(paghat) wrote in
news
It may not be quite a final draft but I've gone ahead & posted at my
website a preliminary version of a long essay on the Cretan, Greek, &
Indic mythology of the oldest continuously cultivated flower in the
world, the saffron crocus. It's divided into three pages which begin
he http://www.paghat.com/saffronmyth.html
illustrated with photos of the saffron crocuses in my gardens, & with
pictures of numerous "saffron mothers" such as was the usual title of
Dawn-goddesses.

-paghat the ratgirl


Hi Paghat,

Very nice of you to share with us. Wonderful pictures, too. However, I
will nitpick, but feel free to tell me that I don't know what I'm talking
about, because I quite possibly don't.

Although the essay is about Crocus, the part about Smilax is somewhat
incongruous. Granted if not much is known about her mythos, in alternate
interpretations it could be that she could be one of fifty sisters, but
traditionally there are only 3 Erinyes - Alecto, Tisiphone and Megera (or
maybe that's just Aeschylus, Robert Graves or Edith Wharton talking).

The incongruity is if the Erinyes were children of Poseidon's blood of
castration, how could Smilax be an Erinnyes whose mother was Nyx?

[Mental note: Don't try to date the wrong girl or your nuts will shrivel
up or get lopped off by a frisbee.]

You spell Dionysos two different ways. The usual Romanization is Dionysus
according to Webster (but i thought it was Dionysius, where is that extra
'i' coming from??). But since you are talking about Greeks, the Greek
spelling given by Liddell and Scott is Delta iota omicron (alternatively
omega) nu upsilon sigma omicron sigma.

I'm not sure but I think Robert Graves also makes the Erinnyes antecede all
Olympians, precluding a birth from Poseidon. I also can't recall reading
any thing about Poseidon getting his nuts chopped off. Are you sure you
don't mean Cronos? Or Cronos' dad (don't remember his name). hmm, but I
don't remember hearing about Poseidon "gettin' it on" with anyone either,
so he's either discreet, missing some parts or gay.

Athene is usually given to have sprung fully formed from Zeus' head,
without the usually wing-wang Zeus is famous for, although it would make
sense for her mom to be Metis. (Could have just been Athenian (the city)
propaganda, though).

Lastly, again Liddell and Scott, Kar [or Ker] (kappa acute eta rho,
feminine) = goddess of dearth, hence doom, fate, Kar [or Ker] (kappa
circumflex eta rho, neuter) = contraction of KEAR (kappa epsilon alpha rho)
= the heart. May not mean anything, as I don't recall a lot of Cretan in
the dictionary (L&S Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon), but to me, they
are two different words; could be the etymologies were similar, but I'm not
qualified to say. [Kar (kappa alpha rho) = a) hair cut off, a lock of hair
and b) a Carian, somebody from Caria].

I don't know about any of the non-Greek stuff.

-- ST