Crete

The idea of a dying god is very old.

The grave of Zeus was shown at Crete, and the body of Dionysius was buried at Delphi.

Osiris and Buddha both died, and numerous deities were crucified.

Krishna, the Indian god, suffered such execution, as did also the Mexican savior, Quetzalcoatl.

For there is a point at which a state may attain such a degree of unity as to be no longer a state, or at which, without actually ceasing to exist, it will become an inferior state, like the harmony passing into unison or rhythm which has been reduced to a single foot.

The state, as I was saying, is a plurality which should be united and made into a community by education, and it is strange that the author of a system of education which he thinks will make the state virtuous should expect to improve his citizens by regulations of this sort, and not by philosophy or by customs and laws, like those which prevail at Sparta and Crete respecting common meals, whereby the legislator has made property common.

Let us remember that we should not disregard the experience of ages.

In the multitude of years these things, if they were good, would certainly not have been unknown.

Book two, sections nine and ten.

Section nine.

In the governments of Lacedaemon and Crete, and indeed in all governments, two points have to be considered.

First, whether any particular law is good or bad when compared with the perfect state.

This giant forced all travelers to wash his feet, and when they knelt down to do so, he gave them a kick that sent them into the waters below, where an enormous turtle swallowed them.

theseus gave the turtle a final feast on the giant himself the next giant he met he overthrew in a wrestling match last of all he overcame procrustes who pressed upon strangers the hospitality of his iron bed but if they were too long he cut them off and if they were too short he stretched them out to fit the bed when he had reached athens and had purified himself in the river of all this slaughter he entered the city his long hair and his foreign appearance exciting the laughter of some builders he took a cart that contained huge building blocks and tossed it lightly over the roof of a house at the palace although he did not disclose his identity his father's new wife the sorceress medea recognized him and plotted his death she persuaded geus to invite him to a feast and offer him a cup of poisoned wine as they feasted however theseus drew his sword to cut a piece of meat and his father instantly recognizing the weapon dashed the poisoned cup to the floor and sprang to embrace his son in a rage of disappointed hate medea called her dragon-drawn chariot and flew away aegeus now proclaimed theseus as his heir but the hero thirsting for glory and adventure first went to marathon where he captured the bull that heracles had brought from crete and then when the time came around for seven young men and seven maidens to be sent as a tribute from athens to king minos of crete he offered himself as one of their number hoping to win their return the tribute had come about in this way king minos's son had been killed by the athenians and minos had besieged the city the athenians might have stood out against him and his army but the gods sent a famine and pestilence upon them and the oracle declared that the divine displeasure would not be appeased until they should accept whatever terms minos offered He demanded that every year, seven boys and seven girls should be sent to Crete to be given to the Minotaur.

When the ship bearing Theseus and the thirteen other victims started out, it was equipped with a black sail.

But Theseus promised his father that should he succeed in his adventure and kill the Minotaur, on the return voyage he would change the black sail for a white one.

One of the oldest and prettiest fables in ancient mythology is that which deals with the origin of the honey-bee.

It was to Melissa and her sister Amalthea, the beautiful daughters of the King of Crete, that the god Jupiter was entrusted by his mother Ops when Saturn, his father, following his custom of devouring his children at birth, sought to make the usual meal of this, his latest offspring.

The story is variously rendered by ancient writers.

Some say that bees already existed in the world, and that Amalthea was only a goat, whose milk served to nourish the baby god, in addition to the honey that Melissa obtained from the wild bees in the cave where Jupiter lay hidden.

It was a very ancient belief among the earliest writers that, in the single instance of the honey-bee, the ordinary male and female principle was abrogated, and that the propagation of the species took place by miraculous means.

In explanation of this, we are told it was a special gift from Jupiter in acknowledgment of the unique service rendered him.

In one version of the fable, and in the words of a famous bee master who wrote in sixteen fifty-seven, "Jupiter, for so great a benefit, bestowed on his nurses for a reward that they should have young ones and continue their kind without wasting themselves in venery." In the other, and probably much older form of the legend, Melissa, the beautiful princess of Crete, was herself changed by the god into a bee, with the like immaculate propensities.

And thenceforward, the work of collecting honey for the food of man, that honey which, down to a very few centuries from the present time, was universally believed to be a miraculous secretion from heaven, was confided to her descendants.

Like, for instance, when Paul went unto...

This island, I think it was Crete.

I just skipped my mind at the moment.

But anyway, he went to Crete.

He was preaching the gospel.

And there was the governor of the island, a man named Publius.

So my parents were both born in Greece and I've always loved Greece.

But on my 40th birthday, I went to Crete with my family and just fell in love with the island.

And I just like felt so drawn to it.

And, um, Yeah, I mean.

So you're not from Crete?

I'm not from Crete, no. Oh yeah, that's what I was going to ask.

Yeah, I was going to ask that.

But I just felt such a pull there and felt healthier there.

Our feet are standing within thy gates, O Jerusalem.

As he threaded his way through the crowds, jostled by toged Romans and sandaled Greeks, scanned by copper-featured men from Egypt and bronzed travelers from the island of Crete, passing mysterious silent Arabs and slow-paced travelers from across the Euphrates, meeting men from Asia Minor, from the Pamphylian coast and the high tableland of Phrygia, he would remember the great preacher who foretold, Many nations shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Israel, and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths.

For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

Many nations, here they were threading their way to and fro in these very streets.

If sailing was difficult here, it would be worse ahead.

For from this point the protecting coast left them.

The captain of the ship turned her course south to get under the lee of Crete in the hope of finding more favorable winds.

So it proved, for when they swung round the bold headland of Salmoni, they ran into calmer water and soon fetched the harbor of Fair Havens.

I'd love to, yeah, it'd be good, yeah, yeah.

In Crete, in Chania, in Crete is very beautiful there.

Yeah.

And of course, SEO Spring Training next year, I think it will be early in May.

I think more out of inspiration rather than desperation.

But yeah, interestingly, as I lay on the sand lounge here in Crete, so hey, I'm going back to Greece again and trying to hide from my wife, who will be saying, why, please stop taking those calls.

I will be sat with my Greek beer reading The Old Man and the Sea for sure.

Well, it's always a classic for sure.