Iphigenia

Iphigenia
Matthew
Gokstad
Barcelona
Buenos Aires
Ireland
Breaking Bad
Arizona Highways

Rom.8:6
"For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace."

“The sheer technical skill of their journeys is a new achievement for the western world; and if one wants a symbol of Atlantic man that distinguishes him from Mediterranean man, a symbol to set against the Greek temple, it is the Viking ship. The Greek temple is static and solid. The ship is mobile and light.”~~~ Kenneth Clark: Civilisation. Ch1 The Skin of Our Teeth.

The beginning of the Gospel of St. Matthew, from the Lindisfarne Gospels

Aeschylus (525–456 B.C.).  Agamemnon.

"Heaven sends the vengeful fiends of hell.

Even so doth Zeus, the jealous lord

And guardian of the hearth and board,

Speed Atreus' sons, in vengeful ire,

'Gainst Paris-sends them forth on fire,

Her to buy back, in war and blood,

Whom one did wed but many woo'd!

And many, many, by his will,

The last embrace of foes shall feel,

And many a knee in dust be bowed,

And splintered spears on shields ring loud,

Of Trojan and of Greek, before

That iron bridal-feast be o'er!

But as he willed 'tis ordered all,

And woes, by heaven ordained, must fall-

Unsoothed by tears or spilth of wine

Poured forth too late, the wrath divine

Glares vengeance on the flameless shrine."

Oseberg ship, Oslo

Iona, Western Scotland

Chess: "Iphigenia" "Matthew" "Gokstad" "Barcelona

Buenos Aires" "Ireland" "Breaking Bad" "Arizona Highways"

Tantalus

Tantalus
Shoulder
Ivory
Gioacchino Assereto
Showbread
Deborah
Keats
Yeats

Rom.8:4
"That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit."

Gen.1:1
"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."

"Bond shovelled the great wad of notes on to the table"~~~Ian Fleming

"The American liking for shortcuts in speech"~~~H. L. Mencken

Tantalus, oil painting circa 1640's, by Gioacchino Assereto

Gioacchino Assereto was an Italian painter of the early Baroque period and one of the most prominent history painters active in Genoa in the first half of the 17th century.

Showbread

Carved elephant ivory statuette of the Virgin and Child 1320–30 Victoria and Albert Museum

Tantalus

The House of Atreus begins with Tantalus. Tantalus was a son of Zeus who enjoyed cordial relations with the gods until he decided to slay his son Pelops and feed him to the gods as a test of their omniscience. Most of the gods, as they sat down to dinner with Tantalus, immediately understood what had happened, and, because they knew the nature of the meat they were served, were appalled and did not partake. But Demeter, who was distracted due to the abduction by Hades of her daughter Persephone, obliviously ate Pelops' shoulder. The gods threw Tantalus into the underworld, where he spends eternity standing in a pool of water beneath a fruit tree with low branches. Whenever he reaches for the fruit, the branches raise his intended meal from his grasp. Whenever he bends down to get a drink, the water recedes before he can drink. Thus is derived the word "tantalising". The gods brought Pelops back to life, replacing the bone in his shoulder with a bit of ivory, thus marking the family forever afterwards.

Chess: "Tantalus" "Shoulder" "Ivory" "Gioacchino Assereto" "Showbread" "Deborah" "Keats" "Yeats"