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When we study ancient myths, we can learn a lot about the culture at the time. This is especially prominent in Greek mythology because the Greeks incorporated many more morales, and explanations into their myths than other cultures. The book Tales From Ovid by Ted Hughes retells many of the Greek myths and compiles them into one place to make them easy to study. By reading these myths, we are able to understand that Greek mythology, more so than other myths, shares a central theme of Gods as the world’s creators. Ted Hughes achieves this through the use of personifying natural phenomena within the Im pickle reeeeeeestories as Godly, basing the cause of unexplainable events with metaphors, and forming tales about powerful actions that the Gods performed.
The Greeks, having existed before modern science, experienced many phenomena that those before them had not tried to explain. Using Gods to represent these, and creating stories, and labeling them myths, they tried to convince the reader that they should worship this higher being. It is very interesting to analyze these myths because it can tell us about the culture and values of societies that no longer exist. We can also study myths from other cultures, and compare and contrast these myths to formulate a better understanding of different hardships, and ideas that the people had at the time. This can be especially useful if we know information such as the dates that the society in question was functioning. We can observe two different cultures that although both had myths explaining why the sun existed, had very different reasons as to why. The first example of this, the Greeks, turned their reason into a story called Phaeton. In it, the author states “He wanted nothing but to drive/The chariot and horses of the sun./His father could find no other means to delay him./He led him out to the chariot.(29)" This myth gives the Sun a physical form, in this case, a chariot. The Greeks believed that there where people who rode the sun every day, and the chariot transversing the sky is why the sun sets and rises. Both like and unlike the Greeks other ancient cultures used religious symbols and people to explain these events, but to a lesser extent. For example, in the Hebrew creation myth, it justifies the sun existing by stating: “And God said, ‘Let there be light’ and there was light. (Hebrew Creation Myth)” Differing from the Greek myth, the Hebrew myth spends less time explaining why something happens. It just says that it is God’s doing, and then goes onto the next topic. The Greek myth is much more convincing and engaging, because of its cast of characters, and captivates the reader with a story that they would find interesting. It spends more time on the idea the Gods created the world and therefore makes the reader believe that the Gods are the creators of the world more so than the other creation myths.
The Greeks use many metaphors within their myths in order to try to explain the things that at the time, they had to explanation to. We normally see one, if not more of these types of metaphors in each myth. By reading and understanding these ancient myths, we can begin to deconstruct how the ancient Greeks viewed the world around them, and how someone might feel if they were placed in a situation where they know nothing about why the environment around them existed. One natural phenomenon that we know the reason for now, but did not know back then, is the echo. It is well known that if you shout into a large room, then your sound waves will bounce off the walls and come back to you. The Greeks needed an explanation for this, so they created one and baked it into the story of Echo and Narcissus. “Her bones, they say, turned/Into stone, sinking into the humus./Her voice roamed off by itself,/Unseen in the forest, unseen/On the empty mountainside-/Though all could hear it/Living the only life left to Echo.(72)” The character Echo had died, and the only thing left of her was her voice box. The Greeks recognized that they noticed echos in areas such as forests and mountainsides, and so they wrote inside of their Myths they decided there was where Echo’s voice was to be. They were able to convince their readers that the Gods were the creators of the world because they were the only people with an explanation to these things.
One of the most successful ways to convince people that someone is powerful is making stories about great feats that they accomplished. The Greek’s most common way to do this was creating stories about people who disobeyed or disrespected the Gods, and because of that, they met harsh punishment from the Gods. One of the best examples of this is in the myth of Midas. In this myth, Midas gains the power to turn anything he touches into gold, but because of his greed, he quickly learns that his gift is both a blessing and a curse. “It chilled him as he sat/At the table/And reached for a roasted bird. The carcass/Toppled from his horrified fingers/Into his dish with a clunk,/ as if he had picked up a table ornament.(190)” Because of Midas’s greed, everything that he touched turned to gold. Although this may seem like an amazing power to have, necessities like food and water began to turn to gold. This shows us that it does not always pay to be greedy, and being so could harm us badly. It also illustrates to the reader how powerful the Gods are perceived to be. It will convince the reader that “If instituting a curse like this is child's play to them, they could have easily created the world!”