The hemoglobin diet goes back a long way in tales of horror. In the Bible, the scarlet whore of Babylon was drunk with the blood of the saints in Revelation 17:6. Greeks and Romans had minor gods and demons who drank men’s blood like our vampires, but the whole cult of blood sacrifice on the altars of the great gods was a kind of blood offering. The Egyptian goddess Sekhmet slaughtered the peoples of the dual kingdom so brutally when her rage was inspired, that the other gods turned the Nile into beer red as blood so she would slake her thirst and become so drunk she would no longer kill. The ancient Hindu goddess Kali drank men’s blood and then wore their skulls around her neck like beads.
The mythology of vampires goes back long before the current popularity of Anne Rice novels. How can Agamemnon, Helen of Troy and Odysseus compete with blood-sucking buxom bombshells and suave muscular young men with fangs? Clearly, I have my work cut out for me. Particularly popular are “graphic novels” on the subject, a genre of communications which my less well sophisticated generation used to call comic books. This is the current obsession of many of our young, and films, books, television series are filled with vampires. Could it be the timeless Greek tales of the ancient gods and heroes? I pass a group of elegant young ladies, dressed in their spandex, metal body piercing and tattoos, and take a quick scan of what they are reading. It has long concerned me that my students are reading only the “Odyssey” in my ancient history class, and I fear they are not getting enough Homer.
Under my arm, I carry my copy of Homer’s “Iliad,” and I am bound for the bookstore to add it to my required reading list. I am trudging slowly across campus, mentally arming myself for the coming struggle as the semester begins.
0 kommentar(er)
