On American XL Bully Dogs and Ancient Greek Hounds

An American XL bully and the Ancient Greek hell-hound Cerberus 

as imagined by William Blake (c.1824-27)

 

 

 I. 

 

There are a lot of stories in the news at the moment about American XL bullies and, apparently, the breed will be banned in the UK as of the end of this year under the Dangerous Dogs Act (1991). 

 

Clearly, that's a good thing, although, in my opinion, it doesn't go far enough and there should be no certificates of exemption issued to owners no matter how fit and proper they are deemed to be. 

 

You can't have ultra-aggressive mutts with stocky, muscular bodies and powerful jaws running rampage on the streets and in the parks, causing serious injury to people and other canines. Six of the ten fatal dogs attacks in the UK last year were due to these illegally bred beasts.       

 

However, if you think the XL bully living next door is a nightmare and genuine threat to the safety of your children, then probably best you don't read the next section of this post in which we discuss a three-headed hound of Hades ...

 

 

II. 

 

According to ancient Greek mythology, guarding the gates of the Underworld is a monstrous, raw flesh-devouring dog named Cerberus, whom you really don't want to mess with (i.e., if you're dead, it's probably best to accept the fact and not attempt to leave). 

 

Cerberus was the polycephalic offspring of Typhon and Echidna and described as having a serpent for a tail and snake-heads protruding from multiple parts of his body, ensuring that his bite was infinitely worse than his bark. 

 

Thanks to his superhuman strength - and a wooden club - Heracles was just about the only one who could handle him, but, even then, I wouldn't have granted a dog license to this demi-god, nor allowed him to arrogantly parade Cerberus on a chain leash through the streets of Greece.       

 

A ravenous animal like Cerberus belongs in Hades ensuring the dead don't come back to extract their revenge upon the living. Alternatively, let him guard over the gluttons who inhabit the Third Circle of Hell [1], giving them a few hard bites in order to encourage them to repent of their sins and eat less. 

 

 

III.      

Finally, just to end on a slightly happier, more dog-friendly note, let me remind readers of another mythological mutt from ancient Greece; one much-loved by Odysseus and called by the name Argos ... 

 

According to Homer [2], after fighting in the Trojan War and battling monsters for twenty-odd years, Odysseus finally made it home to Ithaca. But as he approached his palace, he noticed an old dog lying on heaps of mule and cattle dung piled up outside the front gates. The poor creature was in a terribly neglected state, infested with fleas and other parasites. 

 

Nevertheless, when Argos heard a familiar human voice, he raised his tired head and pricked up his ears. As soon as he was sure it was his master, he wagged his tail in excitement, but lacked the strength to get to his feet and greet Odysseus properly.  

 

Seeing this - and touched by the fact that his dog clearly still remembered him after such a long time - Odysseus wiped away a tear, although, in his heart, he was angry that Argos had not been properly cared for in his absence and had fallen on hard times.

 

Tragically, having witnessed his master's homecoming, the loyal dog passed into the darkness of death - but what a good boy he was!

 

 

Argos and his master Odysseus [3]

Print by Frederick Stacpoole after Briton Rivière (1885)

Notes

 

[1] The third circle of hell, as depicted in Dante's Inferno, is reserved for the punishent of those who have committed the sin of gluttony; a realm of freezing mud which, just to make matters worse, is also inhabited by the three-headed hound Cerberus, who torments the excessively greedy by tearing at their flesh.

 

[2] See Homer's Odyssey, Book 17, lines 290-327. My paraphrased account is based on various English translations and MLG's recollection of the tale, particularly with reference to Argos.

       

[3] Print by Frederick Stacpoole, after Briton Rivière (1885); held in the collection of the British Museum under the title Ulysses and Argus. Click here for more information.

 

 

For a follow-up post to this one on a related theme, please click here. 

Continuous as the Stars That Shine ...

Osterglocken (SA/2023)

 

"When all at once I saw a crowd / A host, of golden daffodils ..." 

 

I. 

 

Often known by its Latin name - Narcissus [1] - the daffodil was as highly regarded in the ancient world as it is within the modern era: Greek philosopher and floraphile Theophrastus, for example, often mentioned them in his botanical writings; as did the Roman author and naturalist Pliny the Elder. 

 

However, it was left to the 18th-century Swedish botanist Linnaeus to formally identify them as a genus in his Species Plantarum (1753), at which time there were only six known species, whereas now there are over fifty (although the exact number remains disputed) [2].   

 

And it was left to the British Romantic poets to really establish the cultural and symbolic importance of the narcissus in the modern imagination. For with the exception of the rose and the lily, no flower blossoms more within the pages of English literature than the daffodil; Wordsworth, Shelley, and Keats all wrote of the eternal joy that these flowers can bring.  

 

 

II. 

 

But surely everyone - not just William Wordsworth and the Welsh - loves to see daffodils flowering in the spring, don't they? 

 

At any rate, I love them: I love their bright golden colour and the manner in which a trumpet-shaped corona is surrounded by a six-pointed star formed by the tepals; and I love the fact they come up every year, regardless of external conditions, nodding in defiant affirmation of life.    

But my love of daffoldils is also a class thing; the common daffodil growing by the roadside and at the bottom of the garden has none of the ornamental superiority or cultivated pretension of the tulip (a bulb that is in my mind forever associated with the nouveaux riches in 17th-century Europe). 

 

 

III.

 

When I was a child - and neighbours still had front gardens, not driveways - I used to love stealing daffodils every Easter to give to my mother and I was touched that MLG should remember this and placed a single yellow flower in my mother's coffin prior to her funeral; she would have liked that [3]. 

 

And, of course, even without the personal context, such a gesture would have been entirely appropriate. For whilst daffodils often symbolise rebirth and resurrection, so too are they closely associated with death ...

 

The ancient Egyptians, for example, used to make decorative use of narcissi in their tombs, whilst the ancient Greeks considered these flowers sacred to both Persephone and Hades. Indeed, the former was said to be picking daffodils when she was abducted by the latter and taken to the Underworld.

 

The fact is, like many beautiful-looking things, daffodils are highly toxic, containing as they do the alkaloid poison lycorine - mostly in the bulb, but also in the stem and leaves - and if you ingest enough lycorine then death will follow a series of very unpleasant symptoms including acute abdominal pains, vomiting, diarrhea, trembling, convulsions and paralysis.  

 

So do make sure, dear reader, that you know your onions and never confuse these with daffodil bulbs ... 

    

 

Notes

 

[1] According to Greek myth, the beautiful-looking young man of this name - Νάρκισσος - rejected the romantic advances of others, preferring instead to gaze fixedly at his own reflection in a pool of water. After his death, it is said that a flower sprouted in the spot at which he spent his life sitting. 

      Interestingly, although the exact origin of the name is unknown, it is often linked etymologically to the Greek term from which we derive the English word narcotic (Narcissus was essentially intoxicated by his own beauty). 

      As for the word daffodil, this seems to be a corruption of asphodel, a flowering bulb to which the former is often compared.

 

[2] In 2006, the Royal Horticultural Society's International Daffodil Register and Classified List identified 87 species. But according to the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families produced in 2014, there are only 52 species (along with at least 60 hybrids). Whatever the correct figure might be, the fact is that many wild species have already become extinct and many others are increasingly under threat due to over-collection and the destruction of natural habitats.

 

[3] When my mother died last month, aged 96, she had been living with dementia for almost a decade and it might be noted in relation to our topic here that daffodils produce a number of alkaloids that have been used in traditional forms of healing and one of which - gelantamine - is exploited in the production of a modern medicinal drug used to treat cognitive decline in those with Alzheimer's.     

 

 

This post is for Maria.

 

 

Even the Moon's Frightened of Me! (Philosophical Reflections on the Case of the Invisible Man)

 Claude Rains as The Invisible Man

(Universal Pictures, 1933)

"We'll begin with a reign of terror, a few murders here and there; murders of great men, murders of little men - 

just to show we make no distinction." 

I: The Invisible Man and the Ring of Gyges

The Invisible Man is one of the most philosophically interesting fictional characters within the cultural imagination. First appearing (and disappearing) in a short novel by H. G. Wells in 1897, he challenges us to address important ethical questions, including the following: Is virtuous behaviour dependent upon observation?  
 
In order to answer, we might refer back to Plato's Republic and the Ring of Gyges ...

The Ring of Gyges, for those unfamiliar with the above text, is a magical object which granted its owner the power to become invisible at will. In the Republic, Plato's brother Glaucon doubts that any man is so naturally good that he'd resist the temptation of performing wicked deeds were he invisible:

"No man would keep his hands off what was not his own if he could safely steal what he liked from the market, or enter houses and fuck with any one at his pleasure, kill, or release from prison whom he wished and in all respects be like a god among men."

This proves, he argues, that morality is a social construct - not an inherent trait - whose foundation is a desire to maintain one's reputation and avoid public shame or punishment. If, however, there was no danger of that thanks to an ability to become invisible, then one's moral character would also soon vanish and the just man would be indistinguishable from the unjust. 

Glaucon concludes that all men know in their hearts that crime pays and that anyone who had the power of invisibility but failed to exploit it fully would be thought to be an idiot by others. Thus he's obliged to take personal advantage of the power in order not to seem stupid. In other words, whilst the man who can be seen protects his public image by being virtuous, the man who becomes imperceptible only keeps face by behaving in an immoral fashion.

It takes him a while, but Socrates eventually addresses this argument and reaffirms his belief that moral virtue is divine in origin rather than social and that it's ultimately always in the individual's best interest to be just rather than unjust, because the gods love the former and will reward them accordingly if not in this life then in the next.

Those who would abuse the gift of invisibility, are, says Socrates, enslaved by their own base appetites; only the man who freely chooses not to use such power remains master of himself and is therefore truly happy.      


II: The Invisible Man and the Helm of Darkness

If Plato helps explain why Dr Griffin's invisibility triggers his criminality, it doesn't answer why we find him so much more disturbing and unheimlich than other masked maniacs, such as the Phantom of the Opera, for example. Why is it that the latter exposing his facial disfigurement doesn't unnerve us as much as when the former strips away his bandages to reveal no face at all?

To help answer this, we must again turn to the ancient Greeks and consider the Helm of Darkness worn by Hades ...

In Greek mythology, the Helm of Darkness is a helmet that enables the wearer to become invisible. Zeus has his lightning bolt; Poseidon has his trident. But it's Hades, the chthonic god, who possesses the magical helmet which gained him his title of the Unseen One.    

It's because of this link between invisibility and the Underword - i.e., between invisibility and the gloomy realm of death - that the Invisible Man continues to unsettle as a figure. For no one wants to be reminded of the death that awaits them; an undifferentiated state devoid of all personal characterization into which all mortal things eventually vanish.  

Certainly the ancient Greeks didn't. To them, Hades was a fearsome figure and they avoided even mentioning his name if possible (indeed, around the 5th century BC they began to refer to him by the more positive-sounding name of Pluto) and when they made a sacrifice to him (often of a black sheep) they always made sure to hide or avert their faces - as if making themselves invisible before him.  

In sum, in as much as the Invisible Man triggers some kind of mythological memory of Hades, this is why he creeps us out. He particularly upsets those who refuse to confront the ontological truth that Dasein rests upon the void of non-being (sein Nicht-mehr-dasein, as Heidegger writes). It's this that produces horror in those egoists who, as D. H. Lawrence says, dare not die for fear they should be nothing at all.


See: Plato, The Republic, 2:358a-2:360d and 10:612b.