Gods/Goddesses consumed by love

The myth of Persephone and Hades has always interested me. I knew the whole myth.



Which is as follows: Hades fell in love with Persophone, who is the daughter of Demeter, the earth goddess. He developed a plan to kidnap her and bring her down to the underworld to live with him. Demeter, after learning this, was extremely distraught. The whole earth seemed to die in her grief. Demeter asked Zeus for help in getting her daughter back. Zeus said that she would be able to get Persephone back only if Persephone didn't eat anything while she was in the underworld. Hades, knowing this, tricked Persephone into eating three or four pomegranate seeds. By eating these, she was bound to the underworld and be his wife. It is said that she is only to return to the earth, to Demeter, for half of the year and spend the other half down in the underworld, being the Queen. Demeter is so alive and happy during the time that Persephone it up on the earth and when she returns, Demeter is heart broken. Since she is the earth goddess, the earth and nature reflect on her feelings. This is how the seasons began.

 But after reading Ovid's version, I do believe that a crucial part in the myth was left out in the other versions that I have read. Ovid says that Cupid shot one of his arrows to Hades and that is how he fell in love with Persephone and became obsessed with her. This little bit of information is interesting to me in the way that the gods and goddesses can be affected by Cupid's arrows. This one human emotion, love, can consume even supreme beings. There are quite a few myths where Cupid shoots his arrows at gods/goddesses and they fall in love with the first person they see. Such a human quality that they are succumb to. They are not above falling in love or being heart broken by love. In this aspect they are just as human as you and me.

Slavic Creation Myth

In the beginning, there were no earth and no people, only the primordial sea. Bielobog flew over the face of the waters in the shape of a swan and was lonely. Longing for someone to keep him company, he noticed his shadow, Chernobog and rejoiced.
"Let us make land" said Bielobog.
"Let us," said Chernobog, but where will we get the dirt?"
"There is dirt under the water, go down and get some," answered Bielobog, but before you can reach it, you must say 'With Bielobog's power and mine'."
The devil dived into the water, but said "With My Power", instead of what he was instructed to say. Twice he dived down and neither time did he reach the bottom. Finally, the third time he said "With Bielobog's Power and Mine" and he reached the dirt. Scraping some up with his nails, he brought it to the surface but hid a grain of dirt in his mouth in order to have his own land.
God then took the dirt from him and scattered it upon the water. The dirt became dry land and began to grow. Of course, the land in Chernobog's mouth also began to grow and his mouth began to swell. Chernobog was forced to spit and spit to rid himself of all the earth and where he spit, mountains were formed.
Angered that he was cheated out of his own land, he waited for Bielobog to fall asleep. As soon as the god was sleeping peacefully, Czernobog lifted him up to throw him in the water. In each direction he went, but the land had grown so much, he could not reach the ocean. When Bielobog awoke, Czernobog said "Look how much the land has grown, we should bless it."
..And Bielobog said slyly, "I blessed it last night, in all four directions, when you tried to throw me in the water."
This greatly angered Czernobog who stormed off to get away from Bielobog once and for all. In the meantime, the earth would not stop growing. This made Bielobog very nervous as the Heavens could no longer cover it all, so he sent an expedition to ask Czernobog how to make it stop.
Czernobog had since created a goat. When the expedition saw the great god Czernobog riding astride a goat, they couldn't stop laughing. This angered the god and he refused to speak to them. Bielobog then created a bee, and sent the bee to spy on Czernobog.
The bee quietly alit upon Czernobog's shoulder and waited. Soon, she heard him say to the goat "What a stupid god! He doesn't even know that all he has to do is take a stick, make a cross to the four directions and say 'That is enough earth'. Instead he wonders what to do."
Hearing this, the bee buzzed off in excitement. Knowing that he'd been heard, Czernobog yelled after the bee, "Whoever sent you, Let him eat your excrement!".
The bee went directly to Bielobog and said "He said All you need to do is make a cross to the four directions and say 'That is enough earth.' And to me he said 'let whomever sent you eat your excrement'.
So god stopped the earth from growing and than said to the bee "Then forever after, let there be no excrement sweeter than yours."

http://www.plesiosaur.com/creationism/creationmyths/myths_25.php

Class Notes 1/9-1/21

Mythos - 'story' + Logos - 'word/truth' = Mythology - 'truth of stories'

Myth - precedent behind all actions, no orginiality, going back to the orgins

Nothing ever dies: it changes into new forms




'In Ilo Tempore' - in the (great, big) time

Sparagmos - the act of rendering, tearing apart, or mangling

• performed during acts involving Dionysus
• animals and even humans are sacrificed
• omophagia (eating of raw flesh from the sacrified) follows after

Joseph Cambell's Monomyth: Hero's Journey

• Call to adeventure
• Refusal or denial of adventure
• Supernatural aid
• Crossing of the threshold
• Belly of the whale
• Road of trials
• Meeting with the Goddess
• Woman as temptress
• Atonement with father
• Aptheosis
• Ultimate Boon
• Refusal of the return
• Magic flight
• Rescue from without
• Crossing of return threshold
• Master of two worlds
• Freedom to live

Baucus/Dionysus - god of wine, winemaking, grape harvest, ritual madness, and ectasy

All fairy tales are degenerated myths.

Italo Calvino - Italian journalist, wrote the novel, Invisible Cities

Caduceus Staff - medical staff
Asclepius - father of Hygieia - goddess of health, cleanliness, and sanitation
Asclepion's Temple of Healing ( Faith Healing )
- People go in with a sickness, pick a single room and lay down in a bed and fall asleep. The therapy was that you hopefully have a dream about Ascleplus and/or his staff, and if you did, you would be cured of whatever illness you have.

The Doors ( of Perception) by Aldous Huxley
Brave New World

Orpheus - legendary muscian and poet
- tries to get his wife back from Hades on one condition, he cannot look back at her until he is in the mortal world again, he looks back and loses her again forever

Recursive Structure - stories with in stories with in stories

Theseus - philander and abandoner of women

• killed minotaur in the labyrinth
• friend to Pirithous who helped each other get girls
• wanted Helen of Troy
• daughter of Leda and Zeus
• Zeus raped Leda in the form of a swan
• laid two eggs, one with Helen and Polydeuces and one with Castor and Clytemnestra
• tries to kidnapp Helen but her brothers rescue her
• Pirithous wanted Persephone
• went into the underworld and ask Hades for her, he said ok and asked for them to wait on a bench while he went to get her, so they sat and when he brought her out, they were unable to get up, they were stuck to the bench, they sat there for years and years until Hercules was in the underworld and asked Hercules to help them, he only had time for one and helped Theseus, in the process of pulling him off the bench, Hercules ripped Theseus' butt off, reason why Greek men have small butts today

Leda and the Swan
-William Butler Yeats

A sudden blow: the great wings beating still

Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.

How can those terrified vague fingers push

The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
And how can body, laid in that white rush,

But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?
A shudder in the loins engenders there

The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead.
Being so caught up,
So mastered by the brute blood of the air,
Did she put on his knowledge with his power
Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?

Sisyphus - didn't return to the underworld directly after scolding his wife for not proper burial and showing respect for him and tricking persephone and now eternally damned to rolling a boulder up a hill

Tantalus - fed his children to the gods and now eternally damned to be thristy and hungry

Ixion - tried to seduce Hera, and now eternally damned to be chained to a fiery wheel either in the sky or the underworld

Prometheus: both creation myth and god

This past weekend, my boyfriend and I were watching a movie that came out recently called Prometheus. It is suppose to be a prequel to the movie series Alien. Prometheus is about this group of scientists that follow a star map to a distant planet in search of the origins of humanity. They find these life forces, which they call Engineers. These Engineers created human kind and all that persists in their world. After a period of time, the Engineers believe that the humans have defied them and are all around not perfect. So, they set out to destroy their creation and start anew. The scientists who set out to find the Engineers are focused on finding their creator and learning all that they can. They insist that there has to be a reason why the human race was created. Their curosity is their downfall. Humans having to learn about everything they can. This clip from the movie helps explain this.

Watching this movie reminded of the Greek god and Titan, Prometheus. He is known for the creation of man from clay. He also is known for the stealing of fire from the gods and giving it down to man. He represents human kind striving for survival and for knowledge of all things possible. His punishment was to be bound to a rock and have his liver eaten by an eagle every day for eternity.


These two stories connect in such a way the groups of humans are constantly wanting to know everything about anything and everything. We have such a need to know about the things we don't know that sometimes we go too far and end up worse than we orginally started. Knowledge is power, but at times, it gives up too much power than we know what to do with.