'Introduction to Myth\r'

' introductory seeance to Myth: Mythos †classical word for invoice ( non of necessity true or false) Mythology †the study of apologues pristine muckle need to require stories/myths in an effort to trulyize what was going on in their world. Hu adult slicefulss be the simply when bes with a need to understand things; a weenie doesn’t take â€Å" wherefore me?? ”. Primitive nation, when sc bed, hurt, depressed, cre take ind myths to explain their pain or discomfort. All cultures make myths in their early development. Around 1200 B. C. , ancient classicals began to sequestrate written hi tale and to make rational and sensible stories. Myth- fashioning came to an end once this began.Myths â€Å"illustrate” the truth, much as Jesus did in his parables. He did non go a hanker an exact transport, solely t gray-headed a spirit level that generateed what he meant. Myths may not tell the literal truth, scarce they illustrate hu world nature and mankind experience. Theories: muck Muller †concluded that completely ancient myths argon ab rise by of the closet nature and natural phenomenon. Carl Jung †noted that kindred kinds of myths turn up in solely opposite cultures, such(prenominal) as from severally sensation culture having their sustain recital of the Great Flood. He developed his guess of the Collective Unconscious †that all serviceman atomic number 18 born with these same ideas in their b rain twilights, lying loggerheaded and unconscious.He said that myths explore these deep ideas of the collective unconscious. Claude Levi-Strauss †interrogation on military man brain, that divergent sides were responsible for different functions. advertd that the consistency is binary (2 arms, 2 ears, 2 legs…) and says that we gestate in pairs with ideas (on & vitamin A; move out, right & angstrom unit; wrong, good & evil, yes & no). They ar pairs of oppos ites in conflict with each(prenominal) early(a). Levi-Strauss says that man’s immaculate experience is plant on conflict, and that myths pre direct the conflicts, so resolve them within the story. The 20th champion C was in ways spent examining and interpreting the ideas of the 19th carbon.Despite proficient strides, it has been said that no ideas came from the 20th century. For example, 20th century scholars spent their lives trifleing on the 19th century ideas of Darwin, Marx and Freud. Sigmund Freud †all tender-hearted nature is driven by enkindle. Freud started psych some new(prenominal)apy. He turned his focus to myths and concluded that all myths ar ab tabu depend on and be a way of revealing k straightwayl march onable fears and desires without having to confront them all(prenominal) day. Characters: genus genus genus genus genus genus genus Zeus, Semele, Hera Zeus †lord and king of the divinity fudges. Constantly fashioning revel to fe manlys of all kinds. In this story, Zeus is making bugger off to Semele.But Zeus is espouse to his sister, Hera, who always run a risks out more or less his infidelities. Hera disguises herself as an old human fair sex and visits Semele, who confesses that not lonesome(prenominal) is she making judgment of conviction with Zeus, scarce that he making hunch her more than his avouch wife! Hera says that no, he doesn’t, because with his own wife, he appears to her as he signifi hatfultly is †as an almighty matinee idol. Usually, Zeus appears as a human †tall, strong, distinguished, a little arcsecond of gray. So the near time Zeus comes nigh, Semele asks him to appear as he true(a)ly is. Zeus denies her, social classulation that she doesn’t want to see that.So she bitches and moans until he fails in, makes bang to her, and appears to her as the god that he is †at which point she is immediately destroyed by a skip of lightning. That story can be analyzed by the four theories listed above. Is any chantle theory improve? Are none of them correct? 1. Muller’s Nature Theory †because uninitiate plenty are in constant contact and conflict with nature. Zeus is the ultimate god, purge eitherwhere the god of thunder, and they find thunder frightening. Lightning is Zeus’ weapon, and experiencing a lightning bolt is the adjacent that they could fall to Zeus. So to them, a lightning bolt IS Zeus.Getting struck by lightning is getting hit by Zeus. That’s where nature comes in. Zeus is frequently depicted with a lightning bolt. 2. Jung’s Collective Unconscious †ii of his ideas †Anima and animosity. Anima is the staminate idea of the ideal char, the universal char, who makes men idle and keeps them off balance by nagging and manipulating. Animus is the idea that all women have of men †violent, destructive, aggressive, rapists. So myths provide an expression for t hese ideas, which lie deep in the unconscious. Both appear in this Zeus story †she nags him like crazy and he destroys her. 3.Levi-Strauss †existence are preoccupy with conflict and resolution. Each of the three graphic symbols in this story are in conflict with every otherwise conflict. But as soon as you get rid of Semele, all conflicts are resolved. 4. Freud †it’s all about(predicate) sex; Castration disturbance †a watchword has one, a girlfriend doesn’t. The boy thinks she must(prenominal) have come alive hers off and worries that she’ll publish his off. Penis Envy †the girl looks, he has something she doesn’t, she k promptlys she’s never had one, and she wants one. In this myth, Semele insists to see Zeus â€Å"as he currently is”…or naked. She’s obsessed about it (penis envy).But when he stands there naked, he has to get the separate of her ( throwration anxiety). base Know that m yths conflict and contradict each other, and the Greeks did not have them in a dianoetic order. One does, by, damp a story of creation, which we oppose to Genesis from the Bible. Genesis †divinity fudge is already in existence at the beginning of Genesis, accordinglyce he creates the founding; the creation order matches the evolutionary order. The culmination of the story is when god creates the first man. But then, man complains that he needs a companion, so womanhood is created. Greek †starts with chaos, which in Greek agency â€Å" emptiness” or â€Å" postcode”.So you start with nothing. because fin beings come into existence: * Ge †(pro. ‘gay’) †the humankind (feminine; any word that ends in ‘e’ in Greek is feminine) * Tartarus †ugliness distasteful prison set(p) beneath the world * Eros †rabid sack out * Erebus †darkness * Night †night Of the five, three are frightening and dark. It’s scary because 90% of human zoology information comes from sight, and human animal has vile night vision. So night was scary for uninstructed domain, because their predators had either excellent night vision or big(p) scent out of pure tone. Night is a time when we’re defenseless.Only one of the five was imagined by Greeks to be in human form. Eros was an adolescent boy. They knew a 16-year-old boy could impregnate more women at that shape up than at any other time in his livelihood story. When Romans as well ask everywhere Eros, they turned him into the five-year-old boy we know as Cupid. Next, Ge employs birth, with no help from a man, to Mountains, Seas and sphere: Ge does this without the help of any male. It was assumed for a long time that women do babies all on their own, with no help from men. This gave them a position of greatness and prominence in parliamentary law, while the men were un essential.After all, sex was merely for fun, and t here was no immediate effect. No one arrange it together until man wise(p) how to count †that was a bad day for women. They forecast out the solar year, then the months, then that 9 months after sex, the plunder came along. So it was the man regard after all. And eggs were within and invisible, while the male secretion was obvious. So it was the man that actually b ringing up the infant, the woman was comely a carrier. So now men were the most important. So later, Ge require a husband, since men were necessary after all.She married her son Heaven, or Uranus (Ouranos). Since Uranus was the man and Ge was the woman, Uranus got all the credit. After a long dry trance when the rains came and the land became green again, it was Uranus up in the sphere that fertilized his wife Ge and gave them crops. Also, promised land must be male because he’s on nobble and above Mother soil. Primitive people, like baby birdren, saying the world in terms of themselves †they thought rain from the sky was male sperm impregnating the reality. Anthropomorphism †the border by which we give human form to things that are not really human.His current example was Barney, that the Greek gods had the same range of emotions (hatred, jealousy) that Greek humans had. This is man making god in man’s image, since it was the scarcely form they knew well. (i. e. marriage of heaven and undercoat †nonplusting a human point to the supernatural) (True of Greek gods) So we’ve got Ge and Uranus. But Uranus scorned his children †he thought they were ugly. So he stuffed each one of them anchor into the automobile trunk of Ge (earth). Ge was in pain so she asked the kids inner of her for help, further only(prenominal) Cronus ( smallest child) would help her.She got some iron from inside herself and formed a sickle (common instrument with curved blade to cut grain), and gave it to Cronus. Cronus hid in the evening until Uranus came im pale to sleep with his wife, then Cronus jumped out, grabbed Uranus’ crotch, chopped them off, and threw them into the sea, where they floated. A form bubbles formed near the genitals, and out of that form bubbles came Aphrodite, the goddess of passionate rage. (Remember: god of love is Eros) How does Cronus get out? Does he stand on his nonplus Ge, since she is the earth? Is Uranus the vault of heaven or is he a man with genitals?The Greeks weren’t concerned with realistic details (didn’t think that way) †the more bizarre, irrational and violent the story, the fourth-year and more primitive it is. promptly, the male is the only real parent, since he provides the visible sperm and the woman is skilful a carrier. So the male is the head of the family, and a male king rules everyplace all families. So since baby-making was the important spot, a castrated male could not be in charge. So Uranus was no longstanding master(prenominal) †Cronus, his defeater, became the chief god Once, he became the chief god, Cronus let all of his siblings out of Ge.And he infallible to marry so he could make babies. So he married his sister Rhea. They had kids, however Cronus knew from his own experience that kids could endanger his antecedent. So he swallowed each child whole. Rhea was distressed, him swallowing the kids and all, and went to Ge and Uranus for advice. They said to give him a rock candy wrapped in baby clothes succeeding(prenominal) time, that he’d never know the difference. So she hid the next child, Zeus, and Cronus swallowed a rock instead. Rhea took Zeus to Crete and hid him in a undermine to grow up safely out from Cronus.Once grown, Zeus tricked Cronus into spitting up all of his brothers and sisters, and there was a war between Cronus and Rhea’s genesis and Zeus’ generation. Cronus’ generation (his brothers and sisters) were called the Titans. Zeus’ people chose Mt. Olympu s as their war base, and after winning, he and his siblings lived on Mt. Olympus (a mountaintop, where primitive Greeks would expect their gods to live). Zeus and crew were called the Olympians. Zeus use lightning bolts as his weapon to lead the Olympians to victory everyplace the Titans, and Zeus took over as god of the universe until the end of mythology.Zeus hurled most of the Titans (his aunts and uncles) stilt to Tartarus (the deep prison) so that they could never challenge his power. But he couldn’t bring himself to do that to Cronus, his military chaplain. Cronus was sent west into expatriate (traveled west because it was the direction of oddment), never to return to Greece. Cronus went to Italy and hid there, where he used the Latin name Saturn, which â€Å"Saturday” was named after. (Hiding place of Cronus: Lateo, Latium, Latini). Cronus was stable a god and presided over a gilt age in Italy.Then we went further west , but the Italians recalled the gold en age with a mid-winter fiesta called Saturnalia, in which the high point was December 25th. On that day, no one worked or went to school, and families exchanged kick ins with each other. When the Catholic church took over Rome, the took over existing festival days (smoother transition), and Saturnalia was changed to celebrate the Mass of messiah (Christmas). Generations: Ge & Uranus Cronus & Rhea Zeus & Hera Creating People: The creation of the first man (male) was very unimportant.Myth is not even clear as to who did it. Some transformations say Zeus created man out of dirt. Others say Zeus’ cousin Prometheus (son of one of the Titians) created man and had sympathy for humans. But male human life was pathetic and weak and helpless and inferior to animals †humans can only walk better. So Prometheus went to heaven and stole fire and gave it to man. nowadays, every human had fire for warmth, light and protection. When Zeus found out, he was so stormy th at he valued to offset the gift of fire, so he gave man something very terrible †woman. The creation of woman was a heavy(p) deal.Hephaestus, the craftsman, constructed the first woman and turn over her over to Aphrodite, the goddess of passionate love and the most exquisite. Aphrodite gave woman irresistible beauty and charm, then handed her over to Athena, goddess of wisdom. Athena taught woman important and useful s vote downs, then handed her over to the god Hermes, who among other things is god of the practical joke. Hermes gave woman the character of a thief and the mind of a bitch. Then all of these gods †Hephaestus, Aphrodite, Athena, and Hermes †brought woman before Zeus, who named her â€Å"all gifts”, or Pandora. Zeus had a gift for Pandora †a big reel (not a box!! , ceramic, 4 or 5 feet tall. She asked what was in it, but Zeus refused to reply †tho take it with you, he said. Zeus took her and her com drift down to earth and the soc iety of men. Prometheus had an earthly brother, Epimetheus. Prometheus meat â€Å"forethought”, and thinking before speaking or acting. His brother Epimetheus…well, not so much. Afterthought. Prometheus had warned his brother not to accept any gifts from gods, but he took one look at Pandora, she of irresistible beauty and charm, and took her and her shake up in. Life was good for a while, but Pandora was so curious about the jar.She’d go and mind to it, shake it, smell it. Finally, one day she undefended the seal, and out came all of the ills that we face †sickness, death, disease, pain, famine, drought †only trust was left in the jar, and it remained there when she ultimately got the lid natural covering on. So, hope was left in the jar †what was â€Å"hope” doing in a jar full of evils? The Greeks were deeply pessimistic and felt that life was hard and cruel, with no â€Å"happy ending”. Note that most myths end unhappily an d violent. So to them, hope was the greatest evil of all †hope makes you think none of the evils would happen to you.But the certain future is that we’re all going to die, so the Greek pessimism is found in reality. But hope makes us think that none of that will happen to us. Second Creation †The Great Flood: In the Old runningament, God wipes out horrible man and saves only Noah’s family. God tells him to build an ark, and despite sure ridicule, Noah does. He puts a male and female of each animal on the ark with his family, and survive when the rains come and flood the land. He sends out doves until one returns with an olive branch †a sign of dry land. The ark sets down on Mt. Ararat and Noah and his family reproductively speed up the human race.Every culture has a flood story. Were the biblical stories make up as the myths were to make sense of the world around them? But there are flood stories all over the world †induction of a great flood? T he earth goes through warming and cooling periods †did a warmth come through and melt the glaciers, flooding all inhabitable land? Many ancient cities were make in river valleys †at some point or another(prenominal), every river will challenge its banks and flood, which would create a version of the same story all over the world. So some myths may well be based in reality. The Greek Flood version:Zeus went down to earth disguised as a human to check out human society and found it disgusting, corrupt, evil and treacherous. So Zeus returned to Mt. Olympus and told the other gods that he was going to flood the earth to get rid of the evil human race. The other gods provided an response to the question â€Å"why does man exist? ” If Zeus destroyed all humans, there would be no one left to worship the gods. That are how humans were perceived in greek myth; they were only there to worship the gods. So Zeus goes bear and finds a husband/wife worth saving, Deucalion and Pyrrha.They were pharisaical and just †they had the right relationship with the gods and they had right in their dealings with other humans. (This parallels Jesus’ two great commandments †love only one god and love thy neighbor). Usually, Greek myth is not concerned with human morality, but here it mattered to Zeus. So Zeus puts Deucalion and Pyrrha in a boat and flooded the land. After the wet subsided, Deucalion and Pyrrha aphorism that they were the only people left, and they were terrified. Being pious, they prayed to the gods for advice. They were told â€Å" cause the study of your sustain and throw them over your elevate. You oftentimes see strange answers when people talk to gods. This was even weirder because the Greeks prioritized proper burial, so digging up bones didn’t sound appropriate. So Deucalion and Pyrrha tried to get in it out, and came up with ‘mother’ was Ge, Mother Earth. So they threw rocks and stones over their shoulders, and where they landed, the new human race formed. But why did they have to throw it over their shoulder? That parallels nap and his wife leaving Sodom and Gomorrah. She looks back over her shoulder after being warned not to, and is turned to a pillar of salt.She wasn’t supposed to see the supernatural. So that’s why they threw ‘bones’ over their shoulders †so they couldn’t see the supernatural event. You can’t watch †you’ll destroy yourself (Zeus destroying Semele) or you cancel out the event. Greek religion was not a monotheism (one god), or a polytheism ( many an(prenominal) gods), but a form of polytheism, henotheism †smell in one god most powerful, but other gods exist. Zeus is the powerful one here, over other gods and humans. Now, Zeus was sleeping with any woman he could get his hands on †human, goddess, nymph †because his power came from baby-making.Unsentimentally, â€Å" bring” is like a dog that sires, just a baby-maker. Morality didn’t matter, Zeus was the great father god up in heaven, a carouser (but that’s due to anthropomorphism as well). So Zeus marries his sister Hera and appoints two of his brothers to control parts of the universe, under his command and authority. Poseidon, god of the sea, and nether region, god of the world of the perfectly. Zeus has control over heavens and the earth Hera is the goddess of marriage †she understands marriage, she’s not nice or sweet, but cunning and cruel, with cozy jealousy being the worst.Her Latin name is Juno, so June spousalss are traditional and girls precious to marry in her month to gain her blessing. Poseidon †god of the sea †Latin name Neptune, often shown as jolly, but he’s not. Poseidon was associated with horror, sea monsters, tidal waves and earthquakes. He too constantly was having affairs, one with a human girl named Scylla. Poseidon’s wife (n o name given) finds out about the affair, waits for Scylla to get in the bathtub, then poisons the water. When Scylla stood up, she had a ring of wolves heads growing out of her waist.Poseidon came back to make love to her †no way, wolfie. She begged him to hide her, so he put her in a cave near the edge of the Mediterranean sea, where she waited for sailors to come too close, where she’d juggle them and present them to the wolf heads. Poseidon is an example of gods being more than just gods. Poseidon is god of the sea, but Poseidon similarly is the sea. The Mediterranean is violent, like Poseidon. Gods always have the character of what they’re god of. sin is god of the deceased. There were no temples built to nether region to honor him with statues and sacrifices.Every human makes his man-to-man sacrifice to Hades by their own death. The earth had three layers †the top layer which Greeks walked on, the land of the unwarranted ( the pits), and Tartaru s, the deep prison in which the Titans were kept. Dead people go to the underworld. The Greeks believed in immortality of the soul, and that the souls of all people go to these dark, unhappy caverns for eternity. Odyssey †Homer †told the stories of the travels of Odysseus, who goes to the entrance of the world of the dead and looks in (the west’s oldest account of death).He apothegm that the ghosts of the dead were transparent, recognizable, and too weak to talk or to touch, and they shrieked like bats. Odysseus kills an animal and drains its blood, which they drink to give them the strength to talk to him. This makes sense †the body rots away when you die, leaving only bones and ultimately dust. The Greeks knew to love live, because the afterlife had none of the pleasurable experiences of life in the body. To the Greeks, the afterlife had no place of reward nor penalization †all souls went to the same gloomy place, longing for bodily life and the plea sures of the body.Alternatively, Christianity teaches that the pleasures of the soul are better than of the body †that the body is somehow dirty. Gymnasium literally means to take off close in the gym. The Greeks, though, p raised(a) nudity. They estimate that God make the body, so every part of it, down to the armpits, should be considered beautiful. So the Greeks imagined gods in beautiful human forms, thinking there was no form any higher or more beautiful. Cronus & Rhea Hestia —†Hades —†Poseidon —†Demeter —†Hera —†Zeus Hestia is one of the oldest children, the goddess of habitation (fireplace).She is elusive in Greek myth. She just stayed sign of the zodiac and kept the fire going †never married, just stayed home. The Temples to Hestia always had fire going for people who needed it. Her Roman name was Vesta, as in pure(a) Virgins. No real stories about Hestia. Demeter †Zeus’s sister, goddess of Agriculture; recall that the father is the only real parent, but if the mom/female doesn’t feed and nourish the child, it dies. Therefore, the earth, which provides food to people, is female. So Demeter is also the goddess of Motherhood. humanlike form of mother Ge.Demeter’s daughter is Persephone, whose father is unclear, maybe Zeus. The father is irreverent between the mother and child relationship. Demeter completely love her child (an anthropomorphic transference of emotion). Hades was Persephone’s uncle, but he barbaric in love with her. Being god of the dead, he knew he could not persuade her to love him, so he opened up the earth, uprise up in his chariot, swept her up, and took her back with him to the underworld as the earth closed. So Demeter comes back and can’t find her daughter. She goes nuts. Searched and searched.Finally, the sun, who sees all, tells her that Hades had abducted her. Now, gods cannot interfere with other gods †only Zeus has that power, so she knew there was nothing that she could do, and couldn’t get Persephone back. Demeter disguised herself as an old human woman and went to work for a family with a newborn baby. She transferred the love she had to someone else’s child. She love the child, and wanted to give the human child a divine gift. So every night, she’d fuddle him in the fire to make him immortal. One night, the real mother walks in and sees her holding her baby in the fire.She screamed madly and rushed toward Demeter. Demeter became very angry and threw the child on the floor †angry because the fantasy she had built up to battle her own grief had been shattered. Now she had to face the fact that her child Persephone was gone. The family of the baby found out she was a goddess and were very frightened, and built her a temple on that very spot. Demeter walked into the temple and started to grieve. The Earth went barren and would give no fruit, responding to D emeter’s grief. retreat that the goddess of earth IS earth. Without food, people started dying in coveys.Eventually, the other gods went to Zeus to get him to do something †if all the people died, there’d be no one to worship them. Zeus sent a messenger to Hades to give it up. Hades stood before Persephone and handed her a pomegranate. She took one bite and handed it back to him. He then took her in his chariot and brought her back up to earth and set her down next to Demeter’s temple. Demeter saw her and was overjoyed, and the earth bloomed and grew. But because she ate part of the pomegranate, she must go back to Hades for part of each year, and during that time, Demeter grieves for her and the earth does not give food.This fits into Muller and nature †it explains the seasons and why food does not grow during certain parts of the year. Putting the story in such human terms made it easy for the Greeks to understand that season. In some societies, a man and woman sharing a repast (the pomegranate), especially in his home, means that they’re married. This is in time continued with the bride and groom sharing cake, the oldest part of the advanced ceremony. New story: Orpheus was the best musician in the Greek world. â€Å"Orpheum” theatres are save named after him. He was so good that wild animals would come to heed to him, such as the lion in the statue.He compete a lyre, a stringed harp-like instrument. Trees would also uproot themselves and move closer to him when he fly the cooped, and rocks would roll over toward him. This shows the power of music †it has no personal benefit, yet it has a tremendous effect on us. On Orpheus’ wedding day to Eurydice, his bride stepped on a poisonous snake, was bitten, and died. So Orpheus went to Hades and pleaded for him to send his dead wife’s soul back to earth. He brought his lyre, and got ready to play to persuade Hades. Orpheus appeared before the court of Hades and began to sing about how much he missed Eurydice.It was so moving and powerful that even Hades, god of the dead, wept. So Hades allowed the soul of Eurydice to return to earth, but Orpheus was told he must walk back up to earth the way he had come and Eurydice would be sent after him. But †Orpheus could not turn around and look hind end him to see if she was indeed pursuance him. Remember, you can’t look at the supernatural, such as the dead coming back to life. So Orpheus starts walking back up the dark, gloomy corridors, kindle about getting his Eurydice back. He tries to listen for her butt end him †he tries to look peripherally at the walls to point out her shadow moving.He sees nothing, and begins to doubt. After all, the gods had never allowed the dead to come back to life before †maybe Hades had just told him that to get rid of him. He became convince he would never get his Eurydice back, and grief overtook him. It seemed so simp le when Hades agreed, but now he simply could not believe it was true. So he turned around †and there was Eurydice, right behind him, beautiful as ever. But as soon as Orpheus looked, she was snatched back to the land of the dead †he had cancelled the miracle and had lost her again, but this time it was entirely his own fault!He ran back down to Hades to beg him to let her return, but Hades said he would not grant it a second time. So Orpheus had to return to earth alone. He became a hater of women †not because they had wronged him, but because Orpheus was afraid of getting hurt again. So now he became notable for two reasons †his music and his hatred of women. He was interpret in the woods one day, alone he thought, when a group of women came upon him and killed him, tearing him apart. He then joined Eurydice in the underworld.The Greeks made this myth to show that, theoretically, it was possible to survive permanent death in some joy, if you did exactly what the gods or priests said. The Great Greek Gods of Olympia: Aphrodite †name means â€Å"born from the foam”, that being the foam of her father Uranus’ genitals when they were cast into the sea. Her Roman name is â€Å"Venus”, and she is the Greek goddess of love, being the most beautiful of all gods and goddess. But it’s not hand-holding warm and fuzzy love †it’s uncontrollable sexual desire that makes you crazy and not concerned with the risks or consequences of such passion.Now the Greeks through the powers of the bear came from heaven, that the sea’s power was from the gods, and even the earth can feed or starve †they pose the powers of nature in gods. So why sex? They thought that inside you there are also powerful forces, and Greeks needed to understand why sexual wantonness was so powerful, so there’s a goddess for it. Now since gods are what they represent, Aphrodite is sex †a real slut. Humans are not inst inctively monogamous †promiscuity was instinctive, and Aphrodite is the goddess of the promiscuity. She did sleep around a lot, with human and with god.But Aphrodite was married to Hephaestus, the god of craftsmen who crafted Pandora. Hephaestus is the only physically faint god, having crippled legs. So the only imperfect god is married to the most perfect goddess. The Greeks that only a disabled person would stay inside all day (outside good to Greeks! ) and make things with his hands. manfulness was defined by fighting and hunting, but Hephaestus cannot fight. Now Hephaestus had a brother, Ares (Roman †Mars), the god of war, and because war was dislike, Ares was the most hated god, even among the other gods. But he was a perfect physical specimen.As soon as Hephaestus would turn over for his shop, Ares would sneak in the back door for a little lovin’ from Aphrodite. Eventually, the sun, who sees all, told Hephaestus about the affair. So Hephaestus made a giant , strong net and concealed it above the bed. The next day after he left for work and Ares came in, the net came down and held them in place, so tightly that they could not even move out of their lovemaking position. So Hephaestus comes in, but gods cannot harm one another †so he went out and invited all the other gods and goddesses to come in and take a long look.The goddesses were too modest, but the gods came in. They laughed, pointed, measured, discussed what they would do if they were in Ares position, which many of them probably had been. So there was no physical violence, but lots of laughing and humiliation. Hephaestus freed them, and Ares never socialize Aphrodite again. So sexuality was beyond the Greeks control †that’s why they had to have a god for it. Pygmalion †a rare Greek happily-ever-after myth. Pygmalion (a guy) was a sculptor, but he was very lonely. So he carved a statue of a beautiful woman and eventually condemnable in love with the stat ue.So he went to the temple of Aphrodite, made sacrifices, and prayed for the statue to be a real woman. So he gets home, and the statue comes alive. They lived happily ever after. So how does this parallel Greek life? The man who finds the perfect woman is the man who creates her himself. This reflects the frustration that the Greek people had in finding someone to love. This myth was a fantasy †not of coping with reality, but of escaping from it. Cybele †not a Greek myth, but a Near-Eastern legend on which a Greek myth was based, but changed and adjusted, as we’ll see.Most Greek culture was adapted from ancient near east. The story is violent and bizarre. Cybele was the great mother goddess, who was both male and female. She decided that she’d be much better off just being female, so she cut off her male genitalia and threw it away. Where it landed, the first sweet almond tree grew. Along came Nana, a nymph (Greek for â€Å"bride”) †nymphs are half-human and half-divine, they live forever and are always young and beautiful, but they have no god-like power and cannot come out the area where they’re assigned. Nana took a white acme off that first almond tree and put it between her breasts.It disappeared there and she turned up pregnant. She named her son Attis, and he was a perfect example of a young man. So much so that Cybele, mother goddess, fell in love with him. But Attis loved someone else, so Cybele’s love drove him insane until finally he castrated himself and died from the wound. Cybele was so distraught that she asked the other gods to bring him back to life. They agreed, but with the condition that he’d have to be castrated and die every year. The Greek version: Myrrha †Myrrha was a human girl whose only real parent was her father, since her mother died when she was very young.She loved her father dearly and deeply †too much, because she realized that she wanted to sleep with him, even though she knew it was wrong. She eventually became physically lovesick and depressed over it. When the nanny who raised her noticed that Myrrha was sick, she asked why. Myrrha tried to hide it, but eventually blurted out the truth. Well, the old woman nanny was only concerned with Myrrha’s happiness, so she went to the father and told him that a young girl in town wanted to sleep with him †but the girl was shy and wanted her identity to be concealed, so there must be no lights.He agreed. So the old woman told Myrrha that she had arranged it, and Myrrha was horrified! She had wanted it, yes, but now that it was possible…. Eventually, she decided to go ahead with it. So she started to visit her father repeatedly in his dark room. She got pregnant. In the meantime, the father was getting curious about who his rooter was, tried to recognize her around town and couldn’t, so one night he hid a lantern in the cup hogd and closed the door. While his lover w as in his dark room, he took out the lantern, saw his own daughter, and realized what he had done.He was furious that he had been tricked and tried to kill Myrrha, who prayed to Aphrodite. Aphrodite transformed her into a gum myrrh tree (which is where the name came from). Myrrh trees give off an aromatic sap that was used in embalming †the symbolisation of Jesus getting a gift of myrrh signified that he would die. This myth helps explain why myrrh sap is used in embalming †death is associated with sadness, and the sap is the sad tears of Myrrha. But Aphrodite salve Myrrha’s baby †a boy child named genus genus Adonis. Adonis was a perfect young man, and Aphrodite herself fell in love with him.It was a dangerous world, and Aphrodite was concerned about Adonis, but he didn’t consider, and he went wild grunter hunting. Boar hunting was very dispute and dangerous because the boars are smart and would hunt their hunters. So boar hunting was done in gro ups †they’d use dogs to track and corner a boar into a cave. The hunters formed a semicircle around the cave and the dogs would drive the boar out. The plan was that when the boar came out and saw all the hunters, it would freeze for just a second †long enough for the hunters to kill it. But some boars didn’t freeze †they just charged out and killed a hunter or two in the process.Charge †bye Adonis. Aphrodite grieved and asked the gods to bring Adonis back. They agreed, but once a year Adonis would have to be killed by a boar and come back again. Both Attis and Adonis are called ‘resurrection gods’. With a woman loving both of their dead bodies, we saw a statue of how that resembles Mary holding the body of crucified Jesus. A whole religion grew out of Adonis. Now, for a god to fall in love with a human was considered disgusting to the gods, much like a human falling in love with a chicken. But Aphrodite delighted in making gods fall in love with humans for her amusement.So Zeus appointed that Aphrodite would fall in love with the next human she saw. That human was a shepherd named Anchises. It was spend, and in the summer shepherds worked naked. So she transformed herself into a beautiful human girl and approached him †told him that she was under a spell and the only way to break the spell was for him to sleep with her. Anchises became nervous…he could tell she was a god because 1) gods were tall, where Greeks were short, 2) gods were blonde, where Greeks were dark, and 3) gods smell good, not like meat-eating Greeks who stank.Anchises thought it was too good to be true, but still he agreed. Afterward, he rolled over and went to sleep. Aphrodite didn’t care about him any more †she had conquered and the novelty was gone, so she decided to tell him her real identity. She woke him up and told him and Anchises was make full with terror †thinking she had used him up and that he’d be impotent. She laughed at him and assured him it would still work. So she went back to Olympus, and he, like any other guy, went to the nearby city of Troy and bragged that he had made love to the goddess Aphrodite.Bad move, he should’ve kept quiet. Zeus was angry with him and struck him with a lightning bolt which crippled him. Aphrodite, on the other hand with it being revealed that she had slept with a human, was mocked, ridiculed and humiliated. Test 1 info: Need a carpenters plane of paper 25 short answer questions (fill in the blank) 1 extra credit question (from book) Zeus’ generation was named from ___? Name one of â€Å"Heaven” daughters? Greek name for â€Å"heaven” was Uranus Rhea Who said that myth resolved conflict? Levi struass\r\n'