He was trying to fit this Herakles onto the one he knew.

Words bounce. Words, if you let them, will do what they want to do and what they have to do.

Could you visit me in dreams? That would cheer me. Sweet to see friends in the night, however short the time.

You doubt God? Well more to the point I credit God with the good sense to doubt me. What is mortality after all but divine doubt flashing over us? For an instant God suspends assent and poof! we disappear.

All myth is an enriched pattern, a two-faced proposition, allowing its operator to say one thing and mean another, to lead a double life. Hence the notion found early in ancient thought that all poets are liars. And from the true lies of poetry trickled out a question. What really connects words and things?

Philosophers say man forms himself in dialogue.

Philosophy - hopeless. Yet it gives me hope.