Tea at Trianon: Centaurs

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, September 30, 2021

Centaurs

From The Historian's Hut:

There are many ancient accounts and commentaries about the origin of the centaurs, a mythological race of half-horse, half-man beings supposedly located in the mountainous regions of Thessaly and Arcadia. Writers such as Pindar, Diodorus Siculus, Cicero and Plutarch all traced the origin of the centaurs to a scandalous incident that allegedly occurred on Olympus, the home of the ancient Greek gods.

As the tales tell, there lived a man named Ixion, who was a king of the Lapiths, in ancient Thessaly. He was a demigod, whose lineage varied depending on the source, but it often connected in some way or other to Ares, the god of war and aggression. Ixion was not a good man—his misadventure began when he murdered his father-in-law, a crime that required purification. So, seeking to be purified, Ixion used his divine parentage to be received as a guest to Olympus, where he mingled with the gods.

During his stay on Olympus, Ixion became obsessed with one particular goddess and was determined to seduce her. He could not have set his sights on a more dangerous target. She was one half of Olympus’ most powerful and most jealous couple—her name was Hera, queen of the gods.

Ixion’s desires did not go unnoticed by Hera, and he was so pushy with his feelings that the queen of the gods brought up the troubling matter in conversation with her husband, Zeus. The mighty sky-god was skeptical of the claim, but he was curious enough to put Ixion to the test.

In an ethically questionable move, Zeus created a new female life, a nymph, made from the clouds and shaped to look exactly like Hera. The cloud creature, however, was not a lifeless puppet; her name was Nephele and she had a mind and personality of her own. Nevertheless, Zeus ensured that this newly born deity crossed Ixion’s path. Some accounts claimed that Zeus went as far as putting Nephele directly in Ixion’s bed. According to the tales, when Ixion finally came into contact with Nephele, he lost all control of his desires and raped the unsuspecting nymph. (Read more.)

More HERE. And HERE.