Friday, August 28, 2020

Zeus in children's imagination

Zeus in children's imagination
Dr Abe V Rotor 
Author with grandchildren before Zeus in Bronze, Disneyland Hong Kong 2017

The most powerful ancient god, his throne on Mt Olympus,
He is Jupiter to the Romans, or father Jove - Jovis pater,
Thor to the Norse, Jehovah, the Hebrew name of God,
Zeus sounds Diyos or Dios, would homonym matter?

Dethroned, Zeus is but a myth, abandoned, forgotten,
So with his mistresses (goddesses and mortals), children:
Hercules, Perseus, Apollo, Athena, and the nine muses;
Brothers Hades, Poseidon, wife Hera, his whole reign.

Quick to anger, unfaithful, indecisive, carefree, deceitful,
yet called the "lord of justice", "father of gods and men";
his name means bright or skykeeper of oaths, deliverer, 
All praises and a list of epithets virtually without end.

Here we stand before the icon, not on sacred ground,
but on fairyland, apropos to my candid explanation.
my grandchildren all eyes and ears who the giant is,
Oh, he walked with giants in thoughts and imagination.

Time has changed, and change has put time behind,
In history, religion, tradition, into fiction and relics,
Zeus et al are myths, so with their power and abuses,
Goodness prevails upon the death of our beliefs. ~
                  
Zeus has other names and versions: Thor, Jove, Jehovah, Jupiter, "Diyos or Dios" (homonyms). A familiar figure is seen in the Exodus, in Michelangelo's figures, and several icons of the church.  

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