CELESTIAL HARBINGER

It can justly be said that the epics of time are chronicled in the pages of man's mind. They are, however, inscribed at a higher level in the hearts of man . . . a rule to which there is no exception. Since the earliest known times, and into the current events of our own time, there is not a single epic that does not have a daughter of Eve playing her creative part against a background of drama. Even before Eve, the pattern of great drama ran true to form in each of the civilizations which once adorned this planet, and in every event a melody is plucked from the strings of a broken heart.

In the birth pangs of travail, the fortune or doom of woman is foretold from that day to this. As was said then, so also now. The wise onlooker sees most of the game. In times long since fled, Meleager saw much of fair women haunted by unwelcome vicissitudes. Of one such soul he said “the mourner of many deaths loves the idea that her very touch is mortal to those whom she loves and that Fate had made her the instrument of its cruelty.” Again he says “Theono, dying alone in Phocaea, sends a last cry over the great gulfs of sea that divide her from her lover and goes down into the night with one passionate wish - to have died with her hand clasped in his.”

Drama rings her own changes. In Homer's Odyssey, the blind poet tells of Penelope's undying love for her husband in one of the greatest epics ever, where Ulysses, against almost insurmountable odds, returns to his true love. For ten years he journeyed through the tunnel of dark despair, interspersed rarely with the light borne of hope; hope engendered by promises foretold. Homer lets us understand that Ulysses saw a day of return even before he left for Troy. And what of Penelope? At the very core of her lamentation, there reigned a promise of hope. Both she and her husband bore the boon of the messenger.

For those lovers of old, when all seemed lost, hope lay in Meleager's hand of one clasped in the hand of the other' to face the reality of ultimate adversity. At such times Athena came gently to lift the veil of revelation. Zeus' favourite daughter is ever present to succour the man bound in honour's defence, to elevate those unjustly bound in desperation, appearing at that very moment when a glimpse of salvation is denied to mortal eyes.

Athena, the Olympic divine of many guises, winged her mission of mercy for Ulysses and Penelope then. For others, since and before, she is the light in the dark, the messenger of hope, the Celestial Harbinger.
- DANIEL

A classical story of two lovers long separated. However by virtue of their undying love,. faith and fidelity they reunite in spite of what appears to be insurmountable vissicitudes. Athena, the goddess of skill and intelligence becomes in Homer's Odyssey the celestial harbinger of love and deep-felt emotions.
- LJO