If Grice liked "playing God" -- what is to play semi-god? (On Davidson on G&S)

From:

http://lsv.uky.edu/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0902A&L=CLASSICS-L&P=R31&I=-3

I wrote:

"Thanks to M. Davidson for expanding on the Gilbert reference."

There's god.

And there's half-god.

The OED does recognise semigod in a few nice quotes:

1417
CAPGRAVE
They had doubt, when he was dead, whether they should number him among the high gods
or semigods.

Personally I don't think he cared. What's the good of being a demi-god if you are not going to reach immortal youth.

1596 C. FITZGEFFREY Sir F. Drake (1881) 16 Some semigod, more then a mortal creature.

If he is referring to Drake, I cannot disagree more. He was a pirate.

1615 B. JONSON Yonder souls in Elysian bowres..That for their living good, now semigods are made.

Semigods are made. I suppose the decision is up to Jove, but one never knows. If not, the Greeks were more monotheists than we allow them to be.

1618 CHAPMAN Hesiod I. 254 Divine heroes that the surnames bore of semigods.

I like the idea of a 'surname', so unAmerican. Last name they use in America. But it is amusing to think of Greeks as having cognomina like that!

1726 LEONI Alberti's Archit. II. 21/2 Semigods and heroes to be guardians over cities.

1831 KEIGHTLEY Mythol. II. i. 259 The divine race of heroes, in former times called semigods.

This is of course confused, and I'm glad I didn't have to learn mythology from Keightley. A 'hero' can be totally _human_. Indeed, masculinity studies today show, it _has_ to be totally human. We don't like deus other than ex machina, but no god can be allowed to sing an _aria_.

1860 EMERSON Can rules or tutors educate the semigod whom we await?

This I heard often. They say, educators, "Your brilliant student will be
brilliant _regardless_ of you". It pains me, although it may be true. It's
usually an administrator who says that. But we should distinguish between
'educate' and 'learn' proper. Although it may be true that the demi-god (call it Uebermensch) may _learn_ things, the tutor should focus on what He will learn _from us_. Rules are on the other hand totally silly ("Raise your hand if you need to use the bathroom".

On the other hand one learns that 'demi-god' is indeed wrong in that, although from the French, and eventually, Latin, the 'm' is totally accidental. It comes, the OED says, from L. dimidium half: see DIMIDIATE. One looks up 'demidire' where the etymology is expanded thus: demidire to halve, from, demidium, a half, from di-, dis- asunder + medius mid, medium middle.] So while not wrong, it's too jaded and French for my taste, cf. demi-monde. Also, I believe 'semi-' is cognate with Gk. 'hemi-', as in Hemisphere (I loved Colin Farrell, on being granted the Golden Globe, saying that an hemisphere of it goes for his supporting actor).