reality, but from a holier plane.
Goddess, daughter of Zeus. Not only are we invoking
divine intercession, but intercession on the highest
level, just one remove from the top.
Sustain for me. Homer doesn't ask for brilliance
or success. He just wants to keep this thing going.
This song. That about covers it. From The
Brothers Karama^ov to your new venture in the
plumbing-supply business.
I love the summation of Odysseus' trials that
comprises the body of the invocation. It's Joseph
Campbell's hero's journey in a nutshell, as concise a
synopsis of the story of Everyman as it gets. There's
the initial crime (which we all inevitably commit),
which ejects the hero from his homebound complacency
and propels him upon his wanderings, the yearning for
redemption, the untiring campaign to get "home,"
meaning back to God's grace, back to himself.
I admire particularly the warning against the second
crime, to destroy for meat the oxen of the most exalted
Sun. That's the felony that calls down soul-destruction:
the employment of the sacred for profane means.
Prostitution. Selling out.
Lastly, the artist's wish for his work: Make this tale
live for us in all its many bearings, O Muse.
That's what we want, isn't it? More than make it120 THE WAR OF ART