What is the food of the soul? Or what fruits are born in the garden of the imagination? An adventure through the geography of the psyche, following the red thread of the apple, from that of Adam to that of discord, from the mists of Avalon to the celestial realms where Venus traces her star. An excursion through the heights and winding paths of the world of archetypes.
di Bruno Corzino
Cover: Bertel Thorvaldsen, Venus with the Apple, 1813-'16 (3d reproduction)
Eating myths
How man changes, his way of living and perceiving the world, when he "eats" different mythical fruits? In other words, what difference is there between believing in the myth of Newton who invents gravity hit by the apple instead of that of Adam and Eve, who instead eat it, even if it was forbidden? In the first case we are talking about an exaltation, a heroic ascent. In the second of a fall.
In the constellation of myths there seem to be two fruits, one "Fruit of sin" and a twin of his "Fruit of immortality" o "of life". The Westerner eaten without batting an eyelid first Adam's apple and then Newton's. These two apples, although related, have undoubtedly given rise to perceptions and lifestyles as different as medieval Catholicism and Enlightenment scientism. Yet wanting to be picky Genesis does not speak of apples at all!
This is a misunderstanding whose responsible was St. Jerome, author of the translation of the Bible into Latin. The Bible simply speaks of a "fruit". The fact that in Latin "malumβMeans both apple and evil. Omen name. But not only: how can we not think of the bone of contention, for which Paris had to choose between Athena, Hera and Aphrodite? And like any self-respecting young male between knowledge, power and sex, he chose the latter, triggering the Trojan War and all his tragedies. Myths grow organically, they are drawn like constellations. The Semitic forbidden fruit passes to the Latin world through the prism of the bone of contention of Greek mythology.
However, things are even more complicated, given that Genesis names two trees, the tree of Life e the tree of the Knowledge of good and evil (although some have seen two aspects of the same tree there). What Adam and Eve would have eaten is the fruit of the second tree. Its effect: "eye opening", but in a negative sense. The descent into a state of consciousness lower than that of original innocence: βthey were aware of their nakedness and were ashamed of itβ. A split from being, from the flow of life.
But before the misunderstanding there were many different hypotheses as to what this "fruit" could be. Jewish and Islamic exegesis proposed several other hypotheses: the pomegranate (whose abundance of grains is a sign of fertility and for the Sufis of unity in the multiplicity), carob (in Hebrew also means "destruction"), the grapes and the ear of corn. In the end, the fig hypothesis is the most logical. In fact, both in the Bible and in the Koran, as soon as the fruit is consumed, Adam and Eve for the first time feel naked and ashamed: they hurry to cover themselves with fig leaves. But where did they get these fig leaves if not from the tree itself that was there in front of them? Not for nothing in the Sistine Chapel we find Adam and Eve at the foot of a fig tree. Which clearly shows how the fig tree was believed to be the fruit of original sin and not the apple.
But let's go back to the starting question: What difference does it make to eat the forbidden fruit in the form of a fig or an apple? And then which apple, Adam's or Newton's? In Greek mythology the apple is the prerogative of Gaea, the Mother Earth, offered to Hera, the queen of the gods as a nuptial gift of fecundity. However, Zeus also had his own personal tree that fruited golden apples in the center of an enchanted garden (very similar to Eden) located in the extreme west and guarded by the Hesperides. We find it, the apple, in many fairy tales, always with the meaning of apple of discord. In Snow White, for example, where the poisoned apple offered to her by the evil witch makes her prey to a kind of trance from which only the love of the prince can awaken.Β
We therefore have on the one hand an aspect of fertility, linked in particular to creative and sexual symbolism (a vertically split apple shows an effective stylization of the female sex). An aspect that is universally found, from China to Celtic culture (Avalon is literally "the land of apples" and under an apple tree it is said that Merlin loved to stay). On the other hand, however, it also clearly delineates a nefarious aspect, of discord and destruction, of the unstoppable passion that "burns and consumes".Β
In fact, both of these aspects are part of the symbolism of Venus (Aphrodite is the Greek name). Among the Sumerians, for example, the goddess Inanna, who represents Venus is as much a goddess of war as of love and fertility. From the divinity we can easily go back to the corresponding planet, which shows, even astronomically, a "double" nature. In fact, Venus appears both as an evening star (ie it rises at sunset) or as a morning star (ie dawn rises before the sun). Here are the two opposite "faces" of the planet, or rather of divinity. It is therefore quite natural that Venus is sometimes "split" into two different people to better express the two different aspects. And that this double nature passes to the apple.
But now let's see the symbolism of the fig tree. Like the apple, the fig is also strongly linked to a symbolism of fertility, both for its shape and for the fact that it contains many small seeds. However, unlike the apple, the fig has an aspect that binds it particularly to science and the "knowledge of hidden things": it is the fact that in reality the fig you eat is not the fruit, but the flower of the plant! The real fruits (which develop inside the inflorescence) are small achenes, the future seeds. To complete pollination, the insects must then enter the fig's βsecret chamberβ through the hole in the lower part. It is this "hidden cave" that the sacred marriage, the rite of life, takes place. It is therefore natural to connect it to a "deep" and "inner" knowledge. Β
In India the Ficus bengalensis and Religious ficus they are believed to be the sacred trees of Vishnu and Shiva respectively, and according to a tradition under a fig tree Buddha finally reached awakening. In many cultures, the serpent, representing the chthonic, underground power, curls up on its roots: a symbol that expresses the fecundating force par excellence (and the same energy-consciousness of the human being - kundalini - is it not perhaps represented as a snake coiling around the spinal column / cosmic tree like a caduceus?).Β
In Egyptian mythology it is said that the rebirth of Osiris occurs when the clods at the base of the Sycamore sacred (sycamore figs) begin to become covered with sprouts of wheat and barley. From the fermentation of the sap of the sycamore, a wine was also produced that was believed to give hidden powers. With its wood, on the other hand, sarcophagi were made: burying a dead person in a sycamore chest meant reintroducing the person into the womb of the mother goddess, thus facilitating the journey to the afterlife.Β
In Greece, the fig tree was sacred to Dionysus, god of drunkenness and awakening, and to Priapus, the ithyphallic god of fertility, protector of gardens. He is also particularly attached to knowledge and to philosophers: it was believed that he stimulated knowledge and eloquence and was considered particularly suitable for the treatment of stuttering. A frugal food, the fig, eaten dry or fresh, capable of stimulating knowledge. Even today the Italian retains the word "sycophant" which means "informer, from the Greek"SikoΕ"Or" cool ".Β Isn't the informer one who knows "secret things"? And what makes the deductions of him?
In the Islamic world the fig is considered to have a certain baraka (literally "blessing", understood in the sense of "spiritual power"). In fact, it keeps very well dry without the need for any addition of salt or spices. The fig is never lacking in Berber and country wedding rituals and its sexual meaning is made evident by the fact that its name also means "testicles", which is why the word "autumn" is usually used to indicate the fig. season of their harvest. We therefore have, as for the apple, the whole vein of abundance and fertility, however, combined with a more marked value of the aspect of knowledge and specifically secret knowledge. But there is also a "dark" aspect of the fig. In fact, among the Greeks the term also indicated a tumor, a fleshy growth. In Hippocrates "SikoΕβMeans sty.Β
There is therefore also a negative value of knowledge, understood as useless knowledge, "too much". Isn't it perhaps the growth, the tumor, a "surplus" of flesh, a disproportionate growth, too abundant? There is one parable, in the Gospel of Matthew in which Jesus approaches a fig tree to collect fruit and does not find any. It was in March, so well out of season. Surprisingly, Jesus cursed the tree, which was found dry the next day. At first it seems a completely irrational, senseless action: drying a tree because it does not bear fruit out of season? Yet the apostles evidently understood, as did those who listened to this parable and found meaning in it. So it must be assumed that contemporaries had a tacit notion, in their cultural substratum, which made this at first absurd action understandable.
We can find this notion if we recognize a fig tree in the tree of knowledge of good and evil and we connect to the negative values ββlinked to this knowledge to which the term itself in Greek brought us back: tumor, disproportionate, too abundant, excessive growth. It is worth connecting to a popular proverb: "Looking for fig flowers", as if to say a useless thing, the search for an impossible and necessarily fruitless knowledge, just like the fig tree that Jesus curses. The representation that Aristophanes makes of the Sophists, the intellectuals and scientists of the time of him in his play comes to mind Clouds: people all devoted to minute curiosities and without rhyme or reason, like counting the steps of a fly or looking at the stars from flying baskets while they venerate these "vague" divinities, the Clouds.Β
Here, then, is that the parable shows its meaning and at the same time clarifies the precise symbolism of the tree of the Knowledge of good and evil. In fact, the drying of the fig is followed by a discourse of Christ entirely centered on the abandonment of futile knowledge and curiosities, and on entrusting oneself rather to destiny and the meanings that he reveals to us individually from time to time.Β Knowledge of good and evil would therefore be this: science as something hypertrophic, which wants to know too much (even what you can't know, like the full value of Pi or wanting to find figs in March). It is this kind of dual knowledge (and all neuroses and psychoses and wars arise from the dual conflict between conscious and unconscious, me and world, heaven and earth) that Christ shows as knowledge of good and evil. And to warn against it he uses the fig symbol.
Eating astersΒ
We have already seen the link between the double symbolism of the two fruits (apple, fig) and the double symbolism of the divinity representing the planet to which they refer, that is Venus. By cutting one apple horizontally, the shape of a is obtained five-pointed star, emblem of the Pythagorean school and its knowledge, as well as of the golden section, secret of beauty. The same five-pointed star drawn by Venus in the sky over an 8-year period. But also the fico it can be linked to this symbolism: the five-pointed star alludes to one "Secret knowledge", which contains the power of beauty and therefore of desire that can instigate the most exaggerated actions.
To better understand this splitting of the archetype it is necessary to pause for a moment to observe how symbolic logic works, a structure as precise as that of mathematical principles. We can formulate the "algebraic" rule of duality as follows: all aspects of life are dual, a principle that can be expressed 1) by two aspects of the same archetype 2) by a doubling of the archetype that splits into two parts 3) from the opposition with another contrary archetype. As you can see, this is a completely analogous rule to principle of equivalence of mathematical equationse.
Thus it is better understood how Venus can 1) contain within itself the principles of love and discord 2) split into a bellicose morning star and a harmonious evening star 3) represent pure beauty and passion when considered as the opposite of Mars. But let's take a closer look at the application of these principles.
For the Sumerians, Venus was Inanna (Ishtar among the Babylonians), goddess of love and war. To save her kidnapped husband, she must descend into hell through seven doors and at each door take off a dress, until she is naked. It is the astronomical phenomenon of the descent of Venus into the horizon, during which she appears less and less shiny, until she is naked, without her shining clothes and jewels. She goddess of the evening, she favored love and voluptuousness; she goddess of the morning, she presided over war operations and massacres.
In Central America and especially among the Maya and the Aztecs, Venus was important for the organization of calendar (connecting solar, lunar and Venusian cycles through the equivalence 5 Venusian phases β 8 solar years β 99 lunations). Among the Maya QuichΓ© Venus represented Quetzalcoatl, a god-hero with five faces or aspects (like the 5 different phases of the planet) also called the Feathered Serpent. He is a twin of the Sun and he too goes to the underworld with him to defeat the lords of the disease. He kills his brother, opens his chest and extracts his heart. Then he puts everything back in place and resurrects him. In addition to eradicating diseases, it is always he who gives fire to men (in exchange for which he requires blood sacrifices and bloody extraction of the heart).Β
In China, on the other hand, we find that Venus remains divided into a female morning star and a male evening star. Although in the Chinese tradition, which pays particular attention to the bureaucratic predictions of the empire, the meaning of war is preponderant, rather than that of fertility: Venus is in fact defined "The great white" and in its whiteness you can see the glint of metal, like a shiny sword. The examples could actually multiply enormously, without changing the essence: Venus naturally splits into two main aspects: Morning Star rising in the east at dawn and evening star rising to the west at sunset. These aspects can be summarized by a single figure (Venus-passion which can be both prolific and destructive) or split into two divinities (Venus-war, Venus-love), possibly one male and one female, to underline the opposition.Β
Obviously we also find this among the Greeks where Venus is the goddess of love and fecundity. However, there are also two distinct aspects: how the morning star is Phosphoros, Aphrodite rising from the sea foam. Instead, as an evening star he is I hope, male divinity and brother of Atlas, who becomes in Latin Vespers as it prolongs daylight. From the first deity derive some terms such as phosphorescent and phosphoric, which connote a sudden flare and give the name to the element Phosphorus, holder of this property. In Latin, however, the same name ("bearer of light") becomes Lucifer.
Thus, starting from late antiquity and the Middle Ages, the morning star aspect of Venus was confused with the lord of evil, the "prince of darkness". The relationship ended in fact by highlighting the opposition between the morning Venus and the sun, therefore between the Light and the Darkness. Doesn't the morning Venus sin in fact of pride wanting to bring light before the Sun (image of the light of God)? He therefore identifies very well with Lucifer, shining among the angels, who out of pride wanted to shine more than God, to rebel against him. A re-emergence of the Promethean principle connected to Venus (QuetzalcΓ³atl who gives fire to men and kills his brother Sun).
It therefore appears that Phosphorus o Lucifer (woman in classical religion) became evil, the pride of "shining alone" against the true luminary, the sun. While Vespers (man) ended up forgotten as an aspect of fecundity and sensuality, not very dear to the new religion. Here is therefore outlined the change that took place in the image of Venus and consequently of the fruits symbolically connected to it. The aspect of "morning star" in contact with the new religion. Especially since the sexual aspect has now become a sin. What better symbol then of the apple to embody all this symbolism relating to Luciferian pride?
A litmus test can be done by observing how the fig has maintained its symbolism of fertility and beneficial vitality. The aspect of "unlimited desire for futile knowledge and power" ends aside or is overcome (Buddha gaining enlightenment under a fig tree). The fig therefore retains its double nature and indeed moves towards the symbolism of the evening star: positive sensuality and transformative knowledge. The apple, on the other hand, ends up fully covering the symbolism of the star of the morning: sin in its aspect of Luciferian pride, knowledge as the will to power and condemned sexuality.
To eat or not to eat?
To understand the consequences of defining the forbidden fruit as an apple rather than a fig, it is necessary that we now pause for a moment to better define what the guilt, the "sin" committed in illo tempore from the ancestors of humanity. First of all, for there to be a fruit, there must be a tree. And in all traditions the tree is a symbol ofaxis beat, Or the "Central pillar" that connects Heaven and Earth. It is that axis that from the physical point of view passes through the terrestrial poles and from the symbolic point of view it crosses the entire center of the universe. The middle path, the immobile axis around which galaxies and time rotate.
According to a Chinese tradition the tree Chien-mu ("Straight wood", identified with the gnomon, the sundial) is at the center of the world and along it the sovereigns ascend to tune Heaven and Earth between them. In ancient Egypt the sacred tree par excellence is the sycamore, also symbolized by Grandpa, the sacred column equipped with four capitals, considered in turn a symbol of the vertebral column, in particular that of Osiris, the "reborn". The Sioux, like the nomadic peoples of Asia, see in the central pole of the huts, as well as the one planted in the center of a ritual space, the Tree around which the wheel of the universe turns. The symbol of the Cosmic Tree resurfaces in theAsvattha, the "upturned tree" of the ancient Indians, with its roots in the sky and its branches on the earth, like our reality that is born from the unmanifest. For the Germans a huge ash tree named yggdrasill it stands at the center of the universe and unites the different planes of reality, the celestial and the underworld, like an immobile pillar at the center of the teeming becoming of the cosmos.
The examples could be multiplied indefinitely. Suffice it to stare at the archetypal math rule: the variable cosmic tree represents the central axis of the universe, the immobile place around which the vortex of space and time develops. However, in Genesis there seem to be two trees, endowed with respective fruits: the tree of Life and the tree of the Knowledge of good and evil. Here we have what we said about Venus: in other words it is the "splitting" of the two aspects of the same central axis or Universal shaft. A duplicity that we find in an image of the Upanishad in which we speak of a single tree on which there are two birds: the first eats a fruit, the second, detached, observes. The meaning is clear: the first represents action, being "inside the world" (therefore "eating"), the other represents contemplation, detachment from the world. Here the sinful apple, Lucifer morning star that rises before the sun and wants to contrast its brightness, is represented by the bird that eats the fruit. What he does not eat, but observes detachedly, represents the positive aspect, the fruit of Life or awareness. Corresponding to the other aspect of Venus, Hesperus, as an evening star, which makes the solar flare last longer in the darkness of the night.
We find a symbolism in the oldest poem of humanity: the story of the Sumerian hero Gilgamesh. He is a king, Gilgamesh, who wants to accomplish great deeds. However, the death of his best friend Enkidu leaves him distressed at the thought of having to die too. The only undertaking that is really worthwhile, he concludes, is to conquer immortality. After various ups and downs she manages to find the "fruit" (actually in this version it is an aquatic plant) able to guarantee him eternal life. But just when he is about to emerge victorious from the waters with the plant in his hand, distracted by the triumph, a snake steals it from him. This ending, which may seem tragic to us, in reality is not: right now that Gilgamesh returns home resigned, reconciled with his limits, he can achieve true happiness. He finds her where he had always been, in his own city of Uruk. Where he could not see her precisely because he was blinded by his chasing an "ever more", ever larger enterprises, Promethean effort to dominate reality. If our society seems to exalt and normalize the spirit of domination over destiny and the moral of "more and more", the ancient tales are very clear in stigmatizing it as harmful. Acceptance, on the other hand, is exalted as the key to peace and harmony with the cosmos, as is well seen in Gilgamesh's poem.Β
Another equally ancient Mesopotamian myth tells us about a man named Etana, who could not have children. However, she discovers that there is a βfertilityβ herb of which only an eagle knows the location. This eagle lives on top of a cosmic tree, at the base of which lives a serpente. A reference to the sentence of Gospel of Matthew: "Be white as doves but astute as serpents", whose "restored" version (with the eagle again instead of the dove) we find in the Thus spoke Zarathustra. Curious underground threads and resurfaces follow the myths. In any case, the eagle helps Etana to go to the sky where this plant is found, the seventh, that of Venus. The sky of the Mesopotamian tradition is in fact made of crystal and precious stones and is rich in these fruit-gems that shine with bright and pulsating light. Etana straddles the eagle and hers begins to fly, but she can't reach the fruit and after a while she falls to the ground. The thing that appears curious from our point of view is that even here the gods, instead of getting angry with Etana for her attempt "beyond the limits" and therefore sacrilegious, reward the fact that he has resigned himself, that he has finally accepted his destiny. At least so it seems from the rest of the tablets: it seems in fact that Etana then had the offspring of her that she so craved. Just when you are resigned to the fate of not having any!
It is curious that the same story has been preserved and remained famous until the modern era with the protagonist Alessandro Magno in place of Etana. In this version, however, the fruit is that of immortality and the bird a griffin that Alexander convinces by holding two spears on which steaks are skewered. Also in this case the enterprise fails and both the gods and the Christian God reward the acceptance of their destiny following the failure. Once again we find the germ of myths blossoming in places so distant in time and space: the figure of Alexander riding the griffin with lures in hand can be admired on the medieval pediment of the Cremona cathedral.
It is not difficult to see the Greek concept of in these examples hybris, that is, an action that goes beyond human limits and is therefore punished by the gods. And its opposite, the acceptance of what is as a positive and creative aspect. Eating the fruit is therefore a symbol of this hybris, of this wanting to break the limits of one's being, wanting to be able, enjoy, know more of what is suitable for what one Γ¨.Β
Returning to our tree, it is therefore clear that Genesis expresses this symbolism by splitting the trees and the fruits: on the one hand we have the fruit of Life which represents being, acceptance and unity; on the other hand we have the fruit of the Knowledge of good and evil, which represents the will to power which tends to unlimited domination, but which always remains frustrated because the split is upstream. The term "Knowledge of good and evil" in fact it refers precisely to this (in German, judgment of dice Verdict, βOriginal cutβ). It's about a split between me and the world, between conscious and unconscious, between me and the Other which is completely unbridgeable. We try to fill this gap, this existential void, trying to possess the Other, then we try to know more and more, to become more and more powerful, stronger, richer, better morally, etc. All useless because the real abyss is behind us, at the origin.Β
Genesis sets a clear separation: on the one hand we find intellectual and sterile knowledge. It is the knowledge that classifies, that is, divides (the core of all oppositions is that of good and evil), but also that which, through this classification, wants to act on the world with technology. In fact, to create a faster vehicle, for example, it is necessary to classify the vehicles, engines etc., but above all to assume that it is good to have a vehicle that goes faster! Here, then, is the original split between good and evil: it is therefore clear that technical knowledge is also nothing more than a branch of morality. Consequently, knowledge that classifies, that is, splits, divides (in Greek devil, hence the term "Devil", literally "He who divides").Β
There is, however, a kind of knowledge that transcends all of this and that is what Genesis indicates how "life". If evil knowledge, what led to the "fall", is knowledge that divides, it is clear that the knowledge of Life will be what unites. That we can no longer even say that it is knowledge, since knowing implies the separation of subject and object, while here the two things merge, they become a single experience, a single being. Symbols can help to understand: an internalized symbol, teaches psychology, can change a person, dissolve complexes. Vice versa it can be used for the domain, as in the case of "logo"Advertising and the infinite plots of manipulation and power.Β
The difficulty lies in the fact that we all know very well the technique and the knowledge that catalogs and separates, but the wisdom that the Bible calls Life is largely unknown.. It requires a whole other type of training and modification of oneself, first of all the acceptance and awareness of what is there, instead of the will to dominate.
Overturning!
But with the end of the Middle Ages and the rise of the modern era, the situation is reversed! The apple from an instrument of sin and damnation becomes a symbol of a tension to infinity, this time, however, judged positive. The apple that falls on Newton's head (we remember it: it is a modern myth, a legend invented by Voltaire) indicates a new era in which the escape from oneself, the perennial and painful tension towards infinity become positive and non-positive values. more negative. Knowledge is always praised in fieri, that is, who never really knows, which always refers to a better future, like the tickets with which the revolutionaries pay for confiscated goods: promissory notes that promptly turn out to be waste paper.Β
The tension of the nerves, the endless effort, the struggle against something that cannot be overcome are praised and become the new virtues. After centuries of repression, this apple finally becomes good. Man now feels so far away from his roots, that is, from that fulfillment and awareness that finally led him to accept the "here and now", that he does not even understand the reasons why the escape from oneself, the tension towards infinity cannot give satisfaction. This eternally frustrated rush towards pleasure is now inveterate and pathological. Man is therefore convinced that it is natural, indeed, let's face it all, it is good! Isn't this the engine of the much vaunted progress, of the unstoppable march towards more knowledge, more wealth, more technological power on the world, etc.?
Then he becomes convinced that all the evil lay in repressing this admirable thrust; it was the repression of this tendency to true evil, indeed the evil of evils. Now the man, finally freed, eats the apple without hesitation. Indeed, it is the apple itself that strikes him, so passive is he in the face of this impulse. But he will no doubt be convinced that the credit for it really goes to him: it is not Newton to have had before the culture, the studies etc. that they allowed, once hit by chance from the apple to formulate the law of gravity? Pride and hypertrophy of the ego are undoubtedly part of this same tendency that can be traced back to the apple: they are in fact the opposite of accepting the action of a force extraneous to the ego in shaping the world (call it Destiny, God, fate, it doesn't matter). The hopes of such acceptance, and therefore of rediscovering the fulfillment, the happiness due to the awareness of one's condition and therefore of theacceptance of fate (as the Buddha under the fig tree) have therefore completely disappeared for those who live under the myth of the good apple, of the βliberatedβ apple, which is right to eat.
Right: Alan Turing
Finally, we come to logo of Apple Lossless Audio CODEC (ALAC),. A bitten apple containing the colors of the rainbow, however not arranged in the normal order, according to the laws of nature, but in an inverted way, with the warmer colors in the center, to emphasize the bite. Evidently we see something positive in the apple bite, indeed this act that led to science is exalted; the bond with sex and the βtemptationβ (which obviously we let ourselves go as the bite suggests) triggers the mechanisms of attraction. The inverted rainbow then it is the most immediate exemplification of the will of break the laws of nature, the order of colors being one of the manifestations of the natural order that most strongly manifests a harmony of which the cosmos is woven.Β
And it is interesting to see how myths, being living and acting entities, "avenge" themselves for their improper use. You must know that Alan Turing, father of modern computing, was obsessed with cartoon snow-white and in particular from the scene in which the evil witch dips the apple in poison. Turing is the first to theorize artificial intelligence and the reduction of all mental activity to pure mechanical calculation. He is a war hero, having contributed in an important way to decrypt the secret code system used by the Nazis. However, he is also a well-known homosexual at a time when, in England, being gay was not only immoral, but also a criminal offense. Sentenced to a hormone treatment that made his breasts grow and to public shame, Turing finally takes his own life by biting into a poisoned apple.
