What are Greek Myths?

Revision as of 18:51, 13 February 2012

A Myth is a stroy never fixed in a definitive version and for many thousands of years orally told. The Greek Myths start to appear around 1200-1400BC and talk of past generation or civilization that was lost. Homer's Ilian and Homer's Odyssey should not be seen as the beginning of something but the culmination of great bardin traditions.

How the Greek Gods began

Hesiod in the 7th C BC wrote the Theogony of how the gods got to be where they were in the Greek times. The primordial pair are Gaia and Uranus. Each time Gaia gace birth Uranus replaced his children back inside Gaia becase he did not want to be replaced as a god. Gaia then conspired with her son Kronos to ambush is father and castrate thing with a spear through the sea and created Aphrodite. Kronos became king of the Gods but acted much like his father and swallowed all of his children. His wife Rheia tricks him in to swallowing a stone rather than Zeus to allow him to grow up in secret with the help of Gaia and Uranus. Later Zeus confronts his father and he is made to throw up the stone and then all his other children.

• Hestia
• Demeter
• Hera
• Hades

and Maybe

• Poseidon

After Zeus takes control his has to fight a ten year war against Kronos' sibllings called the Titans called the Titanomachy.Although the Titans were defeated they left considerable offspring personified as Chance, Persuasion, Cunning, Intelligence etc plus Nymphs, The Dawn, Sun, Wind and Stars etc. The Old Man of the Sea, Atlas and Promethesus as well as Harpies and Gorgons.

After winning Zeus was given the sky, Poseidon the sea and Hades the underworld. Zeus married Metis and had a daughter Athena. Metis tries to avoid Zeus and eventually it is prophesized thay yet again a son will supplant the father so he swallows Metis so she can counsel him.

Zeus and the Olympians

Zeus now needed to face Gaia's progeny the Giants. This fight is known as the Gigantomachy. Herakles, Apollo etc defeat the Giants Ephialtres, Eurytos etc.

Still vengeful Gaia sends down her son Typhoeus, born of Tartaros or Kronos. Half Man nd beast his hands could rouch tops of mountains. Zeus sends down thunderbolts but Typhoeus manages to lamost cut his hands and feet of but they are recovered by Hermes and Aigipan. Zeus then marries Hera and has more children such as Ares

The tales are beautiful Aetiologies or tales that explain the origins of the universe. The Comparatists make most of the similarity of these tales with Egyptian tales and many coincidences between Hesiod's Theogany and Hittite poems such as the Myth of the Kingdom of Heavan

The Twelve Olympians

After these battles we are left with 12 Gods

• Zeus or Jupiter. Father of the gods and the sky, weather and hospitality. His attributes include thunderbolts
• Hera or Juno. Wife and very angry about his affairs. Attributes: Peacock.
• Poseidon or Neptune. Sea, earthquakes, bulls. Attribute. Trident
• Athena or Minerva. Arts and Warware. Attribute Helmet, Spear and Shield, snake fringed aegis
• Apollo. Music, devination, prophesy. Bow and arrow, lyre, laurels
• Artemis or Diana. Hunting. Bow and arrows, hunting outfits
• Aphrodite or Venus. Sex and Love. Girdle, cloves, sparrows
• Demeter. Corn and the fertility of the lands. Torch and corn
• Ares or Mars. War. Helmet spear and shield
• Hephaistos or Vulvan. Fire and metalurgy. Axe, anvil
• Hermes or Mercury Messenger of the gods. Also guides souls to the underworld, thieves. Winged boots, Herald's staff
• Dionysos or Bacchus. Wine, ecstacy, drama. Ivy, wines and panthers

Hesiod also wrote about Pandora's Jar. Zeus wanted to counter-balance the power mankind had achieved when Promethesus gave mak the gift of fire. All the gods were asked to give something of themselves to create Pandora. Once created she was given a Jar and told not to open it. Eventually she is persuaded to open it and all the evils and travails of the world are released leaving Hope at the bottom of the jar.

In another story Hades God of Death kidnaps Persephone, daughter of Demeta and fertility is withdrawn from the world. Zeus demands Hades release her, which he does but not after ricking her to eat a pommegranite seed and henceforth she has to spent four months a year with Hades for ever more (non-growing Winter season)

What do these Myths Mean?

Myths are an economic form of thinking about the world. Think of it as a process than a thing. To myth rather than a myth. It explains why things in human life are as they are and why life to so hard and full of challenges but they are not a scapegoat for what goes on or to persuade us to look at our live's in a fatalist perspective but get her to think deeply about the reasons why things happen as they do. They are not prescritive in the way that 1 plus 1 equals 2 but instead it gives pointers, insights amd questions on the human condition.

Myths as a thought experiment

The Tragedians of the 5th C BC started to develp plays that interwove myths into their great tragic stage plays from writers such as Sophokles. The tragedies often explore the underside of heroism so for instance Orestes must decide to avenge his father's death or kill his mother who had Agamemenon slain. Stories like this test political and moral categories.

Greek Scholars and Myths

When the great Greek scholars were starting to write on philosophy and politics one would have thought they wouuld have little time for the myths. Like it or not they were so ingrained in society and still are in the 21st C. These scholars and poets actually co-opted them for their own ends. Take Ovid in his 15 volume Metaphorphoses. His narrator takes the position of beleiving the myths yet the characters questions their veracity, which seems to question the myth from within its self.