For reasons which I will not delve into here, I have had appeals to justice on my mind.\u00a0 I could, of course, go the Curse Tablet route\u2014the tablets found at Bath were almost exclusively appeals for justice(1)\u2014but the only good site for deposition nearby that I\u2019m aware of is the Quaker graveyard by the school, and I\u2019m not sure that I want to go down that road just yet: appealing to the dead could get me something much closer to revenge than to justice.<\/p>\n
Which leaves me needing to compose a spell of some other sort.\u00a0 A prayer, a statement of intent, an image, perhaps a sigil or three.\u00a0 And poetry.\u00a0 Poetry is always good for magic.\u00a0 But for those of us, like myself, to whom poetry does not come naturally, it is often useful to seek inspiration in the poetry of others, or even to outright plagiarize.<\/p>\n
By coincidence, I have been reading Aeschylus\u2019 Orestia<\/em>(2).\u00a0 And I have to say: if you are seeking justice or revenge, The Libation Bearers <\/em>is a good place to go looking for poetry on the subjects of justice and revenge:<\/p>\n There has been wrong done.\u00a0 I ask for right. \/ Here me, Earth.\u00a0 Hear me grandeurs of Darkness<\/p>\n –Aeschylus Libation Bearers<\/em>, 398-9<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Tell me that\u2019s not the good shit.<\/p>\n Almighty Destinies, by the will \/ of Zeus let these things \/ be done, in the turning of Justice \/ \u2026 The spirit of Right \/ cries out aloud and extracts atonement \/ due: \u2026 Who acts, shall endure.\u00a0 So speaks the voice of age-old wisdom.<\/p>\n –Ibid, 306-8, 310-14<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Yeah.\u00a0 That\u2019s the good shit.\u00a0 And if you\u2019re in more a mood for bloody vengeance than fair justice, just add back in the lines I\u2019ve omitted.<\/p>\n My plan is to take these lines, and maybe a few like them, and write them on one side of a page as a prayer.\u00a0 On the obverse will be images of the persons involved (the internet is handy that way), along with sigils pointed at having my appeal heard fairly.\u00a0 The end result will be the sort of thing I can leave on my altar with a spell candle while the issue is in play, then torch or bury upon resolution.<\/p>\n One more for the road:<\/p>\n O gods, be just in what you bring to pass.<\/p>\n Hear then, you blessed ones under the ground, \/ and answer these prayers with strength on our side.<\/p>\n –Ibid. 462, 476-7<\/p><\/blockquote>\n 1\u2014Magic of Europe: Ancient Greece and Rome<\/em>.\u00a0 Which I have returned to the library and therefore cannot cite properly.<\/p>\n 2\u2014Aescylus I.\u00a0 Ed. David Grene, Trans Richmond Lattimore.\u00a0 Chicago: University of Chicago Press (1953).<\/p>\n EDIT: Because I cannot be trusted to talk and type at the same time, I originally attributed these passages to the Eumenides<\/em> rather than the Libation Bearers<\/em>.\u00a0 That was incorrect.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For reasons which I will not delve into here, I have had appeals to justice on my mind.\u00a0 I could, of course, go the Curse Tablet route\u2014the tablets found at Bath were almost exclusively appeals for justice(1)\u2014but the only good site for deposition nearby that I\u2019m aware of is the Quaker graveyard by the school, … Read More<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,5],"tags":[9,21,56,149],"class_list":["post-278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-witchcraft","tag-aeschylus","tag-art-of-magic","tag-curse-tablet","tag-magic"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8kUcm-4u","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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