War! What is its god for?
'War gods were like commanding generals, Persephone added; they expected all the fighting and dying to be done by someone else'
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Your support makes all the difference.Yesterday I brought you some of the minutes of the latest session of the United Deities, the symposium of gods past and present which surveys our planet's mad goings-on. Today I have some more for you.
1. The chairgod said that before they turned to the war in Iraq, he had a serious matter to bring to the attention of the assembled gods. There was an outbreak of a hitherto unknown killer disease in China and Hong Kong, causing great panic there and a lot of worry worldwide.
2. Mars, Roman god of war, said he was only a humble god of war, but a new variant of influenza didn't seem to be nearly as interesting as the war in Iraq. People sneezed, then they died. That was life. But if you really wanted to die well, die in battle, that was his motto.
3. Persephone, a Greek goddess, said that she never ceased to be amazed by the enthusiasm of war gods for dying in battle, especially as it was a thing they would never have to do personally. It was ironic that immortals were so very keen on death. She knew what she was talking about as she was the wife of Hades, god of the Roman underworld, a favourite resort of people who had recently died, and she couldn't help noticing that not many gods were among them.
4. In fact, she added, war gods were like commanding generals; they expected all the fighting and dying to be done by someone else.
5. Thor, the Norse god of thunder and hammer-throwing, challenged her to come outside and say that again. He then went outside. Persephone stayed where she was.
6. The chairgod said that if Mars cared to wait for a minute, he would explain to him the importance of this in a way that even a war god could understand. The thing was that this new disease had all the appearance of a good old-fashioned plague. The kind of plague sent down in olden days by vengeful gods.
7. The Jewish god said he had great memories of his plague-sending days, when he was trying to get the Jews out of Egypt. Frogs were great. Boils were great. Flies were great, if you had enough of them. Locusts, too, he could recommend.
8. An Egyptian god said that he had a very good cure for boils, if anyone was interested.
9. The chairgod said that he had not yet come to the point. The point was that there had been a time when gods had inflicted lots of plagues on human beings. The gods had driven men mad. The gods had sent famine and drought and floods and monsters and dragons and giants. But those days were over. There had been an agreement, the Supreme Powers Non-Proliferation of Plagues Treaty, under which all gods had agreed to refrain from punishing humanity in this way. Humanity was getting very good at punishing itself, after all.
10. Gods could still send bad weather or natural phenomena like volcanic eruptions, if they had got planning permission from the necessary divine sub-committee. But plagues were out. And he thought that this new China-based illness looked suspiciously like a plague. Had any god, he wanted to know, taken illicit, unauthorised action in this matter?
11. There was a silence.
12. The silence was broken by Thor coming back in and asking if anyone could remember why he had gone outside. He thought he had challenged someone to a fight, but could not remember who. If anyone else felt like an exchange of hammers, he was up for it.
13. The chairgod asked Thor if he had recently inflicted a plague on the people of China.
14. Thor said not as far as he could remember, and it was the sort of thing you didn't forget easily.
15. The chairgod said that, well, if nobody was going to own up, he didn't see what more he could do. Perhaps they could take a break for five minutes to see if anyone's memory was refreshed. He had all the time in the world. It was only their own time they were wasting. He personally would slip outside and get a breath of heavenly fresh air.
16. Thor asked if the chairgod wanted to come out and have a quick fight at the same time.
17. The chairgod said on second thoughts he would probably stay inside for the adjournment.
18. An Assyrian god said that if they didn't discuss the war in Iraq soon, it would all be over.
19. The chairgod said on third thoughts he would slip out for a moment, and asked Persephone if she would care to accompany him. There was good-natured joshing and cries of: "Shall we join the goddesses?"
More of this some other time.
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