The original Orpheus of the Mysteries was in some vague sense a conqueror of death, he cucked Hades and took his wife, the name "Eurydice" is one of Persephone's epithets
-
-
I kind of doubt that Anaïs Mitchell dove that deep into the myth's origin when writing the show but it's just resonating with the themes that are there Orpheus and Hades are enemies because they're differing visions of death, of how death could work
1 reply 0 retweets 3 likes -
(The Orphic Mysteries were a "heresy", the original Orpheus was making a claim that gods and men are of the same blood originally and Lethe was to make you forget this, to lose your awareness of reincarnation and that you too are immortal)
1 reply 0 retweets 3 likes -
(And the view that death could be defeated and that capitalism and scarcity could be defeated are, in the world we live in, closely related to each other)
1 reply 0 retweets 4 likes -
That's the whole thing, Hadestown obviously changes on every level what the myth is about, and yet it's born from this very very clear understanding of the THEME of the myth, what it's REALLY about The hero who shows the natural order of things can be challenged
1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes -
And it makes all these semi-random bits and pieces from the history of the myths actually fell like they make more sense than they did before Hades, king of the dead, is also Pluto, the god of wealth, simply because precious metals are mined from underground? Let's explore that
1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes -
Persephone, bride of the dead, was originally simply the goddess of spring and growing things, and the Rape of Persephone was invented to explain the seasons She's Dionysus' mother and one of her Roman aspects is Libera, goddess of wine (and of "freedom") Hmm
1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes -
Once I worked out the whole thing they were going with here - Hades is the boss man, the enforcer of debts and obligations, Persephone runs the company store, where you spend your excess cash on booze to numb the pain - it's really really powerful
1 reply 0 retweets 3 likes -
The "seasons" of our post-agrarian, late capitalist world are the economy When Persephone goes back underground, that's when the stock market crashes and interest rates go negative and "money is tight"
1 reply 0 retweets 3 likes -
Hades is hard money, the gold standard, bills coming due, austerity (he of the stern and austere countenance) Persephone is easy credit, runaway inflation (soft money, *green*backs), stimulus packages (she does love her stimulants)
1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
(I love that in contrast to her mother, the goddess of grain and the autumn harvest, Persephone is the goddess of spring and green growing things The goddess of vegetables Which seems to contradict the party girl image until you remember other green leafy vegetables)
-
-
The whole show is extremely accessible without any of this nerdy stuff and yet as you keep thinking about it it's a lit major's dream, you can talk about these connections all day
1 reply 0 retweets 4 likes -
My favorite thing is that classicists love to ding pop culture like Disney's Hercules etc for making Hades into a Satan figure To the Greeks he wasn't, he was just a stern enforcer of the balance between death and life
1 reply 0 retweets 4 likes - Show replies
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.