Well met myth lovers! Hopefully you will recognize quite a few winks in this new series’ prelude!

Let’s see them one by one…

1. The Shield of Achilles:

This is probably the most epic artifact of the Ancient Greek Myth. Homer dedicates an entire passage of the Iliad to the shield’s forging by God Hephaestus.

The passage describing the shield is an early example of ekphrasis (a literary description of a work of visual art) that influenced many later poems. It is one of the Iliad’s most fascinating sections where the intricate adornment of the shield is described in full detail. The peaceful scenes depicted serve as a contrast to the violence of the epic, and the extended pause of the narration is as the calm before the storm.

Many of you might be offended to see the legendary club of Hercules shatter, but bear in mind, it shatters upon the item that inspired an entire rhetorical device…

2. Mata Leao:

The famous wrestling technique that offered its name to the story’s title is the way Hercules killed the Nemean Lion. I don’t want to get into any more details on that cause I will spoil Part 2! Like the cover doesn’t do that already…

3. Achilles’ Nostalgia:

When Odysseus traveled to Hades to seek the counseling of the dead oracle Tiresias, he met his old brother in arms, Achilles. His famous words β€œit is better to be a beggar among the living, than a king in the underworld” are used again in this story to justify his morally questionable stand against the righteous Hercules.

And a personal wink to another fascination of mine is the use of the Predestination Paradox. I’ll leave it to that cause again I don’t want to spoil Part 2…

So I hope you enjoy this new opening and the epic series that has begun!!

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