What this project is about.
This one is from Book 3.
How long it took to read this (aloud): 9 mins 30s
What it’s “about”: A young man, Cadmus is told “come back with your sister Europa [kidnapped by Jove, obvs] or don’t come back at all.” Cadmus can’t find the girl, takes advice from a god – “follow that ox!” and plans to build a city (Thebes), He sends some of his men into the forest looking for water. They get minced by a giant snake, which Cadmus then kills (poor fucking snake – I am Team Snake, tbh) and then there’s a fever dream of sowed serpent’s teeth and an army springing up and mutual slaughter and this is weird ass shit, but definitely up there with Phaethon’s Ride as worthy of closer attention
Words I didn’t know: none
Quotable quotes: xx
These brothers of mutual madness and disaster
Died by their common wounds; the young,
Whose lives were all too short,
Lay groaning
In warm heart’s blood on earth whch gave them birth –
Yet no man
Is called happy till his death, and all
The taxes at his wake and funeral paid
How it lands to my eco-sensibility: As above, am defo Team Snake. Humans, srsly.
Obvious allusions, ways it was used (that I am aware of already) : Oh, all over the palce
What I know I didn’t ‘get’: xx
To my knowledge, who’s used it why/how (RACC): xx
Further research questions: Ogden, D. (2013). Drakon: dragon myth and serpent cult in the Greek and Roman worlds. Oxford University Press.
Anything else: xx
marchudson.net 
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