Conversations: Singing the Words of Homer, Ancient Music and Lyrics with Bettina Joy De Guzman

00:00:00
Speaker 1: Mmm, Hello, this is let's talk about miss Baby and I am your host live. Okay, So today's conversation episode, like I hinted last week, is particularly suited to the god Apollo from this past week's regular episode, and that is because I spoke with Bettina joy D Guzman, who is a singer and songwriter and musician of songs either in ancient Greek or based on ancient Greek poetry and epic, which is so utterly fascinating. She plays ancient instruments like the liar, and she plays a little bit of the barbiton. In this episode, we talked all about ancient music and ancient epics, Homer and the Homeric hymns. We just went off about mythology in general and talked about Madeline Miller's song of Achilles and Cercy talked about Achilles in general and all the intricacies surrounding his mother Thetis, and oh my gosh, there was really so much um. We talked a lot about Sean Bean in the movie Troy. Who wants to miss that? Not me as you're here. At the end, we talked for about two hours. I tried to trim it down because I never know how long is too long, but I couldn't cut out too much, so this is still about an hour and a half long. There's a couple of little transition cues in air when we wandered off topic, and I brought it back in the editing, but otherwise we just had such fun, such an incredible conversation. I love that there are people that I can just talk mythology and all of it, you know, in one place. So I really enjoyed this episode. It was really fun speaking with Betina Joy, and I hope you enjoy it. Her music is incredible and there's just so much you can find more about her in the episode's description, there's a link to her website. You can listen to her music and oh my gosh, so much going on. Ancient music is so fascinating and so cool, and please just enjoy this episode. Conversations singing the Words of Homer, Ancient music and lyrics with Bettina Joy Dagoseman, why don't you tell my listeners like about yourself and kind of what your whole world is in the classics realm, because I think yours is quite unique, um in like how you do it and how you reach people and everything. So why don't you tell us a little bit more about you? Okay? UM, I am in an interesting space because, for instance, for Harvard University Center for Hellenic Studies, I have to appointments this year, which is as an associate, UM, and so it's like research stuff and associate for that and UM it's it's an associate with a grant, which is rare. And um also as visiting artists. And I think that pretty much. You know that that's a good way of defining why I'm so oddly or how I'm oddly placed because I am a classicist. So my my training my fourth degree, UM. The other ones were my bachelors were in music, English, and psychology, especially developmental and abnormal psychology. And then I went back for my fourth degree by accident because I just love languages so very much, and it was like why fifth language at the time or whatever? I mean, I've at this point in time, I've I've studied twenty I'm not very good at all of that or anything fluency whatever. You know, there's reading, comprehension skills and stuff, but but I mean studying. I intend to live like my grandmother, to be like a hundred she's a hundred turning hundred and one this year, So I don't have any like limits to myself, like I must learn by this time. No, it's learning the process, it's organic, right, so um so yeah. So so one day I was just like, I've been teaching piano. I was a piano teacher at the time, and that's all I was doing is so chill, so wonderful teaching children. I was already done with my uh you know, with my degrees. And I was like, yeah, I'm just teaching piano and earning quite well for you know, somebody in my twenties. And then I decided, wait, hang out, what is this? Oh look at that Latin in the summer. Oh, that sounds like a fun language to learn. So I went in it and um and the the t A at the time, the instructor was like, who are you white or are you picking up this language so easily? And I'm Filipino. I mean Filipinos tend to pick up languages and music very easily. Like we were just like known for that. Um so then um, they kind of really being and said, well, you know, what are your plans? What are you doing? You know, are you have you thought about being a major in classics. I'm like, no, I mean, I've already finished my major. Just like you know, if you go in, there's only two years because you only have to do the language just part because you're already done like the major requirements, as you already did English. And I'm like, I mean that's intriguing, you know. I mean I I had at the time that at the time, that was before my child children suck all your energy and money, I swear, you know. So I'm like, why I won't have any want energy and my money from me, you know. And I can totally I understand that. I understand. So so that was and I went in and you know, I was in like maybe even like two semesters and maybe even the first one, and they were already um it was a new program. It was like back in two thousand three years something, and they were like, you know, we could use somebody like you in our PhD program. And at the time, believe it or not, they were offering me a stipend as well as a fellowship and and a t a ship three things you can't get that. And in fact that that program now, um, they don't have PhD anymore they only have to a But you know, I went in and at the end at the time when they were asking me, what what are your interests? What would it be, what would you be study said theater, so theater, ancient theater, and UM, I started also music and they're like music. I go, yeah, you know, what what did Homer saying? And they're like, we don't know. What do you mean you don't know. At the time, they didn't know, and there were only like a few people who were who had been looking into it. So that so there was West, mL West and Um and he's he's well known from for many things besides music. There's women and West who was working on ancient Greek music, like they had this this book and documents of ancient Greek music and so on. So I looked at that and I thought, this is exciting. And I had I took a class and meter and everybody else was like, we have a whole semester on meter and they're all like, oh my god. And I was like, oh, Meter, and they're like, you are so weird totally. And for that class, I had a lap harp and because I didn't have a liar at the time or anything like that. They didn't they didn't make there were no makers of those that made it for like the public or anything like that. Um. That was only very recently seven years ago or six maybe even six years ago when the theatero's music instruments started making it for the public. So anyway, you know, so I just took up my lap harp and I was demonstrating, like there, here's a lap harp. It's different from a liar, and I'm explaining why. And I played a couple of songs on it, and they're like, okay, that's cool. And then um one of the other professors and Rama Knica, who is now editor um of a major journal and who's still there and who's now my mentor, had had overheard. She's walking down the hall and she heard it and she's like, well, that's lovely. Can you play for my class, my underglad class? You know? So sure, you know, and we had we maintained contact and she's been fabulous. She's worked on things with you know, women, um, women and song basically women at work, what are they singing? And things like that. And if it weren't for her, yeah, I wouldn't have thought about the connection between Penelope working on her weaving and singing at the same time, and it was like the first major song that I had done by myself, and the first song that I've done was the epitaph of Sekulus with with Michael Leavi and Uh, It's funny how I approach people. I just look look at the stuff, look at their music, email them and go, wow, you know I love that. Can I work with you? And that? I think that seems very like a weird approach to most people, Like why, I mean, why would you think that somebody would listen to you? I don't know, I just do, but they do well. Yeah, I mean you have to try. You have to try. Yeah, you have to show what you got. So I'm like, oh, I I've sound like that that this song. Here's our quick recording. What do you think of that? And he was like, wow, that would sound really good together. So he took his his liar music and my you know, my song, my singing because he had just been doing liar music but no actual lyrics. And so that's the the oldest um the oldest complete song that has musical notations um in So there's a it's an ancient Greek song and then um, yeah, it's got musical notations and you know, we we we put it together and it became a big hit, I guess for the ancient world people, you know, as far as like agent yes, which are very important, course of course. And you know, I mean I wented to grad school thinking this is great stuff, and nobody knew anything about not much about ancient music. At the time. There was Stefan Hoggle. There was a recording of Stefan Hoggle. I remember, who is that, my friend, But like back then it was just like a dame, who is this mysterious person singing Demodocus song? And he only played like four notes over and over again. Now, of course he says, oh, well, we were naive back then. It was a long time ago. I said, yeah, our knowledge of ancient Greek music has expanded so much just in the past fifteen years since I like left grad school. Um, so, at the time, it wasn't really doing much for me, honestly, And when it when it came time ter City and when I was taking my exams already, what was really getting me was like the mythology at the time, and that was making me excited and I was like, I want to sing these songs, I was saying, Homer, and like, nobody can help me with this. And at the time, I already started a family, so you know, uh, by that point in time, the you could already see the trend was not very good with the academic hiring and me, it's starting a family. Um, it seemed the best thing to do would be to to to teach high school Latin, because I mean I had grown to love Latin at that point. I also was, you know, loved ancient Greek. But ancient Greek is not being hired in most you know, because it lasted. Yeah, as our divine teacher like that, you know, places that will actually teach it, like you know, I certainly in high school there was no option for anything like that. Yeah, it's it's rare, right, but apparently there were places in California. It seemed the best thing for me to do, instead of taking this child and and and putting him around trying to find a job in various states, right and begging for a job, to just take a job in California as a public high school teacher, take my credential work and all that, and and settled down and enjoy summers and Thanksgivings and Christmas is with my baby. And you know, it became a thing and I settled in. But I never I never stopped playing music or teaching music and reading and reading and reading. And uh, to me, music and myth always always went together because I think I always thought of the barred Homer, who was a total fan figure, you know he because um, and this is a this is just my my view, so this is not anything that I've read, but I really feel that that Homer didn't like the Olympians, like whatever gods he worshiped. Maybe they were the Titans, maybe he just didn't, but he's clearly didn't like them, and um, he was the relationships that he was he was showing us, is that that the gods were petty and so on. Those were not in the Homeric hymns, um called home Homeric not not because he wrote them right, um, And they were not in the Orphic hymns either, so you know who wrote them not? I mean it's oral tradition. Um, that's that has the name Homer to it. Whether he was the editor of the person the school, who knows, right, what is homework, but which is called him homewer. Just just make it easier. It's easier. You know, Demodocus was in there someplace too, Was he real? Was he know? Who knows? But so there's that oral tradition of a bunch of bards singing a bunch of songs. And this collection, the one that's known as the Iliad, has these gods that are just like powerful but petty. I see it. It's interesting, like I yeah, I'm so I love I mean, that's the pettiness of the gods is why I love it. It's fun, like it's so fun here. Yeah, But what I love is to think about like it's not necessarily that you know home or whoever they may be. Um, you know, disliked the Olympians so much as high take it is like really understanding the way they would have been seen back then, which is just like deeply human, like pulling the strings in this deeply human and flawed and obnoxious and weird way. Like I love the Olympians versus you know, modern deities, like you know, Christian ideals, because there's so much more human in this really accessible and entertaining way, you know, Yeah, like the gods and the Iliad are so over the top in a way that I find so deeply entertaining and like a little bit so I guess in in the Odyssey, like they're there, but yeah they're not. They're not like they're not petty bitchy little children in the same way that they are in the ilia. Iliad is so much more fun because you sit there and you go, Okay, now, if I were a god and I had that much power, would I do that? Yeah? I would, Yeah, yeah, sure I would. I'd behave that way. And I guess that's what I mean. It's like he did like them in the sense that he didn't like he who was at a worshiper of them, I should I should just say, well, but maybe they maybe the worshiping was still just appreciating that they were like that, you know, like like you could worship them and also be like, man, you're petty motherfucker's but like I worship you know anyway, I uh, you know, I mean, and who knows. I just find it all entertaining to think like that. But then you know, if you think about the Homeric hymns too, like the Hermes hymn, Oh, He's a pretty good example. Love that, love that. Yeah, that's because it's so it's so ridiculous. Like that's a pretty good example of similarly ridiculous gods, granted in different ways and like not talking with humans in the same way. But like I mean, he invents the liar gives it up just by like stumbling upon a turtle, that poor turtle, you know, tortoise, tortoise. Yeah, yeah, this one, this one is a replica. I have one in a box that's that's actual tortoise shell. And so this is the Yeah, this is the Sappho right, yeah, right said, this is the one that that she had played. And I always wondered if what if the Homers, one of the arts was ever a female Bard, But there's unfortunately no evidence that there was ever a female Bard, and um, I need to I need to look that up. And that's one of my my research goals for for me. When I say a Bard, it's someone who travels and sings stories, sings the myths to vary. Whereas Sappho seemed to really enjoy a particular place right where she is in her island of les Voss and Um, and she's well known, I mean she is like the best singer and composer of poetry, a poet and and singer of it and and uh lyrist lire player all in one. And they come to see her, and she performs and she she wins. So she does not travel. I guess when I think of the bard, I think of this sky like going around in a place. And maybe that's why there weren't women, because goodness knows they were. It wouldn't have been that easy to travel around. But not so very unsafe conditions, traveling place to place and singing your songs and and singing it to different people with various values. So you go somewhere and you and Helen. Right, Helen never has a description in the Iliad. You never hear she does not have blond hair, dark hair, anything, because she's just the most beautiful woman. But that makes sense because a bard going to a strange new location says, I will sing you a song about the most beautiful woman who who caused the war? Oh? Yes, what did she look like? He looks at the queen and says, she looked like you, queen, just like you. Right, interesting, it's so funny. Okay, So one of the last people I recorded with earlier this week. We talked about Helen and the you know, the beautiful evil the cow on Cacon and and how she's not described and how interesting it is that she's not described. But and then you have this whole other reason that's so makes so much sense, like of course, yeah, it's not necessarily some sort of commentary on beauty so much as it is an easy way to make sure that you're also complimenting the people who you're singing for, and that's right, and even even the goddesses you know you get well trust, well, trust goddess, but not like skin color. You do get you know, owl eyed Athena and um, it's is it? And maybe even gray eyed Athena, so you get that, um, but you know you kind of wonder is it because the gray eyes in general, you're thinking sky, you're thinking that just seems to be a logical color for someone with wisdom or you know, something like that. But no other descriptions of of the other ones. And even Afroditi right at Fradita, so on, um, she has no description. I mean, the most beautiful goddess, what was the hair hair Kelder was her skin color was now there's some references to blonde, isn't there not necessarily in Homer, but elsewhere, elsewhere, elsewhere, and not Homer, even even among among my Greek friends. I had a Greek professor who said insistently that she had to have been blonde. Um. I forgot why she she had that idea. But then there's Achilles, you know, lion haired, lion made Achilles, and various translations. Translators would say, oh, no, it's it's describing the alliance here, the waits wild or something more than the color. But you ask a Greek and they would say, woman allows had had blonde hair. You know, he was Santis and uh, I have have friends with her last name Santolis and Santos and so on, and it's you know, it means blonde to them. And both of my friends happened to be blondish blond, and you know, so they're saying, like, that's that is the color, that is what they consider the color. And I do understand. I always I listened to Um the people of the land, like so among my Greek friends, what is what is the meaning to you? Um? Rather than you know, I hate to say it, but like someone else a British are American who's who might be projecting their ideas onto the culture. You have to listen to both absolutely, yeah, and then you also have to take into consideration too that like modern Greek, while a valid is also you know, years later, and so it has their own influences of so many millennia of change and everything, and what how are the how have they been influenced by that? And exactly right as well. Yeah, And when I was there it was really interesting, like you know, the things that they would tell me versus what I know. It was it was interesting. I mean it's yeah, and what is the meaning to them? I mean what is their reception of it? Right? Always there's that balance of that's that's fine. We can be all academic about it, and we can you know, this is our meaning of it, but when you take it back to the people of that land, what what meaning is it to you these days in your in your modern world? Um, and and generationally it's very different too, like the age of the Greek person I learned, you know, like I was speaking to people, you know, in their early thirties like twenties, and their viewpoint was very different than a couple of people who would speak to me, you know, who were boomers when like and then and then in between, and yeah, it's just sort of very fascinating sort of taking that in and learning from from everybody. Yeah. Yeah, I love traveling and hearing, um, hearing the various folk tradition, myths and music of course, always always music, what it what it all means, and how they're how they're putting myths um in their music these days. I mean, that's that's been a thing. So um, there's there's always been, or I should say always like for generations. In the summers, there's there's place in Greece always of the ancient Greek tragedies and they had performed them with courses singing and dancing and two two various other Europeans or even Americans. They're like, oh, this this is a new thing we're doing. And I'm thinking it's sound new to them, is that they've been doing it for years and years. It's just you haven't been paying attention to what the Greeks were doing until now. So um, sorry, I'm very I'm very Greek focused, just because I'm thinking that you've been in Greece and yeah, I know it's interesting. Yeah, I UM, I did watch they live streamed um a performance of the Frogs, and that was I watched that and sort of they did have subtitles, which was nice. But I was also trying to take in the Greek as well, since I'm like, I'm trying to learn Greek. And it was really interesting watching the interpretation of that. And it was a beautiful performance of it. It was very it was very cool. But it just reminds you that in Um, any of the bards, you know, they're singing from place to place, they had to be very aware of who they were singing to. UM. So one of the one of the more controversial aspects of the iliad Um is Achilles and Patrick less what was their relationship? And Jill Christensen had said, I forgot where um, but he's he's offered this thought before that. It's it's simply that for each space Um there were different you know, attitudes towards towards love, and so it was hard to say, you know, I guess where it was acceptable to say, all Saint Patrick has had this sort of lover, that sort of love, and so UM it was purposely vague in the Alien and so you know, you're there their passages where you're so certain it's is a love of the kind that the romantic, absolutely, because why else would you want to be, uh, to have your ashes buried in the same who do that? And yet you know in one of the other um what other scenes Achilles said Patrick cliss are are separately sleeping with two enslaved women, you know, and that and never together and it never shows them embrace passionately in a kiss or anything like that. And again back to well, why would you be would you have your ashes mixed together? You know? And like achilles reaction to the deaths over the top, even for you know, the closest friend, like he loses his mind. Yeah, it's really fascinating to I mean, I think that's so that's such an interesting and you know, very appropriate interpretation of it. It's and it sort of fits just for now even right, like the amount that people will interpret it and how everyone sees it and the way that translation affects it and all those different things. It is so so interesting. But that's why I love both um the Song of Achilles by by mad Line Miller as well as the movie Troy, and people will be like I hate the movie Troy like I love the movie Troy. How can I love both these things at the same time? Because I, like most people, I pick and choose which parts I'm looking at and and loving. So I Roy most of Troy, I will clear fun. I I like most of it. I think, you know, there's certain things where but otherwise, like I'm with you, I mean, I'll certainly enjoy watching Brad Pitt and Troy, but there you are. I love that. Yeah. Or you know the actor who for Hector oh him, Oh my god, Eric Banna as Hector Eric and Sean Bean come on, come on, lost, opportunity lost, not to have been would have been epic, epic, wonderfully, there's nothing that I want more. Yeah, Oh, I was excited. I was like, it's Sean Bean. It's double O seven uh, double six, double six? Right? He always he always plays that ambiguous or ambigie was bad guy or the one that's complicated, yeah right, height see always the one that's like, you're all okay, I love you, but like I hate you, but I love you and yeah, feel perfect. Oh. The only time I ever liked Odysseus was as Sean Bean. I'm like oh my problematic fave. Oh my god. Well, well, if I see Sean Bean as Odysseus, I can forgive Odysseus. Otherwise I hate every every moment of the Odyssey. I'm just like a why why and then and then I picture Sean been oh and yeah, never mind, honey, No, it's okay. You be, you can do anything. You be you now, You're I forgive you. Yeah. So with a song of Achilles Um. Madeline had had asked for me to to introduce her, and so I had played. I had to propose a song UM. At the time, I was still playing with the title, and I called it. I might have called it Achilles, Brseis and Patrickles or something. At this point in time, I'm calling it Achilles, patrick Less and verses in the in the order. And I had started with um with a chill Lees. I knew I had to pick and choose passages and still make it deckt like examiner. That was one heck of a wow something. Yeah, it was, it really was. But and I wanted specifically that it's Achilles calling patrick Lus's name. That had to be the beginning, and the ending had to be patrick LUs saying Achilles's name, like okay, alright, good good? What else do I need in there? I need verses in there as well. And it has to be clear in this song that it's a love song. So you know which, which uh lines do I pick and choose from? But I found it. It's started with with Achilles calling out to Patrick LUs when Patricos had had died, and then Patrick Clos's ghost coming and saying, lay not your bones from me, Achilles, let them be together, just as when we were growing up. Let them be together. And then and then Achilles saying, Patrick LUs stay, you know, stay, don't don't go yet, just for a little bit. And it's just like I chose the most heart wrenching moment. And then I interspersed Bersies voice which is actually from another book when she whales when she first sees Patrick was dead, and she wails and she says, Patrick Less, you're the you're the best you know there and then she just just just wailing, and then back to Patrick. Was the very last thing is, you know, laying out your bones from me, far from me, Achilles, And that's how I ended it. And you know, to me, that captures that complication of all that where Brssees is in there in in the Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller, Bersees was in love with patrick LUs, which explains like that weird passage where that come from. But Um, one of the things that that I had noted in that passage of Bersees whaling is that she had said something interesting. It is that she she was comforted by patrick LUs when Achilles had taken her by the idea that Achilles was taking her as his wife, that she would have an actual marriage to Achilles, and that comforted her because socially she she would have been um just thrown away. Like so her status was not just going to be as as an enslaved person, but rather someone who was going to be a princess somewhere else. So, yes, she lost her loved ones and it's horrible, but at least he's trying to give her like but at least you're not going to be an enslave person. You're going to be a princess in this land. And that was his comforting thought to her. You will be protected, you will not be endangered. But with Patricks dead and Um and Achilles staying to fight and him dying that's no longer going to be her fate. Her fate is just to die as an enslaved person. Patrick Las can't help her anymore and and promote that idea to Achilles. So it's like there's that too, Yes, that that aside from the fact that maybe she had a crush on Patrick was or whatever, it's the fact that he was offering to her this small comfort, no after after such a horrid fate, Yeah, which is yeah, I mean that that's the thing. I think. That's the thing I'm more conscious of these days is just paying attention to the story of Perses and like how I interpret her because you know, a lot of like that's my issue with Troy. I would say, like it certainly wasn't back in the day, but then now the more I watch it, and just like the the depiction of Perses and Achilles is like a little when you think about the fact that, yeah, she is and completely an abused and horrifically abused, enslaved person, you know, but that, yeah, and I think that the other you know, just Patrick was in general, he seems to come across as that that little bit of kindness amongst the rest of the Greeks too, right, he's sort of inherently the nicest of them that you know, he's the best of them. He's he's the he's the sort of redeeming nature of the Greeks. And so you can kind of see an attachment that would form there, regardless of all of the other things, just because she has this one person who isn't as horrible to her as everybody else, you know, and that's it and a small comfort, exactly right, and you would you would hang on to that small comfort. And then when he's gone, you know, yeah, there's so many little bits and pieces that you can really make you get to the point of why Brasais would have would have been upset with his death is you know, there's so many little things that he represented to her. And it's so complicated to the right because because because patrick LUs himself killed people, I mean he was a soldier, yeah he wasn't, so it's like he was he was the nicest of these killers, right, But of course you could you could see a soldier on the other hand, as someone who is a protector, as if you're that side, if you're in that side, hector is your protector. He's slaughtering people. But hey, he's protecting you, so it's okay, that's killing people. So um, it's really depending on which side, which perspective you're you're looking at. So why do I love Achailles Because I see him um as thetis son. That's the main thing I when I first read Um the Iliad, you know, because we had to read it in ancient Greek as opposed to here's the English version. And I I think I was trying to understand why I should care. And so I read The Power of of Thetis by Laura's Latkin, who's a dear friend and mentor to me now, and it was incredible. It was incredibly moving things. So so imagine that this is my first introduction to it, you know, rather than any other way, not as Achilles the glorious whatever, but as as thetisis done. And so I think it always just sort of fixed itself my brain like that, where her central question was why is the hero of the Iliad the son of Thetis as opposed to you know, the son of Zeus. Why you also have the interesting, you know, the idea that Satis was meant or that Zeus like stopped her from marrying anyone powerful because her son was supposed to be greater than Oh yes, oh yes, that's right. That's why that is the power of Fennis. Like what did she mean? And in in um various if you look at her name Satis, it's related to Ti sami, which timi, which is to to place, and so um they think that she's really one of the creatrix creator god and and so she she had that she had that power you know before before they formed the whole Olympian framework, right, that she was one of the goddesses that actually had extreme power like that. And so when they wove her into the um to their myths, into the Olympian myths, they still couldn't get rid of the fact that she had this sort of innate power. Whatever she had, it was gonna it's huge. So you know, in that awful myth where she was forced by the gods, really it was their ideas that a mortal should should force her down and impregnate her and then make him his own um in a very brutal way. Right, that that's how she would then be forced to to have this half mortal child. And I wrote this this poem that is all about it's I called it the Lullaby of Fetis, and it's it's all about her goodbye to m Achilles. He's he's dead. And so she starts by saying, what what wrath should I sing? Should I start with this? You know your origins, which is this? Should I start with that? Should I be angry about that? So it's already like a complicated place where you know, I love you, son, but I was forced to have you, and I never had a choice about you becoming you. But you had your choices of which path to take, because he did. He could have chosen to die as a hero in this war or to live a long life back in his native land with h and to live. But then once he has died, um, he'll be remembered for a generation maybe or the next one, and then not anymore after that, whereas he will be remembered forever as a hero of this one war. And he chooses, he chooses, of course, the hero's path, and that is doesn't stop him. You know, she did try, She did try, and I did put that in my poem that's going to be in in this one anthology. By the way, I'm very excited about that. Congratulations. Yeah, thank you. Anyway, I'm very grateful to the take it because it's like the one poem in this like anthology of like academic writing, and they they're including they're including that in there. I I footnoted it, but but still it's like, well, thank you for taking my poem. Yeah, and you know I don't I don't stare away from the part where um, she does take that take Achilles and try to stick on in an island, right, the island of women. She doesn't do that, but like after her first toward at attempt, she's like, okay, you know that was it. That was my last attempt. And then she like gives him blankets. Like there's this scene in the Aliad where he's unpacking stuff. He's looking for something and he and he takes out the blankets that she had given him from the Its like, how cute is that. It's like, you know, sending it a war with blankets, Yeah, blankets and and the cup, the cup for to to send libations to Zeus. It's like she's like, no, don't forget the other gods that you have to give libations to, you know, so here's a cup for Zeus. It's like what a good mommy. So I guess, I guess, and you know, and and that in that famous scene where he where he's sitting there at the shore and and I know lots of people see it us and he's stalking suking there, But instead of seeing him as salking there, I think of him as praying to his mother. He sits in his moment of great consternation. And I think I am immature enough to actually see myself in that moment where if I if somebody had dishonored me in some way, I would be just absolutely piste off. I would be and I can't. That's why I I think I felt for him too. I'm like, oh, well, okay, let's just say I mean, it's horrible that it's like it happens. It is an it's an enslaved woman. That's that's his object. Okay, that sucks, not the thing that makes it hard. But if you ignore that part, yeah, it's easy to get to the yeah, I'm piste off because they're taking aways honor. Like that's the part that that's in his mind is it's it's an honor. It's a sense of honor. Right, So I guess that's what struck at me, is like, um, they are taking away this this thing um to him that that represents honor. Okay. Later he also says in the book, which makes things complicated, he uses the word love or fond of many times um in this one scene describing Russ and again which board had put that in there, which oral tradition had decided that he did love Russ. But he said it a few times like I love her, she's my bed mate, my might even have been my wife. Like I'd have to take a look at it, but it was definitely like it kept saying I'm fond of her, I love her, I love her, you know, and this and they're taking her from me. So putting that aside as like, well, okay, fine, um, even if I'm not looking at that, because that doesn't seem to be played that that theme doesn't seem to be shown except for that one time, Like, never have I ever seen him say over and over and I love her and they took her except for that one scene. Okay, so kind of say, okay, so it's not that it's the honor part of that, Okay, I I really could sit there and go they took your honor everybody else had their stuff not taken away. Why that thing? Okay, so honors stripped from him. He praised to his mother like his mother slash goddess. He prays to his mother like his mother slash goddess. And that's interesting because I mean, that's that's what's such a particular thing, right, his mother, whom he honors, but also his goddess. That's who he praised to. When you when you need somebody, you pray to your God. He praised his mother slash goddess. And he knows it's going to be fulfilled. And she comes and she she's she's tender. She holds his hand. You know, she comes from anywhere, right from the bottom of the sea. While she's hanging out with her father, she hears him. It's like it's like, you know, you have your your your your iPhone on you and and it's beeping. You know, a phone call is happening, or your your watch, your eye watch is going up, and you're like, oh, gotta go. And she goes. And then she comes up and she holds his hand and then she says, and he reminds her, you know that Zeus, you had that power over Zeus. You were the only one who were able to m and chain him that one time when when the gods had rebelled against him, which is a very interesting moment, right, like you were so powerful that you were able to do this, and why and it makes you wonder why would you do it anyway, because this is the same god. Or maybe that was before, maybe that was before she was forced or maybe she just realized too that like this will get me something important later. Maybe so, But in the timeline of when did Zeus force her to marry a human, that was before, right, that was before that happened. So she and Zeus were still not not fre enemies. They're still like, you know, yeah, they were sort of just you know, he was just there. Yeah, they must have had some sort of relationship, friendship, something right for her to care and she she does that and um, for whatever reasons it was. But later she's able to hold it to him and say here it is okay. She does do the supplication thing, um where she she kneels and she holds his chin and she is a suppliant and she she asked for this one thing, which is that the tide of the battle won't turn until Achilles comes back. And the odd and interesting and phenomenal thing is that no other the gods didn't get in the way of that. Zeus said okay, and nobody questioned it. They're like, whoa that is asked, Yeah, and this is going to happen. What a moment, right, It's that is so interesting. I haven't I hadn't thought all that much about it, but it's so fascinating. But it also reminds me that it's quite interesting in general that Achilles, with the power that he has, you know, the importance of him, that his divinity comes from his mother, because all other heroes other than a Eneas, which I've also commented in previous conversations, that interesting it is that Enius has the same you know that like, yeah, that that the god in the family is is his mom. And then that, yeah, that's so rare, just because you know, nine times in attend your dad is Zeus. Oh gosh, when I get started and the I need same same. I only care about Aeneas because it's effort t sent. Yeah, I know, and well, and I do think I find the Eneas interesting or the indeed interesting, not necessarily for the work itself. On which I often find it a little bit boring, um, but just the fact that they picked Enius to be this founder of Rome mythologically like out of everybody in the Iliad. But then on top of that, like the Iliad singles him out in a really interesting way. If you remind yourself that the Iliad did not see him as a founder of Rome, you know, like whoever Homer is did not see Nias going on to found Rome, but they still made him this very unique character in the Iliad, like to explicitly have Aphroditea as his mother is rare, to have her save him from the battlefield in such like an iconic and momentous way that injures her in the process, like everything about a Eneas, it kind of connects him to Achilles in the Iliad in like as like the Trojan Achilles kind of you know, in a way that then having him, like much later go on to be this founder of Rome. It's just so fascinating because what I mean, what was what we're what was Homer thinking coming up with you? That's my question. It's like what was his intention, because it certainly wasn't to have him go found Rome right now, So like what was his purpose and how how exactly sexy was and kisses apparently quite so? Well, I mean, but Zeus made her do that, right, Like that was all on Zeus, that was yeah, And the Homeric him to Ephrodite Ufredite six was six. Yeah, it's the long one. That's all. I know. She's she goes over there and she and she she tells an elaborate tale to right, it's very Odysseus. Yeah, I just just this girl and then you know, just let me tell you literally redtail about my fake life. Yeah I need to know. Yeah, but I I am the perfect bride for you, you see, so come take me. And you know, and if it's Zeus that that made her do it, what what was he thinking, you know, to do that? I forget if it's explicit in the hymn or if if it's elsewhere. But wasn't it that she um was like the only goddess who have never been with a human or there was something about it where she had never been with a human and he was trying to like bring her down? You know, I don't remember. The funny thing is I remember tweeting about it, but I'm just I don't remember that first part because I just assumed in on like called, hey, it's aphrodite, like all this you know, funny business that that you're saying. Why not just kind of be like, hey, I'm aphrodite, I'm beautiful, come on. Yeah. No, she she wanted to be liked for herself or her fake self or right. It's it's a very interesting yeah, and she like prepares herself in this really intricate way and has the you know, the whore like she has them like prepare her and you know, all of her like make her like like bridle these things. Sure, Like it's a very bridle way, right. So it's cool because in those hymns you get to see like what are bridal preparations like and what kind of clothes were they wearing? And uh and all that. So I love looking at that and I think that's what that's what my focus was on that day. And I was like wow, okay um and then and then she's like okay, I don't really have time to be a mother though. So you know, they'll watch him for five years and then they'll bring him to you and then you raise them and yeah, like I've done him from a war. Uh yeah, yeah, so all that was It's hard to say which was before the oral traditions and Iliad or the her American or were they happening at the same time. So, you know, I'm bringing that up because I'm thinking the two were somehow connected so that you you couldn't get rid of the idea of and kisses Aphrodite and and and yes, and somehow they were in this war for whatever reason. And then and then Virgil picks picks that up later, going huh, that's got possibilities, It's got lots of possibilities. Let's go with that. Yeah. I love Aphrodite so very much. She's just me too. Yeah, she's like how I Gary mythology? She is Gary, but she as for me what I love. Oh yeah, absolutely she was. She was number one. I'll tell me when I was a kid, what was your first Yeah, I wish I remembered enough. I don't. I don't have a great memory of of what exactly got me. And I just know that it was Aphrodite. As like Aphrodite in general, she's just wonderful with with Aphrodite, I think probably my first exposure to her was was the Bodicelli Venus and Um I was raised in the Philippines. Still, I was like eight and a half years old, and so uh, you know, red haired people, blonde people, Um, we do, we do get them because we're we're such a mixed people. We have um Europeans in my family. If an alien ever wanted to land and get like a population sample, just come to my family and we have we have all the various continents in our you know, in my in my genetics. But uh, but it's still like I remember when I was in um elementary school. You know, we had some blonde kids and we had some red head kids. But it's still like rare, you know with within a population most of let's just have a brown hair. Um, we can be pale, we can be dark, we can be my color, but still like red hair. Oh that's interesting. So the body of Shelly Venus image always like struck me as okay, that's I don't I'm not sure I saw her as more beautiful or anything, but just like, oh, that's what beautiful looks like to them, I guess, is what I was thinking. Like, Okay, that's okay, alright on a shell though, what's up with a shell. And then that actually got me curious, like a shell, Yeah, what's what's going on? Um? Then I then I started, you know, looking at the two myths of her and the Aliad. The Aliad one just makes her Zeuss daughter, So that is not fun. The theogomy the he see it weird, that's the fun weird sh star teeth thing. Oh yeah that that he see it was also it's a fun weird. I call her She of the Castration Phone. That's my name. Oh my gosh, who are people quote it to me quite often with like even TM at the end. Yes, this is I love that I've inflicted this upon a population of young people, like Aphrodite, she of the Castration Phone. Pontos plus uranus equals eprodit mm hmm. Yeah. And I point that out to my students, Um, poor students, but you know they get this myth. I'm like, I'm gonna tell you, miss, have a drink of water first before we strange myth. Uh. And you know, I said, it's it's very like here's here's the ocean, but he's called pontos at least in that myth. I know there's someone had pointed out that in another one in the orphic myth, it's it's it's another ocean, but but in this one, in the Agony, it's plantas So in this one, which I enjoy, it's like it's a male being, masculine being plus a very masculine uranus equals a hyper feminine um you know. Oh. And then and then she hangs out with Humorus and Arrows on that island. I love that. I'm like, and what do they do? What are these three love gods do on this you know? And it's so cool because it's like Aphrodite's born and as like it's like, hey, Humorros, check her out. Let's go and hang out with her. And then that's like end of story with that, you know. And then she goes to Then when she goes to Kitter and so and it's like from from Kipros she goes to Kitter, but it's like, but first when she's there, the other love gods are hanging with and it's always like I want to know the fan fix that goes on there, Like what's happening? You make Arrows not her son in that case? Oh yeah, absolutely, because in the Agony, he's he's theme being of love right until he's born. No procreation happens, if you notice. So that always struck me to like, okay, and Arrows is called the most beautiful God and he which it's a very wonderful, interesting set of myths. There's a lot I read from the agony, a lot. I really enjoy so much of it. And then and then it really is it's it's so wonderful. But then sometimes like I UM covered Pandora earlier, and it's so interesting when you go from like just the general theogony, you know, creation of everything, and then you get to the creation of Pandora and you're getting like some ideas I think about how he s saw women, and then you read the Pandora from Works and Days and you're like, okay, this is how he see It's yeah, yeah, not good. Yeah. Right at that point you're all, oh, do I need to reread everything else? Then? Um, But but you know, you wonder which parts are made by him and which parts were oral tradition in which parts because of course the the creation things stories like that, they they echo um other traditions, which is why it seems so similar to the beginning creation the Bible story, right because it's it's coming from the same place somehow. When when people, when things are created, you know, and love is in their Aphrodite is always so scary when she sends in When when Arrows slash Cupid is later seen as her son for whatever reason, right, someone decided that, someone decided that Arrows can't just be himself doing his own thing. See for me, I see it as like I appreciate the two different variations, but I see it more as when they wanted to start making stories where Arrows is is like, you know, silly and like kind of a troublemaker and he's causing trouble, then he they had to make him more of a traditional god, like they had to make him the son of an Olympian instead of this like primordial superhuman being, because I think the Arrows that springs from chaos is too too like impressive and powerful and primordial to then be associated with, you know, shooting Apollo or Daphne with an arrow. You know, like that's too it's almost too human for a god like that, Like they don't have the primordial beings doing much in the way of of troublemaking, of like causing grief. So I feel like they had to make him much more accessible and like human in a way that you know, it's still he's still a god, but that's how he's more of a child of an Olympian Hermes style versus you know, like Prime. It's like seeing Guya doing something silly like that versus you know Hermes. Yeah, I agree with you on Arrows slash Cupid is much more accessible um and and easily written into stories than than this scary love god, right who who comes out of nowhere? Like so chaos is somehow happens Gaia, somehow happens Arrows, somehow happens Tartarus, somehow happens inside Gaya. But she doesn't create Tartarus. It's like these these first four were created out of nowhere, Like they're just to me, it's like the big bang. Yeah, you know, it's very Yeah, it's very like Okay, it's like you know, whatever, yeah, thing or nothing. Guya, which is a nurturing body, something that can later house so many things. Tarbara's by the way, Tararus is just a weird thing. Like I'm just like, oh I call I call it like all the parts of a noun, like a person, place, and a thing an inside guy. Yeah, and it's just like inside her, just like okay, whatever whatever, Like she's just like, well, all right, what is that? And then you know eras as a as a just a supreme force, a power of feeling that moves us so much, and it's unexplainable. Happens before the concept of death, before the concept of fate is just is at least in the story. M hmm. I'm always so interested. I don't know enough about orphic mythology, but I don't know how much I want to ask, because I there's so there's just so much. I don't know anything about orphan mythology to say, except for like a certain handful of the gods that are only or not necessarily like even a handful, but like the certain people that are only in orphic mythology because people want are yea, yeah, I'm gonna back rate off, like I don't. I don't want to talk about the agree is I don't know. I keep looking at that, going okay, I need to look up these gods and see where else it should they show up. Um, yeah, there are like four or five that that so far you know, are not are so uncommon that like they don't appear anywhere else, it seems except in UM. But yeah, hands off zagar is for a bit there, and yeah, anything more pic I'm like, it's just it feels like it's too daunting. I don't know where. I haven't bought a single book on orphic I keep, you know, it's like on the end of my list of things I'll get to eventually. I did. I have to say that the Iliad versions of Athena and the honestly versus of Athena I never liked, and um and especially I didn't like any of it. Athena. I'm like, yeah, it's problematic. What in the world? So I never really understood like why or or even you know the place right the place about her. I'm like, you guys, start, don't worship Athena clearly because you make her sound like an awful being unless this is how you choose to like, this is how she's worshiped. She's really an awful, a dread goddess of some sort. Um. I mean, I I don't understand, but when I read the orphic hims versions of Athena, I'm like, oh the why is God? Is okay? So that's that's how you view her, like alright, not not the awful goddess who does this and that, but also this. You know, I started seeing her that way, like, okay, that's how she was worshiped. I see, so I could venerate a goddess who's like wise. And I guess, I guess the her springing from the head of Zeus thing and her being Zeus's pet daughter just always bugged even you know, from from the agony. Oh yeah, I mean I always see her as like I mean, I love her, I love Athena, but I see her as the man's goddess, like yeah, yeah, she's the one who has, you know, a lot of traditionally masculine um characteristics. She always sides with the men, She always sides with the heroes, like she's very She seems like the goddess that the men developed to have a woman in the room, but who they could associate with all of their varied like you know, hyper masculine, important like you know, quote unquote important qualities, all these things. So yeah, she seems to me like a like a god is developed by men versus God has developed by like the culture itself. Right, But there I do think this part was interesting reading the the agogy that that or was it friends of the But there's this this idea that the reason why Zeus had to consume made Us is because made Us is son was going to be more powerful than the sire, kind of like the theadest idea, And so um Athena was supposed to be a boy, but somehow was was female? So was it like, uh was did a transformation occur inside Zeus? So that did she like bond with made Us in a different way? The way so that you know when she's born, she is wearing armor that is should that you know traditionally because they're not thinking amazon's here, they're thinking it goes to a Greek warrior. So that's that's a man's warrior aspect that she's wearing as if she's supposed to be the son of Zeus but female and the fact that she's female makes her not a threat to Zeus. Yeah, just just the fact that she's that sex not mail that little difference are big difference is a big difference. Isn't that interesting? Yeah, that's really interesting. I've only ever considered that myth or I don't know if it's the translations I've read or what it's been a long time. Um, but just that it's like made us his child would be more powerful. But I didn't necessarily read it or find it as explicitly her son. But that makes it very interesting and sort of to me, it really suggests that by eating Menace, Zeus had her like basically form with the sun that was within her and develop Athena kind of based on that. Like Athena is sort of both, which kind of you know, lends itself to Athena also being you know, a goddess who isn't really ever with men or women. She's just she's, you know, argue a sexual Yeah, she's she's a lot kind of going on when it comes to her and her her gender, her sexuality, all of that is sort of up for debate in an interesting way. Yeah, that's very interesting. Why, Yeah, why do you like Athena? I think I just like that there's a goddess that powerful, you know, that that important, that revered, that respected, because they really do in the stories. But also like in the way that she, you know, is the patron goddess of so many cities, like they really treated her differently than the other goddesses in a way that I find interesting. Yeah, wisdom, war and weaving, Yeah yeah, all of all that, all that, what do you think of Oh my gosh, I mean, it's such a rabbit hole when I think of the various goddesses I adore, I adore Lito and her children. Herms, well, I mean Herms Hermes. He has a rap dose. He has a rap dose, like Kyrki has a rap dose. It's it's it's a wand but it's not a thersis. It's a rabdos. But Kirki has the same it's the same word used for him having this thing as the one that Kirki has, the magic wand that she wields, same word that he has. He has a rabdose. It is interesting, It's like well, especially because I mean they're connected in an interesting way of you know, Herme's kind of rolling up to Odysseus and explicitly telling him how to you know, basically defeat not you know, not officially, but get past Kerke's cercy. I never I want to call her. I want to know. I know it's accurate, and I say that every time I say her name, I do like clarify, but everyone's in English knows her as Sercy, so it's just sort of come out that way. It's interesting because they are linked in that way of you know, him rolling up and giving Odysseus moley and and being like, this is exactly how to get past her and Batman. That's where they get it from. So funny is that where they get there, where the word comes from. It's a holy moly, right, yeah, yeah, that's amazing. My Hermes is so underrated. I mean even just this comedic value in him is like a little baby chy a little bit, yeah, a little baby doing everything. You know, he does everything as a baby, the most ridiculous things. I mean, inventing the liar as a as a sort of it's almost an aside. It's like not even the main point of the story. It's like, oh, you know, he stumbled upon this tortoise and oh he figured, hey, like maybe i'll kill it empty and his body and at a little baby child. Yeah, and then go on as a baby and steal the cows and go on this whole like gallivanting journey across Greece and then, oh my god, I just absolutely love him. He's so entertaining and um, yeah, I don't even know, but the connection with with Kiki is very interesting of then both having the same um staff or wrapped us, wrapped us yeah yeah yeah, and just like the connection between them and and that. I don't know, that's all. I don't like I had a point with it, but it's fascinating. It's true, like if if you sit there and think about, like why did he why did he show up? Why did he care? How did he know? How do how do he know? How to counteract it? Like yeah, and why and why why? Yeah? Like was it part of his troublemaking nature? If so, there wasn't really any follow up, like he just sort of shows up, helps Odysseus and then he's gone and the rest of the storyline him Yeah. Yeah, usually he's a messenger, but in this case doesn't seem like anybody says it seems like it was his idea, Like why he's so explicitly the messenger elsewhere in the Odyssey, where you know, he's the one who goes and tells calypso like you have to let him go, like yeah, sorry, yeah, it turns up as he said to it, but yeah, yeah, he's explicitly acting in that case as a messenger. But yeah, when when it comes to, you know, being on aia and the moley, it's just like, no, I'm just here. I think I'm just going to do this. I think that's See. That's why I love Madline so very much because, um, you know, three three years ago or whatever, when before um Cercy she calls it, she calls it Cercy, before our Sarcy became big and I first heard about it, I sent her my song. That's one. That's the only one that I did, an English version and an ancient Greek. So that one I took the part where um Kiki was it was saying, you know, why why are you so silent? D see us? That one. But then with my own poetry, I did like a part two where she's watching him and saying goodbye and stuff. And so at least my lyrics, which was based off of like a poem, because you have to take poem make the lyrics different, you know, mad Line, I love her so much because she she really researched and thought about these weird things we're talking about. So um, she made hermes a lover of Kirkis, so that like that explains like why he was hanging around her island. Gosh, wow, I mean I love rabbit holing about about mythology in general. And then you know, this is just ancient Greek mythology, as as you probably know. I I also look at ancient Egyptian and um, but I am such a beginner and ancient Egyptian and any Sumerian myths like absolutely, I have years and years, perhaps a decade or so to catch up. And then uh, any time people ask me to write a song about something, I will look at the myths first, which might be a strange place to look, but I find that myths tell me a lot about traditions and attitudes of the ancient times. And then to compare it with the attitudes and ideas of people today is always fascinating, you know, because of course that the ancient ones reflected reflected the different times, different population perhaps, and um, but even so, even if it's a different poppy relations like that, the people of today still somehow um connect to it, Like how what does what do those myths mean to you? How does it resonate to you with you? And like, for instance, um, my my latest project is so um to write three short songs for the short films for UM an excavation project in Sinope in Turkey. I have not researched the myths of that area, but now I'm excited, like, okay, wow, all right, UM, that that's fun. Just you know, when I was asked to do a to do the American Institute of Archaeology UH for Honolulu, for Hawaii UM lecture on some ancient Egyptian songs, I right away, you know, went into the Book of the Dead. It started there and then and then kind of went back and read for three straight months on mythology and history and culture of ancient chip because I UM, to me, that's how I get into songs, Like I won't just dive in and just start writing, Like even if you give me the text and stuff to pronounce, it's still it's no I will I will vote to I want to be able to speak about these things with with depth and with meaning. And myths are just so full of meaning and angst and pain and hope and dreams and and just fun stories, fun facts, fun stories set up stories being being what they are. Um, They're just so universal, They're just so you know, that's the thing, right, It's their universal stories. And even when the time period, the you know, the politics, the people, everything is so different from us today. Like the stories themselves are just human stories, and and that's what makes them so fascinating, and it is so interesting too to look at them, like I mean, obviously, that's what I do on this show is look at is look at the myths from a modern lens, and and and look at them, you know, in the world that they were in, and also try to pull apart you know what it means for us today. And and also often you know how the the world they were in then, you know, isn't necessarily it's it's more so it's influenced by by the outside factors, you know, like they're the people who don't like my show love to complain about very set things of like, oh I do, but it's entertaining. Now thankfully I've reached a level where you know, it doesn't bother me, like I'm but it's so interesting because they tell on themselves in their reviews often, you know, like the latest one I got with somebody who's like she hates them, she hates the men. She she clearly it's her life choices. That's what she's doing and I have been doing this for four years, and like I make a full living off of reading or of researching mythology and bringing it to people. Like I don't hate anything about these myths. I just think maybe if I'm telling a story where a man assaults a woman, like I'm going to talk about like that like it's a bad thing, because it is. Yeah, Like it's you know, it's so interesting to the way people, you know, interpret that, but also it's so interesting the way that it's understood by and I don't necessarily mean academia in this, because I'm so not in academia, but the way people understand myths and then hang on to them as this like you know, original myth, that term, that nonsensical term of you know, the way people want to treat specifically, so often say he see it as if like he see its stories were the be all in and all it was absolutely what all of ancient grace believed, and you cannot deny that. It's like the absurdity of that so many pieces of that are so wrong, you know, like you know, regionality aside the idea that just because this one man's writing is all we have on a certain thing, or the earliest that we have on a certain thing, you know, doesn't remotely suggest that it's what everyone believed that it was, you know, widely understood. Like it's it's so interesting to look at it and just kind of consider what what else might have existed then, what people might have believed that might have completely contradicted something that he had said. But we don't have it. All we have is he see it, And you know, kind of what that means for what we believe often it to me, it comes down to the way women were treated, because I'm sure that there were so many stories where the women weren't you know, treated like garbage or you know, where we have these other other understandings of certain things that we just don't happen to have them because either they weren't written down, or they got lost, or the reason they weren't written down was because it wasn't the powerful men telling these stories, right, And so of course that's those are the people whose stories are getting written down and passed on and and it's just so interesting to consider the things that that we don't have, that that might have existed back then, because you know, I think that's why I find Cepho and Corina so interesting, the fact that they were written about um so respectfully. M hm, you know, like it's a fact. Okay. They these are fabulous women poets and they're the best poets of their time, especially Cepho and her playing her songs. And it's like and there was no derision whatsoever, you know when when they're when they say these things like no, no, not even a handle and it was wrong for her to do or like anything, or for a woman, and it was just like, no, she was the best. And um. So it makes me wonder regionally was something going on with Les Vos at the time, which is interesting because it's so it's smacking right there, like the border of um you know, the mainland Turkey today, like what with Lito coming coming from also around that area seems to have right and and her children going this way in the midst she she was not welcome her, she and her birth and her children were not welcome in the beginning. And like, oh my gosh. And now Apollo is like Greek and Roman and they didn't even bother change in his name. He's so great, like but in the beginning, you know, it's something about that movement from east to west, effort Ephrodite also east to us. Like these are Eastern gods Dionysus as well, Eastern gods who were later accepted venerated and became so very Greek, right, especially Apollo. Like I find Apolo so fascinating for the Roman of it. That is so interesting that he's like the only god who has the same name save for Bacchus being you know, a Greek name of Dionysius as well, but yeah, Apollo being Apollo is so fascinating. And then on top of that, like, I think it's so interesting how he sort of took over so many important things from other gods god some god, I mean, sun god, absolutely obvious, right yeah, like poor Helio, sorry, guy, you're gone, you know. But but even like you know, before that became sort of the accepted, like Apollo is the god of the Sun, which of course is quite you know, happened later, but even just the fact that he you know, you have these muses, you have these goddesses of art and music, but oh, Apollo's the real god of art and music, and he's kind of this like umbrella of the muses, you know, he kind of holds them in. And then same with the Oracle. You know, the Oracle was originally this matriarchal kind of figure deity more so connected with Gaya and all of this. And then Apollo comes and he can he takes over oracular prophecy, just like he took over all these things. And he, to me, he is so fascinating that way because he really he became the supremely important figure, the sun god, this god of everything. Yeah, everything beautiful and important and play um. But then yeah, to to have him having sort of explicitly, you know, not in the stories, taken these things from these goddesses. But you can see how he did. You know, you can't see kind of when it happened, but the fact that there are the muses and the Oracle and all of this, but they all fall under the umbrella of Apollo, a connected to him, even like he forget when I say, hey, yeah, Zeus, Zeus and his oracles are like not though I was apoloizer and then no, zusan his oracles and then Zeus even in him to Hermie says, you know, Apollo will have my has my oracles. Um, it's just him, It's just him, son. He says to Hermes, I'm sorry you can't. You can't also have the oracle thing going on. Um, but we'll throw in the B Women to you. I don't think. Oh my gosh, so in in him to hermies. And this is a song that I started as well. There's this part where the B Women are three women who have wings and they tell oracles and he can he he can hang out with them. He's allowed to hang out with him, but that's as close as he can get to oracles. He himself can't be partaking in oracles as Zeus and Apollocan, but he can hang out with him. And but it's like, okay, very interesting. Tell me more about these women. Well, they did when they have honey. You know, you must feed them because if you if you don't feed them honey, then they become very upset. If you feed them honey, then they will give you oracles. Amazing. I know, I love him to Hermes, Yeah, I feel like I So I read a portion of the Hymn to Hermes on the podcast, but it's so long that I cut off, and I don't I thought i'd read the rest, but maybe I didn't know you got to go back and finish it. Yeah. Yeah, I started a song. Um where I should say I composed the song, but I just haven't recorded. I have so many songs. I have so many songs that I haven't recorded. Like what I tend to do is I give a rough draft version. I'm like, this is a song I composed, I haven't recorded it, but here it is. And if you guys are interested, you know, like patreon me, which I which I only started like a month ago. You know of a patron now I do. I do have a Patreon now that good shared all in the podcast. I have a habit of joining. I think I'm a patron of like every classics person. I just started it like a month ago, and um, I was, and it's just my name is just a teenage yuse been. It's you know. I hung back from doing Patron for the longest time because I had nothing to offer except like, I mean, I have no time to do tears, Like if you do, if you do this, then I give you this. I'm like, no, that's the whole point is I don't have time. I just but I believed in the idea of learning about ancient music and putting it out to the public and not having it stuck in academic journals. Not that I have time anyway as a public high school teacher. Yeah, oh my goodness, and with a fourteen year old child, a son, my I mean, most people would be like, whoa, and you know, your single, single working mother and you do that, and uh, that must be everything. I go, Yeah, somehow I carve out time to also study up on you know, theater and ancient Greek music and in ancient music in general even and UM and and give it to the public because that was the reason I wanted to do it in the first place. And you know, my first couple of songs was out of curiosity. I'm like, I didn't know about this in grad school, and I would like people to know about it who are in grad school or undergrad. And I would like my high school students to know about it and not have it, you know, written in an academic journal and then that's all and they'll never see it. So when I try to interview people for California Classical Association South UM, which is a pomelap together twice a year, or and when I had put together that paddle for UM for CHS for Center for Hellenic Studies. The idea was, and then I would have that right to put it in out in public, you know UM, or at least link link their stuff over to the public so that that they can they can access it. And because a journal is only for academics, really nobody reads it. I'm sorry they don't. They don't know. I don't, Yeah, because it's it's too dense, the materials too dense, and to you know, it's more so also about like trying to find those things. That's like, you know, if you're not in that world, you just don't You don't know where they look, you don't know where they're coming out. You know, like no one has the time to start searching around constantly everywhere for all the different Yeah, and if it's stuck just in j story and you know, it's got to pay wall. So I'd rather I would much rather like ask a lovely friendly academic like you know armand Denger, can you please talk about you know, ancient music Stefan Hoggo, can you please talk about you know, the Aulus to us um. Since you're an expert, can you can you talk about this or or even out of that World interviewing Andy West with this up coming book about about prison life and and how classics helped. What what is that all about? Like what is it? What's the connection? What do what do people in prison think about the classics? How does it relate to them? And all that? You know, I think about those things, like how else would would anybody know that those things exist unless it's like put in a podcast or put in a YouTube channel, um where it's accessible, Like how would you know? I mean, yeah, that's yeah, yeah, it sounds sounds like so much of why I, you know, have my podcast and all of those things because it is just it's so lovely to spread those things more broadly, and yeah, beyond the realm of academia. Well, you know, my my kids love your your podcast, and so I will have to just really go through and say, you know which ones are just blip out certain things that so so in case, you know, when my advent comes in, so what are you watching? And the whole thing can be actually watching and it's like, yes, I'm talking you know, myth and because of my kids love myth so very much, and whether it's my ancient Greek class or my Latin class you know, there's a certain point where we're talking just myth and especially the weird, weird wild stuff, and let let me just close up the episode because we've been talking enough for like two hours, and I, I mean, I can keep talking to you forever lived. You know, this is just if you ever want me to be a guest of it, you know, later later whatever goodness. I obviously I can talk on and none about stuff, but um, you know, I just want to close up. And that's why I love to sing about especially female deities and queens, because I just feel like they're just not celebrated enough. Okay, I have to say I have my exceptions, like Apollo and Herms, but then that's because the b women are in Hermes and also Apollos music, but they're just so odd and weird. But artist I would sing artimis Artemis the Hunters Artemists. That also she plays the liar. She's depicted in many um iconography as playing the liar and dancing along with her brother. But like we always just think, oh, you know, Artemis, the Huntress Artemists, whatever, Moon Goddess, um, you know, and the Virgin Goddess. But it's like, yeah, but also artemists like the one who plays a liar and hangs out and sings and and and dances. So I've pictured her as like, have you ever seen capoeira dancing? And women like dancing capoeira? I have so powerful, Oh my gosh, because here's this like bow like instrument, right, that's just this and that's going on, and the women are dancing couple, and I'm like, I just I that's how I in my hand, I would picture artemists dancing like that with that sound of the bow string going on. And she's she's doing war dances, basically war training style dances, so that that's how I picture her in my head. It's very artemus, right, I mean more than just like doing the circle dances. I mean circle dances good and all, but acrobatic dancing while circle dancing. Yeah, most definitely, most definitely interesting. I've never thought about any of that, those those parts. It's never the music and the dancing and everything has never kind of come up for me. So this is just so interesting, so different. Well, this has been so wonderful. Thank you so much. Why don't you thank you? Um? Why don't you tell everyone where to find you, and I'll link to everything in the episodes description as well. But just tell all my listeners where where they can learn more and where they can listen to your music and all these different things. Oh yes, okay, so listeners of this glorious podcast can be found, and just Bettina Joy Duguzman dot com. I know I have a long name. I'm sorry, and for Bettina Joy happens to be a common Filipino name apparently, so it has to be the whole thing, all right, Beatina joydy kusman dot com. And that once you go there, it has all my links to YouTube, music, YouTube, my own channels, Spotify um, Amazon um, so therefore Amazon Music and app there's Apple Music there. I'm just in all the amazing major everywhere. These are what what have you all all up all there? Yeah? Wonderful. Well, I will link so that people don't have to type in your name. I'll link to an a description, which means people are more likely to visit it because they don't have to type in it, So just check the description. Thank you, it's been so much fun, oh nerds, Thank you all so much. As always, it's just so much fun to have these conversations. I actually went through like a bit of a stint last month where I recorded like nine or ten in one week, I think, or in two weeks rather that would have been too much, um, but Betina Joy was one of them, and it was just so much fun. There was so much going on in my head at all the times because I had spoken to so many people in such short period of time. So anyway, it was really so much fun. I absolutely love these conversations, as I say every time, but they're just such a thrill. It's so cool to learn everything myself and then teach it all to you guys through these conversations. It's quite fun. I feel very lucky. Thank you all so much for listening. As always, quick reminder to please submit your questions to the beginning of the new year Q and A that Smith's baby dot com slash questions and stay tuned for Helen next week. Fucking Helen. Oh my god, cannot wait for it. Thank you all. I am live and I love this ship.