Tag: ancient

lionofchaeronea:

Assyrian relief sculpture from the North Palace at Nineveh, depicting King Ashurbanipal (r. 669-631 or 627 BCE) killing a lion.  Artist unknown; 645-635 BCE.  Now in the British Museum.  Photo credit: Aiwok/Wikimedia Commons.

effulgentpoet:

mythology aesthetics

CUPID & PYSCHE

Psyche is a princess so beautiful that the goddess Venus becomes jealous. In revenge, she instructs her son Cupid to make her fall in love with a hideous monster; but instead he falls in love with her himself. He becomes her unseen husband, visiting her only at night. Psyche disobeys his orders not to attempt to look at him, and in doing so she loses him. In her search for him she undertakes a series of cruel and difficult tasks set by Venus in the hope of winning him back. Cupid can eventually no longer bear to witness her suffering or to be apart from her and pleads their cause to the gods. Psyche becomes an immortal and the lovers are married in heaven.

effulgentpoet:

mythology aesthetics

ADAM & EVE

Adam and Eve, according to the creation myth of the Abrahamic religions, were the first man and woman. God fashions Adam from dust and places him in the Garden of Eden. Adam is told that he can eat freely of all the trees in the garden, except for a tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Subsequently, Eve is created from one of Adam’s ribs to be Adam’s companion. They are innocent and unembarrassed about their nakedness. However, a serpent deceives Eve into eating fruit from the forbidden tree, and she gives some of the fruit to Adam. These acts give them additional knowledge, but it gives them the ability to conjure negative and destructive concepts such as shame and evil. God later curses the serpent and the ground. God prophetically tells the woman and the man what will be the consequences of their sin of disobeying God. Then he banishes them from the Garden of Eden.

effulgentpoet:

mythology aesthetics

SISYPHUS

Sisyphus, in Greek mythology, is the cunning king of Corinth who was punished in Hades by having repeatedly to roll a huge stone up a hill only to have it roll down again as soon as he had brought it to the summit. This fate is related in Homer’s Odyssey, Book XI. In Homer’s Iliad, Book VI, Sisyphus, living at Ephyre (later Corinth), was the son of Aeolus (eponymous ancestor of the Aeolians) and the father of Glaucus. In post-Homeric times he was called the father of Odysseus through his seduction of Anticleia; cunning obviously provided the link between them. Sisyphus was the reputed founder of the Isthmian Games. Later legend related that when Death came to fetch him, Sisyphus chained him up so that no one died until Ares came to aid Death, and Sisyphus had to submit. In the meantime, Sisyphus had told his wife, Merope, not to perform the usual sacrifices and to leave his body unburied. Thus, when he reached the underworld he was permitted to return to punish her for the omission. Once back at home, he continued to live to a ripe old age before dying a second time. X

effulgentpoet:

mythology aesthetics

THE RIVERS OF THE UNDERWORLD

Zeus made Styx the goddess by whom the most solemn oaths were sworn. Styx is the nymph of the Underworld River Styx. Lethe is the Underworld river of oblivion. The dead would drink the waters of Lethe to forget their earthly existence. The Acheron is the River of Woe. The ferryman Charon was at one time thought to ferry the dead across the Acheron, which separated the lower world from the upper. The Phlegethon is a river of fire, which joins up with the Acheron. The Cocytus is the river of cries or lamentation. X