Ways of Understanding Myth
• The Bible
• Epic of Gilgamesh
• Genesis
• Hesiod
• Homer
• oral myth—characteristics
• Ovid
• paratactic storytelling
• The Prose Edda
• syntactic storytelling
• written myth—characteristics

How are the rock of Sisyphus and the loom of
Penelope like studying myth?
http://department.monm.edu/classics/Courses/CLAS230/MythDocuments/Webof
Myth.htm

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Interests, Concerns the mind and mental processes origin, development, organization and functioning of human social relations and human institutions origins, physical and cultural development, social customs and beliefs of humans traditional beliefs, legends and customs of people past events culture of people as revealed by their artifacts, inscriptions and monuments physical and material world principles of being, knowledge or conduct production of work according to aesthetic principles

ORAL: Homer, Gilgamesh
WRITTEN: Ovid
• Myths are old stories, often from oral cultures
• Later myths are often written in the same style as older myths, because the oral style has become the “trademark” of mythology

Characteristics of Oral Myth
1) Extensive Repetition
Example from The Epic of Gilgamesh :
Then Siduri said to him, "If you are that
Gilgamesh who seized and killed the Bull of
Heaven, who killed the watchman of the cedar forest, who overthrew Humbaba that lived in the forest, and killed the lions in the passes of the mountain, why are your cheeks so starved and why is your face so drawn? Why is despair in your heart and your face like the face of one who has made a long journey? Yes, why is your face burned from heat and cold, and why do you come here wandering over the pastures in search of the wind?

2) Abundance of Names and Titles (Epithets in bold)
Example from The Iliad :
Now will I can only tell the lords of the ships, the ships in all their numbers!
First came the Boeotian units led by Leitus and Peneleos:
Arcesilaus and Prothoënor and Clonius shared command
Of the armed men who lived in Hyria, rocky Aulis,
Schoenus, Scolus and Eteonus spurred with hills,
Thespia and Graea, the dancing rings of Mycalessus, men who lived round Harma, Ilesion and Peteon,
Ocalea Medeon's fortress walled and strong ,
Copae, Eutresis and Thisbe thronged with doves fighters from Coronea, Haliartus deep in meadows , and the men who held Plataea and lived in Glisas …
Homer's Iliad , Book II, lines 493-624, translated by Robert Fagles.

3) Paratactic Storytelling
Example of paratactic storytelling:
A child might say, "I was in the park and I saw a bird and I chased it and it flew away.“
Example of syntactic storytelling:
" When I was in the park, I saw a bird. Because I chased it, it flew away.

• Genesis: two accounts of creation, one after the other
Genesis I-2:3 (God as Elohim)
Genesis 2 (God as Yahweh)
• Creation of Pandora in Hesiod does not fit with the story of the ages of man
Hesiod. Theogony 561-612 (creation)
Hesiod Works and Days 69-89
(creation and urn/box)

• http://www.uwm.edu/C ourse/mythology/0300
/prometheus.htm
John William Waterhouse
1849-1917

1) The Literary Frame
Euripides probably invented the story of Medea slaying her children. The story of Medea as told by the Greek dramatist
Euripides includes no shape changes, but as told by Ovid includes at least three.
Oedipus does not blind himself in Homer. Sophocles probably invented this element of the myth.

2) Goals of the Author
Example:
• Charles Segal explains that the world of Ovid’s
Metamorphoses is one which "holds out the risk of moral chaos, of purposeless change, movement without meaning or end."
• Ovid’s Metamorphoses reflected Ovid’s own times with respect to the absence of justice and the need to please the supreme ruler, Augustus.
• Metamorphoses ends with the apotheosis of Julius
Caesar

3) The Rationalization of Myth
Because oral tales often seem illogical, repetitious and confusing, later authors who give us versions of myths often will "clean them up," making them seem more logical and less confusing.
Example:
Snorri starts his Prologue as if he were quoting from the
Bible: " In the beginning Almighty God created heaven and earth and everything that goes with them.…" He then quickly moves forward to the time when Priam ruled in
Troy. He says that Thor was Priam's descendant. In this account, Snorri creates connections between the Biblical belief system, the ancient Greek myths and finally the stories he wants to tell about the Icelandic gods. He does this by rationalization, adding a set of connections between these stories that were never made before.
Thor and Odin are deified Norse kings (euhemerism).

On Euhemerus of Messene, see http://www.csun.edu/~hcfll004/euhemerus.html
.
From Diodorus Siculus:
Now Euhemerus , who was a friend of King Cassander [of Macedonia (301 to 297 B.C.)] and was required by him to perform certain affairs of state and to make great journeys abroad, says that he traveled southward as far as the [Indian] ocean; for setting sail from Arabia he voyaged through the ocean for a considerable number of days and was carried to the shore of some islands in the sea, one of which bore the name of Panachaea . On this island he saw the Panachaeans who dwell there, who excel in piety and honor the gods with the most magnificent sacrifices and with remarkable votive offerings of silver and gold.... There is also on the island, situated on an exceedingly high hill, a sanctuary of Zeus, which was established by him during the time when he was king of all the inhabited world and was still in the company of men. And in the temple there is a stele of gold on which is inscribed in summary, in the writing employed by the Panchaeans, the deeds of Ouranos and Kronos and Zeus.

Ways of Understanding Myth
• The Bible
• Epic of Gilgamesh
• Genesis
• Hesiod
• Homer
• oral myth —characteristics
• Ovid
• paratactic storytelling
• The Prose Edda
• syntactic storytelling
• written myth —characteristics
What terms would you add?
What would you delete?