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Greek Mythology
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Change is how people come into being, the overarching frame of the
poem is the cosmic principle of change
All of the stories of transformation make up the world, metamorphosis
Ovid begins with the equivalent of the “Big Bang”, one becomes multiple
Metamorphosis is the process which unity explores its own richness, its
own potential for variability
• Duality ultimately presupposes unity
Man alone is interested to understand the world
Prometheus is a Titan
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Associated with the reign
of Saturn (Cronos) No women at this time, no need to cultivate from land
Silver Age follows the Golden Age
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Creates autumn, spring, winter,
and summer
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Civilization- Man builds walls and
houses against the sun and wind
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gives rise to all forms of evil
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It’s landlocked no seas
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• Pelasgos (his father) was the first king of Arcadia
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Lived in the Old
Stone Age (no agriculture)
• improves living conditions by only eating the acorn, lived under the
stars-> taught how to build huts, taught them to wear animal skin
Lykaon institutes the rudiments of civilization
• Founds the first city- Lycosoura (wolf mountain)
• Institutes athletic games- Lycaia (wolf games)
• Institutes cult to Zeus Lycaios

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Zeus is negatively impressed with Arcadia where he says “every bush and
cave was hideously alive with boars, bears, and foxes
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Very pious
• Deucalion is Prometheus’ son
• Pyrrha is daughter of Epimetheus (who’s brothers with Prometheus)
and Pandora is her mother
• Pray to Themis- natural law, titan goddess

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Themis wants them to scatter rocks to create human life
of the new creatures of the Brave New World- Python
Female serpent
The male god Apollo shoots the python
o The python was guarding a site-Delphi where Apollo would
build his most important sanctuary
o Pursues Daphne, his first love, he’s unsuccessful
o Apollo wears a laurel crown after she turns into laurel
o Although he’s the god of oracles, he is yet marked by the
inability to express himself adequately to the object of his
desire
2 brothers whose characters help define the human condition
• Prometheus is forethought always loses to zeus,
o Champion of the mortals- wants to improve human life
o Stole fire from zeus to give to humans
• Epimetheus is afterthought
In return for theft of fire- Zeus makes countergift for PrometheusPandora the first woman- gift from all gods
• Pandora opens box that releases evils into the world- from
Hermes/Mercury who’s god of theft she receives deceit
• Beautiful evil, marries Epimethus against Prometheus’ warnings
Hephestus/Vulcan creates Pandora out of clay
Athena/Minerva- goddess of arts and crafts has a lot of metis
Eros/Cupid- erotic love- small and slight, yet all powerful, easily defeats
Apollo
Pythian games- laurel awarded to victor
Apollo: archetype of unemotional perfection and reason, overly
aggressive male
Daphne: defenseless female pursued by male lust, turns into laurel
Carl Jung 1875-1961 Father of Analytical Psychology
• The soul’s shadow is it undeveloped side
• The shadow remains in the dark until it can be brought to the light
of its consciousness
Python is anima/shadow of Apollo, defeated python but can never get
Daphne
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One
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In the male unconscious, the anima is the balancing feminine componentpatience, receptiveness, closeness to nature
Connection between python and daphne is the laurel
Zeus is Cupid’s most frequent victim
• Zeus seduces hapless Io in the shape of a thundercloud
• Zeus’ wife is Hera/Juno/Saturnia, goddess of marriage
• Io gets turned into a white cow by Hera
Argos Panoptes (all seeing) is the ever watchful guardian-nothing escapes
his vision
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Watches Io
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Argos turns into peacock
Pan- half goat half human, close to nature and animality, from Arcadia
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Io goes back to normal, finds peace and a
blessed future in Egypt- the story of her cow transformation even
connects her to the worship of horn-bearing Isis
Son of Io and Zeus- Epaphos becomes ancestor to greeks- Zeus becomes
father of most of the Greeks
Phaethon- son of the sun god Helios/Sol- drives his chariot-brings light to
the world
Phaethon wanted to do as his dad but Helios warns his son
Artemis/Diana twin of Apollo, associated with the moon
Phoebus is Apollo
Gaia (earth) married Ouranos (sky)--à Tethys-rivers & Oceanus
• Give birth to 12 titans, 3 hundred handers and 3 cyclopes
Magnetar- a supernova resulting from collapse of star, has such a
powerful magnetic pull it rotates upon itself once every 1-10 sec- are in
Helios’ horses
Helios’ father is Hyperion
The unexpected Great Thaw- consequence of Phaethon driving his
father’s chariot
Atlas and Prometheus- 2 brothers whom Zeus have condemned to a fixed
task
Zeus uses thunderbolt to strike Phaethon out of his father’s chariot and
back to Earth
Naiads/Nymphs take the body and make a nice tomb and epitaph

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Sisters of Phaethon- Heliades (daughters of Helios) mourned of the death
of Phaethon, turned into trees that can’t move
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Olympus, ejaculates on
Athena’s dress
Erichthonios: Athena and Hephaistos’ unlikely offspring, comes from the
earth, Gaia delivers baby to Athena, half snake
Athena leaves baby in basket and gives him to the 3 daughters of the
first King of Athens- Cecrops- he is half serpent bc he sprung from the
earth/soil of Attica
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Coronis has an unborn
child but Apollo saves the baby named Asclepius/Aesculapius
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Son of Cronus (as horse) and Philyra
Ocyroe- Chiron’s daughter- human shaped, has prophetic powers but
cannot control them
Ocyroe sees future that Asclepius will become a master healer and be
able to bring dead back to life, Zeus will kill him then be brought back as
a god
Chiron will be killed by the Hydra

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Chiron is immortal centaur, only good centaur
Son of Cronus (as a horse) and immortal woman
Chiron’s fate is reverse of Asclepius
Asclepius is killed by thunderbolt then brought back as immortal
Hydra’s venom will kill Chiron
Centaurs do not share the same family as Chiron and are not immortal,
can’t control themselves around women and wine
Pirithoos- human being related to centaurs,
Haracles/Hercules- agent of order and the nemesis of Centaurs
Hercules dinner at his friend Pholus’ (a good centaur) house ends on a
sour note, all centaurs live in caves
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He dies like all other Centaurs at the hand of
Hercules
Sick people turned to Asclepius who wields a staff wrapped with a snakegift of life-life rising out of ground
Ocyrhoe daughter of Chiron is born a human and when she reveals to her
father she is turned into a mare/horse
Hermes/Mercury- son of Maia and of Zeus- god of passage and
messenger and thieves- can travel through the underworld
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Staff with 2 snakes around the staff with
wings
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Pyschopompos
Hermes steals the cattle of his brother Apollo, cattle can be substitute as
money,
Maia is a very obscure nymph who lives in a cave, Hermes was born in a
cave, Hermes needs to earn his Olympus status
Apollo finds out about the cattle from old man Battus- is turned into a
touchstone and becomes an informant for Apollo, Hermes makes a lyre
out of tortoise shell and gives it to Apollo- mutual understanding
Hermes falls in love with Herse- daughter of Cecrops king of Athens
Hermes asks Aglauros for her blessing to marry her sister- baby snakesexual desire- envy is deep inside of Aglauros
Aglauros lies across her sister’s chamber as immovable as the stone she
will become

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Europa- the story begins in Phoenicia
Zeus turns into a bull to seduce Europa
Carries Europa to Crete
Cadmus- her brother- is sent to find Europa by his father Agenor, if he
doesn’t find her exile would be his doom
Cadmus goes to Apollo for help- told to follow a cow then to build a city
called Boeotia
Ares/Mars is the only male offspring from Zeus and Hera- god of war,
slaughter, messy and chaotic aspect
Cadmus goes to cave and finds a serpent with complete carnage- killed
some of Cadmus’ son, the serpent is the offspring of Ares
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Semele had an unborn child and Zeus saves him, but the baby is not
ready to be born- the baby is put in Zeus thigh in order to nourish it
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The only
god with a mortal mother
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Olympus
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Narcissus is diminished by his inability
to love someone who is not himself
Narcissus is a victim of Nemesis (retribution)
Echo becomes a voice, Narcissus’ body vanishes and leaves behind a
flower- beautiful yet short lived
Pentheus- son of Agave and Echion(one of the sown men), cousin of
Dionysus
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Dionysus is depicted with a crown made of ivy leaves, carries a staff
made of fennel stock (Thyrsos), on his shoulders panther skin, carries a
wine cup
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Confuse devotion to Athena with a
rejection of Dionysus
• Stay home and weave while telling stories- Muthoi- about
transformations of people into fish
Hermes is psychopomp- guide to dead souls, is the only Olympian able to
go into the Underworld
The Olympian gods are called athanatoi- the deathless ones
Juno/Hera goes to underworld to ask the furie- Tisiphone-voice of
revenge- for help
Tisiphone plants her poison of madness into Ino and Athamas
Afflicted with the madness- Athamas smashes the head of his son
Learchus into a stone, Ino takes the other son Melicertes and fatally
jumps off a cliff into the ocean
Athamas’ first wife is Nephele (cloud) had two children with AthamasPhrixus and Helle- flee on the golden ram
Ino plots the demise of Phrixus so her children can take the throne, wants
to sacrifice him by roasting the seeds so the crops cannot be grown- Ino
asks Apollo- Athamas is required to sacrifice his first male born if he
wants the next seeds to sprout- Nephele gives her children the golden
ram to save them
On the flight on the ram, Helle falls off the ram into the strait separating
the Aegean sea from the sea of Marmara- Hellespont
This is why Athamas takes his anger out on Learchus
After Ino and Melicertes drown, Ino is reborn as a goddess Leucotheathe white goddess- whose specialty is to save those lost at sea- Odysseus
Pentheus was torn apart by his aunts and mother
Cadmus is put into exile from Thebes- reflects on his life and realizes he
killed a magic holy snake and asks to be a snake- he with his wife
Harmonia, turns into the snake he once killed
The peaceful ending that comes with recognizing and accepting that your
enemy and yourself share more than you thought
Perseus and Medusa: the enemy as complete other

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Danae (daughter of Acrisius- heard from an oracle that the son would be
stronger than the father- locks his daughter up) the mother of Perseus
was impregnated by a shower of gold-Zeus
Acrisius puts mother and Danae and baby into a wooden chest to be cast
into the ocean
Danae and baby awsh up on the island of Seriphos and are rescued by
the good fisherman named Dictys whose brother Polydectes is the evil
king of the island
Polydectes sends Perseus on an impossible mission to bring back
Medusa’s head
Athena gives Perseus advice- needs 3 things-Hades’ cap on invisibility,
Hermes’ winged sandals, and a special bag called a kibisis
Hesperides are born from night, siblings are all of life’s invetiablesHersperides live beyond Oceanus- the great unknown

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Hespiredes beyond Oceanus daughter of Nux- night
The gray ones are the sisters of the 3 Gorgons
3 gorgons Medusa, Sthenno, and Euryale
The Graiae both beautiful and repulsive, fair cheeked- share an eyeball
and tooth between the 3 of them
Gaia-Pontos(sea)-à Phorcys(seal)- Ceto(whale)-à Graiae (gray haired)
and gorgons
The sea is the origin of Aphrodite/Venus and the cauldron of producing
monsters
The monstrous lurks in all female creatures born of the sea
Medusa is the most potent precisely where her sisters the Graiae are
most deficient- her eyes and her bite
Medusa was beautiful and drew the attention of Poseidon and mated in
the temple of Athena, and Athena cursed Medusa to a monster- hair
turned to vipers,
The graiae’s one eye is the key to find the Hesperides
The Hesperides are eternal principles (old age and death) and know the
secrets to female seduction
Medusa is mortal- cut off her head, other sisters are immortal
Female seduction is depicted in the guide of a ruthless monstrous
predator
Defeat one the others remain
Medusa’s head while cut off still yields fresh writhing snakes and when
you throw the head into the sea it turns seaweed into exquisite corals,
Athena takes the head and uses it to keep undesirables at bay through
the power of Medusa’s head now permanently affixed on the shield across
the breastplate
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and Chrysaor- he of the golden sword- straight
forward yet the father of Geryon
Pegasus will help Bellerophon defeat the triple bodied Chimaira
(lion,goat,snake monster)
Chrysaor with Callirhoe-daughter of Oceanus- will father the triple bodied
monster Geryon
Poseidon is father of both Pegasus and Chrysaor
Horses are unpredictable raw sources of nature
Anthropomorphic- looks like a human
The sea is the breeding ground for monsters
The muse live and work by Hippocrene, the spring of the horse, the
source of their poetic inspiration- comes into existence by Pegasus’ birthconnection between poetic inspiration and the unfathomable
Hippocrene: the unlikely legacy of Medusa
The pierides challenge the Muses to a singing contest and the pierides
brag
Pierides choose to sing of and vindicate, the Giants’ attempt to take over
Mt
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Chaos
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Primitive creature
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Every spring the wheat seed is reborn anewshe becomes a Demeter when she returns to her mother
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Artemis transforms Arethusa into a body of water
Didn’t trick Alpheus and went to get her again, Artemis creates a channel
from Greece to Sicily that allows Arethusa to escape
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This perpetual war means she has to fight her own
people as a crane
• 3rd corner Antigone boasted that her hair was more beautiful than
Hera’s hair, Hera then turned her into a stork
• 4th corner We’re not told what king Cinyras did to piss of gods but
he was punished by having his daughters turned into the steps that
lead into his temple
• Then she adds olive leaves all throughout the tapestry

-It is now Arachne’s turn, she doesn’t have a central panel, but everywhere
there is no order except the overarching theme of Zeus’ many affairs and
forms he took to seduce his victims, both mortals and immortals (all
unwilling victims)
• She begins with the abduction of Europa by Zeus
• Then she tells the story of Asteria, who is a goddess, she flung
herself into the sea as a quail and transformed into an island to
escape Zeus
• Next is the story of Leda (mortal), she is very important because
she will become the mother of Hellen of Troy, with Zeus being the
father, Zeus did this as a swan
• The story of mortal Antiope, who is raped by Zeus as a satyr (male
followers of Dionysus), they are often half animal, they are driven
by sexual desires
• Next is mortal Alcmena is really important because her offspring
with Zeus, Zeus took on shape of her very own husband, her son
winds up being Hercules
• Danae is next (the mother of Perseus), he raped her as a golden
shower
• Next is Aegina who’s mortal, and she was carried by Zeus to an
island and then the island was named after her, She will give birth
to Aeacus (who will be Achilles grandfather), so Achilles is not a
direct son of Zeus, he is separated by generations
• Mnemosyne is next and the mother of the Muses, Zeus disguises as
a young shepperd even though she is a god
• The last example is Persephone, an alternative myth by Orphic,
Persephone is daughter of Demeter and Zeus, she gets raped by
Zeus in the form of a serpent, Serpent represents underground,
Their child is Zagreus, Hera becomes jealous and has the Titans kill
Zagreus (gods can die in this Orphic world), Zagreus is a
shapeshifter and when he turns into a bull they catch him, kill him,
and eat him, So Zeus returns and burns them down to ashes and
Persephone finds the heart of Zagreus which wasn’t burned,
Humans are born from the flesh of Zagreus mixed in with the ashes
of titans, Persephone gives the heart to Zeus who puts the heart
into Semele, their son winds up being Bacchus

-Neither Athena nor Envy can find fault in Arachne’s tapestry
missed 2 days
-Boreas, another Thracian suitor for an Athenian princess
• -He is the wind of the cold north
• he has wings
-The Boreades (Calais and Zetes): winged sons of Boreas and Orithyia
• they come to rescue the blind Phineus from the Harpies
• he is blind because he sees prophecies, crime of revealing visions
he was punished by losing his eyesight
• his other punishment was to be condemned never to be able to
touch and enjoy buffets at his side
• Harpies steal his food to let him starve
-The harpies are grandkids of Gaia and Pontos
• Out of the sea you get monsters and marvelous things
-Prophecy said harpies would die at the hands of the sons of Boreas, and
that the sons of Boreas would die if they ever failed to catch their pray
• both of these are super fast
-The first harpie became so tired she fell into a river out of pure exhaustion,
the second one became exhausted on an island with her pursuers who also
died, both prophecies come true, there are no real winners
-The Argonautica: the heroic quest after the elusive golden fleece
• fleece comes from golden ram that Athamas’ kids escaped on
• A cloud is not a real person
• Ixion (a future candidate as one of the great sinners) mistakes
Nephele for Hera
o They made Nephele to look like Hera, she is entirely a
manufactured being
• The sister that fell off the ram (Helles) and gave her name to that
body of water
Iolcus: Jason’s native kingdom, where his uncle, Pelias, has usurped the
throne from his brother, Aeson (Jason’s father)
• His uncle sent him on the quest for the golden fleece, hoping he
wouldn’t return

-The Argonauts for an all-star cast: The Boreades, Castor and Pollux (the
brothers of Helen), Hecules, Orpheus, and so on
-Jason needs to catch the bronze bulls, that appear to breath fire
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