In Illo Tempore

"The pure sky loves to violate the land,/and the land is seized by desire for this embrace;/the teeming rain from the sky / makes the earth fecund, so that for mortals it generates / the pastures for their flocks and the sap of Demeter / and the fruit on the trees.  From these moist embraces / everything which is comes into being.  And I am the cause of this."  P. 68

An eloquent passage that is the essence of "In Illo Tempore"  and Aeschylus "Oresteia."  It's about absolution.  It's about woman's betrayal and as Calasso says, "Woman's betrayal does not alter the elements in space but rearranges them (P.70)."  It is about mythological stories telling us of the past but also what was going on in the present as they were written.    My mother use to tell us stories when we were kids, but they weren't necessarily happy ones.  In fact, they were darn right scary and spooky.   The stories I've read so far in  Cadmus and Harmony reek of betrayal, scary monsters, God's who rape women, women who are revered and then abandoned once the God's are done with them.  There is always the hero's adventure, he finds a female and conquers her, and then he either is absolved through his adventure or he is killed.  Most of these myths also reek of incestuous relationships and a bit much for some people, especially Oedipus.

                                                                        Oresteia

Honestly, what I love most of these myths is the fantastical nature of the stories and choose whether we buy into them or not.