The Logic to the Mythical World
“Superheroes fill a gap in the pop culture psyche, similar to the role of Greek mythology. There really isn’t anything else that does the job in modern terms.”- Christopher Nolan. Imagine living in a world where logic and science don’t match. Where, instead of that, grand stories about fantastic things were considered the truth. That was the world of the Greeks. The Greeks were an intelligent group of people who had a thirst for knowledge. They sought answers to the little things in life that no one could explain. Their myths were made to fill in the gaps of their culture. They told myths to fill those gaps with exquisite stories of evil, goodness, gods, heroes, and heroines. The Greeks told myths to explain …show more content…
Clytie was a woman who was madly in love with Apollo though sadly, her love was not reciprocated. Though she knew Apollo didn’t like her, she couldn’t shake her feelings, so “ She pined away sitting on the ground out-of-doors where she could watch him, turning her face and following him with her eyes as he journeyed over the sky” (Hamilton 430). The events that unfold in the myth shows how the myth of Clytie was told to explain the existence of sunflowers. Among other things, Apollo was the God of the Sun- and in some stories, he was the Sun. Although Clytie couldn’t get Apollo’s attention, he always had hers. She spent her days outside, forever following the movements of the Sun- the movements of Apollo- actions which are mirrored in that of a sunflower. And that’s how it went- “...gazing she was changed into a flower, the sunflower, which ever turned towards the sun” (Hamilton 430). The myth gave the Greeks truth just as much as it did entertainment. It gave them logic to believe, a great story to tell, and a lesson for their children to learn (sometimes it’s better to be self-reliant that pining for something you can’t …show more content…
The different versions of it tell slightly different stories, yet revolve around the same idea- be careful what you wish for. With the story of their love comes the story of fate, “Tithonus himself had a strange fate” (Hamilton 427). This myth would go on to explain how cicadas were made in a tragic love story. Aurora and Tithonus were in love, and, as all people in love, they wanted to be together forever. Aurora was the Goddess of Dawn, and with her title came power. With her power, she asked Zeus to turn Tithonus immortal, so she and he could spend the rest of eternity together, but “... she had not thought to ask also that he should remain young. So it came to pass that he [Tithonus] grew old, but could not die” (Hamilton 427). From there, he only got worse, he was locked in a room where “... he babbled endlessly, words with no meaning. His mind had gone with his strength and body. He was only a dry husk of a man” (Hamilton 428). Out of pity and feeling for the natural fitness for things, she turned her babbling, sickly, skinny husband to an equally chirpy, skinny creature- a cicada. The myth gave Greeks another way to see the world. It gave them a simple, entertaining answer to the natural world they didn’t have the technology to figure out. The creation of cicadas is one of a collection of great myths the Greeks spread to try and share their knowledge and thinking to the
“Superheroes fill a gap in the pop culture psyche, similar to the role of Greek mythology. There really isn’t anything else that does the job in modern terms.”- Christopher Nolan. Imagine living in a world where logic and science don’t match. Where, instead of that, grand stories about fantastic things were considered the truth. That was the world of the Greeks. The Greeks were an intelligent group of people who had a thirst for knowledge. They sought answers to the little things in life that no one could explain. Their myths were made to fill in the gaps of their culture. They told myths to fill those gaps with exquisite stories of evil, goodness, gods, heroes, and heroines. The Greeks told myths to explain …show more content…
Clytie was a woman who was madly in love with Apollo though sadly, her love was not reciprocated. Though she knew Apollo didn’t like her, she couldn’t shake her feelings, so “ She pined away sitting on the ground out-of-doors where she could watch him, turning her face and following him with her eyes as he journeyed over the sky” (Hamilton 430). The events that unfold in the myth shows how the myth of Clytie was told to explain the existence of sunflowers. Among other things, Apollo was the God of the Sun- and in some stories, he was the Sun. Although Clytie couldn’t get Apollo’s attention, he always had hers. She spent her days outside, forever following the movements of the Sun- the movements of Apollo- actions which are mirrored in that of a sunflower. And that’s how it went- “...gazing she was changed into a flower, the sunflower, which ever turned towards the sun” (Hamilton 430). The myth gave the Greeks truth just as much as it did entertainment. It gave them logic to believe, a great story to tell, and a lesson for their children to learn (sometimes it’s better to be self-reliant that pining for something you can’t …show more content…
The different versions of it tell slightly different stories, yet revolve around the same idea- be careful what you wish for. With the story of their love comes the story of fate, “Tithonus himself had a strange fate” (Hamilton 427). This myth would go on to explain how cicadas were made in a tragic love story. Aurora and Tithonus were in love, and, as all people in love, they wanted to be together forever. Aurora was the Goddess of Dawn, and with her title came power. With her power, she asked Zeus to turn Tithonus immortal, so she and he could spend the rest of eternity together, but “... she had not thought to ask also that he should remain young. So it came to pass that he [Tithonus] grew old, but could not die” (Hamilton 427). From there, he only got worse, he was locked in a room where “... he babbled endlessly, words with no meaning. His mind had gone with his strength and body. He was only a dry husk of a man” (Hamilton 428). Out of pity and feeling for the natural fitness for things, she turned her babbling, sickly, skinny husband to an equally chirpy, skinny creature- a cicada. The myth gave Greeks another way to see the world. It gave them a simple, entertaining answer to the natural world they didn’t have the technology to figure out. The creation of cicadas is one of a collection of great myths the Greeks spread to try and share their knowledge and thinking to the