Understanding Biblical and Mythological Allusions

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Understanding Biblical and Mythological Allusions

• Key allusions to enhance your understanding of
  literature, and some literary works in which they
  appear

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Biblical Allusions

• Some key stories to know, from the Old and New
  Testaments
• Some important motifs from the Bible
• A few examples of works of literature in which
  allusions to these can be found
• Many other motifs and archetypes central to
  literature come from the Bible, such as the
  opposition between good and evil and the journey
  or quest

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Creation

• Then God said, Let there be light and there
  was light (Gen. 13).
• There was nothing to say/ Let there be light!/
  All that story of Mr. God switching on day/ is
  just conceit (D.H. Lawrence, Let There Be
  Light!).
• So God created humankind in his image, in the
  image of God he created them (Gen. 126).
• Crawlin aboot like a snail in the mud,/ Covered
  wi clammy blae/ ME, made after the image o God
  - / Jings! But its laughable, tae (Joe Corrie,
  The Image o God).
• And on the seventh day God finished the work
  that he had done (Gen. 22).

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2. Garden of Eden/The Fall

• Now the serpent was more crafty than any other
  wild animal (Gen. 31).
• Incarnate devil in a talking snake (D.H.
  Lawrence, Incarnate Devil).
• therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the
  garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he
  was taken (Gen. 323).
• All evil in mankind comes from original sin,
  which caused Adam and Eve to be cast out of the
  Garden of Eden, a paradise on Earth.
• John Milton Paradise Lost

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Emily Dickinson, Eden is that old-fashioned
House

• Eden is that old-fashioned House
• We dwell in every day
• Without suspecting our abode
• Until we drive away.
• How fair on looking back, the Day
• We sauntered from the Door
• Unconscious our returning,
• But discover it no more.

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2.b. Fall of angels / Lucifer

• Satan, or Lucifer, was originally an angel who
  was cast out of heaven (fell to earth) because
  of his ambition.
• Also referred to as the morning star -How you
  are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn!
  (Isaiah 1412).
• See Lucifer like lightning fall/ Dashed from his
  throne of pride (John Keble, See Lucifer like
  Lightning Fall).
• Angels are bright still, though the brightest
  fell (Macbeth 4.3.22).

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3. Cain and Abel

• And when they were in the field, Cain rose up
  against his brother Abel, and killed him. Then
  the Lord said to Cain, Where is your brother
  Abel? He said, I do not know am I my
  brothers keeper? (Gen. 48-9).
• Thus she sat weeping,/ Thus Eve our mother,/
  Where one lay sleeping/ Slain by his brother
  (Christina Rossetti, Eve).
• Any example of fratricide may hearken back to the
  story of Cain and Abel.
• Claudius, when attempting to pray O, my offense
  is rank, it smells to heaven/ It hath the primal
  eldest curse upont,/ A brothers murder (Hamlet
  3.3.36-8).

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4. Noahs Ark / The Flood

• Then the Lord said to Noah, Go into the ark,
  you and all your household, for I have seen that
  you alone are righteous before me in this
  generation For in seven days I will send rain on
  the earth for forty days and forty nights and
  every living thing that I have made I will blot
  out from the face of the ground (Gen. 71,4).
• They went into the ark with Noah, two and two of
  all flesh in which there was the breath of life
  (Gen. 715).
• Auld Noah was at hame wi them a,/ The lion and
  the lamb,/ Pair by pair they entered the Ark/ And
  he took them as they cam (Hugh MacDiarmid,
  Parley of Beasts).
• Timothy Findley, Not Wanted on the Voyage

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5. The Tower of Babel

• Now the whole earth had one language and the
  same words Then they said, Come, let us build
  ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the
  heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves
  otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the
  face of the whole earth. And the Lord said,
  Look, they are one people, and they have all one
  language and this is only the beginning of what
  they will do nothing that they propose to do
  will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go
  down, and confuse their language there, so that
  they will not understand one anothers speech.
  So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over
  the face of all the earth (Gen. 111,4,6-8).
• Where once prayers said were unison,/ And
  conversations harmony,/ We now mistake our
  dearest loves/ Crowds muddle in cacophony
  (Laurance Wieder, The Tower of Babel).

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6. Sodom Gomorrah

• Now the people of Sodom were wicked, great
  sinners against the Lord (Gen. 1313).
• Then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah
  sulfur and fire from the Lord out of heaven and
  he overthrew those cities, and all the Plain, and
  all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew
  on the ground. But Lots wife, behind him,
  looked back, and she became a pillar of salt
  (Gen. 1924-6).
• She only wanted to see the sky split open./
  Surely everybody has wanted to see the sky split
  open?/ She is here when we pour at our table. /
  She is here when we pour in our sleep (Albert
  Goldbarth, Lots Wife).

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7. Abraham and the sacrifice of Isaac

• After these things God tested Abraham He said,
  Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you
  love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him
  there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains
  that I shall show you. (Gen. 221,2).
• Then the angel returned, asking that I
  surrender/ My son as a lamb (Delmore Schwartz,
  Abraham).

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8. Moses

• The Israelites were enslaved in Egypt, and
  Pharaoh decreed that Every boy that is born to
  the Hebrews you shall throw into the Nile, but
  you shall let every girl live (Exodus 122).
• Baby Moses was abandoned by his mother among the
  reeds on the bank of the river (Exodus 23) and
  found and raised by the daughter of the Pharaoh.
• God appeared to Moses in a burning bush (the
  bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed
  (Exodus 32).), instructing him to bring the
  Israelites out of Egypt.
• When Moses asked God for his name, God said to
  Moses, I am what I am. He said further, Thus
  you shall say to the Israelites, I am has sent
  me to you. (Exodus 314).
• Compare Iago I am not what I am (Othello
  1.1.66).

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9. The Exodus

• After ten plagues afflicting the Egyptians, Moses
  led his people out of Egypt, parting the Red Sea,
  to escape slavery at the hands of the Pharaoh.
• After escaping Egypt, the Israelites wandered in
  the wilderness for forty years, and the Lord
  went in front of them in a pillar of cloud by
  day, to lead them along the way, and in a pillar
  of fire by night, to give them light (Exodus
  1321).
• When Israel out of Egypt came/ Safe in the sea
  they trod/ By day in cloud, by night in flame,/
  Went on before them God (A.E. Housman, When
  Israel out of Egypt Came).
• Moses received the Ten Commandments from God on
  Mt. Sinai The Lord said to Moses, Come up to
  me on the mountain, and I will give you the
  tablets of stone, with the law and the
  commandment, which I have written for their
  instruction (Exodus 2412).

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10. Jericho

• Joshua led the Israelites against the city of
  Jericho So the people shouted, and the trumpets
  were blown. As soon as the people heard the
  sound of the trumpets, they raised a great shout,
  and the wall fell down flat (Joshua 620).
• O, not by trumpets shall the walls go down!
  (Phyllis McGinley, Women of Jericho).

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11. Jephthahs daughter

• Jephthah made a vow to the Lord, and said, if
  you will give the Ammonites into my hand, then
  whoever comes out of the doors of my house to
  meet me, when I return victorious from the
  Ammonites, shall be the Lords (Judges
  1130-1).
• After he won the battle, Jephthah came to his
  home at Mizpah and there was his daughter coming
  out to meet him (1134).
• Before being sacrificed, Jephthahs daughter
  asked for two months to wander on the mountains,
  and bewail my virginity (1137).
• Hamlet, to Polonius Oh, Jephthah, judge of
  Israel, what a treasure hadst thou! (2.2.393).

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12. David Goliath

• David, a youth, ruddy and handsome in
  appearance (1 Samuel 1742), killed Goliath, a
  champion of the Philistines, with a slingshot and
  a stone.
• All you get in this war, he said, is one
  little David against another. Then he threw and
  broke the tall, thin neck clean off. Like that.
  Just a bunch of stone throwers. Robert
  wondered if the bitterness was only the twist in
  his throat as he threw the stone or was it
  really that Taffler wanted the war to pit him
  against Goliath? (The Wars 31-2).
• He was thinking that perhaps he'd found the
  model he could emulate - a man to whom killing
  wasnt killing at all but only throwing.  Bam!  A
  bottle.  A man to whom war wasn't good enough
  unless it was bigger than he was.  Bam!  A
  David.  A man who made his peace with stones
  (The Wars 32).

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Emily Dickinson, I Took My Power in My Hand

• I took my Power in my Hand
• And went against the World
• Twas not so much as David had
• But I was twice as bold
• I aimed my Pebble but Myself
• Was all the one that fell
• Was it Goliath was too large
• Or was myself too small?

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13. King Solomon

• God granted Solomon great wisdom I give you a
  wise and discerning mind no one like you has
  been before you and no one like you shall arise
  after you (1 Kings 312).
• Two women both claimed to be the mother of an
  infant. Solomon decreed that the child should be
  cut in half, and then gave him to the woman who
  was unwilling to see the child harmed, declaring
  her the true mother.

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14. Job

• Job was an honorable servant of God That man
  was blameless and upright, one who feared God and
  turned away from evil (Job 11).
• God agreed to let Satan inflict suffering upon
  Job, to prove his faithfulness, and Job refused
  to curse God, even after his family was killed
  and all his possessions destroyed.
• Eventually, the Lord restored the fortunes of
  Job and the Lord gave Job twice as much as he
  had before (Job 4210).

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15. Ecclesiastes

• Several key motifs come from the book of
  Ecclesiastes, which emphasizes repetition and
  mystery in human existence.
• Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher, vanity of
  vanities! All is vanity. What do people gain
  from all the toil at which they toil under the
  sun? A generation goes, and a generation comes,
  but the earth remains forever (Eccl. 12-4).
• As he said vanity, so vain say I,/ Oh! vanity, O
  vain all under sky (Anne Bradstreet, The Vanity
  of All Worldly Things)
• For everything there is a season, and a time for
  every matter under heaven a time to be born, and
  a time to die, a time to plant, and a time to
  pluck up what is planted (Eccl. 31-2).
• To everything - turn, turn, turn/ There is a
  season - turn, turn, turn/ And a time for every
  purpose under heaven (The Byrds, Turn! Turn!
  Turn!).

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16. The Trinity

• The motif of a tripartite God (father, son and
  holy ghost like in Don McLeans American Pie)
  has become a major archetype in literature.
• Batter my heart, three persond God (John
  Donne, Holy Sonnet XIV).

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17. The birth of Christ

• Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in
  this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged
  to Joseph, but before they lived together, she
  was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit
  (Matthew 118).
• Joseph, who was from Nazareth, took Mary to
  Bethlehem, where the child was born and laid in
  a manger, because there was no place for them in
  the inn (Luke 27).
• Strange news! a city full? will none give way/
  To lodge a guest that comes not every day? (Sir
  John Suckling, Upon Christ his Birth).

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18. John the Baptist

• The angel Gabriel appeared to Zechariah, whose
  wife Elizabeth was barren, and said that she
  would bear a son and that his name would be John.
• John baptized many people in the name of God
  John beheld the great and holy,/ Hailed the love
  of God supreme/ O how gracious, meek, and
  lowly,/ When baptized in Jordans stream!
  (Christopher Smart, The Nativity of St. John the
  Baptist).
• John was imprisoned by Herod, and Herod promised
  Salome, the daughter of his brothers wife, to
  grant her anything she might ask. Salome asked
  for the head of John the Baptist here on a
  platter (Matthew 148).

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19. Judas

• Then one of the twelve, who was called Judas
  Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said,
  What will you give me if I betray him to you?
  They paid him thirty pieces of silver. And from
  that moment he began to look for an opportunity
  to betray him (Matthew 2614-6).
• Now the betrayer had given them a sign, saying,
  The one I will kiss is the man arrest him. At
  once he came up to Jesus and said, Greetings,
  Rabbi! and kissed him (Matthew 2648-9).
• When Judas saw Jesus condemned, he repented,
  brought back the silver, and hanged himself.

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20. Peters denial of Christ

• Jesus said to him, Truly I tell you, this very
  night, before the cock crows, you will deny me
  three times. Peter said to him, Even though I
  must die with you, I will not deny you. And so
  said all the disciples (Matthew 2634-5).
• A servant-girl came to Peter and said, You
  also were with Jesus the Galilean. But he
  denied it before all of them (Matthew
  2669-70).
• even the Prince/ of the Apostles so long since/
  had been forgiven, and to convince/ all the
  assembly/ that Deny deny deny/ is not all the
  roosters cry (Elizabeth Bishop, Roosters).

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21. Pilate

• So when Pilate saw that he could do nothing, but
  rather that a riot was beginning, he took some
  water and washed his hands before the crowd,
  saying, I am innocent of this mans blood see
  to it yourselves. (Matthew 2724).
• Bloody/dirty hands become associated with guilt.
• Macbeth, after killing Duncan Will all great
  Neptunes ocean wash this blood/ clean from my
  hand? (2.2.57-8).
• Lady Macbeth, washing her hands while sleepwalking

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22. The crucifixion

• Jesus was crucified at Golgotha, and his cross
  was carried there by a man named Simon.
• They stripped him, and put a scarlet robe on
  him, and after twisting some thorns into a crown,
  they put it on his head (Matthew 2728-9).
• From noon on, darkness came over the whole land
  until three in the afternoon. And about three
  oclock Jesus cried with a loud voice, My God,
  my God, why have you forsaken me? (Matthew
  2745-6).

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Andrew Lansdown, Golgotha

• Finally, one arrives at the place
• Of the skull because there is nowhere
• Else to go. And there before the face
• Of bone one pauses to despair.
• The culmination of all evil
• Is displayed before ones eyes
• Mans heart conspired with the devil
• And cared little for disguise.

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23. Resurrection

• Before his death, Jesus predicted that he would
  be crucified and would rise again three days
  later.
• Why do you look for the living among the dead?
  He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he
  told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the
  Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be
  crucified, and on the third day rise again.
  (Luke 245-7).
• May then sins sleep, and deaths soon from me
  pass,/ That waked from both,/ I again risen may/
  Salute the last, and everlasting day (John
  Donne, Resurrection).

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24. Apocalypse

• The Book of Revelations, the final book of the
  New Testament, describes the second coming of
  Christ and the Apocalypse or end of the world.
• Many works of literature (and movies) refer to
  images found in this book, like the four horsemen
  or the last trumpet.
• This is where Christ is referred to as Alpha and
  Omega (the first and last letters of the Greek
  alphabet) I am the Alpha and the Omega, says
  the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to
  come, the Almighty (Rev. 18) Then he said to
  me, It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega,
  the beginning and the end (Rev. 215).

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Allusions from Classical Mythology

• Some key stories to know from ancient Greek and
  Roman mythology
• Some important characters to recognize
• A few examples of works of literature in which
  allusions to these can be found

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1. Prometheus

• Prometheus, a Titan, created man out of earth, in
  the image of the gods.
• Prometheus brought fire to man by lighting his
  torch at the chariot of the sun (with help from
  Athena).
• He was punished by Zeus by being chained to a
  rock, where a vulture perpetually ate his liver.
• Or, like the thief of fire from heaven,/ Wilt
  thou withstand the shock?/ And share with him -
  the unforgiven-/ His vulture and his rock? (Lord
  Byron, Ode to Napoleon Bonaparte).

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2. Persephone

• Persephone was the daughter of Zeus and Demeter,
  and she was abducted by Hades and taken to the
  underworld to be his wife.
• Demeter sought her daughter everywhere and, once
  she learned where Persephone had been taken,
  begged Zeus to intervene and force her return.
• Zeus agreed that she should be returned, on the
  condition that she had not eaten anything during
  her stay in the underworld.
• Unfortunately, Persephone had eaten a few
  pomegranate seeds, and so a compromise was
  reached she was to spend half the year with her
  mother and the other half in the underworld with
  her husband.
• This story is used to explain the changing of
  seasons. During the winter months, Demeter
  punishes the earth with winds and cold, and when
  her daughter returns, she unleashes the beauty of
  spring.

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3. Perseus and Medusa

• Medusa was a Gorgon, a group of monstrous women
  with snakes for hair, whose gaze had the power to
  turn men to stone.

• Perseus, who was a son of Zeus (conceived when he
  impregnated Danae with a ray of light), killed
  Medusa by using his shield to reflect her gaze,
  and then used her head as a weapon in his further
  battles.
• Pegasus, a winged horse, was created by Medusas
  blood sinking into the earth after Perseus cut
  off her head.
• Perseus married Andromeda, who he rescued from a
  sea monster.

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4. Jason the Argonauts

• Jason took a crew of fifty men (called Argonauts
  after their ship, the Argo) on a quest for the
  Golden Fleece, which eventually led them to
  Colchis.
• Medea, the daughter of the King, who was also a
  sorceress, helped Jason complete the quest, and
  in exchange he promised to marry her.
• After she killed his uncle, Jason had Medea
  imprisoned, and, as revenge, she killed their
  children and fled to Athens.
• Her story is told in Euripides Medea. In
  addition, the cauldron and chants of the witches
  in Macbeth can be read as an allusion to Medea
  and her spells.

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5. The labours of Hercules

• Hercules was another son of Zeus and a mortal
  woman, so Hera hated him from his birth.
• She sent two serpents to destroy him in his
  cradle, but he strangled them with his hands, an
  early sign of his great strength.
• Hercules was forced to perform twelve impossible
  labours, such as killing the Nemean lion and the
  Hydra, and he completed them all.

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6. Minos, Theseus, Icarus

• Minos, King of Crete, had a monster called a
  Minotaur, which was kept in a labyrinth designed
  by Dædalus.
• Theseus slew the Minotaur and found his way out
  of the labyrinth by following a thread he had
  unraveled on the way in.
• When Dædalus lost the favour of King Minos, he
  was locked up in a tower. To escape, he made
  wings, which were held together with wax, for
  himself and his son Icarus, and warned his son
  not to fly too close to the sun.
• Icarus flew too close to the sun, the wax melted,
  and he fell into the sea and drowned.
• with melting wax and loosened strings/ Sunk
  hapless Icarus on unfaithful wings (Erasmus
  Darwin).
• And, like Icarus, the rocket foolishly soared
  too high (Kent Brockman, The Simpsons).

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Allusions to Icarus
This painting, The Fall of Icarus, is by
16th-century Dutch painter Pieter Brueghel, and
is the subject of two poems in The Broadview
Anthology Landscape with the Fall of Icarus by
William Carlos Williams (p. 436), and Musee des
Beaux Arts by W.H. Auden (p. 553).
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7. Orpheus Eurydice

• Orpheus was a renowned musician, the son of
  Apollo and the Muse Calliope.
• His wife, Eurydice, died shortly after their
  wedding, and Orpheus went to the underworld to
  find her.
• He charmed the inhabitants of Hades with his
  music, and was permitted to take Eurydice away
  with him on the condition that he not turn to
  look at her until they had reached the world
  above.
• Orpheus glanced behind him, and Eurydice was lost
  forever.
• But soon, too soon the lover turns his eyes/
  Again she falls, again she dies, she dies!
  (Alexander Pope, Ode to St. Cecilias Day).
• Orpheus died when he was torn apart by women
  observing the Bacchanalian feast. They left only
  his head and his lyre.

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8. The Trojan War

• This war between the Greeks and the Trojans began
  over Helen of Troy, who was supposedly the most
  beautiful woman in the world (the face that
  launched a thousand ships Marlowe, Doctor
  Faustus).
• Helen was married to Menelaus, the king of
  Sparta, and was taken away by Paris, son of
  Priam, the king of Troy.
• All of the gods were involved in this war
  Aphrodite on the side of the Trojans, and Athena
  and Hera on the side of the Greeks, among others.
• The Trojan Horse incident occurred during this
  war.
• Some key characters to know Achilles (and his
  heel), Agamemnon, Hector, Paris
• The story of the Trojan War is most famously told
  in Homers Iliad.

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9. The travels of Odysseus

• Odysseus (or Ulysses) fought in the Trojan War,
  and afterwards had many adventures trying to make
  his way back home to Ithaca.
• His story is told in Homers Odyssey.
• Key characters to know Penelope his wife, who
  had to hold off suitors for a total of 20 years
  while waiting for her husbands return,
  Telemachus his son, the Cyclops, the Sirens,
  who tempt men to their deaths with singing
• Tennyson Ulysses
• Margaret Atwood Siren Song

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10. Aeneas and Dido

• Aeneas also fought in the Trojan War.
• He was destined to found the city of Rome, so his
  love affair with Dido, the Queen of Carthage,
  ended in tragedy when he left, called by the god
  Mercury, and she stabbed herself on her
  already-lit funeral pyre.
• His story is chronicled in Virgils Aeneid, which
  famously begins I sing of arms and the man
  (alluded to in the title of Wilfred Owens WWI
  poem, Arms and the Boy).

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11. Oedipus and his family

• It was prophesied by the Delphic Oracle that
  Oedipus would marry his mother (Jocasta) and kill
  his father (Laius) and, although he tried to run
  away, he unwittingly did just that.
• After they realized what they had done, Jocasta
  killed herself and Oedipus blinded himself.
• His younger daughter, Antigone, took care of him
  until his death, and then became the subject of
  her own tragedy when she buried her brother
  Polyneices against the wishes of the king, Creon,
  her uncle.
• The story of the House of Thebes is most
  famously told in Sophocles Oedipus Rex, Oedipus
  at Colonnus, and Antigone (collectively referred
  to as the Theban plays).

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Other sources for Greco-Roman mythology

• There are countless other Greek and Roman myths
  which are the subject of literary allusions.
• For further reading, consult
• Bulfinchs Mythology (online at www.bulfinch.org)
• Edith Hamilton - Mythology
• Ovids Metamorphoses