deepwaterwritingprompts:Text: The mine was plagued by sirens. We all wore earplugs to work, and igno
deepwaterwritingprompts:Text: The mine was plagued by sirens. We all wore earplugs to work, and ignored the strange flashing eyes sparkling in what seemed like every dark corner. The divine Plato knew that there are three kinds of Sirens; the celestial, which is under the government of Jupiter; that which produces generation, and is under the government of Neptune; and that which is cathartic, and is under the government of Pluto. It is common to all these, to incline all things through an harmonic motion to their ruling Gods. —Proclus: On the Theology of Plato, Book VI. Of the sirens up there in the heavens, we cannot imagine what their song must be, can only hope that we may one day hear it. Of poor Odysseus lost at sea, the song he heard is up to speculation, but they say the sirens sung to him of the future and the past, of his story unfurling to its conclusion, and that is why he strained so furiously at his bonds and begged to be released, to fling himself into the ocean to his fate. Of the sirens down here in the mines, we stop up our ears and do not listen. Their song is meaningless. The work goes on. Were we to guess from the shapes their mouths make in the darkness, the rise and fall of their heads with their flashing eyes, we would guess their songs are much like the songs that we would sing, could we hear each other’s voices. The call-and-response to the rhythm of our picks, the low and longing verse and then the chorus. The songs would be of simple things: the world above, our families awaiting us, of food set on the table, dust in our lungs, a foreman’s black and miserable heart. The songs would tell of the bonds of loyalty between us, of the long and wearisome trek to our graves. It would be a song of our lives, simply, welling up so sweet and and keening and bitter throughout the darkness of the mines that it would fill our throats and move us to tears to hear it, and we would return home having embraced again our lives, renewed to wake again and face the days ahead. And so we stop up our ears and do not listen. Instead we work monotonously, hatefully, in the utter silence, refusing to heed the sirens’ song that lures men ever onward, one day after another, deeper into the mines, deeper in and deeper still to death. -- source link
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