The Apple of Discord

By luigi_pagano

Thu, 18 Jun 2020
  • 1345 reads
6 comments
 
The root cause of the conflicts
besetting the human race
goes back to the Beginning
and is not hard to trace.
 
It might seem inconceivable
that we are fated to grieve
all because of that fruit
that Adam got from Eve.
 
And then there was Helen,
she with the luscious lips,
whose face enchanted Paris
and launched a thousand ships.
 
But it was he who started it
by an act most injudicious
when he gave Aphrodite
a nice Golden Delicious.
 
On each of these occasions
the culprit was the same.
It was nobody’s fault:
the apple was to blame.
 
We must therefore assume,
by a simple deduction,
that Granny Smiths and Coxes
are weapons of destruction.
 
It is a thorny problem
with which we have to grapple.
Do we persevere with it
or ditch the rotten apple?
 
Eve would have been wiser
to pick a ripe banana.
Instead of hell on earth
we would have Nirvana.
 
 
© Luigi Pagano
Certificate U
Poem
Mutevoli pensieri
Historical Fiction

Comments

Submitted by Rhiannonw on

Who said Eve ate an apple? It was of the 'tree of the kowledge of good and evil' (and we don't know any more about it than that title) that they were told not to eat, and only that one. A test of obedience and acceptance of God's love for their good, but they listened to lies and liked the look of it and ignored the warning that it would bring them death (spiritual, and eventually physical), and they 'tasted' the sorrow from it! Rhiannon

 

Submitted by luigi_pagano on

If you want to be exact, Rhiannon, what I said in my poem was "that fruit that Adam got from Eve".
I didn't say she ate it.
Genesis 3.13, on the other hand states: The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.:"  
Genesis 2.16/17: And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it.
In Western Christian art, the fruit of the tree is commonly depicted as the apple This depiction may have originated as a Latin pun: by eating the mālum (apple), Eve contracted malum (evil).

Warm regards, Luigi x

 

Submitted by Penny4athought on

Apple or not - I loved your walk through hstory and Man's weakness to the fruit etc...

And I agree - It would have been nice to have stayed in Nirvanasmiley

Penny4athought

Submitted by luigi_pagano on

Nice hearing from you JoAnne. To quote an old joke, it wasn't the apple on the tree that caused the trouble in Eden, but the pair on the ground.
Anyway the forbidden fruit always seems more attractive.

Cheers. wink Luigi x

 

Submitted by David Kirtley on

Great poem! Very nicely put together from the legends. It is good when we can all blame the apples, even more than ourselves!

Submitted by luigi_pagano on

Apologies for my tardy reply. I have just come across this lovely comment of yours, David, for which many thanks.

Luigi