Starting from Delphic Oracle
Apollo and Artemis
Wu Shiyu
课外作业
神话故事：Echo和Narcissus
Echo是nymph，喜欢说话
偷情，Hera,只能重复他人的话的最后几个字
爱上Narcissus，遭拒
Narcissus不爱任何人
“愿他只爱自己，永远享受不到他所爱的东西”
（P61）
水边的，再见。
皮刺摩斯和提斯柏
邻居
墙，裂缝
桑树底下约会
提斯柏，雄狮、牛，衣服
外套，宝剑，自杀
提斯柏也自杀，桑树浆果变红
Apollo and Artemis
Olympians: Apollo and Artemis
Twin sisters
Zeus the father
Leto the mother
sun and moon
More complex
God Apollo
God of:
Sun
Youth
Medicine
Healing
God Apollo
God of:
Arts: music, poetry
Preside the nine Muses
Creative ability
Representing Culture
Olympians: Apollo
Still god of
Sudden death for men
Plague
Wearing a quiver
Carrying a bow
Apollo: God of Prophecy
The most important aspect:
God of prophecy
Delphic oracle (Delphi)
Sacred to Apollo
Apollo’s role as a god of
who provides prophecy
for humans is central to
our understanding of him
Delphic Oracle (特尔斐神谕)
Consult the oracle
People travel to Delphi
Ask the prietess there
Questions –Pythia-- answers
Questions big or small, public or
privacy
“If you cross the river Halys, you
will destroy a great empire.”
The story of Croesus
Video
Apollo: God of reason and moderation
Association with
reason and with
moderation.
Carved on the temple:
“Know thyself”
“Nothing in Excess”
Crucial to understanding
of Greek culture
Immortal and mortal
God and man
Immortal and mortal
limitations
Unstable
Uncertain
Do not transgress
The Story of Niobe
The Story of Niobe
Niobe: queen of Thebes,
mother of 14 children
Greater than Leto (goddess)
worshiped instead of Leto
Apollo and Artemis shoot
Cliff, water running down
Eternal tears
Lessons to learn
Sins visited upon children
Human good fortune unstable
Changeable, unstable, disappear in the blink of
an eye
Follow reason, nothing in excess, know yourself
Two maxims connected.
Excess---- not know yourself
Address by Jobs
The Story of Croesus
Croesus, the king of Lydia
(560-546 B.C.)
Lydia, Egypt, Babylon, Media
Rich, gold, silver, coinage,
happiest man in the world;
Five generation ago,
Candaules, Gyges
Gyges took power
Croesus and Solon
Solon, Athenian, the law giver, Seven Sages
“Who is the happiest man in the world?”
Tellus
“Who is the second happiest man?”
Cleobis and Biton
A lucky person, look to the end
Croesus and Solon
Solon, Athenian, the law
giver, Seven Sages
“Who is the happiest man
in the world?”
Tellus
“Who is the second
happiest man?”
Cleobis and Biton
A lucky person, look to
the end
Solon’s Happiness
“Human life is so unpredictable,
we are so at the mercy of fate,
that until we are safely dead, no
one can say whether we are
happy or fortunate as we do not
know what calamities might befall
us from one day to the next. No
one can truly be called happy
until they are dead.”
No one is happy until the end is
known.
This was not at all
what Croesus wanted
to hear;
He dismissed Solon as
a fool and put his
words from his mind.
Croesus’ Downfall
Dream, god’s message, son, iron weapon, killed
A savage boar, hurls the spear, killed the boy
Consult the oracle,
“You will ruin the day your son speaks?”
“If you march against the Persia Empire, a
great kingdom will be destroyed.”
“Until a mule sits upon the throne of Persia”
Sardis, Cyrus came suddenly
Burn alive, “Solon, Solon, Solon!”
Immortal and Mortal
"If you live each day as if it was your last,
someday you'll most certainly be right."
No one wants to die. Even people who want to
go to heaven don‘t want to die to get there. And
yet death is the destination we all share. No one
has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be,
because Death is very likely the single best
invention of Life…”
-----Steve Jobs
Immortal and Mortal
Eos, the dawn goddess
Affair with the human Tithonos
Enjoyed him so much
Make him immortal
Failed ageless
Continue to age
Nothing left but a voice
Complaining voice
A back chamber
Immortal and Mortal
Attempt to gain immortality
Result in total disaster
Sybil, a female lover of Apollo
Asked for as many years of life as there were
grains of sand on the shore of sea
This was granted
But eternal youth was left out
Grows older and older
Withered away into a little thing sits in cage
几个问题
1.古希腊神话里对“人”的思考，比如本课所讲
的人与神的区别，还有斯芬克斯之谜里的问题；
2.古希腊文明所体现的理性，自省与其悲剧意识
和这一文明的创造性的思考。
Homework: Hubris or hybris
Humans must avoid hubris
A word come into English from Greek.
What is hubris? Implications for our life.
Refer to presentations
Artemis: her twins’ opposite
God of moon
Huntress
Wild beasts
Protector of
young species
Sudden death
Mistress of wild beasts
Protector of young babies
including of humans
Protector of childbirth
Protector of
childbirth
Forever virgins:
Artemis, Athena
and Hestia
Is it contradictory?
Identify women
with nature, men
with culture.
In Greek culture
Women were submissive
Male dominant
Rejecting domination by a male because of her
essential wildness
Her rejection of sexuality illustrates the danger
of crossing a god or transgressing the
boundaries between humans and gods.
The story of Actaeon
The story of Actaeon
The story of Actaeon
The story of Actaeon
The story of Actaeon
A great hunter (Thebes)
Hunting with his friends
Wandering through woods
Surrounded a lake
Artemis, nymphs bathing
Unintentionally, by mistake
Stag, animal body, human
mind
Own hounds tear to shreds
Most dreadful story
The relation between intention and action
Involuntary slaughter
First-degree murder
In Greek myth, intention is less important that
actions
Summary
Apollo and Artemis
Polar opposite of one another
Representing culture and moderation
Representing nature and wildness
宙斯和勒托的孩子
阿尔忒弥斯（Artemis
Diana）：Acteon的
故事，鹿，猎狗，
Niobes的故事）
Appollo（阿波罗）
The Kingdom of Lydia
Tellus:
a brave man, sufficient money, raised up his
family, all grown up, died from fighting for his
country, killed in a battle, got a public funeral
Cleobis and Biton:
young men of Argos, priestess of Hera, yoke
themselves up to the wagon, lucky, greatest
gift, fell asleep, did not wake up.
died at the height of their pride and fame before
life could pull them down
a nice family, a good public reputation, died with
that reputation.
No one is happy until the end is known.