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- Herausgeber: tredition
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023
Do the old myths still have something to tell us? What experiences could the figures from the Trojan War convey to us today? The author wanted to find out. He set out to talk to them. They answered his questions. He was able to win over prominent interlocutors such as Cassandra, Penthesilea and Odysseus. You can look forward to the answers and immerse yourself in the magical world of Greek mythology. This book "The Gods do not play dice" takes you into fictional dialogs with figures and creatures who are willing to share their stories and their lives with you. Homer's "Illiad" is considered humanity's first war report. However, he did not always clearly separate what had been handed down from poetry. My dialogues through time deal with this period through the person of Cassandra. I was sometimes surprised at how little the means and methods of war have changed to this day. "Writing is public thinking. "Look what I was thinking!" There will always be someone later who is convinced that they could have formed these sentences, these thoughts better. But then it is too late, then the order and the selection are fixed and therein lies the writer's crime. The reader accuses him of this whenever possible. Excerpt: "The gods don't play dice" – ("Kassandra") "So you learned that Menelaus would never let a spoiled boy take his wife. You had seen it and you had warned them. You had told them again and again. Beware of the Greeks, you are said to have shouted, more likely to stammer in one of these fits, even when they bring gifts. But they didn't believe you. Apollo's curse has long since worked against you. Your father punished you for these words. They were not beneficial for Troy, he had said. The truth is of little use in war. And doubts, whether justified or not, only ever benefit the enemy. You had to learn these words, war and enemy and before that, attack. That seemed to have become the most important word in Troy: "assault," or rather "cowardly assault." His question then hit you with full force, whether you wanted the victory of the Greeks and the downfall of Troy. It hit you like an ax and split your mind. How could he have thought that question? Then how could he even pronounce them? Had he denied you your love for him, for yours, at that moment? Really? Whether asked this way or another, this question silenced you forever. You never spoke out loud to others again. You never really confided in others again. Hints, fragments at best, and then immediately being silent again. Your dearest brother, Helenos, your twin, was still on your side. He saw what you saw, saw the inevitable. But he remained silent in the face of his angry father. He seemed blind, like his priests. All men who only whispered to the king what he was ready to hear. Hecuba often scolded her for this and left no doubt about Priam's decisions, which were actually hers. You had often overheard them, Kassandra, heard them talking when they were conferring together, when they were conferring in the palace. You could still move freely. After all, you were one of them. It was like that until the first time you loudly disagreed with them. You heard that they knew that your father's sister Hesione was not stolen by the Greeks, but willingly became Telamon's wife. You heard that this marriage without the king's consent was treason in your father's eyes. He could not allow a Greek to come to an agreement with a Trojan of her status without his consent. That had to be seen as an insult... …But then he made his most fatal mistake. Your brother Paris was commissioned to bring Hesione to Troy without properly informing him. He couldn't do that with this dispatch accompanying him. So he decided, untrained in dealing with kings and politics, to kidnap Helena in return for the perceived insult. As if he could make up for one mistake with another."
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The gods do not play dice
Dialogues through time
Dedicated, as always
And always to the same one
© 2023 Wolf Kunert
Grafiken: © 2023 G-JL
Druck und Distribution im Auftrag des Autors:
tredition GmbH, Heinz-Beusen-Stieg 5, 22926 Ahrensburg, Germany
Das Werk, einschließlich seiner Teile, ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Für die Inhalte ist der Autor verantwortlich. Jede Verwertung ist ohne seine Zustimmung unzulässig. Die Publikation und Verbreitung erfolgen im Auftrag des Autors, zu erreichen unter: tredition GmbH, Abteilung "Impressumservice", Heinz-Beusen-Stieg 5, 22926 Ahrensburg, Deutschland
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Copyright
About Words, Time & Space
Sisyphos
Cassandra
Penthesilea
Odysseus
Clytaimnestra
Cassandra's Calls
Understanding Woman
The Gods Do Not Play Dice
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Copyright
About Words, Time & Space
Understanding Woman
The Gods Do Not Play Dice
Cover
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About Words, Time & Space
I gaze out into the darkness, at the nocturnal sky whose stars are hidden behind the city lights. In that moment, I feel as though the words I seek have already been written.
Silence, at last. I pick up the trail through time and space. I cannot yet see the point, but it is there. It must be. What other reason would I have to embark on this journey to find it?
Physics claims three reference points are needed to determine a point in space. I doubt that two others, like me, are simultaneously searching for the exact same place. My thoughts, rather than physics, seem capable of accomplishing what physics cannot. I am alone in the attempt to pinpoint that one place in that one moment. What does physics know of my thoughts? They don't factor into it. Physics is the mere "it is" or "is not." In the mind, there are more, far more variables.
Concentrate! There is so much space, so much time.
Back to point zero once again.
In the beginning, they say, there was the word. Not a thought? There must have been a thought preceding this word. Wouldn't the word be meaningless otherwise, in every sense of the word? Did the gods speak without the proverbial sense and understanding, like we humans often? Did they create without foresight space and time and everything therein? Is that why we humans so often search for it in vain?
Wrong space, wrong time. Back.
Alone in front of the paper? What paper? "There is no spoon, Neo!" and also no paper. So, sitting alone in front of the monitor and searching for that one point, that one first sentence.
Günter Kunert called it an aquarium. Kunert carefully put his words on paper. A good image. Through the glass of the window, one fixes on the nothingness outside and hopes to find there what can only be within oneself. One is already amidst all the words and sentences. Only the selection and the order still need to be found. It's that simple.
The space seems to be found. Only the time is missing.
Find the right words at the right time. Or rather, find the fitting words for the right moment. Behind me, a shelf full of words, sentences, and rhymes. Conceived, arranged, written, and printed. They have given rise to new words, new sentences, from the chosen and the unchosen. A risk that anyone takes who cannot keep their thoughts to themselves. Words give birth to new words. Sentences evoke further sentences. Better or worse, one can never be sure.
Writing is public thinking. "Look, this is what I have thought!" There will always be someone later who will shape these sentences, these thoughts better, or at least differently. But later is too late; by then, the sequence and selection are fixed, and therein lies the transgression of the writer. The reader throws this at him whenever possible.
Wrong room. Wrong time. Back once again.
Once again, out and past all the times when children were conceived, girls grew into women, and sons into soldiers far too often, their boots grinding the stones of the streets. No clichés, no tragedies either. Onward, through time, onward. No boots; sandals it shall be, and heroes. Heroes, sandals, gods, and myths.
So, clichés after all. Just different ones. That's how it can be. That's how one can write the unspeakable bearably. Make the unbearable abstract and digestible for the mind. No "yes, but…" should remain as leeway in the end. Precision is required, as in any other craft.
There it is, the sought-after point. I have arrived in time and space.
Now the words come quickly and force themselves into the sentences. Now thoughts can be shaped into texts and lined up. It becomes what it should be, or better, what it can become, and the pages fill up.
I speak with the deads, with strangers who still seem familiar. Like acquaintances of whom acquaintances told me.
My mind conjures them and gives them bones, flesh, and words. I compel them to speak and answer me. No druid's foot is necessary, and no table circles. Only silence and the absence of the living. The reader does not belong here yet. Here, they still disturb.
Figures emerge from my mind, like Athena once sprang from Zeus's. They press into the space and onto my pages. I must free them from what has been said and read so far. Pretend I don't know them, as if I were encountering them for the first time. Writing requires arrogance and denial as well.
They bring with them the new and the familiar, the true and the imagined, the important and the useless. I must call them to order, which ultimately I manage with some effort.
And in the end, once again, only doubts remain. A "maybe" with each of the words. Other words push forward, and other sentences come to mind. One realizes, like Sisyphus, that the summit cannot be reached. Perhaps it will never be, but giving up is no longer an option; that is the curse inherent in writing. The stone has been set in motion. A later, a maybe, no longer exists.
In the end, it is accomplished; one has surren-dered to the judgment of the gods and hopes for mercy in their eyes.
Sisyphos
Sisyphus, you fool, you ridiculous old fool. Now you realize it, don't you? The gods do not play dice with the likes of you. And certainly not with us. Terrible is the wrath of Olympus, and strict are its laws. Laws that we are supposed to follow, for the gods' own protection.
Have you learned nothing from the fate of your kind, son of the Titans? Did your mother Enarete not teach you the fate of Prometheus? The eternal torments of one who stole light and warmth from the gods to bring them to us humans? Did she not teach you that one should not take from the gods what should forever remain reserved for the gods?
Now look at yourself, Sisyphus. See what they have made of you and done to you. You thought yourself clever. You thought it brave to outwit Thanatos, death itself, and to give immortality to humanity along with fire. Where has your cunning brought you? Into folly, you sad old fool.
Did you think that Olympus had not learned from Prometheus' transgression? Did you truly believe that it had not enacted new laws for their protection? To believe that makes a double fool of you.
Yes, you were able to outwit and bind death, preventing its harvest for a short while. But did its chains not hold for long? A prank indeed, but without lasting effect. You could not help humanity, but you could harm yourself.
And Sisyphus, were you truly acting for the sake of our immortality? Wasn't your own the reason for your actions? Did you not, in truth, seek to surpass Prometheus? Did you not think, what is fire compared to divine immortality? That's how gods think, Sisyphus, that's how Titans think. But that's not how we humans think.
Did you not want to be truly loved by us, like the other one will be? Be honest, Sisyphus, your actions were vanity. You had realized that human affection secures your immortality. Is it not so? The gods repeatedly tell us this, and we humans are supposed to believe them, and thus we pass it on to ourselves over generations.
