The Death of Apollo

[Bootless]

The Beatles - The Fool On The Hill

I looked,
and behold, 
Apollo, in his chariot did look back,
and discovered Sol.
Not Sol, the small ball of fire,
but Sol the Great.

The chains melted,
the chariot caught fire.
In panic did Apollo seek to fly,
but his wings burst into flame
and he plunged headlong to Earth.

With the trace and yokes burned away,
the horses did glide safely to ...

Wait!
...
Wait! 
...

This can't be right. Something must be wrong here.
Let's think about it.

So in days long gone,
when Earth was flat,
Apollo drove the chariot pulling the fire ball,
from Eastern window of the firmament
to the Western window.

Then he spent his nights off doing all the adventures and mischief and exploits that we read about in the old stories.

But then later when the Earth became spherical, 
Apollo never had a night off, 
for it was always day time wherever he happened to be 
on his journey around the globe; 
noon time, in fact.

Closer still to our own times,
Earth did orbit around the Sun,
thanks to Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, et al,
and Apollo was out of a job completely.

If perchance he did fall,
it would have been onto The Invincible Sun,
and not onto the Earth.

Let us cease our boasting then,
for if the deathless gods
are found to be mortal,
how much more are we mortals
prone to cease our labors
in due time!

Down is the direction dictated by gravity.
The Unconquered Sun is greater in gravity
then the Earth we live on.

So remember:
When looking up at the Sun,
you are actually looking down.

[argentus]

Your prose has all the elements of enjoyment for me.   It is well written with wry twists and humor and it forced me to stop and think and even do a little research.  

Thank you!!

[rickymouse]

Sounds like Apollo flew a jet and one day something happened, causing a burst of flames coming out of the back of the jet.  His parachute failed from being engulfed in flames and he fell to the earth.  There are drawings of something that looks like jets in some ancient drawings.  The second part might be that he was flying fast enough heading west so that the sun was always overhead, basically circling the globe in a single day.

There are also pictures of things that look like flying saucers in crawings and etchings in that area of the world.  And up north, there was Odin and his chariot that flew threw the air.  I read that the people in India had hot air balloons run by rocks...probably coal they used to heat the air for the balloons.  And that could also be what Apollo was using to get around, and it burst into flames...but that does not match the saying, because of the area of the flames does not match a balloon catching on fire.  Originally I thought they would use oils or rendered fats to fuel the balloons, but one translation from India mentioned burning rocks, and another translation of a different article mentioned that the trips towards Europe took months till aparently the winds changed so they could go home on their route.

So, just saying that there might be a little real in some of those stories.  And the gods of the north could knock down mountains with thors hammer...sounds like a plunger to set off some gunpowder to me or maybe a cannon which might have been invented way before we accept, since the chinese invented fireworks and gunpowder before the first century BC according to some ancient writings.  They also had their trade routes going north and west.  History shows that some of this stuff we were led to believe was invented way later by the west and Europe goes way further back in origin.  Yeah sure, Thomas Edison invented the light bulb.

[Bootless]

Your prose has all the elements of enjoyment for me.   It is well written with wry twists and humor and it forced me to stop and think and even do a little research.  

Thank you!!

You're welcome.

Research indicates that Helios drove the chariot.
Until Phaethon, his son wanted a paternity test.
Though the test seems positive,
the procedure led to tragedy.

Thought brings a question:
Then who was Apollo, and what happened to him?

[rickymouse]

When I think of Apollo, I think about his commune like community he lived in with the women.  He had the crown of bay leaves, bay leaves have chemistry that has the ability to create oxytocin in people.  When used in cooking, Eugenol in it is turned to appigenin or the Eugenol itself if steeped in tea will increase oxytocin release.  So parsley flakes and also sage and rosemary also increase oxytocin levels...but Bay leaves are what his headdress was made of.

Oxytocin is the love hormone and bonding hormone.  It is the hormone that women usually get that makes them tie to the baby and marriage.

Eugenol is more doping, Apigenin is more towards making a person smarter.  So my question is did Apollo want his loving women smarter or doped up? Parsley flakes and celery flakes contain more Apigenin, the stems of celery have more Eugenol...and cloves are really high in Eugenol, high enough that their doping effect is not much turned into apigenin from cooking with them.  But who wants to be smart all the time anyway.

[UltraBudgie]

This is amazing. It's easy to imagine being on the Moon, looking "down" at the Earth that it is orbiting. Vertigo! But why not also imagine being on the Earth, looking "down" at the Sun that it is orbiting? So obvious now that you say it! Oh no vertigo!

It's easy if you try...

[chr0naut]

You're welcome.

Research indicates that Helios drove the chariot.
Until Phaethon, his son wanted a paternity test.
Though the test seems positive,
the procedure led to tragedy.

Thought brings a question:
Then who was Apollo, and what happened to him?

NASA canned Apollo after the funding got pulled...

[andy06shake]

So remember:
When looking up at the Sun,
you are actually looking down.

That's rather profound. 

Gravity wells and all that jazz. 

[Bootless]

When I think of Apollo, I think about his commune like community he lived in with the women.  He had the crown of bay leaves, bay leaves have chemistry that has the ability to create oxytocin in people.  ...but Bay leaves are what his headdress was made of.

Oxytocin is the love hormone and bonding hormone.  It is the hormone that women usually get that makes them tie to the baby and marriage.

...So my question is did Apollo want his loving women smarter or doped up?

Laurus Nobilis aka Bay Laurel aka Bay leaves.
I will leave the chemistry to you, since food chemistry is your specialty.

The story of Apollo's wreath is indeed about love; but he was doped, not Daphne.   

Apollo, the patron of sport, is associated with the wearing of a laurel wreath. This association arose from the ancient Greek mythology story of Apollo and Daphne. Apollo mocked the god of love, Eros (Cupid), for his use of bow and arrow, since Apollo is also patron of archery. The insulted Eros then prepared two arrows—one of gold and one of lead. He shot Apollo with the gold arrow, instilling in the god a passionate love for the river nymph Daphne. He shot Daphne with the lead arrow, instilling in her a hatred of Apollo. Apollo pursued Daphne until she begged to be free of him and was turned into a laurel tree.
 
Apollo vowed to honor Daphne forever and used his powers of eternal youth and immortality to render the laurel tree evergreen. Apollo then crafted himself a wreath out of the laurel branches and turned Daphne into a cultural symbol for him and other poets and musicians.

Laurel wreath: Background

Perhaps Apollo as the Patron of Athletics came first and Patron of Poetry was an unintended yet fortuitous consequence due to the Eugenol. Hence "all poets are mad", and maybe musicians too.

[Bootless]

This is amazing. It's easy to imagine being on the Moon, looking "down" at the Earth that it is orbiting. Vertigo! But why not also imagine being on the Earth, looking "down" at the Sun that it is orbiting? So obvious now that you say it! Oh no vertigo!

It's easy if you try...

Another thought experiment:

Imagine a flat Earth.
Would you see a horizon?
If so, what would it look like?

Data:
1) Due to visibility factors; air may seem invisible, but molecules of Nitrogen, Oxygen, and Carbon Dioxide do have mass. So there would be a cumulative effect with distance.

2) On the very clearest of days; ie no smoke or smog or foggy, misty, high humidity, the furthest visibility is approximately 150 miles. After that it's just haziness.

--------
I have old memories from youth of standing on my front yard and looking far off in a Southwest direction. On a clear day I could barely see a thin strip of ocean, 15 miles away. The lower part of the blue strip would be the shoreline and the top was the horizon. But on most days, due to haze, that was not visible.*

According to Distance to Horizon Calculator 700 ft elevation(I looked it up) gives 32.4 miles to horizon. The closest 15 miles was vast to my view compared to the remaining 17.4 miles. Basic law of perspective.

* It was a river valley that I was looking at. Maybe air above rivers tend to have higher humidity on warm days.