Posting My research somewhere accessable

So I've begun writing a trilogy, which is really complicated, but at the same time really theoriputic. I've become quite self-loathing lately, can't say if it's the weather, the season, the loneliness, the nostalgia, I have no clue, seriously! But I can write, I can write for miles and miles and creating fictional problems are much easier to solve then any of my real ones. And this script or scripts is extremely complicated. The goal or mission statement is to create a trilogy with interwoven themes and plotlines form other trilogies of the ancient world, attempting to modernize them with using poetic justice in an attempt to create catharsis. That's a mouthful.

When I look further back then 2 years when I arrived in europe, and just think back why I loved greece and thought of myself with a desire to be greek, it isn't modern greece I admire and aspire to be one with. It was always ancient greece. There was a time where the most brilliant people that lived on planet earth were roaming around these parts. They had virtue, and were humble, and didn't need to put up a smoke screen to present things of value. Things that we are still teaching today. Anyway it's a work in progress. And if bored here's the research and skeleton blue print, really loosely blue print of what's going inside. Technically by the way, it's an action movie.

Many story tellers, film makers, have tried to tell a story in simplest terms. Making there one hero or one villain be the focus point of the story. How that characther changes, what changes him? In this story, all 3 characters change and what's most important is not how they change in the eyes of the world, it's how they change in introspective. How the hardest thing to master is mastering yourself and the habits beliefs and truths are often twisted. I'll tell ya when I hit my 300 page mark and then make that availible if intertested. I'm at 120 now, but it's kinda crazy. Episode 1 is at page 60, Episode 2 is at page 40, and episode 3 is at 20. But with all the flashabcks and what not that could all change. We love 2 things in this project, flashbacks which make all the modernization possible, and THE FURIES (Agent Smith, with the spirit from the ring, type of silent charachters).

Trilogy research

Socrates and Plato
Plato, drawing on the words of his teacher Socrates, considered the soul as the essence of a person, being, that which decides how we behave. He considered this essence as an incorporeal, eternal occupant of our being. As bodies die the soul is continually reborn in subsequent bodies. The Platonic soul comprises three parts:
1 the logos (mind, nous, or reason)
2 the thymos (emotion, or spiritedness)
3 the eros (appetitive, or desire)
Each of these has a function in a balanced and peaceful soul.
The logos equates to the mind. It corresponds to the charioteer, directing the balanced horses of appetite and spirit. It allows for logic to prevail, and for the optimisation of balance.
The thymos comprises our emotional motive, that which drives us to acts of bravery and glory. If left unchecked, it leads to hubris -- the most fatal of all flaws in the Greek view.
The eros equates to the appetite that drives humankind to seek out its basic bodily needs. When the passion controls us, it drives us to hedonism in all forms. In the Ancient Greek view, this is the basal and most feral state.

[edit]Aristotle
Aristotle, following Plato, defined the soul as the core essence of a being, but argued against its having a separate existence. For instance, if a knife had a soul, the act of cutting would be that soul, because 'cutting' is the essence of what it is to be a knife. Unlike Plato and the religious traditions, Aristotle did not consider the soul as some kind of separate, ghostly occupant of the body (just as we cannot separate the activity of cutting from the knife). As the soul, in Aristotle's view, is an actuality of a living body, it cannot be immortal (when a knife is destroyed, the cutting stops). More precisely, the soul is the "first actuality" of a naturally organized body. This is a state, or a potential for actual, or 'second', activity. "The axe has an edge for cutting" was, for Aristotle, analogous to "humans have bodies for rational activity," and the potential for rational activity thus constituted the essence of a human soul. Aristotle used his concept of the soul in many of his works; the De Anima (On the Soul) provides a good place to start to gain more understanding of his views.
There is on-going debate about Aristotle's views regarding the immortality of the human soul; however, Aristotle makes it clear towards the end of his De Anima that he does believe that the intellect, which he considers to be a part of the soul, is eternal and separable from the body.
Aristotle also believed that there were four parts (understood as powers) of the soul. The four sections are the calculative part and the scientific part on the rational side; these are used for making decisions. The desiderative part and the vegetative part on the irrational side, responsible for identifying our needs.

In Greek mythology, Apollo and Dionysus are both sons of Zeus. Apollo is the god of the Sun, lightness, music, and poetry, while Dionysus is the god of wine, ecstasy, and intoxication. In the modern literary usage of the concept, the contrast between Apollo and Dionysus symbolizes principles of individualism versus wholeness, light versus darkness, or civilization versus primal nature. The ancient Greeks did not consider the two gods as opposites or rivals.


Individualism is a term used to describe a moral, political, or social outlook that stresses human independence and the importance of individual self-reliance and liberty. Individualists promote the exercise of individual goals and desires. They oppose most external interference with an individual's choices - whether by society, the state, or any other group or institution. Individualism is therefore opposed to views based on collectivism or statism, which stress that communal, community, group, societal, or national goals should take priority over individual goals. Individualism is also opposed to tradition, religion, or any other form of external moral standard being used to limit an individual's choice of actions.
Individualism has a controversial relationship with egoism (selfishness). While some individualists are egoists, they usually do not argue that selfishness is inherently good. Rather, some argue that individuals are not duty-bound to any socially-imposed morality and that individuals should be free to choose to be selfish (or to choose any other lifestyle) if they so desire. Others, such as Ayn Rand, argue against moral relativism and argue selfishness is a virtue. Others still argue against both moral relativism and egoism.

[edit]The Essence of Individualism
At its core, individualism is nothing more than a dedication to careful thought. Individualist principles cannot be found in moral, political or economic “action” because action can only be valued with respect to the reasons that guide it. For instance, imagine that hard work is objectively valuable; you may feel inclined to judge a hard-worker favorably. But then imagine that her sole reason for working hard is that you will judge her favorably for it; imagine that she will stop when no longer observed. If you know this, you may judge her quite differently. Similarly, after brief observation, you may incorrectly label idle workers as lazy. The point is that snippets of action tell us nothing about the principles that guide action, and in this respect, individualism cannot be ascribed to individuals who have not testified about their thought processes.
But it is natural to infer others’ reasons in order to judge actions immediately. Should you rescue a child from a burning building, others will be quick to praise you under the assumption that you were guided by selfless care for another’s safety. They will not only ignore the proposition that your bravado was feigned for the sole purpose of receiving accolades, but they will also refuse to question whether the motives they’ve inferred are even objectively valuable. This strikes at the essence of individualism; a true individualist reevaluates core assumptions and inferences because, with a firm grasp of logical principles, the individualist knows that all ideas that are not logically provable are subject to change upon the existence of new compelling evidence. The individualist recognizes that another person should not be able to recognize an individualist on the basis of his observable actions. If one chooses to reject prevailing authority, she may be a thoughtless rebel or a thoughtful individualist; the action alone gives no indication as to which.
The essence of individualism is to choose the standards one aspires to. One may choose majority standards, minority standards, original standards, or no standards at all. Again, the actual choice does not prove individualist reasoning – one must look to the reasoning itself. Thus the only defining quality of an individualist is that she uses a personal command of logical principles to give all options a fair and equal evaluation before making a decision or conclusion. This process should certainly include evaluation of existing standards widely held. The individualist relies on her own judgment only to the extent that, after much evaluation, she finds it objectively superior to that of another.
Without delving deep into linguistics and the effects of connotation, it’s fair to point out that the immediate conditioned judgments humans make are mostly rational and mostly beneficial and are not necessarily anti-individualist. Also, they’re easily adjustable upon acquisition of new information. They can be thought of as “pre-reasoned” responses based on our vocabularies and our experiences and observations. Mostly, they serve us well, especially at times when judgments are irrelevant or when it is terribly inefficient to ask and answer questions endlessly. Evolutionary scientists see conditioned judgments as survival tools derivative of the fundamental dilemma: fight or flight. Our conditioned responses make economical use of our minds, so that we may devote our time to other thoughts and concerns. There is but one caveat: conditioned responses are shortcuts; they cannot provide answers to complex questions, and if their owners do not maintain them with frequent adjustment, they may serve to propagate logically misguided information even with respect to simple concepts.[5]
[edit]"Thinking Without Thinking"
In his book Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking[6], journalist Malcolm Gladwell posits that conditioned responses are extremely beneficial to the expert mind. He gives an example of a therapist who can predict that a relationship is doomed after hearing mere snippets of a couple’s conversations. What Gladwell interprets as miraculous judgment is as easily interpreted as exceptional internal command of the rules of logic. Concocting meanings and patterns in random abstract data is relatively easy, but it is not easy to prove truth from random data with consistency and accuracy. Imagine every possible observation that one could make with respect to a patient: think of a patient’s seated posture, speech patterns, clothing, habits, interests. Numerous correlations will appear obvious, but many will be coincidental, many will be too ambiguous, and many will be imagined. To prove truth with accuracy is to subject data to such rigorous scrutiny that a conviction as to its meaning can be held beyond reasonable doubt. The words of rigorous logical scrutiny are rightfully the same words of criminal justice. The therapist’s accuracy stems not from magical ability to find telling patterns in data but from her constant testing of all perceived patterns against logic, after which she discards the irrelevant and improvident, retains and organizes a working mental catalogue of the valid and provable, and quickly applies the same to new factual contexts by analogy. To do this instantly may require a remarkable intellect, but any average mind, given enough time, is certainly capable of such a process. Criminal verdicts are not the product of experts; they’re the product of randomly selected humans forced to apply rigorous logical rules as instructed in order to reach a thoroughly justifiable judgment. This begs the question of why average humans do not attend other important judgments with such rigor. Brilliant minds may conceive of logic inherently and use it swiftly, but given time and effort, logic can be learned and applied by all. Use of logic helps illustrate this very point: genius is sufficient to grasp it but not necessary. The essence of individualism is partly found in the determination to observe the world through a lens of logical scrutiny. The implication is that conditioned judgments that are the product of such a process may be extremely beneficial. However, sound judgments and unsound judgments cannot be distinguished facially. The individualist understands this, and thus, she remains skeptical of all judgments until she conducts independent analysis using the tools of logic.[7]
[edit]Individualism & "Common Sense"
At odds with logic is the principle of “common sense.” The two are sometimes used interchangeably, but they most definitely describe adverse methods of reasoning. The term “common sense” refers, quite naturally, to sense that is common. That is, it assumes there is a correlation between the popularity of a proposition and its truthfulness. For example, “common sense” originally suggested to humans that the planet was flat. Modernly, "common sense" is used to describe propositions that are “facially intuitive” per, allegedly, any reasonable individual’s independent judgment. While this idea disowns the groupthink fallacy, it’s still not an improvement because it remains subject to the flat-earth problem and asks the independent mind to accept a judgment on the basis of facial appearance. This causes the propagation of popular albeit erroneous judgments when facial appearance is deceptive as to objective reality. For example, consider the once facially intuitive proposition that, “Man cannot fly,” and then consider the individualist mentality with which the Wright brothers approached it.
Common sense – one of the most popular sources of conditioned automatic judgments – is by its very nature a logical fallacy. Common sense suggests: “This seems like it’s probably true.” Logic asks: “Is it at all possible that this is not true?” If one values truth, one should ask logic’s question instead of repeating common sense’s statement. Observing and experiencing the world through the lens of logic may lead one to develop conditioned automatic judgments that are virtually unassailable. And, conversely, to refuse this lens is an implicit admission that one’s conditioned judgments and conceptions may have no actual basis in functional truth. This creates some interesting questions. For instance, would human interaction be more efficient if all rules of logic were widely appreciated? Beyond geometry, American public schools do not teach logic; if they did, would conditioned judgments improve or cease to exist? Would marketing and media industries lose power and influence in a nation where citizens are better equipped to interpret and scrutinize data and claims of truth? Or do conditioned judgments make interaction more efficient even when untrue or misguided? These concerns precede the quest to define individualism, yet they’re wholly central to it because individualism consistently invokes implicit rejection of collective thought and “conformity.”[8]
[edit]Individualism vs. Conformity
When “individualism” is alleged to be adverse to “conformity,” the proposition renders both words functionally meaningless. Conformity, at base level and regarding human relations, describes action for which the intended outcome is some form of increased homogeneity. The word alone should carry no connotation; it’s merely an objective description and can apply to anything from standardized meal consumption times to hygiene expectations. It is impossible to imagine how an ideology, person or group could oppose such a general and naturally occurring concept; to do so would be to spew fanciful sanctimonious delusions.
Any comparison between conformity and individualism mistakenly elevates form over substance. Since human behavior is choreographed by the mind, actions become a proxy for criticism of a thought process, or lack thereof. Thus, the relevant criticisms miss the point and render themselves an embarrassment to the principles they purport to advocate.
Decisions to conform can be made in three ways: intentionally, after conscious thought (i.e. a desire to imitate); unintentionally, after conscious thought (i.e. a desire to act in a certain way that coincidentally imitates an existing way); or indifferently, after conscious thought (i.e. no desire to act, but inaction still amounts to conformity).
Criticism is most likely to be levied at intentional imitation, but this still amounts to hypocrisy as almost all human behavior is a form of imitation. To be valuable, criticism of “conformity” must delve significantly deeper; the only valid target of criticism is one’s reasoning process (not her actions), and the only acceptable argument is against one whose actions are detrimentally unreasoned despite choice and ability to reason. Observable action labeled as “conformity” tells us nothing about individualism in the same way that correlation tells us nothing about causation. The question should not be: “Are one's actions a conformist imitation?” The question should be: “Who or what is she imitating and why?” That question elicits true reflection on independent reasoning; it asks one to independently justify the standards she chooses to aspire to. Again, while one's observable choice may invite inference or assumption, the choice alone does not prove its reasons.[9]
[edit]Choice & Free Will
The essence of individualism is to choose one’s own standards, or ignore standards entirely, so long as that decision is well-reasoned. The alternative would be to place action before independent thought – to allow the standards of others to supply the reasons for one’s actions. This may suffice for anyone some of the time, but it should be fundamentally obvious that, for it to be a uniformly sound practice, one must be either inherently indifferent to the outcome of her actions or wholly dependent on another’s interpretation and value-judgment of the outcome. In this respect, one lives by the will and whim of another or by no will at all and is thus dangerously subject to persuasion given at least the minimum level of credible impetus that caused her to act in the first place.
One’s independent judgment reflects her will, her desires and her own reasoned valuations. Thus, only one’s independent judgment can or should command one’s actions if she seeks to be an individual rather than an employee of another’s desires.[10]

Philos-aphilos
"Philos-aphilos" (love-in-hate) is a vigorous force throughout the trilogy. All of the bloodshed throughout the play is “murder committed not against an external enemy but against a part of the self.” [4] This can be interpreted literally: Orestes slays his mother, his own flesh and blood; Aegisthus is Clytemnestra’s accomplice in the murder of his cousin Agamemnon.
“A part of the self” can also be interpreted more figuratively as a significant other, such as a spouse; thus, Clytemnestra’s feelings for Agamemnon are characterized as ‘philos-aphilos’ as well. As Richmond Lattimore defined it thus, “the hate gains intensity from the strength of the original love when that love has been stopped or rejected.” Clytemnestra’s love for Agamemnon has been quashed by his sacrifice of Iphigeneia and his return with Cassandra as a mistress. Likewise, Orestes’ sentiments toward his mother are intensified by anger at her murder of his father and resentment at the fact that she chose her lover over her children – essentially, they are “the price for which she bought herself this man.” These conflicting feelings are embodied in Clytemnestra’s dream about nursing the snake. [5]
Lattimore also draws a parallel between the Oresteia and Hamlet, suggesting that the sensation of ‘philos-aphilos’ engendered by Prince Hamlet’s emotional connections to his mother, Queen Gertrude, and to Ophelia, who are both on the side of King Claudius – himself a close blood relative who might have held Hamlet’s affection and regard before usurping the throne – are what make the play a tragedy. [6]


Catharsis (Κάθαρσις) is a Greek word meaning "purification" or "cleansing" derived from the ancient Greek gerund καθαίρειν transliterated as kathairein "to purify, purge," and adjective katharos "pure or clean" (ancient and modern Greek: καθαρός).
The term in drama refers to a sudden emotional climax that evokes overwhelming feelings of great sorrow, pity, laughter or any other extreme change in emotion, resulting in restoration, renewal and revitalization in members of the audience.
Using the term 'catharsis' to refer to a form of emotional cleansing was first done by the Greek philosopher Aristotle in his work Poetics. It refers to the sensation, or literary effect, that would ideally overcome an audience upon finishing watching a tragedy (a release of pent-up emotion or energy). In his previous works, he used the term in its medical sense (usually referring to the evacuation of the 'katamenia', the menstrual fluid or other reproductive material).[1] Because of this, F. L. Lucas maintains that catharsis cannot be properly translated as purification or cleansing, but only as purgation. Since before Poetics catharsis was purely a medical term, Aristotle is employing it as a medical metaphor. "It is the human soul that is purged of its excessive passions."[2] Lessing sidesteps the medical aspect of the issue and translates catharsis as a purification, an experience that brings pity and fear into their proper balance: "In real life, he explained, men are sometimes too much addicted to pity or fear, sometimes too little; tragedy brings them back to a virtuous and happy mean."[3] Tragedy is then a corrective; through watching tragedy the audience learns how to feel these emotions at the proper levels. Some modern interpreters of the work infer that catharsis is pleasurable because audience members felt ekstasis (Greek: ἔκστασις) (literally: astonishment, meaning: trance) from the fact that there existed those who could suffer a worse fate than them was to them a relief.[citation needed] Any translator attempting to interpret Aristotle's meaning of the term should take into account that Poetics is largely a response to Plato's claim that poetry encourages men to be hysterical and uncontrolled. In response to Plato, Aristotle maintains that poetry makes them less, not more, emotional, by giving a periodic and healthy outlet to their feelings.
In literary aesthetics, catharsis is developed by the conjunction of stereotyped characters and unique or surprising actions. Throughout a play we do not expect the nature of a character to change significantly, rather pre-existing elements are revealed in a relatively straight-forward way as the character is confronted with unique actions in time. This can be clearly seen in Oedipus Rex where King Oedipus is confronted with ever more outrageous actions until emptying generated by the death of his mother-wife and his act of self-blinding. As a literary effect, catharsis should be compared with the equivalent effects for epic and poetic forms of kairosis and kenosis.
In contemporary aesthetics catharsis may also refer to any emptying of emotion experienced by an audience in relation to drama. This exstasis can be perceived in comedy, melodrama and most other dramatic forms. Deliberate attempts, on political or aesthetic bases, to subvert the structure of catharsis in theatre have occurred. For example, Bertold Brecht viewed catharsis as a pap for the bourgeois theatre audience, and designed dramas which left significant emotions unresolved, as a way to force social action upon the audience. In Brecht's theory, the absence of a cathartic resolving action would require the audience to take political action in the real world in order to fill the emotional gap they experience. This technique can be seen as early as his agit-prop play The Measures Taken.

["Catharsis" before tragedy
Catharsis before the sixth-century rise of tragedy is, for the Western World, essentially a historical footnote to the Aristotelian conception. The practice of purification did not yet appear in Homer, as later Greek commentators noted:[4] the Aithiopis, an epic in the Trojan War cycle, narrates the purification of Achilles after his murder of Thersites. Catharsis describes the result of means taken to cleanse away blood-guilt—"blood is purified through blood" (Burkert 1992:56) a process in the development of Hellenic culture in which the oracle of Delphi took a prominent role. The classic example, of Orestes, belongs to tragedy, but the procedure given by Aeschylus is ancient: the blood of a sacrificed piglet is allowed to wash over the blood-polluted man, and running water washes away the blood.[5] The identical ritual is represented, Burkert informs us (1992:57) on a krater found at Canicattini, to cure the daughters of Proetus of their madness, caused by some ritual transgression. To the question of whether the ritual procures atonement or just healing, Burkert answers: "To raise the question is to see the irrelevance of this distinction" (1992:57). The Greek nosos embraces both physical sickness and social ills.


Interwoven Greek Plays:
Euripides:
1. Electra
2. Medea
3. The Trojan Women

Euripedes
from The Greek Way by Edith Hamilton

EURIPIDES "with all his faults the most tragic of the poets," said Aristotle, supreme among critics, whose claim to pronounce ever the final verdict has only of late been called into question. His judgment here points the latter-day attitude toward him: the great critic was wrong; he confused sadness and tragedy. Euripides is the saddest of the poets and for that very reason not the most tragic. A very great tragedian, beyond all question, one of the world's four greatest, to all of whom belongs that strangest power, so to present the spectacle of pain that we are lifted to what we truly call the height of tragedy.

Euripides can indeed walk "those heights exalted" but the dark depths of pain are what he knows best. He is "the poet of the world's grief." He feels, as no other writer has felt, the pitifulness of human life, as of children suffering helplessly what they do not know and can never understand. No poet's ear has ever been so sensitively attuned as his to the still, sad music of humanity, a strain little heeded by that world of long ago. And together with that, something then even more unheeded, the sense of the value of each individual human being. He alone of all the classic world so felt. It is an amazing phenomenon. Out of the pages written more than twenty-three hundred years ago sound the two notes which we feel are the dominants in our world to-day, sympathy with suffering and the conviction of the worth of everyone alive. A poet of the antique world speaks to us and we hear what seems peculiarly our own.

There is an order of mind which is perpetually modern. All those possessed of it are akin, no matter how great the lapse of time that separates them. When Professor Murray's translations made Euripides popular in the early years of this century, what impressed people first of all was his astonishing modernity: he seemed to be speaking the very accent of l900. Today another generation who have little care for the brightest stars of those years, George Meredith, Henry James, any or all of the great later Victorians, read Euripides as belonging to them. So the younger generation in 400 B.C. felt, and so will they feel in many a century to come. Always those in the vanguard of their time find in Euripides an expression of their own spirit. He is the great exponent of the forever recurring modern mind.

This spirit, always in the world and always the same, is primarily a destructive spirit, critical not creative. "The life without criticism," Plato says, "is not worthy to be lived." The modern minds in each generation are the critics who preserve us from a petrifying world, who will not leave us to walk undisturbed in the ways of our fathers. The established order is always wrong to them. But there is criticism and criticism. Cynical criticism is totally opposed to the temper of the modern mind. The wise king who looked upon all the works that his hands had wrought and on all the labor that he had labored to do, and beheld that all was vanity and vexation of spirit, was not a modern mind. To read Ecclesiastes is to feel, "This is what men have always thought at times and will always think"; it never carries the conviction, "This, just this is modern. It is the new note of to-day." The same is true of Voltaire, that other wisest man and greatest critic, whose mighty pen shook the old unhappy things of his day until their foundations gave way. He is not a modern mind. His attitude, given in brief by his "Je ne sais pas ce que c'est que la vie Èternelle, mais celle-ci est une mauvaise plaisanterie" [I don't know about the eternal life, but this one here is a bad joke] is of another order. His is the critical intellect, directed upon human affairs but quite separated from "the human heart all ages live by," and that is a separation the modern-minded know nothing of.

Above all, they care for human life and human things and can never stand aloof from them. They suffer for mankind, and what preoccupies them is the problem of pain. They are peculiarly sensitized to "the giant agony of the world." What they see as needless misery around them and what they envisage as needless misery to come is intolerable to them. The world to them is made up of individuals, each with a terrible power to suffer, and the poignant pity of their own hearts precludes them from any philosophy in the face of this awful sum of pain and any capacity to detach themselves from it. They behold, first and foremost, that most sorrowful thing on earth, injustice, and they are driven by it to a passion of revolt. Convention, so often a mask for injustice, they will have none of; in their pursuit of justice at any cost they tear away veils that hide hateful things; they call into question all pleasant and comfortable things. They are not of those who take "all life as their province"; what is good in the age they live in they do not regard; their eyes are fixed upon what is wrong. And yet they never despair. They are rebels, fighters. They will never accept defeat. It is this fact that gives them their profound influence, the fact that they who see so deep into wrong and misery and feel them so intolerable, never conclude the defeat of the mind of man.

................................

He [Euripedes] was, the stories that have come down about him say, an unhappy man. He withdrew from the world and lived the life of a recluse in his library; "gloomy, unsmiling, averse to society," duns an ancient description of him. A misanthrope, they said, who preferred books to men. Never was a judgment less true. He fled from the world of men because he cared for men too much. He could not bear the poignant pity of his own heart. His life had fallen on unhappy times. As final defeat drew ever nearer, Athens grew terrified, fierce, cruel. And Euripides had a double burden to carry, the sensitiveness of a great poet and the aching pity of a modern mind. How could such a one endure to come into contact with what his city had learned to tolerate and to commend? One thing alone to help her he had been fitted to do: he could so write as to show the hideousness of cruelty and men's fierce passions, and the piteousness of suffering, weak, and wicked human beings, and move men thereby to the compassion which they were learning to forget.

On these two scores it is easy to explain what at first sight seems puzzling, his great unpopularity in his lifetime and his unexampled popularity shortly after his death. Only five of his plays were awarded a first prize, whereas Sophocles gained over twenty. Aristophanes has good words for Aeschylus and higher praise for Sophocles but nothing is too bad for him to say about Euripides. The modern mind is never popular in its own day. People hate being made to think, above all upon fundamental problems. Sophocles touched with the radiant glory of sublime poetry the figures of the ancient gods, and the Athenians went home from his plays with the pleasing conviction that old things were right. But Euripides was the arch-heretic, miserably disturbing, never willing to leave a man comfortably ensconced in his favorite convictions and prejudices. Prizes were not for such as he. And yet, very soon after his death, the verdict swung far to the other side and extraordinary tales of the way he was loved by all manner of men have come down to us.

The dogmatisms of each age wear out. Statements of absolute truth grow thin, show gaps, are discarded. The heterodoxy of one generation is the orthodoxy of the next. The ultimate critique of pure reason is that its results do not endure. Euripides' assaults upon the superstructure of religion were forgotten; what men remembered and came to him for was the pitying understanding of their own suffering selves in a strange world of pain, and the courage to tear down old wrongs and never give up seeking for new things that should be good. And generation after generation since have placed him securely with those very few great artists

Who feel the giant agony of the world, And more, like slaves to poor humanity, Labor for mortal good .


Electra
Years before, near the start of the Trojan War, the Greek general Agamemnon sacrificed his daughter Iphigeneia in order to appease the goddess Artemis and allow the Greek army to set sail for Troy. His wife Clytemnestra never forgave him, and when he returned from the war ten years later, she and her lover Aegisthus murdered Agamemnon.
Their daughter Electra was married off to a farmer, amidst fears that if she remained in the royal household and wed a nobleman, their children would be more likely to try to avenge Agamemnon's death. Although the man is kind to her and has taken advantage of neither her family name nor her virginity, Electra resents being cast out of her house and her mother's loyalty to Aegisthus. Agamemnon and Clytemnestra's son, Orestes, was taken out of the country and put under the care of the king of Phocis, where he became friends with the king's son Pylades.

[edit]Plot
Now grown, Orestes and his companion Pylades travel to Argos, hoping for revenge, and end up at the house of Electra and her husband. They have concealed their identities in order to get information, claiming that they are messengers from Orestes, but the aged servant who smuggled Orestes off to Phocis years before recognizes him by a scar, and the siblings are reunited. Electra is eager to help her brother in bringing down Clytemnestra and Aegisthus, and they conspire together.
While the old servant goes to lure Clytemnestra to Electra's house by telling her that her daughter has had a baby, Orestes sets off and kills Aegisthus and returns with the body. His resolve begins to waver at the prospect of matricide but Electra coaxes him into going through with it. When Clytemnestra arrives, he and Electra kill her by pushing a sword down her throat (which is only recounted and not shown), leaving both feeling oppressive guilt. At the end, Clytemnestra's deified brothers Castor and Polydeuces (often called the Dioscuri) appear. They tell Electra and Orestes that their mother received just punishment but that their matricide was still a shameful act, and they instruct the siblings on what they must do to atone and purge their souls of the crime.

[edit]Aeschylean parody and Homeric allusion
The enduring popularity of Aeschylus' Oresteia trilogy (produced in 458) is evident in Euripides' construction of the recognition scene between Orestes and Electra. In The Libation Bearers (whose plot is roughly equivalent to the events in the Electra), Electra recognizes her brother by a series of tokens: a lock of his hair, a footprint he leaves at Agamemnon's grave, and an article of clothing she had made for him years earlier. Euripides' own recognition scene clearly parodies Aeschylus' account. In Euripides' play (510ff.), Electra laughs at the idea of using such tokens to recognize her brother because: there is no reason their hair should match; Orestes' footprint would in no way resemble her smaller footprint; and it would be illogical for a grown Orestes to still have a piece of clothing made for him when he was a small child.
Orestes is instead recognized from a scar he received on the forehead while chasing a doe in the house as a child (571-74). This is a mock-heroic allusion to a scene from Homer's Odyssey. In Odyssey 19.428-54, the nurse Eurycleia recognizes a newly returned Odysseus from a scar on his thigh that he received as a child while on his first boar hunt. In the Odyssey, Orestes' return to Argos and taking revenge for his father's death is held up several times as a model for Telemachus' behavior (see Telemachy). Euripides in turn uses his recognition scene to allude to the one in Odyssey 19. Instead of an epic heroic boar hunt, Euripides instead invents a semi-comic incident involving a fawn.[1]


Medea
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This article is about the Greek mythological figure. For other meanings, see Medea (disambiguation).

Medea by Evelyn De Morgan.
Medea (Greek: Μήδεια) in Greek mythology was the daughter of King Aeëtes of Colchis, niece of Circe, granddaughter of the sun Helios, and later wife to Jason. In Euripides' play Medea, Jason leaves Medea when Creon, King of Corinth offers him his daughter. The play tells the story of the jealousy and revenge of a woman betrayed by her husband.
The myths involving Jason also invoke Medea. These have been interpreted by specialists, principally in the past, as part of a class of myths that tell how the Hellenes of the distant heroic age, before the Trojan War, faced the challenges of the pre-Greek "Pelasgian" cultures of mainland Greece, and the Aegean and Anatolia. Jason, Perseus, Theseus, and above all Heracles, are all "liminal" figures, poised on the threshold between the old world of shamans, chthonic earth deities, archaic matriarchies, and the Great Goddess and the new Bronze Age Greek ways.
Medea figures in the myth of Jason and the Argonauts, a myth known best from a late literary version worked up by Apollonius of Rhodes in the 3rd century B.C. and called the Argonautica. But for all its self-consciousness and researched archaic vocabulary, the late epic was based on very old, scattered materials. Medea is known in most stories as an enchantress and is often depicted as being a priestess of Hecate or a witch. The myth of Jason and Medea is very old, originally written around the time Hesiod wrote the Theogony. It was discussed briefly in the work Little Illiad from the 6th century B.C.
Contents


Media, 1868 painting by Anthony Frederick Augustus Sandys"
Medea's role began after Jason arrived from Iolcus to Colchis to claim the Golden Fleece as his own. Medea fell in love with him and promised to help him, but only on the condition that if he succeeded, he would take her with him and marry her. Jason agreed. In a familiar mythic motif, Aeëtes promised to give him the fleece, but only if he could perform certain tasks. First, Jason had to plough a field with fire-breathing oxen that he had to yoke himself. Then, Jason had to sow the teeth of a dragon in the ploughed field (compare the myth of Cadmus). The teeth sprouted into an army of warriors. Jason was forewarned by Medea, however, and knew to throw a rock into the crowd. Unable to determine where the rock had come from, the soldiers attacked and defeated each other. Finally, Aeëtes made Jason fight and kill the sleepless dragon that guarded the fleece. Medea put the beast to sleep with her narcotic herbs. Jason then took the fleece and sailed away with Medea, as he had promised. (Some accounts say that Medea only helped Jason in the first place because Hera had convinced Aphrodite or Eros to cause Medea to fall in love with him.) Medea distracted her father as they fled by killing her brother Absyrtus. In some versions, Medea is said to have dismembered his body and scattered his parts on an island, knowing her father would stop to retrieve them for proper burial; in other versions, it is Absyrtus himself who pursued them, and was killed by Jason. During the flight, Atalanta was seriously wounded, but Medea healed her.
According to some versions, Medea and Jason stopped on her aunt Circe's island so that they could be cleansed after the murder of her brother, relieving her of blame for the deed.

Jason et Médée by Gustave Moreau (1865).
On the way back to Thessaly, Medea prophesied that Euphemus, the Argo's helmsman, would one day rule over all Libya. This came true through Battus, a descendant of Euphemus.
The Argo then reached the island of Crete, guarded by the bronze man, Talos (Talus). Talos had one vein which went from his neck to his ankle, bound shut by a single bronze nail. According to Apollodorus, Talos was slain either when Medea drove him mad with drugs, deceived him that she would make him immortal by removing the nail, or was killed by Poeas's arrow (Apollodorus 1.140). In the Argonautica, Medea hypnotized him from the Argo, driving him mad so that he dislodged the nail and died (Argonautica 4.1638). In any case, when the nail was removed, Talos's ichor flowed out, exsanguinating and killing him. After his death, the Argo landed.
While Jason searched for the Golden Fleece, Hera, who was still angry at Pelias, conspired to make him fall in love with Medea, who she hoped would kill Pelias. When Jason and Medea returned to Iolcus, Pelias still refused to give up his throne. Medea conspired to have Pelias' own daughters kill him. She told them she could turn an old ram into a young ram by cutting up the old ram and boiling it (alternatively, she did this with Aeson, Jason's father). During the demonstration, a live, young ram jumped out of the pot. Excited, the girls cut their father into pieces and threw them into a pot. Having killed Pelias, Jason and Medea fled to Corinth.
[edit]Many endings
In Corinth, according to ancient historian Didimos, the Corinthian King Creon convinced Jason to desert Medea for Glauce, Creon's daughter. Medea slew Creon and fled to Thebes, but was forced to leave her children behind in Corinth, where they were later killed by Creon's family in revenge.
Alternatively, Jason is sometimes said to have married Glauce of his own volition, whereupon the evil Medea bewitched a robe with magic herbs and sent it to the princess as a gift. When Glauce put it on, the garment immediately caught fire and burned her to death. Medea then killed her own children by Jason and escaped in a chariot sent by either Helios, god of the sun or Hecate, who is said by some to be Medea's mother.

Medea by Eugène Ferdinand Victor Delacroix (1862).
The tragic situation of Medea, abandoned in Corinth by Jason, was the subject matter transformed by Euripides in his tragedy Medea, first performed in 431 BCE. In this telling, Medea resorted to filicide before her flight to Athens. Euripides was revolutionary in his retelling of Medea's myth because he was the first one to show that she hadn't killed her children because she was mad or a barbarian, but because she was extremely distressed and furious at Jason for leaving her to marry a princess.[citation needed] Fueled by a need for revenge, she sent Glauce a poisoned dress and crown that burned her to death. Creon found her corpse and clutched it in mourning, crying, "Let me die as well." The dress was poisoned so as to kill anyone who touched the girl. It killed him as well. After some hesitation and self-debate, Medea then killed her two sons, Mermeros and Pheres, to hurt Jason. Some contemporary critics of Euripides accused him of accepting a gift of five Attic talents, a huge sum, by wealthy Corinthians who wanted no part of the blame for the children's death.[citation needed]
Fleeing from Jason, Medea made her way to Athens where she healed Heracles (the former Argonaut) for the murder of Iphitus. In return, Heracles gave her a place to stay in Thebes until the Thebans drove her out in anger, despite Heracles' protests.
She then fled to Athens where she met and married Aegeus. They had one son, Medus, although Hesiod makes Medus the son of Jason[1]. Her domestic bliss was once again shattered by the arrival of Aegeus' long-lost son, Theseus. Determined to preserve her own son's inheritance, Medea convinced her husband that Theseus was a threat and that he should be disposed of. As Medea handed Theseus a cup of poison, Aegeus recognized the young man's sword as his own, which he had left behind many years previous for his newborn son, to be given to him when he came of age. Knocking the cup from Medea's hand, Aegeus embraced Theseus as his own.
Medea then returned to Colchis and, finding that Aeëtes had been deposed by his brother, promptly killed her uncle, and restored the kingdom to her father. Herodotus reports another version, in which Medea and her son Medus fled from Athens to the Iranian plateau and lived among the Aryans, who then changed their name to the Medes.[2]
Some say Medea married Achilles in the underworld. In another version of her legend, Zeus tried to court her but failed; for being the only mortal to ever successfully resist him, she was granted immortality by Zeus' wife, Hera.
Confusion sometimes occurs among readers of Greek mythology over whether there were two Medeas and/or what order events in her story occur. Supposedly Medea lived her whole life in Colchis until the Argonauts arrived and she fled to Greece with them. Yet Theseus (who is often listed among the Argonauts) supposedly drove Medea out of Thebes during his first heroic quest. Medea could not have been in Thebes until after the Quest for the Golden Fleece, yet, if Theseus was an Argonaut, the Quest could not have occurred until after Theseus drove Medea out of Thebes. This could be considered a continuity error which might naturally arise from dozens or hundreds of different poets telling different stories using the same characters, or it could be explained away as there being two different witches named Medea. Furthermore, Theseus is not listed as an Argonaut in some versions of the story.


The Trojan Women
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The Trojan Women

An engraving of the death of Astyanax
Written by
Euripides
Chorus
Trojan women
Characters
Hecuba
Cassandra
Andromache
Talthybius
Menelaus
Helen
Poseidon
Athena
Setting
Near the walls of Troy
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The Trojan Women (in Greek: Τρωάδες, Trōades) is a tragedy by the Greek playwright Euripides. Produced during the Peloponnesian War, it is often considered a commentary on the capture of the Aegean island of Melos and the subsequent slaughter and subjugation of its populace by the Athenians earlier in 415 BC (see Milos), the same year the play premiered. 415 BC was also the year of the scandalous desecration of the hermai and the Athenians' second expedition to Sicily, events which may also have influenced the author.
The Trojan Women was the third tragedy of a trilogy of dealing with the Trojan War. The first tragedy, Alexandros, was about the recognition of the Trojan prince Paris who had been abandoned in infancy by his parents and rediscovered in adulthood. The second tragedy, Palamedes, dealt with Greek mistreatment of their fellow Greek Palamedes. This trilogy was presented at the Dionysia along with the comedic satyr play Sisyphos. The plots of this trilogy were not connected in the way that Aeschylus' Oresteia was connected. Such connected trilogies were not favored by Euripides.
Euripides did not win the drama competition at the Dionysia festival with this trilogy in 415 BC, and was beaten by the playwright Xenocles.
The four Trojan women of the play are the same that appear in the final chapter of the Iliad lamenting over the corpse of Hector. Taking place near the same time is Hecuba, another play by Euripides.
Contents
Plot
Hecuba: Alas! Alas! Alas! Ilium is ablaze; the fire consumes the citadel, the roofs of our city, the tops of the walls!
Chorus: Like smoke blown to heaven on the wings of the wind, our country, our conquered country, perishes. Its palaces are overrun by the fierce flames and the murderous spear.
Hecuba: O land that reared my children!
Euripides' play follows the fates of the women of Troy after their city has been sacked, their husbands killed, and as their remaining families are about to be taken away as slaves. However, it begins first with the gods Athena and Poseidon discussing ways to punish the Greek armies because they condoned Ajax the Lesser for dragging Cassandra away from Athena's temple. (From some ancient Greek paintings many people believe Cassandra was raped by Ajax the Lesser, but it does not say that in this story.) What follows shows how much the Trojan women have suffered as their grief is compounded when the Greeks dole out additional deaths and divide their shares of women.
The Greek herald Talthybius arrives to tell the dethroned queen Hecuba what will befall her and her children. Hecuba will be taken away with the Greek general Odysseus, and her daughter Cassandra is slated to become the conquering general Agamemnon's concubine. Cassandra, who has been driven partially mad due to a curse by which she can see the future but will never be believed when she warns others, is morbidly delighted by this news: she sees that when they arrive in Argos, her new master's embittered wife Clytemnestra will kill both her and her new master. However, because of the curse, no one understands this response, and Cassandra is carried off.
The widowed princess Andromache arrives, and Hecuba learns from her that her youngest daughter, Polyxena, has been killed as a sacrifice at the tomb of the Greek warrior Achilles.
Andromache's lot is to be the concubine of Achilles' son Neoptolemus, and more horrible news for the royal family is yet to come: Talthybius reluctantly informs her that her young son, Astyanax, has been condemned to die. The Greek leaders are afraid that the boy will grow up to avenge his father Hector, and rather than take this chance, they plan to throw him off from the battlements of Troy to his death.
Helen, though not one of the Trojan women, is supposed to suffer greatly as well: Menelaus arrives to take her back to Greece with him where a death sentence awaits her. Helen begs her husband to spare her life and he remains resolved to kill her, but the audience watching the play knows that in the Odyssey, Telemachus will learn how Helen's legendary beauty wins her a reprieve.
In the end, Talthybius returns carrying with him the body of little Astyanax on Hector's shield. Andromache's wish had been to bury her child herself, performing the proper rituals according to Trojan ways, but her ship had already departed. Talthybius gives the corpse to Hecuba, who prepares the body for burial before they are finally taken off with Odysseus.
Throughout the play, many of the Trojan women lament the loss of the land that reared them. Hecuba in particular lets it be known that Troy had been her home for her entire life, only to see herself as an old grandmother watching the burning of Troy, the death of her husband, her children, and her grandchildren before she will be taken as a slave to Odysseus.

[edit]Treatment of the play in modern times
Jean-Paul Sartre wrote a version that remains largely faithful to the original text. It adds veiled references to European imperialism in Asia and minor emphasis on common existentialist themes.
Greek director Michael Cacoyannis used Euripides' play (in the famous Edith Hamilton translation) as the basis for his 1971 film The Trojan Women (IMDB profile. The movie starred American actress Katharine Hepburn as Hecuba, British actors Vanessa Redgrave and Brian Blessed as Andromache and Talthybius, French-Canadian actress Geneviève Bujold as Cassandra, Greek actress Irene Papas as Helen, and Patrick Magee, an actor born in Northern Ireland, as Menelaus.
A musical version of The Trojan Women was produced for the youth theatre at the studio of the Thorndike Theatre in Leatherhead in 1983 , directed by Stanley Morris and with original music and lyrics by Maurice Chernick.
Another movie based on the play came out in 2004, directed by Brad Mays.
Trojan Women: The Musical is a modern take on the play, set in the 1920s. It was written by Gareth Hides and Gavin Thatcher, with additional music by Nick Jeavons. The musical was first performed at King Edward VI College, Stourbridge and was revived almost a year later at the Tettenhall Towers Theatre.
Charles Mee adapted The Trojan Women to have a more modern, updated outlook on war. He included original interviews with Holocaust and Hiroshima survivors. His play is called The Trojan Women 2.0.
Trojan Women, directed by Antonis Antypas and with music by Eleni Karaindrou, premiered at the Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus on August 31 and September 1, 2001.
Trojan Women was performed at Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 1999 with then unknown actor Orlando Bloom as Menelaus King of Sparta whom Helen left for Paris of Troy. Bloom later went on to star as Paris in the 2004 movie Troy.
Women of Troy, directed by Katie Mitchell, was performed at the National Theatre in London in 2007-8.


Sophacles
1. Oedipus The King
2. Oedipus at Colonus
3. Antigone


Oedipus the King
A plague has stricken Thebes. The citizens gather outside the palace of their king, Oedipus, asking him to take action. Oedipus replies that he already sent his brother-in-law, Creon, to the Oracle at Delphi to learn how to help the city. Creon returns with a message from the Oracle: the plague will end when the murderer of Laius, former king of Thebes, is caught and expelled; the murderer is within the city. Oedipus questions Creon about the murder of Laius, who was killed by thieves on his way to consult an oracle. Only one of his fellow travelers escaped alive. Oedipus promises to solve the mystery of Laius’s death, vowing to curse and drive out the murderer.
Oedipus sends for Tiresias, the blind prophet, and asks him what he knows about the murder. Tiresias responds cryptically, lamenting his ability to see the truth when the truth brings nothing but pain. At first he refuses to tell Oedipus what he knows. Oedipus curses and insults the old man, going so far as to accuse him of the murder. These taunts provoke Tiresias into revealing that Oedipus himself is the murderer. Oedipus naturally refuses to believe Tiresias’s accusation. He accuses Creon and Tiresias of conspiring against his life, and charges Tiresias with insanity. He asks why Tiresias did nothing when Thebes suffered under a plague once before. At that time, a Sphinx held the city captive and refused to leave until someone answered her riddle. Oedipus brags that he alone was able to solve the puzzle. Tiresias defends his skills as a prophet, noting that Oedipus’s parents found him trustworthy. At this mention of his parents, Oedipus, who grew up in the distant city of Corinth, asks how Tiresias knew his parents. But Tiresias answers enigmatically. Then, before leaving the stage, Tiresias puts forth one last riddle, saying that the murderer of Laius will turn out to be both father and brother to his own children, and the son of his own wife.
After Tiresias leaves, Oedipus threatens Creon with death or exile for conspiring with the prophet. Oedipus’s wife, Jocasta (also the widow of King Laius), enters and asks why the men shout at one another. Oedipus explains to Jocasta that the prophet has charged him with Laius’s murder, and Jocasta replies that all prophecies are false. As proof, she notes that the Delphic oracle once told Laius he would be murdered by his son, when in fact his son was cast out of Thebes as a baby, and Laius was murdered by a band of thieves. Her description of Laius’s murder, however, sounds familiar to Oedipus, and he asks further questions. Jocasta tells him that Laius was killed at a three-way crossroads, just before Oedipus arrived in Thebes. Oedipus, stunned, tells his wife that he may be the one who murdered Laius. He tells Jocasta that, long ago, when he was the prince of Corinth, he overheard someone mention at a banquet that he was not really the son of the king and queen. He therefore traveled to the Oracle of Delphi, who did not answer him but did tell him he would murder his father and sleep with his mother. Hearing this, Oedipus fled his home, never to return. It was then, on the journey that would take him to Thebes, that Oedipus was confronted and harassed by a group of travelers, whom he killed in self-defense. This skirmish occurred at the very crossroads where Laius was killed.

Oedipus sends for the man who survived the attack, a shepherd, in the hope that he will not be identified as the murderer. Outside the palace, a messenger approaches Jocasta and tells her that he has come from Corinth to inform Oedipus that his father, Polybus, is dead, and that Corinth has asked Oedipus to come and rule there in his place. Jocasta rejoices, convinced that Polybus’s death from natural causes has disproved the prophecy that Oedipus would murder his father. At Jocasta’s summons, Oedipus comes outside, hears the news, and rejoices with her. He now feels much more inclined to agree with the queen in deeming prophecies worthless and viewing chance as the principle governing the world. But while Oedipus finds great comfort in the fact that one-half of the prophecy has been disproved, he still fears the other half—the half that claimed he would sleep with his mother.
The messenger remarks that Oedipus need not worry, because Polybus and his wife, Merope, are not Oedipus’s biological parents. The messenger, a shepherd by profession, knows firsthand that Oedipus came to Corinth as an orphan. One day long ago, he was tending his sheep when another shepherd approached him carrying a baby, its ankles pinned together. The messenger took the baby to the royal family of Corinth, and they raised him as their own. That baby was Oedipus. Oedipus asks who the other shepherd was, and the messenger answers that he was a servant of Laius.
Oedipus asks that this shepherd be brought forth to testify, but Jocasta, beginning to suspect the truth, begs her husband not to seek more information. She runs back into the palace. The shepherd then enters. Oedipus interrogates him, asking who gave him the baby. The shepherd refuses to disclose anything, and Oedipus threatens him with torture. Finally, he answers that the child came from the house of Laius. Questioned further, he answers that the baby was in fact the child of Laius himself, and that it was Jocasta who gave him the infant, ordering him to kill it, as it had been prophesied that the child would kill his parents. But the shepherd pitied the child, and decided that the prophecy could be avoided just as well if the child were to grow up in a foreign city, far from his true parents. The shepherd therefore passed the boy on to the shepherd in Corinth.
Realizing who he is and who his parents are, Oedipus screams that he sees the truth and flees back into the palace. The shepherd and the messenger slowly exit the stage. A second messenger enters and describes scenes of suffering. Jocasta has hanged herself, and Oedipus, finding her dead, has pulled the pins from her robe and stabbed out his own eyes. Oedipus now emerges from the palace, bleeding and begging to be exiled. He asks Creon to send him away from Thebes and to look after his daughters, Antigone and Ismene. Creon, covetous of royal power, is all too happy to oblige.
Aeschylus


Oedipus at Colonus
After years of wandering in exile from Thebes, Oedipus arrives in a grove outside Athens. Blind and frail, he walks with the help of his daughter, Antigone. Oedipus and Antigone learn from a citizen that they are standing on holy ground, reserved for the Eumenides, goddesses of fate. Oedipus sends the citizen to fetch Theseus, the king of Athens and its surroundings. Oedipus tells Antigone that, earlier in his life, when Apollo prophesied his doom, the god promised Oedipus that he would come to rest on this ground.
After an interlude in which Oedipus tells the Chorus who he is, Oedipus’s second daughter, Ismene, enters, having gone to learn news from Apollo’s oracle at Delphi. She tells him that, back in Thebes, Oedipus’s younger son, Eteocles, has overthrown Polynices, the elder, and that Polynices is now amassing troops in Argos for an attack on his brother and on Creon, who rules along with Eteocles. The oracle has predicted that the burial place of Oedipus will bring good fortune to the city in which it is located, and both sons, as well as Creon, know of this prophecy. Both Polynices and Creon are currently en route to try to take Oedipus into custody and thus claim the right to bury him in their kingdoms. Oedipus swears he will never give his support to either of his sons, for they did nothing to prevent his exile years ago.
King Theseus arrives and says that he pities Oedipus for the fate that has befallen him, and he asks how he can help Oedipus. Oedipus asks Theseus to harbor him in Athens until his death, but warns that by doing him this favor, Theseus will incur the wrath of Thebes. Despite the warning, Theseus agrees to help Oedipus.
Creon appears in order to abduct Oedipus, but, proving unsuccessful, he kidnaps Antigone and Ismene instead. Theseus promises Oedipus that he will get his daughters back. Theseus does in fact return with Oedipus’s daughters shortly.
Soon after, Polynices arrives, seeking his father’s favor in order to gain custody of his eventual burial site. Oedipus asks Theseus to drive Polynices away, but Antigone convinces her father to listen to his son. Polynices tells Oedipus that he never condoned his exile, and that Eteocles is the bad son, having bribed the men of Thebes to turn against Polynices. Oedipus responds with a terrible curse, upbraiding his son for letting him be sent into exile, and predicting that Eteocles and Polynices will die at one another’s hands. Polynices, realizing he will never win his father’s support, turns to his sisters. He asks that they provide him with a proper burial should he die in battle. Antigone embraces Polynices, saying that he is condemning himself to death, but he resolutely says that his life remains in the hands of the gods. He prays for the safety of his sisters and then leaves for Thebes.
Terrible thunder sounds, and the Chorus cries out in horror. Oedipus says that his time of death has come. Sending for Theseus, he tells the king he must carry out certain rites on his body, and that by doing so he may assure divine protection to his city. Theseus says that he believes Oedipus and asks what to do. Oedipus answers that he will lead the king to the place where he will die, and that Theseus must never reveal that spot, but pass it on to his son at his own death, who in turn must pass it on to his own son. In this way Theseus and his heirs may always rule over a safe city. Oedipus then strides off with a sudden strength, taking his daughters and Theseus to his grave.
A messenger enters to narrate the mysterious death of Oedipus: his death seemed a disappearance of sorts, “the lightless depths of Earth bursting open in kindness to receive him” (1886–1887). Just as the messenger finishes his story, Antigone and Ismene come onstage, chanting a dirge. Antigone wails that they will cry for Oedipus for as long as they live. Not knowing where to go now, Antigone says they will have to wander forever alone. Theseus returns to the stage, asking the daughters to stop their weeping. They plead to see their father’s tomb, but Theseus insists that Oedipus has forbidden it. They give up their pleas but ask for safe passage back to Thebes, so that they may prevent a war between their brothers. Theseus grants them this, and the Chorus tells the girls to stop their weeping, for all rests in the hands of the gods. Theseus and the Chorus exit toward Athens; Antigone and Ismene head for Thebes.


Antigone
Antigone and Ismene, the daughters of Oedipus, discuss the disaster that has just befallen them. Their brothers Polynices and Eteocles have killed one another in a battle for control over Thebes. Creon now rules the city, and he has ordered that Polynices, who brought a foreign army against Thebes, not be allowed proper burial rites. Creon threatens to kill anyone who tries to bury Polynices and stations sentries over his body. Antigone, in spite of Creon’s edict and without the help of her sister Ismene, resolves to give their brother a proper burial. Soon, a nervous sentry arrives at the palace to tell Creon that, while the sentries slept, someone gave Polynices burial rites. Creon says that he thinks some of the dissidents of the city bribed the sentry to perform the rites, and he vows to execute the sentry if no other suspect is found.

The sentry soon exonerates himself by catching Antigone in the act of attempting to rebury her brother, the sentries having disinterred him. Antigone freely confesses her act to Creon and says that he himself defies the will of the gods by refusing Polynices burial. Creon condemns both Antigone and Ismene to death. Haemon, Creon’s son and Antigone’s betrothed, enters the stage. Creon asks him his opinion on the issue. Haemon seems at first to side with his father, but gradually admits his opposition to Creon’s stubbornness and petty vindictiveness. Creon curses him and threatens to slay Antigone before his very eyes. Haemon storms out. Creon decides to pardon Ismene, but vows to kill Antigone by walling her up alive in a tomb.
The blind prophet Tiresias arrives, and Creon promises to take whatever advice he gives. Tiresias advises that Creon allow Polynices to be buried, but Creon refuses. Tiresias predicts that the gods will bring down curses upon the city. The words of Tiresias strike fear into the hearts of Creon and the people of Thebes, and Creon reluctantly goes to free Antigone from the tomb where she has been imprisoned. But his change of heart comes too late. A messenger enters and recounts the tragic events: Creon and his entourage first gave proper burial to Polynices, then heard what sounded like Haemon’s voice wailing from Antigone’s tomb. They went in and saw Antigone hanging from a noose, and Haemon raving. Creon’s son then took a sword and thrust it at his father. Missing, he turned the sword against himself and died embracing Antigone’s body. Creon’s wife, Eurydice, hears this terrible news and rushes away into the palace. Creon enters, carrying Haemon’s body and wailing against his own tyranny, which he knows has caused his son’s death. The messenger tells Creon that he has another reason to grieve: Eurydice has stabbed herself, and, as she died, she called down curses on her husband for the misery his pride had caused. Creon kneels and prays that he, too, might die. His guards lead him back into the palace.

Aeschylus
1. Agamemnon
2. The Libation Bearers
3. The Eumenides

Agamemnon

"The Murder of Agamemnon" by Pierre-Narcisse Guérin
Written by
Aeschylus
Chorus
Elders of Argos
Characters
watchman
Clytemnestra
herald
Agamemnon
messenger
Cassandra
Aegisthus
soldiers
servants
Setting
Argos, before the royal palace
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[edit]Introduction
Agamemnon details the homecoming of Agamemnon, King of Argos, from the Trojan War. Waiting at home for him is his wife, Clytemnestra, who has been planning his murder as revenge for the sacrifice of their daughter, Iphigenia. Furthermore, in the ten years of Agamemnon's absence, Clytemnestra has entered into an adulterous relationship with Aegisthus, Agamemnon's cousin and the scion of a dispossessed branch of the family, who is determined to regain the throne he believes should rightfully belong to him
[edit]Storyline
The play opens to Clytemnestra awaiting the return of her husband, having been told that the mountaintop beacons have given the sign that Troy has fallen. Though she pretends to love her husband, she is furious that he sacrificed their daughter, Iphigenia. This is not made clear here, but it would have been familiar to the audience. A servant stands on top of the roof, reporting that he has been crouching there "like a dog" (kunos diken) for years, "under the instruction of a man-hearted woman". He laments the fortunes of the house, but promises to keep silent: "A huge ox has stepped onto my tongue." However, when Agamemnon returns, he brings with him Cassandra, an enslaved Trojan princess, as his concubine. This serves to anger Clytemnestra further.
The main action of the play is the agon between Clytemnestra and Agamemnon. She attempts to persuade Agamemnon to step on a purple (sometimes red) tapestry or carpet to walk into their home. The problem is that this would indicate hubris on Agamemnon's part, and he does not wish to do this. Eventually, for reasons that are still heavily debated, Clytemnestra does convince Agamemnon to cross the purple tapestry to enter the oikos, where she kills him in the bath: she ensnares him in a robe and as he struggles to free himself she hacks him with three strokes of a pelekus. Agamemnon is murdered in much the same way an animal is killed for sacrifice with three blows, the last strike accompanied by a prayer to a god.
Whilst Clytemnestra and Agamemnon are offstage, Cassandra starts discussing with the chorus whether or not she ought to enter the palace, knowing that she too will be murdered. Cassandra has been cursed by Apollo for rejecting his advances. She has the gift of clairvoyance, but the curse means that no one who hears her prophesies believes them. In Cassandra's speech, she runs through many gruesome images of the history of the House of Atreus as if she had been a witness of them, and eventually chooses to enter the house knowing that she cannot do anything to avoid her fate. The chorus, in this play a group of the elders of Argos, hear the death screams of Agamemnon, and frantically debate on a course of action.
A platform is soon rolled out displaying the gruesome dead bodies of Agamemnon and Cassandra, along with Clytemnestra, who attempts to explain her action. Later, Aegisthus struts out and delivers an arrogant speech to the chorus, who nearly enter into a brawl with Aegisthus and his henchmen. However, Clytemnestra halts the dispute, saying that "There is pain enough already. Let us not be bloody now." The play closes with the chorus reminding the usurpers that Orestes, the son of Agamemnon, will surely return to exact vengeance.

[edit]The Libation Bearers
The Libation Bearers

"Electra" by Sir William Blake Richmond
Written by
Aeschylus
Chorus
Trojan slave women
Characters
Orestes
Electra
servant
Clytaemnestra
Pylades
Cilissa
Aegisthus
attendants
Setting
Argos, at the tomb of Agamemnon
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[edit]Introduction
The Libation Bearers (also known as Choephoroe) is the second play of the Oresteia. It deals with the reunion of Agamemnon's children, Electra and Orestes, and their revenge.
[edit]Storyline
In the palace of Argos, Clytemnestra, who now shares her bed and the throne with her lover Aegisthus, is roused from slumber by a nightmare: she dreamt that she gave birth to a snake, and the snake now feeds from her breast and draws blood along with milk. Alarmed by this, a possible sign of the gods' wrath, she orders her daughter, the princess Electra, whom in the meantime Clytemnestra has reduced to the virtual status of a slave-girl, to pour libations on Agamemnon's grave. A group of women (the libation bearers of the title) are to assist her.
Electra arrives at the grave of her father and comes upon a man by the tombstone, who has just placed a lock of his hair on the stone. As they start to speak, it gradually and rather agonizingly becomes apparent that the man is her brother Orestes (who had been sent away to the royal court of Phocis since infancy for safety reasons), and who has, in her thoughts, been her only hope of revenge. Orestes believes that he is the snake in his mother's dream, so together with Electra they plan to avenge their father by killing their mother Clytemnestra and her new husband, Aegisthus.
Orestes wavers about killing his own mother, but is guided by Apollo and his close friend Pylades, the son of the king of Phocis, that it is the correct course of action. Orestes and Pylades pretend to be ordinary travelers from Phocis, and ask for hospitality at the palace. They even tell the Queen that Orestes is dead. Delighted by the news, Clytemnestra sends a servant to summon Aegisthus. Orestes kills the usurper first, and then his mother. As soon as he exits the palace, the Furies, being only visible to him, begin to haunt and torture him as he flees in agony. This delineates the crimes of Clytemnestra and Orestes.[citation needed] The Furies do not hunt down Clytemnestra for killing her husband, but they do hunt down Orestes for his crime of matricide as is their function: to them, crimes against blood bonds are far more significant than crimes against marriage bonds[1].
[edit]References in other Greek Dramas
Pietro Pucci of Cornell University argues that in referencing The Libation Bearers in his own Electra, Euripides made a social commentary on the relationship between truth and evidence. Euripides criticized the scene of recognition when Electra realizes that lock of hair on Agamemnon's tomb is Orestes'. In his own play Electra, Euripides has Electra make a scathing remark about the ridiculous notion that one could recognize a brother solely by a lock of hair, a footprint and an article of clothing. [2] What Euripides (presumably purposefully) ignores in Aeschylus' play was the religious significance of the act of placing a lock of hair on a tomb, which was a much more powerful clue as to who left the lock than the actual nature of the hair. Only a friend of Agamemnon's would dare approach his grave and leave a lock of hair, and even more importantly, this ritual had a specific father/ male heir significance. Aeschylus' Electra, therefore, recognized her brother based on her faith in a religious act. Euripides' Electra, on the other hand, judges the situation solely on evidence, and comes to the wrong conclusion that Orestes cannot be present, when in fact the audience knows that he is there and the two characters have in fact just spoken to each other. This commentary suggests that Euripides is referring to the then pertinent argument over evidence and truth, an issue which had no weight when Aeschylus was writing. [3]

[edit]The Eumenides
The Eumenides

"Orestes wird von den Furien verfolgt" (Orestes pursued by the Furies) by William-Adolphe Bouguereau
Written by
Aeschylus
Chorus
The Furies
Characters
Priestess
Apollo
Orestes
Ghost of Clytaemnestra
Athena
Athenian citizens
Setting
before the temple of Apollo at Delphi and in Athens
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[edit]Introduction
The Eumenides (also known as The Furies) is the final play of the Oresteia, in which Orestes, Apollo, and the Furies go before Athena and a jury consisting of the Athenians at the Areopagus (Rock of Ares, a flat rocky hill by the Athenian agora where the homicide court of Athens held its sessions), to decide whether Orestes' murder of his mother, Clytemnestra, makes him worthy of the torment they have inflicted upon him.
[edit]Storyline
Orestes is tormented by the Furies, chthonic deities that avenge patricide and matricide. He, at the instigation of his sister Electra and the god Apollo, has killed their mother Clytemnestra, who had killed their father, King Agamemnon, who had killed his daughter and their sister, Iphigenia. Orestes finds a refuge and a solace at the new temple of Apollo in Delphi, and the god, unable to deliver him from the Furies' unappeasable wrath, sends him along to Athens under the protection of Hermes, while he casts a drowsy spell upon the pursuing Furies in order to delay them.
Clytemnestra's ghost appears from the woods and rouses the sleeping Furies, urging them to continue hunting Orestes. The Furies' first appearance on stage is haunting: they hum a tune in unison as they wake up, and seek to find the scent of blood that will lead them to Orestes' tracks. Ancient tradition says that on the play's premiere this struck so much fear and anguish in the audience, that a pregnant woman named Neaira suffered a miscarriage and died on the spot.
The Furies' tracking down of Orestes in Athens is equally haunting: Orestes has clasped Athena's small statue in supplication, and the Furies close in on him by smelling the blood of his slain mother in the air. Once they do see him, they can also see rivulets of blood soaking the earth beneath his footsteps.
As they surround him, Athena intervenes and brings in a jury of twelve Athenians to judge her supplicant. Apollo acts as attorney for Orestes, while the Furies act as advocates for the dead Clytemnestra. During the trial, Apollo convinces Athena that, in a marriage, the man is more important than the woman, by pointing out that Athena was born only of Zeus and without a mother (Zeus swallows Metis). Before the trial votes are counted, Athena votes in favour of Orestes. After being counted, the votes on each side are equal. Athena then persuades the Furies to accept her decision. They eventually submit. (However, in Euripides' Iphigeneia in Tauris, the Furies continue to haunt Orestes even after the trial.) Athena then renames them Eumenides (The Kindly Ones). The Furies will now be honored by the citizens of Athens and ensure their prosperity. Athena also declares that henceforth hung juries should result in the defendant being acquitted, as mercy should always take precedence over harshness.

[edit]Proteus
Although Proteus, the satyr play which originally followed the first three plays of The Oresteia, is lost, it is widely believed to have been based on the story told in Book IV of Homer's Odyssey. In 2002, Theatre Kingston mounted a production of The Oresteia in the translation by Ted Hughes and included a free reconstruction of Proteus based on the episode in The Odyssey and loosely arranged according to the structure of extant satyr plays.

[edit]Analysis and themes
That the play ends on a happy note may surprise modern readers, to whom the word tragedy denotes a drama ending in misfortune. The word did not carry this meaning in ancient Athens, and many of the extant Greek tragedies end happily.
[edit]Social progress and justice
Worth noting here is the metaphorical aspect of this entire drama. Initially, in their role as avengers of bloodshed, the Furies are classical equivalents to the Code of Hammurabi and the Torah, which demand “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”. Thus, they initially embody the concept of lex talionis, or “law of retribution”.
The change from an archaic self-help justice by personal revenge to administration of justice by trial symbolises the passage from a primitive society governed by instincts, to a modern society governed by reason: justice is decided by a jury of peers, representing the citizen body and its values, and the gods themselves sanction this transition by taking part in the judicial procedure, arguing and voting on an equal footing with the mortals. This theme of the polis self-governed by consent through lawful institutions, as opposed to tribalism and superstition, recurs in Greek art and thought.
The dramatization of societal transformation in this myth (the transition to governance by laws) is both a boast and justification of the then relatively new judicial system. The concept of objective intervention by an impartial entity against which no vengeance could be taken (the state) marked the end of continuous cycles of bloodshed, a transition in Greek society reflected by the transition in their mythology--the Furies are a much greater part of older Greek myths than comparatively more recent ones. The reflection of societal struggles and social norms in mythology makes plays like these of special interest today, offering poignant cultural and historical insights.

Love is there if you want it to be. You just have to see that it's wrapped in beauty and hidden away in between the seconds of your life

P.S. I Love You (2007)
Holly Kennedy: What if this is it, Gerry? What if this is all there is to our life? You have to have a plan. Why do I have to be the responsible grown up who worries? Why can't I be the cute, carefree Irish guy who sings all the time?
Gerry Kennedy: Because you can't sing without making dogs bark?

Holly Kennedy: What do you think?
Daniel Connelly: I think you're hot!
Holly Kennedy: [gasps]
Daniel Connelly: Sorry, I have a syndrome.

Daniel Connelly: What do women want?
Holly Kennedy: [whispering] We have no idea what we want.
Daniel Connelly: I knew it!

Sharon McCarthy: You gotta be rich to be insane, Hol. Losing your mind is not a luxury for the middle class.

Patricia: I bet you've had a hard time walking into a room full of people on your own, right? Yeah. I know that. I know what it is not to feel like your in the room until he looks at you or touches your hand or even makes a joke at your expense, just to let everyone know... you're with him. You're his.

Patricia: So now, alone or not, you've got a walk ahead. Thing to remember is if we're all alone, then we're all together in that too.

Gerry Kennedy: Dear Holly, I don't have much time. I don't mean literally, I mean you're out buying ice cream and you'll be home soon. But I have a feeling this is the last letter, because there is only one thing left to tell you. It isn't to go down memory lane or make you buy a lamp, you can take care of yourself without any help from me. It's to tell you how much you move me, how you changed me. You made me a man, by loving me Holly. And for that, I am eternally grateful... literally. If you can promise me anything, promise me that whenever you're sad, or unsure, or you lose complete faith, that you'll try to see yourself through my eyes. Thank you for the honor of being my wife. I'm a man with no regrets. How lucky am I. You made my life, Holly. But I'm just one chapter in yours. There'll be more. I promise. So here it comes, the big one. Don't be afraid to fall in love again. Watch out for that signal, when life as you know it ends. P.S. I will always love you

Patricia: You know the worst thing for a parent... second after losing a child? Watching your child head for the same life you had. You can't stop it. It's a terrible, helpless feeling. Makes you angry all the time. And I've been angry. For a very long time. I'm exhausted.
Holly Kennedy: Do you think we'll ever see dad again?
Patricia: No sweetheart, never. So you have to stop waiting.

Cashback (2006)
Ben Willis: I've always wanted to be a painter, maybe have my work hung in a gallery one day.
Sharon Pintey: I've always wanted to meet a painter.
Ben Willis: Why?
Sharon Pintey: I think it might have something to do with their ability to see beauty in everything.

Ben Willis: Once upon a time, I wanted to know what love was. Love is there if you want it to be. You just have to see that it's wrapped in beauty and hidden away in between the seconds of your life. If you don't stop for a minute, you might miss it.

Ben Willis: You see, I've always wanted to be a painter, and like many artists before me, the female form has always been a great source of fascination. I've always been in awe of the power they posses.

Ben Willis: I read once about a woman whose secret fantasy was to have an affair with an artist. She thought he would really see her. He would see every curve, every line, every indentation and love them because they were part of the beauty that made her unique.

Ben Willis: I could feel a faint shift in a faraway place. A current of unknown consequences was on its way, moving towards me like an unstoppable wave of fate.

Ben Willis: Crush. It's funny how the same word for the feeling of disappointment can be used for the feeling of attraction. The Oxford English Dictionary states one of the meanings for the word crushed as "a strong and unreasoning, but transitory attachment."

Ben Willis: This is the haunting period. The time when the demons of regret come for you.

Ben Willis: I wanted to freeze time. I wanted to savor that moment, to live in that moment for a week. But I couldn't stop it, only slow it. And before I knew it, she was gone. After the door closed I felt like the last person on Earth.

Ben Willis: The bad news is that time flies. The good news... is that you're the pilot.


To be honest I'm thinking about returning to New York soon. There has been countless reasons flooding through my storm gates of late but the essential one and on the flipside a reoccurring group of nightmares that started in Cyprus have begun here. They are nostalgic demons and I don't have much reason to back them up. The main reason I believe I will head home is because I want something. Something I've always wanted. Someone. Someone to share this life with. And objectively attempting to look at myself I believe I had oppertuneties but alas at some places I lost them. I could say why I think I lost them but on the otherhand a man told me that I am faithfully fulfilling my own self defeating proficy and I'd rather not. I just wanna be happy for a while. I don't think that's asking too much and I don't know exactly how to achieve it but I know it's got something to do with keeping the people I love close. I've felt like I wanted to cry since November, but the tears just wouldn't come. I wonder, and in part my choice to move home, if I have supplemented and reinforced the things that make me tick so much that I walk away or turn my back on people cause it's a defense mechanism and I don't believe I can cure it myself. I'm gonna need assistance. I don't want to lose anyone anymore, at least if I can avoid it. I want company, and good conversation, and inspiration, and it has vanished completely. I find myself walking through endless streets and beaches and not speaking to a soul or meeting with people that I don't have a clue why I'm meeting them or conversing. I'm just lonely and it's like a never ending abyss sometimes. I've had these re-occurring nightmares about people I haven't spoken to in years, about x-girlfriends and I wake up still thinking I'm there lying with them on the couch or in my bed. I wake up sweating and disappointed that I didn't die in my sleep. This is depression.

I try to stay positive by telling myself to "stay positive". But with out warning in returns and makes me doubt everything about my life. It makes me wonder and sadens me to think this will keep countinueing, like I'll have a nice wave of confidence, meet some new people, feel and act like my old outgoing self for a bit, and then snap something or those people will change, the drama will start again, and I won't be able to keep it, even after I give in and compromise, it always pushes me to a place that I can't go and I'm sick of it. I'm sick of being alone when I just want to give more, but whatever that more is, it's just never enough, and the patience disappears. And all of a sudden the change is there. It's there in a fleeting moment. All of a sudden your not what you were to someone. All of a sudden the winds of change pick up the ground you were standing on whisk it away to a place that you can't follow. No matter how many times it happens, you never get used to it. It hurts just the same, everytime. I need help changing it. So home and therpy, even though I'm not a big fan, i think it's time.

It's comforting, but really not at the same time that people can feel things like loss and isolation enough to make films about them. I really appreciated Cashback's American Beautyesk way of describing the complete isolation and lonelyness. Unfortunetly I don't see anything romantic about being this lonely. Insomnia hasn't yielded any beauty for me, instead it usually heightens the insainity. Some creativeness has come from it. There are a variety of movies I've seen through the ages that completely signify the meaning hopeless romantic. Romance does exist. I see it all the time but to be a hopeless romantic, it means that your without hope for that thing and I think most "hopeless romantics" are very deeply attached to the fantasy that they will achieve that greatness with a soulmate or significant other who is yet to be seen. There is another movie I'd recommend that I just saw called "broken english". An old man speaks with our heroin, and tells her you should decide if u want the romance or a marriage or if u want magic. The first two, easily availible but the latter, you must have patience and love yourself.

These fleeting moments, breaths, words, texts, and feelings exchange
A second there, a minute later, and the decades whisp whispers of a previous life
They, like dusty texts tell stories of old
Tales of fantasy
The flagrant fragrance is a memory too familiar of past
In present the air between us is frozen like a dvd with scratches on it
The picture so clear but without a flinching clip of what once was
Bliss in a wrapped light filled frame entrenched deep within those eyes
How far have I journeyed in search of it's likeness
How far can I travel once more in it's quest
Fruitless this drought of unquenched, uninhabitable, unfamiliar landscapes
He grows old in his ages
He is ripe with regret
Sturdy with maturity
Securely independant
Surviving
He blames himself in misery, isolation, and grief
But in company blames others
Is he at fault
Can he reconcil
Is there redemption, renewal, or rebirth
Or simply more of a toiled contemptious game that like his empty beating heart refuses to quit
Will he find hope again
It is uncertain and as time trickles on, it's uncertainty plagues every echo in every corridor
Till silence and silence alone is the only thing he knows to depend on
This silence is like many things all to well to explain
The noiceless music enters and fades in beautiful orchestrial poetry that brings him back
Back to places that were meant to rot
Returned, not by choice but by habit or sub-consicousness to realms and nightmares of previous chapters
Chapters like collegiate texts meant to be read and reread and studied and noted but not really noteable
Segments of a bigger picture that unlike hollywood this novel could surely end unhappily
If reason could overpower the tricks and trade of habit she would surely fly through these chapters
Skimming them for plot points or subject but not looking so deep into them to say there is a subtext or something overlooked
But this age and these feelings return like vengeful spirits, constantly, without warning, when to rest in peace would be key
There is no sleep for their kind and like the chill winter air it tosses pages back to already read pages and all too often slams down upon the dusty desk
Reminisant of time and place and love and hate and connection with pretention, with ressurection of confession
This book is not the kind of text which wishes him to see the end
It wishes him to stop reading and return
There's no descency of reading the first ten pages and then the last ten
No spark notes to give up all that has happened or will happen
It requires the reader to read not at their own leasure but read for the books entertainment
Like a mythological greek god toying for their own amusement
It tires him to no end
The reader stops reading and begs for an ending spoiler
Please just give away the ending
But it will not
The ending will not reveil itself
Instead they read or are reread, never changing but always denying forgiveness
They claim hold of the readers unflawful attempt to understand the hero's flaws in attaining or what has been read so far, unsuccessful attempts at attaining what he truly wants
It could be unattainable
This could be the type of story where the unflinching human spirit is denied by his stubbern lack of adapting soul
Is it worth reading on

Okay the epiphany drunken stas, you are a child, u need attention and affection and you come up with new and inovative ways to recieve it. Why it never works is cause sooner or later you figure that out and it's not enough to just get it, you want more. You want love, affection, understanding, patience, compassion, independance, integrity, and hope, passion and inspiration, loyalty and expansion, you want a thing like magic and after the magic has died, you want that hope or possibility of it being rebirthed in not only the cuddling romantic love, but in life. In the day to day challenges. You are insecure, you can speak the other thing, like a con artist, like a salesman, which is the why anybody has been interested so far, and essentially the reason why you can get interest but not keep it indefinitely. Your weak in the sense that other independant strong people that want things, if they don't include you, you get insecure and walk away. Because you believe that they don't need you. Your reason is that rationably, reasonably, they will not see you as the one for them. And that makes you insecure, especially if you believe they are the one for you, for life. You can't figure out how to fix it. Hey I don't know either! I cry for u, but not out loud. Anyway there just maybe no need for an emotional male, your original thinking that you can never be honest about everything, especially your feelings, i think your right, when your looking for it. You'll catch something, not literally, but metaphorically, and it don't want that part of u, it wants the man. The man within that don't show it. That's what she's looking for. STOP POISENING YOURSELF!HEY listen ummm they will be interested in having a you, but that you ain't the you you thought they are interested in having, now what you gotta ask yourself is the you that you think you fell in love with is truly the you that you think you fell in love with and if so are they actually infactually interested in you, like the real you past the love, are they interested in the you that you know you can be, and are, or the fantasy of who you could be without. It's a rough ass question, cause getting them ain't about who u are, getting them is about who u could be to them, is that the same thing as who u want to be or in fact who u are?

The Evil.. She Comes... But She is not at the Castle Walls... She is within the clock and within you

Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)

Senator Amidala: I'm not going to die in childbirth, Anakin. I promise you.
Anakin Skywalker: No, I promise you.

Obi-Wan Kenobi: [referring to Anakin] When is the last time you saw him?
Padmé: Yesterday.
Obi-Wan Kenobi: Do you know where he is now?
Padmé: No.
Obi-Wan Kenobi: Padmé, I need your help. He is in grave danger.
Padmé: From the Sith?
Obi-Wan Kenobi: ...From himself. Padmé, Anakin has turned to the Dark Side.
Padmé: You're wrong! How could you even SAY that?
Obi-Wan Kenobi: I have seen a security hologram... of him... killing Younglings.
Padmé: No! Not Anakin! He couldn't...
Obi-Wan Kenobi: He was decieved by a lie; we all were. It appears that the Chancellor is behind everything, including the war! After the death of Count Dooku, Anakin became his new apprentice.
Padmé: [She pauses for a moment, speechless] ... I don't believe you. I can't...
Obi-Wan Kenobi: Padmé, I must find him.
Padmé: You're going to kill him, aren't you?
Obi-Wan Kenobi: [Obi-Wan pauses for a moment] He has become a very great threat.
Obi-Wan Kenobi: [He gets off of the couch, walking towards his ship] Anakin is the father, isn't he?
Obi-Wan Kenobi: [Padmé doesn't know what to say] I'm so sorry.

Padmé: [Padme exits her ship and runs towards Anakin] I was so worried about you! Obi-Wan... told me terrible things!
Anakin Skywalker: What things?
Padmé: He said... you turned to the Dark Side. That you... killed Younglings!
Anakin Skywalker: Obi-Wan is trying to turn you against me.
Padmé: He cares about us.
Anakin Skywalker: Us?
Padmé: ...He knows. He wants to help you.
[Anakin smirks]
Padmé: Anakin, all I want is your love.
Anakin Skywalker: Love won't save you, Padme! Only my new powers can do that!
Padmé: At what cost? You're a good person; don't do this!
Anakin Skywalker: I won't lose you the way I lost my mother. I am becoming more powerful than any Jedi has ever dreamed of, and I'm doing it for you: to protect you.
Padmé: Come away with me... help me raise our child; leave everything else behind while we still can!
Anakin Skywalker: Don't you see? We don't have to run away anymore! I am more powerful than the Chancellor, I... I can overthrow him! And together, you and I can rule the galaxy! Make things the way we want them to be!
[smiles]
Padmé: ...I don't believe what I'm hearing... Obi-Wan was right... you've changed!
Anakin Skywalker: [with an angry look and voice] I don't want to hear any more about Obi-Wan. The Jedi turned against me; don't you turn against me?
Padmé: [crying] Anakin, you're breaking my heart! And you're going down a path I cannot follow!
Anakin Skywalker: Because of Obi-Wan?
Padmé: Because of what you've done... what you plan to do! Stop! Stop now; come back... I love you!
Anakin Skywalker: [Anakin sees Obi-Wan standing at the ship's exit]
[shouting]
Anakin Skywalker: Liar!
Anakin Skywalker: You're with him! You brought him here to kill me!
Padmé: No!
Anakin Skywalker: [uses Force Grip on Padme]
Obi-Wan Kenobi: Let her go, Anakin!
Padmé: [barely breathing] Anakin...
Obi-Wan Kenobi: Let. Her. Go.
Anakin Skywalker: [Anakin releases Padme, as she falls unconscious] You turned her against me!

Darth Sidious: [Vader's new mechanical body arises from the steam... ] Lord Vader... can you hear me?
Darth Vader: Yes, Master.
Darth Vader: [Vader looks at Sidious] ... Where is Padme? Is she safe? Is she all right?
Darth Sidious: It seems in your anger, you killed her.
Darth Vader: I...? I couldn't have! She was alive; I felt it!
[Vader growls, and his Dark Side strength crushes everything around him in the room. He frees himself from the metal stretcher, and steps off. Palpatine has a smirk on his face]
Darth Vader: Nooooooooooooooooooo!

Anakin Skywalker: I feel lost.
Padmé: Lost?
Anakin Skywalker: Obi-Wan and the Council don't trust me.
Padmé: They trust you with their lives.
Anakin Skywalker: Something's happening. I'm not the Jedi I should be. I want more. And I know I shouldn't.

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)

Sam: [Both are overcome by exhaustion] Do you remember the Shire, Mr. Frodo? It'll be spring soon. And the orchards will be in blossom. And the birds will be nesting in the hazel thicket. And they'll be sowing the summer barley in the lower fields... and eating the first of the strawberries with cream. Do you remember the taste of strawberries?
Frodo: No, Sam. I can't recall the taste of food... nor the sound of water... nor the touch of grass. I'm... naked in the dark, with nothing, no veil... between me... and the wheel of fire! I can see him... with my waking eyes!
Sam: Then let us be rid of it... once and for all! Come on, Mr. Frodo. I can't carry it for you... but I can carry you!

Sam: I don't think there will be a return journey, Mr. Frodo.

Aragorn: Let the lord of the Black Land come forth! Let justice be done upon him!
The Mouth of Sauron: My master, Sauron the Great, bids thee welcome. Is there any in this rabble with authority to treat with me?
Gandalf: We do not come to treat with Sauron, faithless and accursed. Tell your master this: the armies of Mordor must disband. He is to depart these lands, never to return.
The Mouth of Sauron: Ahh, old grey beard. I have a token I was bidden to show thee.
[Pulls out Frodo's mithril vest and throws it at them]
Pippin: [whispers] Frodo...
Gandalf: Silence.
Merry: No!
Gandalf: Silence!
The Mouth of Sauron: The halfling was dear to thee, I see. Know that he suffered greatly at the hands of his host. Who knew that one so small could endure so much pain? And he did, Gandalf, he did.
[pause; Aragorn rides towards the Mouth of Sauron]
The Mouth of Sauron: And who is this? Isildur's heir? It takes more to make a king that a broken elvish blade...
[Aragorn cuts off the Mouth of Sauron's head with one stroke of Anduril]
Gimli: I guess that concludes negotiations.
Aragorn: [to Gandalf] I do not believe it! I will not!

Eowyn: The city has fallen silent. There is no warmth left in the sun.
Faramir: [approaching her] It is only the damp of the first spring rain.
[Eowyn looks up at him]
Faramir: I do not believe this darkness will endure.

Aragorn: I do not fear death.

Aragorn: I summon you to fulfill your oath.
King of the Dead: None but the king of Gondor may command me.
[Swings sword; Aragorn blocks him with the sword Anduril]
King of the Dead: That blade was broken!
[Aragorn takes him by the throat]
Aragorn: It has been remade.
[Aragorn releases the King of the Dead; pause]
Aragorn: Fight for us... and regain your honor.

Sam: It must be getting near tea-time, leastways in decent places where there *is* still tea-time.
Gollum: We're not *in* decent places.

Aragorn: Hold your ground, hold your ground! Sons of Gondor, of Rohan, my brothers! I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. An hour of woes and shattered shields, when the age of men comes crashing down! But it is not this day! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you *stand, Men of the West!*

Theoden: I have left instruction. The people are to follow your rule in my stead. Take up my seat in the Golden Hall. Long may you defend Edoras if the battle goes ill.
Eowyn: What other duty would you have me do?
Theoden: Duty? No... I would have you smile again, not grieve for those whose time has come. You shall live to see these days renewed. No more despair.

Pippin: Is there any hope, Gandalf, for Frodo and Sam?
Gandalf: There never was much hope. Just a fool's hope.

Theoden: I know your face... Eowyn. My eyes darken.
Eowyn: No. No. I'm going to save you.
Theoden: You already did... Eowyn. My body is broken. You have to let me go. I go to my fathers, in whose mighty company I shall not now feel ashamed. Eowyn...

Gandalf: The board is set... the pieces are moving

Theoden: I take my leave.
Aragorn: My lord Elrond.
Elrond: I come on behalf of one whom I love. Arwen is dying. She will not long survive the evil that now spreads from Mordor. The light of the Evenstar is failing. As Sauron's power grows, her strength wanes. Arwen's life is now tied to the fate of the Ring. The Shadow is upon us, Aragorn. The end has come.
Aragorn: It will not be our end but his.

Aragorn: The Beacons of Minas Tirith! The Beacons are lit! Gondor calls for aid.
Theoden: And Rohan will answer. Muster the Rohirrim. Assemble the army at Dunharrow. As many men as can be found. You have two days. On the third, we ride for Gondor and war.

I think true greatness, a message of long lasting struggles to overcome evil is perhaps the most honorable of undertakings. Recently I have begun my own trilogy. And even though these stories are epic in nature and mine seems much more dramatic. The plot points are note worthy especially at the final third of these trilogies. Have they countinued with the message they were trying to convey. Star wars Revenge of the Sith and the entire plotline base is similiar in one facet. I'm building off old stories that have been done before. The first star wars trilogy is similiar in that sense that when we saw the new trilogy we carried with us the stories of the first. So much that we really desired what made Darth Vader the cold black villian he was and by the third episode in the final moments and throughout the picture, this concept of the darkside of the force and how it emboddies our fears, jealousy, and control. Brilliant in my opinion. It plays out so stealthly in anikin. From the beginning to the end. How his fear and shame and insecurities turn to anger and loss of control. It seriously makes you ponder and look within. Whereas Yoda and the Jedi council believe in balance. I recently saw premonition with Sandra Bullock. Setting up a well plotted premonition so that your charachter executes his or her destiny by trying to do all in their power to avoid it. Incredible! Where as if they just accepted their fate it might not have happened. In the last 4 scenes of star wars revenge of the sith it's not even about the dialogue anymore. You see just Anikin in his hood totally and completely consumed within himself, totally twisted inside with what he must do or with what he's thinking. And when the chancellor puts the vader suit on him and he asks if padame is ok and the chancellar's like no she's dead and it's your fault she's dead. You can imagine how that guilt and torment will carry through Vader and how he'd take it out on everyone else, similiarly as he did in Clone wars with the sand people that took his mother. Dudes got some crazy anger inside him. A perfectly well told story of how to build a villain's motivation.

The thingy peeps that's notable is not that Evil is worth fighting. Evil will always be worth fighting. But putting a face on evil and expressing it not just as an intangible force but giving it charachter. Giving it motivations and wants and desires that are or could be reasonable. Either creating which is what I'm trying to do myself in my trilogy or literally watching as an audience member. What it might take to change someone or something from good to evil. As my research on duality countinues and most likely will countinue indefinitely, this transfermation is key. I think because from the outside looking in you or us can see the mistakes that were made and we say it to ourselves as we are watching but in the charachter they don't see it. They keep missing it. I know this myself. I can recall many mistakes I've made that I didn't see what it was that I was doing because I was so twisted with wanting to save something that perhaps I needed to let go and let it take it's course regardless of me or my efforts. I'm reminded of one thing I did, which I'll take this moment to share. Jealousy is a monster. It creeps into your heart and your mind and makes things extremely twisted. At one point last year I let go of all my rationality and independance. I was consumed by jealousy. I didn't know what to do with it or myself. Caught me completely off guard. I created a fake profile on myspace just to flirt with myself. Probably the most diabolical lie that I've ever concocted. I had changed. The goodness of love and caring had entangled my insides and made me think that I needed to somehow give the same jealousy back. Looking back now, I ponder what the hell was I thinking. And how could I give into a "darkside" when here I am single and fairly balanced and clear headed. But that is the point I'm trying to make. When your in it, your not going to see yourself as the villain. When your in it, your your own hero, doing whatever it takes to get what you most desire.

As for return of the King and the quest to toss the ring of power into Mount doom. This Epic novel and film trilogy was symbolic of I think World War 2, it might have been one, I can't quite remember. I think it had to be 2 because the industry was so vast. And the rise of the war machine of Nazi Germany and an arms race, it had to be 2. ANyways... little tangent there. The good verses evil in the lord of the rings trilogy is a mixture of different things. You have the ring of power which in a lot of ways is symbolic not only of power but of say smoking. It's an addictive little band of gold. So addictive that anyone that has other power whether it be the wizard or elves or Kings, that they know if they have one drag or wear of the thing they'll change immediately. It's seductive like that. At the very beginning it quickly takes hold of smeagal (gollum). Who even though he looks more humanesk but his demeanor still sorta shows that his charachter is easily swayed. He's not portrayed as a 100% creature of honor or maybe that's just my take. I think the real greatness of lord of the rings is the gradual change in Frodo. And the premise that these hobbits being of a fun loving weed smoking nature can endure great pain, influence, and still keep their good nature.

In watching these 2 trilogies again I feel as if I have a better understanding of motivation. And essentially what I am setting forth to do is not so much say good verses evil in the epic nature of these films but within what I've found in ancient greek theater. Philos-aphilos which means love-in-hate. In ancient greek theater similiar to shakespeare the charachters become perplexed with the evil that is emboddied in their family members. This evil being part of their family members symbolically is part of themselves and in executing these family members, rationally they attempt to murder the evil within themselves. I'm sure that sounds irrational. It sounded irrational when I was trying to wrap my brain around it and the countless scholastic esseys I've been reading. Past addressing duality, which I attempted before in Five Houses, and constantly think about in general, I think it is seriously most of the time an outside looking in verses inside looking out. Here's my premise. Your character whether that be you or the imaginary fictional being you've created, when that person is attractive personality wise, honorable by image and speech, and physically beautiful as well, confident, independant, when he/she sets their sights on something, it's the methods that get them there that border "evil". In their minds as stakes get heightened (and those stakes could very well be their soul or ethics) when they get these choices of either remaining at a stand still or changing. This is a test of their motivation. Truly motivated people will say "the means justify the ends" and I'm beginning to gain clarity on which changes in oneself or choices we make are or could be seen as choices or changes that are irreversable. Like you have reached the point of no return. Essentially time has been my enemy, as it is yours as well, for time motivates change and choice without warning which makes all this possible.