I happened once on a story in National Geographic about an ancient shipwreck off the coast of France...and the old jars, amphora, brought up had a seal on them, a dolphin entwined around an anchor...I forget how I got from there to a mosaic floor on the Island of Delos showing a dolphin around an anchor (maybe it was the same issue?)...it was a Nat Geo story too...we'd saved all our Nat Geos...and at the time, I'd just invested funds in a Mac Plus, a laser printer, a modem, and software like Word, and Aldus Pagemaker...I had in mind to self publish my poems...and soon discovered the modem made the laser printer superfluous!...anyway, the packaging of Pagemaker had the story of the dolphin around the anchor...it is the colophon of Aldus, an early renaissance printer...
quote
The famous "Dolphin and Anchor" device of Aldus appeared for only the second time in the second state of the 1502 Dante, and was used subsequently in all his editions. It is the symbol of the ancient proverb "Festina lente" (Hurry up slowly) which Aldus had taken as a motto as early as 1499, and seems to have regularly expounded to his friends.
http://www.italnet.nd.edu/Dante/text/1502.venice.aldus.html
unquote
The sequence of reading on the software box about Aldus, finding the shipwreck story, finding the mosaic on Delos, happened like one right after another one afternoon...it gave me goosebumps!....and I've been a fan of the Island of Delos ever since!
quote
One of the emblems from the mosaic floor in the main reception rooms in the House of the Trident. It depicts an elegant dolphin swimming around an anchor, a symbol frequently encountered on Delos.
http://www.grisel.net/delos.htm
unquote
Not likely I will ever visit the Greek Islands, but I'm having much fun finding the tourists' and archaeologists' and such web pages and youtubes!
Delos, like Delphi, is sacred to Apollo, and here's the legend:
quote
Hera banned Leto from giving birth on "terra firma", the mainland, any island at sea, or any place under the sun.[19] Antoninus Liberalis is not alone in hinting that Leto came down from the land of the Hyperboreans in the guise of a she-wolf, or that she sought out the "wolf-country" of Lycia, formerly called Tremilis, which she renamed to honour wolves that had befriended her[20] for her denning. Another late source, Aelian, also links Leto with wolves and Hyperboreans:
Wolves are not easily delivered of their young, only after twelve days and twelve nights, for the people of Delos maintain that this was the length of time that it took Leto to travel from the Hyperboreoi to Delos."[21]Most accounts agree that she found the barren floating island of Delos, still bearing its archaic name of Asterios, which was neither mainland nor a real island, and gave birth there, promising the island wealth from the worshippers who would flock to the obscure birthplace of the splendid god who was to come. The island was surrounded by swans. As a gesture of gratitude, Delos was secured with four pillars and later became sacred to Apollo.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leto
unquote
oh...that version with wolves and Hyperboreans is new to me!...somewhere I have it that the dolphin represents Apollo, and the anchor represents the four pillars that anchor the island in this version...oh...and in reading, it comes back like a dream, about the anchors I mean...and I find they weren't anchors, but rather ingots of iron...
quote
The members were given a choice of either offering armed forces or paying a tax to the joint treasury; most states chose the tax.[48] League members swore to have the same friends and enemies, and dropped ingots of iron into the sea to symbolize the permanence of their alliance. The ingots of iron were cast into the ocean because the oath the league members swore stipulated that their allegiance would not end, or be otherwise broken, until the iron floated to the surface. In other words, that they had made a pact perceived to be eternal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wars_of_the_Delian_League#Delian_League
unquote
The Delian League is, of course, a model for modern NATO...
quote
The spectacular defeat of the Persians at Salamis in 480 led to the formation of a more permanent alliance. Three years later negotiations, led by Aristides of Athens, began on the Greek island of Delos. The result was the Delian League, a sort of ancient equivalent to NATO.
http://www.pbs.org/empires/thegreeks/background/27.html
unquote
Don't know but the wars in the Middle East now are too an equivalent of the wars back in the Delian League's days!
quote
Last but not least, enhancing security and stability collectively by forming Alliances has deep roots in Greek culture. Ιn ancient Greece, Athens took the initiative to form the first long lasting Alliance, the Delian League which has frequently been described as having many similarities with modern NATO. Greece, due to her geopolitical position and regional role, her active participation in all international organizations, her initiatives, her bilateral forms of cooperation and her explicit political will for peace, plays an important role in supporting the NATO of the 21st century.
http://www.nato.int/docu/review/2012/turkey-greece/greece-nato-partnership/en/index.htm
unquote
quote
One of the earliest dolphin stories is Homer's 'Hymn to Apollo', which describes how the god Apollo founded the temple at Delphi after a journey which took him all over Greece in search of a suitable site. Eventually he chose a lonely cave nestling at the foot of Mount Parnassos, which was guarded by the dragoness Python, whom he slew with an arrow from his silver bow.
After killing the dragoness, Apollo set off to hijack a Cretan merchant ship, leaping aboard the boat in the guise of a dolphin. Terrified, the crew huddled below deck while the dolphin Apollo directed the winds to blow the ship right around the Greek coast and into the harbour below Delphi. Then, according to Homer's poem, the sun god instructed his hostages to live in the new temple and serve him as priests:And whereas I first, in the misty sea, sprung aboard the swift ship in the guise of a dolphin, therefore pray to me as Apollo Delphinus.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/whales/man/myth.html
unquote
Tomorrowmorrow, updates, corrections, and miscellaneous stuff!...:)
DavidDavid
No comments:
Post a Comment