Download Apollo: The Origins and History of the Greek God AudioBook Free
"Foolish mortals and poor drudges are you, that you seek cares and hard toils and straits! Easily will I let you know a word and established it in your hearts. Though each one of you with knife in hand should slaughter sheep constantly, yet would you always have numerous store, even all that the glorious tribes of men bring here for me. But guard you my temple and have the tribes of men that gather to the place, and especially show mortal men my will, and do you keep righteousness in your heart." "Apollo's background is a perplexing one," said the renowned poet and mythologist Robert Graves. This idea is also illustrated in the above quote from the sixth hundred years BCE Homeric Hymn to Apollo, gives the listener a brief glimpse in to the confusion adjoining Apollo's multi-faceted characteristics. The quote comes from the end of the episode in which Apollo is traversing the known world, buying place to build a temple to himself. Once he lands after a place of his preference, however, he realizes that he must populate it with priests who "guard" and look after its ceremonies. Instead of depend after those "glorious tribes" to supply his temple with sycophants, Apollo does not have any patience for chance, and flies right down to a Cretan merchant ship, landing onto it in the form of a timber-shaking dolphin. After terrifying the vendors, he tells them that their lives in the sea trade are over, and they are to be priests at his temple from then on. Cautioning the vendors to eschew piracy and "keep righteousness" in their hearts, while concurrently confronting and sequestering them captures the vibrant god's capricious persona quite well.
