In Christianity,
prayer is somewhere between meditation and begging. It is supposed to be a
force for good, and to have an effect in the real world. For the pagans, prayer
was sacrifice and supplication, but the personifications (like allegorical
figures) of prayers in the Iliad are pitiful, as Agamemnon describes them:
"The Litae (Spirits of
Prayer) are lame of their feet, and wrinkled, and cast their eyes sidelong, who
toil on their way left far behind by the spirit of Ruin (Ate): but she, Ate
(Ruin), is strong and sound on her feet, and therefore far outruns all Litai
(Prayers), and wins into every country to force men astray; and the Litai
(Prayers) follow as healers after her.”
Homer,
Iliad 9. 498 ff
So Ruin is the inevitable
power and Prayer the lame consolation. Those Greeks thought about tragic
circumstances almost as much as the Egyptians thought about death.
