Creation Myths

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Creation Myths

• Hesiods Theogony and Ovids Metamorphoses

Allen Romanoaromano_at_uchicago.edu
background Muses
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Possibly humorous title

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  text

Pretty Picture
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Important title here

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• and here

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Modern-Day Creation Story THE BIG BANG
Artist Approximation Not Shown Actual Size Not
the Greek Creation Myth
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Agenda

• Why explain the creation of the universe? Some
  possibilities...
• Hesiods Theogony (in context)
• Ovids Metamorphoses (in context)
• and
• Hesiod vs. Ovid

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• Why Tell Creation Stories?

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How to Do Things with Creation Myths

• Todays question How do people use creation
  myths?
• Ask
• Whos telling the creation story?
• To whom?
• Why in this particular way?
• Is there something else a person telling a
  creation story is trying to convey beyond the
  details of the story itself?

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A Creation Myth in ContextGreek Hymns

• Hymn (greek, hymnos)
• A song in honor of a god
• occur throughout Greek history unlike modern
  hymns, they were often sung by a single person
• Homeric Hymns collection of hymns attributed
  (falsely) to Homer, the poet of the Iliad and
  Odyssey 7th-2nd cent BCE
• Main features of hymns
• list of the gods powers
• gods favorite places
• gods epithets
• prayers to the gods
• account of how the god was born and acquired his
  functions. very much like Hesiods Theogony

Not Ancient Greeks
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The Homeric Hymn to Hermes

• Song about half the length of Hesiods Theogony
• Author unknown
• probably composed in 6th century BCE
• tells the story of Hermes birth and early
  exploits

A Singer in Ancient Greece
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Hermes

• Son of Zeus
• born from a nymph, Maia
• invented the lyre and the pipes
• Messenger god
• trickster, thief

Hermes
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Hermes is born

• Hymn to Hermes Thought-Experiment
• What was the legendary trickster god like as a
  baby?

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Baby Hermes
Grown-up mischief trapped in a babys body
artist reconstruction of the baby Hermes
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The story He walks outside the cave... he finds
a tortoise...
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Hermes invites the tortoise inside...
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Hermes invents the Lyre
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A little thief Hermes steals his big brother
Apollos Cattle
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Hermes steals Apollos cattle
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Hermes tries to eat the cattle
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Oh wait, Im a god
smoke which gods do enjoy
Stuff Hermes cant eat
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Meanwhile, Apollo looks for the cattle...
?
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Hermes hides the cattle
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Apollo confronts Baby Hermes
Whatd I do? Im just a baby.
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Apollo presses him...Dude, where are my cows?
alternate reconstruction Baby Hermes
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Apollo takes baby Hermes and appeals to their
father Zeus
The threat of an angry Apollo
Zeus
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Hermes whips out his lyre...
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Hermes Sings a Creation Story

• ...but Hermes,
• as he had designed, easily soothed the
  Far-Darter,
• Son of most glorious Leto, obdurate though he
  was.
• Taking his lyre upon his left arm, he tried out
• Each string in turn with the plectrum, and under
  his hand
• The Lyre resounded uncannily. Phoebus Apollo
• Laughed aloud with delight. The lovely sound
• Of heavenly music went straight through his
  heart, and sweet longing
• Possessed him as he listened, enraptured.

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Hermes Sings a Creation Story

• he burst into song and lovely his voice
• Telling of how the immortal gods and black earth
• First came to be, and how each was allotted his
  portion.
• Mnemosyne Memory, mother of the Muses, first of
  the gods
• He honored with song, for to her Maias son was
  apportioned by lot.
• Hermes, the son brilliant in splendor of Zeus,
• Hymned the undying gods according to age,
• And told the tale of how each one was born,
  relating
• All things in order, to the sweet strains of the
  lyre on his arm.

from the Homeric Hymn to Hermes
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Conflict Resolved
Thats sweet. I want one!
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Hermes Expert Use of a Creation Myth

• Song is itself a cure for strife
• Theogony 99-104 For if anyone is grieved, if
  his heart is sore with fresh sorrow, if he is
  troubled, and a singer who serves the Muses
  chants the deeds of past men or the blessed gods
  ... He soon forgets his heartache, and of all his
  cares he remembers none.
• Cosmogony and Theogony Singing about the
  ordering of the universe prevents disorder

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Why tell Creation stories?Distinct Uses of
Creation Myths

• Hopi Creation
• Spider Woman leads the people out of the
  underworlds teaches them how to live
• What telling this myth does
• ethical instruction (how to hunt, grow corn,
  build houses)
• sites of present habitation explained by what
  happened on the mythic journey out of the
  underworld

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The Function of Navajo Creation Myths

• During the Blessing Way ceremony, shaman chants
  the creation story
• Sand painting representing the creation
• Creation story used for rites of new Beginnings

Navajo saindpainting of the creation of the
universe
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The Function of Babylonian Creation Myths
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The Function of Babylonian Creation Myths

• Told at the dedication of sacred buildings
• In the beginning Anu (sky) created the heavens,
  and Nudimmud (Ea-waters) created Apsu, the
  primeval waters. Then Ea took some clay and
  created necessary elements for the buildings of
  great structures. He made the Arazu, the gods of
  the various crafts.

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Questions

• Why did Hesiod tell his creation story in the way
  that he did?
• Why did Ovid tell his creation story in the way
  that he did?

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• Hesiods Theogony

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Hesiod Who was he?

• lived around 700 BCE
• Boeotian (central Greece)
• Composed
• Theogony (origins of gods and universe)
• Works and Days (wisdom poetry)
• Hesiodic works (attributed to Hesiod in
  antiquity)
• Catalog of Women (birth stories of the heroes,
  continuation of the Theogony)
• Shield (on Heracles)

bust of Hesiod
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(No Transcript)
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The Backbone of the Theogony Genealogy

• Genealogy
• Account of familial descent
• Gr. genos race, generation
• /log/ Gr. logos account, word (e.g. logic)

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Genealogy
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Cosmogony vs. Theogony

• Cosmogony
• story that explains the generation of the world
• kosmos world, order
• /gon/ genos race, generation (e.g. gonads)
• Theogony
• story that explains the generation of the gods
• theos god (e.g. theology, polytheism /
  monotheism)

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Structure of the Theogony

• Succession Myth story of the overthrow of a god
  or generation of gods
• Succession Myth, interwoven with genealogy
• Kronos succeeds his father Ouranos Castration of
  Ouranos, birth of Aphrodite
• Zeus Ascendant over Kronos Tricking of Kronos,
  birth of Zeus Zeus outwits Prometheus
• Zeus and his generation defeat the Titans of the
  earlier generation
• Zeus defeats a big monster (Typhoeus) Zeus
  swallows Metis to ensure there will be no more
  successors.

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A Series of Contests

• Hesiod vs. Muses
• Kronos defeats Ouranos
• Zeus defeats Kronos
• Zeus defeats Prometheus
• Zeus defeats Titans

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Hesiod vs. Muses

• Muses to Hesiod Hillbillies and bellies, poor
  excuses for shepherds We know how to tell many
  believable lies, but also, when we want to, how
  to speak the plain truth.

Muses dancing with Apollo
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Competitive Singing

• Muses
• Sing a theogony in honor of Zeus

• Hesiod
• Turns the Muses theogony into a cosmogony
• Honors Zeus with a more elaborate song

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Contests 1 and 2 Kronos vs. OuranosZeus over
Kronos
Rhea gives Kronos a stone rather than the baby
Zeus
Kronos eating his kids
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Round 3 Zeus over the Titan Prometheus
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Prometheus Attempt to Trick Zeus
A standard scene of sacrifice
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Creation of Women
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Something understated...
Mans creation
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Round 4 Zeus vs. Monsters
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Titanomachy

• For a long time they fought, hearts bitter with
  toil,
• Going against each other in the shock of battle,
• The Titans and the gods who were born from Kronos
• ...
• They battled each other with pain in their hearts
• Continuously for ten full years, never a truce
• Theogony 413ff

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Zeus Conquers by Violence (in Greek, bie)
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Typhoeus / Typhon
The monstrous last-born child of Earth (Gaia)
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Zeus Wins the Right to Rule

• So the blessed gods had done a hard piece of
  work,
• settled by force the question of rights with the
  Titans
• Theogony 667ff.

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Zeus Crowning Achievement

• Metis (Thought, Cunning) is a threat to Zeus
  rule
• Swallows Metis
• Produces Athena from his own head
• Ends Threat of More Violent Succession
• (does what his father Kronos could not)

Athena emerges from Zeus head after he swallows
Metis
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Kingship and Zeus

• Calliope (one of the Muses)...
• For she keeps the company of reverend kings.
• When the daughters of great Zeus will honor a
  lord
• Whose lineage is divine, and look upon his birth,
• They distill a sweet dew upon his tongue,
• And from his mouth words flow like honey.
• The people all look to him as he arbitrates
  settlements
• With judgments straight. ...
• For though it is singers and lyre players that
  come from the Muses and far-shooting Apollo
• And kings come from Zeus, happy is the man
• Whom the Muses love.
• Theogony lines 81-98

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Why tell this myth

• Possibilities
• Kingship / ruling elite
• Zeus is a model king, guarantor of justice and
  order
• patriarchy
• Zeus is able to produce Athena without women
  conquers female-spawned Titans, monster Typhon,
  and female Metis
• Encodes basic Greek values
• for example, justice (dike balance, good order)
• but also proper containment of violence (bie)

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• Ovids Metamorphoses

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700 years
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Ovid The Man Behind the Myth

• 43 BCE 17 CE
• leading Roman poet
• heavily imitated through the middle Ages and to
  the present day

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Ovid Writings

• Wrote (among many other things)
• Amores Loves (on poets and love)
• Heroides Heroines
• Cosmetics for the Female Face
• Ars Amatoria Art of Love
• Fasti (Calendar poem)
• Metamorphoses (on bodies changed to different
  forms... a poem that runs from the worlds
  beginning to our own days.

Ovidius Naso the poet
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Ovid

• Whats changed?
• Writing Oral performance of Hymns and Hesiods
  poetry vs. book scrolls as vehicle for literature
• Philosophy Hesiod pre-Plato, pre-Aristotle
  Ovid post-Plato, post-Aristotle and their
  successors (Stoics, Epicureans, etc.)
• Patronage Ovid works for a portion of his life
  under Augustus rule ? statements about kingship,
  order, disorder are especially pointed

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One of Ovids Many Models

• Apollonius (3rd century BCE)
• Argonautica Journey of the Argonauts to get the
  golden fleece
• Before theyve even set out, The ships crew is
  about to quarrel.

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Orpheus intervenes
Orpheus playing the lyre
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Orpheus sings cosmogony

• The legendary singer Orpheus sang of that past
  age when earth and sky and sea were knit together
  in a single mold how they were divided after
  deadly strife how the stars, the moon, and the
  traveling sun keep faithfully to their stations
  in the heavens how mountains rose, and how,
  together with their Nymphs, the murmuring streams
  and all four-legged creatures came to be. How in
  the beginning, Ophion and Eurynome, daughter of
  Ocean, governed the world from snow-clad Olympus
  how they were forcibly supplanted, Ophion by
  Cronos, Eurynome by Rhea of their fall into the
  waters of Ocean and how their successors ruled
  the happy Titan gods when Zeus in his Dictaean
  cave was still a child, with childish thoughts,
  before the earthborn Cyclopes had given him the
  bolt, the thunder and lightening that form his
  glorious weapons today.
• Apollonius, Argonautica 1.496-511

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Ovids Creation Myth

• Till God, or kindlier Nature, Settled all
  argument and separated Heaven from earth, water
  from land, our air From the high stratosphere, a
  liberation So things evolved, and out of blind
  confusion, Found each its place, bound in eternal
  order... Met. 21ff

Ovid
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Ovids Different Kind of MythThe creation of
mortals

• but something else was needed, a finer being,
  More capable of mind, a sage, a ruler,
• So Man was born, it may be, in Gods image,
• Or Earth, perhaps, so newly separated
• From the old fire of Heaven, still retained
• Some seed of the celestial force which refasioned
• Gods out of the living clay and running water.
• All other animals look downward Man,
• Alone, erect, can raise his face toward Heaven.
• Metamorphoses 72ff

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Ovids Different Kind of MythThe creation of
mortals
Deucalion and Pyrrha throw stones to create people
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Ovids different kind of myth-making Chaos and
Craftsman

• Before the ocean was, or earth, or heaven,
  Nature was all alike, a shapelessness, Chaos,
  so-called, all rude and lumpy matter, Nothing but
  bulk, inert, in whose confusion Discordant atoms
  warred... Heat fought with cold, wet fought with
  dry, the hard fought with the soft... till God,
  or kindlier Nature, settled all argument, and
  separated Heaven from earth, water from land,
  etc. Ovid Metamorphoses 1.5-23

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Types of Creation

• Headline Millions of Ways to Explain Creation
• Payoff Two different means of creation in Ovid
  and Hesiod

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Methods of Creation

• Automatic Creation
• from chaos (like in the Theogony)
• creation from cosmic egg
• creation from elements (usually water)
• creation by secretion (that is, by spit, sweat,
  semen, urine, feces etc.)
• VS.
• Architectural Creation
• creation by thought, by word (like in Genesis)
• creation by construction and craft divine
  architect

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Types of Creation Architectural

• Creation by divine craftsman
• examples
• Judaeo-Christian tradition

God measures the universe during the creation.
Bible Moralisee circa 1250 CE
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God Creates Man
Book of Genesis The Judaeo-Christian god
fashions man from earth. (Artist reconstruction)
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(No Transcript)
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Types of Creation Automatic

• Cosmic Egg
• Examples
• Finnish
• Orphic
• Polynesian
• Chinese
• Egyptian

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Sidenote Greek AlternativesOrphic Creation

• In the beginning was the silver cosmic egg,
  created by Time. Phanes broke forth from the egg
  as the firstborn (Protogonos), the androgynous
  container of all the seeds of life. It was Phanes
  who created the universe, beginning with a
  daughter Nux (Night), and later the familiar
  gods, Gaia and Ouranos

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Ovids different kind of myth-making

• Before the ocean was, or earth, or heaven,
  Nature was all alike, a shapelessness, Chaos,
  so-called, all rude and lumpy matter, Nothing but
  bulk, inert, in whose confusion Discordant atoms
  warred... Heat fought with cold, wet fought with
  dry, the hard fought with the soft... till God,
  or kindlier Nature, settled all argument, and
  separated Heaven from earth, water from land,
  etc. Ovid Metamorphoses 1.5-23

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Hesiod vs. Ovid

• Hesiod describes automatic creation, structured
  as genealogy succession myths of gods interwoven
• Ovid starts by describing creation from Chaos
  (like Hesiod) but then describes creation through
  a divine craftsman.

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Ovids Agenda

• Some Possibilities
• Kingship criticism of imperial power?
• Re-asserting mythic explanations against
  philosophic ones
• Entertainment Exploiting the literary tradition
  of myth-telling

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Replaying Creation

• every construction or fabrication has the
  cosmogony as paradigmatic model. The creation of
  the world becomes the archetype of every creative
  human gesture, whatever its plane of reference
  may be.
• (Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane, 1957)

Might we find the creation myth replayed
elsewhere, in miniature, in part, or in spirit?
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Creation Myths

• Hesiods Theogony and Ovids Metamorphoses

Allen Romanoaromano_at_uchicago.edu
background Muses