Technology
Spooky Special... Liv's Favourite F--ked Up Family (aka Must Not Eat Children, Part 1)
In this spooky special episode of Let's Talk About Myths, baby, host Liv dives into the dark and twisted tale of the cursed House of Atreus, featuring the infamous play 'Thyestes' by Se...
Spooky Special... Liv's Favourite F--ked Up Family (aka Must Not Eat Children, Part 1)
Technology •
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Interactive Transcript
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Oh, hi there.
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Live here, speaking from the future.
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If you are keen to support this podcast, if you are enjoying the episodes, as you find
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them and you want to listen, add free, check out the Oracle edition on Patreon.
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It didn't exist way back when these early episodes were recorded, but I'm telling you
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about it now.
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You can get all 700 and counting episodes of Let's Talk About Myths, baby.
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Add free, along with so much more at patreon.com slash myths, baby, or via the link in the
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podcast description.
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Thanks and happy listening.
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Hello, this is Let's Talk About Myths, baby, and I know I'm your host, Liv, and it
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has its October.
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It's spooky season.
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Now, does it feel like October in this fiery hellscape that is the GTA?
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No, it's been 29 degrees in Toronto over the past few days.
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I don't know how one gets into a spooky season when it is the temperature of the sun outside.
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Anyway, generative AI uses more water and power than almost anything else.
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And if I have any listeners who are regularly using generative AI, I just want you to know.
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I want you to know that every time you make a funny little image or you ask chat GPT something
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that Google could tell you easily, you're flushing leaders and leaders and leaders of water.
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Through a system that's just cooling a big supercomputer that is literally just feeding
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you back stuff that already exists on the internet.
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Anyway, climate change is real and AI is one of the worst things for it, but what I'm
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really here to say is that it's spooky season.
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It's spooky season.
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Okay, I'm sorry.
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I made it all about generative AI.
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I literally don't know how to exist without being mad about how terrible everything is.
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But here we are.
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So here's the thing about spooky season.
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I've been doing this show for nine years.
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That's unhinged.
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This is, is that math?
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Whatever.
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Eight, it's the eighth year.
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The ninth year of spooky season.
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Don't make me figure it out.
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And what that means is that I have two degree, I have exhausted most, if not all, stories
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from the ancient world that I think I can jam into the category of spooky season.
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I have every intention of spending as much time as possible in the future, finding what
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else I can create for spooky season because we're not done.
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However, this month I am dragging myself to the finish line of adapting the Odyssey for
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Children, which is again, consuming my entire existence.
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So we're doing something a little different.
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And by that, I mean, we're doing the same thing I've been doing for a little while, which
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is that I'm going to play you some stuff that I've done in the past.
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But again, but this time, it's different because I'm telling you about it.
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But this whole month, Michaela and I are going to be coming to you with some of our favorite
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moments from past spooky season episodes or favorite episodes or what have you.
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We've been talking about it.
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We're going to record some special sort of like introductions and things around this
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content so that you're getting new stuff and you're re-listing to these old stories
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that you probably haven't heard in a while because even if you are one of the incredible
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people who has listened to all of my episodes, there are 700 plus of them.
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So, I don't know, it just seems right.
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But specifically today and tomorrow, because this one has to a special bonus.
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I don't know.
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I'm bringing you what I consider to be one of the most life-changing experiences I've
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had doing this podcast.
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I mean, this one's life-changing in the silly kind of way, which frankly is what I need
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right now because serious life-changing stuff is too real.
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But I don't remember how I decided I was going to dive into reading this Roman tragedien
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Senaqa's work.
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I started with his medea.
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And probably because I just needed more medea as I want to do.
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And I just remember reading Senaqa's medea and thinking like, holy shit.
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You know, I already love Euripides' medea for how visceral and violent and just like
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powerful it is.
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And then Senaqa's was like, what if we made it fucking unhinged?
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And then I found out that Senaqa also wrote a play called Tha Yestis.
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And if you know anything about me and me in spooky season, but just me, is that I am
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fucking obsessed with the curse on the house of Atrius, also known as the curse of the
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cursed for so many generations.
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And I'm here for it.
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I absolutely love this ridiculously cursed family.
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Their utter fuckery brings me so much joy.
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I mean, this one specifically finds kids get eaten, spoilers.
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That part's terrible.
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But how it happened?
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Wow, it's art.
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It's art.
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And that's the difference between, you know, appreciating what physically happens in
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the story and appreciating the way that it is told.
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This play is wild.
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Because the story of Tha Yestis is wild.
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Now Tha Yestis is a brother of Atrius, the uncle of Agamemnon and Menelaus.
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And so in my development of the Odyssey for kids, which by the way is going to be fucking
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awesome.
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In addition to being so much work, my cats are just making noise in the background.
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I'm not going to cut it out.
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You're fine.
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I, you know, one of the things that really stands out to me is like there is so much kind
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of reference to this family in the Odyssey, right?
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Like Odysseus is trying to get home to Penelope and for him and then also for the other people
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on the periphery, like his son, telemocus and even in the underworld, like this running
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theme throughout the Odyssey is that, you know, there is an alternative of what can happen
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to you when you reach home after a 10 years long war.
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And that alternative is Agamemnon, which is that he goes home to my senior and gets killed
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by his wife and his cousin and who it's, you know, obviously a delightful moment in
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Greek mythology because who likes Agamemnon anyway.
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But the wider story of how his family became so cursed, oh, that's where we get the
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yeses because Agamemnon, of course, in the Odyssey or rather referenced in the Odyssey
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because it's something that happened years earlier, Agamemnon is killed by Clyde Mnestra
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his wife and a geese this his cousin and a geese this is the son of a man named the
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yeses and a geese this had brothers, but they died before he was born and you're about
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to hear how that happened because this family is so fucked up.
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And I think about them all the time because I just find it utterly delightful, but also
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I couldn't jam this much backstory, let alone this much whorver and gore into a book
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of on the Odyssey for eight year olds.
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So instead, you all get to hear it again.
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These episodes aired two years ago, so I hope they're feeling fresh.
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They are some of the most fun episodes that I've done and I'm so excited to play them
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again.
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These are one of those things where like I play them again, I mean one because it allows
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me to write the Odyssey, but also because like I've already done it, but it's so good
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that I want to do it again and since I can't just do this one again, like there are sometimes
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where that's valid.
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This is not one of them.
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It was done two years ago.
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It's really, really in depth.
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But you need to hear it again because lots of you have it and I just, you need to because
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it's incredible.
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And also it starts with a stage that just features a ghost of tantalus and a goddamn fury.
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Onward, damned shade and goad your sinful house to madness.
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Let there be rivalry in guilt of every kind.
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Let the sword be drawn on this side and on that.
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Let their passions know no bounds, no shame.
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Let blind fury prick on their souls.
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Heartless be parents rage.
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And to children's children, let the long trail of sin lead down.
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Let time be given to none to hate old sins.
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Ever let new arise.
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Many in one and let crime even amidst its punishment increase.
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From haughty brothers hand let kingdoms fall and in turn let them call back the fugitives.
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Let the wavering fortune of a home of violence amidst changing kings taught her to its
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fall.
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From power to wretchedness, from wretchedness to power may this befall and may chance with
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her ever restless waves bear the kingdom on.
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For crimes sake exiled.
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When gods shall bring them home to crime may they return and may they be as hateful to all men as to themselves.
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Let there be not which passion deems unallowed.
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Let brother fear brother father fear son and son father.
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Let children vile perish and yet be more vile born.
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Let a murderous wife lift hand against her husband.
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Let wars pass over sea let's treaming blood trench every land.
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And over the mighty chiefs of earth let lust exult triumphant.
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In this sin stained house let shameful defilement be a trivial thing.
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Let fraternal sanctity and faith and every right be trampled under foot.
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By our sins let heaven not be untainted.
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Why do the stars glitter in the sky?
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Why do their fires preserve the glory due to the world?
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Let the face of night be changed.
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Let day fall from heaven embroil your household gods summon up hatred slaughter death and fill
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the whole house with tantalus.
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This is episode 232.
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A cursed ghost and a goddess of vengeance walk into a bar.
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Senaqa's thiesties part one.
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By our sins let not heaven be untainted.
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Why do the stars glitter in the sky?
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Why do their fires preserve the glory due to the world?
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Let the face of night be changed.
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Let day fall from heaven embroil your household gods summon up hatred slaughter death and fill
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the whole house with tantalus.
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That and the long passage that I read at the top of the episode were some of the opening
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lines.
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Two Senaqa's thiesties.
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It's the ghost of tantalus who really opens the play.
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Yes, the ghost of fucking tantalus.
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But the speech that follows him is from a god's damned fury.
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Literally.
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And that's what I just resided.
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The play opens with long speeches by not only a fury, a fucking fury, but also a ghost.
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Talk about setting the mood.
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But before we really get into this ghost of a cursed and punished man and an underworld
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spirit of vengeance, her body encircled with hissing venomous snakes, we need to situate
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ourselves.
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See this family is so cursed over so many generations that it's easy to forget, just
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who has murdered whom most recently?
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Where we find ourselves with the family now, there has unsurprisingly been another murder
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of another family member.
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Remember, it began with tantalus whose inexplicable hubris led him to kill his son, Peelops,
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cut him up and cook him an amoeil, appetizing enough to tempt the gods.
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Peelops was returned to life by those same gods, but his father earned himself an eternal
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punishment in Tardarus.
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Peelops kept the curse moving by killing a man, murderless, for reasons that we can absolutely
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find to be justifiable, and yet which still earned him another generation of curse.
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Or rather, saddled his children with taking over the curse of their father, just as Peelops
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did his own.
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Now we have Peelops' two sons to contend with atrius and thaiestes, where we find them,
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they have again committed a murder?
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Maybe?
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I gather that not every translator of this play can decide why exactly these two brothers
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are not only cursed, but about to fuck things up for each other in the most wild way imaginable.
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That is simply just how fucked up this family is.
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There are multiple reasons why these brothers are about to do the most horrifying things in
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the world.
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You see, atrius and thaiestes had a half brother.
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Peelops had a son by a woman who is not hypodamia, but a nymph, and this child was called
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chrysipos.
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And his story is only sometimes connected with this particular aspect of the curse, this
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act that is about to happen between atrius and thaiestes.
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I have mentioned to him actually to you all not that long ago, because he is also the
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young man who was, again, according to just some takes on the stories, abducted by lius,
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the king of thebes, who would go on to be murdered by itapus, his son.
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See, there is that version of his story that says that lius was cursed because he abducted
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and sexually assaulted chrysipos.
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This is that chrysipos.
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He was the half brother of atrius and thaiestes.
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And according to some takes on that story, he was later killed by those half brothers,
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providing yet another curse on peelops's line.
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But that isn't always the way these brothers are introduced.
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It doesn't really matter whether they killed their brother, frankly, they are cursed enough
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without the murder on their hands.
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Instead, according to Emily Wilson's translation, which is the main one I'm using,
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we're not so concerned with whether or not they may have killed their half brother.
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But instead, it's just a bit of the usual sort of sibling rivalry.
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You know the type, two brothers fight over who gets to be the king after their father has died.
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They decide that it's obviously going to be whoever possesses a golden sheep skin,
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but not the famous golden sheep skin.
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That's a different one.
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This is another.
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So that pesky sibling rivalry over who's got the golden sheep parts,
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you know, normal stuff.
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When thaiestes shows up with the golden fleece, atrius accuses him of only having it
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because thaiestes seduced atrius's wife,
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Aerope, and it's she who gave him the fleece.
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You know that age old story.
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Anyway, atrius was convinced that thaiestes only had this fleece
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because of that.
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So he seized the throne himself and exiled his brother.
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And it's only when thaiestes returns from this exiled that senica's play picks up
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and brings us screaming like a fury back to this cursed as all fuck family.
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The ghost of tantalists introduces us to the story at hand.
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Or rather, first he's got to remind us of where he normally has to spend his days.
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Because this isn't a Greek play, remember?
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So we're not going to begin with some big speech reminding us of the full extent of the story
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or slowly introducing us to the violence that's about to happen.
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You know, off stage.
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This is senica.
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So the first lines are a ghost asking who has pulled him from his eternal tartarian punishment.
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Suddenly he's not surrounded by food and drink that he will never reach.
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He can't hear the screams of titios, the giant who assaulted Lido,
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punished for eternity by having vultures perpetually gorging on his innards.
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Tantalists can't hear him anymore and he can't hear the endless rolling of cissifices' boulder.
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Huh, no.
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Now he's worried that he's maybe got a brand new punishment to suffer through.
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He turns quickly though to introducing the audience to his family,
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to his children and their children, and how they will surpass their ancestors in sin.
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Quote,
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They will make me look innocent.
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No one has dared such deeds.
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If any space lies empty in the world of sin, I claim it.
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Minus has worked to do as long as Pee Lops' house still stands.
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That's Minus as the judge in the underworld.
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If you were curious or just wanted to understand the full extent of Tantalists' comments on his own family,
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he seems to serve as kind of an outsider's opinion,
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as much as the ghost of one's grandfather can be an outsider,
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while also being more than aware of just how much more fucked up his family line is about to get.
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And then of course, the fury speaks.
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That is what I read at the top of the episode.
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She goes him on.
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She wants bloodshed and violence.
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She wants someone to seek vengeance on.
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She is a fury.
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One of the arenaways, her entire job in the whole of the world is to punish those who have committed
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unforgivable crimes against their family members.
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And she is aching for blood, craving it with everything that she has.
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Quote,
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Let every crime participate and let the sword be drawn by each intern.
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Anger, no, no limit, no shame while darkening passion whips their hearts.
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She asks that no one have even the time to consider their past sins.
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Let them instead be so driven to commit further crimes that they think of nothing, but that.
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She continues her speech.
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These quotes that I want to share now are from the Wilson translation.
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They are more detailed in calling for heinous and bloodthirsty.
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Crimes, they're easier to understand the extent of this fury's speech,
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calling for even more murder.
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She knows what she wants and what she wants is fucking chaos.
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She wants those who have been exiled for past crimes like the ISDs to return so they can commit
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more crimes. Quote, let there be nothing out of bounds for anger, let brother,
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fear brother, parent, child, child, parent, let children's deaths be terrible, but even worse,
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they're birds. She goes on essentially to call for everything that happens to the family before,
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during and after the Trojan War. She wants a wife to plot against her husband, as
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Clydem Nester will do to Agamemnon. She wants war across the sea. She wants blood to cover every
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inch of the world's land. She wants the world to be conquered by the desire of its leaders.
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Quote, let sexual wickedness be the least of sins, let moral righteousness and faithfulness,
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and all law perish.
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We are 50 lines into this play and I am already obsessed again with how different
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Seneca's tragedies are compared to the Greek playwrights. Where even Euripides would have to
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write a play where the murder and the cannibalizing of one's children is bad. Actually,
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Seneca is like nah, why don't we start things off with the fury on stage calling for all the
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crimes anyone in this realm could ever possibly imagine. She's laying it all out. She wants the
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dirty details. She wants to know exactly how these men are about to kill, exactly how the family's
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crimes are going to escalate, how everything is going to blow up in the most violent and satisfying
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of ways. Girl wants it all and she is more than comfortable asking for it.
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Her speech isn't done and I'm not costing over a single bit of it. She is, after all,
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I mean the only woman in this play, she wants everything to burn and we are going to scream along
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with her, quote, bring hatred, murder, death, use them to fill up all the house of tantalists.
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She doesn't want everything dark and dreary as she calls for murder though. She wants night to
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descend. Yes, because that's better time for crimes, but she also wants things to look bright
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and cheery, you know, so that people are more likely to be trusting and thusful victim to the
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crimes that she don't so desperately wants to take place. And of course, for all this fury is
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calling for crimes of all sorts, at least, you know, any of that fall under her purview when it comes
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to raging for vengeance, what she really, really wants is exactly what this play is going to give her.
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She is here to introduce the audience to the play through shrieking horror, through foresight of
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what is to come. She is ready to spoil it all in calling for the crimes because she, like everyone
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in the audience, already knows what's going to happen. This is an age old story, one as old as
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the Homeric epics themselves. There is no reason to beat around the bush when everyone knows what
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will happen, or rather what they know is what the Greeks already made famous. What they don't know
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is how Sennaka, this Roman who made very clear in his medea that everything you think you know about
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ancient Greek play can still shock and horrify you when a Roman without restraint gets his hands on it.
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Sure, the audience all knows that Thiesti's children will be the victims of this play, that history
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will repeat itself when it comes to this particular family, but that doesn't mean that she can't
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still provide a little extra horror. This fury quote, now let the fires be lit to boil the cauldrons
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chop up the bodies in pieces, let children's blood pollute the ancestral hearth let the tables be set.
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I can only begin to imagine how this play would have been staged, how the fury on the stage shrieking
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and yelling at this ghost would have appeared. She is frantic, screaming and cackling, eagerly telling
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and reminding Tantalus what his ghost is there to witness. She wants him ready for it, she wants
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him watching closely. She needs someone to witness it along with her, it's no fun if no one's there
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to watch. He's been freed from Tardarus, after all, just so he can watch what his descendants are
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about to do to each other. Quote, today you will have a vacation to free yourself from hunger at
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the table, fill up your empty belly, watch as he drinks that cocktail of blood and wine. I have found
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a type of feast which even you would avoid. A type of feast which even Tantalus would avoid,
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you know some things about to get good and bloody and bone-chillingly horrifying if a goddess
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of vengeance straight from the underworld thinks that the man eternally punished for killing his
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son and feeding him to the gods wouldn't even dare touch the meal that is about to be served in this house.
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Back to my pools and streams and fleeing waters, back to the laden tree which shuns my very lips,
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let me return to the black couch of my prison house, let it be mine. If I seem too little wretched to
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change my stream, in your bed's midst of, like a thorn, let me be left, hemmed round with waves of
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fire. Whoever you are by the fates law bid into suffer a lauded punishment, whoever lies quaking
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beneath the hollowed rocks and fears the downfall of the mountainous mass, even now coming on you,
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whoever shutters at the fierce gaping of greedy lions and tangled with their toils, shutters at
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the dread ranks of theories, whoever half-burned shuns their threatening torches, listen to the words
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of tantalists now. Believe me, who know and love your punishments, oh when shall it fall to me to
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escape those above. Those are the ghost of tantalists's next lines. He laments his eternal punishment,
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how he cannot seem to escape the fate of the world of the living, his descendants despite the fact
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that he is a very dead trapped in tartarists forever and yet doomed to face those above.
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But the fury you see has a suggestion. She wants him to create even more chaos to bring evil even
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deeper into this house, into the hearts of those two brothers, those would-be kings. She wants them to
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fight. She wants them to kill. And you know that having a fury shrieking for blood on stages,
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the real horror when a man like tantalists who killed him served up his own child as a meal for
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the gods thinks that she is being a bit much. He tells the fury, quote, punishment is something I
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must accept, not become. Is it my mission to go like deadly gas from a vent in the earth or a plague
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infecting the world? He goes on to ask whether he really must bring such horror onto his own
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grandsons, atreas and thiestes. Are they already doomed to that fate? Spoilers, yes, they fucking
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aren't. It's going to be amazing. This ghost of tantalists wants to mitigate it, though, if he can.
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He speaks aloud a warning, not to pollute their hands with familial blood, not to give in to what
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the fury wants, not to infect that divine altar with such horror. He says that he will stand up to
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her evil, but he's stopped in the middle of these words, having instead to address the fury
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that he seems to want to put a stop to, quote, why are you lashing your whip in my face? Why the
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threat of these circling snakes? The fury has stopped him from even attempting to work against her.
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She whips the ghost of tantalists with her fiery whip. She sets her snakes on him, snakes that
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live wrapped around her, just arriving and terrifying form. She forces his familiar, desperate hunger
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to return. She burns his chest from the inside out, then moves on to setting a fire in his stomach
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until he relends. He will follow the fury and everything that she wants. I can only imagine that
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she caccles now, her eerie blood-curdling laugh echoing around the stage. Good. She tells the
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ghost of tantalists go, spread what you know so well. Quote, make them resemble you, make them hate,
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make them thirst to drink their own blood. Make them thirst to drink their own blood.
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The palace trembles with the knowledge that tantalists has returned. The fury goes on before
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plotting his efforts and directing him back to his tartarian punishment, because that's all she
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wanted. She needed this ancestral curse returned to the brothers. She wants them infected with the
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crimes of their ancestors. She wants them aching for what tantalists did, only worse, more death,
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more horror, more of everything, because this is Sennaka and he seems to be summed up with just this
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phrase more, more, more, just bigger, better, better. The fury shifts to describing the world around
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her, how it changes and shifts with the forthcoming acts of violence. Quote, the famous town of
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Argos fears its ancient thirst. See, even the sun wonders whether to order the day, whether to
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goad to life a day which is doomed to die. Fuck, I love this fury, the singular woman in the
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whole play. Something I can even be mad about, because it's just so fucking impactful to have this
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seemingly unnamed so far fury on this stage, calling for violent crimes between men, between
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brothers and fathers and children. And then we meet the chorus of citizens. They immediately act as
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a counter to the fury. The harsh damage is well and done. The chorus wants the gods if any still
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loves the city of Argos and loves the brothers, their history across the Peloponese, anything.
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If any god still has a single bit of affection for the whole of the Peloponese, let them put a stop
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to what is to come, quote, do not allow each generation to get worse. Each sun more evil than his
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father was. They ask that the gods stop this, that they have the children of tantalists grow tired.
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With their violence, their hatred, let them get over it. Leave it behind.
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The chorus goes on to recall how it all started, how murderless was traitorous against his master
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in a mius before Pelop's ever betrayed him. They recall how Pelop, as a child, was killed by his
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own father and served to the gods, how tantalists punished for eternity for it. They describe that
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punishment in detail. How he is forever tantalized by food and drink just forever out of reach.
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Hasn't this family done enough? When does it end? Not today, chorus. Not today.
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Oh, undaring, unskilled, unnerved, and what in matters, idima king's worst reproach yet
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un avenged after so many crimes. Brothers, treacheries, and all right broken down, you busy yourself
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with idle complaints. A mere wrathful atrius. By now, should the whole world be resounding with your
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arms on either side of the fleets, be harrying, both seas. By now, should fields and cities be a glow
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with flames, and the drones soared be gleaming everywhere. Let the whole land of our gallus
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resound with our horses tread, let no forests shelter my enemy, nor citadel's built on high
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mountain tops, let the whole nation leave my seenie and sound the trump of war, and whose hides
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and protects that hateful head let him die a grievous death. Those are atrius's first lines of
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this play. He enters and he just braids himself. He's referring to himself in the third person,
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just utterly disgusted that he is yet to punish his own brother for what he's done.
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He goes on to say that he doesn't care whether everything around him's taken out, whether his own
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city in palace falls to ruin, whether he himself is killed in the attempt so long as thiesdies dies too.
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And if you're wondering what you're missing to make a response like this, even remotely reasonable,
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he or not missing anything. The likely as crime of thiesdies is that he seized the throne by working
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with or seducing atrius's wife, Aropay. We can certainly use our imagination for how that affected
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Aropay, but as far as atrius seems to think it was seduction that had her working with thiesdies
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very much of her own volition so that he could take the throne. So I think in this case one of the
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aspects of this cursed family is also just unchecked rage. This is over the top even for a Greek
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mythological man. He goes on proposing ideas to himself for how he might finally get his revenge on
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his brother. Quote, come on my soul, do deeds that history will condemn but never cease to speak of.
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Aropay continues to speak to himself of how he must get his revenge. He reveals eventually that his
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fear is that thiesdies, whose now return from his exile will try to seize the throne from him once more.
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But now that he's defending his kingdom in addition to seeking revenge for the crimes of his brother,
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so he decides that he has to work quickly. He needs to strike against thiesdies before he has a
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chance to do the same. Quote, a preemptive strike is needed to stop him attacking me when I am off my
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guard. He will kill me or I him. The winner is the one who gets there first.
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I am obsessed with how quickly Seneca gets into the action. There is no slow start. No,
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Bill, that we just go straight from a ghost talking to a fury to a man planning how exactly
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he can take on his brother before his brother can take him out. A servant of atrius is there now,
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though, serving to to question the king on his plans. You're not worried that your people will
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work against you? He asks, to which atrius just notes that the best part of ruling a city is that
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everyone just has to accept whatever you want to do. They even have to like it.
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So now we know he's definitely a king with very good intentions, who's only concerned for the good
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of his people. Just kidding. To his credit, atrius is servant pushes back on this. He notes that to
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be a good king one does need to have his people in mind. That praise by the people if it's
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forced isn't worth much. Atrius is not particularly interested in listening to this, though,
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let alone looking inward to see anything remotely problematic with his plans. The servant tries to
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remind atrius that even if his brother is truly horrible, committing a crime against him is still
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wrong. They are brothers. Blood. He doesn't mention that the furies exist purely to punish acts like
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this, but we are certainly meant to be thinking about it. Again, atrius isn't listening, or at least
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he isn't taking in the truth behind his servants' words. He's far too caught up in hating
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fiesties. Unfortunately, he's got a speech to remind us. And the audience, why exactly that is.
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Quote, he seduced my wife. He stole her and stole her and my kingdom too. He used deceit to get the
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ancient mark of rule and to wreak havoc upon our family. He goes on to explain further.
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There's a famous golden ram in the stables of Peelops, their father. He says that every new
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king in his line has a scepter that's gilded by the wool of that golden ram. With that scepter
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comes the rule of my senior. The scepter makes the king. Thus, the owner of the ram itself is the
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scepter. He says, quote, made my wife his partner betrayed my bed and stole away the ram.
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When thiesties did this, it was atrius who was forced into exile. He wandered alone, threatened by
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everyone he wants new. He tells us that he even had caused worry that his own two sons may not have
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been his own, that maybe his wife's betrayal extended to them too. Their names, again, you might
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recognize. I have them not in medallias. Were they even his? Atrius was forced to wonder.
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That's what thiesties did to his brother, atrius, and it's why atrius has no doubt in his mind that he
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must seek revenge against thiesties, that nothing he could do to his brother would be worse than what's
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been done to him. Quote, why hesitate begin at least to raise up your spirits. Look to tanteless and
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peel up my actions must be made to fit their model. And that's when you know where atrius is going
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with this. If you are looking for inspiration in the man who killed his son and fed him to the gods,
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well you are not in a good place.
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God, I'm a wordy bitch when it comes to plays like this. I just cannot resist. Not when spooky
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season is at hand. Not when I can tell you every disgusting and violent detail of a play such as
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this one. Atrius begins to argue with his servant who suggests that if atrius is so hell bent on
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getting his revenge, why doesn't he keep it simple and just run thiesties through with a sword?
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Atrius might as well laugh at this quote, death is the end of suffering. I want him to suffer only
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weak kings kill under my rule people beg for the favor of death. Yeah, it sounds like he's an
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amazing king. His servant is rightly disturbed by this pronouncement. Atrius is going too far and
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gods if that isn't really saying something. Atrius goes on to straight up seek the will of the
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theories. He wants their anger to be infused into him. Quote, let come the gang of revining theories
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with violent runaways and McGierre shaking fire in each hand. The rage that burns my heart needs
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to become more savage. I want to be filled with greater horror. Yeah, he's definitely not in a
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good place mentally, but it sure does make for fine entertainment. The fury who started the play
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off with a deafening shriek is getting exactly what she wanted. No crime against thiesties will be
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enough for atrius now. Nothing will fulfill his bloodlust. Nothing within the limits of pain will
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be enough at least. No, he's going to use thiesties himself to expel his rage to get sufficient
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revenge. Atrius doesn't really know it, but he can feel the will of the fury. Like she is
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infecting him just as she'd planned, just as she'd tried to get tantalists to help her with.
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He is being overtaken by her divine will. He begins to speak of a similar punishment in
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mythological history, another that I've told during this spookiest of seasons. He begins to
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consider the story of Prokney and Filamella who got revenge on Prokney's husband,
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Tarious for his crimes against filamella, revenge that came in the form of the murder of their son,
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Itis, who they then fed to Tarious without his knowledge. It's not the first time this story has
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been mentioned in the play either. The fury mentioned it. No doubt. The reason why Atrius considers it
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now, the fury has worked her magic. But gods before I let this episode go on forever,
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I want to read this longer passage that Atrius speaks here. The way he references the story of
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Prokney and Filamella and this Theration King they devastated, Itis, the child definitely didn't
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deserve his fate, but God's Tarious did. When Atrius speaks these words, you can hear the influence
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of the fury. He sounds more like her than he did at the beginning of his speeches. He is taking on
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her will. He is inspired by her craving for blood, for her need for divine retribution, for crimes
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within the family. This is the passage where he realizes exactly what he's going to do to his brother,
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just how he's going to get his revenge and gods it is quite the plan for revenge.
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I'm not lying when I say this might be the most horrific story from Greek myth. Tied maybe
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with Prokney and Filamella only. This is that passage. Some greater thing larger than the common and
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beyond the bounds of human use is swelling in my soul and it urges on my sluggish hands. I know
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the deed worthy of Thaiesti's and of Atrius, let each perform it. The Thracian House once saw a
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feast unspeakable, a monstrous crime I grant, but it has been done before, but my lust for revenge
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finds something worse than this. Inspire my soul, Prokney and Filamella too, my cases like to yours
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help me and urge on my hand, let the father with joyous greed carve his sons and devour his own
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flesh. It's more than enough, this way of punishment is pleasing. Meanwhile, where is he?
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Why does Atrius so long live harmless? Already before my eyes flits the whole picture of the slaughter,
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his lost children heaped up before their father's face? Oh, so why do you shrink back in fear and
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halt before the deed? Come, you must dare it. The crowning outrage in this crime is that he himself shall
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do it. The sister's night begot, implacable terrific furries sat before the prison portals,
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Adamantian confined, combing black vipers from their horrid hair. To Siphony, whose locks entangled
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are not ever smooth, tossed them around, that backward from her face such crawling snakes were
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thrown. To Siphony revengeful takes a torch, besmirred with blood invested in a robe, dripping
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with crimson gore and twisting snakes and girdled, she departs her dire abode with twitching madness,
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terror, fear and woe. The fury stands with arms extended and alive with twisting vipers. She shakes
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her hair, the moving serpent's hiss, they cling upon her shoulders and they glide around her temples,
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dart their fangs and vomit corruption. Plucking from the mids to snakes, she hurls them with her
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pestilential hand upon her victims. And with a monstrous composite of foam, once gathered from
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the mouth of Kerberus, the venom of a kidnap, purposeless, and pherences, crimes, tears, hatred,
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the lust of homicide and the dark vaporings of foolish brains, a liquid poison mixed and mingled
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with fresh blood in hollow brass and boiled and stirred up with the slip of hemlock, she took it.
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And as they trembled through that mad mixed poison on them and it scorched their inmost vitals and
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she waived her torch repeatedly within a circle's rim and added to the flame.
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This is Episode 23. What the Goddess of Divine Retribution wants that Goddess of Divine Retribution
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gets. Senaqa's Theaestes Part 2
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What madness pricks you on to shed by turns each other's blood and by crime to gain the throne.
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You know not for high place greedy wherein true kingship lies. A king neither riches makes nor
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robes of tyranny and hue nor crown upon the royal brow nor doors with gold bright gleaming.
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A king is he who is laid fear aside and the base longings of an evil heart, whom ambition unrestrained
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and the fickle favor of the reckless mob move not. Neither all the mind treasures of the west nor
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the golden sands which tag as sweeps along in his shining bed nor all the grain trot out on
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burning libyas threshing floors, whom no hurtling path of the slanting thunderbolts will shake.
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Nord-Gurus harrying the sea nor wind swept Adriatic swell, raging with cruel wave,
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whom no warriors lance nor bare steel ever mastered. Who in safety established sees all things beneath
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his feet goes gladly to meet his fate nor grieves to die. Those lines, well we haven't quite gotten
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there yet. That's the next choral ode. It's just that I really enjoy opening these episodes with
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as many quotes as I can. Because the source material is just so good. But before we get to the
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chorus's thoughts on the crimes of this family, the crimes that are still to be committed and just
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what kingship actually means, we have atreas working to get himself to the point where he is
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actually prepared to trick his exiled brother into murdering and eating his own children.
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Atreas has voiced the thought. That's how we ended last week's episode. He has this plan,
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but he's still got his servant there with him, trying to talk just a little bit of sense into the
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king. Remember the servant suggested Atreas just outright kill thies earlier. The man isn't
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against revenge. He just realizes that there's revenge and then there's what Atreas is planning.
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And one is far far worse than the other. Atreas is servant quickly realizes that he's not about to
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convince Atreas to change his mind. But maybe he can at least try to point out that this plan is,
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well it might be a hint difficult to pull off. So the servant asks Atreas how he's going to trick
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his brother. How is he going to lure him back to the palace so that Atreas could even get him
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into the position to fall into this plan? They don't exactly have a close relationship.
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I asked Eastie isn't just going to wander back and give Atreas a nice brotherly hug.
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My brother wants the kingdom. Is Atreas' reply? The hope that he could gain the throne back from me,
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take over the ruling of my senior like he's always wanted. That would make him brave enough to
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return or at least brave enough to face seeing his brother again. Of course there's still some
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convincing that will need to be done. Atreas isn't stupid. He's not going to just easily trust
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that Atreas isn't planning to kill him. The minute he returns to my senior. So Atreas says,
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quote, I will send my sons to tell their uncle his days of wandering and exile are finally over.
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And he's certain that even if Atreas himself isn't sold, if he's still hesitant, his sons,
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who've spent their lives in exile, they will be tired enough to be convinced. And then they will
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convince him. His servant tries, at least briefly, to convince Atreas not to involve the children,
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not his and not Atreas. Quote, if you teach them to turn on their uncle, they will turn on their father,
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crime often comes back round again to teach its teacher. But no, the children have to be involved,
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they will be the easiest to use. Besides, Atreas says, it's not as though they aren't already bad.
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The entire family is a lost cause. Quote, the plan you call so wicked which you think savage, brutal,
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blasphemous, maybe thiesties is plotting it already. He determines that he won't tell the children
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of his plot. He will keep them all innocent of his crimes. He's going to keep the children out of it,
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the hatred between brothers, they don't need to be involved in that, at least his own children don't,
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agamemnon and menalias. They don't need to be involved, they don't need to know. Thiesties' children,
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they're a different story. They're involved, but in a different way.
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Atreas is once again affected by the curse on his family or the presence of the fury or some
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combination of the two. Because for the second time in this play, you can almost see outside
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machinations taking place. He says very clearly that he doesn't want to involve his children,
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that he wants to keep them innocent of the crimes he's planning. Even when he has them going to
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try to convince thiesties to come back, he still wants to keep them innocent of the truth behind it.
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And then almost immediately he seems to change his mind. It feels to me that the fury is like
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taking hold of atreas here, like she did earlier when he was voicing his need for revenge.
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Just as she seemed to change his mind from simple revenge, you know, pain or death for thiesties
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into something more horrifying than anything seen before and myth, the use of thiesties' own children,
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their death and worse. This fury again is shifting atreas' thoughts on including his own children
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in the plan. Just moments after he says he won't implicate his own children in his crime,
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he seems to stop himself. No, he says, quote, if you spare your boys, you will spare his too.
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Let agamemnon be a knowing instrument of my plot. Let me know, I speak conscious of the crime.
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No, now he wants them in on it. He wants them to be willing participants for somewhat practical
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reasons, which we will get into. But more than that, I think that it's this suggestion
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that this, all of this ultimately is happening because it's what the fury wants.
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She wants the curse to continue on through this family. She wants agamemnon and menalais to be
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just as guilty as their father because as we well know, this will not be the last time that a
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fury haunts a member of this family. It's not even the most famous time that fury's haunt a member
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of this family. Atreas goes on to explain that using his own children in this way, giving them this
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role in the violent and horrific destruction of thayestes, this active role will also help him.
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He'll be able to find out once and for all the paternity of his sons. Are they really his,
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or did thayestes take them from him too? He says that his children, if they are actually the blood
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of thayestes, they will give themselves away. If they refuse to take part in this plan, then he is
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certainly their father. Quote, a fearful face often reveals the truth. Large plots betray people
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against their will. Atreas adds to his servant very seriously, a warning to keep silent on
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everything that he's heard. To which the servant tells him that he doesn't even need to be told
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that, like loyalty and fear will keep him silent. He says it leans more towards the loyalty.
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Somehow I don't believe him. With Atreas's plan solidified and his secret safe with his servant,
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they both presumably leave this stage. And with that, finally, the chorus speaks up again.
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But they seem confused. The chorus seems to think that the rivalry between brothers has been
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sorted, that it's been just handled. But if they do, that only adds to the drama for the audience.
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The audience would be more than aware of what is to come. Even if the chorus thinks everything is fine.
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They open their ode, which is serving as a transition of time in the vein of Greek tragedy,
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by exclaiming about how happy they are that these brothers have finally sorted out their argument.
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They go on to speak of what exactly makes a king. It's not wealth or fine clothes,
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it's not a crown or how much gold you can jam into your palace. Quote, a king is one who can set fear
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aside, who has no wickedness inside his heart. chorus, have I got news for you about your king?
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But they go on. And like in Senica's Medea, there's absolutely commentary here on the Roman Empire
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and its methods. They will pretend like I know exactly what Senica is getting at here. I don't know
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his work well enough or his mindset or Rome well enough. But it's very reminiscent of those speeches
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in Medea, which seem to focus upon all the corners of the Roman Empire. Here though, the chorus is
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commenting on leadership and goodness. There seem to suggest that good leadership is a strong mind,
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bravery, but also the willingness to meet one's fate. That there's no need for arms, for war, no need
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to destroy cities by siege. So it seems to me there's a bit of criticism on Rome's imperialism here.
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Because Carthage happened. It's also I gather part of Senica's stoicism coming through. He's a
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philosopher after all, but again, that's about the extent of my knowledge on the stoicism. And I'd
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like to say about the role of kings, the definition of what makes a good ruler, and their own
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appreciation for their simple life. They are happy not to be the leaders or kings. Quote,
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let my life flow by in silence, unmarked by the people of Rome. When my days have passed in this
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way without noise, let me grow old, but never rise in class and let me die.
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At last I see the welcomed dwellings of my fatherland, the wealth of our goalists, and the greatest
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and best sights to wretched exiles, a stretch of native soil and my ancestral gods, if after all
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gods there are. The sacred towers reared by the cyclops in beauty, far-excelling human effort,
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the race-course thronged with youth where more than once lifted to fame have I, in my father's
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chariot won the poem. Argos will come to meet me, and the thronging populace will come.
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But surely, atreas too, rather seek again your retreats in the forest depths, the impenetrable glades,
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and life shared with beasts and like to theirs, this gleaming splendor of the throne is not that
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should blind my eyes with its false tinsel show. When you look upon the gift, scan well the giver
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to have laid amid such fortune as all count hard, I was brave and joyous, but now I am returned
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to fears, my courage falters and eager to go back, I move unwilling feet along.
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Diesties has returned to my scene, and he's got his two sons with him. Those were some of his first
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lines when Diesties returns to my scene, our goal is after so long an exile. He's relieved to be
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there too, to be home after so long and to have his sons with him there. It's long due,
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but he's not stupid. For all he's happy to be home to see the realm that he knows so well,
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that holds such good childhood memories, he's also worried. He knows how he left things with his
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brother. He knows that it can't be so simple as just him returning home to a warm welcome.
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Diesties always in their loan, of course his two sons are with him, and they are welcome company.
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Only one of Diesties's sons is going to speak in the play, and his name is Tantalus.
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Yep, Tantalus Jr. and God's damn if that's not exactly what I'm going to call him because
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how iconic. To name your child after your own grandfather who famously killed your father and
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fed him to the gods. Like, okay fine, I know it's just a family tradition to name one's child
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after yourself or your father, but when your father is Tantalus, like maybe you just sit that one out.
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Regardless, his other son, who won't have a speaking line, is named Pleistonise.
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According to the older translation I have to, that I've used for long speeches,
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there's a third son who's unnamed, but I think it's simpler to just go with the two.
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There will be a third son eventually, but I don't think he's born yet,
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so we are concerned with Tantalus Jr. and Pleistonise.
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Once Diesties has hesitated in his return to Argolyce, it has showed that while he's happy to be
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home, he's weary, he's not ready to trust how things are going to go. Tantalus Jr. speaks up.
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Why are you so unsure, father? Why are you hesitating? Diesties responds, but it's almost just to
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himself. He's not really replying to his son. He's just questioning himself aloud.
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Why am I hesitating? He asks himself, quote, when everything is in doubt the kingdom and your brother,
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why would you fear more suffering? He goes on, noting that he should be used to pain by now,
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used to evil deeds and suffering, but even still, maybe I should turn back. Yeah, yeah, I think I
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should turn back. Diesties says, quote, turn back and tear yourself away while you still can.
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Why are you so afraid, father? Tantalus Jr. asks, you're finally home. Why are you threatening to
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turn back now? Quote, your brother is no longer angry. He returns and restores to you part of the
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kingdom. He sets the bones of the broken house and gives you back yourself. And there's our reveal.
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This, it seems, is what Atreus is using to lure Diesties back to my scene. He's told him that he
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will share the kingdom, that the two brothers can split the home that's rightfully theirs,
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that he's no longer angry at Diesties. He's not holding a grudge.
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Clearly, Diesties' children have been sold on this. Exactly as Atreus wanted. And why wouldn't they
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wear together at least for now, that it was Agamemnon and Metalias who carried this news,
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who came to their uncle and cousins and convinced them that Atreus wanted to reunite with his
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brother. That it's all water under the bridge, that all is forgiven and they should return home,
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after so long an exile to just take what's rightfully theirs.
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So why is Diesties still so afraid? Even he's not sure, he tells his son. He doesn't see any reason
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to be afraid, he doesn't see anything that he should fear, and yet he's still scared.
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He says that he wants to keep walking, to fully return home, but that his legs just won't seem
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to carry him there. There's just, there is something keeping him from following through.
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Don't worry, father, Tantalus Jr. reassures him. If you can overcome these things that are just
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only in your mind, this fear that you don't have a reason for, quote, and look to all the prizes,
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you can get if you return back. Father, you can be king. I can. The Diesties can see it's though,
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he's still not certain of anything. Tantalus Jr. though tries to convince him, and seems it's not
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unselfish either, his desire for Diesties to return and take his place on the soon to be shared
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throne. He points out that that his children will inherit it, if he takes it back.
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To which Diesties says, very simply, quote, the kingdom cannot hold to.
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Which God that means more than he or anyone else can realize. No, Diesties, it can't hold to.
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It can't hold to now, and it can't hold to even in the generation still to come.
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Falses believe me are the titles that give greatness charm, idol our fears of hardship.
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While I stood high and powered, never did I cease to dread, to fear the very sword upon my thigh.
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Oh, how good it is to stand in no man's road, carefree to eat one's bread on the ground reclining.
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Crime enters not lowly homes, and in safety is food taken at a slender board, poison is drunk from
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cups of gold. I speak that I do know, evil fortune is to be preferred to good. The lowly citizen fears
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no house of mine said high and threatening on a mountain top. My towering roofs flash not,
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with gleaming ivory no guard watches over my slumbers, with no fleet of boats I fish with no
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piled breakwater do I drive back the sea. But I am not feared safe without weapons is my house,
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and to my small estate, great peace is granted. When Tantalus Jr asks his father how he could
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consider choosing an unhappy fate when a happy one is within reach, that speech I just read is Tantalus'
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reply, the cut a bit for time. He's saying that the things that we think are great,
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often armist leading, those things like being a king and ruling a people, all that it comes with
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might seem appealing if you've never experienced them, but once you've lived it, those things can
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lose their lustre. They stop seeming so exciting and appealing, instead a simple life can be
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much better than that of a leader. He says that his life and exile might have lacked the glamour
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and riches of being royalty in our goal is, but it also lacked the fear and anxiety that came
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with holding the throne, let alone that which came along with the resulting brotherly feud.
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The way Emily Wilson translates the last line of Thaestes' reply really says it all. Quote,
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the ability to do without a kingdom is a kingdom.
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So this Thaestes is really interesting, at least what little we've seen of him up to now.
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Atreus wanted us, you know, the audience, to believe that Thaestes was the worst man alive,
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that he is hateful and disgusting, that he deserves the horrific fate that Atreus is planning for him.
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And when that's all we have about the man, it's easy to believe.
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But now that we're hearing from him, now that he's rehashing things about his past, thinking
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about his life so openly, and along with his beloved sons, he becomes sympathetic. Thaestes seems
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reasonable, he does not seem so bad. So now we get to wonder, does he deserve it? He who is really
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the wrong party here? Obviously, the fate that's planned isn't something that anyone ever could
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deserve, but aside from that, still, is he so bad or is Atreus the one who is either at fault
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or simply going way, way, way, way too far? Or even better, is Atreus that consumed by the will
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of the Fiori that he's just making Thaestes into someone who deserves this? How much of this entire
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situation is the will of these two brothers, you know, the result of their actions, and how much of it
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is caused by that goddess of vengeance who called for all of these crimes to be committed,
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because they're fun for her. Regardless of how we feel about Atreus or Thaestes, it's important
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that we're hearing from his sons, or one of them. Tantalus Jr has a very obvious purity.
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He just wants everyone to be back in their homeland and happy together. He can't see why Thaestes is
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so worried, so hesitant. When his brother is seeming to be, you know, happy to welcome him home.
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Even with Thaestes' words about, you know, the weight of ruling a kingdom, the appeal of a simple
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life, it's just it's not getting through. A child who's lived his life in exile when his father
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once held the throne can't understand that nuance. He just sees the black and white.
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Power and riches are within his father's reach. His brother is offering them to him. Why wouldn't
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he jump at the chance to have all of that? And family back. Thaestes, though, sees beyond it.
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If Atreus is asking him to rule alongside him, there's more to it. There is a trick of some kind.
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Definitely. Quote, could my brother love me? Before that happens, the sea will rise to drench
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the stars. Black night will light the earth. A loyal pact will sooner join fire to water.
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Death to life or wind to sea. No. Thaestes thinks he does not believe that Atreus suddenly loves
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him again. That he's suddenly forgiving him for all after all the hatred that he has been harboring
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for so long. Poor Tantalus Jr., though, he just he doesn't get it. He doesn't understand why his
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father is so afraid or why he's so hesitant to believe his own brother. To trust that his brother
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has forgiven him and is offering him the kingdom out of love. What are you afraid of? He asks his father.
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Everything. Thaestes tells him. What isn't there to be afraid of? Atreus holds the power.
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He adds, though, quote, I fear nothing for myself now, but you sons make me fear Atreus.
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Still not understanding Tantalus Jr. presses his father again. Like, why are you so afraid?
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Quote, when trouble comes it is too late to be careful. Let it go. But I declare to you, my son,
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just this one thing. I follow you. It was not my idea.
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Oh, and that is when Atreus returns to the stage and spots his brother and his nephews for the first time.
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He doesn't go to great as brother and nephews, though not yet. First, he's got a little speech to give.
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One that he doesn't want his brother to hear.
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The prey is fast caught in the toil's eye spread, both the sire himself and together with the
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sire, the offspring of his hated race, I see. Now on safe footing, does my hatred fare?
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It lasts as thiesties come into my power. He has come and the whole of him.
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Scars can I control my spirit? Scars does my rage admit restraint. So when the key number
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and hounds track out the prey and held on along leash with lowered muscles, enough so the trail,
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while with faint sent he perceives the bore afar, obediently and with silent tongue he scours the
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field. But when the game is nearer with his whole strength of neck he struggles loudly,
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protest against his masters loitering and breaks away from his restraint. When rage sense blood,
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it cannot be concealed yet. Let it be concealed. See how his the carol unkempt covers his woth face,
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how foul his beard hangs down. Now let me keep my promise.
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Thiesties, it's so sweet to see my brother again give me the embrace that I've longed for. Let
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all our angry feelings pass away. From this day let ties of blood and love be cherished and let
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a cursed hatred vanish from our hearts. Atria's greets his brother Thiesties and Tantalus
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Jr. in place the knees lovingly. Here's the last line of his greeting in the Emily Wilson
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translation. Quote, how nice to see my brother come to my arms. I missed you. Whatever quarrels we had
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are over now. But of course that is after treated us, the audience to that long and maniacal speech
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about the truth of his feelings, his desperate quest for vengeance. That was the speech I just read,
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ending with Atria's greeting to Thiesties. His words are fake and forced in either translation.
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Regardless, Atria seems to have convinced his brother, at least a little bit,
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but he really does forgive him that he really does want their relationship to be mended for them to
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forget about all of their past fights for them to just be brothers again.
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And Thiesties, Thiesties, when he is met with this behavior of Atria's, when his brother seems to
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just forgive him lovingly and welcome him back home, that's when Thiesties begins to blame himself.
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He admits to having done everything Atria's accused him of. He plotted with Atria's wife,
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Aero Pay, to steal the Golden Ram and thus steal the throne for himself. Quote,
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if you were not like this, I could have refuted all charges, but Atria's I confess I committed
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all the crimes you thought I did. Which again, I just, is this really something worth the revenge
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plot that Atria's has in mind? I don't think that it is. All the same Thiesties doesn't know that
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his brother is plotting the worst crimes imaginable. He's just sorry and it makes it all the more
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heartbreaking. What we do know is coming for him. He says to Atria's quote,
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A man who could hurt so good a brother seems a total scoundrel. He comes to Atria's as a subliant.
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His arms wrapped around his brother's legs in a desperate plea for forgiveness. He's
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apologizing in the greatest way that he can. And God's Atria's plays his role well.
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Looking down at his brother, he tells him, quote,
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Stop hanging onto my knees. Stand up and come into my arms instead.
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And then he turns to his nephews, calling them in for a hug as well. A big group family hug
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after so long apart. Before he tells Thiesties, quote,
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Be ready to take your share of your brother's kingdom. This is my greatest glory.
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Returning my father's crown to my brother, safe and sound.
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Atria says, fucked up. This is fucked up. It's so fucked up that Thiesties, who truly keeps
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seeming more and more sympathetic, tells Atria that he's so thankful. He hoped that Atria's
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and his family are rewarded for his kindness, but that he doesn't want the crown.
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Really, that it quote, would not suit my rough appearance and my hands are too tainted to take
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the scepter I would prefer to be lost in the midst of the crowd. He doesn't even want it,
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but Atria's can't let that happen. He's got his plan and he's going to follow through with it.
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I don't imagine he gives any thought to who his brother might be now after all this time,
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whether he might be deserving of just a tiny bit of mercy, or if he does think that even for a moment,
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we're not seeing it. Atria's presses Thiesties to take his part of the kingdom that's being offered.
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Even when Thiesties says again that he doesn't want it, that he's going to reject Atria's offer,
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he only relents when Atria says that if Thiesties doesn't take half of the kingdom, he will give up his half
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too. And that, of course, isn't what Thiesties wants. It's their family's kingdom. He can't let Atria
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give it up entirely. So finally he does accept what Atria's is offering with one condition.
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Quote, I will bear the name of kingship, but you will have the law, the army, and myself.
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Thiesties is just so happy to be welcomed home by his brother after so long an exile and away
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from his family and their kingdom. He doesn't want power. He just wants to be home.
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Well, nerds, thank you so much for listening. I don't remember quite what I'm going to be able to
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have jammed into this one versus the one coming out tomorrow, but this is a multi-part series. And so
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I'm just finding a way to replay it all for you without giving you all like a four-hour episode.
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So you're going to have the second half of this incredible play on this utterly devoid of moral
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integrity family. You know, there's there's some other people actually who are are similarly lacking in
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any kind of humanity or empathy or it's too bad. It's one of those things that
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humanity never evolved out of. Eat the rich and more things that I won't say into a microphone
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today, but you can probably imagine what I want to say. Let's talk about myths, babies, written
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and produced by me live Albert McCay LaPanga, which is the Hermes to my Olympians, my incredible
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producer select music by Luke Chaos, the podcast is part of the Memory Collective Podcast Network,
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which again is a thing that exists, but will be better fleshed out when I can, you know, that's
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where we're at. You can get this episode and all of the other episodes, add free along with
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other bonus content and various such items at patreon.com slash myths baby by subscribing to the
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Oracle edition or via just the ad screen ad free subscription on Apple podcasts. That's probably
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enough for today. I am live and I love this shit.