TithonEos Story
Matthew Ryan Fischer
“Drink the drink of me and I shall drink the drink of you and
together we shall be free...” – from the poem “Eos and Tithonos” by Winston
Alexander Whitmore, circa 1923.
Tithonus the Trojan was immortal.
He had been granted eternal life by Zeus at the request of Eos. The twist, because there always was one, was
that she forgot to ask for eternal youth to go along with eternal life. And so Tithonus aged and aged and aged. While Eos loved him, her love was only so
strong. Watching a man age and wither
until finally unable to move or speak, will test any lover’s resolve. Eventually when Eos finally had had enough
she found some semblance of mercy and turned him into a cicada. Why did she wait so long to act? And why was existence as a cicada better than
existence as a decrepit old man? Perhaps
Eos wasn’t really that in love to begin with. Perhaps she got stuck in a
relationship but tried to stick it out to make herself feel better about
trapping him in such an existence.
Perhaps she derived some sick pleasure in torturing him. First she simply watched as “loathsome
old age pressed full upon him” and then she manically transformed him into a
creature sans brain or ability. Perhaps
as his age grew, her love diminished equally and she grew to resent taking care
of him and learned to hate him. Perhaps life
as a grasshopper is by far the worst life possible on this Earth.
The Tithonian Brotherhood, or the Monks of Tithonus as they were
also known, believed that the secret to youth and to immortality lay in the
water. Tithonus had a water nymph for a mother. Therefore his elemental power would have been
water and any god gift such as immortality would certainly reside within his
element.
It is unclear as to when the Brotherhood began and little has been
written about their religious order.
Renowned occultist Mortimer Thornewill only referenced their existence
as a side note while studying vampyre cults and other associations dedicated to
the pursuit of eternal life. While spending
several years living amongst various groups Thornewill only wrote one journal
entry which simply read “Tithonian Brotherhood does exist. Rituals leave members all too mortal.” Apparently Thornewill was unimpressed. Another less circulated clerical guide of
spells and rituals describes a tear ritual where Tithonian followers drip water
into their eyes in an attempt to absorb its life giving properties. It is unclear whether or not the Brotherhood
actually believed this to be some version of transubstantiation where they are absorbing
Tithonus in some form, but the parallels with the Christian Communion are
obvious.
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