(dionysian-apollonian opposition)

(from 21.06.07)

Apollo has always been a strange one. Sons of Zeus are usually spoiled brats. They trail around after their mortal mothers in the supermarket, dragging their feet and throwing tantrums in the tinned food aisle.

Apollo is worse than most. He has never played fair and even when he doesn’t win, he engineers it so that he doesn’t lose. Instead, his opponents find themselves being parted from something, their pride or their skin or their dignity. Apollo never puts much store in dignity, not even his own, although he is fiercely proud. He drives his poor mother to distraction and his sister too, or he would if she displayed any interest in his ever-expanding collection of bad habits. Artemis lost count long ago, sometime before Hyacinthos turned her brother’s head.

Hyacinthos was one of Apollo’s first bad habits and it played out like a movie scene, gallivanting and laughing and running hand-in-hand through overgrown meadows until the West Wind pulled a face and got stuck on jealousy. Hyacinthos lost his head and so did Apollo and there have been days and weeks when even Dionysos has had to applaud Apollo’s dalliances with raging revenge. Dionysos has never been as unhinged as Apollo can be and he never understands the bad press he gets, just because he likes a tipple of an evening, and the occasional wild orgy.

Dionysos, with all the solemnity that he can muster, will remind his listeners that he, at least, has never turned a girl into a tree because she spurned him. He will call for another round of drinks and try to recall the last time he was spurned by any lover before he reminds himself that it is he who leads others on a merry chase.

Apollo may enjoy the view from his pedestal but Dionysos can still drink him under the table.