Taking the last bit of P208, the physical setting and the psyche are most closely aligned in the province of myth. Daphne, the naiad nymph, allies herself with the riverbank flowers of the Ladon of Arcadia and twittering birds of the tree she becomes.
Her metamorphosis is just one of the many in classical myth; animals and constellations abound. As I've been saying for awhile, large-scale similarities are primal (rhythm), and only with similarities can differences be meaningful.
The elemental world is full of large-scale similarities and differences, while the world of inductive-science is full of minute differences - the vanishing-point of technique
These minute measurements attract the ego that itself gives rise to the neutralizing dragon of psycho-techno sameness. While the elemental world of large-scale similarities is a physical setting that imbues the psyche with power, a world of minute differences eliminates such physical reality.
The physical reality is melancholic and involves processes of metamorphosis (see prev), while the egotistical reality of modernity is emptily positive.
The unfortunate truth is, without melancholic nostalgia for past times, there can be no youthful revival, as in the 60s. The entire province of classical literature is predicated on nostalgia for a glorious past.
Myths are, after all, elemental stories of large-scale similarities that imbue all nature with psyche. Such similarities are notably manifest in Ovid, and I happened on a classical link that covers the Apollo/Daphne story.
(Para 16) Ovid's Apollo contends with Daphne in a race for sexual possession. Sibling rivalry has turned into something more troubling, a contest to achieve a quasi-incestuous coupling of Apollo with a Diana lookalike (Was this indeed what Apollo found irresistible in Daphne, tempted to break the taboo to which Ovid alludes..when he describes passionate kisses as qualia credible est non Phoebe ferre Dianam?) Philip Hardie
(Diana, incidentally, has vowed chastity somewhat akin to the Red Sonja mythos.) It's clear Apollo has an incestuous attitude to Daphne from the nymph's resemblance to his divine twin. Daphne herself is an elemental nymph - somewhat akin to the dryad in CL Moore HB206 - who swims under the light of the moon (Artemis/Diana).
Origins, and elemental closeness, are of primal fertility. A pastoral nymph who impersonates a goddess is prey for the brother.
There is also a type of 'literary incest' of similarities and allusions, the type of thing that is also found in comicbooks, actually!
Myths are a type of detritus that is continually scavenged, somewhat repetitively but also shifting focus with altered perspectives, made possible by the large-scale similarities of s physical reality that is elemental.
The retelling of myth in animated X-Men (prev) is a case-in-point. The origins of each character are different but loaded with the elemental. From the erotic (Rogue), the morbid bayou (Gambit), primal psychic force (Phoenix, Professor X), animal (Beast, Wolverine), primal physical force (Storm).
The animated retellings are loaded with semi-incestuous comicbook allusions - such as the Garokk/Storm story set in the Savage Land - and actually vastly more accurate than the somewhat realistic film versions.
Myths are real because they contain the large-scale elemental similarities that imbue primitive psyche to the cosmos. The force is greater both physically and psychically. Melancholy and nostalgia are real concepts and inspire continual revival, the youthful spirit of the flower in the field.
