Mythology Project

Nhu Nguyen
Period 6th
Mythology Project
PART TWO: Stories of Love and Adventure I. Cupid and Psyche 1. “Psyche excelled her sisters so greatly that beside them she seemed a very goddess consorting with mere mortals” (121). 2. Venus wants Cupid to use his power and make Psyche fall madly in love with the vilest and most despicable creature there is in the whole world (122). 3. Cupid fell in love with Psyche the moment they first met (122). 4. The Zephyr carried Psyche from the hilltop to the beautiful meadow, then to her mansion from Cupid (123). 5. Psyche feels unfaithful due to her sisters and lights a lamp in the middle of the night to see her husband, Cupid (127). 6. Psyche’s sisters create doubts about her future husband by telling her that Cupid was actually a serpent that would devour her someday (126). 7. Cupid and Psyche got back together, Psyche was made into the Goddess of the Soul and Venus finally accepted her daughter-in-law (134). II. Eight Brief Tales of Lovers 1. Thought that Thisbe was dead from being mauled by a lioness, Pyramus killed himself and his blood stained the white mulberries and they were red from then on (137). 2. “His limbs they gathered and place in at the foot of Mount Olympus, and there to this day the nightingales sing more sweetly than anywhere else” (143). 3. “Every year there are seven days on end when the se lies still and calm; no breath of wind stirs the waters. These are the days when Alcyone broods over her nest floating on the sea. After the young birds are hatched the charm is broken; but each winter these days of perfect peace come, and they are called after her, Alcyone, or, more commonly, Halcyon days” (146). 4. Pygmalion created a sculptor then named her Galatea. Pygmalion loved and dreamed that Galatea would come to life, and his wish was granted by Venus (150). a. “Detesting the faults beyond measure which nature has given to women” (147). b. “Pygmalion had fallen in love, deeply, passionately in love, with the thing he had made” (147). c. Pygmalion tries to pretend that Galatea is real after he had fallen in love with her (148). d. Venus helps Pygmalion in his desire to have the women he loves (150). e. The statue turns into a real life woman and they are able to live and have a son named Paphos together (150). 5. Baucis and Philemon became trees, even as trees they were together and merge as one (154). 6. “Endymion never woke to see the shinning silvery form bending over him. Wondrously beautiful he lies on the mountainside, motionless and remote as if I n death, but warm and living, and night after night the Moon visits him and covers him with her kisses” (155). 7. Daphne fled Apollo and sought her father's help to escape the god's grasp. He turned her into a laurel tree and Apollo then took up the laurel as his symbol (157). 8. Alpheus (Greece) connects with Arethusa (Italy) by merging his river water with her stream water (159). III. The Quest of the Golden Fleece 1. The Golden Fleece is Ram’s Golden Fleece (161). 2. Pelias was Phrixus's uncle (163). Pelias was worried about a “one-sandaled” stranger since he was afraid Jason would get the kingdom (164). 3. Jason was trying to seek the Golden Fleece ever since he was determining to get the kingdom back from Pelias (164). The Argonauts helps Jason in his quest; Hercules, Orpheus, Castor and Pollux, Peleus, and Hera (165). 4. The three adventures that Jason has along the way are Lemnos, Harpies, and Clashing Rocks (167). 5. The King of Colchis treats Jason nicely, then he puts Jason through terrible tests that require not only special things, but courage, strength, and wisdom (169).Jason has to plow a field with two firing bulls due to the fact that it is the King of Colchis’s test (171). 6. Medea falls in love with Jason and she helps them with her magic (173). 7. After Jason returns with the Golden Fleece, Pelias' daughters are tricked into killing him (176). 8. Jason leaves Medea behind, even though he promised to marry her in the end (180).

IV. The Four Great Adventures 1. His sisters, the Heliades, the daughters of Helios, the Sun, came to his grave to mourn for him. There they were turned into popular tree, on the bank of the Eridanus (186). 2. Pegasus and Bellerophon: a. Bellerophon believed that he could be equal to the gods for the reason that he had many successes, such as killing the Chimera (187). b. Bellerophon forgets that the gods are above all (188). c. The Greeks beliefs that the story of Bellerophon illustrated is never challenge the gods, gods are superior (191) 3. Otus and Ephialtes basically killed each other due to their greed and needs (193). 4. Icarus was Daedalus' son, and after the master engineer designed the wings, which were held together with wax, he warned his son not to fly to low, as the spray from the water would weigh down the wings and not to fly too high, as the heat from the sun would melt the wax and the wings would fall apart. Nonetheless Icarus ignored Daedalus advice and died from “flying too close to the sun” (194). PART THREE: The Great Heroes Before the Trojan War I. Perseus 1. Danae was locked into a windowless tower, because King Acrisus of Argos had been told that his grandson would kill him. Therefore he did not want a grandson and wanted to stop any man coming near Danae. Zeus changed himself into gold dust and seeped in through a crack in the roof and made Danae pregnant, And Perseus was born (197). 2. Compare events in Perseus’s life to the following elements of a “Cinderella” story: a. Perseus has two great gods watching over him, Hermes and Athena, they gives him a polished shield, and a sword to attack Medusa with (202). b. Perseus had to kill Medusa without looking into her eyes (202). c. Perseus won’t have to hide from his grandfather because he’s dead, so no one could harm his family (207). d. “Perseus and Andromeda lived happily ever after. Their son, Electryon, was the grandfather of Hercules” (207). II. Theseus 1. “Grew strong enough to roll away the stone and get the things beneath it” (209). 2. “All loved him for his goodness and admired him for his nobility” (212). 3. Theseus helped the Athenians by killing the Minotaur and helping the other tributes to escape in their conflict with Minos (213). 4. “So Theseus became King of Athens, a most wise and disinterested king” (215). 5. Since Hippolytus hated women, Aphrodite made Phaedra fall in love with him. Phaedra committed suicide when he refused to love her back. Theseus thought that Phaedra did this because Hippolytus had loved her because Phaedra wrote in her suicide letter that Hippolytus loved her back, and he banished him from the country. He found out that his wife was the unfaithful one and apologized to his son, who as killed by one of his friends (222). III. Hercules 1. Hercules killed the lion of Nemea, he killed the hydra, and he captured Cerberus, the three-headed hound of hell (235). 2. Hercules was not very smart, and it was obvious that in his actions, not much thinking was involved. Instead, Hercules was rather consumed by his emotions, and made decisions based on them instead of his intellect (226). 3. After Hera sends madness to possess Hercules, he murdered his family (229). 4. Hercules was considered guilty of his crime (230). 5. Hercules was sent to work for Eurystheus, his enemy, and was forced to take on the famous “Twelve Labors of Hercules” (232). 6. "When all were completed and full expiation made for the death of his wife and children, he would seem to have earned ease and tranquility for the rest of his life. But it was not so. He was never tranquil and at ease" (page 236). 7. Hercules' wife accidentally kills him, because he is a half god and a hero, he was allowed onto Mount Olympus (244). IV. Atlanta 1. “Atlanta’s father, whatever his name was, when a daughter and not a son was born to him, was, of course, bitterly disappointed” (246). 2. The adventures of Atlanta include the Calydonian Boar Hunt; she also raced anyone that wanted to marry her beaten by Hippo Menes (248). 3. “As a way of disposing of them easily and agreeably she declared that she would marry whoever could beat her in a foot race” (249). 4. He begins throwing golden apples and it distracts her (251). 5. The two are said to have been turned into lions because of some affront offered either to Zeus or to Aphrodite (252). PART FOUR: Heroes of the Trojan War I. The Trojan War 1. Edith Hamilton thinks one of the world’s greatest poems is Iliad (253). 2. The Judgment of Paris caused the Trojan War (254). 3. Helen of Troy got involved in this war because Paris invited her to Menelaus’s palace then kidnapped her and brought her back to Troy (257). 4. Odysseus thinks that family and home is more important than romantic adventure to save a faithless woman (258). 5. “ Archilles was sent to court of Lycomedes, the king who had treacherously killed Theseus, and made him wear women’s clothes and hide among the maidens” (258). 6. Agamemnon sacrificed eldest daughter Iphigenia, so Artemis would calm waters of Aulis (261). 7. After nine years of fighting with neither side victorious Thetis asks Zeus to help Trojan win (262). 8. During a pause in the war Menelaus and Paris fight each other (263). 9. “Patroclus is fallen and Hector has his armor” (270). 10. Archilles goes into battle to kill Hector as a result of Patroclus’s disaster (271). 11. Archilles gets shot by Paris and The Fall of Troy (274). II. The Fall of Troy 1. Odysseus becomes the leader of the Greek efforts after Paris is killed (278). 2. The wooden horse is the famous subterfuge that the Greeks use to overthrow Troy (283). 3. After the fall of Troy, the Greeks kill and burn everyone in Troy (287). III. The Adventures of Odysseus 1. During his 20 years of wondering Odysseus had some great adventures that included: Going to the Cyclops Cave, Getting past the Sirens, getting past the Island of Circes and spending many years on the Island of Calypso (308).

IV. The Adventures of Aeneas 1. Aeneas was a Trojan noble, he was the son of Aphrodite and a Trojan man named Anchises. When the city was sacked, he and his father escaped and sailed to Carthage, where the queen fell in love with him. After Aeneas sailed for Italy, she leapt from onto a pyre and killed herself. Once in Italy, Aeneas joined in a war with the tribe of the Latin, married he king’s daughter Lavinia, and became the king of Italy (320-344).

PART FIVE: The Great Families of Mythology

I. The House of Atreus 1. Agamemnon returns from the Trojan War after ten years, victorious, bringing along the Trojan princess Cassandra, whom he has enslaved and made his lover (251). 2. Clytemnestra murdered Agamemnon (251). 3. Orestes, son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, killed his mother who had killed his father and Electra was his sister (360). 4. The oracle at Delphi he oracle instructed him to avenge the murder of his father (357). 5. Orestes and his friend, Pylades, went to the palace and claimed to bear a message that Orestes was dead (359). 6. Orestes had been cleansed of his guilt “these were words never spoken before by any of the House of Atreus (363).

II. The Royal House of Thebes 1. Theban monarchs Laius and Jocasta receive the disturbing prophecy that their infant son Oedipus will grow up to kill his father. Killing a father and a sovereign is a serious offense in ancient Greece. But killing a child is not. Oedipus' parents therefore decide to have the three-day-old infant killed by exposure to weather and wildlife on the mountains outside Thebes. But neither one can do the deed nor pass the killing on to Jocasta's most trusted servant. The servant bestows the baby upon a Corinthian shepherd who is going home to the childless royal court of Corinthian monarchs Polybus and Merope (374). 2. Oedipus became king of Thebes because he was the son of the king of Thebes. Without knowing it, he was sent away for adoption. He eventually journeys back to Thebes and sees his father on the street. They have an argument and Oedipus kills his father. Oedipus then marries his mother, the queen, and becomes king (383). 3. Apollo threatened that unless the murderer of Laius was punished, Thebes would suffer (377). 4. After Oedipus learned the truth about himself, he took his own life and so sis Jocasta (383). 5. Creon becomes king after Oedipus leaves the throne, Creon also excel Oedipus from the country (384). 6. Theban King Creon makes an announcement the day after the final battle in the first civil war over the Theban royal succession. He notes that the disloyal Theban dead will be left in the same unburied condition as any enemy dead. He says that the God-given rights of all Thebans to below ground burials will be honored only in the case of Theban loyalists (388). 7. The house of Thebes broke into a Civil War (389).

III. The Royal House of Athens 1. Athena become the protector of Athens because she made trees of Greece grows and got most of the women votes for goddess (396). 2. Procne was turned into a nightingale and Philomela into a swallow (399). 3. Procris sank to the ground dead, pierces to the heart (401). 4. “One day when Orithyia was playing with her sisters on the bank of a river, Boreas swept down in a great gust and carried her away” (402). Their sons were Zetes and Calais (402). 5. Creusa got pregnant by Apollo, and Ion saw Athena (408).

PART SIX: The Less Important Myths

I. Midas-and Others 1. Apollo relieved the touch and replaced them with a pair of donkey ears (412). 2. Midas wanted the touch of gold, and after Bacchus granted his wish, he started turning everything into gold. However, even food and water was turned into gold, and Midas realized his folly after he turned his daughter into gold. If he didn't die from hunger, then he would certainly die from thirst. When Midas asked Bacchus to relieve his touch, it was only reversible by running water from a river (412).

II. Briefs Myths Arranged Alphabetically 1. “At the river’s edge they filled forever jars riddle with holes, so that the water poured away and they must return to fill them again and again see them drained and dry (416). 2. “They were a nation of women, all warriors” (423). 3. Arachne lost in a weaving competition and was turned into a spider with weaving skill (426). 4. The Great Bear constellation is Callisto, the mother; the Lesser Bear is Arcas, the son (429). 5. Clytie fell in love with the Sun-god, as a result of being in love and spending all day looking toward the sun, Clytie was turned into a sunflower (430). 6. “Never to pluck flowers and to think every bush may be a goddess in disguise” (431). 7. Epimenides is a boy who looking for his sheep for fifty-seven years (431). 8. Hero and Leander took away their own lives for love (432). 9. Snakes became his pets after he saved them; they licked his ears and they allowed Melampus to understand all languages (435). 10. Orion was put in the sky after Artemis killed him (438). 11. Zeus place stars in heavens As remembrances of certain people to honor them, to save them (440).

PART SEVEN: The Mythology of the Norsemen

I. The Stories of Signy and Sigurd 1. Signy the dawn goddess, the only daughter of Volsung and Liod. Married to Siggeir who had her whole family treacherously murdered. She saves her brother, Sigmund and has an incestuous affair with him and bears the son Sinfjötli. She and Sinfjötli then kill Siggeir (447).