The Smith and the Waster

I woke up this morning with the phrase "Joseph the Smith" in my mind. This seemed to be analogous to the title of James E. Talmage's book Jesus the Christ, a Mormon classic, the insertion of the definite article serving to emphasize that Christ is not Jesus' last name but rather a title descriptive of his role and mission. The implication, then, is that the Prophet's surname Smith can also be interpreted in that way. I have sometimes heard Mormons interpret this verse from Isaiah as a reference to the Prophet:

Behold, I have created the smith that bloweth the coals in the fire, and that bringeth forth an instrument for his work; and I have created the waster to destroy (Isa. 54:16).

The idea is that this refers to Joseph Smith's "restoration" of Christianity from smoldering coals to a blazing fire, and that the instrument he brings forth is the Book of Mormon. The next bit, about "the waster to destroy," is passed over in silence. Thinking of it now, though, I thought of the Waster as Odysseus and of the prayer of Polyphemus, the blinded Cyclops, against him:

Poseidon, girdler of the earth, god of the azure hair, --

My father, if a father's name thou ownest, hear my prayer:

Grant that this layer waste of towns, who boasts himself to be

Laertes' son, the Ithacan, his home may never see.

Then I remembered that Du Cane's Odyssey has come up on this blog before, and in connection with Joseph as the Smith. This was in "Gilgamesh was an elven king," where this slightly modified passage from Du Cane -- modified to address Vulcan by his title Smith rather than by name -- was interpreted as possibly a reference to Joseph the Prophet.

O Smith, declared th' earth-shaking god:

Should Mars the debt refuse,

Thou hast my word that I will pay

To thee thy lawful dues.

When I was searching my blog for that post, though, the first result was "Swords of Mars, two-mouthed chameleon-cat-men, and kings' stories engraved on stones," which begins thus:

Thomas B. Marsh has been in the sync stream, and it occurred to me that, since the h in Thomas is silent -- i.e., Thomas = Tomas -- we could also remove the h from Marsh, yielding Mars.

Thomas B. Marsh has been identified with Peter and Pharazon. This character has also been symbolically linked to Odysseus -- particularly in connection with Dante's tale of his last voyage, where he attempted to sail west to an island (Purgatory) forbidden to mortals. Now we have Mars as a possible reference to this figure as well. Mars, as war god, is also a "layer waste of towns."

The context of the "O Smith" quote is that Poseidon is attempting to negotiate the release of Mars, who has been caught in bed with Aphrodite and put in chains by Vulcan. (In this haphazard mixture of Greek and Roman names for these characters I follow Du Cane.)

Poseidon only, of them all, from merriment refrained,

Nor ceased he to the craftsman famed his earnest prayer to make,

That he his prisoner would unbind, and wingèd words he spake:

"Loose him, and I, as thou dost bid, myself will surety stand,

That he before th' immortal gods shall pay thy just demand."

I recently alluded to this very episode in the Odyssey, in the comments on "Death to the natural man." In reference to the sword as a cross, I quoted these lines of Yeats and explained that the goddess mentioned was Venus/Aphrodite:

The sword's a cross; thereon He died:

On breast of Mars the goddess sighed.

Poseidon as "th' earth-shaking god" has also been in the sync stream fairly recently, in the post "Then we’ll do an earthquake. That’s Israel attacking Athene." In the dream reported in that post, I imagined Bill interpreting the title line by saying "Who could 'do an earthquake' but Poseidon, the god of Atlantis and founder of their dynasty?" and thus seeing in it a reference to Pharazon's assault on Aman, analogous to the Atlanteans' attack on Athens in Plato.

If Odysseus and Mars are symbolically the same character here, it is interesting that one Du Cane quote has the Cyclops praying for Poseidon to punish Odysseus, while the other has Poseidon asking Vulcan to release Mars. In Hesiod and elsewhere, the Cyclopes are closely associated with Hephaestus (Vulcan) and are his assistants in smith-work. Homer himself does not make this connection, but we can nevertheless think of Polyphemus as symbolically speaking for Vulcan. We thus have the same three characters in either scene: Mars-Odysseus (Pharazon), Vulcan-Polyphemus, and Poseidon. The question is who is represented by the latter two.