SERPENT, STONE, & WATER

Apollo faces Python at Delphi,
from a 5th century BC Greek coin

The symbolism of the flood on a universal scale, is, of course, highly ouroboric, wherein the primordial, generative waters rise to reclaim all which they had once created. In the same way, so is the act of drowning for the individual, wherein one returns to the fluid inanimacy from whence they initially came. With all of the previous allusions to fertility and agriculture fresh in our minds, we may also observe the ouroboric symbolism of our prospective "red king," composed of a storm/weather-god who, at once, brings the rains of life to the land, yet who also wields the power to withhold such water, or to send so much as to wash everything out. We, then, might remember the "red/white" alliance who defeats the "black" farmers of Indo-European society, while recalling how sacrifice by drowning was the favoured method of those very same Aryans for appeasing their gods of fertility.

This last cross-cultural myth of the flood, however, would appear particularly ouroboric, beginning in Mesopotamia with the serpent Labbu and ending in Greece with the serpent Python. Such a pairing of serpents with stone, moreover, seems only to amplify their inanimate aspect, as nothing is more traditionally so than this eternally inert substance. Here we may think of other such pairings as the above-cited Hedammu with his stone brother Ullikummi; that great serpent Vasuki coiled 'round the great "stone" of Mount Mandara; and then Medusa, the snake-haired gorgon, whose petrifying gaze turned all mortals to immobile stone. We might also include Perseus among this list, the slayer of Medusa herself, who retained the gorgon's power along with her severed head (recalling Brân), putting those immobilizing powers to frequent use.

As with the undying icon of the sleeping dragon, though, that very immobile stability also lends to stone the symbolism of life and immortality; animacy everlasting. We must remember that it was for the elixir of eternal life that Vasuki was put to use on Mount Mandara. We must also remember that it was the "Pythian omphalos," navel of the world, which first preserved the lives of the Olympian gods. Even the paedophagial Cronos is not killed but, as we repeatedly read in Hamlet's Mill, slumbers like a Titan Barbarossa in "a golden cave" on the island of Ogygia (which the authors then relate to "the difficult word ogygion, translated often as 'primeval,'" but which "seems to designate things vaguely beyond time and place ... both under and beyond the earth; this should mean something like 'on the other side of heaven.'" — referring here to Hesiod's "shining gates and immoveable threshold of bronze" found at the very foundation of Hades). We then note that Deucalion — son of the Titan Prometheus who stole the very fire of life — survives the flood to perpetuate humanity (by creating men from stones, we might add); and that Python, himself, is later slain by the sun-god Apollo, thus fulfilling certain requirements of our archetypal "red king." So, too, did Perseus (who, as a child, survived attempted drowning at the hands of his father) slay not only Medusa, but also the sea-monster Cetus, turning this beast to stone while saving the life of Andromeda, chained by her father to the rocks along his kingdom's shore as an offering to this terror (and, thus, foreshadowing St. George and the Silene princess by numerous centuries).

Perseus in red (with the head of Medusa) stands over Cetus, from a 3rd century mosaic (left);
St. George triumphs over the dragon, from a medieval illumination (right)

This contradictory union of serpent, stone, and water may be further exemplified by Perseus, if somewhat obliquely, through Pegasus the winged white horse. Though equine and airborne, we'll also recall that Pegasus was bred from the sea-god Poseidon and the blood of slain Medusa (here noting some similarity to Airavata, Indra's pachyderm mount, born of the ocean of milk, while deemed to be "king" or "father of serpents"). As Neumann remarks of this "sea horse sporting among the white-crested breakers," Pegasus embodies a fundamental duality; "as moved and moving element in the stormy sea of the unconscious, he is the destructive impulse; whereas in the horse as a domesticated animal nature is tamed and submissive."

As to that destructive impulse, and as Pegasus relates to our explorations, we shall remember locating his name in the region of that curious Highland Creek structure. Here we also met with the toponym Helicon, mountain of a certain stream directly associated with Pegasus — but also, we'll recall, a river itself, in which the frenzied followers of Dionysos rinsed their hands of blood after tearing their idolized Orpheus limb from musical limb. It then so happens that this legend, by some strained convolution, refers back to Perseus (as well as to many other things). We may begin by noting a certain episode in Ovid's Romanized version of the tale where the decapitated head of Orpheus (recalling Medusa) is saved from being eaten by a snake when Apollo "froze to stone that serpent's open mouth," thus mirroring the ends of both Python and Cetus. His head was then buried (in the manner of Brân) to serve as an oracle on the island of Lesbos.

We might also speak, here, to the fate of Orpheus' lyre which washed ashore, along with his head, upon that same distant coastline; calling to mind both the harp of The Miller and the King's Daughter, and the fates of both Actaeon, and Orpheus once more, by way of a certain Neanthus who, according to an obscure fable related by Lucian, dared to play the sacred lyre himself only to produce such discordant noise that he incurred the deadly wrath of some local dogs. Also linking Actaeon to Orpheus is the aforementioned Ossian, otherwise known as the "Celtic Orpheus" — that harp playing bard of Irish lore whose name, we'll recall, means "young stag." One tale of further interest regarding this figure, involves his association with another white horse of the water, "Enbarr" (being, perhaps, from én "water" + barr "froth" or "foam"), who imparts upon Ossian immortality as long as he remains astride him. Yet Ossian eventually meets his fate when pulled from his mount while attempting to move a large stone.

The head, and lyre, of Orpheus wash ashore on Lesbos (above);
Silenos (note the horse's tail) in procession with Dionysos and his maenads (below)

Perhaps most compelling, however, in returning to Orpheus, is the relation of King Midas, and a certain Silenos, to the proceedings of his peculiar myth. We will first note, here, a striking parallel between "Silenos" and the king of the St. George story, "Selinus." The coincidence is only escalated when we view his kingdom, "Silene," in connection to the following from Lurker: "The satyrs were the licentious and lecherous crew who accompanied the Greek god Dionysos ... They were related to the Silenes as demons of fertility, indeed often hardly to be distinguished from them." These Silenes, in fact, were those horse-like beings discussed earlier in regards to the chain of Satyr-Saturn-Satan-Set. From them we then learn of Silenos himself, "ringleader of the Satyrs, and tutor of the young Dionysos." With respect, now, to Midas, and the legend at hand, upon the death of Orpheus, Silenos goes missing (much in the fashion of Telipinu above). He is eventually found wandering the wilderness of Phrygia (not far, we must note, from St. George's Cappadocia) and brought to the court of King Midas. As Ovid then tells of this fateful encounter, Midas regales Silenos for ten days and nights:

Then on the eleventh morning Lucifer
Marshalled the starry host to leave the sky,
And Midas came to Lydia, light at heart,
Bringing Silenus back to his young ward.
Bacchus [Dionysos], rejoicing in the safe return
Of old Silenus (once his guardian),
Granted the king to choose his heart's desire,
A choice that seemed a boon, but proved a bane.
So Midas chose, a sorry choice: 'Ordain
That everything I touch shall turn to gold.'
The god indulged his wish, gave the reward,
Dire as it was, and mourned a choice so bad.

Now recalling those conflations of gold and red, while observing that mention of Lucifer atop, here Midas becomes yet another kind of "red king." So, too, he becomes like a "golden gorgon," the Medusa who gilds as opposed to petrifies. As we all know, however, Midas soon regrets his wish, and Dionysos instructs him to bathe in a magic river (yet another pseudo-mingling of serpent, stone, and water; with a nod to all previous keepers of magical founts), and so wash away his accursed powers (much as those maenads, before, had cleansed themselves of Orphic blood).

In a later legend we find (with more Orphic tones) Midas comparing Apollo unfavourably to Pan (father of Silenos, by some traditions) in terms of his musical skill. For this impudence the sun-god bestows upon Midas the comical ears of a donkey, thus making of him an absurd "silene" and relating him back to Silenos again. This may also relate both to Medusa, as well, for as Neumann keenly observes: "it is interesting to note that in an early picture of the slaying of Medusa, from the seventh century B.C., she appears as a centaur." Indeed, as Lemprière tells it, she was slain in direct substitution for a horse — a gift demanded of guests at a royal banquet, Perseus being among them, who, wishing "not to appear inferior to the others in magnificence, told the king that, as he could not give him a horse, he would bring him the head of Medusa." This, then, would explain the equine blood that also gave birth to Pegasus. One might also view Ossian and Enbarr together in the form of a type of centaur (given the former's dependence on the latter), while linking both to Medusa and Pegasus through water, whiteness, and fatal stone.

Poor Midas, meanwhile, as we're told by Lemprière, "died of drinking hot bull's blood. This he did, as Plutarch mentions, to free himself from the numerous ill dreams which continually tormented him." Not an unlikely end, one would suppose, for such a tragic figure. The thought of suicide, however, may well have been planted long before any of his misadventures, for back in his glory, as we learn from Aristotle, while still entertaining Silenos at his palace, Midas asked of the wise old satyr: "What, of all things, is most desirable for man?" After much prodding, and imbibing of wine, Silenos, at last, responded: "It is most desirable for man to have never been born, and next, failing this, to die as soon as possible." What better motto, as Neumann would surely agree, for all those who desire nothing but ouroboric return, "from the unio mystica of the saint to the drunkard’s craving for unconsciousness and the 'death-romanticism' of the Germanic races."

A drunken Silenos is brought to King Midas in this 17th century painting by Ricci

Having thus broached the subject of animacy once more, we might remark of the rather active etymology behind "Silenos." Arriving from the Greek Σειληνός, it is thought to further unravel as seiô, meaning "to move to and fro," and lênos, denoting a "wine-trough" — being a reference, no doubt, to the practice grape-stomping in the rustic production of wine. A fitting moniker, one must admit, for he who taught Dionysos (the very god of drunkeness himself) the inebrious ways of the vine. However, one cannot help but notice the superficial similarity between "Silenos" and our very own, and very opposite "silence" — from the Latin silens, and from there parts unknown. Both words, perhaps, share an Indo-European root; *se(i)-, meaning "to leave," following an hypothesis of Klein's. We can only note for ourselves that the over-indulgence of wine can leave one quite active and animate, then leave one quite stolid and silent. Recalling, also, the relation of Dionysos to Dian Cecht, and then to other practitioners of hydraulic healing, we might ponder how often the "rejuvenating spring" or "magic well" may have simply been a flagon, or goblet of wine.

From such questionable waters we might now return to the similarly fluid topic of serpents and stones (leaving Silenos and company to drown in their drink). Further along, then, in this vein, we may briefly speak of ancient Britain's mysterious "adder stones," said to be a product of, and talisman against, various sorts of serpents. These figure into the Welsh tale of Peredur ("Percival" of the Fisher King saga) who uses just such a stone to defeat Addanc, the monstrous resident of a dark, forbidding lake. This, then, brings to mind Arthur, and his famous weapon Excalibur, either pulled from a stone, or entrusted to him by the "Lady of the Lake." We'll likewise observe the lapsit exillis of Wolfram's Parzival — the Holy Grail as stone itself — which, "by the power of that stone the phoenix burns to ashes, but the ashes give him life again."

Mining the mountain; detail from the Splendor Solis

There is then, of course, the "philosopher's stone," the Holy Grail of alchemy — result of all that reddening, whitening, et cetera — and thought, by some, to be not only the means for turning base metals into gold, but also for attaining physical and spiritual deathlessness. It is the key for unlocking any number of things, provided its wielder knows which way to turn it. This is the stone which King Midas, in a sense, became — granting himself all of his golden dreams, while turning his life into a waking nightmare. As such, this stone — and "stone" in general, it would seem — remains an equivocal object from which may be pulled an unlimited supply of contrary possibilities. In this way the stone is emblematic of those mountains and islands which hold the sleeping hero-king, at once the symbol of inertia and of restless potential. Indeed, in one of his most famous statements on the subject, Jung wrote of this very situation:

For the alchemist the one primarily in need of redemption is not man, but the deity who is lost and sleeping in matter ... His attention is not directed to his own salvation through God's grace, but to the liberation of God from the darkness of matter ... Therefore, what comes out of the transformation is not Christ but an ineffable material being named the 'stone,' which displays the most paradoxical qualities...

No lines could better serve in now returning us to our local form of alchemy; to those quizzical stones set by the water, still awaiting the liberation of their meaning from the darkness of all these various matters. Indeed, "alchemy" is no embroidered term in this respect when one considers that specific sort of matter concocted from water, sand, gravel, and cement — that "unique, almost magical, building material," as described at the onset of our explorations, which comprises the bulk of these ruined structures.