occurences. The following few paragraphs have been buried in one of my earlier posts, but I thought I would make it more accessible here.

I have found that the reviewers had a field day comparing, say, early, middle, and late Karajan. Or shall I add intermediate Karajan (he had a habit or recording the same work quite a few times)? Or Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau in Schubert songs, which he recorded many times? Or Brendel in Beethoven sonatas? The critic often finds great and significant differences in, say, the second movement subsidiary theme which is now significantly slower, or the transitional 3-bar motif, where in the remake the second clarinets are allowed to shine. Indeed they do. And the artist now, alleluia, takes the second movement exposition repeat (now there is a Ph.D. industry for you!). Of course, differences are inevitable. Somewhat more questionable whether we are any closer to the Platonic essence of the work.Given the ephemeral nature of our audial memory, a cynic might even wonder that if the above critic, unbeknownst to him, were to listen to the identical record twice on different days would he not find significant differences in the two performances, attributing them to significant new interpretive insights. It is similarly questionable whether the same artist can reproduce the same performance twice in a row. Different takes of Mengelberg, or Toscanini, indicate that this is by no means the case: the performances vary. I have a CD of Josef Hofmann's in which he plays the same Chopin Waltz four times in a row. Each is different.

A devilish thought occurs: we need not wait seven years for the artists to record the same piece, we can have them record the same piece five times in five days. Keep four in the can and issue them in periodic intervals. They will be different. This suggestion, of course, is in jest, but only partly, to allow me to state my possibly controversial thesis. It is that periodic remakes and pirated performances of an artist even over a span of several decades seldom show a recognizable arc toward a deeper understanding of a composition, or even a clear movement toward a different interpretive pole. The different performances are rather chance variations on an innate artistic mean, owing to the momentary circumstances of different venues, orchestras, personal and historical events, and aging. Even such a thoughtful conductor as Furtwängler, who spent a lifetime pursuing the Beethovenian truth, evinced no clear interpretive movement in his 10 or so published performances of Beethoven's Choral Symphony or in others. Similarly, Schnabel's three performances of the Emperor Concerto bear a constant creative imprint that is quite different from Arrau's several remakes. Heifetz' constancy of performances is well known, but if one looks at Szigeti's three Beethoven violin concerto performances, or his several available Bach unaccompanied pieces over decades, one cannot espy a clear movement, except the inevitably effects of Father Time. If this is how it goes with the Olympians, are today's mortals any different? More to the point: can the average, non-specialist record collector keep up? I fear not. Does he care? I think not.

Salome and The Absolute Sound

Editor (The Absolute Sound):

“Veils are lifted…” wrote Paul Seydor, describing the $28,000 Boulder 2008 Isolated Phono Preamplifier on page 50 of Volume 151. It is indeed a rare issue in which at least one reviewer did not report that still another veil has been removed. How many veils are there? And what happens when all are removed? Even Salome only had seven. And we know what happened to her, as reported by the reviewer, Oscar Wilde.

This may throw further light on the topic: The following verse was inscribed on Aubrey Beardsley's proof of the unexpurgated version of the Salome illustration “Enter Herodias” (see picture below)

Because one figure was undressed
This little drawing was suppressed.
It was unkind—
But never mind—
Perhaps it was all for the best.

An alternate approach to "Naming"

Dear friend RC,

The more I think about the problem of naming and Bertrand Russell’s solution via the theory of types (i.e. Scott is the author of Waverly ) the more I think it may be a philosophical overkill.

There is a human who lives next door. How do I know he is a human? It has the attributes of a human: he looks human, he walks on two feet, he drives a car, he talks to me, and so on. Could I call him a human if he had no attributes whatsoever? We know “things” by their attributes (extensions?). Look at your waste can and see if you can think of it without recognizing it attributes.

How do we know a bird is a bird? Plato worried about this. He would probably have said that if this particular bird resembles the "heavenly form" of a bird, it is a bird. I would merely simplify by saying that if it has wings, if it flies, it is likely to be a bird. Could he be an airplane? Without describing a thing with an infinite number of attributes there is always a possibility of something else having the same attributes. In my opinion, this even applies to Plato's treatment, but that's another story. So read on.

Let’s get back to my neighbor. Could he be non-human? Of course! He could be a machine with exactly the same attributes as my neighbor. In a possible universe (beloved by philosophers), it is quite possible that my neighbor is not human. But let’s forget this for the moment. How do I know he is my neighbor? He has lived next door for 10 years, he mows the lawn, he has cook-outs during holidays, his children mess up my flower garden, and so on. Could he fake being my neighbor? Of course. But what is the difference between my neighbor and a person who fakes being my neighbor? Ask Bertrand Russell. Suppose I ask my neighbor his name. His says, “my name is John Neighbor”. So I call him Neighbor. Whatever I said about him when he was simply my neighbor is still true when I refer to him with a capital “N”. Suppose I call him John. He is still the same person with all those attributes. Of course there are zillions of Johns who are not my neighbors just as there are zillions of humans who are not my neighbors. But that is true of every “thing”.

I tell you about John my neighbor. Do you need Russell to know who I mean? Of course not. When I tell you that John kept his loud party up all night do you know who I mean without Russell? Do you even need to have seen John to know who I mean? Of course not. Suppose my other neighbor is called Scott. When I tell you that in my absence Scott mowed my lawn you don’t have to be a philosopher to know who Scott is. Of course Scott is not Scott without attributes, and many of these can be the attributes of non-Scotts. But that is the predicament of Life. When I tell you my car broke down you have to think of some attributes or you cannot think of my car. So what is the difference between Scott who is my neighbor and who mowed my lawn and Sir Walter Scott who lived in the eighteen hundreds and wrote Ivanhoe? In my opinion very little. You know my neighbor from my description and we know Sir Walter from the testimony of others. If it turns out that I lied or Sir Walter’s contemporaries had the fact wrong, well that’s life.

But read on for a slightly more detailed treatment.


AN ALTERNATE APPROACH TO NAMING

For several decades of my life I thought that Sir Walter Scott was just Sir Walter Scott, without thinking anything else. Then I read Bertrand Russell, came across his theory of descriptions, and life was never the same. After that I was willing to substitute “the person who wrote the novel Ivanhoe “(I always preferred it to Waverly that Russell used in his examples—but this has nothing to with the topic. Sorry!) and figured that was the end of the story. That is until I read Kripke’s book, Name and Naming, and realized that things were even more complicated than that. Since then I have been trying to think of a simpler way to figure out who we mean when we use the name of somebody. The following is my attempt at an approach. It is based on two concepts, pointing and designation. You will have to read this short but by no means easy paper (so my friends tell me) to understand what these mean and follow my suggested approach. It would require a more monumental ego than mine to think that I can improve on these giants of philosophy, but I think I may be on to something.

In reading the approach please be indulgent about my nomenclature; I admit it is not elegant, and it may even be slightly confusing. Instead of hurling unheard invectives at my head, try to see the spirit behind the letters.

Undoubtedly, I got most of my ideas for the following from Kripke's Naming and Necessity. Familiarity with that work would help the reader with the following.

I think the entire problem of Names and Naming got off on the wrong foot. It got tangled up, unnecessarily with existence and non-existence, and with descriptions.

At least two specific, related problems emerged. We, who never met Scott can, according to Frege/Russell translate Scott to the description: "the author of Waverly", and this, supposedly unique, description "the author of Waverly" can now be used in place of Scott. The first, typically philosophical question is whether the two are identical. To start with, nothing is. This string of letters: "Scott" are not identical to this, second string of letters "Scott", because they have different temporal and special coordinates, are made up of not identical pieces of ink, whose molecules are not even identical to each other, nor its atoms, because they have different electrons, not one of which can be identical to another because of the Pauli exclusion principle, and could not even in theory be identical since, according to the Uncertainty Principle, their location and momentum could not be ascertained simultaneously; furthermore, it doesn't even make sense to ask the question of location and momentum even in principle. So strict identicity (or, identity) is an impossible requirement even in principle.

Even Aristotle's A is not not A can not be satisfied, since in nature there is no "not not A". Everything is "not A", including this "A" on this page. Instead, what may be discussed profitably is whether "the author of Waverly" may be used in place of Scott. Well, yes, and of course no. Because, so the argument goes, Scott may not have been the "real author", or there could be another novel Waverly, or he really wrote Maverly, which was renamed accidentally as Waverly. The number of counterfactual scenarios philosophers can dream up is truly amazing. All of this is summed up flippantly in the saying that the author of Hamlet was not Shakespeare but another person whose name was Shakespeare. And off we go into a Philosopher's La La Land of speculations, discussing the obvious, that in the counterfactual case Scott is not even synonymous with the "author of Waverly". Obviously, when the phrase "the author of Waverly" does not uniquely describe its author, it is not a unique descriptor. Of course, I am joking, "the author of Waverly" uniquely describes someone, except not necessarily Scott, but its real author, whoever he may be. Of course, that person is not "necessarily" the author, since one can imagine a "world" (a favorite expression of the School of Counterfactualists, including Kripke) in which Waverly was not written by that author either. In fact I can imagine a world in which Waverly must needs be described by one and only person, though I cannot imagine a world in which Waverly need not have been written or created by someone or something. And off we could go again....

The second related problem has to do with existence. Moses’s existence is one of Kripke’s favorite example. If Moses is known by his aggregate descriptions like "the person who brought down the tablets from Mt. Sinai", "the person that led the Jews out of Egypt", "the person who made the Red Sea part", etc., how many of these must be true for him to have existed? And since, to avoid Kripke's sin of circularity, none of these descriptions are necessarily unique to Moses, he might have existed even if he did not do any of these. What if these were done by someone else? Would he be called Moses? Did he necessarily exist? What if his name too was Moses? And another merry-go-round can start, replete with learned definitions. Kripke spends endless time on these, without resolving the issue.

Suffice it to say that I believe the above all miss the point. I would like to show an alternate approach, which avoids the above logical cul-de-sacs.

Of course, like so many amateur philosophers, I probably oversimplified the above situation, except to say that the situation is confusing. But a detailed discussion is unnecessary for the following.

Names started for reasons of simplicity. So let us see how the process may have started. For instance, a hypothetical couple on a remote island begetting and giving birth to a baby need only to refer to it as 'he' or "she', or, if they know the meaning of the terms, "son" or "daughter". If anyone were to ask them who they mean by these terms, they could simply point to the baby, saying "this thing here". For this approach, pointing is essential. And accepting pointing as a means of designation equally so. If pointing and designation are not accepted as a unique reference, my approach will not work, but then there is no hope for an intelligent treatment of this subject, because it means that nothing subsequent to this can work.

Now it may come to pass that the couple has another baby. If the first is a boy, the second a girl, they may just continue referring to them by those terms. The terms are not names, nor are they descriptions. To me, they are tags, simplifying the language from having to say "this thing here" etc., or saying "the thing that now moved from there to here", or "who is sleeping", etc. If both children are boys, the couple may well resort to the Chinese custom of calling them, NOT NAMING THEM #1 son and #2 son, etc. Now there is no problem with a stranger coming and referring to the #1 son as "the person you two call #1 son". Contrary to Frege and (pace) Russell, there is no description assigned to the term. I use the neutral word "term" since I cannot think of a better one: I hesitate to use the word "designation", because it comes with almost as much philosophical baggage as "name" or "referent". Let us stick with "term".

So a third person can ask the second about #1 son, and is told that he is referred to as "the person the original two call #1 son". So the third person can refer to the child as "the person to whom the second person refers as 'the person the original two call #1 son'". Please note the reference within the reference, marked by different quotation marks, or rather single and double quotation marks. I could go on ad infinitum. For instance, a person on another island can hear about #1 son. If asked who he means, he could recite the string: {the person I was told about by the fourth person, [who referred to it as (the person to whom the second person refers as {the person the original two call #1 son})]}, (I am not sure of the quotation marks anymore, so I use parentheses, hope I get the point across). The point is that by this method it is ALWAYS POSSIBLE TO ESTABLISH A DIRECT LINK TO THE PERSON WITHOUT NAMING HIM, This link contains an initial pointing and only reference to persons who were told by other persons about other persons.

Of course our ancestors were practical people, not given to playing infinity games, so they attached a name to #1 son, probably something like Tall, Red, Short, etc, not with the aim of describing #1 son but to have a simple tag. From here on the link still operates 'the person to whom his parents refer as Tall' can be iterated endlessly, like I showed above with #1 son. If Tall did something, we can still go on with the chain: Short said that Red saw Tall do something. The point is that each statement can be verified, and the process proceeds one step at a time. Hence only direct observations and pointing are involved.

Before I go on, let me shorten the above procedure by abbreviating the long string of “person “n” said that person (n-1) said that person (n-2) said that person (n-3) said that…the first person said
as the “string” of Ps(n)=(P(n)<>Waverly “. Instead, the construction would require to say [Ps(n) Scott], meaning “the person who heard that the other person heard that his brother saw that the last person in the chain saw Scott. In other words, [Ps(n) Scott] means Scott definitely and rigidly. Or if Scott has the Fingerprint no. 2,3,5,9,0…., than Fingerprint 2,3,5,9,0….is Scott. There is no descriptive entity called "the author of Waverly “ We could, of course, construct a chain (see below) that starts with a person who saw Scott writing Waverly in which case Scott would rigidly be the author of Waverly .

Instead of the ontological problem concerning the status of “the author of Waverly” there would merely be a simple question of whether the information of all P's and ours is correct. If it turns out that P1 saw Scott (alias Fingerprint 2,3,5,9,0…) write a manuscript titled Waverly, and P2 heard him open the publisher's door, and P3 saw the publisher pay him, and P4 printed the book, and P5 wrote about it in a newspaper which was read by P6, etc, etc, .... then we have reason to say Scott wrote the novel Waverly. If the statements are incorrect, it must be only because one of the elements in the P-chain contains a mistake.

There is no counterfactual case regarding Scott. There are an infinite number of things Scott did not do, which doesn't mean he didn't exist, and there are an infinite number of potential beings who might have written Waverly. But not the book described by the chain of Ps. I don't know about the status of an entity "the author of Waverly”. He may not be real or not exist. But the way I see it the person Scott (i.e. Fingerprint 2,3,5,9,0…. ) is real, as much as anything empirical can be real. In my opinion, the description "the author of Waverly" is nothing but a string of ink pattern, not an alternative to a name.

Moses? What about Kripke’s favorite Moses? If he was fingerprinted as F 1,2,3,4,9,8… and/or a different chain of Ps reported to see or hear him, he existed as the subject of verifiable claims. Without anyone reporting about him, his existence is analogous to that of the sound of a falling tree in an unobserved forest.

Decline and Possible Fall of the Classical Record Industry

CANTATA ON THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE CLASSICAL RECORD INDUSTRY.

Prologue.
Malthus for records.

The Eighteenth century population theorist, Malthus, opined that while
population increases geometrically, food supplies increase only
arithmetically. Sooner or later, the widening gap between supply and demand
must end in war, famine, and general misery.

Several decades later, the poet Wordsworth, concerned about his country sang:

"Milton! thou shouldst be living in this hour
England hath need of thee; she is a fen
Of stagnant waters…"

Several centuries later, Heavenly Music Powers, concerned about the state of our classical record industry, reincarnated Wordsworth as the editor of Classical Music Review magazine. He promptly re-applied his muse in this manner:

"Malthus! thou shouldst be living in this hour
Our industry hath need of thee; she is a fen
Of stagnant musick…"

Malthus too reappeared as a concerned classical music lover. He took stock of the situation and realized that his former thesis, re-phrased, describes the plight of the classical record industry perfectly: "While the supply of CDs increases geometrically, record collectors increase only arithmetically. Sooner or later, the widening gap between supply and demand must end, if not in war, famine, and general misery, at least in the demise of Tower Records and the classical record industry".

Introduction.

What the modern-day Malthus meant is that the so-called standard repertoire has become essentially fixed. The most important compositions have already been recorded by most of the important conductors and performers. These recordings are endlessly re-issued in an amazing variety of guises and disguises. The same compositions are endlessly re-recorded by the still-living established artists. They are joined by the newcomers, mostly each-year's competition winners, wanting to try their wings on the same compositions. Orchestras, cities, countries, venues, radio stations have joined in the fray by issuing mammoth packages of essentially unauthorized performances by the famous artists in the same repertoire. The result is a surfeit of recordings. Meanwhile, the demand for these recordings is diminishing, die-hard classical record collectors have plenished and replenished their collections already and are dying out. They are not replaced in large enough numbers and in kind by the new generation. The classical record industry is certainly in decline and hovering at near fall.

The causes of a decline and fall are seldom observed while they are happening. Posthumous diagnoses, of course, abound. The following general comments, however, can be made. It appears that most human endeavors, ideas, technology, movements, and even entire civilizations go through a similar evolutionary pattern. Historiographers, like Marx (Das Kapital), Spengler (The Decline of the West), and Toynbee (A Study of History) have provided seemingly inexorable blueprints for these. Unfortunately, they were not avid record collectors, so their views on the record industry's decline are not known.

Being a mathematically oriented Chemical Engineer, I like to illustrate the evolutionary pattern with the aid of the graph reproduced below. The horizontal axis is a measure of time, the vertical axis is some measure of the "vitality" of the endeavor in terms of more quantifiable parameters, like the number of new ideas, patents, per cent growth of the entity in question, market share, or even income. For the classical record industry the axis might represent the number of truly novel ideas, or new innovative approaches. The S-shaped curve is the most typical of the growth curves. The gentle initial shape represents the slow, hesitant beginning, during which the "teething problems" are worked out. The rapid rise following it traces the efflorescence of the idea, technology, movement, or civilization, the so-called "Golden Period". After spectacular growth, inevitably, it seems, the ideas become stale and the original vitality now turns reactionary, standing in the way of new vital movement. The inevitable slowdown follows, and the curve flattens out.
What happens next is crucial. There are three possibilities, all illustrated by dashed lines. In most cases a decline follows (lower dashed line). On occasion, the essentially flat trend continues indefinitely, reaching a "steady-state" condition (flat dashed line). In even rarer cases the movement renews itself, in essence splicing a new S-curve onto the end. The beginning of the new S-curve is shown as the upward arcing dashed line.

At present the classical record industry is poised at the end of the solid line, facing one of the three outcomes. Describing the reason why we find ourselves in this spot is beyond my present objective. Nor am I prescient enough to indicate how to move to the next upturn. My aim is to describe the present dangerous practices which, if persist, will surely lead to further decline. The skeleton of the problem is indicated below.

The same performance is endlessly recycled by the same company.
The same performance is leased to other companies.
The same performance is reissued in new sonic garb.
The same performance is appropriated by the "independent minors".
The same repertoire is endlessly re-recorded by the same artists.
The same repertoire is diluted by orchestral issues.
The same repertoire is diluted by unauthorized issues by every venue.
The same repertoire is recorded by all newcomers.
Few people complain.
No one offers a viable solution.

In the following I would like to add a bit of flesh to the above skeleton.
Part 1. Variations on a recording

Like the Goldberg, this one starts simply. A famous artist records a famous composition. It is issued by one of the major recording companies. A few months later it cannot be found on the shelves. It finds it way to Berkshire Records, the Mecca of cutouts. Some time later the same recording finds itself back in the catalogue by itself, as a double album, or as part in a giant set, or coupled with a wide variety of matching and non-matching partners. Imaginative marketing executives may designate it as part of "Essential Classics". Others, thinking that the average music lover listens more on weekends, may assign it as part of "Weekend Classics". Can "twofers" be far behind? Of course, not. If the artist subsequently fades from public view, it will have the epithet "legendary" added to his name and his recording can pass into the "Legendary (never "historical") Recordings", or "Legendary Performers" series. If the artist, becomes a cult figure, "famous" or "great" will be his Homeric epithets, and the same recording will receive the Nobel prize equivalent of the recordings and move into the "Great Pianists of the Twentieth Century", or perhaps included in the "Great Conductors" series. The final bestowal is the entry into the Walhalla of records, inclusion into the "Great Recordings", or into the "50 Great Recordings". Simultaneously, several new "plain reissues" may accompany of the above, in one of the dozen remasterings, all claiming substantial sonic improvements. (See Part 2, below).

A new strain enters. The recording reappears in an entirely new label: as Testament, Classics for Pleasure and even Naxos, one of the true heroes in our time.

If old enough, and legendary enough to be exempt of copyright laws, "the independents", who paradoxically depend on previously issued performances by the majors, are allowed to market the same performance. As so often in Beethoven, as in the last movement of Eroica, the variations become increasingly difficult to follow. There are two kinds of independents, the scrupulous and the unscrupulous. The first group, often hampered by the unavailability of the master tapes, tries to add its grace notes to the basic theme by improving its sonics. This too comes in several versions. Often the sonic improvement consists in leaving all the original hiss in the performance to contrast this version to the original, in which the majors eliminated all hiss and most of the upper partials. More often, however, the independents hire wizards, who not only can restore the lost original sound, but can also perform time travel, can enter the minds of the performer, and magically confer sonic improvements not found in the original (see Part 3, below). Often several wizards contest each other for the palm for the best re imagination of the original.

In contrast, the unscrupulous companies merely copy others, have no wizards, no wizardry except that of invisibility, and can best be distinguished from others by the fact that they leave no address on the back of the jewel box.
By now, only a select few can trace the path from the original. No wonder one of the fastest rising profession in the US is the discographer!

Any wonder why the Industry is in trouble?

Part 2.
New wine in newer bottle: Adventures with Toscanini. 1 bit,16 bit, 18 bit, 20 bit. SACD, DVD-A.

Technological improvements are welcome in most walks of life, seldom more than in sound reproduction, in which field we are a long way from mistaking a record for the live performance. May I indulge myself making a running start with LPs, to indicate that the phenomena under discussion are not new? Just wearing thin.

It was in the nineteen-sixties, under the financially disastrous influence of Mr. Harris Goldsmith, then with High Fidelity magazine, that I first encountered Toscanini on records. The canonical nine of Beethoven were as good a place to start as any. So I purchased all nine on RCA VIC-800 thinking that was it. Incomparable though frantic performances, wretched sonics, Emery board-like surfaces. Still, I figured, with a little luck they would last me long enough so I could go on investigating other interpretations. How wrong could I be! Shortly thereafter, one of the unofficial cheerleaders of the American Record Industry, Mr. Richard Freed of Stereo Review magazine started extolling the virtues of artificial stereo, which would flesh out, sonically that is, Maestro Toscanini's lean sound. At his advice I purchased as many of the VICS-xxxx(e) records as I could find before RCA would withdraw them from circulation. If that's the way the Maestro sounded, who was I to dispute it? I did not. Others did, notably the aforesaid Mr. Goldsmith and Mr. Mortimer Franks of Fanfare magazine, "Joint Keepers of the Original Toscanini Sound". Realizing that they might be right, I rummaged through countless used record shops on both sides of the Atlantic until I found the "ur-pressing", RCA LM 6901. A different sound for sure, mono of course, maybe a few reverbs here and there, ticks, pops, scratches, but I could finally rest on my (or Toscanini's) laurels. At least until I found out from the above duo that even these recordings had been deleteriously altered by RCA engineers, who, having flunked Conducting, went into Audio Engineering. Furthermore, I was also informed that there existed pristine overseas versions boasting impeccable surfaces as well. (Actually, one did not have to strain too hard to improve on the US pressings).

So off I went on another quest to collect as many British RCA AT records as I could. Alas, these were the times when German engineering epitomized the best Western technology, so it did not take much, on the basis of articles in The Absolute Sound magazine, to convince me of the superiority of the German AT issues, like RCA AT 600. Of course I switched to these and their siblings. If only the Japanese hadn't come along with their extra thick, ultra silent, 100% virgin vinyl pressings! I had to have them and I did.

It was about that time that Franklin Mint issue its monumental, integral Toscanini issue, which I was forced to forego because of near financial insolvency. At least, until the Italians came out with their half-speed mastered, equally integral
RCA VL versions. On stereo, no less! Or was it stereo? At any rate, I was beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel, as we were rapidly running out of countries, unless the UN wanted to enter the field.

Then, disaster struck again: CDs. I had to start over. But at least they were perfect replicas of the Platonic master tapes still existing in Mr. Goldsmith's and Mr. Franks' heads. As usual, the Japanese were first out of the starting block, and I am sure I was first out of my block of apartments in Philadelphia who absolutely had to have every Japanese CD, guaranteed to sound like the real thing, whatever that was. Even at exorbitant prices they were a bargain, holding out hope that they would last a lifetime, or until, believing Stereophile magazine, one treated them with Armorall. At any rate, I thought the Eroica was one of the early Japanese offerings. Alas, once more, the entire series turned out to be shrill and unfaithful. If I recall, RCA subsequently withdrew them, replacing them with US versions (probably made in Japan). Of course, it was only a perfect replacement if one was willing to accept the 1949 performance for the one recorded in 1953.

I will not describe a similar journey in CD land. Apparently, age was catching up with me and I resisted the urge to purchase the entire BMG series. While a blow to the Economy, it was lucky for me. Because on the horizon were more undreamt-of improvements. I am now talking about the entire industry, not only the Toscanini industry. Philosophically speaking it is difficult to improve on perfection. But what escaped the philosophers of yore was accomplished by the Industry, they improved on the perfect replicas the original CDs had been supposed to be. Homer, or better yet, Aristophanes, might have done justice to the war between the so-called "golden eared" audiophiles noting sonic flaws, and the yes-men of and for the record industry, who heard no evil. I cannot. But it needs to be pointed out that the constant string of supposed sonic improvements were seldom accompanied by an admission that earlier claims to perfection had been misleading. Just as the newer ones soon turned out to be. Where is the new Gibbon to describe the gradual changes from 16 bit to 18 bit, 20 and so on, each promising sonic Nirvanas? The latest ones, Super Audio CDs (SACD) and DVD-A promise to deliver what the Industry had claimed 20 years ago. But how many times can the average record collector be expected to re-purchase the same performance? The famous "point of diminishing return" is now operating.

Any wonder why the Industry is in trouble?


Part 3. Masters of remastering. Hyphenated Stokowski.

In the golden age of recordings, articles abounded dealing with great controversies of the correct way of interpretation. Toscanini vs. Furtwängler, Heifetz vs. Szigeti, Schnabel vs. Arrau were passionately debated in musical magazines. Progress was being made: Bach-Stokowski, Handel-Beecham were slowly giving way to Bach and Handel on modern instruments, and later to period instruments. These days, ironically, we have hyphenated Stokowski and Beecham, as in "Stokowski-Marston" and "Beecham-Obert-Thorn".

Articles are now devoted to the minute differences of a Mengelberg performance as remastered by these two acknowledged masters of the remastering industry. Mark, I do not wish to diminish the contribution of these two and others; we owe them debt of gratitude for making the music of the hissy, noisy, shellacky remote past so enjoyable. But nothing is more symptomatic of the lack of vitality in the record industry than the shift in emphasis from the performance to the remastering. From the artist to the craftsman. It is as if the discussion of Rodin's statues were shifted to the discussion of the various foundries casting the bronzes.

We can now not only chose a conductor to guide us in a Beethoven symphony, not only whether it be early, middle or late Furtwangler, but also whether on EMI, as remastered by one of the majors, or on Pearl, Biddulph, or Dutton Laboratories, as remastered by the Marston, Obert-Thorn, Seth Winner, and their colleagues. There may even be cases when "early" Marston is reviewed against one his later incarnation on the same performance.

Any wonder why the Industry is in trouble?

Part 4. 7-year itch, Same composition, same artist

In a kinder, gentler, and less ego-driven era, artists would wait decades before tackling the Mt. Olympus of music, Beethoven symphonies, and sonatas, and the equally hallowed tops of Bach Das Wohletemperierte Klavier, or Mozart Piano Concertos.

No more. As reliable as the return of Haley's comet, but far more frequent, is the appearance of another issue of the mighty nine by one of our conductors. Admittedly, Karajan or Dietrich Fisher-Dieskau are hard acts to follow. By popular demand Connan Doyle had to resurrect Sherlock Holmes; in similar fashion in this age of medical advances might not the industry bring back Karajan? Until then we have to do with lesser lights. Even Abbado is only on his second cycle. But he has time on his side.

It takes a monumental ego on the part of the artist, and equally monumental cupidity on the part of the industry to believe that he has significant new insight into the well-traveled great works, every seven, ten, or even 20 years. If ever.

Of course, the reviewers have a field day comparing, say, early, middle, and late Karajan. Or shall I add intermediate Karajan? Or DFK in Schubert songs? Or Brendel in Beethoven sonatas? The critic often finds great and significant differences in, say, the second movement subsidiary theme which is now significantly slower, or the transitional 3-bar motif, where in the remake the second clarinets are allowed to shine. Indeed they do. And the artist now, alleluia, takes the second movement exposition repeat (now there is a Ph.D. industry for you!). Of course, differences are inevitable. Somewhat more questionable whether we are any closer to the Platonic essence of the work.

Given the ephemeral nature of our audial memory, a cynic might even wonder that if the above critic, unbeknownst to him, were to listen to the identical record twice on different days would he not find significant differences in the two performances, attributing them to significant new interpretive insights.

It is similarly questionable whether the same artist can reproduce the same performance twice in a row. Different takes of Mengelberg, or Toscanini, indicate that this is by no means the case: the performances vary. I have a CD of Josef Hofmann's in which he plays the same Chopin Waltz four times in a row. Each is different.

A devilish thought occurs. We need not wait seven years for the artists to record the same piece; we can have them record the same piece five times in five days. Keep four in the can and issue them in periodic intervals. They will be different. The suggestion, of course, is in jest, but only partly, to allow me to state my possibly controversial thesis. It is that periodic remakes and pirated performances of an artist even over a span of several decades seldom show a recognizable arc toward a deeper understanding of a composition, or even a clear movement toward a different interpretive pole. The different performances are rather chance variations on an innate artistic mean, owing to the momentary circumstances of different venues, orchestras, personal and historical events, and aging.

Even such a thoughtful conductor as Furtwängler, who spent a lifetime pursuing the Beethovenian truth, evinced no clear interpretive movement in his 10 or so published performances of Beethoven's Choral Symphony or in others. Similarly, Schnabel's three performances of the Emperor Concerto bear a constant creative imprint that is quite different from Arrau's several remakes. Heifetz' constancy of performances is well known, but if one looks at Szigeti's three Beethoven violin concerto performances, or his several available Bach unaccompanied pieces over decades, one cannot espy a clear movement, except the inevitably effects of Father Time.
If this is how it goes with the Olympians, are today's mortals any different?
More to the point: can the average, non-specialist record collector keep up? I fear not. Does he care? I think not.

Any wonder why the Industry is in trouble?

Interlude #1 Discoveries, discoveries. Bernstein in Paris, Mengelberg in Budapest, Oistrakh in Timbuktu, Szell in Tokyo.

The avalanche of new issues cannot be halted. Every city, every orchestra ever visited by a famous artist joins in the fray. In an average year a touring virtuoso will easily give 100 performances, mostly in different venues. Even conductors guest-perform, or take their orchestras (which of the many?) on tours. There are easily 200 artists in public, with an average performing lifetime of 30 years. Most of these performances are recorded. Do the math! The possibilities are staggering. (They come out to be only 600,00). What's worse, they are being turned into reality. Most great artists have had high standards, often vetoing the release of a record that did not meet theirs. Dead, or prevented from objecting, their every slipshod performance can now find its way to the public. Admittedly, reviewers often bemoan this practice, but then continue gleefully with the review. Maybe a refusal to review would be a more apt response. After all, all magazines make editorial decisions on which issues to review.

There are cases in which this practice is welcomed. Owing to many factors, several great conductors and performers could not land lasting recording contracts. Issues of their performances can act as corrective by giving us a more complete picture.

Beyond these comments I can only repeat what I said discussing reissues. In the case of established artists with ample available commercial documentation, these issues rarely provide great additional insight.

Any wonder why the Industry is in trouble?

Interlude #2 Enter the orchestras.

As if the above-described CD avalanche were not enough, orchestras have entered the field, flooding the market with gigantic boxes of taped in-house performances. Kind critics will find soothing words about them, but the truth is that the ratio of diamond to chaff is extremely low. They give occasional, unaccustomed glimpses of the familiar performer, of interest to the specialist, but rarely to the general public.

Such boxes are now de rigeur for major, not so major, and minor orchestras. If the Chicago box appears can New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland be far behind? What about the "Aristocrat of the Orchestras"? They too enter. I don't have a US map while I am writing so I cannot be sure if there are cities not yet in this business. Holland certainly is, issuing great quantities of Von Beinum and Mengelberg tapes. Some of these may even be valuable to collectors of historic recordings and collectors of large boxed issues. A new variant is exemplified by such issues as NY Philharmonic: The Masur Years. Ten discs, one of the smaller ones.

Conductors are famously long-lived. With this proviso, this time I will let you calculate the number of potential issues. However, as a bonus, in the Appendix I will indicate the possibly disastrous effects of collecting these giant boxes.

Of course, the Russians don't want to lose this race too. They have issued hundreds of cough-ridden, wretched-sounding performances from their archives.
Not only do we get a view of the fabled soloists dishabille, as it were, but we also get the fabled teachers of the fabled pianists. Who knows, their teacher, Anton Rubinstein may yet appear.

Most of these pale besides the vaults of the mighty BBC. Of course, their performances are all legendary (even if obscure).

The eagle-eyed readers may have noticed that one of the headlines in the previous section is true. I made up the other ones, but who knows, maybe performances will turn up. George Szell; Live in Tokyo 1970 available from the Cleveland orchestra, parts of it already included in Cleveland Orchestra's giant package. Of course, there were differences between these and Szell's other recordings, as meticulously observed by Mortimer Franks on page 234 in Fanfare 25:4. I repeat what I have said before: it would be a miracle if there weren't any. Mr. Franks catalogs all the differences, but does not offer his own preference. So what's the point? Commenting, for instance, on the differences between Sibelius Seconds, Mr. Franks indicates that, "...the major difference between them being the more expansive pace of this live finale". Well, yes. But is that good, bad, or indifferent? Does he like it? Should we? At least to Mr. Franks' credit (who laudibly synchronized the two performances on different players---how many people would do that?) he did not finish with the often-used tautological cliché: "Szell compleatists will, of course, want this. They will. By definition. Will anyone else?

Any wonder why the Industry is in trouble?

Part 5. Brave new Horowitzes.

Each year countless young musicians go forth in search of the Holy Grail: the winning one of the increasing number of competitions thereby gaining admittance to musical Camelot. As a reward, they get to perform the same standard repertoire their elders have performed every seven or so years legally, and on countless pirated occasions as chronicled above. Alas, the market can only accommodate a finite number of fire-eating Russian, Horowitz-like pianists, or diminutive Oriental wundergirls playing toy violins, or even Valentino-sex-appealed acrobatic conductors.

Most young artists are innocent. Their only sin is that they were born too late. Too late to make meaningful contribution to a fixed number of masterpieces by providing anything new. Beethoven symphonies, for instance, have been played in every conceivable way from the fiery Toscanini to the metaphysical Furtwängler, from the sane and objective Weingartner to the warm and fuzzy Bruno Walter, from the theatrical Stokowski to the mercurial Mengelberg, from the hyperkinetic Solti to the plodding Klemperer, from the hydra-headed ubiquitous Karajan, to the elusive, balanced Carlos Kleiber, from Abbado to (extending the list to other repertoire as well) Nikisch, Boehm, Rosbaud, Oscar Fried, Horenstein, Krauss, Abendroth, E. Kleiber, F. Busch, Jochum, Keilbert, Knappertburscht, Scherchen, Krips, Schuricht, De Sabata, Cantelli, Giulini, Ansermet, Desormier, Cluytens, Markevich, Monteux, Munch, Reiner, Leinsdorf, Beecham, Coates, Boult, Barbirolli, oh all right, Britten, Talich, Ancerl, Mravinsky, Barshai plus all those many Russians, Bernstein, Stock, Hendl, Szell, Ormandi, Dorati, Rodzinsky, Rudolf, Sternberg, Mitropoulus, Kubelik, Von Beinum, Haitink, Koussewitzky, Celibidache, Kertesz, Fricsay, Ferencsik, Tennestedt, and maybe others?

Where is the Beethoven pianist to go if he is to avoid Schnabel, Kempff, Annie Fischer, Arrau, Pollini, Brendel, Goode, Russell Sherman, Solomon, Kovacevic, Claude Frank, Richter, Gilels, Backhaus, and Gieseking?

Pity the poor violinists, their repertoire is even more severely limited. Do they or their promoters seriously believe that they can provide new gloss on the standard repertoire already mined by the likes of Kreisler, Thibaud, Elman, Heifetz, Schumsky, Milstein, Grumiaux, Szeryng, Fuchs, Adolph Busch, Szigeti, Stern, Menuhin, Schneiderhan, Kulenkampf, Bustabo, Huberman, D. Oistrakh, Rosand, Ricci, Francescatti, Morini, Soames, Laredo, Igor Oistrakh, Oleg Kagan, Pavel Kagan, Suk, Wilkomirska, De Vito, Jeanette Neveu, or even the more elusive Vasha Prihoda, Tosha Seidel, Gingold, Enesco, Zimballist, Kolchansky, Spalding? Or the newer ones, Pearlman, Zuckermann, Kung Wa Chu, Amoyal, Accardo, Mutter, Midori, Vengerov, Kennedy, Bell, Fodor, Sonnenberg, Hahn, Mullova, Zimmerman, Chang, Sitkovetzki, Tretiakov, Spivakov, Zehetmair, Tasmin Little, Pamela Frank, and others?

Any wonder why the Industry is in trouble?

Finale. Handmaidens of the Decline.

Who are at fault? I have a little list:
The composers, who at one time abandoned their audience.
The audience, which makes nary an effort to keep up with the new trends.
The music departments, which confuse mathematics and computer sciences with music.
The performing artists, who with minimal exception keep catering to the public by performing the same war-horses.
The orchestras that are similarly stuck.
The Record Industry that has neither vision nor strategy to make a transition to the new.
Concert-going parents, who don't impart their love of the classical the their rockenrolling offsprings.
Concert hall managers, who think that all it takes to interest young audiences is modern architecture.
Critics of modern, music, who mistake each novel composition for a masterpiece.
Conventional critics, who cannot call a halt to the proliferation of essentially indistinguishable performances.
Magazines that stick their editorial heads in the sand.
And commentators like me who only keep complaining without suggesting remedies.

Any wonder why the Industry is in trouble?

Appendix. The mathematics of CD collecting.

Let's do the math. It is instructive. Let's assume that one the giant orchestral boxes have dimensions of 5 in. x 8 in. or 40 sq. in. It comes to almost 0.3 sq. ft. Let us assume the average CD enthusiast buys 100 boxes a year. That is 30 sq. ft. of CD! Assume that the average record stand is 3 ft high, his acquisition will take up 10 linear ft. each year. Well-healed collectors may have a rectangular dedicated listening room whose long sides are 20 ft. If they stack CDs on both sides, they will have a total of 40 linear ft. of space. In 4 years, they will have to buy a new house. Or buy fewer CDs. This is something homebuilders and record companies should take into consideration.

The mathematically advantaged will know how to redo the calculation for different combinations or for different purchase patterns.

Notes.

1. These are not exactly Malthus' words, especially because he changed them considerably between the first edition of his "Essay on the Principle of Population" (London, 1798), and the second edition in 1803.

Greek mythology and fable for the young

GREEK MYTHOLOGY AND FABLE FOR THE YOUNG.
Tell me a story.
"Tell me a story". This is what most children say as soon as they can speak and understand. In every country and every civilization. And now it is happening to you.
You are visiting your girlfriend who has a 5-year old brother Johnny with the annoying habit of hanging around too long. You wish he would go to bed. So he finally does, and when you are just about to leave when he says:
"Tell me a story before I go to sleep".
"OK", you say to yourself, "Let's get it over with, it should be relatively easy".
So you start, "One day, as I was watching baseball, the doorbell rang."
Johnny could barely stifle a yawn. You try again and again and it is not working. "This kid will never go to sleep", you say to yourself.
"So what do you want to hear about?" you ask.
"Tell me about old old times, about monsters, bad men, gods, and heroes, beautiful princesses and dragons".
"Well, OK, this might just work", you think. "It shouldn't be too hard".
Let's create a Hero.
So you finally decide to tell Johnny a story about a hero. So you start:
"There is a hero. He is called Bill. He lives in the next house".
Johnny interrupts: "There is no hero called Bill. And I know the person in the next house. He is no hero".
"Here we go again!" you think, "this kid will never let up, he wants a specific story".
So you sigh and start again: "There was once a hero. He was named Edward. He lived in Pittsburgh"
"Oh, OK. What did Edward do".
"Well, his boss wanted him to work late but he refused".
"That is no hero. And the story is boring. Tell me about a real hero".
At this point you realize you are in some serious trouble. This requires some real thinking.
"Tell you what, kid. Let me think a little. Let me go into the library, and I will come back in an hour and tell you a story you will really like".
So you do a bit of thinking and a bit of reading and come up with the following formula for a hero:
(1) The hero's mother is a royal virgin,
(2) His father is a king, and
(3) Often a near relative of his mother, but
(4) The circumstances of his conception are unusual, and
(5) He is also reputed to be the son of a god.
(6) At birth an attempt is made, usually by his father or his maternal grandfather, to kill him, but
(7) He is spirited away, and
(8) Reared by foster-parents in a far country.
(9) We are told nothing of his childhood, but
(10) On reaching manhood he returns or goes to his future kingdom.
(11) After a victory over the king and/or a giant, dragon, or wild
beast,
(12) He marries a princess, often the daughter of his predecessor, and
(13) Becomes king.
(14) For a time he reigns uneventfully, and
(15) Prescribes laws, but
(16) Later he loses favor with the gods and/or his subjects, and
(17) Is driven from the throne and city, after which
(18) He meets with a mysterious death,
(19) Often at the top of a hill.
(20) His children, if any, do not succeed him.
(21) His body is not buried, but nevertheless
(22) He has one or more holy sepulchres.
Now you are in business! You start again.
"There once was a hero. His name was Zebedion. He lived many years ago. His father was a king, but his real father was a god. The king hated him. He decided to kill Zebedion. But his mother saved him. He grew up, slew the bad dragon, killed the king, and married the king's daughter.
Do you want to hear about this story? If you do, I will tell it"
Johnny is in heaven. And soon you can re-join your girlfriend.

The Greeks excelled in these kinds of myths and stories.
So why read them?
Can one be called educated if he/she is not knowledgeable of the Hellenic mythology? Hardly. This is what the great English poet, Shelley, said: "We are all Greeks. Our laws, our literature, our religion, our arts, have their root in Greece." In my youth I have found mythology and fables interesting. They were part of my background and shaped my life. Why?

At this point I have a decision to make. I can outline several reasons, intellectual, psychological, artistic, and try to influence you. But that's not how I came to love mythology. That love came from the delight I got from reading the detailed stories. Not outlines, not abbreviations, but the most complete versions. They say, "the devil is in the details". I don't know about the devil, but I know that the beauty of the stories is in the details; the creative, scintillating inventiveness of the Greeks is stunning. By no means do I encourage sexual promiscuity, but I can't help but smile at that old lecher, Zeus. He pursues maidens in myriad guises: as a shower of gold, as a swan, as a bull, and many more. His wife, Hera, is equally imaginative in posing obstacle after obstacle to her amorous husband. Similarly, the legendary Hercules is not only strong, any dumb hero can be that! But he also has to learn to perform service, a much higher degree of difficulty. And not any service, but 12 of the most imaginative ones, each teaching a lesson. In the body of this paper I will discuss the myths about Zeus and Hercules in some detail and point out the highlights.

So why else should you read them?
Because they are wise. The stories are eternal. They stories survived because they are the best Mankind has to offer, and because they deal with situations that are timeless. They matter today as much as at any time. That is the hallmark of great literature. They arose from our collective unconscious and continue to speak to us because of our psychological need for understanding and resolution.
Because their psychological insights are unparalleled in the history of Mankind. From the Oedipus complex to fear of castration, from penis envy to blood feuds, from conflict between duty and love, from the dangers of excessive self-love, to the hubris of trying to fly too high, they have it all. Nothing has been done in the last 2200 years that equals these insights, the nurturing effect of the stories.
Because they have infused Literature, Music, Painting, Sculpture, with eternal sources of inspiration. Except the Bible, nothing equals their creative influence.
As I said, it is lucky person who has such heritage. Maybe it's time to dip into it and see what they are all about. And see if our latest baseball hero is not an incarnation of Hercules, if Madonna is not our modern Helen of Troy.

In the following I would like elaborate some of these points.

Three myths.
Zeus (Jupiter for the Romans).
What can you expect of a god whose father swallowed all his siblings and is about to swallow him? But that is what happened to Zeus (known as Jupiter to the Romans. In one of the typical prophecies the Greeks loved, his father the king, Cronos (known as Saturn to the Romans), was told that one of his children would depose him. I have never understood why people react this way? If they believe that the prophecy is true then surely they can't do anything to circumventing it. If they think they can outsmart the prophecy, it means they really don't believe it. Well, needless to say, Cronos believed the prophecy, and having already swallowed five of his children was ready to do likewise with Zeus. Cronos's wife, Rhea, outsmarted her husband, gave him a stone wrapped in clothes to swallow. Cronos swallowed the switch. Zeus survived. Cronos (Saturn) swallowing one of his children is one of the greatest paintings of the Spanish artist, Goya. It is also one of the most frightening in the history of painting. It illustrates the primordial terror Geek myths can evoke. The Greeks never shrank from the darkest night of the soul.

So Zeus, of course, survived. When Zeus had grown up, he had Cronos's attendant, Metis, give Cronos a drug, which forced him to disgorge first the stone and then the children whom he had swallowed. And with the aid of his brothers and sisters Zeus waged war against Cronos and the Titans. This is how Zeus became the ruler of Heaven.

Much as I would like, I cannot due justice of the wealth of myths that are associated with Zeus. Each story begets another story. Instead I would like to concentrate on two aspects of the stories, the punishments he meted out, and his romances. Zeus was no shrinking violet when it came to dealing with his adversaries. The slightest disrespect met with swift, imaginative, punishment. For instance, Sisyphus was sentenced to the Underworld to push a boulder up a slope. Whenever he almost succeeded, the boulder plunged and he had to start again. Forever. Sisyphusian labor, one that never gets done, has become a byword in Western literature. An almost as imaginative punishment befell Tantalus. He was sentenced to hang from the bow of a tree, almost able to quench his thirst from a pond below. Whenever he was about to reach it, the water receded. Similarly, whenever he reached for fruit on the tree, it too shrank from his reaches. Tantalusian torture too has come to live in Western art. And of course, there was Prometheus, who according one myth helped mankind by giving him life-sustaining fire. For this, Zeus tied him to a rock and had a vulture constantly tearing his liver. Fire-giving Prometheus became a symbol of Western art. Countless plays, paintings, and poems celebrate the story. It illustrates the perils of giving knowledge (for that is what the fire symbolizes) to man. And also knowledge itself. For me, the story parallels that of Adam and Eve, who were banished from Paradise for eating from the tree of knowledge. The Greeks too knew the danger of knowledge and the independence from god it encourages. It's time to move on to lighter topics, or at least to more amorous ones. Zeus seemed to have been lucky in both wars and love. The maidens he pursued are a legion. His imagination and persistence is amazing. Not for him the brute force, but the art of transformation and disguise.
But before I do that, I should mention how history repeats itself. Zeus coveted the maiden Metis, who assumed many shapes in vain to avoid Zeus. She became his first wife. It had been foretold that she would bear a son who would be the lord of heaven. As they say, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, from fear of that prophecy, Zeus swallowed her while pregnant. When the time came for the birth to take place inside Zeus, Prometheus, or Hephaestus smote the head of Zeus with an axe, and, Zeus's child, Athena, fully armed, leapt up from the top of his head at the river Triton.

But I have to digress again. It is the beauty of the Greek myths that they can be read at many different levels. It would be overly simplistic to read the many myths about Zeus and women as simple womanizing. I don't think the Greeks looked at it that way. On one level, each generation needs to feel that it has divine origin. Almost all of Zeus's offsprings became important heroes from whom entire nations sprung. Hence these stories were important to the descendents. The stories also contain much encoded wisdom, as exemplified by the story of Semele, one of the maidens loved by Zeus in disguise. At the height of love, Zeus promised Semele to fulfil any wish she would care to make. Foolish promise! Semele has longed to see Zeus in his real form, something no mortal could endure. The horrified Zeus tried to talk her out of this suicidal request; in vain. So he appeared in his blinding splendor, and Semele was burnt by the fire. Clearly, the story talks about man's desire to behold god, and the danger of beholding the terrible aspect of god. This is far more than a simple story of conquest! And in a way it is touching to see the loving Zeus, protecting his beloved, and trying to make sure that no harm befalls the offsprings; not always an easy task.
I cannot do justice to all of Zeus's conquests, but here is a list, not necessarily alphabetically.
Aegina, daughter of the river god Asopus, was carried off by Zeus, who had taken the shape of an eagle, to the island then named Oenone but now called Aegina after her.
Antiope too was loved by Zeus. Zeus, who seldom repeated his tricks twice, took the shape of a Satyr to approach her. Zeus, apparently in his normal form, also made love to Leto. For this, Zeus's jealous wife Hera hunted her over the whole two continents Finally in Delos, she gave births to two gods, Apollo and Artemis. Zeus seduced Callisto taking the shape of Artemis. To make sure she would not be detected by Hera, Zeus transformed her into a bear. Hera detected the ruse and had Artemis to shoot the wild beast. Zeus approached Eurymedusa, daughter of Cletor, after having assumed the form of an ant.

At least on one occasion Zeus has shown prudent restraint. Even though he loved the Nereid Thetis, upon hearing the prophecy that her son would be mightier than his father he withdrew. Zeus then, bade his grandson Pelus to marry her. From this union the hero Achilles was born. I am sure you know his pivotal role in the Trojan War. Niobe was the first mortal woman with whom Zeus consorted. She is a daughter of Phoroneus, who is said to be the first man.
The indefatigable Zeus seduced Io while she was a priestess of Hera. When detected by his wife, Hera, Zeus turned Io into a white cow by a touch and swore that he had not known her.
Zeus fell in love with a Phoenician princess called Europa, and having taken the form of a bull, he carried her off and took her across the sea to the island of Crete. This is the origin of the name of the continent, Europe.

The above should give you small idea of Zeus's amorous activities. I have reserved two more in another section later in this article.

It is now time to move to the greatest of Greek heroes, Heracles (or Hercules). The link, of course, is another of Zeus's romance, as describe below.
Alcmena was the last mortal woman with whom Zeus lay. Zeus took the form of Amphitron (her husband) to deceive her. When Heracles, Zeus's child by her, was about to be born, Zeus declared among the gods that the next descendant of Perseus, who would be born next would reign over Mycenae. He fully expected Heracles to be the person. But he, once more, failed to reckon with the jealous Hera who conspired to retard Alcmena's' delivery, and contrived that her favorite, Eurystheus should be born prematurely. By this ruse, Eurystheus became king of Mycenae, and Heracles his subject.

Heracles (Hercules for the Romans).

The most famous of the Greek mythological heroes, Heracles is known to most people for his legendary strength, and for his labors (The Labors of Hercules).
As I indicated above, the story of Hercules was embroiled in treachery between Zeus and Hera.
When Heracles was eight months old, Hera, desiring his death, sent two serpents to his bed. But he strangled the beasts with his hands. And when he was eighteen years old he slew the Lion of Cithaeron. In a story too complicated to tell, Heracles was driven mad by Hera, and killed his wife. As punishment he was compelled to serve Eurystheus for 10 years, during which Eurystheus made him perform 12 of the most seemingly impossible tasks (the labors).
A later myth indicates the choices many heroes, as well of most of us, had to make. When Heracles was about to enter adult life he met two women describing each a different road through life. One called herself Happiness (Eudaimonia), but said her critics call her Vice (Kakia) and described an easy road, while the other, called Virtue (Arètè), described a road of hardship and hard labor. As you will see, Heracles chose the latter, indicating a submission to god's will rather than emphasizing his brute strength. His first labor was to destroy the Numean Lion. Heracles shot an arrow at him, but when he perceived that the Lion was invulnerable, he broke its neck with his bare hands. As a second labor he was ordered by Eurystheus to kill the Lernaean Hydra, offspring of Typhon and Echidna, a monster with nine heads, one of them being immortal. He chopped all heads and the immortal one he buried putting a heavy rock on it. As a third labor he was ordered to bring the Cerynitian Hind alive to Mycenae. The Hind had golden horns and was sacred to Artemis. So Heracles did not wish to wound it, but at the end he shot it just as it was about to cross a river. He caught it and hastened through Arcadia towards Mycenae. But Artemis and Apollo met him, and rebuked him for attempting to kill her sacred Hind. But Heracles put the blame on Eurystheus, pleaded necessity, and so he appeased Artemis's anger and carried the Hind alive to Mycebae. As a fourth labor he was ordered to bring the Erymanthian Boar, which ravaged Psophis, alive. The fifth labor was to carry out the dung of the cattle of Augeas, king of Elis, in a single day. Heracles went to Augeas, and without revealing the command of Eurystheus, said that he would carry out the dung in one day, if Augeas would give him the tenth part of the cattle. Augeas was incredulous, but promised. Having taken Augeas' son Phyleus to witness, Heracles made a breach in the foundations of the cattle-yard, and then diverting the courses of two rivers, he turned them into the yard. When Augeas learned that this had been accomplished at the command of, he would not pay the reward. When arbitrators were called Phyleus bore witness against his father and Augeas ordered both Phyleus and Heracles to leave Elis.

I am not going to describe all the labors; that would be a Herculean task. But I will mention that the ninth labor was to fetch the Belt of Hippolyte, queen of the Amazons. She had the belt of Ares for being the best among the Amazons. Heracles was sent to fetch it because Admete, daughter of Eurystheus, desired to get it. Heracles killed Hippolyte and stripped her of her belt.
You will have to read the rest of the labors, and find out what happened to Heracles--some story. But before I leave this section, I want to indicate another reason why I like the Greek myths. This can be illustrated with the following events involving Heracles. In one of his journeys he came to Libya, where there was a ruler, named Antaeus, who used to kill strangers by forcing them to wrestle. Antaeus was son of Gaia, the goddess of the Earth. He became stronger when he touched the Earth because he derived his strength from it. At first Heracles was unable to defeat him because he kept regaining his strength. Finally, Heracles killed him while holding him in the air. Antaeus is not a nice character, but the story at another level illustrates that we are invincible while in touch with our mother, or home, our home base, our background. Another lovely reason to revisit the Greek myths.

Theseus.
One of the most important heroes, especially important for Athens. He was the son of either King Aegeus (from which the Aegean Sea gained its name, sea below) or Poseidon. Before King Aegeus left home, he placed his sword and sandals beneath a huge rock and told his wife Aethra that when their son, Theseus, could lift the rock he was to bring the gifts to his kingdom in Athens. At the age of 16 Theseus lifted the rock and began his journey, during which he freed the countryside of various monsters and villains. When Theseus arrived at Athens, Medea, then wife of Aegeus, tried to kill him. Aegeus, however, recognized the sword and sandals, saved Theseus, and exiled Medea. Theseus subsequently had numerous adventures. His most famous exploit was against the Minotaur of King Minos of Crete. Athenians, who had been at war with King Minos of Crete, were forced by him to send every year seven youths and seven young women as a tribute to the Minotaur (half bull, half man). Theseus insisted on being one of the seven youths and seven maidens of Athens to be sacrificed to the monster as an annual tribute. He promised his father that if he were successful in killing the Minotaur he would on his return voyage replace his ship's black sails with white ones. Ariadne, daughter of King Minos, fell in love with Theseus and gave him a magic ball of thread to be dropped at the entrance of the labyrinth; it led Theseus to the Minotaur, which he killed, and he then followed the unwound thread back to the entrance. He left Crete with Ariadne but abandoned her at Naxos. The myth is clearly an allegory, symbolizing Athens' anger over having to pay the heavy taxes to Minos, its resolution brought about the myth of killing the Cretan man-bull.
When Theseus reached home he forgot to raise white sails. Aegeus saw black sails, and, thinking his son dead, the grief-stricken father threw himself into the sea, thereafter called the Aegean. As king of Athens, Theseus instituted several reforms, most notably the federalization of the scattered Attic communities. Theseus abolished all local courts and administrative offices, and made Athens the sole location of government. Then, as he had promised, he surrendered his royal power. He journeyed to the land of the Amazons, where he abducted Antiope, who bore him Hippolytus. A vengeful Amazon army invaded Athens, but Theseus defeated it. Some say Antiope died fighting beside him in the battle; others claim that Theseus killed her when she objected to his marriage to Phaedra. Later Theseus was imprisoned in Hades until Hercules rescued him. Upon his return to Athens, he found his once great kingdom a turmoil of corruption and rebellion. He regretfully sailed away and came to rest at Skyros, where he was treacherously murdered by King Lycomedes. Although Theseus is generally thought of as legendary, the Athenians believed he had been one of their early kings.

Why do Myths work?
So you may begin to wonder: why do hero myths work? Or more broadly, why do myths work? It is clear that for a myth to be universally meaningful, to survive over generations and even centuries, they have to be in a particular way. Not every hero story works, and not every other supernatural story becomes a myth.
It appears that we are constructed in such a way that our psyche, or our soul, is pre-tuned to receive certain stories. Only those that fit our soul's template become lasting. The great Swiss psychologist, Carl Jung, believed that myths arise out of our collective unconscious, a repository of Mankind's psychological history. If he is correct, it makes sense that only these ones will find resonance in us. And the equally great Austrian psychologist, Sigmund Freud believed that only those myths survive that contain something deeply psychologically meaningful.

The Greek myths, and especially the hero myths, in which the Greek excelled, satisfy these criteria. I think they encode two separate but parallel experiences. The same way as an embryo in its development recapitulates the evolutionary development of the entire species; the hero myths speak of individual as well as general human experiences. For the individuals, for us, the hero myths speak to our subconscious desire to slay, to supplant our father and re-occupy our mother's undivided affection and even her bed. They describe our secret belief that we are somehow special, surely God's favorite, surely of higher birth than our own. The myths describe our coming of age after hard struggle.

There is a near parallel for the development of Mankind in the era of rationalism that the Greeks ushered in after many centuries of darkness and superstition. The heroes fulfil an important role, they stamp out tyranny, and in their quest they kill monsters which stand for fear, chaos, and unreason. Unfortunately, in a male society these monsters were often female, the feminine for the Greeks, as indeed for most men, represents that which is irrational and to be feared. Thus the Greek gods have supplanted the previous Great Mothers and Goddesses, reflecting the change from matriarchal to patriarchal society. The myths reflect this change.
We are still mostly the descendents of the male Geek society, the recipient of their male-inspired and male-oriented myths. That is why they continue to exercise fascination in most of us, especially in artist. There are other types of myths, which were alien to the Greeks. There are other types of myths, which were alien to the Greeks. They did not do heroines well if at all; admittedly they had goddesses, but they were either sex symbols (Aphrodite/Venus), chaste hunters (Artemis), or wise/warlike (Athene). They had monsters but did not do truly evil well. They had, interestingly, nothing equivalent to Darth Veder or the Shadow in Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, for instance. For these we have to turn elsewhere, as well as for truly female-oriented myths. But for the rest, the Greek myths survive and keep inspiring our subconscious and our art, which so often renders the subconscious visible.

There is another type of story that also has its origin with Ancient Greece, the fable. It shares some characteristics with myths. I will also touch on it later in this article.

The Influence of Greek Mythology on Western Art, Literature and Music.
Artists were some of the first who recognized the timeless importance of Greek mythology for Western life. In fact, Greek mythology, along with the Bible, was the most important creative fertilizer of arts. I would just like to indicate this by a few examples. Along the way I will also sketch two of the stories that inspired art. It will give you an idea of the richness of the Greek myths. I have borrowed the description of myths from my favorite website: http://www.hsa.brown.edu/~maicar/. You can visit it for more information.
The influence of Greek mythology on music was mostly in opera. From the 17th century until the beginning of the 20th century it dominated the operatic topics. Because I have written a separate article on this, I do not want to repeat myself. Those interested can look at it in my web site: http://home.att.net/~paul.hoffman1/grdrmpsound.htm
Here I would like to mention the three highlights, Richard Strauss's Elektra and Ariadne auf Naxos and Enesco's Oedipe. If you like music, or even if you don't, I urge you to try some of these, especially in a video format.
The next important field would be literature. Here, however, there is a paradox. The myths are an important literary source, but the three great ancient playwrights, Aeschylos, Sophocles, and Euripides have dealt with these topics so superbly that few subsequent writers dared to follow them.

It would be more profitable to indicate the influence of mythology on painting and sculpture, by using two myths and their interpretations in the arts. The myths themselves are interesting, demonstrating the best features of Greek mythology, and they have inspired many works of art. I have chosen two of my favorites, surely pinnacles of Western art. The two myths will be about, Perseus, and Leda and the Swan.

Perseus

Danae's father King Acrisius ofArgos once questioned the oracle about the future. The oracle prophesied that Danae would give birth to a son who would kill him. Fearing that, the king built a brazen chamber under ground and there he guarded Danae. Zeus, who lusted after Danae had intercourse with her in the shape of a stream of gold, which poured through the roof into Danae's lap. From that imaginative union Perseus was born. When her father afterwards learned that she bore a child, he would not believe that she had been seduced by Zeus. He cast her with her child in a chest, and cast it into the sea. The chest was washed ashore on the island of Seriphus, which is one of the islands called Cyclades, where Polydectes was king.
Polydectes, who colonized Seriphus and there became king, fell in love with Danae but was unable to be with her because of Perseus's. And as a time-honored method to get rid of uncomfortable persons he gave Perseus a dangerous assignment far away. Polydectes sent young Perseus to fetch and bring back the head of the Gorgon, Medusa, a seemingly impossible task, since anyone who looked at Medusa died. Fortunately, Perseus had help; he was guided by Hermes and Athena. In order to find his way he met the Graeae, who were sisters of the Gorgons, old women from birth. The three Graeae had but one eye and one tooth between them, and these they passed to each other in turn. Perseus, taking their tooth and eye, compelled them to show him the way to the Nymphs who had the winged sandals and a wallet (kibisis). Once the Graeae had shown him the way, he gave them back the tooth and the eye, and coming to the Nymphs, he managed to get the sandals and the wallet.
He then slung the wallet about him, fitted the sandals to his ankles, and put the Helmet of Hades on his head, which made him invisible. And having received from Hermes an adamantine sickle he flew to the ocean and caught the Gorgons asleep. With Athena guiding his hand, and looking on his brazen shield, in which he could see reflected the image of Medusa without injury to himself, he beheaded her and put the head in the wallet.

This story has been a source of a number of great art works, none greater than Benvenuto Cellini's Perseus. It is one of the greatest Renaissance sculptures, resembling and rivaling Michelangelo's famous David. It shows a superbly muscled Perseus triumphantly emerging with the severed head of Medusa. Seldom has a work of sculpture capture the moment so perfectly as this. The work, a perfect blend of Italian classicism and Greek dramatic gestures, deserves to be better known.

Cellini's Perseus

Leda and the Swan.

Zeus consorted with the beautiful Leda in the form of a swan. Apparently Leda was no shrinking violet, since on the same night she also lay with Tyndareus. Four children were born of the two unions. Polydeuces and Helen, children of Zeus, were born from an egg laid by Leda, while Castor and Clytaemnestra were children of Tyndareus.
This story contains in it the beginning of the great Greek epic story about the Trojan War. Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world, of course, was the cause of the war, while Klytemnestra (in English spelling) was the wife of one of the Greek heroes, Agamemnon, whom she had killed. In return, she was killed by their son, Orestes. The Trojan War provided the source material for the Iliad, while the story of Agamemnon and Kytemnestra, was re-told many times, maybe most dramatically in Aeschylos's Oresteia.

The story of Leda and the swan became the creative source of many subsequent paintings, and at least one great, oft-anthologized poem by the Irish William Butler Yates, given below the painting.

My favorite painting is that by Leonardo da Vinci, left to us only in a copy. It depicts a surprisingly loving Zeus in the form of a swan, affectionately nuzzling Leda, while the four children, are about to be hatched form the two eggs. If Helen became half as beautiful as her mother, Leda is on this picture, I can see how she could launch a thousand ships in the Trojan War. The painting has all of Leonardo's hallmarks, including for me the famous Mona Lisa-like half smile, as if she could already foresee the mayhem in Troy and the tragedy of the house of Atreus (Agamemnon, Klytemnestra, Electra, Orestes, etc.) that followed from her union with Zeus.

Copy of Da Vinci's Leda and the Swan


Leda and the Swan
A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.
How can those terrified vague fingers push
The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
And how can body, laid in that white rush,
But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?
A shudder in the loins engenders there
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead.
Being so caught up,
So mastered by the brute blood of the air,
Did she put on his knowledge with his power
Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?

by William Butler Yeats

The Fable.

Nearly as old as the Olympics, bigger than Dinosaur, older than the Titanic, more complex than Pokemon and more of them than Beanie Babies are Aesop's Fables. Every day hundreds of entire classrooms of kids from all over the world read them, learn from them and enhance their living experience by it. So let us see what are these Fables?
In addition to the myths, the Greeks also excelled in a special kind of story the fable. You may have read several of them in your childhood. The distinction between mythological stories, tales and other forms is not easy, as you can see from the following:
The Tale, the Parable, and the Fable are all common and popular modes of conveying instruction. The Tale consists simply in the narration of a story either founded on facts, or created solely by the imagination, and not necessarily associated with the teaching of any moral lesson. The Parable is the designed use of language purposely intended to convey a hidden and secret meaning other than that contained in the words themselves; and which may or may not bear a special reference to the hearer, or reader. The Fable partly agrees with, and partly differs from both of these. The Fable aims at one great end and purpose--the representation of human motive, and the improvement of human conduct. It cleverly conceals its design under the disguise of fictitious characters, by clothing with speech the animals of the field, the birds of the air, the trees of the wood, or the beasts of the forest, that the reader shall receive advice without perceiving the presence of the adviser. The moral of the story is easier to accept this way.
The imagination of Aesop, who single-handedly invented the Fable, is vast. Of his many Fables I have picked three which illustrates them well. You may want to see whether you can figure out the moral of the stories. In case you are too lazy to do so, below each story I am also giving the morals.
THE MAN AND HIS PURCHASER.
A man wished to purchase an Ass, and agreed with its owner that he should try out the animal before he bought him. He took the Ass home and put him in the straw-yard with his other Asses, upon which the new animal left all the others and at once joined the one that was most idle and the greatest eater of them all. Seeing this, the man put a halter on him and led him back to his owner. On being asked how, in so short a time, he could have made a trial of him, he answered, 'I do not need a trial; I know that he will be just the same as the one he chose for his companion.' MoralA man is known by the company he keeps. A perfect example of why parents are concerned about your friends.
THE ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER.
In a field one summer's day a Grasshopper was hopping about, chirping and singing to its heart's content. An Ant passed by, bearing along with great toil an ear of corn he was taking to the nest. "Why not come and chat with me," said the Grasshopper, "instead of toiling and moiling in that way?" "I am helping to lay up food for the winter," said the Ant, "and recommend you to do the same." "Why bother about winter?" said the Grasshopper; we have got plenty of food at present." But the Ant went on its way and continued its toil. When the winter came the Grasshopper had no food and found itself dying of hunger, while it saw the ants distributing every day corn and grain from the stores they had collected in the summer. Then the Grasshopper knew:
Moral
It is best to prepare for the days of necessity
THE HARE AND THE TORTOISE.
A Hare one day ridiculed the short feet and slow pace of the Tortoise. The latter, laughing said: "Though you be swift as the wind, I will beat you in a race." The Hare, deeming her assertion to be simply impossible, assented to the proposal; and they agreed that the Fox should choose the course, and fix the goal. On the day appointed for the race they started together. The Tortoise never for a moment stopped, but went on with a slow but steady pace straight to the end of the course. The Hare, trusting to his native swiftness, cared little about the race, and lying down by the wayside, fell fast asleep. At last waking up, and moving as fast as he could, he saw the Tortoise had reached the goal, and was comfortably dozing after her fatigue. MoralSlow but steady wins the race.
So why should you read Greek Fables and Mythology?
Because the stories belong to all Mankind. Even more, they belong to Western civilization, which became its heir. And finally, because as descendents of the Greeks you are inheritors of these priceless myths. And civilizations lose they vitality and ultimately perish if they do not retain what is best of their past. Greek mythology is one of these.
SUMMARY:
This article discussed why Greek Mythology and Fable are still relevant for the young. It described several of the most important myths, pointing out their most interesting features. It discussed why myths work, and how they have influenced Western Literature and the Arts. It indicated the following main reasons for reading them:
1. They are plain fun. They contain exciting stories, interesting characters, gods, goddesses, heroes, bulls, maidens, at least as interesting as those of modern stories.
2. They are wise. The stories are eternal. They stories survived because they are the best Mankind has to offer, and because they deal with situations that are timeless. They matter today as much as at any time. That is the hallmark of great literature. They arose from our collective unconscious and continue to speak to us because of our psychological need for understanding and resolution.
3. Their psychological insights are unparalleled in the history of Mankind. From the Oedipus complex to Narcissism, from penis envy to blood feuds, from conflict between duty and love, they have it all. Nothing has been done in the last 2200 years that equals these.
4. They have infused Literature, Music, Painting, Sculpture, with eternal sources of inspiration. Except the Bible, nothing equals their creative influence.
5. Because the stories belong to all Mankind. Even more, they belong to Western civilization, which became its heir. And finally, because as descendents of the Greeks you are inheritors of these priceless myths. And civilizations lose they vitality and ultimately perish if they do not retain what is best of their past. Greek mythology is one of these.