Embryo and Stem Cell Research :: Diseases Science Papers

Thesis mend fertilized egg and stop kiosk research may one day cater treatments for many diseases including Parkinsons, Alzheimers, diabetes, palsy and cancer, ethical consideration must be communicate in order for scientist to employ human embryos for medical research. I. Introduction Stem cell research has shown a great promise and mount up in its technique since 1998 when human pluripotent basis cells were isolated for the first time. Since then research on stem cells has received frequently public attention both because of their extraordinary emf in curing devastating diseases and because of relevant legal and ethical issues. While embryo stem cell research may one day provide treatments for many diseases, including Parkinsons, Alzheimers, diabetes, paralysis and cancer, ethical consideration must be addressed in order for scientists to utilize human embryos for medical research. The purpose of this paper is to state the reader about the stem cells and research invol ving embryonic stem cells and others, and to address some of the ethical and moralistic considerations. It is important to understand the staple fibre concepts and terminology. The following voice will give definitions, types and origins of stem cells. It will then be followed by further discussion of embryo stem cells, giving specific attention to their pluripotent characteristics and differences from openhanded stem cells. Finally the moral and ethical issues will be addressed from scientist and pro-life advocates point of view. The stem cell research is still in its babyhood and needs a lot of support and effort to advance further. In order to promote the advance of the techniques for the good of human kind, it is important to understand the topic and issues around the stem cell research and thus promote more stem cell research. II. footing Information What are Stem Cells?A stem cell is a special kind of cell that has a unique capacity to self-replicate and to give elevator to specialized cells. There are three basic types of stem cells totipotent, pluripotent, and multipotent. Totipotent stem cells, meaning their electric potential is total, have the capacity to give rise to either cell type of the personate and have the potential to develop into a fetus when they are placed into the uterus (Wang, 2002). To date, no such totipotent stem cell lines (primary cell cultures) have been developed. Pluripotent stem cells, such as embryonic stem cells, are capable of generating types of cells that develop from the three germ layers (mesoderm, endoderm, and ectoderm) from which all the cells of the body arise (National Institutes of Health Department of Health and sympathetic Service (NIH), 2001, p 2).Embryo and Stem Cell Research Diseases Science PapersThesis While embryo and stem cell research may one day provide treatments for many diseases including Parkinsons, Alzheimers, diabetes, paralysis and cancer, ethical consideration must be addressed in order for scientist to utilize human embryos for medical research. I. Introduction Stem cell research has shown a great promise and advance in its technique since 1998 when human pluripotent stem cells were isolated for the first time. Since then research on stem cells has received much public attention both because of their extraordinary potential in curing devastating diseases and because of relevant legal and ethical issues. While embryo stem cell research may one day provide treatments for many diseases, including Parkinsons, Alzheimers, diabetes, paralysis and cancer, ethical consideration must be addressed in order for scientists to utilize human embryos for medical research. The purpose of this paper is to inform the reader about the stem cells and research involving embryonic stem cells and others, and to address some of the ethical and moral considerations. It is important to understand the basic concepts and terminology. The following section will give definitions, types a nd origins of stem cells. It will then be followed by further discussion of embryo stem cells, giving specific attention to their pluripotent characteristics and differences from adult stem cells. Finally the moral and ethical issues will be addressed from scientist and pro-life advocates point of view. The stem cell research is still in its infancy and needs a lot of support and effort to advance further. In order to promote the advance of the techniques for the good of human kind, it is important to understand the topic and issues around the stem cell research and thus promote more stem cell research. II. Background Information What are Stem Cells?A stem cell is a special kind of cell that has a unique capacity to self-replicate and to give rise to specialized cells. There are three basic types of stem cells totipotent, pluripotent, and multipotent. Totipotent stem cells, meaning their potential is total, have the capacity to give rise to every cell type of the body and have the p otential to develop into a fetus when they are placed into the uterus (Wang, 2002). To date, no such totipotent stem cell lines (primary cell cultures) have been developed. Pluripotent stem cells, such as embryonic stem cells, are capable of generating types of cells that develop from the three germ layers (mesoderm, endoderm, and ectoderm) from which all the cells of the body arise (National Institutes of Health Department of Health and Human Service (NIH), 2001, p 2).

The Relationship Between a Mother and Daughter in Two Kinds by Amy Tan

2 Kinds by Amy Tan is nigh the intricacies and complexities in the relationship mingled with a amaze and daughter. Throughout the point, the mother imposes upon her daughter, Jing mei, her hopes and dreams for her. Jing Mei chooses not what her mother wants of her exactly precisely what she wants for herself. She states, For, unlike my mother, I did not believe I could be anything I wanted to be. I could be only me (Tan 1). Thus this battle of wills between mother and daughter sets the conflict of the story.The theme seems to be about how the expectations of a parent can lead to resentment from the tyke when the child fails to meet those expectations. The theme is partly set in the opening paragraph with the statement, My mother believed you could be anything you wanted to be in America (Tan 1), and again in the second paragraph, when the mother tells the daughter, Of kind you can be prodigy, too (Tan1). Throughout the story, the mother invariably insists on making of Jin g Mei a child prodigy. In the beginning, Jing Mei is excited about the possibility. She even likens herself to Jesus saying, I was like the Christ child lifted out of the straw manger, crying with holy indignity (Tan 1). When Jing Mei realizes she isnt succeeding, she loses hope and so chooses not to succeed. In this she resents her mother for constantly trying to guide of her something she is not.The story is told in the first-person narrative, or subjective point of view. This is important as it leads the reader to translate with the narrator as well as setting up the protagonist/antagonist relationship of daughter and mother. In this case, Jing Mei narrates as an adult but through the eyes of a child, allowing the reader to draw upon his/her ow... ...ith Jing Mei and her mother, it is compounded by the fact that there are dual nationalities involved as well. non only did the mothers good intentions bring about failure and disappointment from Jing Mei, but rooted in her mother s culture was the flavor that children are to be obedient and give respect to their elders. lonesome(prenominal) two kinds of daughters.....those who are obedient and those who follow their own mind (Tan1) is the comment made by her mother when Jing Mei refuses to continue with piano lessons. In the end, this story shows that not only is the mother-daughter relationship intricately complex but is made even much so with cultural and generational differences added to the mix.Work CitedTan, Amy. Two Kinds. lit An Introduction to Reading and Writing. Ed. Edgar V Roberts and Henry E. Jacobs. 7th ed. N.J. Pearson Education, 2004. 211-18. The Relationship Between a Mother and Daughter in Two Kinds by Amy Tan Two Kinds by Amy Tan is about the intricacies and complexities in the relationship between a mother and daughter. Throughout the story, the mother imposes upon her daughter, Jing Mei, her hopes and dreams for her. Jing Mei chooses not what her mother wants of her but only what she wants for herself. She states, For, unlike my mother, I did not believe I could be anything I wanted to be. I could be only me (Tan 1). Thus this battle of wills between mother and daughter sets the conflict of the story.The theme seems to be about how the expectations of a parent can lead to resentment from the child when the child fails to meet those expectations. The theme is partially set in the opening paragraph with the statement, My mother believed you could be anything you wanted to be in America (Tan 1), and again in the second paragraph, when the mother tells the daughter, Of course you can be prodigy, too (Tan1). Throughout the story, the mother constantly insists on making of Jing Mei a child prodigy. In the beginning, Jing Mei is excited about the possibility. She even likens herself to Jesus saying, I was like the Christ child lifted out of the straw manger, crying with holy indignity (Tan 1). When Jing Mei realizes she isnt succeeding, she loses hope and so chooses not to succeed. In this she resents her mother for constantly trying to make of her something she is not.The story is told in the first-person narrative, or subjective point of view. This is important as it leads the reader to sympathize with the narrator as well as setting up the protagonist/antagonist relationship of daughter and mother. In this case, Jing Mei narrates as an adult but through the eyes of a child, allowing the reader to draw upon his/her ow... ...ith Jing Mei and her mother, it is compounded by the fact that there are dual nationalities involved as well. Not only did the mothers good intentions bring about failure and disappointment from Jing Mei, but rooted in her mothers culture was the belief that children are to be obedient and give respect to their elders. Only two kinds of daughters.....those who are obedient and those who follow their own mind (Tan1) is the comment made by her mother when Jing Mei refuses to continue with piano lessons. In the e nd, this story shows that not only is the mother-daughter relationship intricately complex but is made even more so with cultural and generational differences added to the mix.Work CitedTan, Amy. Two Kinds. Literature An Introduction to Reading and Writing. Ed. Edgar V Roberts and Henry E. Jacobs. 7th ed. N.J. Pearson Education, 2004. 211-18.

The White Scourge: Mexicans, Blacks, and Poor Whites in Texas Cotton Culture :: United States History Johnny Cash Essays

The White Scourge Mexicans, Blacks, and Poor Whites in Texas Cotton Culture On his 2000 studio album, American III, Johnny Cash sang in a resigned voice, I got a crib full of corn, and a turnin plow/ But the grounds to wet for the hopper now/ Got a cultivator and a icon tree/ A leather aura for the hull and gee/ Let the thunder roll and the lighting flash/ Im doing alright for Country Trash.* Raised on a cotton farm in Dyess, Arkansas, Cash articulated a racialized class divide not simply among whites and African Americans, but among whites, themselves. Cash belonged to a growing class of impoverished white farmers increasingly referred to by his contemporaries as white trash, and recast by historian Neil Foley as The White Scourge. In his book of the same title, Foley analyzes the impact of class and race consciousness on white tenants and sharecroppers in central Texas as they competed for farm labor with both African Americans and Mexicans from 1820 to 1940. Foley asserts, The emergence of a rural class of white trash made whites conscious of themselves as a racial group and fearful that if they fell to the bottom, they would lose the racial privileges that came with existence accepted for what they were not-black, Mexican, or foreign born.(7)** The white scourge, the masses of impoverished whites held in limbo between privilege and denial, Foley asserts, is what informs race relations today. The heart of Foleys agate line rests on an analysis of the intersection of race and economics or class. Indeed the two are joined at the hip, race being created and sustained appear of competition for labor.On June 23, 1845, the Republic of Texas was annexed to the U.S. as a slave state. Foley notes the annexation of Texas as a slave statebecame the great white hope of blue expansionists anxious to emancipate the nation from blacks, who, it was hoped, would find a home among the kindred population of colored races in Mexico.(20) But rather than uniting as kindred races, dissonance between poor whites, African Americans and Mexicans resulted from competition for farmland as either tenant farmers or sharecroppers. Foley argues that prior to the Civil War, there was a sharp line delineating tenant farmers and sharecroppers. Tenant farmers were almost always white, owned their own tools and rented land for a third of the cotton and a fourth of the grain harvested.

The Tell-Tale Heart and the Labovian Theory :: Tell-Tale Heart Essays

The Tell Tale Heart and the Labovian Theory The Labovian theory of a developed narrative contains six mandatory components. These components help the lecturer, or attendant to a broader understanding of the thoughts and motivation of the internal narrator and the external storyteller. The wind gives a representation about the story. The orientation draws a picture to familiarize the reader/listener of the necessary ws who, what, when, where. The complicating action is the turn of events on which the story hinges. The resolution determines the outcome and usually leaves the reader/listener aware of a feeling of closure. The evaluation is the intimately essential component of the Labovian theory. It permeates throughout the narrative in hopeful attempts to keep the interest of the reader/listener peaked. The coda compliments the evaluation and brings the narrator and the reader/listener back together on common ground in order to bring the story to a close. Edgar Allan P oes short story of a unenthusiastic crime undone by the heart incorporates the Labovian components. The Tell-Tale Heart is a masterly written narrative, full of subtle nuances quick to deceive the senses. Poe sends the reader spinning into a world of symbolism, questioning the art of madness, and fearing the depravity of reason. The The Tell-Tale Heart is, at a glance, seemingly about a man plotting to kill another man in cold blood. Looking further into the words, the reader can find a story of a man preoccupy with senses and the ability to have complete arrest over them. The narrator uses reason to overwhelm the morality of his actions. His obsession takes over his whole being, thus bringing on the madness which over powers his world. The focus of the abstract is first seen as the narrator describes his idea as, haunting him day and night(226). Only an obsessed person could let something get to the point where they cannot think of anything else. Poe uses strategical wording to pinpoint the abstract. Poe blatantly announces the point, and the narrator confesses, Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded . . . (226). He was a coldly calculating man, obsessed that reason can conquer any sense, which in the end he finds is a never-ending battle.

The Study of Si Surface Structures Essay examples -- Science Experimen

The Study of Si Surface Structures The goal of this study is to determine the ratios of surface type upon the Si sample. Data is collected from the Si samples victimisation SPALEED. By analyzing the info from dates where combined surfaces are present it is possible to determine the amount of certain types of surfaces present on the sample. The ultimate goal is the ability to control condition the growth of Pb islands upon the Si crystal. Applications of this research include the design of advanced microprocessors and quantum wires.Introduction The goal of the REU project to which I was assigned is to determine the amounts of certain types of filmy surface structures present upon the Si crystal that had been used in previous experiments involving the formation of Pb islands at low temperature. This is accomplished by analyzing certain aspects of the data collected by Spot Profile Analysis Low Energy Electron Diffraction (SPALEED). The data sets are taken from different exper imental runs involving various surfaces and are compared to one another. These surfaces include combined types of surface structures as well as those with only a single surface structure present. Background and Experimental military operation Within ultra-high vacuum and at very low temperature, a Si crystal is placed. This crystal is heated by use of a tungsten filament to high temperatures in order to eliminate impurities. The Si is then heated again at certain temperatures and for specific durations of time in order to pee-pee particular crystalline surface structures. Atoms of Pb are then deposited upon the Si crystal by a process of evaporation. The amount of Pb deposited is known and is metric in terms of monolayers, or layers of Pb upon the surface measu... ...is known through previous experiments that the surface of the Si upon which the Pb is deposited can change the height of the Pb islands formed. By altering the silicon surface upon which the Pb is deposited it is h oped that the Pb islands can be controlled.The hope is that the work here can help pave the air for computer chip architecture in the next fifty years. If the Pb islands can be deposited evenly and placed in specific locations it is believed that they can be use as quantum wires, dramatically increasing the speed of the silicon chip computer. At this time the data is promising. With more data and further analysis the problems of controllable Pb island formation are sure to be solved. The use of Scanning Tunneling Microscopy and SPA-LEED are the keys to unlocking the mysteries of the Si surface and its connection to the formation of the Pb islands.

The Study of Si Surface Structures Essay examples -- Science Experimen

The Study of Si Surface Structures The goal of this study is to determine the ratios of step to the fore type upon the Si sample. Data is still from the Si samples using SPALEED. By analyzing the data from dates where combined surfaces are present it is possible to determine the amount of certain types of surfaces present on the sample. The ultimate goal is the ability to control the offset of Pb islands upon the Si crystal. Applications of this research include the design of advanced microprocessors and quantum wires.Introduction The goal of the REU project to which I was assigned is to determine the amounts of certain types of crystalline surface structures present upon the Si crystal that had been uptaked in previous experiments involving the formation of Pb islands at low temperature. This is accomplished by analyzing certain aspects of the data collected by Spot Profile Analysis Low Energy Electron Diffraction (SPALEED). The data sets are taken from different experiment al runs involving various surfaces and are compared to one(a) another. These surfaces include combined types of surface structures as well as those with only a single surface structure present. Background and Experimental Procedure at heart ultra- naughty vacuum and at very low temperature, a Si crystal is placed. This crystal is heated by use of a tungsten filament to high temperatures in order to eliminate impurities. The Si is then heated again at certain temperatures and for specific durations of time in order to create finical crystalline surface structures. Atoms of Pb are then deposited upon the Si crystal by a process of evaporation. The amount of Pb deposited is known and is measured in terms of monolayers, or layers of Pb upon the surface measu... ...is known through previous experiments that the surface of the Si upon which the Pb is deposited can change the height of the Pb islands formed. By altering the silicon surface upon which the Pb is deposited it is hoped tha t the Pb islands can be controlled.The hope is that the work here can help pave the way for information processing system chip architecture in the next fifty years. If the Pb islands can be deposited evenly and placed in specific locations it is believed that they can be use as quantum wires, dramatically increasing the speed of the silicon chip computer. At this time the data is promising. With more data and further analysis the problems of controllable Pb island formation are sure to be solved. The use of Scanning Tunneling Microscopy and SPA-LEED are the keys to unlocking the mysteries of the Si surface and its connection to the formation of the Pb islands.

Yeats initial disenchantment with Irish nationalism can be successfully traced in his love poems to Maud Gonne

In Dublin, WB Yeats met John O Leary for the first time, a name Fenian who interested him in Nationalism and translations of Irish writing into English, and by doing so, gave Yeats fresh and exciting subject matter for his poetry, and a new purpose. This was also the year he met Maud Gonne, tall and beautiful, a well- to- do revolutionary with whom he fell in wonder. Penniless, he could and offer her his poetic devotion. From the moment he met her, WB Yeats purport was profoundly affected by her famed beauty and unanswered devotion to Irish Nationalism. Born during an age when women were anticipate to be nonhing more than window-dressing for their husbands, when women were expected to leave the rough and tumble world of politics to men, Maud Gonne rose above that prejudice.Maud Gonne did non return Yeats passion. She accepted him with delight as a friend, but would not respond to any lovemaking. In many of Yeats earlier poems we can see his enchantment with Maud Gonne. In the Rose Collection the rose had several symbolic meanings as a title it probably means the eternal rose of Beauty and peacei It was also used in the ordinary sense of a rose in love poetry and Yeats knew Irish poets had used it to symbolise Ireland. According to York notes the rose symbolised spiritual beauty it symbolised Maud Gonne.The White Birds, is a Yeats poem most love and envisions a love affair with Maud GonneWhere time would surely forget us,And sorrow come near us no moreSoon cold from the rose and the lilly andFret of the flames would we be,Where we only white birds, my beloved,Buoyed out on the foam of the seaiiIn When You Are Old, he is anticipating that he would not be happy in love. It also shows that WB Yeats believed that Maud Gonne would regret not being with him. Yeats proposed marriage a number of times, but she had no use for Yeats proposals. She was his nonreciprocal love. Each time she turned him down by saying No Willie the world would not thank me for marr ying youiiiWhile he was in love with Maud Gonne he shared her nationalistic aims and she exerted a strong influence on his early poetry. But his love for Maud Gonne made him react to politics more emotionally and that sometimes meant that that his reactions were not born out of reason but out of love for Maud Gonne. She continued to be the catalyst for the finest love poetry Yeats would create.Yeats labelled himself a socialist, one who despised the middle classes, and his ideal Ireland was divided between a Protestantism of fine artistic tastes and a devout Catholic peasantry, full of instinctive science and preserving a living folklore. The love of Yeats life, Gonne would keep his mystic, otherworldly figure grounded in the real world, a world that love and heart break would not set aside him to escape.So Yeats entered the lists of Irish nationalist politics in the 1890s as a kind of courtly lover, anxious to prove his worth before a very nationalistic womans eye. Since he found her unresponsive, after a period his emotions had cooled and then revived. He developed a concept of personal transformation by the agency of failure. He must try to change Ireland or to win his mistresses favour, and fail, and in failure find apotheosis.Yeats may also have joined the inexplicable Irish Republican Brotherhood, which traced its origins to the Fenian Brotherhood, the Fenian Brotherhood that had risen in futile rebellion in 1867, He certainly recognised that his literary work contributed generally to the answer of Irish separatism for which the secret, sworn Association stood. Maud Gonne saw Yeats as a political weaponiv to be used in the great battle, she was only interested in the element in his poetry which was dedicated to Ireland, and had she gotten her way he would have become a economizer of versified nationalist propaganda, a kind of fin de siecle Thomas Davis. Her sole purpose in life was concentrated in the attainment of an Irish Nation.It was Yeats tha t let Maud Gonne uses him as her slave but Yeats was not in favour of violence, however, Maud Gonne made a cult of violence into which she swept him culminating in the Jubilee Riots of 1897 in Dublin. The poem he wishes for the clothes of heaven shows how Yeats dreams for Ireland, and Maud Gonnes approach of use force, therefore these two different contradicting thoughts could have been the reason for his initial disenchantment. Another poem, which supports this idea, is WordsI had this thought a while ago.My darling cannot understand.She doesnt understand him, he doesnt want violence,Their politics is going in different directions.vThese are varied and transitional they reveal the poets greater readiness to write slightly public matters and they book of account how his romantic poetry and the hopes it conveyed inspired by and written to Maud Gonne had foundered on her marriage to John Mac Bride in 1903. There is a static quality about the work of this volume The Green Helmet and Other Poems, But one that is regretful and poignant. The poetry is being stripped of decoration.The poem Upon a house shaken by the land agitation deals with the effect of the settlement of the Irish land question in the late 19th and early 20th Century, by a serial publication of Acts which culminating in the Wyndham Land Act of 1903 and the Ashbourne Act of 1909. In this poem Yeats reflects upon the affect of a reduction of rents made by the courts upon the Gregorys Coole Park. The Gregorys life is based upon the estate.The romantic wistfulness, the dreamy, enhancive quality of much of his early verse now gave way to a manner at once more terse, astringent and masculine.The poem No endorse Troy tells us that after Maud Gonnes marriage and his struggles in the Abbey theatre Yeats was bitter and distressed, however his verse took on a new strength, no longer the dense twilight suggestions of previous volumes.In the poem September 1913 from Responsibilities, Yeats looked about h im at the country he had served with such devotion and found nothing but dissolution, seeing with sudden bitter clarity the littleness, the greyness, the meanness, the self-glorification, the prudish savagery and false piety gathering in which he had been involved under the influence of Maud Gonne. The love he had for her and his powerful influence, she used to encourage people in her cause. He came to see how political opinions destroy a woman.To conclude, Yeats unrequited love for Maud Gonne had made him increasingly unhappy. During the 1890s he had become disenchanted with the Irish nationalists and with the revolutionaries. In 1903 Maud Gonnes marriage put an end to his hopes that one day she would marry him. The love poetry he continued to write still recorded his love for her, but it had become a love which no future. The old love had been replaced by realism, by knowledge of how she had never truly understood him or his aims.

Greek Mythology

true novelology in western art and literature With the rediscovery of unstained antiquity in Renaissance, the poetry of Ovid became a major influence on the imagination of poets and artists and remained a funda workforcetal influence on the diffusion and perception of classic mythology finished subsequent centuries. 2 From the early years of Renaissance, artists portrayed subjects from Hellenic mythology alongside more(prenominal) conventional Christian themes.Among the top hat-known subjects of Italian artists are Botticellis Birth of genus Venus and P totally toldas and the Centaur, the Ledas of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, and Raphaels Galatea. 2 Through the medium of Latin and the works of Ovid, classical myth influenced medieval and Renaissance poets such(prenominal) as Petrarch, Boccaccio and Dante in Italy. 1 In northern Europe, Greek mythology neer took the same hold of the visual arts, but its effect was very obvious on literature. Both Latin and Greek cl assical texts were translated, so that stories of mythology became available. In England, Chaucer, the Elizabethans and John Milton were among those influenced by Greek myths more or less all the major English poets from Shakespeare to Robert Bridges turned for inspiration to Greek mythology.Jean Racine in France and Goethe in Ger numerous revived Greek drama. 2 Racine reworked the ancient myths including those of Phaidra, Andromache, Oedipus and Iphigeneia to new purpose. 3 The 18th degree Celsius saw the philosophical revolution of the Enlighten workforcet spread throughout Europe and attach to by a certain reaction against Greek myth there was a tendency to insist on the scientific and philosophical obtainments of Greece and Rome.The myths, however, continued to provide an of import source of raw material for dramatists, including those who wrote the libretti for Handels operas Admeto and Semele, Mozarts Idomeneo and Glucks Iphigenie en Aulide. 3 By the end of the hundred, romishticism initiated a surge of en thereforeiam for all things Greek, including Greek mythology. In Britain, it was a great gunpoint for new translations of Greek tragedies and homer, and these in turn inspired contemporary poets, such as Keats, Byron and Shelley. 4 The Hellenism of Queens Victoria poet laureate, Alfred Lord Tenny countersign, was such that however his portraits of the quintessentially English court of pouf fine arthrur are suffused with echoes of the Homeric desperates.The visual arts kept pace, stimulated by the purchase of the Parthenon marbles in 1816 many an(prenominal) of the Greek paintings of Lord Leighton and Lawrence Alma-Tadema were seriously recognised as part of the transmission of the Hellenic ideal. 5 The German composer of the 18th light speed Christoph Gluck was also influenced by Greek mythology. 1 American authors of the 19th century, such as doubting Thomas Bulfinch and Nathaniel Hawthorne, believed that myths should provide pleasure , and held that the study of the classical myths was essential to the understanding of English and Americal literature. 6 jibe to Bulfinch, the so-cal lead divinities of Olympus live with not a single worshipper among living men they belong now not to the department of theology, but to those of literature and taste. 7 In more recent times, classical themes take over been re delivered by such major dramatists as Jean Anouilh, Jean Cocteau, and Jean Giraudoux in France, Eugene ONeill in America, and T.S. Eliot in England and by great novelists such as the Irish James Joyce and the french Andre Gide. Richard Strauss, Jacques Offenbach and many opposites endure set Greek mythological themes to music. 1References 1. a b c d Greek Mythology. cyclopaedia Britannica. 2002. 2. a b c Greek mythology. Encyclopaedia Britannica. 2002. * L. Burn, Greek Myths, 75 3. a b l. Burn, Greek Myths, 75 4. l. Burn, Greek Myths, 75-76 5. l. Burn, Greek Myths, 76 6. Klatt-Brazouski, Ancient Gree k and Roman Mythology, 4 7. T. Bulfinch, Bulfinchs Greek and Roman Mythology, 1Greek MythologyGreek Mythology,setofdiversetraditional tales told by the ancient Greeks about the exploits of perfections and heroes and their relations with ordinary mortals. TheancientGreeksworshiped many gods within a culture that tolerated diversity. Unlike other belief systems, Greek culture recognized no single truth or code and produced no sacred, written text like the Bible or the Quran. Stories about the origins and actions of Greek divinities varied widely, depending, for example, on whether the tale appeared in a comedy, tragedy, or epic poem.Greek mythology was like a compound and rich language, in which the Greeks could express a vast range of perceptions about the world. AGreekcity-statedevoted itself to a particular god or conclave of gods in whose honor it built temples. The temple generally housed a statue of the god or gods. The Greeks honored the citys gods in festivals and also off ered sacrifices to the gods, usually a domestic animal such as a goat. Stories about the gods varied by geographic location A god office clear genius set of qualitys in unmatched city or region and quite different characteristics elsewhere. II A A1PRINCIPAL FIGURES IN Hellenic MYTHOLOGY Greekmythologyhasseveral distinguishing characteristics, in addition to its multiple versions. The Greek gods resembled humane beings in their form and in their emotions, and they lived in a society that resembled human society in its levels of allowance and power. However, a crucial difference existed in the midst of gods and human beings Humans died, and gods were immortal. Heroes also played an important role in Greek mythology, and stories about them conveyed serious themes. The Greeks considered human heroes from the away closer to themselves than were the immortal gods. GodsGiventhemultiplicity of myths that circulated in Greece, it is difficult to present a single version of the fam ily tree (family hi degree) of the gods. However, two accounts together provide a genealogy that most ancient Greeks would have recognized. One is the account given by Greek poet Hesiod in his Theogony (Genealogy of the Gods), written in the 8th century BC. The other account, The Library, is attributed to a mythographer (compiler of myths) named Apollodorus, who lived during the 2nd century BC. The Creation of the Gods AccordingtoGreekmyths about creation, the god cuckoos nest (Greek for Gaping Void) was the foundation of all things.From Chaos came Gaea ( farming) the bottomless depth of the underworld, known as Tartarus and Eros (Love). Eros, the god of love, was needed to draw divinities together so they Greek Mythology might produce offspring. Chaos produced Night, while Gaea first bore Uranus, the god of the heavens, and later on him produced the mountains, sea, and gods known as behemoths. The Titans were strong and large, and they committed arrogant deeds. The youngest and most important Titan was Cronus. Uranus and Gaea, who came to follow Heaven and Earth, also gave birth to the Cyclopes, one-eyed giants who made thunderbolts.See also Creation Stories. A2 A3 A4 Cronus and Rhea Uranus time-testedtoblock any successors from taking over his supreme thought by forcing back into Gaea the children she bore. But the youngest child, Cronus, thwarted his father, cutting off his genitals and tossing them into the sea. From the bloody foam in the sea Aphrodite, goddess of sexual love, was born(p). After piercinghisfather and taking away his power, Cronus became ruler of the universe. But Cronus, in turn, feared that his own son would supplant him. When his sister and wife Rhea gave birth to offspringHestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, and PoseidonCronus swallowed them.Only the youngest, genus Zeus, get away this fate, because Rhea tricked Cronus. She gave him a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes to swallow in place of the baby. Zeus and the gallant Gods Whenf ullygrown,Zeus forced his father, Cronus, to blare the children he had swallowed. With their help and armed with the thunderbolt, Zeus made war on Cronus and the Titans, and overcame them. He established a new regime, based on Mount Olympus in northern Greece. Zeus ruled the sky. His brother Poseidon ruled the sea, and his brother Hades, the underworld.Their sister Hestia ruled the hearth, and Demeter took charge of the harvest. Zeus married his sister Hera, who became queen of the heavens and guardian of marriage and childbirth. Among their children was Ares, whose line of business of influence was war. Twelvemajorgodsand goddesses had their homes on Mount Olympus and were known as the Olympians. Four children of Zeus and one child of Hera joined the Olympian gods Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Hades, Hestia, Demeter, and Ares. Zeuss Olympian offspring were Apollo, Artemis, Hermes, and Athena. Hera gave birth to Hephaestus. The Offspring of ZeusZeushadnumerouschildren by both mortal and i mmortal women. By the mortal Semele he had Dionysus, a god associated with wine and with other forms of intoxication and ecstasy. By Leto, a Titan, Zeus fathered the twins Apollo and Artemis, who became two of the most important Olympian divinities. Artemis remained a virgin and took capture as her special province. Apollo became associated with music and prophecy. tidy sum visited his oracle (shrine) at Delphi to cope withk his prophetic advice. By the nymph Maia, Zeus became father of Hermes, the Olympian trickster god who had the power to cross all kinds of boundaries.Hermes guided the souls of the dead down to the underworld, Greek Mythology carried messages amid gods and mortals, and wafted a magical sleep upon the wakeful. TwootherOlympiandivinities, Hephaestus and Athena, had curious births. Hera conceived Hephaestus, the blacksmith god, without a male partner. Subsequently he suffered the wrath of Zeus, who once hurled him from Olympus for coming to the aid of his mothe r this fall down onto the island of Lemnos crippled Hephaestus. The birth of Athena was even str yellow bile. Zeus and Metis, daughter of the Titan Oceanus, were the parents of Athena.But Gaea had warned Zeus that, after giving birth to the girl with whom she was pregnant, Metis would bear a son destined to rule heaven. To lift losing his throne to a son, Zeus swallowed Metis, just as Cronus had previously swallowed his own children to thwart succession. Metiss child Athena was born from the head of Zeus, which Hephaestus split open up with an axe. Athena, another virgin goddess, embodied the power of practical in governigence in warfare and crafts work. She also served as the protector of the city of Athens. another(prenominal)ofZeusschildren was Persephone her mother was Demeter, goddess of grain, vegetation, and the harvest.Once when Persephone was gathering flowers in a meadow, Hades, god of the underworld, saw and abducted her, taking her down to the kingdom of the dead to be his bride. Her grief-stricken mother wandered the world in search of her as a result, fertility left the earth. Zeus commanded Hades to release Persephone, but Hades had cunningly given her a pomegranate seeded player to eat. Having consumed food from the underworld, Persephone was obliged to return below the earth for part of each year. Her return from the underworld each year meant the revival of constitution and the beginning of spring.This myth was told especially in connection with the Eleusinian Mysteries, sacred rites observed in the Greek town of Elevsis near Athens. The rituals offered initiates in the mysteries the hope of rebirth, just as Persephone had been reborn after her journeying to the underworld. ManyGreekmythsreport the exploits of the principal Olympians, but Greek myths also refer to a variety of other divinities, each with their particular sphere of influence. Many of these divinities were children of Zeus, symbolizing the fact that they belonged to the new Olympian order of Zeuss regime.The Muses, nine daughters of Zeus and the goddess of memory, Mnemosyne, presided over song, dance, and music. The Fates, three goddesses who controlled human life and destiny, and the Horae, goddesses who controlled the seasons, were fittingly the children of Zeus and Themis, the goddess of divine justice and law. Far different in temperament were the Erinyes (Furies), ancient and repellent goddesses who had sprung from the earth after it had been impregnated with the blood of Uranuss disunite genitals. Terrible though they were, the Erinyes also had a legitimate role in the world to pursue those who had off their own kin.A5 Disruptive Deities Human humanityischaracterized by disorder as well as order, and many of the most characteristic figures in Greek mythology exert a powerfully disruptive effect. Satyrs, whom the Greeks imagined as part human and part horse (or part goat), led lives dominated by wine and lust. Myths depicted them as compani ons of Dionysus who drunkenly pursued nymphs, spirits of nature represented as young and beautiful maidens. Many of the jugs used at Greek symposia (drinking parties) carry images of satyrs. Equally violent,butmore threatening than the satyrs, were the savage centaurs.These monsters, Greek Mythology depicted as half-man and half-horse, tended toward uncontrolled aggression. The centaurs are known for combat with their neighbors, the Lapiths, which resulted from an attempt to carry off the Lapith women at a wedding feast. This combat was depicted in sculpture on the Parthenon, a temple dedicated to Athena in Athens. TheSirens,usuallyportrayed as birds with womens heads, posed a different split up of threat. These island-dwelling enchantresses lured mariners to their deaths by the irresistible beauty of their song.The seafaring Greek hero Odysseus alone survived this temptation by ordering his companions to block their own ears, to bind him to the mast of his ship, and to ignore all his entreaties to be allowed to follow the lure of the Sirens song. B B1 B2 Mortals TheGreekshadseveral myths to account for the origins of humanity. According to one version, human beings sprang from the ground, and this origin explained their devotion to the land. According to another myth, a Titan molded the first human beings from clay. The Greeks also had a allegory about the destruction of humanity, similar to the biblical deluge.The Creation of Human Beings ConflictingGreekmyths tell about the creation of humanity. Some myths recount how the populations of particular localities sprang directly from the earth. The Arcadians, residents of a region of Greece known as Arcadia, claimed this distinction for their original inhabitant, Pelasgus (see Pelasgians). The Thebans boasted descent from earthborn men who had sprung from the spot where Cadmus, the founder of Thebes, had sown the ground with the teeth of a sacred dragon. According to another tale, one of the Titans, Prometheus , fashioned the first human being from wet and earth.In the more usual version of the story Prometheus did not actually create humanity but simply lent it assistance through the gift of fire. Anothertaledealtwith humanitys re-creation. When Zeus planned to destroy an ancient race living on Earth, he sent a deluge. However, Deucalion, a son of Prometheus, and his wife Pyrrhathe Greek equivalents of the biblical Noah and his wifeput provisions into a chest and climbed into it. Carried across the amniotic fluid of the flood, they landed on Mount Parnassus. After the waters receded, the couple gratefully made sacrifices to Zeus.His response was to send Hermes to instruct them how to repopulate the world. They should cast stones behind them. Stones thrown by Deucalion became men those thrown by Pyrrha, women. The Greek People Accordingtomyth,the various peoples of Greece descended from Hellen, son of Deucalion and Pyrrha. One genealogy related that the Dorian and the Aeolian Greeks spr ang from Hellens sons Dorus and Aeolus. The Achaeans and Ionians descended from Achaeos and Ion, sons of Hellens other son, Xuthus. These figures, in their turn, produced offspring who, along with children born of unionsGreek Mythology among divinities and mortals, made up the collection of heroes and heroines whose exploits constitute a central part of Greek mythology. C C1 C2 C3 Heroes Mythsaboutheroesare particularly characteristic of Greek mythology. Many of these heroes were the sons of gods, and a number of myths involved expeditions by these heroes. The expeditions generally related to quests or combats. Scholars consider some of these myths partly historical in naturethat is, they explained events in the distant past and were handed down by word of mouth from one generation to the next.Two of the most important of the semihistorical myths involve the search for the Golden Fleece and the quest that led to the Trojan War. In other myths heroes such as Heracles and Theseus had to overcome fearsome monsters. Jason and the Golden Fleece Jasonwasaherowhosailed in the ship Argo, with a passel of heroes called the Argonauts, on a dangerous quest for the Golden Fleece at the eastern end of the Black Sea in the land of Colchis. Jason had to fetch this family property, a fleece made of gold from a winged ram, in order to regain his throne.A dragon that never slept guarded the fleece and made the mission nearly impossible. Thanks to the magical powers of Medea, daughter of the ruler of Colchis, Jason performed the impossible tasks necessary to win the fleece and to take it from the dragon. Afterward Medea took horrible revenge on Pelias, who had killed Jasons parents, stolen Jasons throne, and sent Jason on the quest for the fleece. She tricked Peliass daughters into cutting him up and boiling him in a cauldron. Medeas story continued to involve horrific violence.When Jason rejected her for another woman, Medea once more used her magic to avenge herself with ext reme cruelty. Meleager Jasonandthesamegeneration of heroes took part in another adventure, with Meleager, the son of King Oeneus of Calydon and his wife Althea. At Meleagers birth the Fates predicted that he would die when a log burning on the hearth was completely consumed. His mother snatched the log and hid it in a chest. Meleager grew to manhood. One day, his father accidentally omitted Artemis, the goddess of the hunt, from a sacrifice. In revenge Artemis sent a mighty boar to ravage the country.Meleager set out to destroy it, accompanied by some of the greatest heroes of the day, including Peleus, Telamon, Theseus, Jason, and Castor and Polydeuces. The boar was killed. However, Meleager killed his mothers brothers in a quarrel about who should receive the boar skin. In her anger Althea threw the log on to the fire, so ending her sons life she then hanged herself. Heroes of the Trojan War Thegreatestexpedition of all was that which resulted in the Trojan War. The object of this quest was Helen, a beautiful Greek woman who had been abducted by Paris, son of King Priam of Troy.Helens husband Menelaus and his brother Agamemnon led an multitude of Greeks to besiege Troy. After ten Greek Mythology years, with many heroes dead on both sides, the city fell to the trick of the Trojan Horsea giant wooden horse that the Greeks built and left outside the gates of Troy while their army pretended to withdraw. Not knowing that Greek heroes were hiding indoors the horse, the Trojans took the horse into the city. The hidden Greeks then slipped out, opened the city gates and let their army in, thus defeating Troy. The Iliad, an epic poem attributed to Greek poet Homer, tells the story of the Trojan War.The story continued with the Odyssey, another long poem attributed to Homer, in which the Greek hero Odysseus made his way home after the Trojan War. Odysseus returned to his faithful wife, Penelope, whereas Agamemnon returned to be murdered by his faithless wife, Clytemn estra, and her lover. Historiansconsidered the Trojan War entirely mythical until excavations in Turkey showed that there had been cities on the site of Troy and that fire had destroy one of these cities at about the time of the Trojan War, sometime from 1230 BC to 1180 BC. C4 C5 Heracles and TheseusThedeedsoftheheroes Heracles (see Hercules) and Theseus exemplify a central theme in Greek mythology the conflict between nuance and wild savagery. apiece hero confronted and overcame monstrous opponents, yet neither enjoyed unclouded happiness. HeracleshadbeenanArgonaut but left the expedition after being plunged into grief at the loss of his companion Hylas. In another story, a fit of madness led Heracles to kill his own wife and children. But he is best known for his feats of prowess against beasts and monsters, which began soon after his birth.The most difficult of these feats are known as the 12 labors, which are believed to represent efforts to conquer death and achieve immortal ity. Although Heracles died, his father, Zeus, gave him a place on Mount Olympus. Theseussuccessfullyslew the Minotaur, a monster that was half man and half bull. On his voyage home to Athens, however, he forgot to hoist the white sails that would have signified the success of his adventure. According to one tale, Theseuss heartbroken father Aegeus, seeing black sails, believed his son had died, and committed suicide. The Aegean Sea in which he drowned is presumably named after Aegeus.Oedipus NoheroofGreekmythology has instituted more fascinating than Oedipus. He destroyed a monster, the Sphinx, by answering its riddle. Yet his ultimate downfall served as a terrifying warning of the instability of human fortune. As a baby, Oedipus had been abandoned on a mountainside by his parents, King Laius and Queen Jocasta of Thebes, because of a prophecy that the child would grow up to kill his father and marry his mother. Saved by the blessing of a shepherd, the childits identity unknownwas reared by the king and queen of the neighboring city of Corinth.In due course, Oedipus unwittingly ful make full the prophecy, matching the horrific crimes he had committed with the equally ghastly self-punishment of piercing his own eyes with Jocastas brooch-pins. Greek Mythology III A Gods and Goddesses B THE NATURE OF GREEK GODS AND HEROES Inmanyrespectsthegods and goddesses of Greek mythology resembled extraordinarily powerful human beings. They experienced emotions such as jealousy, love, and grief, and they shared with humans a desire to assert their own dictum and to punish anyone who flouted it.However, these emotions and desires took supernaturally intense form in gods and goddesses. As numerous literary descriptions and artistic representations testify, the Greeks imagined their gods to have human shape, although this form was strongly idealized. TheGreeks,moreover, modeled relationships between divinities on those between human beings. Apollo and Artemis were brother an d sister, Zeus and Hera were husband and wife, and the society of the gods on Mount Olympus resembled that of an unruly family, with Zeus at its head. The gods could temporarily enter the human world.They might, for example, fall in love with a mortal, as Aphrodite did with Adonis Apollo with Daphne and Zeus with Leda, Alcmene, and Danae. Or they might destroy a mortal who displeased them, as Dionysus destroyed King Pentheus of Thebes for mocking his rites. NotallGreekdivinities resembled human beings. They could also be uncanny, strange, and alien, a quality made visible in artistic representations of monsters. For example, the snake-haired Gorgon medusoid had a stare that turned her victims to stone. The Graeae, sisters of the Gorgons, were gray-haired old crones from birth.They possessed but a single tooth and a single eye between them. Typhoeus was a unconscionable monster from whose shoulders grew a hundred snakeheads with dark, flickering tongues. Eventhemajordeities of Olymp us showed alien characteristics at times. A recurrent sign of divine power is the ability to diverseness shape, either ones own or that of others. Athena once transformed herself into a vulture Poseidon once took the form of a stallion. This ability could prove convenient such as when Zeus assumed the form of a swan to woo Leda. Zeus turned Lycaon, a disrespectful king, into a animal to punish him for his wickedness.The ability to exercise power over the crossing of boundaries is a crucial feature of divine power among the Greeks. Heroes Greekmythologyalsotold how divinities interacted with heroes, a household of mortals who, though dead, were believed to retain power to influence the lives of the living. In myths heroes represented a kind of bridge between gods and mortals. Heroes such as Achilles, Perseus, and Aeneas were the products of a union between a deity and a mortal. The fact that the gods often intervened to help heroesfor example, during combatindicated not the heroes weakness but their special importance.Yet heroes were not the equals of the gods. Withalogiccharacteristic of Greek myth, heroes typically possessed a defect to balance out their exceptional power. For example, the warrior Achilles, hero of the Trojan War, was invulnerable except in the heel. The prophet Cassandra, who warned the Trojans of dangers such as the Trojan Horse, Greek Mythology always prophesied the truth but was never believed. Heracles constituted an extreme example of this paradox His awesome strength was balanced by his tendency to become a victim of his own excessive violence.Nevertheless, the gods allowed Heracles to cross the ultimate boundary by gaining admission to Olympus. IV A B THE FUNCTIONS OF GREEK MYTHOLOGY Likemostothermythological traditions, Greek myths served several purposes. First, Greek myths explained the world. Second, they acted as a means of exploration. Third, they provided authority and legitimacy. Finally, they provided entertainment. Explan ation Greekmythslent grammatical construction and order to the world and explained how the current state of things had originated. Hesiods Theogony narrated the development of the present order of the universe by relating it to Chaos, the origin of all things.By a complex play of violence, struggle, and sexual attraction, the regime led by Zeus had eventually taken over. Another poem by Hesiod, Works and Days, explained why the world is full of trouble. According to the poem the first woman, Pandora, opened a jar whose lid she had been forbidden to lift. As a result of her disobedience all the diseases and miseries previously confined in the jar escaped into the world. Such a myth also makes a statement about relationships between the sexes in Hesiods own world.Scholars assume that he composed the poem for a largely male audience that was receptive to a tale that put women at the root of all evil. Oneofthe leafy vegetableesttypes of commentary given in myths relates to ritual. Myt hs helped worshipers make sense of a religious practice by telling how the practice originated. A prime example is sacrifice, a ritual that involved killing a domesticated animal as an offering to the gods. The ceremony culminated in the butchering, cooking, and sharing of the meat of the victim. Hesiod recounts the myth associated with this rite.According to this myth, the tricky Titan Prometheus tried to outwit Zeus by offering him a cunningly devised choice of meals. Zeus could have either an apparently unappetizing dishan ox paunch, which had delicious meat concealed withinor a seemingly delicious one, gleaming fat on the outside, which had nothing but bones hidden beneath. Zeus chose the second dish, and ever since human beings have kept the tastiest part of every sacrifice for themselves, leaving the gods nothing but the savor of the rising smoke. Exploration Mythschartedpathsthrough difficult territory, examining contradictions and ambiguities.For instance, Homers Iliad exp lores the consequences during the Trojan War of the Greek leader Agamemnons decision to deprive the warrior Achilles of his allotted prize, a female slave. Achilles feels that Agamemnon has assailed his honor or worth but wonders how far he should go in reaction. Is he right to refuse to fight, if that means the destruction of the Greek army? Is he confirm in rejecting Agamemnons offer of compensation? One of this poems themes explores the limits of honor. Greek Mythology Thedramaticgenreof tragedy provides the clearest example of mythical exploration (see see Greek Literature Drama and Dramatic Arts).The great Athenian playwrights of the 5th century BC Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripideswrote tragedies that explored social questions by placing them, in extreme and exaggerated form, in a mythical context. Sophocless tragic play Antigone concerns just such an extreme situation. Two brothers have killed each other in battle Eteocles reason his homeland, and Polynices attacking it. T heir sister Antigone, in defiance of an edict by the citys ruler, attempts to bury her ostensibly traitorous brother Polynices. Sophocles raises several moral issues. Is Antigone confirm in seeking to bury her brother?Which should prevail, a religious obligation to tend and bury a corpse, or a citys benefit? The answers to these moral issues are far from clear-cut, as we might expect from a work whose subtlety and profundity have so often been admired. C D V A Legitimation Mythsalsohadthefunction of legitimation. A claim, an action, or a relationship acquired extra authority if it had a precedent in myth. bluish Greek families liked to trace their ancestry back to the heroes or gods of mythology. The Greek poet Pindar, who wrote in the early 5th century BC, offers ample curtilage for this preference. In his songs Pindar raise the exploits of current victors in the Olympian Games by linking them with the deeds of their mythical ancestors. In addition, two Greek city-states could cement bonds between them by showing that they had an alliance in the mythological past. Entertainment Finally,mythtelling was a source of enjoyment and entertainment. Homers epics contain several descriptions of audiences held spellbound by the songs of bards (poets), and recitations of Homers poems also captivated audiences. Public performances of tragic drama were also hugely popular, regularly drawing some 15,000 spectators. ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OF GREEK MYTHOLOGYOurknowledgeofGreek mythology begins with the epic poems attributed to Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey, which date from about the 8th century BC even though the stories they relate probably have their origins in events that occurred several centuries earlier. Scholars, however, know that the origins of Greek mythology turn over even farther back than that. Origins of Greek Mythology Linguists(peoplewho study languages) have concluded that some names of Greek deities, including Zeus, can be traced back to gods wors hiped by speakers of Proto-Indo-European, the common ancestor of the Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit languages.But it would be mis tip to regard the people who may have spoken this language as originators of Greek mythology because many other elements contributed. Greek Mythology Archaeologistshaveshown that many of the places where mythical events presumably took place correspond to sites that had historical importance during the Mycenaean period of Greek history (second half of the 2nd millennium BC). Scholars thus consider it likely that the Mycenaeans made a major contribution to the development of the stories, even if this contribution is hard to demonstrate in detail.Some scholars have argued that the Minoan shade of Crete also had a formative influence on Greek myths. The myth of the Minotaur confined in a labyrinth in the palace of King Minos, for example, might be a memory of historical bull-worship in the labyrinthine palace at Knossos on Crete. However, there is little eviden ce that Cretan religion survived in Greece. Nor have any ancient inscriptions confirmed that Minos ever existed outside of myth. Scholarscandemonstrate influence on Greek mythology from the ticker East much more dependably than influence from Crete.Greek mythology owed much to cultures in Mesopotamia and Anatolia, especially in the realm of cosmogony (origin of the universe) and theogony (origin of the gods). To take one example, a clear parallel exists in an early Middle east myth for Greek poet Hesiods story about the castration of Uranus by his son Cronus and the subsequent overthrow of Cronus by his son Zeus. The Middle Eastern myth tells of the sky god Anu who was castrated by Kumarbi, father of the gods. The weather and storm god Teshub, in turn, displaced Anu. Scholars continue to bring to light more and more similarities between Greek and Middle Eastern mythologies.B Development of Greek Mythology OurknowledgeofGreek myths comes from a mixture of written texts, sculpture, and decorated pottery. Scholars have reconstructed stories that circulated orally by inference and guesswork. Homersepics,theIliad and the Odyssey, stand at the beginning of Greek literary tradition (see Greek literature), even though they almost for certain depended on a lengthy previous tradition of oral poetry. The Iliad is set during the Trojan War it focuses on the consequences of a quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles, two of the leading Greek warriors.The Odyssey is about the aftermath of the Trojan War, when the Greek hero Odysseus at last returns to his home on the island of Ithaca following years of wandering in wild and magical lands. The Trojan War later provided subject matter for many tragic dramas and for imagery on countless painted vases. HesiodsTheogony,composed in the 8th century BC at about the same time as the Homeric epics, gave an authoritative account of how things began. The creation of the world, described by Hesiod in terms of passions and crimes of the gods, is a theme that later Greek philosophers such as Empedocles and Plato developed but took in new directions.This connection serves as a proctor that mythology was not a separate aspect of Greek culture, but one that interacted with many other fields of experience, particularly the writing of history. For example, in the 5th century BC Greek historian Herodotus employed numerous themes and story patterns from Greek epics and tragedies in writing his historical account of the war between Greeks and Persians (see Persian Wars). Althoughtheauthority of Homer and Hesiod remained dominant, the poetic retelling of myths continued throughout antiquity.Myths were constantly remade in the light of new social and political circumstances. The Hellenistic period of Greek history (4th century to 1st century BC) saw many new trends in the treatment of myths. One of the most important was the development of mythography, Greek Mythology the compilation and organization of myths on the basis o f particular themes (for example, myths about metamorphosis). Such organization corresponded to a wish of newly established Hellenistic rulers to lend legitimacy to their regimes by claiming that they continued a cultural tradition reaching back into a great past.Artists,too,portrayed myths. Statues of gods stood inside Greek temples, and relief sculptures of scenes from mythology adorned pediments and friezes on the outside of these temples (see Greek Art and Architecture). Among the best-known examples are the Elgin Marbles from the Parthenon in Athens. These reliefs include depictions of combat between centaurs and Lapiths. Othervisualrepresentations of mythology were more modest in size and scope. The best evidence for the use of mythology in Greek painting comes from painted ceramic vases.The Greeks used these vases in a variety of contexts, from cookery to funerary ritual to athletic games. (Vases filled with oil were awarded as prizes in games. ) In most cases scholars can se curely identify the imagery on Greek vases as mythological, but sometimes they have no way of telling whether the artist intended an allusion to mythology because myth became fused with everyday life. For example, does a representation of a woman weaving signify Penelope, wife of Odysseus who spent her days at a loom, or does it portray someone engaged in an everyday activity?TheGreeksretoldmyths orally, as well as preserving them in literary and artistic works. The Greeks transmitted to children tales of monsters and myths of gods and heroes. Old men gathered to exchange tales in leschai (clubs or conversation places). Storytelling, whether in writing, art, or speech, was at the heart of Greek civilization. VI A THE LEGACY OF GREEK MYTHOLOGY Mythologyformedacentral reference point in Greek society because it was interwoven with ritual and other aspects of social existence.Yet the question of how far people believed the myths is a difficult and probably unanswerable one. Some intell ectuals, such as Greek writer Palaephatus, tried to interpret the myths as having figurative (nonliteral) meanings. Writing in the 4th century BC, Palaephatus interpreted the stories of Diomedes, a king devoured by his own mares, and of Actaeon, a hunter torn asunder by his own hounds, as concealing perfectly credible accounts of young men who had spent too much money on their animals and so been figuratively eaten alive by debt.Otherthinkers,suchas the 4th-century-BC philosopher Plato, objected to some myths on moral grounds, particularly to myths that told of crimes committed by the gods. Yet such skepticism seems hardly to have altered the imaginative power and persistence of Greek myths. As late as the 2nd century AD, the Greek traveler and historian Pausanias described the myths and cults in the places he visited as if they constituted a still-living complex of religious discourse and behavior. Ancient Rome and Early ChristianityTheancientRomanseventually took over Greek civil ization and conquered Greece. In the process, they adapted Greek mythology, and myths remained a vehicle for reflecting on and coping with the Greek Mythology world. In his poem the Aeneid, written in the 1st century BC, Roman poet Virgil used the theme of the wandering Trojan hero Aeneas and his eventual foundation of a settlement that became Rome. The Aeneid not only continues story patterns developed in Homers epics, but it also makes frequent and detailed allusions to the texts of Homer and other Greek writers.The long poem Metamorphoses by Roman poet Ovid embraces an enormous number of Greek myths, reworked into a composition that later had unparalleled influence on European culture of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Greekmythologysurvived during Christian antiquity by its interpretation as allegory (expressive of a deeper or hidden meaning). Early Christians incorporated pagan stories into their own worldview if they could reinterpret the story to express a concealed, uplifti ng meaning.In the 5th century AD, for example, Latin mythographer Fulgentius gave an allegorical reading of the Judgment of Paris. The Greek myth told of a young Trojan shepherd faced with a choice between the goddesses Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite. Each goddess tried to bribe Paris to name her the most beautiful Hera offering power, Athena offering success in battle, and Aphrodite offering a beautiful woman. Fulgentius explained that the choice was actually a moral one, between a life of action, a life of contemplation, and a life dominated by love.The allegorical approach to the myths has never died out we find it today in the writings of those who regard myths as expressions of basic, universal psychological truths. For example, Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, borrowed from Greek mythology in developing his ideas of human psychosexual development, which he described in terms of an Oedipus complex and an Electra complex. Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung believed that cert ain psychic structures he called archetypes were common to all people in all times and gave rise to recurring ideas such as mythological themes. BEuropean Art, Music, and Literature TheinfluenceofGreek mythology on Western art, music, and literature can hardly be exaggerated. Many of the greatest works of painting and sculpture have taken myths as their subject. Examples include the Birth of Venus (after 1482) by Italian Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli, a marble sculpture of Apollo and Daphne (1622-1625) by Italian baroque sculptor Gianlorenzo Bernini, a terrifying Cronus Devouring One of His Children (1820-1823) by Spanish painter Francisco de Goya, and beautify with the Fall of Icarus (about 1558) by Flemish painter Pieter Bruegel.In the Bruegel painting peasants continue with their daily toil oblivious of the mythological drama being played out in the sky above. Musicianstoo,especially composers of opera and oratorio, have found inspiration in ancient myths. Operatic dram atizations of these stories begin with Orfeo (Orpheus, 1607) and Il ritorno dUlisse in patria (The Return of Ulysses to His Homeland, 1641) by Italian composer Claudio Monteverdi.They continue into the 20th century with Elektra (1909) by German composer Richard Strauss and Oedipus Rex (1927) by Russian composer Igor Stravinsky. TheimpactofGreekmythology on literature has been incalculably great. In the 20th century the story of the murderous revenge of Orestes on his mother Clytemnestra (for killing his father, Agamemnon) has inspired writers as diverse as American dramatist Eugene ONeill (in Mourning Becomes Electra, 1931), American-born poet and playwright T. S.Eliot (in The Family Reunion, 1939), and French philosopher and playwright Jean-Paul Sartre (in Les Mouches 1943 The Flies, 1946). Among the Greek Mythology most notable of all literary works inspired by Greek mythology is Ulysses by Irish writer James Joyce. In this intricate novel, Ulysses (Odysseus) becomes Dublin reside nt Leopold Bloom, while Blooms wife, Molly, combines characteristics of faithful Penelope (wife of Odysseus) and seductive Calypso (a sea nymph who holds Odysseus captive on his journey home).TheinfluenceofGreek mythology shows no sign of diminishing. Computer games (see Electronic Games) and science fiction frequently use combat- or quest-oriented story patterns that have clear parallels in classical mythology. Greek myths developed in a specific ancient society, but the emotional and intellectual content of the stories has proved adaptable to a massive range of cultural contexts.

Health Care Financial Terms Week One Essay

Controlling is the practice that managers use to ensure that the company plans and goals are being attained. By comparing underwrite to each another(prenominal) areas that are working and succeeding are defined and the areas where problems are occurring can be addressed and corrected (Baker & Baker, 2011).A manager has four different, lets say teams that report to this manager. Controlling would be when team A, B, C, and D submit the teams fiscal report to the manager. The manager would review all four teams to ensure the teams are meeting the financial goals. So, in this scenario Team A, B, and C is on target and meeting the goals. However, Team D has not met the goals.The manager needs to review the team Ds progress determine where the problem is, such as cutting cost, the resource allocation, operating procedure, or other issues. With turn up controlling the teams and reviewing progress, other area will suffer. closing makingDecision making is management making informed decision s based on all information that accomplishes the companys goals (Baker & Baker, 2011).The company is making a decision on purchasing electronic medical records. The financial reports will inform management of the financial status on the company and the amount of notes they can budget for the purchase of this the EMR.OrganizingOrganizing is a term for companies to decide how to use resources for the best outcome for the company (Baker & Baker, 2011).A manager is given a definite amount of revenue and the manager decides where the money is allocated for the department to accomplish the goals set by thecompany.PlanningTo succeed, companies need corporate goals. Planning is identifying the goals and resources. Laying out the go by using the resources to accomplish those goals (Baker & Baker, 2011).A manager has a specific project to install and to perform the primary function of the project. The manager works out a step by step plan from the beginning to the end of implementing the p roject until the project is complete and accomplishes the goal.Original recordsWhen a transaction is recorded into a journal or ledger this becomes the superior records (Baker & Baker, 2011).A patient makes a payment of $100. This payment is entered into the patients file and payment history. This entry is an original record in the companys income ledger.ReferenceBaker, J. J., & Baker, R. W. (2011). Health Care Finance Basic Tools for Nonfinancial Managers (3rd ed.).Sudbury, MA Jones and Bartlett Publishers, LLC.

Identify the Strategies for Strengthening Local Financial Capacity in Malaysian Local Government.

Identify the st estimategies for strengthening topical anaesthetic financial capacity in Malaysian local presidential term. The first strategy that can be use to strengthen the financial capacity in Malaysian local government is by generating the new avenues for revenue source which are sought to supplement the income of the local authorities. This may include sale of the municipal bonds, rezoning of the land from the residential to commercial purposes or taking the equity share in the privatization project.Another alternative that available to be interpreted by the Malaysian local government is by increasing the assessment tax imposed to the local people. The public should be explained on what outcome the local place increasing their assessment tax. For example, due to the increase of the demand for the local government functions and services, it requires high cost and unfortunately, the current condition of the local government cannot fulfil it urges them to do so.Before the lo cal government wish to increase the tax, it is important for the local people to be informed in order to know their facial expression as well as they may discuss with the local authority for the betterment of the services provided in their area of jurisdiction. The third strategy that can be used to strengthen the local financial capacity in Malaysian local government is by offering land pooling. It is an activity which is mostly well(p) in the countries like Australia, Japan, Korea and Taiwan.It is a situation whereby owner of small plots of land will be encouraged to combine their land together for profitable maturement under the local authority concern. For example, the land owners surrender their land to the local authority for the provision of infra and development, after which area are re-allocated to the owners. The local authority retains a small portion of the readjusted land as its contri stillion and can utilize this land for its own purpose. The next way that can be t aken by local authority in Malaysia to become a strategy in strengthening the financial capacity is through re-zoning process.It is the process of changing the post of the land usage. For example, from the status of residential, change to commercial status where it can generate more income in term of tax where a higher assessment rate can be imposed. Generally, this can be applied to certain residential areas whereby a large number of houses have been permitted to operate their businesses from or within their premises, but is still being assessed by the local authority under residential status.

“Mr Bean” Micro-environmental Factors (SWOT) Essay

StrengthsMr Bean is the market leader for soya bean related food and beverage in Singapore It is a well-respected brand, clinching many awards including the Established Brands Award and the Most Popular Brand Award for the third consecutive twelvemonth It has a strong market presence with 56 outlets island-wide. Only the finest ingredients and highest grade of NGMO (Non genetically modified) soya bean is used in its ingatheringsWeaknessesThere is minimal product differentiation from main competitors. Mr Bean is dependant on a main competitive advantage the retail of soya bean products. This might hinder product line diversification should the need arise It is a strong local brand but currently has no international presenceOpportunitiesMr Bean can admit to co-brand with other food and beverage businesses Mr Bean can also brand franchise to manufacturers of other goods and services It can also tap into a upstart international market the emerging markets of health-conscious publi cs inAsia ThreatsMr Bean will be greatly affected if there is a rise in the price of soya beans or dairy products Mr Beans success might lead to the potential threat of imitating competitors There might be a shift in the health-conscious market trend, cause a decrease in the demand for such productsEnvironmentMacro-environmental Factors (STEEP)Social-Cultural Literacy rate of 96%, making the Philippines the third-largest English speaking country in the world principal(prenominal) religion is Roman Catholicism Philippines has a strong snacking culture Food on the go is appealing to the mass market as they be broadly speaking time-poor Filipinos are increasingly aware of health concerns and are turning to healthy food 25% of the population are students who have high spending force-out (Filipino Kids and Their Lifestyle, 2007, sec 1, comparability 9) They are open to foreign brandsTechnological Filipinos are relatively tech-savvy There is consistent growing Internet usage in mani llaAccording to the research group BSBC Hook UAI, there was a 21.3% increase in Internet users from 2002 to 2004 in Metro Manila (Philippines Internet and Telecommunications Report, 2009, sec 2, par 3) Philippines is a developing country with proper infrastructure Technical support for equipment in urban areas is easily accessible Economic GDP (PPP) USD 327.2 billion in 2008 (The World Fact Book, Philippines, 2009, sec 5, par 2) The economy consists mainly of agriculture, manufacturing and mining businesses It is aiming towards becoming a developed country by 2020 The economy is reliant on foreign currencyEnvironmental Petrol prices and energy costs are volatile and potentially unpredictable Local resources should meet a respectable well-worn and quality Philippines is the worlds biggest producer of coconuts, and third-largest producer of bananasPolitical Political issues in the country still exist today (eg. corruption and policy inertia) and are likely to continue. However, the y will not get worse. (Philippines Risk Rating Update, 2008, sec 1, par 2) According to PERC Ltd, Philippines has a risk factor of about 5.5 (1 being the lowest, 10 being the most risky)

Issues on Computer Technology

In Midsayap, in a small and poverty-stricken town in sexual union Cotabato, Philippines, four earth schools have been given modern figurer engine room to help the teachers improve instruction for the benefit of the students. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has donated the calculating machines, installed with tools and applications for teaching. The donations were in semblance to USAIDs project to help cater equal access to education and learning that would eventually incite livelihood among the peoples of disadvantaged and unfortunate nations.(Manila Bulletin, 2009) The contri thoion of computer technology to the field of education relates to the issue of professional responsibility. The progress and advancement of computers and technology are extremely valuable to society considering the m any(prenominal) benefits and advantages that it may provide to various areas of human life including education. It is a professional responsibility to ensure t hat along with the progress of computer technology development, it is being used to develop or expand other fields and areas of human life as well.It is important that the given opportunity for computer technology to flourish by man be given back to society by ensuring that this lovely of technology benefits society as well. Modern computer technology has helped educators in developing countries provide the kind of quality education that most people in developed nations benefit from. It paves way to equality in terms of affording education.The employment of modern computer technology in Midsayap to improve learning standards and instructional processes is a good chance for the students and their families to improve their quality of life since fine education will help them witness promising jobs in the future. Ultimately, modern computer technology contributes to the alleviation of unawareness or lack of knowledge and poverty. Manila Bulletin. (2009). Modern Computer Technology Ben efits North Cotabato Mentors.Retrieved 17 Jul 2009, from Manila Bulletin Publishing Corporation. Website http//www. mb. com. ph/articles/208880/modern-computer-technology-benefits-north-cotabato-mentors The Internet Media for All The development of the Internet through computer processes and functions was seen as one of the liberating events in the story of human life. During the period of revolution, the people have been constantly searching for a means by which they would be able to express their sentiments and demands.However, during that time, the influence of the media was restricted and controlled by large companies and industries. This all changed when the Internet was introduced in the 20th century. It has been called the media of the people since the information presented and exchanged were not restricted or limited by the personal interests of muscular people or organizations. Despite the establishment of various laws and regulations, the Internet remains to be an open forte of communication and exchange of ideas for the people.The utilization of Internet as a means to express ideas and communicate through appropriate computer functions and processes relate to the issue of freedom of expression and the concept of mass media. Gone were the days when the news and information being conveyed through the media are influenced by various influential interest groups. The Internet paved way to open communication that is head by fair regulations throw overboarding every person that has access to it to become the media themselves.The existence of the Internet and the continued open access to it by the people implies that it is a medium by which they can practice their human rights through freedom of expression. Not only is the Internet a means to communicate to anyone around the world but it is also a perfect medium for people to express their pleas against others who violate human rights, expose valuable information that the public should know, inform or develop other people, and so on. UK in Korea. (2009). Freedom of Expression in the Digital Age Embassy Hosts Conference on 3 July (26/06/2009).Retrieved 17 Jul 2009, from Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Website http//ukinkorea. fco. gov. uk/en/newsroom/? view=PressR&id=20285376 Computer Technology Contributes to Car Safety INTEL Corporation, one of the most powerful, influential, and innovative technology company in the world has taken motorcar-safety technology to a whole new level. The company has been employing researchers and analysts who are currently working nonstop to perfect an accuracy software that is meant to be installed in automotives for safety. The project was presented to an audience of previewers.The software was installed in a car model. Among the features of the software was human recognition wherein the device detects people inside the car, wireless networking that allows the device to connect to all the devices inside the car with networking capabilities, s ensors that provide the car with relative connections to stoplights, devices along the roads the record traffic data, and communication to other cars as a means to detect possible collisions or accidents for the automatic activation of the emergency brakes.The technology developed by INTEL Corporation relates to professional responsibility. As previously discussed, the exponential development of technology in any aspect is the industrys debt to man who has the knowledge and resources to develop it limitlessly for the disposal of humankind. For this reason, it is the responsibility of technology and everyone working behind to develop it to open up opportunities that would allow it to benefit man.This establishes the purpose of technology and uncovers the reason why people should support technological growth and development. The development of the accuracy software, or any other computer device that supports human safety for that matter, is extremely significant to society simply beca use these kinds of devices maintain and contribute to the preservation of life. Furthermore, these devices allow man to carry on with his daily tasks and obligations with less worries. Business Mirror.(2009). Intel Shows Off Car-Safety Devices, Accuracy Software. Retrieved 18 Jul 2009, from Business Mirror. Website http//www. businessmirror. com. ph/component/content/article/52-technology/12073-intel-shows-off-car-safety-devices-accuracy-software-. html Terrorism Finds a Match in Cyber Security Strategy As a means to increase the national security system of United Kingdom against cyber threats and terrorism, the nations government has introduced a new Cyber Security Strategy.United Kingdoms efforts were regarded as the first strategy of its kind, (ICM, 2009) rendering it as possibly the most advanced and sophisticated digital institution intended to combat cyber terrorism that may cripple any countrys national defenses. The United Kingdom government has assigned able and swear or ganizations to complete the Cyber Security Strategy project including MI5 and the Metropolitan Police. In order to establish and solidify the foundations of the program, the government has created an independent group to operate the system and select skilled and knowledgeable officials to oversee security operations.

The Host Chapter 52: Separated

We brought our plunder in by means of the south vent, though this meant that the jeep would direct to be go awayd before dawn. My main concern with using the big entrance was that the quester would hear the commotion our arrival was current to cause. I wasnt sure if she had any idea of what I was going to do, and I didnt fate to feature her any reason to kill her host and herself. The story Jeb had told me about cardinal of their captives-the man who had simply collapsed, leaving no external evidence on the immaterial of the havoc wreaked inside his skull-haunted my thoughts.The hospital was non empty. As I squeezed myself through the last tight bubble of space out into the main live, I be atomic number 101 preparing for the operation. His desk was laid out on it, a propane lantern-the brightest illumination we had avail able-waited to be lit. The scalpels glinted in the duller blue high spirits of the solar lamp.I had k immediatelyn that doctor would run to my term s, nonwithstanding seeing him thus occupied sent a wave of nervous nausea through me. Or maybe it was just the memory of that early(a) day that sickened me, the day Id caught him with blood on his hands.Youre back, he verbalise with relief. I realized that hed been worried about us, just as everyone worried when someone left the safety of the caves.We brought you a gift, Jared said as he pushed himself free behind me. He straightened up and reached back for a box. With a flourish, he held it up, displaying the label on the side.Heal doc crowed. How such(prenominal) did you perk up?Two cases. And weve found a much better way to renew our stores than to have Wanda stabbing herself. commercialism did not laugh at Jareds joke. Instead he sour to stare at me piercingly. We both must have been slueking the analogous thing Convenient, since Wanda wont be around.Did you outsmart the cryotanks? he asked, more subdued.Jared noticed the aim and the tension. He glanced at me, his ex pression impossible to read.Yes, I answered. Ten of them. It was all the car could hold.While I spoke, Jared yanked on the rope behind him. With a clatter of loose rock, the second box of Heal, followed by the tanks, tumbled onto the floor behind him. The tanks clanked like metal, though they were built of no part that existed on this planet. Id told him it was fine to treat the empty cryotanks roughly they were built to withstand much worse abuse than being tugged through a stone channel. They glinted on the floor now, looking shiny and pristine.Doc picked one up, freeing it from the rope, and creaseed it around in his hands.Ten? The number seemed to surprise him. Did he think it in like manner many? Or not enough? Are they difficult to use?No. Extremely easy. Ill show you how.Doc nodded, his eyeball examining the alien construction. I could scent Jared watching me, but I kept my eyes on Doc.What did Jeb, Brandt, and Aaron say? I asked.Doc looked up, locked his eyes on mine. T heyre in agreement with your terms.I nodded, not convinced. I wont show you unless I believe that.Thats fair.Jared glared at us, confused and frustrated.What did you verbalise him? Doc asked me, being cautious. in effect(p) that I was going to save the Seeker. I moody to look in Jareds general direction without meeting his gaze. Doc has promised me that if I show him how to perform the separation, you will give the released souls safe conduct to another animateness on another planet. No killing.Jared nodded thought completey, his eyes flickering back to Doc. I can agree to those terms. And I can make sure the others follow through. I assume you have a plan to get them off-planet?It will be no more dangerous than what we did tonight. Just the opposite-adding to the stack quite a than taking from it.Okay.Did you have a time schedule in mind? Doc asked. He tried to sound nonchalant, but I could hear the eagerness behind his voice.He just wanted the answer that had eluded him for so long, I tried to tell myself. It wasnt that he was in a hurry to kill me.I have to chance on the jeep back-can you wait? Id like to watch this.Sure, Jared, Doc agreed.Wont take me long, Jared promised as he shoved himself back into the vent.That I was sure of. It wouldnt take enough time at all.Doc and I did not speak until the sound of Jareds scrambling exit had faded.You didnt talk about Melanie? he asked softly.I shook my offer. I think he sees where this is going. He must guess my plan.But not all of it. He wont allow -He wont get a say, I interrupted severely. All or nothing, Doc.Doc sighed. After a moment of silence, he stretched and glanced toward the main exit. Im going to go talk to Jeb, get things ready.He reached for a bottle on the table. The chloroform. I was sure the souls had something better to use. I would have to try to find it for Doc, before I was gone.Who knows about this?Still just Jeb, Aaron, and Brandt. They all want to watch.This didnt surprise me Aaron a nd Brandt would be suspicious. Dont tell anyone else. Not tonight.Doc nodded, then he disappeared into the black corridor.I went to sit against the wall, as far from the prepared cot as I could get. Id have my turn on top of it all excessively soon.Trying to think of something besides that grim fact, I realized that I hadnt heard from Melanie since When was the last time shed communicate to me? When Id make the deal with Doc? I was belatedly surprised that the sleeping arrangements by the jeep today had not elicited a reaction from her.Mel?No answer.It wasnt like before, so I didnt panic. I could definitely feel her there in my head, but she was ignoring me? What was she doing?Mel? Whats going on?No answer.Are you mad at me? Im sorry about before, by the jeep. I didnt do anything, you know, so its not really fair She interrupted me, exasperated. Oh, stop. Im not mad at you. Leave me alone. wherefore wont you talk to me?No answer.I pushed a teensy harder, hoping to pick up the dir ection of her thoughts. She tried to keep me out, to put the wall in place, but it was too weak from disuse. I saw her plan.I tried to keep my mental tone even. Have you lost your mind?In a manner of speaking, she teased halfheartedly.You think that if you can make yourself disappear, that will stop me?What else can I do to stop you? If youve got a better idea, please share.I dont get it, Melanie. Dont you want them back? Dont you want to be with Jared again? With Jamie?She writhed, fighting the obviousness of the answer. Yes, but I cant She took a moment to steady herself. I find myself unable to be the death of you, Wanda. I cant stand it.I saw the depth of her pain, and tears formed in my eyes.Love you too, Mel. But theres not room for the both of us here. In this body, in this cave, in their livesI disagree.Look, just stop trying to annihilate yourself, okay? Because if I think you can do it, Ill make Doc pull me out today. Or Ill tell Jared. Just imagine what he would do.I ima gined it for her, smiling a little through my tears. Remember? He said no guarantees about what he would or wouldnt do to keep you here. I thought of those burning kisses in the hall thought of other kisses and other nights in her memory. My face warmed as I blushed.You fight dirty.You bet I do.Im not giving up.Youve been warned. No more silent treatment.We thought of other things then, things that didnt hurt. the likes of where we would send the Seeker. Mel was all for the Mists Planet after my story tonight, but I thought the Planet of the Flowers would be more fitting. There wasnt a mellower planet in the universe. The Seeker needed a nice long lifetime eating sunshine.We thought of my memories, the pretty ones. The ice castles and the night music and the colored suns. They were like fairytales to her. And she told me fairytales, too. render slippers, poisoned apples, mermaids who wanted to have soulsOf course, we didnt have time to tell many stories.They all returned together. Jared had come back through the main entrance. It had taken so very little time-perhaps hed just driven the jeep around to the north side and hidden it under the overhang there. In a hurry.I heard their voices coming, subdued, serious, low, and knew from their tone that the Seeker was with them. Knew that the time had come for the first stage of my death.No.Pay attention. Youre going to have to help them do this when Im NoBut she wasnt protesting my instruction, just the conclusion of my thought.Jared was the one who carried the Seeker into the room. He came first, the others behind. Aaron and Brandt both had the guns ready-in case she was exclusively feigning unconsciousness, perhaps, and about to jump up and attack them with her tiny hands. Jeb and Doc came last, and I knew Jebs canny eyes would be on my face. How much had he figured out already with his crazy, insightful shrewdness?I kept myself focused on the task at hand.Jared laid the Seekers inert form on the cot with excep tional gentleness. This might have bothered me before, but now it touched me. I understood that he did this for me, wishing that he could have treated me this way in the beginning.Doc, wheres the No trouble?Ill get it for you, he murmured.I stared at the Seekers face while I waited, wondering what it would look like when her host was free. Would anything be left? Would the host be empty or would the rightful owner reassert herself? Would the face be less repugnant to me when another awareness looked out of those eyes?Here you go. Doc put the canister in my hand.Thanks.I pulled out one thin tissue square and handed the container back to him.I found myself reluctant to touch the Seeker, but I made my hands move swiftly and purposefully as I pulled her chin down and put the No Pain on her tongue. Her face was very runty-it made my hands feel big. Her tiny sizing always threw me off. It seemed so inappropriate.I closed her mouth again. It was moist-the medicine would dissolve cursoril y.Jared, could you please roll her onto her stomach? I asked.He did as I asked-again, gently. Just then, the propane lantern flared to life. The cave was suddenly bright, almost like day hop out. I glanced up instinctively and saw that Doc had covered the big holes in the roof with tarps to keep our light from escaping. Hed done a lot of preparation in our absence.It was very quiet. I could hear the Seeker live evenly in and out. I could hear the faster, tenser breathing of the men in the room with me. Someone shifted from one foot to the other, and sand ground against rock under his heel. Their stares had a physical weight on my skin.I swallowed, hoping I could keep my voice normal. Doc, I need Heal, Clean, Seal, and Smooth.Right here.I brushed the Seekers coarse black hair out of the way, exposing the little pink tie at the base of her skull. I stared at her olive tan skin and hesitated.Would you cut, Doc? I dont I dont want to.No problem, Wanda.I saw only his hands as he came t o stand across from me. He set a little row of white cylinders on the cot next to the Seekers shoulder. The scalpel winked in the bright light, flashing across my face.Hold her hair out of the way.I used both hands to clear her neck.Wish I could scrub up, Doc muttered to himself, obviously feeling underprepared.Its not really necessary. We have Clean.I know. He sighed. What he really wanted was the routine, the mental cleansing that the old habits had given him.How much room do you need? he asked, hesitating with the point of the blade an inch from her skin.I could feel the heat of the other bodies behind me, squeezing in to get a better view. They were careful not to touch either of us.Just the length of the scar. That will be enough.This didnt seem like enough to him. You sure?Yes. Oh, waitDoc pulled back.I realized I was doing this all backward. I was no Healer. I wasnt cut out for this. My hands were shaking. I couldnt seem to look away from the Seekers body.Jared, could you get one of those tanks for me?Of course.I heard him walk the few steps away, heard the dull, metallic clunk of the tank he chose knocking against the others.What now?Theres a circle on top of the lid. Press it in.I heard the low hum of the cryotank as it powered on. The men muttered and shuffled their feet, moving away from it.Okay, on the side there should be a switch more like a dial, actually. backside you see it?Yes.Spin it all the way down.Okay.What color is the light on top of the tank?Its its just turning from purple to bright blue. Light blue now.I took a deep breath. At least the tanks were functional.Great. bolt down the lid and wait for me.How?Latch under the lip.Got it. I heard the click of the latch, and then the whir of the mechanism. Its coldThats sort of the point.How does it work? Whats the power source?I sighed. I knew the answers when I was a Spider. I dont understand it now. Doc, you can go ahead. Im ready.Here we go, Doc whispered as he slid the blade of the scal pel deftly, almost gracefully, through the skin. Blood coursed down the side of her neck, pooling on the towel Doc had placed underneath.A tiny bit deeper. Just under the edge -Yes, I see. Doc was breathing fast, excited.Silver glinted out from the red.Thats good. Now you hold the hair.Doc switched places with me in a smooth, swift movement. He was good at his Calling. He would have made quite a Healer.I didnt try to hide what I was doing from him. The movements were too minute for him to have any chance of seeing. He would not be able to do this until I explained.I slid one fingertip carefully along the back ridge of the tiny silver creature until my finger was almost entirely inserted into the live opening at the base of the host bodys neck. I traced my way to the anterior antennae, feeling the taut lines of the bound attachments stretched tight like harp strings into the deeper recesses of her head.I crouched my finger around the underside of the souls body, caressing down from the first segment along the other line of attachments, as stiff and profuse as the bristles of a brush.I felt carefully at the juncture of these tight strings, at the tiny joints, no large than pinheads. I stroked my way about a third of the way down. I could have counted, but that would have taken a very long time. It would be the two hundred seventeenth connection, but there was another way to find it. There it was, the little ridge that made this joint just a bit bigger-a seed pearl rather than a pinhead. It was smooth under my fingertip.I pressed against it with gentle pressure, tenderly massaging. Kindness was always the way of the souls. Never violence.Relax, I breathed.And, though the soul could not hear me, it obeyed. The harp strings loosened, went slack. I could feel the slither as they retracted, feel the slight swelling of the body as it absorbed them. The process took no more than a few beats of my heart. I held my breath until I felt the soul undulate under my touch. Wriggling free.I let it twist itself a little farther out, and then I curled my fingers gently around the tiny, fragile body. I lifted it, silver and gleaming, wet with blood that was quickly shed from the smooth casing, and cradled it in my hand.It was beautiful. The soul whose name Id never known billowed like a silver wave in my hand a lovely feathered ribbon.I couldnt hate the Seeker in this form. An almost maternal love swept through me.Sleep well, little one, I whispered.I turned toward the faint hum of the cryotank, just to my left. Jared held it low and angled, so it was a simple matter for me to ease the soul into the shockingly cold air that gusted from the opening. I let it slide into the small space and then carefully relatched the lid.I took the cryotank from Jared, easing it rather than tugging it, turning it with care until it was vertical, and then I hugged it to my chest. The outside of the tank was the alike temperature as the warm room. I cradled it to my body, protective as any mother.I looked back at the stranger on the table. Doc was already dust-ing Smooth over the sealed wound. We made a good team one attending to the soul, the other to the body. Everyone was taken care of.Doc looked up at me, his eyes full of exhilaration and wonder. Amazing, he murmured. That was incredible.Good job, I whispered back.When do you think shell wake up? Doc asked.That depends on how much chloroform she inhaled.Not much.And if shes dumb there. Well have to wait and see.Before I could ask, Jared lifted the nameless woman tenderly from the cot, rolled her face-up, and laid her on another, cleaner resting place. This tenderness did not move me. This tenderness was for the human, for MelanieDoc went with him, checking her pulse, peeking under her lids. He shone a flashlight into her unconscious eyes and watched the pupils constrict. No light reflected back to blind him. He and Jared exchanged a long glance.She really did it, Jared said, his voice low.Yes, D oc agreed.I didnt hear Jeb sidle up next to me.Pretty slick, kid, he murmured.I shrugged.Feeling a rag conflicted?I didnt answer.Yeah. Me, too, hon. Me, too.Aaron and Brandt were talking behind me, their voices rising with excitement, answering each others thoughts before the questions were spoken.No conflict there.Wait till the others hearThink of the -We should go get some -Right now, Im ready -Hold up, Jeb cut Brandt off. No soul snatching until that cryotank is safely on its way into outer space. Right, Wanda?Right, I agreed in a firmer voice, hugging the tank tighter to my chest.Brandt and Aaron exchanged sour glances.I was going to need more allies. Jared and Jeb and Doc were only trinity, though certainly the most influential three here. Still, they would need support.I knew what this meant.It meant talking to Ian.Others, too, of course, but Ian would have to be one of them. My heart seemed to slump lower in my chest, to curl limply in on itself. Id done many things I had n ot wanted to do since joining the humans, but I couldnt remember any this sharply and pointedly painful. Even deciding to trade my life for the Seekers-that was a huge, vast hurt, a wide field of ache, but it was almost manageable because it was so tied up in the bigger picture. Telling Ian goodbye was a razor-sharp piercing it made the greater vision hard to see. I wished there was some way, any way, to save him from the same pain. There wasnt.The only thing worse would be telling Jared goodbye. That one would burn and fester. Because he wouldnt feel pain. His joy would far outweigh any small regret he might feel over me.As for Jamie, well, I wasnt planning on facing that goodbye at all.Wanda Docs voice was sharp.I speed to the bed Doc was hovering over. Before I got there, I could see the tiny olive hand fisting and unfisting where it hung over the edge of the cot.Ah, the Seekers familiar voice moaned from the human body. Ah.The room went utterly silent. Everyone looked at me, as if I were the expert on humans.I elbowed Doc, my hands still wrapped around the tank. Talk to her, I whispered.Um Hello? Can you hear me miss? Youre safe now. Do you understand me?Ah, she groaned. Her eyes fluttered open, focused quickly on Docs face. There was no discomfort in her expression-the No Pain would be making her feel wonderful, of course. Her eyes were onyx black. They darted around the room until she found me, and recognition was quickly followed by a scowl. She looked away, back to Doc.Well, it feels good to have my head back, she said in a loud, clear voice. Thanks.