Love is the name for our pursuit

of wholeness, for our desire to be complete.

—Plato’s Symposium

In the beginning was Unus, born from Zeus the supreme and a mortal woman. Statuesque in body, adorned with majestic, mutating paintings, he stood in the sunshine of each day. His soul was music, his words verses; he glided amongst men, if not danced. A demigod! His spirit was like milk: absolute happiness. Without looking for carnal deeds, by himself he was fulfilled. But—as always throughout eternity—the joys of one are thorns for another. Although wonderful to see, he was soon detested by his halfbrothers clad in immortal armour, who were ready for revenge for the suffering of Era, their mother, who yielded to the sinister betrayals of the royal libertine with his subtle devices. Thus, incited by her, they chose to dismember—into slices the number of which can be counted on the fingers of one hand—the unwary righteous Unus. Violently torn apart in a vineyard, his remains were thrown into the noble waters of the Alento river, in whose waters each fibre decomposed into an essence of Dance, Poetry, Music, Sculpture, and Painting, ready to be reincarnated and divided in selected creatures of the world. The Almighty, touched by his pierced beloved, once more ordered the androgynous figure of Eros to bring about “Peace and love in each reunification of the Arts” by holding high those who have art inside themselves and recreate the misplaced unity of the first Total Artist who, in the darkest of days, was wickedly pulled apart by the envious gods. Through a dream as clear as a mirror, Father Zeus to the modern poet shows the light of Unus without shade, revealing his horror and, being there, disavowing the Son of Abraham who had banished him from mankind. Thus far, the Arts look to each other, like pulsating and betrayed blood.