Greek Myths
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘Greek Myths’
Young Theseus sets out for Athens on foot to claim his kingdom, but the road is infested with giants, bandits and a savage sow.
According to Castor of Rhodes (first century BC), Theseus inherited the crown of Athens in 1234 BC – just about the time of the Exodus and shortly before the Siege of Troy. As his name implies, during his reign he ‘gathered’ all Attica under Athens, and the overwhelming challenge posed by that task is symbolised by the mythical labours attributed to him.
After being outwitted once too often, Zeus decides to spite Prometheus by ruining the race of men.
In everyday speech, a Pandora’s Box is any circumstance that risks releasing a series of unpredictable and harmful consequences. The original myth, however, as told by Homer’s contemporary Hesiod, is considerably more subtle than this, delighting to raise more questions than it even attempts to answer.
In the last of his twelve labours, the hero must snatch the three-headed guard dog of the Underworld.
The twelfth and final Labour of Heracles sees him despatched to the Underworld, the realm of Hades, to fetch Cerberus, a three-headed guard dog with snakes for a mane, and just for good measure, a venomous serpent for a tail.
Two of Heracles’s labours are declared void, so to make up the number he is sent to find the Garden of the Hesperides.
Greek hero Heracles has been appointed ten Labours to atone for killing his children in a fit of madness. The Labours are set by his jealous cousin King Eurystheus, and when he learns that Heracles had help with the many-headed Hydra of Lerna and the Stables of King Augeas, he declares that two more Labours must be performed to make up the number.
Heracles must get the better of a three-bodied giant and steal his cattle.
Heracles’s Tenth Labour sees him travel to southern Spain, his cousin Eurystheus once again hoping the hero will not return. As with the Amazons the tale is more involved than the earlier labours, since the ancient story-tellers tie our hero into the geography of the Mediterranean.
A princess covets the belt of a warrior-queen, so Heracles is despatched to get it for her.
The Ninth Labour of Heracles follows a break in the Labours, during which Heracles has been travelling with Jason and his Argonauts. It must also be told in two parts. Later we will follow Heracles to Troy, but first his jealous cousin Eurystheus sends him from Tiryns, near Athens, to the land of the fearsome Amazons.