What Is Your Favorite Myth?

[BurtWorm]

Mine is Daedalus and Icarus, because it's easy to remember and the meaning is clear.

[Breezy du Nord]

1. I had this book when I was little w/ native american myths

My favorite one was "How Ishdaka Found Summer."

But that's just me, Singing Breezy

[BurtWorm]

2. What culture is that from

Which tribe?

[Breezy du Nord]

4. you know, I can't quite remember

I gonna look it up now.

[Maddy McCall]

40. American Indian also...Selu the corn goddess

Explains how American Indians got corn. The Cherokee (Iroquian) creation story is also cool.

[BurtWorm]

41. Iroquois myth is amazingly sophisticated

I love Iroquois culture.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

3. Sisyphus!

For the same reasons as you. And besides, I feel that way every morning!

[BurtWorm]

7. I can relate to that one

too.

[Cocoa]

5. Echo and Narcissus

great topic!

[roughsatori]

6. Eros and Psyche

The myth encompasses so many of the problems inherent in not trusting and the need of knowing someone else's secrets as paving the way to doom.

[BurtWorm]

11. Were the characters named after the mental phenomena

or were the mental phenomena named after the characters?

[roughsatori]

61. The mental phenomena were named after the gods

though archetypally speaking the development of the myth of the gods linked to psychological aspects is more subtle in development than that explanation allows for.

[Rowdyboy]

8. The love story of Damon and Pythias...

as a gay man, could I have any other choice?

[BurtWorm]

10. Can you tell it in a paragraph?

I don't think they taught that one in my high school.

[Rowdyboy]

19. They were "best friends"...

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/pwh/valmax-damon.html

[BurtWorm]

21. Thanks

That's a lovely story.

[Rowdyboy]

23. Thank you....relationships based on love...

are tough to argue with...

[Archae]

9. This one-

Myth Withconthin. :-)



Miss Wisconsin
Jayme Dawicki
New Berlin, Wisconsin
Age: 22

[EV1Ltimm]

12. lol

...but as a 23 year old, i seriously doubt her age. Is it a mythprint?

[Iris]

13. Persephone

Love the explanation of the change of seasons.

[sasquatch]

14. Coffee stunts your growth

I started drinking coffee when I was in 5th grade and I was 5'4".
I am now 6'6":hangover:

[BurtWorm]

15. Are you sure that's not your LEAST favorite?

[Tinoire]

16. Orpheus and Eurydice

But damn- I love all the ones mentioned!

[BurtWorm]

17. Nice painting!

You hads a nice etching before too, but I love this painting. That's one of my top three myths. Someone else mentioned Persephone, and that's the other one of my big three.

[Tinoire]

26. Thanks! They're all beautiful!

Because of this thread and the nostalgia it brought, I had to pick Ovid's Metamprphoses as my favorite book in another thread. See what you did?!



Location: Ann Arbor, MI
Artist: Gerhard Marcks
Nationality: German
Artist Dates: 1889-1981


Title: Orpheus and Eurydice, No. 4 from the series "Orpheus Series"
Date: 1948
Object Type: print
Medium: woodcut
Subjects: Orpheus, reclining figures, male, female, Eurydice


Holding Institution: The University of Michigan Museum of Art

-----

The painting 'Orpheus leading Eurydice from the Underworld',
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas, is by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot.

I love the myth of Icarus.

On edit: Poem doesn't display properly - click on the link and see.

Did Icarus,
falling,
watching white feathers flutter upward,
curse the wax as a fair-weather friend?
It seemed such a strong solid type,
but it melted away
when things got hot.

Did he rail at the sun,
which beckoned enticingly,
and then changed from a beacon to a furnace?

Did he blame Daedalus, his father?
Who warned him not to fly too high
in the same distracted tones with which
he admonished his son
to put on a sweater in the cold,
to eat his lima beans,
to not run with scissors.
How could he have known that this time the old man really meant it?

Or did he regret that the illustrious inventor,
when creating his flying apparatus,
did not take the obvious next step:
the emergency parachute?

He must have thought
all of this
and more.

It was
a long
long
fall.

But as he neared the ocean,
came close enough to wave to the startled fishermen in their boats,
he laughed,
and admitted
that even had he known
of the many failings of fathers and feathers,
he would have done it anyway.


Wendy A. Shaffer is a graduate student in Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley. "Icarus" is her first published poem.
http://www.strangehorizons.com/2000/20001204/icarus.shtml


Peace

[BurtWorm]

27. I saw that you made that choice

I was reading Ovid's version of the Icarus myth a bit earlier. Not in Latin though. It's still gorgeous language. And so is the version you shared. Thanks!

[Tinoire]

30. What a gorgeous language to have forgotten

wish I remembered all but the most elementary phrases! Too bad they rarely teach it anymore- I think that's a horrible mistake.

Peace :)

[BurtWorm]

31. I tried to teach myself Latin last year.

Now I'm reading about Cicero. It's a beautiful language, but the word order, tenses, cases, declensions, etc....

I'll get back to it.

[Tinoire]

32. You are a brave, brave soul! Good luck! :) (Shiver!) n/t

[psychopomp]

33. Yeah, but what happens to Orpheus?

That sweet kid got ripped to pieces and dumped in a river!

My personal favorite is the story of Prometheus, a story which runs parallel to the Christian story of the son of God as saviour. Prometheus is the ultimate free-thinker and rebel against tyranny in Greek mythos. He is punished, horribly, but freed in the end by Heracles.

one version of the story

edit: fixed link

[BurtWorm]

34. That link doesn't work

But I know what you mean about Prometheus. That is a great story. It inspired great art as well.

Here he is, caught red-handed:

[psychopomp]

39. Thanks, I fixed the Prometheus story link

Journalists, if you are reading this, check out the story and be INSPIRED...bring the light to the people!

[Tinoire]

38. Here's the fixed link and Head of Orpheus

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/6969/myth.htm

by Odilon Redon

Yes but even as his dead body floated down the river, he kept singing of his love for Euridyce. Sigh... How lovely.... What is wrong with us today? Could modern man love that deeply? I won't hold my breath ;-)

[WhataBildeberger]

18. "God"

<run away, run away>

[MoonGod]

20. I've always been partial to the Biblical creation myth...

(actually, I'm interested in almost all creation myths)

... really fascinating story rich with all sorts of symbolism and metaphors. So much about it that is completely overlooked because you have one group of people insisting that it is literal fact, and another group insisting that it is pure BS.

[BurtWorm]

22. I'm fascinated with American creation myths

Especially from the Southwest and Meso-America. They're so strange!

[MoonGod]

28. Yeah... been a long time since I've studied this...

... so I don't remember them all and get them confused with each other... but I do remember there being some fascinating native American ones.

[liberalpress]

43. Interestingly...

..most people believe that the definition of myth implies it is unrtue. That's not necessarily the case. The first definition, according to dictionary.com " A traditional, typically ancient story dealing with supernatural beings, ancestors, or heroes that serves as a fundamental type in the worldview of a people, as by explaining aspects of the natural world or delineating the psychology, customs, or ideals of society." Around the third definition, "fiction or half-truth" is intoduced.

[curse10]

24. Job

I also love the play by MacLeish, J.B. In fact, it's probably my favorite play.

[toolfan]

25. Narcissus & Echo

After becoming too well acquainted with it while translating for AP Latin, I grew to love it....

[Castilleja]

29. I like the one about Persephone

as well.

[AntiCoup2K4]

35. Flight of Icarus

As the sun breaks above the ground
An old man stands on the hill
As the ground warms to the first rays of light
A birdsong shatters the still

His eyes are ablaze
See the madman in his gaze

Fly on your way like an eagle
Fly as high as the sun
On your wings like an eagle
Fly and touch the sun

Now the crowd breaks and a young boy appears
Look the old man in his eyes
As he spreads his wings and shouts at the crowd
In the name of God my father I fly

His eyes seem so glazed
As he flies on the wings of a dream
Now he knows his father betrayed
Now his wings burn to ashes to ashes his grave

Fly on your way like an eagle
Fly as high as the sun
On your wings like an eagle
Fly and touch the sun

[BurtWorm]

37. And they say heavy metal has no redeeming social value!

[OurMorale]

36. Cygnus and Phaethon

(the e in Phaethon should have an umlaut over it.)

They were lovers. Phaethon stole the chariot of the sun and lost control of it. Zeus had to shoot him out of the sky with a thunderbolt. Cygnus wandered the River Eridanus looking for him, and became distraught when he couldn't find him. The gods took pity on him and turned him into a swan.

[Maddy McCall]

42. Epic of Gilgamesh and other stories that prove that

flood mythology is universal, and is not of Biblical origin. It is even found in American Indian mythology.

[MoonGod]

45. Gilgamesh? Wasn't that a character from the Smurfs?

:P

[Maddy McCall]

46. Yup...

I had forgotten that! I'll have to use that image for a joke slide for my 101 class. thanks for the reminder, MG!

[Rowdyboy]

56. Gilgamesh is one hot,, homoerotic classic....

I'm amazed that the Christuian Coalition hasn't fought to have it banned from colleges and universities.

[AntiCoup2K4]

59. But that would mean they would have to actually READ it...

...before they would know they had to ban it.

And God knows those idiots haven't even read the Bible that they're thumping, let alone any other books.

[MoonGod]

62. hehe... actually, it's not Gilgamesh...

... it's Gargamel.

[AliceWonderland]

44. Ariadne and Dionysius

She leads Theseus through the Minotaur's maze with a golden thread; he dumps her when they get to the island of Naxos and sails away. Thanks, bud! The god Dionysius is so taken with the sleeping Ariadne that he falls in love with her and puts the Corona Borealis in the sky, the northern crown of his queen.

[Throckmorton]

47. Self Abuse leads to insanity.

"Leave it alone, it will grow" actual quote from my grandmother, who had 7 sons, fired at my cousin one day about 30 years ago. You can guess what it refers to.

[Rabrrrrrr]

48. That voters elect presidents in the US

That used to be pretty cool, but now, apparently, it's just myth.

In terms of real mythology, I'm big on near-east Asian stuff, like Gilgamesh, et. al.

[goddess40]

49. Adam and Eve

.

[DrGonzoLives]

50. Compassionate conservatism

n/t

[Pepperbelly]

52. i was going to say supply side economics but

your works even better.

[mclam]

51. Procrustes

He was a giant who kept a cave in the middle of a mountain pass somewhere with one bed of a certain length. If travelers stopped by to stay with him they had to sleep in the bed but they had to fit it exactly. If they were too tall he would chop off their feet with an axe. If they were too short he would stretch them on a rack until they were tall enough. Hence, my favorite obscure hundred-dollar word which I almost never get to use "procrustean" meaning forcing something to adhere to an arbitrary standard.

[BurtWorm]

53. Thank you for the word of the day

I never knew what that word meant or where it came from

[trof]

54. Mith America

hee
;-)

[Dr Fate]

55. Pot makes you "grow tits"

n/t

[Rowdyboy]

57. I should be wearing d-cups...

if that was true!

[LeftPeopleFinishFirst]

58. Atalanta and Meleager

Just a simple, easy to remember story. :)

[MountainLaurel]

60. Inanna's journey to the underworld

And coming back from the dead. Such a metaphor for major life changes.

[NightTrain]

63. That voting in America...

...makes a difference in the outcome of an election. I half believed it until December 12, 2000, but no more, baby!