Mama-Bear Syndrome

"What is that sound high in the air  Murmur of maternal lamentation 
Who are those hooded hordes swarming 
Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth 
Ringed by the flat horizon only
What is the city over the mountains 
Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air 
Falling towers 
Jerusalem
Athens
Alexandria 
Vienna
London
Unreal" -Lines 365-375 The Wasteland

While we were in our groups on Tuesday, Rachel mentioned the line about "maternal lamentation" which got cogs moving in my clockwork brain. Since I'm not a woman, and therefore will not be a mother, I can't exactly tell you firsthand what maternal lamentation looks/feels/sounds like. However, I decided that since I couldn't experience it firsthand,  I would look to all of the places that I know it can be found.

The first would be Andromache in "The Iliad" who is lamenting the death of Hector. Now, I know what you're thinking: "Ben, she's lamenting her husband, not her child!" That statement is mostly correct, except that she is lamenting about the life that her child will have to live without a father. Next in line is Clytemnestra, the wife of Agamemnon. She laments her innocent daughter, Iphegenia, who Agamemnon sacrifices to please Artemis. His thought processes behind the sacrifice still baffle me, as the whole reason Artemis was pissed at Agamemnon was due to all of the innocents who would die by his hands if he were to go to Troy. So, logically the best way to appease her would to be to kill your innocent daughter. Anyway, I digress. Not only did Clytemnestra lament her daughter, it eventually led her to killing her husband. I could also talk about Thetis, Achilles' mother, in the Iliad, but I feel like that whole plot line is a bit "fishy". I could also draw several Biblical parallels, but I figure you guys get the point.

As we learned above, maternal lamentation is a terrible thing to witness or experience. Mothers are the most loving, protective, strong, and nurturing beings on the Earth. So, naturally when their emotions start flowing, everyone should watch out. You might just end up dead.

However, as it is just a "murmur" of maternal lamentation, it implies that the mother is off in the distance somewhere, so you're probably safe.

For now.

So, what did we learn today? Nothing? The wasteland makes as much sense as Heidegger? Don't mess with mama? All good answers. Tune in next week when I'll hopefully be able to actually make sense of something that we were assigned to read.

P.S. I commented on Callie's "Fallen to a Wasteland"