Antaeus
Yesterday Seamus Heaney died in Dublin at age 74. He was a great poet and translator, and although I don't usually commemorate the deaths of favorite writers on this blog, I will in this case because one of my favorite of his poems deals with wrestling. "Antaeus" (1966) depicts the giant Antaeus, son of the sea-god Poseidon and mother earth Gaea. Hercules defeated and killed him in a wrestling match. According to Ovid, Antaeus could not be defeated so long as a part of his body touched the earth (his mother), so Hercules held him up off the ground and crushed him in his mighty arms.
When I lie on the ground
I rise flushed as a rose in the morning.
In fights I arrange a fall on the ring
To rub myself with sand.
That is operative
As an elixir. I cannot be weaned
Off the earth's long contour, her river-veins.
Down here in my cave
Girdered with root and rock
I am cradled in the dark that wombed me
And nurtured in every artery
Like a small hillock.
Let each new hero come
Seeking his golden apples and Atlas:
He must wrestle with me before he pass
Into that realm of fame
Among sky-born and royal.
He may well throw me and renew my birth
But let him not plan, lifting me off the earth,
My elevation, my fall.
The screen shots are from Hercules the Avenger (1965), which puts a slight spin on the myth. In a misty cavern, while a whole city collapses over their heads, Antaeus (stuntman Giovanni Cianfriglia), son of the earth, wrestles Hercules (Reg Park), son of the sky god Jove. In the film, Antaeus impersonates Hercules, doing much harm in his name, complicit in the kidnapping and torture of Hercules' (hunky) son, played by Luigi Barbini (who appeared in several Pasolini films). In the film, Hercules wins by holding Antaeus aloft in a choke hold, thus strangling him.
In younger days, I strongly identified with Antaeus because of his enthusiasm for wrestling (albeit a fatal enthusiasm, in his case) and because he dwelled in the desert in Libya (I was born in Tripoli, Libya, on a U.S. Air Force base).
So long, Seamus Heaney. I will remember you.
In a mythology book I read as a kid, Antaeus was protecting the Pygmies, and that total prick Hercules murdered him, then enslaved a couple Pygmies to give as a "gift" to some queen. Dick move, Hercules!
ReplyDeleteIf I remember correctly, it was two pygmy brothers. Hercules slung them over his shoulders and carried them head down to the Queen. The bros got their jollies face first in Hercules' naked big muscle but. They laughed because his ass had been nicely tanned and rendered smooth & hairless when he previously fought a fire-breathing monster. Hercules' triumph was turned into his greatest humiliation when they pleasured themselves on the long journey and were the first to take Hercules' virgin cherry by burying their tongues deep inside and making him cum again and again.
DeleteWhen he at last he sunk to his knees, sexually exhausted, they double teamed him, mounting and taking him fore and aft with their disproportionately huge members, which dwarfed even Hercules' member, and came little short of the girth and length of his famous club.
Thus was the Prince of Power overpowered and unmanned for the only time in his legendary career.
Afterwards he took on legions of male lovers, and even took on a submissive role with the Queen, dressing in her gowns while she wore his lion tunic and mounted him with a huge brazen strap on. She could hump him tirelessy for days on end, achieving endless climaxes, but Hercules always ended thoroughly emasculated and begging for mercy when he became drained and could no longer get an erection.
Actual mythology.
Dear Salacious. I may need to borrow your storybook sometime. Joe at Ringside at Skull Island
DeleteActually, that is 95%% true. I read ancient Geek and classical Latin and study mythology. The twin pygmies were called the Cercopes and the story of Hercules being transgendered by the dominatrix Queen Omphale is well known, but most references tone down the salacious details in the original accounts.
DeleteFrom Hawthorne's Tanglewood Tales: "I am your enemy," answered the valiant Pygmy, in his mightiest squeak. "You have slain the enormous Antaeus, our brother by the mother's side, and for ages the faithful ally of our illustrious nation. We are determined to put you to death; and for my own part, I challenge you to instant battle, on equal ground."
Hercules was so tickled with the Pygmy's big words and warlike gestures, that he burst into a great explosion of laughter, and almost dropped the poor little mite of a creature off the palm of his hand, through the ecstasy and convulsion of his merriment.
"Upon my word," cried he, "I thought I had seen wonders before to-day--hydras with nine heads, stags with golden horns, six-legged men, three-headed dogs, giants with furnaces in their stomachs, and nobody knows what besides. But here, on the palm of my hand, stands a wonder that outdoes them all! Your body, my little friend, is about the size of an ordinary man's finger. Pray, how big may your soul be?"
"As big as your own!" said the Pygmy.
Hercules was touched with the little man's dauntless courage, and could not help acknowledging such a brotherhood with him as one hero feels for another.
I sue for peace, and, as a condition of it, will take five strides, and be out of your kingdom at the sixth. For once, Hercules acknowledges himself vanquished."
The monkey-like Cercopes brothers really did mock Hercules for his big, black booty bottom, having stolen his weapons (Club, sword, Bow & arrows, & his shield and Lion's Skin armor & fought him while he was emasculated by Omphale and exhausted by his losing struggle with Anteus, who outwrestled Hercules until he lifted off of contact with Mother Earth, for Anteus & the pygmies were her children and drew endless strength from her. That is why he had to carry them on his shoulders and didn't dare set them down.
For a commentary on how Hercules would have fared against another pygmy immortal see:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLSwW6PMgsU&t=34s
The long and short of it Hercules gets his butt owned.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ymuypm1jDVA