新编希腊罗马神话欣赏 Appreciating Greco-Roman Mythology New Edition

王磊/编著

上海外语教育出版社 图书在版编目（CIP）数据

新编希腊罗马神话欣赏/王磊编著. —上海：上海外语教育出版社，2015 (新世纪高等院校英语专业本科生系列教材. 修订版) ISBN 978–7–5446–4030–5

I. ①新… II. ①王… III. ①英语–高等学校–教材 ②神话–文学欣赏–古希腊 ③神话–文 学欣赏–古罗马 IV. ①H319.4: I

中国版本图书馆CIP数据核字(2015)第173725号 “新世纪高等院校英语专业本科生系列教材”（修订版） 编委会名单

主 任：戴炜栋 委 员：（以姓氏 笔 划 为序）

文秋芳 北京外国语大学 李战子 解放军国际关系学院 王 岚 解放军外国语学院 杨达复 西安外国语大学 王立非 对外 经 济贸易大学 杨信彰 厦门大学 王守仁 南京大学 邹 申 上海外国语大学 王俊菊 山东大学 陈建平 广东外 语外贸大学 王腊宝 苏州大学 陈法春 天津外国语大学 史志康 上海外国语大学 姚君伟 南京师范大学 叶兴国 上海对外经贸大学 洪 岗 浙江外国语学院 申 丹 北京大学 胡文仲 北京外国语大学 石 坚 四川大学 赵忠德 大连外国语大学 刘世生 清华大学 殷企平 杭州师范大学 刘海平 南京大学 秦秀白 华南理工大学 庄智象 上海外国语大学 袁洪庚 兰州大学 朱 刚 南京大学 屠国元 中南大学 何兆熊 上海外国语大学 梅德明 上海外国语大学 何其莘 北京外国语大学 黄国文 中山大学 张绍杰 东北师范大学 黄勇民 复旦大学 张春柏 华东师范大学 黄源深 上海对外经贸大学 张维友 华中师范大学 程晓堂 北京师范大学 李 力 西南大学 蒋洪新 湖南师范大学 李庆生 武汉大学 谢 群 中南财经政法大学 李建平 四川外国语大学 虞建华 上海外国语大学 李绍山 解放军外国语学院 蔡龙权 上海师范大学 总 序

我国英语专业本科教学与学科建设，伴随着我国改革开放的 步伐，得到了长足的发展和提升。回顾这30多年英语专业教学改 革和发展的历程，无论是英语专业教学大纲的制订、颁布、实施和 修订，还是四、八级考试的开发与推行，以及多项英语教学改革项 目的开拓，无不是围绕英语专业的学科建设和人才培养而进行的， 正如《高等学校英语专业英语教学大纲》提出的英语专业的培养目 标，即培养“具有扎实的英语语言基础和广博的文化知识并能熟练 地运用英语在外事、教育、经贸、文化、科技、军事等部门从事翻 译、教学、管理、研究等工作的复合型英语人才。”为促进英语 专业本科建设的发展和教学质量的提高，外语专业教学指导委员 会还实施了“新世纪教育质量改革工程”，包括推行“十五”、 “十一五”国家级教材规划和外语专业国家精品课程评审，从各个 教学环节加强对外语教学质量的宏观监控，从而确保为我国的经济 建设输送大量的优秀人才。 跨入新世纪，英语专业的建设面临新的形势和任务：经济全 球化、科技一体化、文化多元化、信息网络化的发展趋势加快，世 界各国之间的竞争日趋激烈，这对我国英语专业本科教学理念和培 养目标提出了新的挑战；大学英语教学改革如火如荼；数字化、网 络化等多媒体教学辅助手段在外语教学中广泛应用和不断发展；英 语专业本科教育的改革和学科建设也呈现出多样化的趋势，翻译专 业、商务英语专业相继诞生——这些变化和发展无疑对英语专业的 学科定位、人才培养以及教材建设提出了新的、更高的要求。 上海外语教育出版社(简称外教社)在新世纪之初约请了全国30 余所著名高校百余位英语教育专家，对面向新世纪的英语专业本科 生教材建设进行了深入、全面、广泛和具有前瞻性的研讨，成功地 推出了理念新颖、特色明显、体系完备的“新世纪高等院校英语专 业本科生系列教材”，并被列入“十五”国家级规划教材，以其前 瞻性、先进性和创新性等特点受到全国众多使用院校的广泛好评。 面对快速发展的英语专业本科教育，如何保证专业的教学质 量，培养具有国际视野和创新能力的英语专业人才，是国家、社 会、高校教师共同关注的问题，也是教材编撰者和教材出版者关心 和重视的问题。 作为教学改革的一个重要组成部分，优质教材的编写和出版

I 对学科建设的推动和人才培养的作用是有目共睹的。外教社为满足 教学和学科发展的需要，与教材编写者们一起，力图全方位、大 幅度修订并扩充原有的“新世纪高等院校英语专业本科生系列教 材”，以打造英语专业教材建设完整的学科体系。为此，外教社邀 请了全国几十所知名高校40余位著名英语教育专家，根据英语专 业学科发展的新趋势，围绕梳理现有课程、优化教材品种和结构、 改进教学方法和手段、强化学生自主学习能力的培养、有效提高教 学质量等问题开展了专题研究，并在教材编写与出版中予以体现。 修订后的教材仍保持原有的专业技能、专业知识、文化知识 和相关专业知识四大板块，品种包括基础技能、语言学、文学、文 化、人文科学、测试、教学法等，总数逾200种，几乎涵盖了当前 我国高校英语专业所开设的全部课程，并充分考虑到我国英语教育 的地区差异和不同院校英语专业的特点，提供更多的选择。教材编 写深入浅出，内容反映了各个学科领域的最新研究成果；在编写宗 旨上，除了帮助学生打下扎实的语言基本功外，着力培养学生分析 问题、解决问题的能力，提高学生的思辨能力和人文、科学素养， 培养健康向上的人生观，使学生真正成为我国新时代所需要的英语 专门人才。 系列教材修订版编写委员会仍由我国英语界的知名专家学者 组成，其中多数是在各个领域颇有建树的专家，不少是高等学校外 语专业教学指导委员会的委员，总体上代表了中国英语教育的发展 方向和水平。 系列教材完整的学科体系、先进的编写理念、权威的编者队 伍，再次得到教育部的认可，荣列“普通高等教育‘十一五’国家 级规划教材”。我深信，这套教材一定会促进学生语言技能、专业 知识、学科素养和创新能力的培养，填补现行教材某些空白，为培 养高素质的英语专业人才奠定坚实的基础。

戴炜栋 教育部高校外语专业教学指导委员会主任委员 国务院学位委员会外语学科评议组组长

II 序 言

“光荣属于希腊，伟大属于罗马”——这是美国19世纪诗 人、小说家埃德加·爱伦·坡（Edgar Allan Poe）对古希腊罗马 文治武功的精辟总结。古希腊罗马文化对于西方乃至世界文明的 意义毋庸置疑。年幼时期，我们都因普罗米修斯盗取火种造福人 类、大力神海格力斯勇斩百头蛇怪、奥德修斯巧用木马计智取特 洛伊等故事兴奋不已、浮想联翩，同时又难以理解那些神仙、英 雄身上某些古怪但又富有人性的习性。之后，随着年龄渐长，我 们对西方美术及文学作品中那些俯拾皆是的神话主题和典故也总 是表现出极大的兴趣，但也时有困惑。近年来，国际市场上不时 播映的神话题材影视作品更是一再将人们的神话情结撩起。的 确，包括神话、悲剧及哲学等的古希腊罗马文化是西方文明的活 水源头之一。美国19世纪神话作家托马斯·布尔芬奇（Thomas Bulfinch）在《神话时代》（The Age of Fable）中对此作了具体、中 肯的表述：

Our young readers will find it (i.e. mythology, 本书作者 注) a source of entertainment; those more advanced, a useful companion in their reading; those who travel, and visit museums and galleries of art, an interpreter of paintings and sculptures; those who mingle in cultivated society, a key to allusions which are occasionally made; and last of all, those in advanced life, pleasure in retracing a path of literature which leads them back to the days of their childhood and revives at every step the associations of the morning of life.

正由于上述的种种益处，国内外的教育机构纷纷开设了介绍 和研究古典神话（也即希腊罗马神话）的课程，以帮助学生提高 人文素养、增强跨文化交际能力。但由于希腊罗马神话的版本众 多、浩繁复杂，以及对西方文化影响的深度和广度，开设该门课 程绝非易事。作者出于对希腊罗马神话的浓厚兴趣，不避其烦地 从2003年至今连续数年为英语专业学生开设多媒体“希腊罗马神 话与西方文化”课程。居高不下的选课率和出勤率，以及学生们 所表现出的高涨的学习、探究热情成为本人不断完善和开好该课 程的动力。作为课程载体的内部使用教材更是几经修改，日臻完

III 善。独乐乐不如众乐乐。经过作者的不懈努力，《希腊罗马神话 欣赏》终于于2008年10月作为普通高等教育“十一五”国家级规 划教材由上海外语教育出版社出版发行。教材出版至今已加印多 次，受到了广大使用学校及读者的欢迎。与此同时，根据相关课 程的教学实践及使用者的反馈，作者感到十分有必要对原教材进 行修订，以进一步突显希腊罗马神话与西方文化的关系及其现实 意义，更好地满足读者日益增长的了解异域文化、提高跨文化交 际能力的需求。 《新编希腊罗马神话欣赏》的目标读者仍为英语专业学生以 及英语达到中级水平且对希腊罗马神话有浓厚兴趣的所有人。教 材以精选并按一定体系编排的神话故事为主，同时兼顾其对西方 艺术、文学的影响以及使用者语言学习的需要。教材正文共分三 部分：The Olympian Gods and Other Deities（奥林普斯山众神及其 他神祇）、Stories of Love and Adventure（爱情及历险故事）、The Trojan War and Thereafter（特洛伊战争及其后事），基本涵盖了希 腊罗马神话中最为著名的故事和神、神人以及英雄三个时代。此 三部分各章的编排大致如下： ♨ Points of Departure（导读）：顾名思义，该部分对该章主 要神话故事和人物进行概述，并适当引申相关的文化含义。 ♨ Reading （神话阅读）：以布尔芬奇创作的语言优美、情节 引人入胜的神话作为底本，叙述最为著名的希腊罗马神话故事。 为了有助于阅读，作者做了较为丰富、实用的脚注，并安排一定 数量的西洋名画及雕塑的插图。文字与图片相得益彰，可谓图文 并茂。同时，在该部分之后还设计了Cultural Connections（文化链 接）栏目，以简洁的文字提供相关的文化信息，包括艺术作品鉴 赏、神话典故探源、神话解读等。 ♨ Post-reading Practice（读后练习）：该部分主要是针对“神 话阅读”部分设计的若干类巩固和拓展性质的练习，包括以下 部分： I. Questions for review and discussion：设计精当的思考题帮助 读者回顾主要情节并进行更深层次的思考。 II. Expand your mythological vocabulary：罗列若干常用的派生 于本章神话故事及人物的词汇，提高读者对神话词汇和典故的敏 感度。 III. Appreciation：分为Mythology in literature（文学中的神话 鉴赏）和Mythology in art（艺术中的神话鉴赏）两部分。前者选取

IV 英美文学作品中使用神话典故的语句、段落供读者识别和欣赏， 后者提供神话体裁的艺术作品，包括绘画、雕塑及影视作品的名 称和作者，以使读者能够据此进行艺术欣赏，提高审美旨趣。 IV. Comprehensive Mythology/Beyond Mythology/Mythology Interpretation, etc.：该部分设计较为灵活，引导读者或对章节所涉 及的故事及角色的深度思考，或对中国神话与希腊罗马神话进行 对比等。 除了上述三个基本部分外，《新编希腊罗马神话欣赏》还编 排了Selected Readings in Mythological Classics（神话经典阅读） 和Appendix（附录）。它们也是本教材的组成部分，故以下稍作 介绍。 Selected Readings in Mythological Classics节选了与教材前三部 分相关的古希腊罗马神话典籍的英译。希望读者将此部分与前三 部分的相关故事对照阅读。Appendix为A Pronouncing Glossary of Mythological Names and Allusions（神话人物名称和典故汇编）。这 是一个小型但很实用的词汇表，收录了本教材中所出现的绝大多数 神话人物的简短英文介绍，并配上了音标及相关的词语和典故。 此时此刻，距离首次将《希腊罗马神话欣赏》课程引入上海 外国语大学已逾十年，教材出版也近六年，作者也从当初斗志昂 扬的青壮年进入气定神闲的中年，但不变的是寒来暑往电脑前心 无旁骛的正襟危坐、课堂内外的神采飞扬以及不时传来毕业多年 的学子从课程中受益良多的反馈。当年书房中与作者手足胼胝的 爱子也早就大学毕业，现正在国家顶级实验室从事材料科学方面 的博士研究工作。他在潜心实验、撰写论文、申请专利之余，也 对中外古代先哲的典籍爱不释手，寻求着古希腊人所倡导的卓越 与知足之间的平衡。仍可见妻子厨房间劳作的疲惫背影以及飞车 辗转于超市、菜场间矫健的身姿。神话虽仍为我所爱，但对你们 的爱戴、感激更甚。

王 磊 上海外国语大学英语学院 2015年3月

V Contents

Part One The Olympian Gods and Other Deities _ 1 Introduction to Part One: The Olympian Gods and Other Deities _ 2 1. The Olympian Gods _ 5 Cultural Connections: Pantheon _ 12 2. The Nature of Zeus _ 15 Cultural Connections: Astral Mythology _ 21 3. Artemis and Actaeon _ 23 Cultural Connections: The Sleep of Endymion _ 26 4. The Creation and Recreation of Man _ 28 Cultural Connections: The Hellenistic Civilization _ 33 5. Athena _ 36 Cultural Connections: Parthenon _ 40 6. Dionysus _ 42 Cultural Connections: Dionysus in Art _ 47 7. Midas _ 49 Cultural Connections: Poussin’s Midas and Bacchus _ 52 8. Persephone _ 55 Cultural Connections: The Eleusinian Mysteries _ 59 9. Hades and the Underworld _ 61 Cultural Connections: Katabasis (Descent into the Underworld) _ 66 10. Other Deities _ 69 Cultural Connections: The Best-known Picture in America _ 72

Part Two Stories of Love and Adventure _ 75 Introduction to Part Two: Stories of Love _ 76 11. Atalanta _ 79 Cultural Connections: Atalanta and Hippomenes _ 83 12. Apollo and Daphne _ 85 Cultural Connections: Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne _ 88 13. Cupid and Psyche _ 90 Cultural Connections: Psyche and Butterfly _ 99 14. Venus and Adonis _ 102 Cultural Connections: Adonis Belt (Complex, Index, etc.) _ 104 15. Pyramus and Thisbe _ 107 Cultural Connections: The Pyramus and Thisbe Club _ 110 16. Echo and Narcissus _ 112 Cultural Connections: Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) _ 115 VI 17. Pygmalion _ 117 Cultural Connections: The Pygmalion and the Galatea Effect _ 120 Introduction to Part Two: Stories of Adventure _ 122 18. Perseus and Medusa _ 124 Cultural Connections: A Chimera in the Greeks’ Brain _ 129 19. Jason and the Golden Fleece _ 132 Cultural Connections: The Medea Complex/Syndrome _ 137 20. The Twelve Labors of Heracles _ 139 Cultural Connections: Heracles in Action _ 147 21. Cadmus _ 150 Cultural Connections: Hubris and Nemesis _ 154 22. Oedipus Rex _ 157 Cultural Connections: Moreau’s Oedipus and the Sphinx _ 160 23. Theseus _ 162 Cultural Connections: Ariadne’s Thread and the Ship of Theseus _ 167

Part Three The Trojan War and Thereafter _ 171 Introduction to Part Three: The Trojan War and Thereafter _ 172 24. The Trojan War _ 174 Cultural Connections: Spin-offs of the Trojan War _ 186 25. Agamemnon _ 190 Cultural Connections: “I have gazed upon the face of Agamemnon.” _ 193 26. The Story of Odysseus _ 196 Cultural Connections: The Afterlife of Odysseus _ 210 27. The Story of Aeneas (I) _ 214 Cultural Connections: Literature as Propaganda _ 222 28. The Story of Aeneas (II) _ 224 Cultural Connections: “I found Rome a city of brick, but left it a city of marble.” _ 235

Part Four Selected Readings in Mythological Classics _ 239 Hesiod Theogony _ 241 Ovid Metamorphoses _ 250 Homer Iliad _ 256 Odyssey _ 293 VII Virgil Aeneid _ 342 Aeschylus Agamemnon _ 368 Sophocles Oedipus the King _ 377 Euripides Medea _ 388 Trojan Women _ 394

Appendix A Pronouncing Glossary of Mythological Names and Allusions _ 403

Bibliography _ 425

VIII Part One

The Olympian Gods and Other Deities

1 Introduction to Part One: The Olympian Gods and Other Deities

Hesiod’s Theogony (theos, “god” + gonos, “offspring”) provides most of the myths about the Greek gods’ birth, offspring, and genealogical descent. Given the poet’s bitter experience of poverty and hard work, Hesiod presents a grim picture of intergenerational conflict among the gods. In the beginning, the universe is a cosmos evolving from Chaos. Chaos and Gaea (the earth) generate everything that exists, including seas, mountains, monsters and gods. Then gods of succeeding generations are traced back to Gaea and her mating with her son Uranus (the sky). This incestuous union produces 12 Titans with Cronus as their leader. Advised by his mother, Cronus castrates Uranus, severing the link between sky and earth, and becomes the new king of the cosmos. Cronus copulates with his sister Rhea to bring about Zeus and his siblings, the future older Olympians. Zeus then overthrows his father after subduing the Titans and imprisoning them in Tartarus and defeating Typhoeus, the hundred-headed monster. Zeus mates with his sister Hera to produce a group of younger Olympians. Thus, after a cosmic history marked by acts of appalling violence of emasculation, cannibalism, treachery and war, Zeus ultimately initiates a hierarchical and patriarchal rule into the Greek cosmos. The Greek gods are depicted quite differently from their counterparts in other cultures — humanism is more expressly emphasized. This human element can be shown through the fact that the Greek gods are very much like us human beings physically and psychologically, only larger, more powerful, and above all, immortal. They behave just like flawed mortals with their lusts and competitiveness, showing more of human foibles than of divine perfection. This anthropomorphism (神人同性) is found ubiquitous in the stories of gods. Zeus, for example, though the upholder of justice and the world’s moral balance, is a promiscuous god, who to satisfy his sexual desire will use force to violate both goddesses and mortal maidens, even handsome boys like Ganymede. The promiscuity of Zeus runs so rampant that his graceful queen Hera, just like any married woman similarly treated, regularly resorts to the modern equivalent of cloak-and-dagger and sabotage tricks to abort Zeus’s extramarital affairs and punish the objects of his affection. Artemis (Diana) is another case in point. She does show her determination to safeguard her celibacy by punishing a hunter 2 (Actaeon) savagely, yet she herself is involved in a number of amorous liaisons, one of which involves the perpetually sleeping Endymion. Athene is still another immortal who betrays human weaknesses. Being the brainchild of Zeus, and thereafter goddess of wisdom and arts and crafts, she out of her divine anger changes into a spider a mortal weaver who dares to challenge her for a contest at the loom. In the Works and Days, Hesiod focuses on the relationship between gods and humans, particularly on how the latter become more and more alienated from the former and nature. The double alienation is caused by man’s possession of fire stolen from the heavens by Prometheus and the curiosity of Pandora, which unleashes from a jar all kinds of diseases and miseries that plunge the human world into a downward spiral. This irreversible devolution is represented by Hesiod as five metallic ages of gold, silver, bronze (and an interpolated Age of Heroes), culminating in the Age of Iron characterized by injustice and strife. To cleanse the earth of its filthiness, gods dispatch a global deluge, destroying all humanity excepting Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha. This pious couple becomes the progenitors of a whole new race. The legend of King Midas, popularized in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, is just another example showing how man’s vices, in this case foolishness and greed, bring miseries and destruction. From another story involving the same figure who gets punished after judging unwisely in a musical contest between Apollo and Pan, we have obtained a familiar allusion, Midas’s ears — a symbol of poor judgment. To go back to the world of immortals, let’s take up the myth of Dionysus (Bacchus). This myth is interesting for a number of things. First, the god has a double birth, first from Semele’s womb and then from his father Zeus’s thigh. Then comes his traveling across foreign lands and changing into dolphins the pirates who kidnap and hold him for ransom. The god is also famous for his retinue of satyrs, panthers, maenads and goats. Lastly, Dionysus, god of intoxication and impulse, forms a striking contrast to Apollo, god of rational control and harmony. The kidnapping of Persephone by Hades and the subsequent frantic search of Demeter for her daughter can be described as an etiologic myth showing the so-called agricultural revolution of planting, tending and harvesting crops. It can also be read as an exploration of the individual female as she goes through the life cycle from innocence to maturity.

3 Thus, Hades and Persephone become the joint sovereigns of the Underworld, land of no return. In Homer’s account in the Odyssey, Hades’s kingdom is situated far to the west, beyond the River of Ocean. It is eternally dark and cheerless, as the permanent prison of all dead souls; only a few of Zeus’s favorites are sent to Elysium to enjoy earthly pleasures while the wicked, including the deposed Titans, suffer in anguish and despair. Among the famous sufferers in Tartarus, a mention should also be made of Tantalus, Sisyphus and Ixion, who meet their downfalls due to their insolent ambitions. While the Underworld proves to be torments for these god-offending souls, it becomes a testing ground for Hercules, Odysseus and Aeneas to prove their mettle as god- favoured heroes. Apart from the twelve Olympian Gods who hold sway over much of the universe, there is a much larger number of minor deities who reside in geographically limited parts of the world: the Naiads of brooks and fountains, the Oreads of mountains and grottos, the Nereids of the sea, and the Dryads of trees. There are also the deities responsible for the making of all kinds of winds. In fact, almost every inanimate object and natural phenomenon is personified and animated, hence the term animism, a universal feature among world mythologies.

4 1 The Olympian Gods

Points of Departure

公元前8 世纪希腊诗人赫西奥德（Hesiod）的长诗《神谱》 （Theogony）反映了古希腊人的宇宙观，同时也为我们勾勒出希腊神圣家族 的谱系图。万物肇始天地不分，惟卡俄斯（Chaos）独尊。该神诞下黑暗神 俄瑞波斯（Erebus）和夜神尼克斯（Nyx）。兄妹结合生出光亮、白日以及 海洋、山岳。大地女神该亚（Gaea/Gaia）童贞生育（parthenogenesis）诞下 苍穹之神乌拉诺斯（Uranus）。母子结合产生了以克罗诺斯（Cronus）和瑞 亚（Rhea）为首的12个提坦巨人（Titans）、3个独眼巨人（Cyclopes）和3个 百臂巨人（Hecatonchires）。子女谋反，克罗诺斯在该亚帮助下阉割并取代 了父神乌拉诺斯，从而成为新的宇宙霸主。但父子相争的宿命又应验了，这 就是所谓的提坦战争（Titanomachy），冲突的双方是以宙斯为首的一代新 神和其父领导的提坦巨人。战争以宙斯获胜、提坦巨人被打入阴间塔尔塔 罗斯（Tartarus）而告终。于是，经过神圣家族内部发生的乱伦、吞噬、宫 闱阴谋、阉割以及与波塞冬（Poseidon）和哈德斯（Hades）三分天下，终 于建立了以宙斯为首、其兄妹子女各司其职的奥林普斯众神（the Olympian gods）的统治。

5 Reading

Uranus = Gaea

Cronus = Rhea Coeus = Phoebe Oceanus = Tethys

Leto = Zeus Lapetus

Hestia Poseidon Demeter = Zeus Hades Zeus = Hera Persephone Prometheus Athena Atlas Epimetheus

Apollo Artemis

Ares Hebe Hephaestus Zeus = Maia Zeus = Dione

Hermes Aphrodite Figure 1–1 The Principal Greek Gods Family Tree, based on Edith Hamilton’s Mythology

1 The religions of ancient Greece and Rome are extinct. The so-called divinities of Olympus have not a single worshipper among living men. They belong now not to the department of theology, but to those of literature and taste. There they still hold their place, and will continue to hold it, for they are too closely connected with the finest productions of poetry and art, both ancient and modern, to pass into oblivion. All this being said, a systematic knowledge of the subject is nothing but a necessity.

Figure 1–2 The Ancient Greek Worldview (Stephen & Platzner, 2012: 63) 6 2 To begin with, let’s acquaint ourselves with the ideas of the structure of the universe which prevailed among the ancient Greeks. 3 The Greeks believed the earth to be flat and circular, their own country occupying the middle of it, the central point being either Mount Olympus, the abode of the gods, or Delphi, so famous for its oracle. 4 The circular disk of the earth was crossed from west to east and divided into two equal parts by the Sea, the Mediterranean, and its continuation Euxine1. 5 Around the earth flowed the River of Ocean, its course being from south to north on the western side of the earth, and in a contrary direction on the eastern side. It flowed in a steady, equable current, unperturbed by storm or tempest. The Sea, and all the rivers on earth, received their waters from it. 6 The northern portion of the earth was supposed to be inhabited by a happy race named the Hyperboreans2, dwelling in everlasting bliss and spring beyond the lofty mountains whose caverns were supposed to send forth the piercing blasts of the north wind, which chilled the people of Hellas3. Their country was inaccessible by land or sea. They lived exempt from disease or old age, from toils and warfare. Equally happy and virtuous were the Aethiopians4 who lived on the southern part of the earth, close to the stream of Ocean. The gods favoured them so highly that they were wont to leave at times their Olympian abodes and go to share their sacrifices and banquets. 7 The abode of the gods was on the summit of Mount Olympus, in Thessaly. A gate of clouds, kept by the goddesses named the Seasons, opened to permit the passage of the Celestials to earth, and to receive them on their return. The gods had their separate dwellings; but all, when summoned, repaired to the palace of Zeus (Jupiter or Jove), as did those deities whose usual abode was the earth, the waters, or the Underworld. It was also in the great hall of the palace of the Olympian king that the gods feasted each day on ambrosia and nectar, their food and drink, the latter being handed round by the lovely goddess Hebe (later, Ganymede , a Trojan youth noted for his beauty). Here they conversed of the affairs of heaven and earth; and as they quaffed their nectar, Apollo, the god of music, delighted them with the tones of his lyre, to which the Muses sang in responsive strains. When the sun was set, the gods retired to sleep in their respective dwellings.

1 Euxine: Black Sea 2 Hyperborean: an inhabitant of the extreme north 3 The word Hellas originated from Hellene, which came in turn from Hellen, the name of the son of Deucalion and Pyrrha (see Chapter 4). The ancient Greeks called themselves Hellenes, meaning “inhabitants of Hellas”, which formerly referred to an area in northern Greece but extended to include the whole Greece after the Council of the Amphictyonic League（近邻同盟会议）.“希腊” is a transliteration of the Greek word Hellas.（陈恒, 2006: 27–28） 4 Aethiopian: now commonly spelt Ethiopian 7 8 The robes and other parts of the dress of the goddesses were woven by Athena (Minerva) and the Graces. Everything of a more solid nature was formed of the various metals by Hephaestus (Vulcan). He was architect, smith, armourer, chariot builder, and artist of all work on Mount Olympus. 9 Zeus, though called the father of gods and men, had himself a less outstanding beginning. Cronus (Saturn) was his father, and Rhea (Ops) his mother. Cronus and Rhea were of the race of Titans, who were the children of Uranus (Heaven) and Gaea (Earth), which sprang from Chaos. 10 Advised by his mother, Cronus castrated his father and became the king of the Titans. To him and his sister Rhea were born Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, and Poseidon, all of whom he swallowed because of his parents’ warning that he would be overthrown by his own child. When his son Zeus was born, Rhea hid Zeus in Crete and tricked Cronus into swallowing a stone. Zeus grew up, forced his father to disgorge his brothers and sisters, waged war on him, and became the new ruler. On the dethronement of his father, Zeus with his brothers Poseidon (Neptune) and Hades (Pluto) divided his dominions. Zeus’s portion was the heavens, Poseidon’s the ocean, and Hades’s the realms of the dead. Earth and Olympus were common property. Zeus was king of gods and men. The thunder was his weapon, and he bore a shield called aegis1, made for him by Hephaestus. The eagle was his favourite bird, and bore his thunderbolts (for a genealogy of the gods, see Figure 1–1). 11 Hera (Juno) was the wife of Zeus, and queen of the gods. Iris, the goddess of the rainbow, was her attendant and messenger. The peacock was her favourite bird. 12 Hephaestus (Vulcan), the celestial artist, was the son of Zeus and Hera. He was born lame, and his mother was so displeased at the sight of him that she flung him out of heaven. 13 Ares (Mars), the god of war, was the son of Zeus and Hera. Figure 1–3 The Birth of Venus, Sandro Botticelli 14 Phoebus (Apollo), the god of archery, prophecy, and music, was the son of Zeus and Leto2 (Latona), and brother of Artemis (Diana). He was god of the sun, as

1 aegis: 羊皮盾 2 Pregnant by Zeus, Leto sought a place of refuge where she might safely deliver. She finally reached the barren isle of Delos, which was a drifting rock borne about by waves until it was fixed to the bottom of the sea for the birth of Apollo and Artemis. 8 Diana, his sister, was the goddess of the moon. 15 Aphrodite (Venus), the goddess of love and beauty, was the daughter of Zeus and Dione. Others say that Venus sprang from the foam of the sea. The zephyr wafted her along the waves to the Isle of Cyprus, where she was received and attired by the Seasons, and then led to the assembly of the gods. This event caused such a stir that the famous Italian artist Sandro Botticelli created a monumental painting, The Birth of Venus, on the subject (Figure 1–3). All were charmed with her beauty, and each one demanded her for his wife. Jupiter gave her to Vulcan, in gratitude for the service he had rendered in forging thunderbolts. So the most beautiful of the goddesses became the wife of the most ill-favoured of gods, which directly led to the former’s liaison with Mars and subsequently the latter’s public display of their shame. Venus possessed an embroidered girdle called cestus, which had the power of inspiring love. Her favourite birds were swans and doves, and the plants sacred to her were the rose and the myrtle. 16 Eros (Cupid), the god of love, was the son of Venus. He was her constant companion; and, armed with bow and arrows, he shot the darts of desire into the bosoms of both gods and men.

Figure 1–4.1 Reconstruction of the East Pediment, K. Schwerzek. Acropolis Museum

Figure 1–4.2 Reconstruction of the West Pediment, K. Schwerzek. Acropolis Museum

17 Athena (Athene, Minerva) was the offspring of Zeus, without a mother. She sprang forth from his head completely armed (Figure 1–4.1). Her favourite bird was the owl, and the plant sacred to her the olive. Her contest against Poseidon over Athens was very famous (Figure 1–4.2. For details, see Chapter 5.). 18 Hermes (Mercury) was the son of Zeus and Maia. He presided over commerce, wrestling, and other gymnastic exercises, even over thieving. He was the messenger of Zeus, and wore a winged cap and winged shoes, which facilitated his mobility and earned him still another role as the guide of dead souls. He bore in his 9 hand a rod entwined with two serpents, called the caduceus1(Figure 1–5). 19 Demeter (Ceres) was the daughter of Cronus and Rhea. She had a daughter named Persephone (Proserpine), who became the wife of Hades, and queen of the realms of the dead. Demeter presided over agriculture. 20 Dionysus (Bacchus), the god of wine, was

the son of Zeus and Semele. He represents not only Figure 1–5 Caduceus the intoxicating power of wine, but its social and beneficent influences likewise, so that he is viewed as the promoter of civilization, and a lawgiver and lover of peace. 21 The Muses were the daughters of Zeus and the Titan Mnemosyne (Memory). They presided over song, and prompted the memory. They were nine in number, to each of whom was assigned the different arts and sciences. A common but by no means definitive list is the following: Calliope: Muse of heroic or epic poetry Clio: Muse of history Erato: Muse of lyric and love poetry Euterpe: Muse of music or flutes Melpomene: Muse of tragedy Terpsichore: Muse of dancing and choral song Thalia: Muse of comedy Urania: Muse of astronomy Polyhymnia: Muse of hymns and mime

22 The Graces (Charites) were goddesses presiding over the banquet, the dance, and all social enjoyments and elegant arts. Zeus and the Oceanid Eurynome were their parents. They were frequently taken as goddesses of charm or beauty in general and hence associated with Aphrodite, the goddess of love. They were three in number, namely, Euphrosyne, Aglaia, and Thalia. During the Roman era, the Graces (Latin Gratiae) were also the symbol of gratitude and were called Castitas (Chastity), Voluptas (Pleasure), and Pulchritudo (Beauty). 2 23 The Fates (Moirai ) were also three: Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos. Their

1 Caduceus is later used as the symbol of the medical profession. 2 Moirai: plural form of Moira

10 office was to spin the thread of human destiny, and they were armed with shears, with which they cut it off when they pleased. The three goddesses were assigned distinct tasks: Clotho (“Spinner”) spun the thread of human fate, Lachesis (“Allotter”) dispensed it, and Atropos (“Inflexible”) cut it. They were the daughters of Themis (Law), who sits by Zeus on his throne to give him counsel. 1 24 The Erinyes (Eumenides ), or Furies, were three goddesses who lived in Erebus (see Chapter 9) and heard complaints brought by mortals against the insolence of the young to the aged, of children to parents, of hosts to guests, and of households or city councils to suppliants — and punished such crimes by hounding the culprits relentlessly, without rest or pause, from city to city and from country to country.

25 Nemesis was also an avenging goddess. She represents the righteous anger of the gods, particularly towards the proud and insolent. In Homer, she wields the power of retributive justice, while in Aristotle the term is used to describe the fall of the tragic hero. 26 Pan was the god of flocks and shepherds. Hermes was usually supposed to be his father and his mother was often named Penelope (probably not the wife of Odysseus but commonly identified with her. See Chapter 26.). Pan was generally represented as a vigorous and lustful figure having the horns, legs, and ears of a goat. He haunted the high hills, and his chief concern was with flocks and herds, not with agriculture. Like the shepherds with whom he was associated, he was a piper, and he rested at noon. His favourite residence was in Arcadia2. 27 The Satyrs were deities of the woods and fields. They were conceived to be covered with bristly hair, their heads decorated with short, sprouting horns, and their feet like goats’ feet. 3 28 Momus was the god of blame and ridicule, and Plutus the god of wealth.

1 Eumenides: the propitiatory name (“Kind Ones”) for the Furies as in the aftermath of Orestes’s acquittal for the murder of his mother, Clytemnestra. See Chapter 25. 2 Arcadia: a mountainous region in the south of Greece, also sacred to Hermes and Apollo and associated with shepherds and nymphs, demigods and satyrs. Arcadia came to symbolize the idyllic perfection, but with a poignant side, embodied in the phrase “Et in Arcadia ego,” meaning “Even in Arcadia there am I [Death],” which is famously captured in the vivid contemplative painting of Nicholas Poussin. 3 According to the Greek poet Hesiod, Plutus was born in Crete, the son of the goddess of fruitfulness, Demeter, and Iasion, a Titan, with whom she fell in love at the wedding of Cadmus and Harmonia (see Chapter 21).

11 Cultural Connections

except for their different names and slightly different functions. The so-called classical mythology in the West is essentially Greek, a tradition which influenced the literary tastes of the Romans who were humble students of the Greek culture but who also contributed extensively to the field. The Romans were not just emulators of Greek mythology; they were also stunning Pantheon in Rome innovators. The architectural wonder, the Pantheon in Rome, is a living proof. Built Pantheon (万神殿) during the reign of Augustus and boasting Pantheon refers to the gods of a people the world’s largest unreinforced concrete or religion collectively. The Greek and the dome, it is a seamless blend of ancient Roman pantheon are made up of more or Greek and Roman architectural styles. less the same group of gods and goddesses

Post-reading Practice

I. Questions for review and discussion 1. What did the ancient Greeks know about their world? 2. To which place were mortals favoured by the gods taken when they died? 3. How did Zeus divide the rule of the world with his brothers? 4. How was Venus married off to Vulcan? 5. How did the Fates mete out human destiny? 6. Do you see any differences between the older Olympian generation (headed by Zeus together with his brothers and sisters) and the younger one (made up of Zeus’s and/or Hera’s children) in their qualities or functions?

12 II. Familiarize yourself with the gods and goddesses by filling out the following form. Ancient Greek and Roman Gods and Goddesses

GREEK ROMAN ROLE IN MYTHOLOGY Aphrodite Goddess of beauty and sexual desire (Roman mythology: goddess of gardens and fields) God of prophecy, medicine, and archery (late Greek/Roman mythology: god of the sun) Ares God of war Diana

Goddess of arts and crafts, and war; helper of heroes (late Greek/ Roman mythology: goddess of wisdom) Cronus

Demeter Goddess of grain God of wine and vegetation

God of love

Hades

God of fire; blacksmith of the gods

Hera

Messenger of the gods; protector of travellers, thieves, and merchants

Vesta Guardian of the home Hypnos God of sleep God of the sea and earthquakes

Wife of Cronus/Saturn; Mother Goddess

God of the sky; father of the Titans

Zeus Ruler of the gods

III. Expand your mythological vocabulary Refer to Reading and give the meanings of the following words and expression, and then check them against a dictionary: 1. delphic: ______2. Olympian: ______3. martial: ______4. nemesis: ______5. titanic: ______13 6. iridescent: ______7. a disciple/daughter/son of Momus: ______8. mnemonics: ______

IV. Appreciation A. Mythology in literature 1. With that glow in her pale face, her breast heaving, her eyes so large and dark and soft, she looked like Venus come to life! (John Galsworthy, A Man of Property) 2. We feasted that evening as on nectar and ambrosia. (Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre) 3. Her chair being a far more comfortable one than his she still slept on inside her great-coat, looking warm as a new bun and boyish as Ganymedes. (Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure) 4. I went to look at the pretty butter-maker, Hetty Sorrel. She’s a perfect Hebe, and if I were an artist, I would paint her. It’s amazing what pretty girls one sees among the farmer’s daughters, when the men are such clowns. (George Eliot, Adam Bede) B. Mythology in art 1. Juno Complaining to the Peacock, Gustave Moreau 2. Zeus Giving Birth to Athena, Rudolph Tegner 3. The Birth of Venus, Sandro Botticelli 4. Primavera, Sandro Botticelli 5. Venus with Mercury and Cupid (“The School of Love”), Antonio Allegri Correggio 6. Venus, Satyr, and Cupid, Antonio Allegri Correggio 7. Allegory with Venus and Cupid, Bronzino 8. Venus de Milo 9. Venus at the Forge of Vulcan, Le Nain brothers 10. Venus and Mars, Sandro Botticelli 11. A Golden Thread, John Melhuish Strudwick 12. The Three Graces, sculpture, Antonio Canova 13. Et in Arcadia Ego, Nicolas Poussin

V. Mythological icons Think about the symbols of♀ and ♂ and give at least one explanation as to their origins.

14 2 The Nature of Zeus

Points of Departure

希腊诗人极富情趣，既对神祇顶礼膜拜、尊崇有加，同时又极尽揶揄 讽刺之能事，对宙斯性情的描写便是典型的例子。宙斯作为天帝、丈夫、父 亲所呈现的是威风严厉的一面，但在其生活中却不乏淫逸苟且之事。于是便 有了丈夫偷偷摸摸、妻子河东狮吼的有趣故事。实际上，奥林普斯山诸神的 “道德败坏”在古希腊时期便为苏格拉底和柏拉图这样的先哲所不齿。他们 认为既为天神，便应当摒弃人的各种欲望而堪为道德楷模。柏拉图更是不愿 在其理想国中为荷马神话留有一席之地，尽管他本人也编造神话来阐述其 哲学思想。徜徉西方博物馆、美术馆，映入眼帘的除了宗教寓意作品外便 是那些希腊罗马神灵任性的不道德行为，如乌拉诺斯的被阉割、宙斯的出 轨、维纳斯与马尔斯的私通。可以说，古典神话早就成为提香（Titian）、 鲁本斯（Rubens）、柯勒乔（Correggio）、普桑（Poussin）、毕加索 （Picasso）等西方艺术大师们在画布上恣意发挥对女性性暴力想象力的绝佳 借口。难怪人们会形成这样的印象：古希腊和罗马文化便是淫秽百科全书 （Morales, 2007: 82）。不过俗话说仁者见仁，智者见智，对于这些“伤风败 俗”的神话故事的解读也不应仅限于简单的表面含义。比如，众神之神宙斯 的性乱可被认为是为了诞下优秀的后代，以便确立最高水平的文明价值—— 15 缪斯女神启迪艺术和科学灵感，美惠女神象征真善美，而季节女神则维护着 宇宙的秩序（Stephen & Platzner, 2012: 175）。况且，对神灵顶礼膜拜的古代 部族都希望他们的女儿能受到天神的眷顾，即便受辱也是虽辱尤荣，因为这 是整个部族莫大的荣耀。

Reading

Hera 1 Hera, daughter of Cronus and Rhea, was born on the island of Samos or Argos and was brought up in Arcadia by Temenus, son of Pelasgus. The Seasons were her nurses. After banishing their father Cronus, Hera’s twin-brother Zeus sought her out at Cnossus in Crete or on Mount Thornax (now called Cuckoo Mountain) in Argolis, where he courted her, at first unsuccessfully. She took pity on him only when he adopted the disguise of a bedraggled cuckoo1, and tenderly warmed him in her bosom. There he at once resumed his true shape and ravished her, so that she was shamed into marrying him2. Figure 2-1 Jupiter and Juno on Mt. Ida, 2 All the gods brought gifts to the wedding, James Barry notably Mother Earth who gave Hera a tree with golden apples, which was later guarded by the Hesperides in Hera’s orchard on Mount Atlas. She and Zeus spent their wedding night on Samos, and it lasted three hundred years. Hera bathed regularly in the spring of Canathus, near Argos, and thus renewed her virginity. 3 To Hera and Zeus were born the deities Ares, Hephaestus, and Hebe, though some say that Ares and his twin-sister Eris were conceived when Hera touched a certain flower, and Hebe when she touched a lettuce, and that Hephaestus also

1 Zeus probably came to Hera disguised as a bedraggled cuckoo, in the sense that certain Hellenes who came to Crete as fugitives accepted employment in the royal guard, made a palace conspiracy and seized the kingdom. Zeus could be caricatured as a cuckoo because he threw all other deities out of the nest, and because he had borrowed Hera’s scepter, which was surmounted with the cuckoo (Graves, 1955:51). This, interestingly, is reminiscent of a Chinese phrase“鹊 巢鸠占”(The magpie’s nest is occupied by the dove.), though different birds are involved. 2 Hera’s forced marriage to Zeus commemorates conquests of Crete and Mycenae (a process of Cretanizing Greece), and the overthrow of her supremacy in both countries. Cnossus was twice sacked, apparently by Hellenes, about 1700 B.C.E., and about 1400 B.C.E.; and Mycenae fell to the Achaeans a century later. 16 was her parthenogenetic child — a wonder which he would not believe until he imprisoned her in a mechanical chair with arms that folded about the sitter, thus forcing her to swear by the River Styx (see footnote 2, p.19) that she did not lie. 4 Ever since his marriage to Hera, Zeus began his long series of amorous adventures. As mentioned previously, he fathered the Seasons and the Three Fates on Themis; the Charites on Eurynome; the Three Muses on Mnemosyne; Persephone, the Queen of the Underworld, on the nymph Styx. So many infidelities of her husband made Hera a highly jealous queen. But daunted by Zeus’s fatal thunderbolt, Hera could only resort to ruthless intrigue and revenge on the objects of her husband’s passion. The following stories of that nature make interesting evidence.

Io 5 Hera (Juno) one day perceived it suddenly grew dark, and immediately suspected that her husband had raised a cloud to hide some of his doings that would not bear the light. She brushed away the cloud, and saw her husband on the banks of a glassy river, with a beautiful heifer standing near him. Juno suspected the heifer’s form concealed some fair mortal nymph — as was, indeed, the case; for it was Io, the daughter of the river god Inachus, whom Zeus (Jupiter) had been flirting with, and, when he became aware of the approach of his wife, had changed into that form. 6 Juno joined her husband, and noticing the heifer praised its beauty, and asked whose it was, and of what herd. Jupiter, to stop questions, replied that it was a fresh creation from the earth. Juno asked to have it as a gift. What could Jupiter do? He was loath to give his mistress to his wife; yet how could he refuse so trifling a present as a simple heifer? Without exciting suspicion, he consented. The goddess was not yet relieved of her suspicions, so she delivered the heifer to Argus, to be strictly watched.

7 Now Argus had a hundred eyes in his head, and never went to sleep with more than two closed at a time. He kept watch of Io constantly. He suffered her to feed through the day, and at night tied her up with a vile rope round her neck. She would have stretched out her arms to implore freedom of Argus, but she had no arms to stretch out, and her voice was a bellow that frightened even herself. She saw her father and her sisters, went near them, and suffered them to pat her back, and heard them admire her beauty. Her father reached her a tuft of grass, and she licked the outstretched hand. She longed to make herself known to him and would have uttered her wish; but, alas! words were wanting. At length she bethought herself of writing, and inscribed her name — it was a short one — with her hoof on the sand. Inachus recognized it, and discovering that his daughter, whom he had long 17 sought in vain, was hidden under this disguise, mourned over her, and, embracing her white neck, exclaimed, “Alas! my daughter, it would have been a lesser grief to have lost you altogether!” While he thus lamented, Argus, observing, came and drove her away, and took his seat on a high bank, from whence he could see all round in every direction. 8 Jupiter was troubled at beholding the sufferings of his mistress, and calling Hermes (Mercury) told him to go and despatch Argus. Mercury made haste, put his winged slippers on his feet, and cap on his head, took his sleep-producing wand, and leaped down from the heavenly towers to the earth. There he laid aside his wings, and kept only his wand, with which he presented himself as a shepherd driving his flock. As he strolled on, he blew upon his pipes. These were what are called the Syrinx, also known as Pandean pipes or panpipes. Argus listened with

delight, for he had never seen the instrument before. Figure 2–2 Mercury Lulling Argus to “Young man,” said he, “come and take a seat by me on Sleep, Ubaldo Gandolfi this stone. There is no better place for your flocks to graze in than hereabouts, and here is a pleasant shade such as shepherds love.” Mercury sat down, talked, and told stories till it grew late, and played upon his pipes his most soothing strains, hoping to lull the watchful eyes to sleep, but all in vain, for Argus still contrived to keep some of his eyes open though he shut the rest. 9 Among other stories, Mercury told him how the instrument on which he played was invented. “There was a certain nymph, whose name was Syrinx, who was much beloved by the satyrs and spirits of the wood; but she would have none of them, for she was a faithful worshipper of Artemis (Diana), and followed the chase. You would have thought it was Diana herself, had you seen her in her hunting dress, only that her bow was of horn and Diana’s of silver. One day, as she was returning from the chase, Pan met her, told her just this, and added more of the same sort. She ran away, without stopping to hear his compliments, and he pursued till she came to the bank of the river, where he overtook her, and she had only time to call for help on her friends the water nymphs. They heard and consented. Pan threw his arms around what he supposed to be the form of the nymph and found he embraced only a tuft of reeds! As he breathed a sigh, the air sounded through the reeds, and produced a plaintive melody. The god, charmed with the novelty and the

18 sweetness of the music, said, ‘Thus, then, at least, you shall be mine.’ And he took some of the reeds of unequal lengths, and placing them together side by side, made an instrument which he called Syrinx, in honour of the nymph.” Before Mercury finished his story he saw Argus’s eyes all asleep. As his head nodded forward on his breast, Mercury with one stroke cut his neck through, and tumbled his head down the rocks. O hapless Argus! the light of your hundred eyes is quenched at once! Juno took them and put them as ornaments on the tail of her peacock, where they remain to this day. 10 But the vengeance of Juno was not yet satiated. She sent a gadfly to torment Io, who fled over the whole world from its pursuit. She swam through the Ionian sea, which derived its name from her, then roamed over the plains of Illyria1, ascended Mount Haemus, and crossed the Thracian Strait, thence named the Bosphorus (cowford), rambled on through Scythia, and the country of the Cimmerians, and arrived at last on the banks of the Nile. At length Jupiter interceded for her, and upon his promising not to pay her any more attentions Juno consented to restore her to her form. It was curious to see her gradually recover her former self. The coarse hairs fell from her body, her horns shrank up, her eyes grew narrower, her mouth shorter; hands and fingers came instead of hoofs to her forefeet; in fine there was nothing left of the heifer, except her beauty. At first she was afraid to speak, for fear she should low, but gradually she recovered her confidence, and was restored to her father and sisters.

Semele 11 Zeus, disguised as a mortal, had a secret love affair with Semele, daughter of King Cadmus of Thebes. Juno, to gratify her resentment against Semele, contrived a plan for her destruction. Assuming the form of Beroe, Semele’s aged nurse, she insinuated doubts whether it was indeed Zeus himself who came as a lover. Heaving a sigh, she said, “I hope it will turn out so, but I can’t help being afraid. People are not always what they pretend to be. If he is indeed Zeus, make him give some proof of it. Ask him to come arrayed in all his splendors, such as he wears in heaven. That will put the matter beyond a doubt.” Semele was persuaded to try the experiment. She asked a favour, without naming what it was. Jove gave his promise, and confirmed it with the irrevocable oath, attesting the river Styx2, terrible to the

1 Illyria: an ancient region of the Balkan Peninsula on the Adriatic coast 2 Styx was Hades’s principle stream (see Chapter 9), personified by a river goddess, a daughter of Ocean. She sided with Zeus in the battle against the Titans, as a reward for which the god decreed that an oath attesting the Styx was inviolable, even by the gods. 19 gods themselves. Then she made known her request. The god would have stopped her as she spoke, but she was too quick for him. The words escaped, and he could neither unsay his promise nor her request. In deep distress he left her and returned to the upper regions. There he clothed himself in his splendors, not putting on all his terrors, as when he overthrew the giants, but what was known among the gods as his lesser panoply. Arrayed in this, he entered the chamber of Semele. Her mortal frame could not endure the splendors of the immortal radiance. She was consumed to ashes. But Hermes saved her six-month son; sewed him up inside Zeus’s thigh, to mature there for three months longer; and in due course of time, delivered him. The child was called Dionysus (Bacchus) (“twice-born”, or “the child of the double door”). 12 Amusing as these amorous adventures (see also Chapters 5 and 21) and husband-wife bickering are, we modern readers are advised against reading them at their face value. Indeed, the promiscuity of Zeus serves more than entertaining purposes.

Zeus

Divine unions Human unions

Mother Offspring Mother Offspring Demeter — Persephone Alcmene — Heracles Dione — Aphrodite Antiope — Amphion, Zethus Eurynome — Three Graces Callisto — Arcas Hera — Ares, Eileithyia, Hebe, Hephaestus Danae — Perseus Leto — Apollo, Artemis Aegina — Aeacus Maia — Hermes Electra — Dardanus, Harmonia, Lasion Mnemosyne — Muses Europa — Minos, Rhadamanthus, Sarpedon Themis — Horae (Seasons), Morai (Fates) Io — Epaphus Laodamia — Sarpedone Leda — Castor, Pollux, Clytemnestra, Helen Niobe — Argos, Pelasgus Pluto — Tantalus Semele — Dionysus Taygete — Lacedaemon

Figure 2–3 Zeus’s Consorts and Offspring

20 Cultural Connections

Latin name, Jupiter, with its satellites named after the god’s famous lovers — Europa, Io, Callisto, and Ganymede. But it was not until the Hellenistic era (323–31 B.C.E.) that systematic attempts were made to connect all constellations with traditional mythology, a business known as astral mythology. Contrary to general understanding, the names for the constellations of the belt known as the zodiac (黄道十二宫), on which the popular horoscope is based, are mostly of Astral Mythology Mesopotamian origin: Aries (白羊座，21 Like other peoples of antiquity, the Mar.–19 Apr.), Taurus (金牛座, 20 Apr.–20 Greeks identified some constellations May), Gemini (双子座, 21 May–20 Jun.), with mythological figures. Thus the whole Cancer (巨蟹座, 21 Jun.–21 Jul.), Leo ( 狮 Perseus myth （see Chapter 18） is reflected 子座, 22 Jul.–21 Aug.), Virgo (处女座, 22 in the names of the constellations — Aug.–22 Sept.), Libra (天秤座, 23 Sept.–23 Perseus, Andromeda, Cetus, Cassipoeia, Oct.), Scorpius (天蝎座, 24 Oct.–22 Nov.), and Cepheus. And Zeus’s amorous Sagittarius (人马座, 23 Nov.–21 Dec.), conquests have been commemorated Capricorn (摩羯座, 22 Dec.–19 Jan.), in the sixteen moons circling the solar Aquarius (水瓶座, 20 Jan.–18 Feb.), Pisces system’s largest planet, which bears Zeus’s (双鱼座, 19 Feb.–20 Mar.).

Post-reading Practice

I. Questions for review and discussion 1. What was Zeus’s usual way of hiding his scandals? 2. How did the musical instrument panpipe come into being? 3. Zeus, though almighty and all-seeing, was such a hen-pecked husband that he had to transform himself into different forms to hide his scandals from the jealous Hera. How can you account for this inconsistency? 4. How can you account for Zeus’s promiscuity? 21 II. Refer to Figure 2–3 and keep a mental note of the relevant relation- ships between the gods and goddesses.

III. Expand your mythological vocabulary Refer to Reading and give the meanings of the following words, and then check them against a dictionary: 1. Junoesque: ______2. Argus-eyed: ______3. satyr/satyriasis: ______4. mercurial: ______5. hermetic: ______

IV. Appreciation A. Mythology in literature 1. Well, thought I, I hope still, Argus, to be too hard for thee. Now Argus, the poets say, had a hundred eyes, and was set to watch with them all, as she does, with her goggling ones. (Samuel Richardson, Pamela) 2. Viscount Trimingham said I was like Mercury — I run errands. (L.P. Hartley, The Go-Between) 3. ‘You never slept with Oupa?’ I repeat, insanely. ‘Yet you had six children.’ ‘Nine. Three died.’ ‘So the Holy Ghost got going on you too?’ I say sarcastically. ‘Like Zeus, the Holy Ghost has been known to assume many shapes.’ (André Brink, Imaginings of Sand) B. Mythology in art 1. Jupiter and Juno on Mt. Ida, James Barry 2. Jupiter and Io, Correggio 3. Mercury Lulling Argus to Sleep, Ubaldo Gandolfi 4. Argus and Juno, Peter Paul Rubens 5. Jupiter and Callisto, Peter Paul Rubens 6. Jupiter and Antiope, Hendrick Goltzius

V. Comparative mythology: the Greek gods and the Chinese gods Anthropomorphism is what defines the Greek gods. That is, they resemble humans not only physically but also psychologically and betray character flaws typical of ordinary mortals, sharing the whole gamut of human emotions except that they are incomparably stronger, more beautiful, more powerful, and above all, they are immortal. The Chinese gods, in stark contrast, are of a different stock. Please compare them in terms of image and nature. 22 3 Artemis and Actaeon

Points of Departure

不爱红装爱武装的阿耳忒弥斯手持弯弓、身背箭囊，行狩猎和保护动 物的双重职责。囊中之箭既可带来产子之痛又可伤人性命，后者以其捍卫 母亲勒托（Leto）的尊严射死尼俄柏（Niobe）的儿女而出名。该女神美 貌绝伦，却是个不思婚嫁的独身主义者。有趣的是：她一方面极力捍卫自 己及其追随者处女的尊严，另一方面却又是个风流的情种。惩罚莽撞猎人 亚克托安、解救将被献祭的依菲琴尼亚（Iphigenia）（参见Chapter 24） 以及驱逐不守门规的怀孕女子卡利斯托（Callisto）等故事反映了该女神的 冷酷，而对美男子恩底弥翁（Endymion）的垂怜和眷顾则揭示了她的柔 情。当然，故事中的亚克托安也被解读为象征着雄性特质的史前角神（the Horned God）的变体。该神头上长角，在祭祀中常作为女神的配偶而被佩 戴狗面具的妇女所残害和肢解（Stephen & Platzner, 2012: 191）。此外，阿耳 忒弥斯还同赫卡忒（Hecate）一样为月亮和冥界之神，在交叉路口、城郭以 及任何阴阳交界处行使职责。

23 Reading

1 Artemis (Diana), Apollo’s sister, went armed with bow and arrows and, like him, had the power both to send plagues or sudden death among mortals, and to heal them. She was the protectress of little children, and of all sucking animals, but she also loved the chase, especially that of stags. While she was still a three-year-old child, she asked Zeus, her father, for and was granted eternal virginity. Here is one story that tells how she punished a young hunter who dared to intrude, though unintentionally, upon her privacy. 2 It was midday, and the sun stood equally distant from either goal, when young Actaeon, son of King Figure 3–1 Diana of Versailles, Roman Cadmus, thus addressed the youths who with him copy of a Greek statue attributed to Leochares were hunting the stag in the mountains, “Friends, our nets and our weapons are wet with the blood of our victims; we have had sport enough for one day, and tomorrow we can renew our labors. Now, while Phoebus parches the earth, let us put by our implements and indulge ourselves with rest.” 3 There was a valley thick enclosed with cypresses and pines, sacred to the huntress queen, Artemis. In the extremity of the valley was a cave, not adorned with art, but nature had counterfeited art in its construction, for she had turned the arch of its roof with stones, as delicately fitted as if by the hand of man. A fountain burst out from one side, whose open basin was bounded by a grassy rim. Here the goddess of the woods used to come when weary with hunting and lave her virgin limbs in the sparkling water. 4 One day, having repaired thither with her nymphs, Diana handed her javelin, her quiver, and her bow to one, her robe to another, while a third unbound the sandals from her feet. Then Crocale, the most skillful of them, arranged her hair, and Nephele, Hyale, and the rest drew water in capacious urns. While the goddess was thus employed in the labors of the toilet, behold Actaeon, having quitted his companions, and rambling without any especial object, came to the place, led thither by his destiny. As he presented himself at the entrance of the cave, the nymphs, seeing a man, screamed and rushed towards the goddess to hide her with their bodies, but she was taller than the rest and overtopped them all by a head. Such a colour as tinges the clouds at sunset or at dawn came over the countenance of Diana thus taken by surprise. Surrounded as she was by her nymphs, she yet 24 turned half away, and sought with a sudden impulse for her arrows. As they were not at hand, she dashed the water into the face of the intruder, adding these words, “Now go and tell, if you can, that you have seen Diana unapparelled.” Immediately a pair of branching stag’s horns grew out of his head, his neck gained in length, his ears grew sharp-pointed, his hands became feet, his arms long legs, his body was covered with a hairy spotted hide. Fear took the place of his former boldness, and the hero fled. He could not but admire his own speed; but when he saw his horns in the water, “Ah, wretched me!” he would have said, but no sound followed the effort. He groaned, and tears flowed down the face which had taken the place of his own. Yet his consciousness remained. What shall he do? — go home to seek the palace, or lie hid in the woods? The latter he was afraid of, the former he was ashamed to do. While he hesitated the dogs saw him. 5 First Melampus, a Spartan dog, gave the signal with his bark, then Pamphagus, Dorceus, Lelaps, Theron, Nape, Tigris, and all the rest, rushed after him swifter than the wind. Over rock cliffs, through mountain gorges, he fled and they followed. Where he had often chased the stag and cheered on his pack, his pack now chased him, cheered Figure 3–2 Diana and Actaeon, Giuseppe Cesari on by his huntsmen. He longed to cry out, “I am Actaeon; recognize your master!” But the words came not at his will. The air resounded with the bark of the dogs. Presently one fastened on his back, another seized his shoulder. While they held their master, the rest of the pack came up and buried their teeth in his flesh. He groaned — not in a human voice, yet certainly not in a stag’s — and falling on his knees, raised his eyes, and would have raised his arms in supplication, if he had had them. His friends and fellow-huntsmen cheered on the dogs, and looked everywhere for Actaeon calling on him to join the sport. At the sound of his name he turned his head, and heard them regret that he should be away. He earnestly wished he was. He would have been well pleased to see the exploits of his dogs, but to feel them was too much. They were all around him, rending and tearing; and it was not till they had torn his life out that the anger of Diana was satisfied.

25 Cultural Connections

Endymion got a mixed reception but was later highly appreciated by such great romantic writers as Balzac, Baudelaire and Chateaubriand. Here in this mesmerizing painting, Endymion, a shepherd of ideal beauty, is being visited at night by the goddess Diana. The goddess’s graceful but steady passage in the form of a moonbeam through the foliage is aided by Zephyr. The The Sleep of Endymion idealized nude is antique in inspiration Contributed and exhibited in 1793 but the moonlight and the mysterious, to the Salon of the Académie Royale de dreamlike atmosphere are hallmarks of an Peinture in Paris, Girodet’s The Sleep of emerging sensibility of romanticism.

Post-reading Practice

I. Questions for review and discussion Diana is now a symbol of celibacy. Yet, she herself had some affairs, the most famous one involving Endymion. Could you explain this contradiction with similar cases of other gods and goddesses?

II. Appreciation A. Mythology in literature 1. ‘Rash man!’ she said, ‘like Actaeon, thou hast had thy will; be careful lest, like Actaeon, thou too perish miserably, torn to pieces by the ban-hounds of thine known passions.’ (H. Rider Haggard, She) 2. It is a point to remember that of all the ironies about Diana, perhaps the greatest was this — a girl given the name of the ancient goddess of hunting was, in the end, the most hunted person of the modern age. (Earl Spencer, The Tribute) 3. There have been plenty of young heroes, of middle statue and feeble beards, who have felt quite sure they could never love anything more insignificant than a Diana, and yet have found themselves in middle life happily settled with a wife who waddles. (George Eliot, Adam Bede) 26 B. Mythology in art 1. Diana of Versailles, Roman copy of a Greek statue attributed to Leochares 2. Diana and Actaeon, Giuseppe Cesari 3. Diana and Endymion, Walter Crane 4. The Sleep of Endymion, also known as Endymion Moonlight Effect, Anne Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson

III. Comparative mythology Diana is also goddess of the moon, her Chinese counterpart being Chang’e（嫦娥）. Here is an excerpt from Master Huainan（《淮南子》）, an important Chinese classic written in the 2nd century B.C.E. Please tell the different cultural implications of the two goddesses.

羿请不死之药于西王母，姮娥窃以奔月。托身于月，是为蟾蜍，而为月精。 (《初学记》引《淮南子·览冥篇》)

27 4 The Creation and Recreation of Man

Points of Departure

世界上许多民族中都流传着世界万物如何产生、人类如何被创造、被 毁灭以及又如何获得新生的神话传说，反映了先民们对所处生活环境的认 识和对生与死的关切。希腊文明极具开放性，从地中海沿岸各文明汲取了 丰富的营养，比如在世界起源的记述方面便继承了古代近东的传统。犹太 人的《旧约圣经》中相关记述与赫西奥德等希腊诗人的想象有诸多相似之 处（如两者都将人类乐园的失去归结于第一个女性的好奇和欲望，以及天 帝降洪水毁灭人类等），但区别也是显而易见的。赫西奥德的《神谱》叙 述了世界的起源以及诸神的世系。在描述人类社会时，这位公元前8世纪的 希腊诗人用价值渐次贬低的金、银、铜、铁四种金属为日益堕落的不同人 类历史时期命名。而发生在黄金时代的两大事件（普罗米修斯盗取神火为 人类所用以及宙斯赠潘多拉与厄庇米修斯为妻），一方面使人类告别茹毛 饮血的时代从而开始了文明进程，同时也给人类带来了无尽的苦难。人类 的堕落促使天神降洪水以洗清罪孽，但丢卡利翁和皮拉的幸免于难则为人 类带来了重生的希望。

28 Reading

The Creation of Man 1 Before earth and sea and heaven were created, all things were one aspect, to which we give the name of Chaos — a confused and shapeless mass. Earth, sea, and air were all mixed up together; so the earth was not solid, the sea was not fluid, and the air was not transparent. God and Nature at last interposed, and put an end to this discord, separating earth from sea, and heaven from both. The fiery part, being the lightest, sprang up, and formed the skies; the air was next in weight and place. The earth, being heavier, sank below; and the water took the lowest place, and buoyed up the earth. 2 Here some god gave his good offices in arranging and disposing the earth. He appointed rivers and bays their places, raised mountains, scooped out valleys, distributed woods, fountains, fertile fields and stony plains. The air being cleared, the stars began to appear, fishes took possession of the sea, birds of the air, and four- footed beasts of the land. 3 But a nobler animal was wanted, and man was made. It is not known whether the creator made him of divine materials, or whether in the earth, so lately separated from heaven, there lurked still some heavenly seeds. Prometheus took some of this earth, and kneading it up with water, made man in the image of the gods. He gave him an upright stature, so that while all other animals turn their faces downward, and look to the earth, he raises his to heaven, and gazes on the stars. 4 Prometheus was one of the Titans, a gigantic race, who inhabited the earth before the creation of man. To him and his brother Epimetheus was committed the office of making man, and providing him and all other animals with the faculties necessary for their preservation. Epimetheus undertook to do this, and Prometheus was to overlook his work, when it was done. Epimetheus accordingly proceeded to bestow upon the different animals the various gifts of courage, strength, swiftness, sagacity; wings upon one, claws upon another, a shelly covering upon a third, etc. But when man came to be provided for, who was to be superior to all other animals, Epimetheus had been so prodigal of his resources that he had Figure 4–1 Pandora, John William nothing left to bestow upon him. In his perplexity he Waterhouse 29 resorted to his brother Prometheus, who, with the aid of Athena (Minerva), went up to heaven, and lighted his torch at the chariot of the sun and brought down fire to man. With this gift man was more than a match for all other animals. It enabled him to make weapons wherewith to subdue them and tools with which to cultivate the earth; to warm his dwelling, so as to be comparatively independent of climate; and finally to introduce the arts and to coin money, the means of trade and commerce. 5 Zeus swore revenge. He ordered Hephaestus to make a clay woman, and the four Winds to breathe life into her, and all the goddesses of Olympus to adorn her. This woman, Pandora, the most beautiful ever created, Zeus sent as a gift to Epimetheus, under Hermes’s escort. But Epimetheus, having been warned by his brother to accept no gift from Zeus, respectfully excused himself. Now angrier even than before, Zeus had Prometheus chained naked to a pillar in the Caucasian mountains, where a greedy vulture tore at his liver all day, year in, year out; and there was no end to the pain, because every night his liver grew whole again. 6 Epimetheus, alarmed by his brother’s fate, hastened to marry Pandora, whom Zeus had made as foolish, mischievous, and idle as she was beautiful — the first of a long line of such women. Presently she opened a box, which Prometheus had warned Epemitheus to keep closed, and in which he had been at pains to imprison all the Spites that might plague mankind, such as Old Age, Labor, Sickness, Insanity, Vice, and Passion. Out these flew in a cloud, stung Epimetheus and Pandora in every part of their bodies, and then attacked the race of mortals. Delusive Hope, however, whom Prometheus had also shut in the box, discouraged them by her lies from a general suicide.1

Different Ages of Man 7 The world being thus furnished with inhabitants, the first age was an age of innocence and happiness, called the Golden Age. Truth and right prevailed, though not enforced by law, nor was there any magistrate to threaten or punish. The forest had not yet been robbed of its trees to furnish timbers for vessels, nor had men built fortifications round their towns. There were no such things as swords, spears, or helmets. The earth brought forth all things necessary for man, without his labor in ploughing or sowing. Perpetual spring reigned, flowers sprang up without seed, the rivers flowed with milk and wine, and yellow honey distilled from the oaks. 8 Then succeeded the Silver Age, inferior to the Golden, but better than that

1 According to a feminist view, Hesiod’s account of Prometheus, Epimetheus, and Pandora is not genuine myth, but an anti-feminist fable. Pandora (“all-giving”) was the Earth-goddess Rhea, worshipped under that title at Athens and elsewhere, whom the pessimistic Hesiod blames for man’s mortality and all the ills which beset life, as well as for the frivolous and unseemly behaviour of wives. 30 of the Bronze. Jupiter shortened the spring, and divided the year into seasons. Then, first, men had to endure the extremes of heat and cold, and houses became necessary. Caves were the first dwellings, and leafy coverts of the woods, and huts woven of twigs. Crops would no longer grow without planting. The farmer was Figure 4–2 The Golden Age, Lucas Cranach the Elder obliged to sow the seed, and the toiling ox to draw the plough. The men were utterly subject to their mothers and dared not disobey them, although they might live to be a hundred years old. They were quarrelsome and ignorant, and never sacrificed to the gods, but, at least, did not make war on one another. 9 Next came the Bronze Age, in which men were more savage of temper, and readier for the strife of arms, yet not altogether wicked. They ate flesh as well as bread, and delighted in war, being insolent and pitiless men. 10 The fourth was the continuation of the Bronze Age, or the Age of Heroes, but men were nobler and more generous, being begotten by the gods on mortal mothers. They fought gloriously in the siege of Thebes, the expedition of the Argonauts, and the Trojan War. These became heroes, and dwelt in the Elysian Fields. 11 The hardest and worst was the Iron Age full of unworthy descendants of the fourth. They were degenerate, cruel, unjust, malicious, libidinous, unfilial, and treacherous. The earth was wet with slaughter, and the gods abandoned it, one by one, till Astraea1 alone was left, and finally she also took her departure. After leaving the earth, she was placed among the stars, where she became the constellation Virgo — the Virgin. Themis (Justice) was the mother of Astraea. She is represented as holding aloft a pair of scales, in which she weighs the claims of opposing parties.

The Great Flood 12 Jupiter, seeing this state of things, burned with anger. Jupiter addressed the assembly. He set forth the frightful condition of things on the earth, and closed by announcing his intention to destroy the whole of its inhabitants, and provide a new race, unlike the first, who would be more worthy of life, and much better worshippers of the gods. So saying he took a thunderbolt, and was about to launch it at the world, and destroy it by burning; but recollecting the danger that such a conflagration might set heaven itself on fire, he changed his plan, and resolved to

1 Astraea: a Roman goddess associated with justice 31 drown it. The clouds, driven together, resounded with a crash; torrents of rain fell and the crops were laid low; the year’s labor of the husbandman perished in an hour. Jupiter, not satisfied with his own waters, called on his brother Poseidon (Neptune) to aid him with his. He let loose the rivers, and poured them over the land. At the same time, he heaved the land with an earthquake, and brought in the reflux of the ocean over the shores. Flocks, herds, men, and houses were swept away, and temples, with their sacred enclosures, profaned. If any edifice remained standing, it was overwhelmed, and its turrets lay hid beneath the waves. Now all was sea, sea without shore. Here and there an individual remained on a projecting hilltop, and a few, in boats, pulled the oar where they had lately driven the plough. The fishes swam among the tree-tops; the anchor was let down into a garden. Where the graceful lambs played but now, unwieldy sea calves gamboled. The wolf swam among the sheep, the yellow lions and tigers struggled in the water. The strength of the wild boar served him not, nor his swiftness the stag. The birds fell with weary wings, into the water, having found no land for a resting-place. Those living beings whom the water spared fell a prey to hunger.

Deucalion and Pyrrha 13 But Deucalion, King of Phthia, warned by his father Prometheus, whom he had visited in the Caucasus, built an ark, victualled it, and went aboard with his wife Pyrrha, a daughter of Epimetheus. The ark floated for nine days until, at last, the waters subsided, and it came to rest on Mount Parnassus. It is said that Deucalion was reassured by a dove which he had sent on an exploratory flight.1 Then Deucalion thus addressed Pyrrha, “O wife, only surviving woman, joined to me first by the ties of kindred and marriage, and now by a common danger, would that we possessed the power of our ancestor Prometheus, and could renew the race as he at first made it! But as we cannot, let us seek yonder temple, and inquire of the gods what remains for us to do.” They entered the temple, deformed as it was with slime, and approached the altar, where no fire burned. There they fell prostrate on the earth, and prayed the goddess to inform them how they might retrieve their miserable affairs. The oracle answered, “Depart from the temple with head veiled and garments unbound, and cast behind you the bones of your mother.” They heard the words with astonishment. Pyrrha first broke silence, “We cannot obey; we dare not profane the remains of our parents.” They sought the thickest shades of the wood, and revolved the oracle in their minds. At length Deucalion spoke, “Either

1 The myth of Deucalion’s Flood, apparently brought from Asia Minor by the Hellads, has the same origin as the Biblical legend of Noah. The myth records a Mesopotamian flood of the third millennium B.C.E., and also the autumnal New Year feast of Babylonia, Syria, and Palestine. 32 my sagacity deceives me, or the command is one we may obey without impiety. The earth is the great parent of all; the stones are her bones; these we may cast behind us; and I think this is what the oracle means. At least, it will do no harm to try.” They veiled their faces, unbound their garments, and picked up stones, and cast them behind them. The stones began to grow soft, and assume shape. By degrees, they put on a rude resemblance to the human form, like a block half finished in the hands of the sculptor. The moisture and slime that were about them became flesh; the stony part became bones; the veins remained veins, retaining their name, only changing their use. Those thrown by the hand of the man became men, and those by the woman became women. Thus mankind was renewed, and ever since “people” (laos) and “stone” (laas) have been much the same word in many languages.1 14 Deucalion was the brother of Cretan Ariadne and the father of Amphictyon, who entertained Dionysus, and was the first man to mix wine with water. But his eldest and most famous son was Hellen, father of all Greeks2.

Cultural Connections The Hellenistic Civilization

After around 600 B.C.E. the once powerful civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia became eclipsed and then replaced by the classical civilization of Greece until 300 B.C.E. when it was inherited by and integrated into the Roman civilization. Between the heydays of the two great classical civilizations was the time of the Hellenistic (“Greek- like,” as opposed to Hellenic, or purely Greek) civilization, a hybrid composed of Alexander the Great of Macedonia, 1902, Artist Unknown

1 The transformation of stones into a people is, perhaps, another Helladic borrowing from the East; St. John the Baptist referred to a similar legend, in a pun on the Hebrew words banim and abanim, declaring that God could raise up children to Abraham from the desert stones (Matthew iii. 3–9 and Luke iii.8). 2 Deucalion’s son Hellen was the eponymous ancestor of the entire Hellenic race: his name shows that he was a royal deputy for the priestess of Helle, or Hellen, or Helen, or Selene, the Moon; and the first tribe to be called Hellenes came from Thessaly, where Helle was worshipped. And Hellen’s sons, Aeolus, Dorus and his grandsons, Ion and Achaeus became the forefathers of the four most famous Hellenic nations, namely the Ionians（爱奥尼亚人）, Aeolians（伊奥 利亚人）, Achaeans（亚该亚人）, and Dorians（多里安人）. 33 elements derived from Greece and western of the priesthood, and people’s mind was Asia. Based territorially on conquests of freed from the dictates of organized belief- Alexander the Great completed in 323 systems. In addition, ideals of human B.C.E., the Hellenistic civilization extended freedom and an emphasis on the welfare of over all of Greece, Egypt, and most of the individual superseded the despotism Asia up to the borders of India. What and collectivism that were characteristic distinguishes the Hellenistic civilization of the civilization of the Nile, Tigris, from the civilizations that had preceded it and Euphrates. The anthropomorphism was secularism; that is, religion no longer demonstrated by Greek deities was affected occupied the central place in people’s life. by such change of interest. The state became much more independent

Post-reading Practice

I. Questions for review and discussion 1. What was the direct cause of Prometheus’s obtaining fire for man? 2. What attitude toward women is shown through the story of Pandora? 3. Which age of man applies to our own age? Please elaborate. 4. Why is the first woman often described as a “lovely evil”? How does she compare with Eve in the Book of Genesis? 5. Why did Zeus try to withhold fire from human beings?

II. Expand your mythological vocabulary Refer to Reading and give the meanings of the following words and expression, and then check them against a dictionary: 1. chaotic: ______2. Pandora’s box: ______3. Promethean: ______

III. Appreciation A. Mythology in literature 1. Hesiod, Theogony 2. Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound 3. Percy Bysshe Shelley, Prometheus Unbound 4. White necks, carmine lips and cheeks, clusters of bright curls, do not suffice for me without the Promethean spark which will live after the roses and lilies are faded, the 34 burnished hair grown grey. (Charlotte Brontë, The Professor) 5. It was too easy otherwise to idealize him as a man who fought with God — a Prometheus, a noble victim in a hopeless war. (Graham Greene, The Power and the Glory) 6. Reform is a Pandora’s box; opening up the system can lead to a loss of economic and political control. (Russell Watson, an English tenor) B. Mythology in art 1. Prometheus and Athena, Christian Griepenkerl 2. The Golden Age, Lucas Cranach the Elder 3. The Golden Age, drawing from the 17th century B.C.E. 4. The Silver Age, Nicolas-André Monsiau 5. Bronze and Heroic Ages: Naked Hoplite Attacks Amazon, relief slab 6. Pandora, John William Waterhouse 7. Allegory of Vanity — Pandora, Nicolas Régnier 8. Theft of Fire, Christian Griepenkerl 9. Prometheus Brings Fire to Mankind, Heinrich Füger 10. Vulcan Chaining Prometheus, Dirck van Baburen 11. Prometheus Chained, relief sculpture found in the ancient Graeco-Roman city of Aphrodisias 12. Prometheus Bound, Cole Thomas 13. Prometheus Bound, reception piece for the French Royal Academy, Nicolas- Sébastien 14. Sculpture of Prometheus in front of the GE Building at the Rockefeller Center (New York City, USA)

IV. Comparative mythology Here are two creation myths recorded in ancient Chinese classics. Can you compare them with the creation stories told in this chapter and those in the biblical accounts in Genesis 1, 2 and 3?

天地混沌如鸡子，盘古生其中。万八千岁，天地开辟，阳清为天，阴浊为地， 盘古在其中，一日九变。神于天，圣于地。天日高一丈，地日厚一丈，盘古日长一 丈。如此万八千岁，天数极高，地数极深，盘古极长。故天去地九万里。 (《太平御览》卷二引《三五历纪》)

俗说天地开辟，未有人民，女娲抟黄土作人，剧务，力不暇供，引绳于泥中， 举以为人。故富贵者，黄土人也；贫贱凡庸者，絙人也。 (《太平御览》卷七引《风俗演义》) 35 5 Athena

Points of Departure

众神之神宙斯为确保权威不受挑战，吞下了智慧女神墨提斯 （Metis），之后又从自己的头颅中诞出雅典娜。作为宙斯头脑的产物，该 女神便成了智慧的象征。同时，甫一出生她便全副披挂、英姿飒爽，也就 领受了好斗求胜的秉性。戴盔、披甲、执盾是她的典型标志，而她护身用 的羊皮盾牌（aegis）更是威力非凡，甚至可挡宙斯的雷电。作为女战神， 雅典娜常常助战男性英雄，如完成12项业绩的赫拉克勒斯（Hercules）（参 见 Chapter 20）、特洛伊战争中希腊英雄阿克琉斯（Achilles）、狄俄墨得斯 （Diomedes）、奥德修斯（Odysseus）（参见 Chapter 24）等。此外，雅典 娜还司家庭技艺，与凡间绣女阿拉克尼的竞赛展现了该女神别样的才能， 却也暴露其偏狭、冷酷的一面。阿拉克尼因冒犯神灵而落了个变为蜘蛛终 生不停结网的下场，但她敢于挑战天庭、直面天神丑陋的勇气可圈可点。 同时，雅典娜所起到的指点迷津、启蒙智慧的积极作用也是当今众多的电 子网络、网站和电子刊物以她的名字命名的原因（Grafton, Most & Settis, 2010:58）。雅典娜与雅典的密切联系也足令该女神能够傲视奥林普斯诸 神，城中的雅典娜神庙（Parthenon）便是她永恒的佐证。

36 Reading

1 Athena (Minerva or Pallas), the goddess of wisdom, was the daughter of Jupiter (Zeus). She was said to have leaped forth from his brain, mature, and in complete armour. She presided over the useful and ornamental arts, both those of men — such as agriculture and navigation — and those of women — spinning, weaving, and needlework. She was also a warlike divinity; but it was defensive war only that she patronized, and she had no sympathy with Ares’s (Mars) savage love of violence and bloodshed. Athens was her chosen seat, her own city, awarded to her as the prize of a contest with Poseidon (Neptune), who also aspired to it. The tale ran that in the reign of Cecrops1, the first king of Athens, the two deities contended for the possession of the city. The gods decreed that it should be awarded to that one who produced the gift most useful to mortals. Neptune gave the horse; Minerva produced the olive. The gods gave judgment that the olive was the more useful of the two, and awarded the city to the goddess; and it was named after her, Athens. 2 Athena, though as modest as Artemis, is far more generous. When Teiresias2, one day, accidentally surprised her in a bath, she laid her hands over his eyes and blinded him, but gave him inward sight by way of compensation. She is recorded to have shown petulant jealousy on more than a single occasion. The following is such a story. 3 There was a famous contest between Athena and a mortal girl who dared to come in competition with her. That mortal was Arachne, a maiden who had attained such skill in the arts of weaving and embroi- dery that the nymphs themselves would leave their groves and Figure 5–1 Minerva and Arachne, Jacopo Tintoretto fountains to come and gaze upon her work. It was not only beautiful when it was done, but beautiful also in the doing. To watch her, as she took the wool in its rude state and formed it into rolls, or separated it with her fingers and carded it till it looked as light and soft as a cloud, or twirled the spindle with skilful touch, or wove

1 Cecrops: founder and first king of Athens. He was half man and half serpent. As a law maker, he abolished human sacrifice, established monogamy, and initiated burial of the dead. 2 Teiresias: a Theban blind seer. According to the myths, Tiresias was blinded as a punishment for having seen Hera (or Athena) bathing. He was also punished when he killed the female of a pair of copulating snakes. As a result, he remained a female for seven years. Then because of the killing of the male of two mating snakes, he was changed back to his former nature. Because of his hermaphrodite experience, he was summoned to settle a dispute between Zeus and Hera over which gender enjoyed sex more. When he judged in Zeus’s favor, Hera struck him blind. But his physical blindness was compensated by Zeus with the gift of insight.See also para. 4, Chapter 22; para. 8, Chapter 26. 37 the web, or, after it was woven, adorned it with her needle, one would have said that Minerva herself had taught her. But this she denied, and could not bear to be thought a pupil even of a goddess. “Let Minerva try her skill with mine,” said she, “if beaten I will pay the penalty.” Minerva heard this and was displeased. She assumed the form of an old woman and went and gave Arachne some friendly advice. “I have had much experience,” said she, “and I hope you will not despise my counsel. Challenge your fellow-mortals as you will, but do not compete with a goddess. On the contrary, I advise you to ask her forgiveness for what you have said, and as she is merciful perhaps she will pardon you.” Arachne stopped her spinning and looked at the old dame with anger in her countenance. “Keep your counsel,” said she, “for your daughters or handmaids; for my part I know what I say, and I stand to it. I am not afraid of the goddess; let her try her skill, if she dare venture.” “She comes,” said Minerva, and dropping her disguise stood confessed. The nymphs bent low in homage, and all the bystanders paid reverence. Arachne alone was unterrified. She blushed, indeed; a sudden colour dyed her cheek, and then she grew pale. But she stood to her resolve, and with a foolish conceit of her own skill rushed on her fate. Minerva forbore no longer nor interposed any further advice. They proceeded to the contest. Each took her station and attached the web to the beam. Then the slender shuttle was passed in and out among the threads. The reed with its fine teeth struck the woof into its place and compacted the web. Both worked with speed; their skilful hands moved rapidly, and the excitement of the contest made the labor light. Wool of Tyrian dye was contrasted with that of other colours, shaded off into one another so adroitly that the joining deceived the eye. 4 Minerva wrought on her web the scene of her contest with Neptune. Twelve of the heavenly powers were represented, Jupiter, with august gravity, sitting in the midst. Neptune, the ruler of the sea, held his trident, and appeared to have just smitten the earth, from which a horse had leaped forth. Minerva depicted herself with helmeted head, her aegis covering her breast. Such was the central circle; and in the four corners were represented incidents illustrating the displeasure of the gods at such presumptuous mortals as had dared to contend with them. These were meant as warnings to her rival to give up the contest before it was too late. 5 Arachne filled her web with subjects designedly chosen to exhibit the failings and errors of the gods. One scene represented Leda1 caressing the swan, under

1 Leda, whose mortal husband was King Tyndareus of Sparta, became mother (by Zeus, who had ravished her in the form of a swan) of Clytemnestra, who was to be wife of King Agamemnon, and of Castor. She was also believed to have been mother of the other twin, Pollux (Polydeuces), and of Helen. All four children hatched from eggs. 38 which form Jupiter had disguised himself and another, Danaë1, in the brazen tower in which her father had imprisoned her, but where the god effected his entrance in the form of a golden shower. Still another depicted Europa2 deceived by Jupiter under the disguise of a bull. Encouraged by the tameness of the animal Europa ventured to mount his back, whereupon Jupiter advanced into the sea and swam with her to Crete. You would have thought it was a real bull, so naturally was it wrought, and so natural the water in which it swam. She seemed to look with longing eyes back upon the shore she was leaving, and to call to her companions for help. She appeared to shudder with terror at the sight of the heaving waves, and to draw back her feet, from the water. 6 Arachne filled her canvas with similar subjects, wonderfully well done, but strongly marking her presumption and impiety. Athena could not forbear to admire, yet felt indignant at the insult. She struck the web with her shuttle and rent it in pieces; she then touched the forehead of Arachne and made her feel her guilt and shame. Arachne could not endure it and went and hanged herself. Athena pitied her as she saw her suspended by a rope. “Live,” she said, “guilty woman! And that you may preserve the memory of this lesson, continue to hang, both Figure 5–2 Leda and the Swan, Leonardo da Vinci you and your descendants, to all future times.” She sprinkled her with the juices of aconite, and immediately her hair came off, and her nose and ears likewise. Her form shrank up, and her head grew smaller yet; her fingers cleaved to her side and served for legs. All the rest of her was body, out of which she spun her thread, often hanging suspended by it, in the same attitude as when Athena touched her and transformed her into a spider.

1 Danaë was imprisoned by her father in a dungeon with brazen doors to forestall the prophecy that his grandson would kill him. Because of Zeus’s visit, a hero, Perseus, was born. 2 Europa was carried away by Zeus from Phoenicia to Crete, where she bore three sons: King Minos of Crete, King Rhadamanthus of the Cyclades Islands, and Prince Sarpedon of Lycia. 39 Cultural Connections

Figures 1–4.1 & 1–4.2, Chapter 1). In its long history, the Parthenon witnessed several conversions from a temple to a Christian church sometime in the 5th century C.E. to a mosque under the Ottoman rulers in the mid-15th century. It was catastrophically damaged in 1687 during the wars between Venice and the Ottoman Empire when Venetian Parthenon cannonballs hit the gunpowder stored in Almost twenty-five hundred years the temple, causing 300 fatalities. But this ago (447–432 B.C.E.), the Athenians built is not the end of the fuss made over the a new marble temple to honor Athena, Parthenon. In the early 19th century much the goddess of wisdom after whom their of the surviving sculpture (now known as city was named. Dedicated to Athena the Elgin marbles) was removed and taken Parthenos (the virgin), the Parthenon to Britain by the diplomat Lord Elgin, thus was designed to house a colossal statue of establishing an age-old dispute between Athena by the sculptor Phidias. Phidias Greece and Britain. The controversy also decorated the temple’s two pediments, remains as intense as ever: Was Elgin a triangular gables under its peaked roof, destructive, mercenary vandal, or did he with sculptures representing key scenes save masterpieces that would otherwise from Athena’s myth, including Athena’s have been destroyed? birth and her contest with Poseidon (see

Post-reading Practice

I. Questions for review and discussion 1. Both as warlike divinities, how did Athena differ from Mars? 2. How was Zeus able to give birth to Athena, and why did she spring out of her father’s head? 3. What attitude did Arachne show towards the gods through her embroidery work? 4. What caused the downfall of Arachne?

40 II. Expand your mythological vocabulary Refer to Reading and give the meanings of the following words, and then check them against a dictionary: 1. arachnid: ______2. palladium: ______3. aegis: ______

III. Appreciation A. Mythology in literature and mass media 1. And the old man replied that once he had freed himself from those underpants, he had only to slash the hide with his knife, and he would emerge like Minerva from Jove’s head. (Umber Eco, The Island of the Day Before) 2. The Aegis combat system, which the USS Vincennes used to track and destroy an Iranian passenger jet Sunday, has itself been a target in Washington ever since the high-tech, high-cost system was first sketched out 20 years ago. (The Washington Post, July 7, 1988) B. Mythology in art 1. Minerva and Arachne, Jacopo Tintoretto 2. Leda and the Swan, Leonardo da Vinci 3. The Abduction of Europa, Francois Boucher 4. Danaë with Nursemaid, Vecellio Titian

IV. Making mythological connections The tragedy of Arachne is a typical case of mortals being punished for their hubris by the avenging goddess Nemesis in various disguises. Other victims were Phaëthon, Niobe, Ajax the Lesser, Tantalus, Sisyphus, Ixion, etc. Search for their stories and explain the relationship between hubris and nemesis.

41 6 Dionysus

Points of Departure

作为奥林普斯诸神中最年幼者，狄俄尼索斯（Dionysus）以其或人或 兽、或雄或雌、或老或幼的多面难辨的形象和特性令人迷惑不已。他首先 是酒神，并通过葡萄酒的发明给人类带来了快乐和负担，因为酒可以带来 温暖感觉并舒缓压力，同时又能使人摆脱一切禁忌和束缚，以最大限度地 释放创造潜能，但过多饮酒又会使人失去理智，变得癫狂和胡闹。以推广 酒文化为己任的狄俄尼索斯所到之处总是前呼后拥，其随从包括贪杯的赛 利纳斯（Silenus）、好色的萨梯（satyr）、狂躁的女人以及豹子、猞猁等野 兽。狄俄尼索斯还是戏剧之神，因为西方传统中的悲剧和喜剧均源自古希 腊有关酒神的神秘祭祀仪式。亚里士多德曾在其《诗学》（Poetics）中认为 悲剧产生于酒神颂歌（dithyramb）——雅典城酒神崇拜节日上人们如痴如 醉集体吟唱的诗歌。古希腊的悲剧通过歌词与音乐的统一唤起观众强烈的 同情和恐惧，从而达到缓解或释放这些情绪的目的，即亚里士多德所说的 “陶冶、净化”（catharsis）功能。同样源自酒神宗教仪式的还有喜剧，它通 过唤起人和神的幽默特性调和着悲剧的严肃世界观。关于悲剧的起源，德 国哲学家尼采在其著作《悲剧的诞生》（The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music）中有精辟的论述：真正的悲剧源自太阳神阿波罗和酒神狄俄尼索斯 两种力量间的张力，前者代表理性、秩序，而后者象征感性和狂热。 42 Reading

1 Dionysus (Bacchus) was the son of Zeus (Jupiter) and Semele. As is known to all, Semele was burned to ashes through Hera’s cunning trap and Hermes arrived just in time to take from within her the baby Bacchus (see Chapter 2). 2 Zeus took the infant Bacchus and gave him in charge to the nymphs of Mount Nysa, who nourished his infancy and childhood, and for their care were rewarded by Jupiter by being placed, as the Hyades1, among the stars. It was on Mount Nysa that Dionysus invented wine, for which he is chiefly celebrated. When

he grew to manhood Hera recognized him as Figure 6–1 Leucothea Giving Dionysus a Drink Zeus’s son, despite the effeminacy to which his from the Horn of Plenty, antique bas-relief education had reduced him, and drove him mad. He went wandering all over the world, accompanied by his tutor Silenus and a wild army of Satyrs and Maenads2. In Phrygia the goddess Rhea cured him and taught him her religious rites, and he set out on a progress through Asia, teaching the people the cultivation of the vine. The most famous part of his wanderings was his expedition to India, which is said to have lasted several years. Returning in triumph, he undertook to introduce his worship into Greece, but was opposed by some princes, who dreaded its introduction on account of the disorder and madness it brought with it. 3 3 As he approached his native city Thebes , Pentheus the king, who had no respect for the new worship, forbade its rites to be performed. But when it was known that Bacchus was advancing, men and women, but chiefly the latter, young and old, poured forth to meet him and to join his triumphal march. 4 It was in vain that Pentheus remonstrated, commanded and threatened. “Go,” said he to his attendants, “seize this vagabond leader of the rout and bring him to me. I will soon make him confess his false claim of heavenly parentage and renounce his counterfeit worship.” It was in vain that his nearest friends and wisest counselors remonstrated and begged him not to oppose the god. Their remonstrances only made him more violent.

1 Hyades: the five daughters of Atlas and sisters of the Pleiades 2 Maenad: a female follower of Bacchus, traditionally associated with divine procession rites 3 Thebes: an ancient city of Boeotia in east-central Greece, northwest of Athens 43 5 But now the attendants returned whom he had dispatched to seize Bacchus. They had been driven away by the Bacchanals1, but had succeeded in taking one of them prisoner, whom, with his hands tied behind him, they brought before the king. Pentheus, beholding him with wrathful countenance, said, “Fellow! You shall speedily be put to death, so that your fate may be a warning to others; but though I grudge the delay of your punishment, speak, tell us who you are, and what are these new rites you presume to celebrate.” 6 The prisoner, unperturbed, responded, “My name is Acetes; my country is Maeonia; my parents were poor people, who had no fields or flocks to leave me, but they left me their fishing rods and nets and their fisherman’s trade. This I followed for some time, till growing weary of remaining in one place, I learned the pilot’s art and how to guide my course by the stars. It happened as I was sailing for Delos we touched at the island of Dia and went ashore. Next morning I sent the men for fresh water, and myself mounted the hill to observe the wind; when Figure 6–2 Dionysus, antique bas-relief my men returned bringing with them a prize, as they thought, a boy of delicate appearance, whom they had found asleep. They judged he was a noble youth, perhaps a king’s son, and they might get a liberal ransom for him. I observed his dress, his walk, his face. There was something in them which I felt sure was more than mortal. I said to my men, ‘What god there is concealed in that form I know not, but some one there certainly is. Pardon us, gentle deity, for the violence we have done you, and give success to our undertakings.’ Dictys, one of my best hands for climbing the mast and coming down by the ropes, and Melanthus, my steersman, and Epopeus, the leader of the sailor’s cry, one and all exclaimed, ‘Spare your prayers for us.’ So blind is the lust of gain! When they proceeded to put him on board I resisted them. ‘This ship shall not be profaned by such impiety,’ said I. ‘I have a greater share in her than any of you.’ But Lycabas, a turbulent fellow, seized me by the throat and attempted to throw me overboard, and I scarcely saved myself by clinging to the ropes. The rest approved the deed. 7 “Then Bacchus, as if shaking off his drowsiness, exclaimed, ‘What are you doing with me? What is this fighting about? Who brought me here? Where are you going to carry me?’ One of them replied, ‘Fear nothing; tell us where you wish to

1 Bacchanal: a participant in the Bacchanalia, a festival in honour of Bacchus 44 go and we will take you there.’ ‘Naxos1 is my home,’ said Bacchus. ‘Take me there and you shall be well rewarded.’ They promised so to do, and told me to pilot the ship to Naxos. Naxos lay to the right, and I was trimming the sails to carry us there, when some by signs and others by whispers signified to me their will that I should sail in the opposite direction, and take the boy to Egypt to sell him for a slave. I was confounded and said, ‘Let someone else pilot the ship,’ withdrawing myself from any further agency in their wickedness. They cursed me, and one of them, exclaiming, ‘Don’t flatter yourself that we depend on you for our safety,’ took my place as pilot, and bore away from Naxos. 8 “Then the god, pretending that he had just become aware of their treachery, looked out over the sea and said in a voice of weeping, ‘Sailors, these are not the shores you promised to take me to; yonder island is not my home. What have I done that you should treat me so? It is small glory you will gain by cheating a poor boy.’ I wept to hear him, but the crew laughed at both of us, and sped the vessel fast over the sea. All Figure 6–3 Dionysus Transforms the Ship’s Mast into a Vine at once — strange as it may seem, it is true — the vessel stopped, in the mid sea, as fast as if it was fixed on the ground. The men, astonished, pulled at their oars, and spread more sail, trying to make progress by the aid of both, but all in vain. Ivy twined round the oars and hindered their motion, and clung to the sails, with heavy clusters of berries. A vine, laden with grapes, ran up the mast, and along the sides of the vessel. The sound of flutes was heard and the odor of fragrant wine spread all around. The god himself had a chaplet of vine leaves, and bore in his hand a spear wreathed with ivy. Tigers crouched at his feet, and forms of lynxes and spotted panthers played around him. The men were seized with terror or madness; some leaped overboard; others preparing to do the same beheld their companions in the water undergoing a change, their bodies becoming flattened and ending in a crooked tail. One exclaimed, ‘What miracle is this!’ And as he spoke his mouth widened, his nostrils expanded, and scales covered all his body. Another, endeavoring to pull the oar, felt his hands shrink up and presently to be no longer hands but fins; another, trying to raise his arms to a rope, found he had no arms, and curving his mutilated body jumped into the sea. What had been his legs became the two ends of a crescent-shaped tail. The whole crew became dolphins

1 Naxos: an island of southeast Greece in the Aegean Sea, famous in ancient times as a center of Dionysian worship 45 and swam about the ship, now upon the surface, now under it, scattering the spray, and spouting the water from their broad nostrils. Of twenty men I alone was left. Trembling with fear, I was cheered by the god. ‘Fear not,’ said he. ‘Steer towards Naxos.’ I obeyed, and when we arrived there, I kindled the altars and celebrated the sacred rites of Bacchus.” 9 Pentheus here exclaimed, “We have wasted time enough on this silly story. Take him away and have him executed without delay.” Acetes was led away by the attendants and shut up fast in prison; but while they were getting ready the instruments of execution the prison doors came open of their own accord and the chains fell from his limbs, and when they looked for him he was nowhere to be found. 10 Pentheus would take no warning, but in- stead of sending others, determined to go himself to the scene of the solemnities. The mountain Figure 6–4 Bacchante, Frederic Leighton Citheron was all alive with worshippers, and the cries of the Bacchanals resounded on every side. The noise roused the anger of Pentheus as the sound of a trumpet does the fire of a war-horse. He penetrated through the woods and reached an open space where the chief scene of the orgies met his eyes. At the same moment the women saw him; and first among them his own mother, Agave, blinded by the god, cried out, “See there the wild boar, the hugest monster that prowls in these woods! Come on, sisters! I will be the first to strike the wild boar.” The whole band rushed upon him, and while he now talked less arrogantly, now excused himself, and now confessed his crime and implored pardon, they pressed upon him and wounded him. In vain he cried to his aunts to protect him from his mother. Autonoe1 seized one arm, Ino the other, and between them he was torn to pieces, while his mother shouted, “Victory! Victory! we have done it; the glory is ours!”

1 Autonoe: daughter of Cadmus (see para. 5, Chapter 21) and mother of Actaeon, who died distressed when learning of her son’s miserable lot (see Chapter 3) 46 Cultural Connections

deity in ancient art. Previously, Dionysus is almost always shown as a mature, bearded, and ivy-wreathed adult wearing a long chiton draped with the skin of fawn or feline, and occasionally presenting a frontal face like his satyrs; later he usually appears youthful and beardless, effeminate, and partially or entirely nude. Major my- thical subjects comprise the Return of Hephaestus and the Giantomachy, Diony- sus’s birth and childhood, his punishments of two “resisters” Lycurgus and Pentheus, the impious sailors whom he turns into The Young Bacchus, Caravaggio dolphins, and his union with Ariadne (e.g. Titian’s Bacchus and Ariadne. See Chapter Dionysus in Art 23.). Dionysus is the most often treated

Post-reading Practice

I. Questions for review and discussion 1. What led to Bacchus’s wanderings? 2. How can you explain Bacchus’s double nature, namely, as a joy god and as one of savagery and brutality?

II. Expand your mythological vocabulary The following English words and expression all allude to the god of wine, Bacchus. Figure out their meanings and check them against a dictionary: 1. Dionysiac n.: ______2. bacchant/bacchic: ______3. bacchante: ______4. the Dionysian Mysteries: ______

47 III. Appreciation A. Mythology in literature 1. Euripides, Bacchae 2. Wilkie told Marina Yeo that he would create a true Apollonian order from a Dionysiac cacophony. (A.S. Byatt, The Virgin in the Garden) 3. In his wanderings he resembled the Dionysus of the Bacchae. (A.S. Byatt, The Virgin in the Garden) B. Mythology in art 1. Leucothea Giving Dionysus a Drink from the Horn of Plenty, antique bas-relief, the Lateran Museum, Rome 2. Hermes with the Infant Dionysus, Praxiteles 3. The Young Bacchus, Caravaggio 4. Dionysus, bas-relief, National Archaeological Museum, Naples 5. Dionysus Transforms the Ship’s Mast into a Vine, Museum Antiker 6. Bacchus and Ariadne, Titian 7. Bacchante, Frederic Leighton

IV. Beyond mythology In The Birth of Tragedy, Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche maintains that the true tragedy can only be produced by the tension between two forces, i.e. the Apollonian and the Dionysiac, and that they constitute the two central principles in Greek culture. How do you understand such an assertion?

48 7 Midas

Points of Departure

奥维徳的长诗《变形记》（Metamorphoses）讲述了两则小亚细亚中 西部弗里吉亚国王弥达斯因不明智的选择和评判使自己吃尽苦头的故事。 首先，由于曾款待过酒神狄俄尼索斯的恩师兼侍从赛利纳斯，弥达斯选择 并得到了点金术的赏赐。财迷心窍的国王欣喜若狂，但结果却发现维系自 己生命的食物和饮料一经触摸也都变成了无法食用、难以下咽的硬邦邦的 金子，就连心爱的女儿也被变成了一尊金像。最后他不得不请求天神收回 这一特异功能。该故事虽劝诫人们要警惕过度的贪婪，但Midas touch/the golden touch（点金术）却有“事事皆能赚钱的本领”的积极含义。在第二 个故事中，弥达斯已经弃绝王位和财富而流落乡野，本可以从此过上无忧 无虑、清心寡欲的生活，却在一场阿波罗和潘（Pan）之间进行的音乐较量 中站错了立场，最终遭到了前者的惩罚，落了个长出一对驴耳朵而为世人 耻笑的下场。

49 Reading

The Golden Touch 1 Midas, son of the Great Goddess of Ida, by a satyr whose name is not remembered, was a pleasure-loving king of Macedonian Bromium. In his infancy, a procession of ants was observed carrying grains of wheat up the side of his cradle and placing them between his lips as he slept — a prodigy which the soothsayers read as an omen Figure 7–1 Midas and Bacchus, Nicolas Poussin of the great wealth that would accrue to him; and when he grew older, Orpheus1 tutored him. 2 Now Bacchus found his old schoolmaster and foster-father, Silenus, missing. The old man had been drinking, and in that state wandered away, and was found by some peasants, who carried him to their king, Midas. Midas recognized him, and treated him hospitably, entertaining him for ten days and nights with an unceasing round of jollity. On the eleventh day he brought Silenus back, and restored him in safety to his pupil. Whereupon Bacchus offered Midas his choice of a reward, whatever he might wish (Figure 7–1). He asked that whatever he might touch should be changed into gold. Bacchus consented, though sorry that he had not made a better choice. 3 Midas went his way, rejoicing in his newly acquired power, which he hastened to put to the test. He could scarcely believe his eyes when he found a twig of an oak, which he plucked from the branch, become gold in his hand. He took up a stone; it changed to gold. He touched a sod; it did the same. He took up an apple from the tree; you would have thought he had robbed the garden of the Hesperides. His joy knew no bounds, and as soon as he got home, he ordered the servants to set a splendid repast on the table. Then he found to his dismay that when he touched bread, it hardened in his hand, and when he put a morsel to his lip, it defied his teeth. He took a glass of wine, but it flowed down his throat like melted gold. 4 In consternation at the unprecedented affliction, he strove to divest himself of his power; he hated the gift he had lately coveted. But all in vain; starvation seemed to await him. He raised his arms, all shining with gold, in prayer to

1 Orpheus: a poet who could charm wild beasts with his singing and lyre playing. He is well-known as a loyal husband who failed to bring back to life from the Underworld his wife Eurydice, who had died from a snakebite. He lost her because he did not meet the condition that he must not look back at her until they had reached the world of the living. 50 Bacchus, begging to be delivered from his glittering destruction. Bacchus, a merciful deity, heard and consented. “Go,” said he, “to River Pactolus, near Mount Tmolus, trace its fountain-head, there plunge yourself in, and wash away your fault and its punishment.” He did so, and scarcely had he touched the waters before the gold-creating power passed into them, and the river sands became changed into gold, as they remain to this day.

The Gordian Knot 5 Midas, having thus entered Asia, was adopted by the childless king of Phrygia. He was the son of Gordius, a poor countryman, who was taken by the people and made king, in obedience to the command of the oracle, which had said that their future king should come in a wagon. While the people were deliberating, Gordius with his wife and son came driving his wagon into the public square. 6 Gordius, being made king, dedicated his wagon to the deity of the oracle, and tied it up in its place with a fast knot. This was the celebrated Gordian knot, which, in after times it was said, whoever should untie should become lord of all Asia. Many tried to untie it, but none succeeded, till Alexander the Great, in his career of conquest, came to Phrygia. He tried his skill with as ill success as others, till growing impatient he drew his sword and petulantly cut the knot. When he afterwards succeeded in subjecting all Asia to his sway, people began to think that he had complied with the terms of the oracle according to its true meaning.

A Musical Contest 7 Thenceforth Midas, hating wealth and splendor, dwelt in the country, and became a worshipper of Pan, the god of the fields. On a certain occasion Pan had the temerity to compare his music with that of Apollo, and to challenge the god of the lyre to a trial of skill. The challenge was accepted, and Tmolus, the Figure 7–2 The Punishment of Midas, Hendrik de Clerck mountain god, was chosen umpire. The senior took his seat, and cleared away the trees from his ears to listen. 8 At a given signal Pan blew on his pipes, and with his rustic melody gave great satisfaction to himself and his faithful follower Midas, who happened to be present. 51 Then Tmolus turned his head toward the sun god, and all his trees turned with him. Apollo rose, his brow wreathed with Parnassian laurel, while his robe of Tyrian purple swept the ground. In his left hand he held the lyre, and with his right hand struck the strings. Ravished with the harmony, Tmolus at once awarded the victory to the god of the lyre, and all but Midas acquiesced in the judgment. He dissented, and questioned the justice of the award. Apollo would not suffer such a depraved pair of ears any longer to wear the human form, but caused them to increase in length, grow hairy, within and without, and movable on their roots; in short, to be on the perfect pattern of those of an ass. 9 Mortified enough was King Midas at this mishap, but he consoled himself with the thought that it was possible to hide his misfortune, which he attempted to do by means of an ample turban or head-dress. But his barber of course knew the secret. He was charged not to mention it, and threatened with dire punishment if he presumed to disobey. But he found it too much for his discretion to keep such a secret; so he went out into the meadow, dug a hole in the ground, and making sure that nobody was about, whispered into it, “King Midas has ass’s ears!” Then he filled up the hole, and went away, at peace with himself until a reed sprouted from the bank and broadcast the sibilant secret when the wind blew through it.

Cultural Connections

Poussin’s Midas and Bacchus

Many of the paintings in Western museums and galleries are inspired by classical myths, particularly by Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Nicolas Poussin (1594– 1665), the chief representative of French Baroque Classicism, was such a frequent visitor to the Roman classic. Apart from his voluminous works on other mythological stories, he treated the theme of King Midas at least three times in the 1620s. Midas and Bacchus (1630) is regarded as

Self-portrait, Nicolas Poussin 52 one of his most beautiful mythological portrayed here. Is it the granting of Midas’s compositions. His use of motifs taken foolish wish? Or his plea for liberation from antique sculpture, on which most of from its spell? Or is the king offering his the figures in the painting are based, also thanks to Bacchus for saving his life? It is ensures the authenticity of the pictorial probably the last, for the figure kneeling in narrative attributed to Ovid. Looking at the background beside the river god seems the painting, the audience may be puzzled to have discovered the gold in the sand of about which scene of the Midas myth is the river of Pactolus.

Post-reading Practice

I. Questions for review and discussion 1. How did Midas acquire the power of turning everything to gold? 2. Mainly for what was Midas punished?

II. Expand your mythological vocabulary Refer to Reading and give the meanings of the following expressions, and then check them against a dictionary: 1. Midas’s/ass’s ears: ______2. Midas/the golden touch: ______3. cut the Gordian knot: ______

III. Appreciation A. Mythology in literature and mass media 1. Avarice is as deaf to the voice of virtue, as the ass to the voice of Apollo. (Ludovico Ariosto, Orlando Furioso) 2. Ferguson’s inspired signing of Cantona, and other purchases of his, have shown him to have a bit of a transfer Midas touch. Once he has ventured money on a player, the Manchester United manager usually manages to get the best out of him. (The Sunday Telegraph) 3. Custom dictates that carolers be asked in and offered a cookie … and so must any person who comes to your door, otherwise the spirit of Christmas will leave your house, and even if you be as rich as Midas, your holiday will be sad and mean. (Garrison Keillor, Lake Wobegon Days) B. Mythology in art 1. Midas and Bacchus, Nicolas Poussin 53 2. Midas at the Source of the Pactolus, Nicolas Poussin 3. Alexander and the Gordian Knot, John Hagan 4. The Punishment of Midas, Hendrik de Clerck

IV. Beyond mythology William Shakespeare is said to have been inspired by the second part of the Midas myth when creating Bottom, one of the “rude mechanicals” in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Please elaborate.

54