Parrhesia, Nephele, and the Sumerian Sphinx

Just a very minor sync, but I note it in case it develops into something bigger.

A day or two ago I encountered somewhere -- perhaps one of the Catholic blogs from Synlogos? -- the unfamiliar term parrhesia, which I had to look up. It refers to frankness or boldness of speech. It is also a genus of moths.

Today, in the concluding chapter of Histoire de la magie, I encountered a passing reference to Ixion and how he attempted to rape Hera but was tricked by Zeus into assaulting a fake Hera made from a cloud. Having only the vaguest recollection of this particular myth, I looked it up to get the details. The Hera-shaped cloud apparently became in some way a real woman who went on to bear children to both Ixion and Athamas, and this cloud-woman's name was Nephele (from nephos, "cloud").

The disambiguation page on Wikipedia notes that Nephele is also (like Parrhesia) the name of a genus of moths, and that it is the title of a 2014 song by the instrumental progressive metal band Animals as Leaders. This band's most recent album, released in March of this year, is called Parrhesia.

The Nephele genus belongs to the family Sphingidae, called "sphinx moths" or "hawk moths." The hummingbird hawk moth is a subject of the TMBG song "Bee of the Bird of the Moth," which has appeared in sync posts here before. As for the other common name for this family, both "Nephele" and Parrhesia were released by the indie label Sumerian Records. Despite the fact that Sumer and Egypt were quite distinct ancient civilizations, this is their logo:

The Sphinx's nature as a human-animal chimaera is also relevant. The son of Ixion and Nephele was Centaurus, father of the centaurs. According to the Byzantine poet John Tzetzes, Centaurus was a nickname, and his true name was Imbrus -- which is more usually the name of one of the sons of King Aegyptus, son of Belus. Aegyptus obviously means "Egypt," and Belus has been connected with Bel Marduk, a god of Sumerian origin.

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Update: This post led me to peruse the Wikipedia article on "Egypt-Mesopotamia relations," where I found this:

The "Master of Animals" motif bears an obvious conceptual relation to the band name Animals as Leaders. The king flanked by two lions also reminds me of depictions of the Mesopotamian Anzû.

Like the sphinx, Anzû is a chimaerical creature -- typically depicted as a sort of griffin in reverse: a lion-headed eagle. This looks quite a bit like an owl and calls to mind the Chinese word for "owl" -- 貓頭鷹, literally "cat-headed eagle."

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Update 2: Now this is weird. When I looked up Sumerian Records on Wikipedia while writing this post, the intro paragraph said, "They have signed artists such as Black Veil Brides, Poppy, Bad Omens, Palaye Royale, and The Smashing Pumpkins." The Smashing Pumpkins were the only ones I had heard of, and I realized that I don't really know anything about them but the name. I clicked the link but then didn't really read anything. I just saw that the frontman's name was Billy Corgan and clicked for the article about him. Then I didn't read that article, either! (I'm not really sure what the point of clicking was.) I just noted that the name seemed off: "Corgan"? I know corgi and Kurgan, and Corrigan, but not Corgan.

Then that made me think of Corgunard, a character created by my brother for a D&D campaign back when we were teenagers. This was in the Dark Sun setting, where evil wizards gradually change into dragons, and good ones transform into something called an avangion (though we always pronounced it avagon), which is basically a giant humanoid moth. Corgunard was an avangion, and somewhere along the line he magically merged with the dragon sorcerer-king Nibenay to become a single being called Nibenard. Nibenay was created by the D&D guys, not by us, and when I looked him up just now (here), I read that "His templars [i.e. magic-wielding bureaucrats] are known as Shadow Brides." Sounds a lot like the "Black Veil Brides" from Sumerian Records.

Later this evening, I checked the Anonymous Conservative blog and found this:

While we are on shapeshifting, there was another account by Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corrigan, who said the record industry is controlled by them. He seems to believe it, in the videos online of his statements on it. So him, maybe credible, Odom, and then best selling author M. Scott Peck, who I would say is definitely credible, given his academic history alone.

Not just a reference to Billy Corgan, but one by someone else who apparently thought Corrigan looked more like a real name!

Retracing my steps online in order to write this update, I noticed something I hadn't caught before in the intro to the Sumerian Records article: "In early 2022, Sumerian acquired Behemoth Entertainment, a comic book and video game publisher, in order to increase their merchandise options and further expand the brand."

See "Be he moth or be he bird" for the word behemoth and its relevance to "The Bee of the Bird of the Moth."