The Flower and the Stone: On the Fixed Stars Castor and Pollux
Keats said only one thing was necessary to write good poetry: a feeling for light and shade. I like that he had the sense to call it one thing, and not two things.
-Mary Ruefle
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The myth of Castor and Pollux is complicated, to say the least. They are born as twins to the same mother, Leda, but with two different fathers— Castor’s DNA comes from mortal Tyndareus, Leda’s husband, while Pollux was the product of Zeus’s rape of Leda. Once they mature, they find themselves enamored with the betrothed brides of their cousins, Idas and Lynceus. The twins carry the women away and have sons with them, much to their cousins’ anger. In retaliation, the cousins trick the twins into forfeiting all the cattle that the four of them stole together. Castor and Pollux steal the cattle back, but not before Idas catches them and kills Castor. Pollux, bereft, agrees to give up his immortality to remain with his brother, splitting their time eternally between Olympus and Hades.
This myth is rife with opposites; the twins are both immortal and not; their are deeds both immoral and justified; their fates are both tragic and exalted. No wonder, then, that Bernadette Brady associates this pair with duality. In her words, “Twins represent the concept of polarity: where there is light there is dark; for every push forward there is a step that also has to be taken backward. The larger the positive effect, the greater the shadow with which one has to deal”. Anyone who is touched by Castor or Pollux is intimate with the connection between opposites. There’s even a word for this, enantiodromia, which refers to the tendency of things to transform into their opposites. We see this in the constant companionship of these brothers, and in their transformation from guilty to wronged party when warring with their cousins. Even their very identities hold contradictions; they are both mortal and undying, splitting their time between both realities.
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