Octopus on Dolphin -- A Sign of Delphic Struggle?

A few days ago, a strange sight appeared of the coast of Greece, a light moment in the midst of dark times. A dolphin breached off the coast of Kalamos in the Ionian Sea. On the underparts of this dolphin, a precarious octopus was clinging for dear life.

Dolphins have a unique history for the Hellenes.

The god Dionysius frightened a barge of uncouth sailors who disparaged the God of Wine, women, and song. When they leaped for safety in the expansive presence of the Dionysius, he transformed the disrespectful seamen into dolphins, thus sparing them a death by submersion in the wine-dark Aegean.

Yet the odd photograph of the unexpected eight-legged traveler on the dolphin exposed nothing less than the mammal attempting to wrest away this octopus, which had attached itself intimately along the underbelly of the lithe creature.

Could this dolphin be nothing less than a symbol for the struggling nation of Greece, a land once sleek in its exotic origins, adept at sea, though not so much with finances, a place of great frolic and feasting, now forced into austerity measures which witness and increasing number of Greeks jumping the ship of state and swimming for safety.

And what of this octopus? What is holding back the Greeks? The multibillion dollar debt which threatens with long-term insolvency? The culture of spending and tax-dodging which the Greeks have swum away from, only to find that creditors, international as well as nation, will hold on for dear life until they get their pay?

Whatever one makes of a the dolphin with a “naughty octopus”, the Greek people are learning that austerity as necessity can be as easy to remove as an eight-tentacle cephalopod with a penchant for hanging on, and nothing else.