Ajax and his friends

Taku and I have tickets to a play that my niece is in this Friday. It appears to be all about a homeless guy in Oakland who thinks he’s Ajax - the ancient Greek warrior, not the bathroom cleaner.

Time for a little review of the Trojan War. And that means a bit of theology.

It all began with the wedding of Peleus, the King of Phtheia, and his wife Thetis. They are the parents of Achilles, of vulnerable heel fame.  Well, not the wedding, exactly, but with Eris, the goddess of discord, who didn’t get an invitation to the wedding. Eris was a spiteful goddess and spread mischief by showing up anyway bearing a golden apple as a wedding present. The apple bore the inscription, “For the fairest in the land” and that set off a bitch-fight among three other goddesses. One of these was Hera, the jealous (with good reason) chief wife of Zeus, who also happened to be his sister, and goddess of women, marriage and the family and protector of women in childbirth. A second was Athena, who was in her mother’s womb when Zeus swallowed her whole, making it necessary for Athena to pop out of Zeus’ forehead at some point, which she did geared up for battle (at least in artistic depictions) in helmet and spear. The third goddess was Aphrodite, known to the Romans as Venus, the goddess of love, war and prostitutes.

To settle the question of which of these, Hera, Athena or Aphrodite, was most worthy of the “fairest beauty" title, they turned to a shepherd named Paris. Well, turns out he was actually a prince of Troy who apparently liked animals and being outside in the fresh air. (Or who was raised by shepherds and was doing what comes naturally, depending on which version of the story you read) All three goddesses offered Paris a bribe. Hera wanted to give him power, Athena, wisdom, and Aphrodite, love. Paris chose love and gave the prize to Aphrodite.

In gratitude, Hera made Helen, the real most beautiful woman in the land, fall in love with Paris. Hera either didn’t think this through very carefully, or didn’t have a very high sense of responsibility, because when Paris left Sparta to return home to Troy, Queen Helen was determined to follow him, to the chagrin of her husband, King Menelaus of Sparta.

There are other versions of this tale, and virtually all of the details are contested, but I’m trying to get back to Ajax, so this version will do, while I try to figure out where Ajax fits in.  Ajax was the son of King Telemon and nephew of Telemon’s brother, Peleus, whose marriage ceremony got this whole ball rolling when Eris messed everything up by creating such discord among the goddesses. That means Ajax is also Achilles’ cousin.

I've never read the Iliad but I understand that Ajax comes across as a superman, or at least as a guy with strength that goes on and on. Hence the name of the toilet cleanser, I think.

But the real story, I think, lies in the Latin phrase I chose to run under my picture in my high school yearbook, something the 15th Century cleric Thomas à Kempis is remembered for observing: Homo proponit, sed Deus disponit, Man proposes, God disposes. I was clearly indoctrinated into the belief that our every move is dictated by a deity. Maybe that’s why I get such a kick out of reading about how the gods mess with us. It absolves us of responsibility. Like making Helen fall in love with Paris so that the Greeks and Trojans slug it out for ten years. In the end, when Achilles gets it in the heel, Ajax claims his armor, but then Athena gives it to Odysseus instead because she likes the way he talks. And that pisses Ajax off so bad that he flies into a rage and wants to go after Agamemnon, Menelaus and Odysseus. Athena channels his rage into killing livestock under the delusion that he is getting his revenge. And when he awakes out of his hallucination he is so ashamed that he kills himself.

Homo proponit, sed deus disponit.

I dip into Greek mythology from time to time and always have a great romp.  It’s lovely to get back to the days when I first discovered Edith Hamilton and was faced with the need to try to explain why the theology I was raised in could arguably be seen to be making more sense than Greek or Chinese theology, say. When somebody first suggested that “virgin birth” was just another way of saying “parthenogenesis.”

Looking forward to Friday night and a story about a man who thinks he’s Ajax.

After some Chinese food.