Greek Mythology

授課教師 : 王月秋澎湖科技大學副教授

中華民國 95 年 3 月 18 日

The Gods, the Creation, and the Earliest Heroes

1. The Greek did not believe that the gods created the universe. They believed that the universe created the gods.

The Titans and the twelve great Olympians

1. The Titans often called the Elder Gods, were for untold ages supreme in the universe. They were of enormous size and of incredible strength.

2. The twelve great Olympians were supreme among the gods who succeeded to the Titans. They were called the Olympians because Olympus was their home. Homer makes Poseidon say that he rules the sea, Hades the dead, Zeus the heavens, but Olympus is common to all three.

The twelve Olympians

(1) Zeus (Jupiter), (2)Poseidon, (3)Hades, (4) Hestia, their sister, (5) Hera, Zeus’s wife, (6) Ares, their son, (7) Athena, (8) Apollo, (9)Aphrodite (Venus), (10) Hermes,(11) Artemis, and (12) Hephaestus.

The Two Great Gods of Earth

There were two who were altogether different and who were indeed mankind’s best friends: Demeter, the Goddess of the Corn, a daughter of Cronus and Rhea and Dionysus, also called Bacchus, the God of Wine.

In the stories of both goddesses, Demeter and Persephone, the idea of sorrow was foremost. Demeter, goddess of the harvest wealth, was still more the divine sorrowing mother who saw her daughter die each year. Persephone was the radiant maiden of the spring and the summertime.

Dionysus or BacchusThebes was Dionysus’ own city, where he was born, the son of Zeus and the Theban princess Semele. He was the only god whose parents were not both divine.

The worship of Dionysus was centered in these two ideas of freedom and ecstatic joy and of savage brutality. The God of Wine could give either to his worshipers. Throughout the story of his life he is sometimes man’s blessing, sometimes his ruin.

Wine is bad as well as good. It cheers and warms men’s hearts and it also makes them drunk. The Greek were a people who saw facts very clearly.

Wine was “the merry-maker,’ lightening men’s hearts, bringing careless ease and fun and gaiety.

How the World and Mankind Were Created1. Long before the gods appeared, in the dim past, there was only the formless confusion of Chaos brooded over by unbroken darkness. Two children were born to this shapeless nothingness. Night was the child of Chaos.

2. The first creatures who had the appearance of life were the children of Mother Earth and Father Heaven (Gaea and Ouranos).They were monsters. The universe was once inhabited by strange gigantic creatures.

3. In addition to Cyclopes, last came the Titans. The Titans were conquered partly because Zeus released from their prison the hundred-handed monsters who fought for him with their irresistible weapons—thunder, lightning, and earthquakes.

4. Even after the Titans were conquered and crushed, Zeus was not completely victorious. Earth gave birth to her last and most frightful offspring, a creature more terrible than any that had gone before. His name was Typhon.

5. Prometheus, whose name means forethought, was very wise,wiser than the gods. Prometheus then took over the task of creation and thought out a way to make mankind superior.

6. For a long time, throughout the happy Golden Age,only men were upon the earth; there were no women. Zeus created later.

Prometheus had not only stolen fire for men;he had also arranged that they should get the best part of any animal sacrificed and the gods the worst. Because of Zeus’s anger, he swore to revenge Prometheus. Mankind was revenged first and then on mankind’s friend.

Zeus made a great evil for men, a sweet and lovely thing to look upon, in the likeness of a shy maiden, Padora, a symbol of “the gift of all.” From her, the first woman, comes the race of women, who are an evil to men, with a nature to do evil.

Another story about Pandora is that the source of all misfortune was not her wicked nature, but only her curiosity. Hope was the mankind’s sole comfort in misfortune.

The Earliest Heroes1. When Prometheus had just

given fire to mankind, he had a strange visitor, a beast from Io,one of Zeus’s lovers.

2. Io’s descent would be Hercules, the greatest of heroes.

3. Europa, the daughter of the King of Sidon, was exceedingly fortunate. Except for a few moments of terror when she found herself crossing the deep sea on the back of a bull she did not suffer at all.

The Cyclops Polyphemus All the monstrous forms of life which

were first created, the hundred-handed creatures, the Giants,and so on were banished from the earth when they had been conquered.

Flower-myths: Narcissus, Hyacinth, Adonis

Part Two: Stories of Love and Adventure

1. Cupid and Psyche 2. Pyramus and Thisbe: The deep red fruit o

f the mulberry is the everlasting memorial of the two lovers.

3.Orpheus and Eurydice: The world’s greatest musician tries to rescue the dead wife from the land of the dead. But one condition is that he would not look back at her as she followed him until they had reached the upper world.

4. Ceyx and Alcyone: Juno summoned her messenger Iris and ordered her to go to the house of Somnus, God of Sleep, and bid him send a dream to Alcyone to tell her the truth about Ceyx,who had been dead on the sea. At last,both lovers became birds flying together because their love was unchanged.

5. Baucis and Philemon: In the Phrygian hill-country,there were once two trees grew from a single trunk. The story of how this cam about is a proof of the immeasurable power of the gods, and also of the way they reward the humble and the pious.

6. Endymion: He was a youth of surpassing beauty and that this was his singular fate. In all stories about him he sleeps forever, immortal,but never conscious.

7. Daphne: She was another of those independent love-and-marriage-hating young huntresses who are met with so often in the mythological stories. She is said to have been Apollo’s first love. She fled from Apollo. At last she had been changed into a laurel by Apollo.

8. Alpheus and Arethusa: The story is about the god, changing back into a river, follower her through the tunnel and that now his water mingles with hers in the fountain.

9. Pygmalion and Galatea: A gifted young sculptor loved the status he made.

The Quest of Golden Fleece

1. Phrixus was taken to the altar a wondrous ram, with a fleece of pure gold, snatched him and his sister up and bore them away through the air. The boy came safely to the country of Colchis. He gave the precious Golden Fleece to King Aeetes.

Jason vs. Medea: Medea knew how to work very powerful magic to save Jason and the Argonauts and helped Jason conquer the bulls and the dragon-teech men.

When Jason came full of fury for what she had done to his bride and determined to kill her, the two boys were dead, and Medea was stepping into a chariot by dragons.

Four Great Adventures

1. Phaethon: In the car Phaethon, hardly keeping his place there, was wrapped in thick smoke and heat as if from a fiery furnace. Thunderbolt struck him dead, shattered the chariot and made the maddened horses rush down into the sea.

His sisters were turned into poplar trees ( 鵝掌楸木 ) on the bank of the Eridanus.

Pegasus and Bellerophone 1. It was rumored that Bellerophon had

a mightier father, Poseidon, himself, the Ruler of the Sea, and the youth’s surpassing gifts of spirits and body made this account of his birth seem likely.

It was only to be expected on all scores that Bellerophone should seem less mortal than divine.

More than anything on earth Bellerphone wanted Pegasus, a marvelous horse which had sprung from the Gorgon’s blood.

As matters turned out, Pegasus was not only a joy, but a help in time of need as well, for hard trials lay before Bellerophone.

His eager ambition along with his great success led him to think “thoughts too great for man,” the thing of all others the gods objected to.

Bellerophone, hated of the gods, wandered alone, devouring his own soul and avoiding the paths of men until he died.

Pegasus brought Zeus’s thunder and lightning to him.

Otus and Ephialtes

These twin brothers were Giants, but they did not look like the monsters of old.

Otus thought it would be an excellent adventure to carry Hera off, and Ephialtes was in love with Artemis.

The towering forms of the young hunters crashed to the ground, each pierced by the spear of the other, each slaying and being slain by the only creature he loved. Such was the vengeance of Artemis.

Daedalus and Icarus Daedalus was the architect who had c

ontrived the Labyrinth for the Minotaur in Crete, and who showed Ariadne how Thesus could escape from it. When King Minos learned that Athenians had found their way out, he was convinced that they could have done so only if Daedalus had helped them.

He told his son that escape might be checked by water and land, but the air and the sky were free. He warned Icarus to keep a middle course over the sea with two pairs of wings. If he flew too high the sun might melt the glue and the wings drop off.

He dropped into the sea and the waters closed over him. The afflicted father flew safely to Sicily, where he was received kindly by the King.

Minos was enraged at his escape and determined to find him. In the contest Minos was slain.

2. Pegasus (flying horse)and Bellerophon ( the son of Poseidon):

Anteia told Proetus that Bellerophon had wronged her and must die. He made a plan and asked the youth to take a letter to the King of Lucia in Asia and Bellerophon easily agreed.The king read that Proetus wanted the young man killed.

So, he asked him to go and slay the Chimaera, feeling assured that he would never come back. But for Bellerophone riding Pegasus there as no need to come anywhere near the flaming monster. Bellerophone had succeeded in conquering these, on another against the Amazons.

Finally, Proetus became friends with him and gave him his daughter to marry. He lived happy for a long time. Then, he made gods angry. Thereafter, Bellerophon, hated of gods, wandered alone, devouring his own soul and avoiding the paths of men until he died. Pegasus brought the thunder and lightning to Zeus.

3. Otus and Ephialtes(1)The twin brothers were Giants, but they did not look like the monsters of old.

(2) They were still very young when they set about proving that they were the gods’ superiors. They imprisoned Ares with chains of brass.

(3) Otus thought it would be an excellent adventure to carry Hera off, and Ephilates was in love with Artemis. Artemis wento Otus, and said if he would let out Ares, he could do with her what he would do. Otus was happy, but Ephilates wasn’t. The brothers began to quarrel, and when they were not looking Artemis turned into a deer.

When the fighting reached a peak, she sprang between them as a white doe. Both of them broke off and threw their spears at the lovely creature. At last,they killed each other.

4. Daedalus and IcarusDaedalus was a famous architect, inventor, and master craftman. He made two pairs of wings for them. He warned Icarus to keep a middle course over the sea. If he flew too high the sun might melt the glue and the wings drop off. At last, Icarus was dead.

King Minos went in pursuit of Daedalus, hoping to trick the great inventor into revealing himself. Eventurally, Minos came to Camicus in Sicily. The clever Daedalus tied the string to an ant, place the ant at one end of the shell, and allowed the ant to walk through the spiral chambers until it came out the other end.

When the puzzle was solved, Minos would like to seize Daedalus. But the King Cocalus refused to surrender him, and in the contest Minos was slain.