Introduction to the Lesser Homerica by Aeulius Nicon of Pergamon

Discovered in the collection of the Library of the Great Lavra at Mount Athos, temporarily housed in the Xenofontos Monastery during renovation.

[Written in Greek]

   Introduction to the Lesser Homerica by Aeulius Nicon of Pergamon

   Homer says that the Argonauts gradually replaced the failing pieces of the Argo as they 
   sailed, so that the ship that returned to lolcus was in no way the same as the ship that 
   had left it. But this cannot be true, for the talking stem of the Argo remained until it 
   fell on Jason and crushed him, years later. The lonians say that even Homer nods, but 
   perhaps it is better to believe that the mythology he drew from hints towards truths, 
   without expressing them perfectly. A myth is a view at twilight, and as such it does not 
   reveal all that can be seen in the day; but to us, who live in an age of permanent night, a 
   view at twilight can still be a revelation.

   The earth is Demeter in myth, and she has two daughters, Kore and Persephone. Myth says 
   these two are separated only by time, one standing on the near side of the chasm at Henna, 
   the other on the far side. But this is a misunderstanding, and there were indeed two 
   daughters; and one, did, in fact, get pulled into the abyss. Scarcely a record of her 
   remains. Another name for both Kore and Persephone is Hekate, an aspect of Artemis or 
   Selene.

   Winter comes to the world with the death of Kore. But she does not come back. The end of 
   summer is of course a reenactment of the end of the Golden Age; and the end of the Golden 
   Age is the castration of Chronos. The small details still ring true: when he was unmanned, 
   it fell in the sea. The sea boiled and writhed, and it was only this that kept it from 
   pressing its advantage. For despite what Hesiod says, it was not Zeus who castrated his 
   father, it was the hecatonchires, and Zeus raged from Crete to Olympus in revenge. In the 
   Golden Age, when heroes fought they could, at the end of the day, reattach their severed 
   limbs and heal and thrive; and only afierwards was violence frightening. Similarly, before 
   Kore died, nothing in the contest was really serious; it could go on forever, rather 
   pleasantly; but when Kore fell, everything changed.

   The altar nearby confirms that in ancient days the gods strove against each other, and war 
   was endemic in the heavens.

   I see the stars at bloody wars
   In the wounded welkin weeping

   as it says in the Margites of Ikulu. Now the titans prevail against the hecatonchires, now 
   the Olympians prevail against the The Aloads almost seized heaven for themselves, as did 
   the serpent-footed giants. It is scarcely spoken of or admitted, but Typhon prevailed in 
   his day, and the gods fled from him to Egypt, where they took strange disguises, in which 
   forms the Egyptians long remembered them. And Typhon could not be fooled, and he pursued 
   them there, and Zeus fought him with the very sickle he had reclaimed from the 
   hecatonchires. But Typhon was irresistible, for he had innumerable serpentine arms, and his 
   face was the face of chaos, and he seized the sickle from Zeus and cut out his sinews and 
   bore him through the sea and left him helpless in Cilicia. But Aegipan and Hermes stole the 
   sinews from the serpent Delphyne, and revitalized Zeus by attaching part to part firmly in 
   place; and, after much more fighting, Zeus pinned Typhon down with Sicily. Even today 
   Sicily is known to some as Dorapanon, from which comes the word for spear [dorapion].

   Is Zeus Chronos, or is he his son? Is Hermes Zeus, or is he his messenger? The natures of 
   the gods are not for mortals to grasp. The twilight vision of myth prevents us even from 
   knowing how many times Zeus made the world, how many times Typhon unmade it. But can one 
   perceive an increasing desperation, a growing bitterness on both sides? There was a deed 
   that could not be unmade, and perhaps there will be another.

[In another hand, still Greek]

   Puzzling. There are, of course, only two singular events in history. The Creation, which 
   established the Sabbath, and the Resurrection, which established the new Sabbath. Both are 
   acts of creation, or recreation, for Christ through his sacrifice remade the world. It 
   would also be fair to say that he sanctified it, just as the Creator sanctified the Edenic 
   world with the proclamation "It is good." One could argue that these two acts are therefore 
   reenactments of each other; that is to say, that creation is repeated by God.

   There will be a third singular event, perhaps, when the earth is destroyed by fire. But is 
   not this destruction another type of the destruction Noah faced? That is to say, might not 
   destruction be an ongoing act, just as creation can be seen to be.

   "One implies one, but two implies all, as can be proved with mirrors." Was there a flood 
   before the

[Scrawled in Arabic]

  Continuous sorcery

[A fragment in yet another hand, in Roman letters]

  Liv

[In a much more recent hand, again in Greek]

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