Greek Mythology

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Greek Mythology

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The Gods, the Creation, and the Earliest Heroes

• 1. The Greek did not believe that the gods
  created the universe. They believed that the
  universe created the gods.

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The Titans and the twelve great Olympians

• 1. The Titans often called the Elder Gods, were
  for untold ages supreme in the universe. They
  were of enormous size and of incredible strength.
  

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• 2. The twelve great Olympians were supreme among
  the gods who succeeded to the Titans. They were
  called the Olympians because Olympus was their
  home. Homer makes Poseidon say that he rules the
  sea, Hades the dead, Zeus the heavens, but
  Olympus is common to all three.

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The twelve Olympians

• (1) Zeus (Jupiter), (2)Poseidon, (3)Hades, (4)
  Hestia, their sister, (5) Hera, Zeuss wife, (6)
  Ares, their son, (7) Athena, (8) Apollo,
  (9)Aphrodite (Venus), (10) Hermes,(11) Artemis,
  and (12) Hephaestus.

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The Two Great Gods of Earth

• There were two who were altogether different and
  who were indeed mankinds best friends Demeter,
  the Goddess of the Corn, a daughter of Cronus and
  Rhea and Dionysus, also called Bacchus, the God
  of Wine.

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• In the stories of both goddesses, Demeter and
  Persephone, the idea of sorrow was foremost.
  Demeter, goddess of the harvest wealth, was still
  more the divine sorrowing mother who saw her
  daughter die each year. Persephone was the
  radiant maiden of the spring and the summertime.

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Dionysus or Bacchus

• Thebes was Dionysus own city, where he was born,
  the son of Zeus and the Theban princess Semele.
  He was the only god whose parents were not both
  divine.

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• The worship of Dionysus was centered in these two
  ideas of freedom and ecstatic joy and of savage
  brutality. The God of Wine could give either to
  his worshipers. Throughout the story of his life
  he is sometimes mans blessing, sometimes his
  ruin.

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• Wine is bad as well as good. It cheers and warms
  mens hearts and it also makes them drunk. The
  Greek were a people who saw facts very clearly.
• Wine was the merry-maker, lightening mens
  hearts, bringing careless ease and fun and
  gaiety.

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How the World and Mankind Were Created

• 1. Long before the gods appeared, in the dim
  past, there was only the formless confusion of
  Chaos brooded over by unbroken darkness. Two
  children were born to this shapeless nothingness.
  Night was the child of Chaos.

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• 2. The first creatures who had the appearance of
  life were the children of Mother Earth and Father
  Heaven (Gaea and Ouranos).They were monsters.
  The universe was once inhabited by strange
  gigantic creatures.

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• 3. In addition to Cyclopes, last came the Titans.
  The Titans were conquered partly because Zeus
  released from their prison the hundred-handed
  monsters who fought for him with their
  irresistible weaponsthunder, lightning, and
  earthquakes.

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• 4. Even after the Titans were conquered and
  crushed, Zeus was not completely victorious.
  Earth gave birth to her last and most frightful
  offspring, a creature more terrible than any that
  had gone before. His name was Typhon.

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• 5. Prometheus, whose name means forethought, was
  very wise,wiser than the gods. Prometheus then
  took over the task of creation and thought out a
  way to make mankind superior.

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• 6. For a long time, throughout the happy Golden
  Age,only men were upon the earth there were no
  women. Zeus created later.

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• Prometheus had not only stolen fire for menhe
  had also arranged that they should get the best
  part of any animal sacrificed and the gods the
  worst. Because of Zeuss anger, he swore to
  revenge Prometheus. Mankind was revenged first
  and then on mankinds friend.

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• Zeus made a great evil for men, a sweet and
  lovely thing to look upon, in the likeness of a
  shy maiden, Padora, a symbol of the gift of
  all. From her, the first woman, comes the race
  of women, who are an evil to men, with a nature
  to do evil.

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• Another story about Pandora is that the source of
  all misfortune was not her wicked nature, but
  only her curiosity. Hope was the mankinds sole
  comfort in misfortune.

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The Earliest Heroes

• When Prometheus had just given fire to mankind,
  he had a strange visitor, a beast from Io,one of
  Zeuss lovers.
• Ios descent would be Hercules, the greatest of
  heroes.

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• 3. Europa, the daughter of the King of Sidon, was
  exceedingly fortunate. Except for a few moments
  of terror when she found herself crossing the
  deep sea on the back of a bull she did not suffer
  at all.

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The Cyclops Polyphemus

• All the monstrous forms of life which were first
  created, the hundred-handed creatures, the
  Giants,and so on were banished from the earth
  when they had been conquered.

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Flower-myths Narcissus, Hyacinth, Adonis
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Part Two Stories of Love and Adventure

• 1. Cupid and Psyche
• 2. Pyramus and Thisbe The deep red fruit of the
  mulberry is the everlasting memorial of the two
  lovers.
• 3.Orpheus and Eurydice The worlds greatest
  musician tries to rescue the dead wife from the
  land of the dead. But one condition is that he
  would not look back at her as she followed him
  until they had reached the upper world.

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• 4. Ceyx and Alcyone Juno summoned her messenger
  Iris and ordered her to go to the house of
  Somnus, God of Sleep, and bid him send a dream to
  Alcyone to tell her the truth about Ceyx,who had
  been dead on the sea. At last,both lovers became
  birds flying together because their love was
  unchanged.

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• 5. Baucis and Philemon In the Phrygian
  hill-country,there were once two trees grew from
  a single trunk. The story of how this cam about
  is a proof of the immeasurable power of the gods,
  and also of the way they reward the humble and
  the pious.

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• 6. Endymion He was a youth of surpassing beauty
  and that this was his singular fate. In all
  stories about him he sleeps forever, immortal,but
  never conscious.

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• 7. Daphne She was another of those independent
  love-and-marriage-hating young huntresses who are
  met with so often in the mythological stories.
  She is said to have been Apollos first love.
  She fled from Apollo. At last she had been
  changed into a laurel by Apollo.

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• 8. Alpheus and Arethusa The story is about the
  god, changing back into a river, follower her
  through the tunnel and that now his water mingles
  with hers in the fountain.

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• 9. Pygmalion and Galatea A gifted young sculptor
  loved the status he made.

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The Quest of Golden Fleece

• 1. Phrixus was taken to the altar a wondrous ram,
  with a fleece of pure gold, snatched him and his
  sister up and bore them away through the air.
  The boy came safely to the country of Colchis.
  He gave the precious Golden Fleece to King Aeetes.

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• Jason vs. Medea Medea knew how to work very
  powerful magic to save Jason and the Argonauts
  and helped Jason conquer the bulls and the
  dragon-teech men.
• When Jason came full of fury for what she had
  done to his bride and determined to kill her, the
  two boys were dead, and Medea was stepping into a
  chariot by dragons.

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Four Great Adventures

• 1. Phaethon In the car Phaethon, hardly keeping
  his place there, was wrapped in thick smoke and
  heat as if from a fiery furnace.

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• 2. Pegasus (flying horse)and Bellerophon ( the
  son of Poseidon)
• Anteia told Proetus that Bellerophon had wronged
  her and must die. He made a plan and asked the
  youth to take a letter to the King of Lucia in
  Asia and Bellerophon easily agreed.The king read
  that Proetus wanted the young man killed.

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• So, he asked him to go and slay the Chimaera,
  feeling assured that he would never come back.
  But for Bellerophone riding Pegasus there as no
  need to come anywhere near the flaming monster.
  Bellerophone had succeeded in conquering these,
  on another against the Amazons.

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• Finally, Proetus became friends with him and gave
  him his daughter to marry. He lived happy for a
  long time. Then, he made gods angry.
  Thereafter, Bellerophon, hated of gods, wandered
  alone, devouring his own soul and avoiding the
  paths of men until he died. Pegasus brought the
  thunder and lightning to Zeus.

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3. Otus and Ephialtes

• (1)The twin brothers were Giants, but they did
  not look like the monsters of old.
• (2) They were still very young when they set
  about proving that they were the gods superiors.
  They imprisoned Ares with chains of brass.

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• (3) Otus thought it would be an excellent
  adventure to carry Hera off, and Ephilates was in
  love with Artemis. Artemis wento Otus, and said
  if he would let out Ares, he could do with her
  what he would do. Otus was happy, but Ephilates
  wasnt. The brothers began to quarrel, and when
  they were not looking Artemis turned into a deer.
  

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• When the fighting reached a peak, she sprang
  between them as a white doe. Both of them broke
  off and threw their spears at the lovely
  creature. At last,they killed each other.

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4. Daedalus and Icarus

• Daedalus was a famous architect, inventor, and
  master craftman. He made two pairs of wings for
  them. He warned Icarus to keep a middle course
  over the sea. If he flew too high the sun might
  melt the glue and the wings drop off. At last,
  Icarus was dead.

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• King Minos went in pursuit of Daedalus, hoping to
  trick the great inventor into revealing himself.
  Eventurally, Minos came to Camicus in Sicily.
  The clever Daedalus tied the string to an ant,
  place the ant at one end of the shell, and
  allowed the ant to walk through the spiral
  chambers until it came out the other end.

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• When the puzzle was solved, Minos would like to
  seize Daedalus. But the King Cocalus refused to
  surrender him, and in the contest Minos was
  slain.